Planet Utah

The inexplicable admiration for Che Guevara

I just went for my billionth jog today wearing my "Down with Che" t-shirt. When I was done, I walked through a park full of people. No response.

In all the times I've worn the shirt, no one has ever asked me why I don't like Che. The answer is very simple: Che was part of the communist regime in Cuba, and communists in power do evil, terrible things.

They torture, they murder, they send people to forced labor camps, they establish secret police forces, they imprison dissenters, they outlaw free speech, they confiscate private property, they establish one-party systems, they encourage personality cults, they turn families against each other, they try to provoke hostilities with the United States and its allies. Etc.

Che participated in all of this in Cuba...in fact, he was an architect of a lot of it. 

So, what's to admire?

Nicolas Cage

Eight years ago, Nicolas Cage was nominated for an Academy Award for his role in "Adaptation." A few years before that, he was working with Martin Scorsese and Brian DePalma. And a few years before that, he won an Oscar for "Leaving Las Vegas."

Today, he turns up in roughly 75% of all new movies, trying to pay off massive debts and back taxes. If you go to the cineplex this evening, for example, you can find him in "Season of the Witch," which has garnered a robust 2% positive rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

If you wait until next month, you can catch him in "Drive Angry," which Wikipedia describes as follows: "Milton (Nicolas Cage) has broken out of hell to prevent the cult that murdered his daughter from sacrificing her baby, on the moon." (No, that's not me being funny. That's actually how the movie's described.)

Oh yeah, and his hair looks like this--on purpose.

What the hell happened to this guy?

Footnote: As long as I'm kicking people when they're down, I've been wondering about Robert DeNiro, too. When was the last time he made any impression in a drama? You probably have to go back to "The Score," in 2001--nearly 10 years ago. And even then, the main reason DeNiro's performance got a lot of notice was not because it was so great, but because he was sharing the screen with Edward Norton and Marlon Brando.

The problem with socialism...and Hollywood

Margaret Thatcher famously said this: "The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money."

That same problem appears to be affecting the Hollywood film machine, too.

Let me back up a step. Long-time readers know that I'm fascinated by movie economics. Actually, "perplexed" is a better word. Hollywood routinely seems to make very big, very bad bets. I mean, if John Travolta showed up in MY office asking for $15 or $20 million to star in a movie, I'd say, "Based on what? The last time you anchored a movie that made more than $75 million was 1999. How about if we just give you a little up-front money and a share of the profits? If the movie does well, you'll do well...maybe very well. But if the movie makes $48 million, the way 'Old Dogs' did, then you'll get a couple million for your time...and nothing else. Sound fair?"

Apparently, the studios have finally come around to this notion of fairness, too. Why? According to this article, which I stumbled upon last night, when times were flush in the movie industry, the studios could pay lavish star salaries and STILL make money. But these days, with DVD sales cratering and movie attendance down, the studios are working to align star salaries with the box office performance of the stars' movies.

Makes me wonder what might be next: Hollywood voting Republican?

What if it were not impolite to discuss movie reviews with stars?

I don't watch TV talk shows very often, but when I do, I like seeing movie stars come on to talk about their latest "project." It's never really a conversation, though. I mean, they have an agenda to push: they want to talk about how wonderful the movie is, how talented the director is, how much they enjoyed playing the character, how proud they are of the final product, etc. If the movie has gotten terrible reviews, or the actor flogging the movie has gotten lousy reviews, OR the movie is already out and is tanking at the box office...well, the host is not allowed to mention that stuff.

I'd like to see that change.

Imagine, for example, Reese Witherspoon going on Jay Leno to talk about "How Do You Know," and saying the standard stuff: "It was such a thrill to work with James L. Brooks. I mean, he writes really strong, interesting female characters. Those roles are hard to find." And then Jay would say, "If you look at the reviews, though, a lot of critics seem to think he's lost his touch...that this movie is really just a bad, feature-length sitcom, and that your character in particular is unrealistic and unlikable. They say, too, that you're such a likable actor by nature, you're not really believable when you try to play someone unlikable. How do you respond to that?"

Of course, Jay would never DREAM of saying that stuff. But it would make for much better TV if he did.

Footnote: Or think about Angelina Jolie on Conan O'Brien's couch. He says to her, "Were you surprised by your Golden Globe nomination for best actress in 'The Tourist'? A lot of the critics said you were really just a mannequin holding up gorgeous clothes in exotic locations. And yet, you got a nomination anyway. Talk about that..."

The most tortured rhyme ever?

It's in the U2 song, "All Because of You," the chorus of which already sounds like it's sung by Peter "When It's Time to Change, You Know It's Time to Change" Brady. Here's the offending couplet:

I didn't give anyone else a choice.

An intellectual tortoise...

