Month: May 2004

1) Go and ask George Romero why he's so cool at the Movieside Film Festival. Jack Hill, the director of such exploitation classics as Foxy Brown and (Tarantino's favorite) Switchblade Sisters, will also be on hand.

2) Mexican Wrestling Macbeth is amazing beyond belief, both as a take on campy 50s luchadores movies and radio drama as a whole. The two actors who do the radio voiceover need to be seen to be believed.
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And it's BYOB.

3) The Constantines play at the Empty Bottle on Wednesday (but start late, so you can still see the series finale of Angel). Also, head's up: The Thermals are at the Fireside Bowl a week from Sunday (the 23rd). They have a new album out Tuesday.

4) In response to our Save Wilmington Campaign, the staff recieved all kinds of emails complaining about Wilmington being a fuddy-duddy North Side elite who can't enjoy a good ol' fashioned entertaining movie. The arguments sometimes pointed south of I-290 towards Ebert/Roeper, critics of the masses, as being the true speakers of chicagoland.
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Well I hope you all know that Wilmington gave Troy 4 stars and loved it. Even better, cinephile Rosenbaum over at the Reader gave it his critic's choice. Here's the funny part: Ebert panned it by taking the cinema high ground, even referring to the story not being fit "for a multiplex audience":

"Great films like Michael Cacoyannis' "Elektra," about the murder of Agamemnon after the Trojan War, know that and use a stark dramatic approach that is deliberately stylized. Of course, "Elektra" wouldn't work for a multiplex audience, but then maybe it shouldn't.
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"

Slow down there Ebert! Who will defend the south side against Wilmington if you take the 'epater le patrons of mall cinema' stance?
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Also: SAVE WILMINGTON!

Yes, we have had them all. We've enjoyed more than our fair share of movies about volcanoes, earthquakes, terrible storms, insect infestations, and the great “an asteroid is going to hit Earth” genre, all of which came into being around 1998.
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Now, it would appear that all good disasters have been used up.
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That’s right! In case you haven’t heard, Hollywood has created the fantastic, sure to be a blockbuster, eco-thriller, The Day After Tomorrow.

Just when you thought that movie-makers had done it all, they change it up on you, and the “ice age” disaster movie enters the fray. This movie is described as being about:

”A climatologist tries to figure out a way to save the world from abrupt global warming. He must get to his young son in New York, which is being taken over by a new ice age.

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” watch the trailer here

As would be the case with any movie with a climatologist as the protagonist, actual climatologists can’t help but voice their opinion on the movie. When will scientists learn that being quoted about how inaccurately a movie depicts the science really just makes them look foolish? Regardless, scientists (and I know this because I am one) get thrilled every time someone shows even the faintest interest in what they are doing, so naturally, this is what the experts are saying:

"The movie exaggerates how quickly climate change can happen. And higher carbon dioxide will not push us into another ice age."-Daniel Shrag, Harvard University oceanographer

"The… scenario the film portrays is scientifically ludicrous – not only in the speed of response but also by linking sea-level rise to extreme cold."-Professor Phil Jones, climatologist at the Climate Research Unit

"The The Day After Tomorrow takes its starting point from science, but ends up telling a dramatic and entertaining science-fiction story."-Professor Mike Hulme, scientist at the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change

Thank you Professor Hulme, I would have never thought Hollywood was capable of something like that until you pointed it out. read more about thrilled scientists here.

The most interesting thing that came out of Rumsfeld's testimony before the Senate last week was the promise that there are more disturbing images to come. For an administration that never admits to making a mistake, much less apologizing, the fact that they have Rumsfeld out there doing premature spin control means that it's going to be really, really bad.

The second, less mentioned item, was this statement he made in his opening remarks (italics ours):

Second, we need to review our habits and procedures. One of the things we’ve tried to do since September 11th is to get the Department to adjust its habits and procedures at a time of war, and in the information age. For the past three years, we have looked for areas where adjustments were needed, and regrettably, we have now found another one.

What does adjusting to "the information age" have to do with anything? Torturing prisoners is a pretty old thing; the only thing that is new to the information age is the speed and efficiency with which images and videos can be reproduced and transmitted across the world. Which implies that the biggest problem that they've encountered was a lack of preparation for how hard it is to destroy incriminating images. Or to prevent them from leaking.

Our legal team here at ginandtacos.com is now advising R. Kelly to address his courtroom about the fact that he has to update his behavior and procedures to be in sync with the information age.

*update* From this week's upcoming New Yorker:

NBC News later quoted U.S. military officials as saying that the unreleased photographs showed American soldiers “severely beating an Iraqi prisoner nearly to death, having sex with a female Iraqi prisoner, and ‘acting inappropriately with a dead body.’ The officials said there also was a videotape, apparently shot by U.S. personnel, showing Iraqi guards raping young boys.”

