Ginger's follies, foibles and fixations.
|
|
| You Listen to Me, Mr. Kick-Ass Ginger's follies, foibles and fixations. |
|
|
Saturday, October 19, 2002 How Could I Forget The Friday Five? 1. How many TVs do you have in your home? One. 2. On average, how much TV do you watch in a week? A few hours, if you count The Sopranos on DVD as "TV." (I'm part-way through the second season now) If not, then just the few minutes of FOX I catch over at the Roach Motel (which, to be fair, has been roach-free as far as I can tell) when I go to visit the kitty cats. 3. Do you feel that television is bad for young children? I watched TV as a youngster and see how I turned out? 4. What TV shows do you absolutely HAVE to watch, and if you miss them, you're heartbroken? I don't watch anything regularly, but I do hope that I will eventually catch all of The Simpsons episodes that I've missed. At least I've got the first two seasons taken care of (thanks, Dad!). And there are some shows I hope to see someday--like The West Wing. But hasn't Martin Sheen been President for like ten years now? 5. If you had the power to create your own television network, what would your line-up look like? * The FOX Classic Sunday Night channel: The Simpsons, Malcom in the Middle and The X-Files (the first few seasons). Plus The PJs, because it doesn't fit anywhere else. * HBO, but only: The Sopranos, Mr. Show, Tenacious D, Six Feet Under and Sex and the City. And any of the good movies I missed by not having HBO. * The Brady Bunch Channel: Sometimes you just need a dose of "The Bunch" * The Random Stupid Reality Show Channel -- Real World, American Idol, Temptation Island, Anna-Nicole Smith, COPS...but no ads, no Fear Factor, no Bachelor and the episodes have to be *really* random--like they must play entirely out of order, mixing up seasons and stuff. This to be combined with The Random Porn Channel, which will, uh, randomly show porn (especially classic 70's porn films with funny names) at any time of the day or night, sometimes scrambled. * The Greusomely Fascinating Medical Channel: All the best squirmy shows from TLC and the Discovery Channel. Plus CSI. * The "I Feel Smart" Channel: Or, basically, PBS omitting the boring shit and pledge drives. * The New York Guilty-Pleasures Channel: Friends, Will & Grace, Seinfeld and Law & Order (all variations) and Saturday Night Live (omitting all of the bad 12-second-joke-stretched-out-to-five-minutes sketches, and most of the musical numbers). * The Uncategorizable (or Best-While-Stoned) Channel: David Lynch's On the Air, Teletubbies, Space Ghost Coast to Coast and the short-lived but hilarious Seattle public-access game show What're You Talkin' 'bout, Sherman? (in which I've periodically appeared). * The Films of Don Cheadle Channel: Because, lets face it: Don Cheadle is pretty kick-ass. Alternates with The Films of Alan Rickman Channel. * The "What the Hell Am I Watching?" Channel: Rotates between Infomercials, old episodes of Beverly Hills 90210, and Kevin Costner movies. * The Lost Childhood Channel: Sesame Street (only episodes made prior to the death of Jim Henson and the introduction of "Elmo"), The Muppet Show, The Electric Company, Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood, Pee-Wee's Playhouse, and black-and-white Popeye cartoons from the 1920's. * The News, Talk & Variety Channel: The Daily Show, Not Necessarily the News, Dennis Miller, Chris Rock, TV Nation/The Awful Truth, The Carol Burnett Show, Charlie Rose and the BBC. Plus Letterman (including reruns from his earliest network shows), Conan, and Craig Kilborn--but only when he's not being an insufferable jackass. The Oscars would appear on this channel every year. * The Zac Turns Seventeen on Tuesday Channel: A complete set of all shows or segments thereof that have ever featured the band Hanson. posted by Ginger | 1:40 AM Words Fail Me... Props to Angry White Girl for discovering this ripe young talent. Avant-garde conceptual artist or sociopathic nitwit? I still can't decide... posted by Ginger | 12:02 AM Friday, October 18, 2002 Every Generation Needs its Sasquatch This story about a giant bird spotted in Alaska brought on fond memories of my childhood obsession with the Loch Ness Monster. Around age 8 or 9, I desperately wanted Loch Ness (or any loch any where, really--especially if it was nearby so I could convince mom to drive me there and check it out) to be inhabited by some long-forgotten dinosaur. That famous fuzzy photograph of the head and neck poking out of the water had me utterly convinced. I mean really, is there any kid anywhere who doesn't think dinosaurs (and monsters) are totally cool? posted by Ginger | 11:32 PM Tuesday, October 15, 2002 Happy Birthday, Keith! posted by Ginger | 12:45 PM Sunday, October 13, 