If you don't know the song, you're probably asking yourself, "Where's the rhyme?" You're right to ask; "choice" doesn't rhyme with "tortoise." It doesn't, that is, unless you pronounce "tortoise" as follows: "tor-TOYCE." 

I guess when you're Bono you can get away with that sort of thing.

Where the hell is Renee Walker?

Renee Walker has been MIA for the last two episodes of "24." She better be back tonight, or I may have to take her off my list of potential Mrs. Special Agent Johnny Utahs.

How ridiculous is our celebrity culture?

On Sunday, I watched the Oscars with some friends and their children. At one point, when the camera lingered on Gabourey Sidibe, the dangerously overweight star of "Precious," I said, "I heard she's dating Denzel Washington."

I expected instant laughter, but I heard none. After a few seconds, someone said, "What? Are you serious?" Someone else said, with doubt in their voice, "Come on..." 

Yes, people were skeptical, but they did not instantly recognize that I was goofing around. That's how ridiculous our celebrity culture has become.

Footnote: I was on the opposite end of a similar experience a week ago, when a friend told me that the woman John Edwards was sleeping with (Rielle Hunter) was also, apparently, sleeping with Jeff Goldblum. Unlike my Oscar comment, though, that's a "real rumor," not a joke.

The Who: lip-syncing or not?

I watched the Super Bowl halftime show yesterday and thought Roger Daltrey was not only lip-syncing, but was doing a pretty lousy job of it. At times he looked like a character in a poorly-dubbed Godzilla movie; the movement of his mouth bore little relation to the words that were supposed to be coming out of it. Plus, during his harmonica solo, his cheeks were barely moving.

I was looking forward to some good-natured smack on this topic, so this morning I began poking around the Internets for comments and commentary. Much to my surprise, there seems to be some real disagreement as to whether or not this was a genuine, live performance.

If it was, I tip my hat to Roger Daltrey. He sounded great (though he conspicuously avoided some high notes).

But come on...this was lip-synced, right?

What/who the hell is abadah?

Did you watch the Golden Globes last night? Stream of consciousness: Ricky Gervais was generally quite funny, though I can't believe he said that the American version of "The Office" had jumped the shark. I can't believe he said it because it's true, which means that saying it out loud was pretty rude. Mariah Carey should wear clothing more appropriate for her "happy weight" body, not the body she had 10 years ago. Leonardo DiCaprio is taller than I thought, or maybe Robert DeNiro is shorter. Colin Farrell showed up with another flawless beauty...poor guy.

Anyway, it was late in the evening, and Arnold Schwarzenegger came out to talk about something that sounded a whole lot like "abadah." It took me a while to figure out what he was really saying. Listen for yourself.

Footnote: An accent isn't something you're stuck with. I mean, guys like the aforementioned Colin Farrell can flip from an Irish brogue to unaccented English in the blink of an eye. And Schwarzenegger's an actor, isn't he?

Now, I know what you'll say: Trying to shed your accent when going from German to English is not the same as trying to shed your accent when going from Irish English (or South African English, or southern U.S. English) to American newscaster English. And it's true, if you don't grow up making all of the sounds of a given language, it's damn near impossible to learn to make them perfectly later on in life.

HOWEVER, there's also a laziness factor here. I speak Spanish well enough to know that I can choose to be lazy with my pronunciation, or I can work really hard at it, trying to emulate the sounds I hear from native speakers. If you listened to me speaking lazy Gringo Spanish, and then you listened to me doing my best to emulate native speakers, you would definitely hear the difference. The former would sound about 40% correct; the latter, closer to 80%.

Schwarzenegger's accent is still so thick, and his words occasionally unintelligible--even after all these years--because he's been lazy. There, I said it.

I blame Jay

In the whole late night mess, the critical development occurred about six years ago when NBC came to Jay Leno and said, "We're not sure how long you want to do 'The Tonight Show,' but if you think you're going to stick around another 10 or 15 years, we're worried that we're going to lose Conan. Would you be willing to call it quits in five years, so that Conan can take over the show? We'll find something for you."

At that point, Jay Leno agreed, but he made it clear he wasn't happy about it. Then, when it was time for him to go, he basically replicated his show an hour and a half earlier.

By doing that, he created competition with "The Tonight Show"--competition for guests, for one thing, but also competition for an audience that may want to watch an hour's worth of talk/variety, but not two. I'm not sure if this was a vindictive move on Leno's part, but it certainly had that feel.

Now, seven months into the new experiment, NBC has come to Conan and said, "Hey, do you mind if we bump you back 30 minutes? Otherwise, we're going to have to cancel Jay's show and lose him to someone else..."

This is a modified version of the conversation they had with Leno himself about six years ago. But instead of accepting NBC's idea and then grumbling about it for the rest of his life, as Jay did, Conan said, "No, thank you. I'd rather work somewhere else."

That was the right way to handle the situation.