The credibilty of the argument (if there even was any) that this was just frat pranks is suddenly going to take a nosedive.

And just when you thought that it was not going to get any worse…yeah right:

The Wall Street Journal reported yesterday (unfortunately not available online unless you subscribe) that the Red Cross toured Iraqi prisons in November of last year and approached the commanded officer about inappropriate treatment of prisoners. The response given was that this was standard proceedure.

**In case you have read one of the several articles entitled things like: "Red Cross Releases Report." You should probably know that, although the report was true, the Red Cross had nothing to do with it. The Red Cross is apparently infuriated about the leak of this information due to the fact that they rely on an agreement of confidentiality with detaining powers to gain access to prisons.
Red Cross

Despite the fact the fact that the United States has moved very quickly to court martial to low ranking soldiers, the evidence that the leadership should be held accountable is mounting. Further, in the midst of testimony to this end by Maj. Gen. Antonio M. Taguba, senator James Inhofe (R. Oklahoma) rebuked all of those people out exaggerating or missplacing their criticism.
Read about it here

And finally, I am sure most of our readers are aware of the retaliation for prisoner abuse which was released today.
"So we tell you that the dignity of the Muslim men and women in Abu Ghraib and others is not redeemed except by blood and souls. You will not receive anything from us but coffins after coffins … slaughtered in this way."

Sunday night at 9pm the E network will be broadcasting the Jenny McCarthy Hollywood story. Promoted as: "Singled out for fame and failure, this smokin' funny girl kept on laughing.

"

The program claims to document the "rise and fall" of this Hollywood star. It will trace her career from playboy playmate, through the failed sitcom "Jenny" and finally to her current role as wife and mother.
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If you are asking why it is that ginandtacos.com cares you need look no further than Jenny McCarthy's mother, whose last name is mike. Look for back issues of In Style magazine to see photographs of mike asleep at Jenny's wedding to John Asher.

Suggested Jenny McCarthy viewing: Baseketball (starring Trey Parker and Matt Stone)

Spoliers for The O.C. Finale and Angel that aired last night. Deal with it.

Has a major character on a network TV show ever gotten an abortion? And has life been ok for her afterwards? I was trying to think of this last night – Claire on Six Feet Under gets one at the end of season three, and then goes on a ridiculous dream sequence where every dead character on the show is glowing in a halo and taking care of a new glowing baby in Heaven (take that pro-choicers!) – but that's hardly network TV.

The O.C. finished last night, and most of the episode was spent agonizing over whether or not that main character's pregnant ex-girlfriend Theresa, who he is prone to hooking up with, would get an abortion. There was an interesting class element to it that was only hinted at – we have a rich white Californian family rounding the wagons to protect their son's good fortunes by befriending the poverty stricken servant he's knocked up and "being there for her" while politely forcing her into getting rid of the child ("You'll need someone there for you. I'll drive [you to the abortion clinic]"). The Coen parents reminded me a little of newly-rich Harry in Rabbit is Rich while he is trying to explain to his son, equally as detached from it all as Ryan, that they can just bribe his knocked up girlfriend into getting rid of the child ("she has a lot of brothers and sisters….she'll understand the value of a dollar").

But while Harry was forced to marry the girl he knocked up in the earlier books, and fought as hard as he could (which being Harry wasn't all that hard) to stop his son from having to do the same, Mrs. Coen had an abortion earlier in her life, and looked like she really wanted Theresa to not have an abortion to make up for it. Was it just me or did she guilt her into having the child? Even Peter Gallagher, who is as close to a moral compass as the show is going to have, was taken aback by his wife's actions.

Anyway, the season finale was thankfully on the good side.

Anyone in their mid-20s watching a completely unrealistic (kids in high schools wearing sport coats?) teen drama is more than likely a fan of nostalgic sentimentality, and the finale shovels it on.

It so sentimential that the finale ended up almost being entirely about the first episode. And not just in the continunity references – Seth's boat and plan to spend the summer sailing alone, the beach with the first party, the shots of Ryan leaving in the reverse order of him showing up.

All the characters are back at base zero – Ryan's stuck in Chino in what appears to be a bad news situation, Marrisa is drinking alone and Seth is friendless again with his plan to go sailing alone for the summer (bringing him back to borderline sociopath from cutesy emo geek).

I don't know if I can wait until October for it to start again. I'm still working through my thoughts about Angel last night – Wesley was in top form, and the in-joking and earlier Buffy references are a nice touch, but I could have done without Andrew (he was good the first time on the show though). While Buffy was really funny Angel never got the humor right, and last night's episode in Italy showed that. What should have been much funnier felt flat – all the real humor was from the random Buffy trivia thrown out (I particularly liked how they each tried to take credit for saving the world at the end of Buffy Season 2 with the portal).