2002 Bowling for Columbine, Part II Okay, so I've done my civic duty and gone to see the above-referenced Michael Moore film in its opening weekend. It appears that I wasn't the only one, since most showings at the lovely new Sunshine Cinema on the Lower East Side were sold out. In fact, the only reason I got in to my showing of choice was that I got there an hour early and the box office happened to have three tickets that someone had turned back in. For cash money, one was mine. I went to Katz's deli down the street to while away the time before the show started. First Katz' deli. A New York institution and confusing as hell. If you've never been there it's a kick, you should check it out. Skip the potato salad though--bleah. Then the movie. I liked it quite a bit. It feels more focused and thoughtful than his previous work, and the result is far more disturbing and engrossing--but still fun, fun, fun! The focal point is gun violence--specifically why the U.S. has so much of it while other countries do not. Moore takes a lot of the ready-made answers most of us have prepared whether we know it or not, and skewers them with research. Because we have so many guns? Nope! Canada has almost as many guns as families. Because we have more violent movies? Uh-uh! Just look at Japan! At times his arguments oversimplify to the point of apples-and-oranges comparisons, but the inescapable fact is that gun violence in the U.S. is staggeringly, ridiculously higher than that of other so-called "free" countries. Once this fact is established (through the use of several kicky montages), Moore sets out to find out why. Armed with this one question: "Why so much more gun violence here than anywhere else?", he travels the world asking everyone from Canadian teenagers to a former producer of COPS. This clean and accessible concept hooks the viewer into a web of connected topics, including U.S. foreign policy, the demonization of Marilyn Manson, and (quite brilliantly) America's fear of the Black Man. And though Moore hints that the answer still eludes us, it's quite clear what point his film is trying to make. One that, to me, was so well stated that I hesitate to "ruin" the "surprise" for you by revealing it here. Moore's choice of interview subjects is particularly brilliant here. A thoughtful Marilyn Manson gives the best answer I could imagine to the question "If I brought some Columbine students in here, what would you say to them?" and South Park co-creator Matt Stone, who went to Columbine high school, explains the Great Truths of high school life. The showpiece of the film, of course, is Moore's visit to NRA president Charlton Heston. It is truly shocking how insulated Heston must be from the controversies that dog his organization, as he cannot competently answer the questions Michael Moore poses to him. It is only when Moore pulls out the photo of a child shot in Michigan does Moore show a whiff of his tendency to grandstand when his point has already been made, quite effectively, by just letting the actor stumble through his inadequate responses. Though I support the points that Moore tries to make, some of his confrontational tactics have in the past seemed more effective in making some underpaid corporate flunky feel uncomfortable than getting to anyone of real power. Thankfully in Bowling for Columbine he has refined his technique to, for the most part, stick to the heart of the matter. His visit (accompanied by two former Columbine students) to K-Mart headquarters is at first cringe-inducing, in the end he is as surprised as all of us to find out it worked! There are also some really hair-raising moments in this movie which would verge on the exploitative if they weren't so effective in driving the point. This is not video-game violence, kids. This is real people really getting shot, for no reason at all. Leaving the theater I wasn't, as I expected, outraged or devastated. Instead I felt smart. I suppose this is self-indulgent--in fact I know it is--because all I did was sit and watch a movie. Any idiot can do that. But I felt smart that I was there, that I'm smart enough to know about things like this, that I understood it, that it made sense to me, that I knew why it was important, and that I'm fully aware of my own inadequacy in actively opposing our corporate masters. I felt like I had been in a room for two hours with a couple hundred other smart people, all these people with the intelligence to see this movie. And, I realized later, all had the presence of mind to turn off their cell phones. Not one stray toodle or beep for ninety minutes! That simply wouldn't happen any where else in this city, I guarantee you that. posted by Ginger | 2:05 AM |
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
||||
|
|||||
