Eureka is on hiatus, but the new season of Smallville started up. So I am reviewing Smallville for Fandomania.  This is my review of the season opener.  This is my review of the second episode.  Seeing as how all the action now occurs in Metropolis, they should change the name to Metropolis.

Maybe they’ll launch a new show once Clark becomes Superman, and call it Metropolis.  They can have a new motto to replace “no flights no tights.” Maybe “flights and latex muscles suits,” except catchier.

If you're nice, I'll Explain the Proper Shampooing Technique

This week I wrote a review of Eureka for Fandomania. In that review, I referred to actor Matt Frewer (of Max Headroom fame) as a shampoo bottle actor.  This is the term I use to refer to those public personalities who have such a good stage or screen presence, that they could read the instructions on the back of a bottle of shampoo, and make it sound interesting.

Most public personalities have a certain theme.  They need something specific to make them be able to get up in front of a camera or on stage and captivate people’s interest. Stand up comedians have their jokes. Most actors have the script or the portrayal of their character. Motivational speakers have their plan for maximum personal effectiveness.

But other people simply have a presence. I brainstormed some other people like this: Patrick Stewart, Bruce Campbell, Jimmy Buffet, Jesse Ventura, the list goes on. I’m sure you are thinking of a few right now as you read this.

I first got the idea from watching this youtube video of Ian McKellen. Ian McKellen is a Shakespeare actor who has made the transition to movie icon.  But his roots are in Shakespeare, which is why he read instructions on how to change a tire, and make it interesting:

Now that’s Acting!

Give me my money, or I'll do something gross to your face

I have discovered the most hilarious thing since the previous thing that was hilarious.  My good friend Jorge Benelux sent me a link to this animated movie. I have linked it instead of imbedding it because it’s got all kinds of cursing and stuff, so make sure you boss is not around when you play it (unless your boss is cool). To fully understand why it is so hilarious, you have to know about AV club, and you should probably read this article.

But the point is that Jorge set up his own account with this website that does these animated movies, and created this little gem, which is also hilarious, except that it has the benefit of not requiring you to know the inside joke or be a regular AV club reader:

So, I got inspired, and I set up an account, and I wrote this little ditty.  I would like to think it’s the most hilarious thing in today’s post, but I suspect Jorge beat me out this time. Anyway, here it is:

Let me know what you think. I suspect I’m going to be using this website a whole lot from now on.

Got Rum?

Diane Sawyer has class, Diane Sawyer has style. Diane Sawyer has grace and charm and on top of all that, she’s totally hot. Diane Sawyer drunk, however, is not what you might have been hoping.  She is not an attractive drunk. Watching Diane Sawyer drunk is like watching a shaved orangutan on rollerblades:

Still, this could be a good thing. If Diane Sawyer ever gets bored doing professional, hard biting journalism, she could always be a recurring guest for a late night talk show, or for an early morning shock jock.  The Diane Sawyer Drunk segmant. Has a ring to it.

The other cool thing is that Flickr allows people to use the creative commons license.  This image, much like the original content of my website, is licensed under the Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike license.  I am a law geek, so I am fascinated by this little gem.  So, today’s entry is a two for one for me.

What do you think of these classifications? I think it’s pretty good, except the Harpy thing. I know for a fact that Harpies are real. My 9th grade English teacher was one.

Sometimes the hotlink to Flikr doesn’t work, so I have uploaded the picture.  Click on the image itself if you’d like a bigger image. Clear here to go to the image on Presha’s Flickr account.

The point of this entry is to tell you how much I dig Norman Rockwell. The story starts with a conversation I had last Friday afternoon. I called up the Fort Lauderdale Museum of Art, and had the following conversation about Norman Rockwell:

Her: Museum of Art, how can I help you?
Me: (voice almost cracking with excitement) When is Norman Rockwell coming?
Her: (laughing at me, but covering up with a fake cough) The Norman Rockwell exhibit starts on November 14th.
Me: (trying not to sound dissapointed) oh. Not till then?
Her: Yes. The Norman Rockwell exhibit will be from November 14th until February 13th.
Me: (giggling like a little boy) the exhibit is that long?!?!?!
Her: Yes
Me: Sorry, I’m kind of excited.
Her: I can tell
Me: (sheepishly) I’m a big fan

Yes that’s right. The prospect of a Norman Rockwell exhibit coming to town is enough to reduce me to an 8-year-old-boy-on-Christmas like giddiness.

If you’ve been snooping around this website, and if you’ve checked out my About page, you already know that I have an interest in illustration, drawing, and painting. You’ll also know that this website is part of my rediscovery of that interest.

In the process of launching this website and exploring that creative side I left behind all those years ago when I decided to study Political Science and Law instead of Creative Writing and Fantasy Illustration, I am also discovering those golden nuggets of nostalgia from the fog of my childhood. Those things that made me such an art/sci-fi/writing nerd to begin with. There are the fantasy illustrators: Larry Elmore, Frank Frazetta, Jeff Easley, etc. There are the Science Fiction writers: Isaac Asimov, Douglas Adams, Robert Aspryn, etc. And then there are the non fantasy/sci-fi influences.

