The short answer: Good, not great. Far superior to Episodes I and II. Fun, far more imaginative than I expected. A more detailed report to follow. Now: To bed.
Author / DrMabuse
The Donkeys Need A Little Galloway In Their Diets
British MP George Galloway demonstrated what a politician can and should be doing in response to the shoddy ad decidedly undemocratic groupthink that passes for political discourse in this nation. By comparison, the Donkeys continue to come across as weak-kneed cowards. Nancy Pelosi’s ethical standards is a nice idea, but it still won’t demonstrate to the blank-eyed Little Orphan Annies who voted last November what political action is all about. Galloway is an inspiring yet sad reminder that there was a time when conviction not only meant something, but was absolutely essential to the political process. By my calculations, we are now less than eighteen months from midterm elections. Yet where is the mobilization? Where are the grassroots campaigns? What is the strategy to at least get a house or two back come November 2006?
I see nothing in the cards. Nothing in the way of commitment, nothing in the way of thinking forward, nothing in the way of divergent viewpoints. It’s a sad time indeed to be a principled progressive. Paul Robeson, a ghost playing through my speakers, bellows on repeat.
Oh, the Hype of It All
Oh, the Glory of It All, a memoir written by McSweeney’s editor Sean Wilsey, has been getting hyped hyped HYPED. Wilsey is the son of Dede Wilsey, a wealthy socialite here in San Francisco. And the book, which purports to be this year’s answer to Mommie Dearest and has folks in this town (including Armistead Maupin) claiming mighty conflagrations, arrives in bookstores this week. It’s got the Dave E________ Seal of Approval. It’s had launch parties bounced from the San Francisco Art Institute. it’s got the New Yorker excerpt, and now, as if that sort of publicity wasn’t enough, it has this lengthy Gray Lady profile:
The title of his book, “Oh, the Glory of It All,” was something Mr. Wilsey uttered when he was alone and things were glorious: The first time he can remember saying it, he writes, was “alone in the bathroom, when I finally got a grip on potty training.”
Sometimes a shaggy dog is just a shaggy dog. (Or in this case, probably just a guy in a bear suit.) I’ve had a lot of experiences alone in the bathroom too, but no matter how much money you gave me, I don’t think I’d ever commit them to the spine of a tome. I respect human decency too much.
If this memoir is what it’s cracked up to be and if Wilsey is today’s answer to William Styron, then why couldn’t Wilsey come up with a better pulp-inspired title? (Why not My Momma Screwed the Rich Men Over on Mink?) Further, how “brave” is it really for a privileged man to badmouth a number of local socialites in the interests of “revealing all” in the process? Isn’t this exactly what Egghead gave Toby Young hell for when he penned his memoir, How to Win Friends and Influence People?
But to hell with casual hypocrisy and another jaunt down Jean Renoir Lane. The gang at SFist have a better take on this mess than I do.
He Also Gave Peter Sellers a Wedgie, Which Explains Why Sellers Was Never Cast in 2001
Roger Ebert has been offering some good coverage of Cannes, butin this entry, Ebert reveals something quite interesting:
…it reminded him that Stanley Kubrick sometimes drove up in front of the houses of his friends, talked to them on his cell phone, and then drove away “without seeing a single person.” I was not sure about the purpose of this anecdote, but I was happy to hear it.
Revenge of the George
This may be a colossal mistake, but somehow I’ve been roped into the 12:01 AM Revenge of the Sith show.
Regular readers of Return of the Relutant know that while I have fond childhood memories of Episodes IV-VI, if I had to choose between one of the two bloated mainstream sci-fi Hollywood franchises (as all Americans must do), I would lean towards Star Trek (discounting anything beyond Deep Space Nine, because that hot Tasha person was right you see when she said it NEVER happened!).
Yet I’m heading into this bastard, no doubt contributing my hard-earned ten bucks for another rumpus room on George Lucas’ palatial estate (the evil bastard is laughing at us!), because (a) I sat through the other two crappy movies and if I’m to be disappointed by a trilogy, I may as well go the distance and (b) if I get through this movie, whose climax and outcome is as predictable as a bad prix fixe menu, I will have the grand consolation of never having to experience Star Wars in any form again.
So look to these pages at some point on Thursday morning and you’ll get a no-holds-barred assessment on Sith from Dr. Mabuse. Will it be another steaming piece of turd (“That is the sound of a lot of bad cash coming our way!”) or will it be, as some reviews have indicated, an unexpected point of redemption? Will that Jar Jar bastard die? Will Anakin and Padme get it on with all the explicitness of a Bollywood movie? Probably, to the last question. But your humble reporter hopes to answer these hard questions (and many more).