The two shining examples are Norman Rockwell and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. I’ll save Doyle for another day.

But let me back up and give you some context. Last Monday, I was experiencing my normal early morning hazy-brained, drive to work, reminding myself it would all be okay because coffee was awaiting me at the office, when the NPR announcer’s voice cut into my zen/hazy state of mind.

Something about Norman Rockwell.

What? Norman Rockwell? I focused my attention, trying to think 15 seconds into the past, to remember what the radio announcer had said while I was (day) dreaming of coffee. Nope. Nothing. Why couldn’t they said Norman Rockwell at the beginning of the ad? That way I would know to pay attention.

The answer is that this is NPR. They pride themselves in using a style that does not grap your attention. I realized I would have to wait until the ad came on again, and I would have to apy attention to every, single announcement that I heard, from the beginning, until I found out what was going on with Norman Rockwell.

As a result, I spent the entire week listening intently to every NPR commercial that came on the radio. As you can imagine, this is extremely difficult to do. All radio ads are painfull to begin with, but NPR makes it worse because they don’t actually run ads. If it were a normal radio station, they would try to hold your attention in some way. For example, if they want to advertise the upcoming monster truck show, they’ll have a bunch of revving engines and gravelly voices shouting at you (to make it exciting, of course).

Normal radio stations know they can’t make it interesting – it’s a radio ad – but they at least try.

NPR doesn’t even try. After all, it’s public radio. So, instead of “ads,” they run “announcements.” For example. this would be a typical announcement, which isn’t an ad, because they are simply announcing something that a “donor” is doing, not running an ad for someone who paid them for the advertising time: This Thursday, it’s a pleasant evening with Dodge Drivel, founder of the boring foundation. Come visit Mr. Drivel as he explains how to be really boring.

And if you have ever listened to NPR – even just a few seconds – you know about that monotone voice. If Robin Williams read the above announcement, at least there would be some peaks and valleys in his voice, and you might be able to make it throught the entire announcement. But not NPR. They don’t like inflections.

So it was painful, but Norman Rockwell is worth it. I listened to the announcements all week, to and from work. Finally, on Friday they reran the announcemt. It turns out the Fort Lauderdale Museum of Art will be having a Norman Rockwell exhibit. The problem is that, this being NPR, I zoned out before they got to the part where they tell you when the exhibit will be. But I overcame that issue, because now we have the internet. So, when I got to the office, I looked up the museum’s phone number and called, resulting in the above conversation.

But that’s not the point. The point is that I really like Norman Rockwell as an artist. I get the impression a lot of people consider him a lightweight as an artist. They call him an illustrator, trying to say it in a way that makes it sound like an insult. But in the end, it’s really a question of what speaks to you. Mostly, paintings of dragons and warrior princesses speak to me. But Norman Rockwell paintings speak to me too. This would make sense, I supposed, because Norman Rockwell was not painting reality. He was painting an idealised version of reality.

That’s what happens when you are an illustrator for the Saturday Evening Post, and for the Boy Scouts, and for Life magazine. Later in his career he took on the racism question, and that was also impressive, but for different reasons.

 Plus, as this article expertely points out, he was a decent guy, aside from his art. I’m so excited, I think I’ll go pick up my brush and paints right now!

Chicks dig my deep voice

But I also realized something while I was writing this article.  I realized that perhaps the primary reason it took me so long to write this Transformers article is that I am becoming a Michael Bay hater.  I don’t have anything against him as a person (except that he puts racist stereotypes into his movies sometimes. I am thinking specifically of Bad Boyz II and Transformers II. Then again he had a pretty good part for Cuba Gooding Jr. in Pearl Harbor.  Maybe he only does it in his sequels).  But the thing that does annoy me is his style of story telling.

What he does is this:  put a whole bunch of random stuff together in the first two acts, and then watch it all fall apart in the third act.  Sometimes it works, and sometimes it just turns into a big annoying mess.  The examples are: Bad Boyz I and Bad Boyz II, Pearl Harbor, The Rock, Armegeddon.  So as a director, he is a complete disaster sometimes, and he isn’t that bad other times.  But here is the thing that is annoying: his movies always make money.

Sometimes the movies are okay, and sometimes they are big stinky piles of that stuff that comes out of Fee Fee when you let her eat people food.  But they always make money. Entertaining like Bad Boyz I? Makes money.  Complete waste of time and an insult to the audience’s intelligence Like Bad Boyz II? Makes money.  It doesn’t matter how ridiculous the movie is, it still makes money.  Armeggedon, for example, was really annoying. But it made money.  The onion did a satirical article about this.  So, the guy has no reason to care whether the art he produces is any good. I hate that.  Also, he bankrupted GM. That’s annoying too.