CP Chronicle 188

IT'S ONE OF THOSE DAMN 'HURRY UP AND WAIT' WEEKS.
I LOVE'EM AND I HATE'EM.

There's an expression that exists to describe life in the world of freelance advertising, where I spend most of my days. That expression is 'hurry up and wait.' Taken literally, it means that while you may be very busy and have lots of projects on the go, you are essentially locked into other people's timetables to a great degree and can often find yourself with as much as a whole week with nothing to do but wait to finish up a lot of things that you have started. Wait for jobs to start. Wait for proposals to be approved. Wait for people to get their act together. This was one of those weeks. When I was a much younger Spud, I used to use these weird little black holes to worry about the future. Now I just try and sleep as much as I can and watch as many movies and basketball games as I can and take care of as much admin as I can. This includes updating the infamous "Videos That Don't Suck Tip List", which I trust you are all putting to good use.

BASIC (TWO SPUDS)

Yesterday, I set out to see Dreamcatcher, the new Stephen King adapt, but somehow ended up going to see Basic instead. I have no explanation for this. And I still have every intention of seeing Dreamcatcher. But I guess I was just in the mood for some John Travolta, and you sure do get a lot of that in Basic. You also get a lot of Samuel L. Jackson, minus the golf clubs. But if there is only one solid truth in the world, it is that John Travolta is absolutely the star of each and every 'John Travolta' movie.

Basic is one of those supermacho military mystery movies, that reminded me quite a bit of The General's Daughter, another movie where Travolta gets to be a weird sort of military type guy. In Basic, he plays an ex-Army interrogator who is called in by a Colonel friend of his (Tim Daly) to try and figure out what happened to some marines on a training mission in the jungles of Panama. The plotting in this movie is very intricate and extremely well managed by its director, John McTiernan, a big time action dude who is really good at achieving and sustaining high levels of intensity in his films.

McTiernan's power and Travolta's presence, are primarily responsible for making Basic a very interesting Hollyweird movie experience. But everybody gets to act up a storm -- Travolta, a self-professed health nut, gets to smoke a lot of cigarettes, in totally unconvincing fashion and do a lot of ranting. Connie Neilson gets to be the token chick in this testosterone-rich affair. And Samuel L. Jackson gets to make life a living hell for a bunch of white guys. There's a solid, kind of tried and true gimmick that powers this movie, and although it gets a little hokey and hard to buy at the end, you're more that willing to forgive that for all the fun you had getting there.
I liked Basic a lot because it wasn't trying to send any kind of a propaganda message like some of the other 'war' movies out there like Tears Of The Sun (what the hell does that mean, anyway?) John Travolta is more fun than a barrel of monkeys, because he always seems to be having such a good time doing his job and it's kind of infectious, as he elevates the energy and performance levels of everybody around him.

THE SLEEPING DICTIONARY (ONE SPUD-M -- TWO SPUDS-F)

This is one of those big sweeping epics that takes place in the dying days of the British Empire in Borneo or somewhere just as sweaty. It tells the story of a young diplomatic attache (Hugh Dancy) who is sent there and falls in love with a beautiful native woman (Jessica Alba) who is his 'Sleeping Dictionary", which is basically a woman assigned to teach you the language and keep you from becoming sexually deprived at the same time. This is easily the best part of the deal for young Hugh, cause Jessica Alba, who starred in the excellent James Cameron produced TV series, Dark Angel, is an absolute stunner who plays her role with a disarming arrogance and pride that's really quite appealing.
Unfortunately, The Sleeping Dictionary, is one of those movies that, despite the lush jungle terrain and the poor man's David lean look, never really manages to elevate itself above being just a stylish looking period soap opera, whose main point seems to be, to paraphrase Will Smith, 'The (native) girls of the world ain't nothin' but trouble". causing young Hugh and his boss, (Bob Hoskins), no end of grief.

About two thirds of the way through this thing, it started to dawn on me that I was being completely hoodwinked, at which time I left the Wife and the Princess of Pain to watch it on their own and threw myself into more manly pursuits, such as catching up on the sport scores and cleaning up Spud Central, which gets unbelievably messy during these little 'black hole' weeks.
Anyway, The Sleeping Dictionary is decidedly a chick flick of the highest order, in spite of the fact that Jessica Alba is definitely worth watching if you are a non-chick of any kind.

THE HUNTED (ONE SPUD)

Some days I can suspend a whole lot of disbelief to watch a movie and other days, well, it's just too much like work. The Hunted is about one of those special ops soldiers (Benicio Del Toro), who can kill you with a two inch piece of skanky dental floss, but who runs amok and starts killing people he's really not supposed to and his trainer (Tommy Lee Jones), who gets brought back from the wilds of British Columbia where he lives miles from nowhere, hangs out with wolves and appears to be doing severe penance for all the dental floss killers he's trained in his sordid other life. Essentially that's about it. It's one big chase from beginning to end, with a lot of macho posing and a few cool knife fights in between. But the radically mangled time frame really strains the credibility of the story and the characters, unfortunately are imbued with all the personality of an empty can of shoe polish.
The Hunted supposed to be one of those incredibly macho movies that showcases man's inhumanity to man, but, while it had all the mechanics going for it, thanks to William Freidkin's direction, it unfortunately lacked the humanity needed to make it convincing and anything more than just a couple hours of flickering lights to accompany a bag of popcorn and a few ju jubes.

FLOTSAM AND JETSAM

THE CAM AND DAVE SHOW

Cam Levack and Dave Van Fleet are both writers, original spuds and good buds. They have know each other about 20 years longer than I have known them, which is a long time as the crow flies. But last week they appeared to be somewhat divided on the issue of reality programming on TV. Here's what they had to say about it. Dave also has some issues with 'Six Feet Under', which I personally don't agree with, although I haven't seen as many episodes as he has.

CAM'S EMAIL

Dear Jim,
I couldn't agree more. (re: last week's TV rant) The best thing about rants (well, maybe the next-best thing) is that the person reading or listening to it gets to enjoy a vicarious rant himself. I hate reality TV. I don't even like the Osbornes that much, although at least it has interesting characters. Perhaps the only acceptable one is Project Greenlight, the "reality" of a movie production. (David tipped me off to it.) Especially right now - aren't SARS and Iraqui ambushes reality enough for people? Are we so socially insecure that we revel in seeing someone else voted off the island? There.

Now I feel better, too.
Cam

DAVE'S EMAIL

Bravo for reducing those shows to their thinnest definition. However, I am still fascinated by the thickest of the sliced processed cheeses- Survivor. Maybe it's because I have a cottage and have experienced the cottage guest who once north of Barrie, can't light a match, chop a piece of wood, tie up a boat or figure out where food comes from. Maybe it's because I was hooked on the first ever reality show, Tiny Talent Time, where at the age of seven, I would need to be resuscitated by my parents from laughing so hard over a dropped baton or a kid two dance steps behind.

Regarding Six Feet Under, I was hooked for a while. The whole funeral parlour thing. The ensemble cast. The fearless writing. But the gay thing, that's woven into almost all new millennium programming, is really giving me a pain in the ass. Not only is it way too graphic- I'm talking about the Vegas, over the hood of the car scene- It's a social wrong that I think has been corrected. I can't watch it now for the same reasons I can't watch Guess Who's Coming To Dinner. It's tired. And I've had it up to here.

Your buddy and faithful reader,
David Van Fleet

MY BIG FAT GREEK BURP/FART

I have downgraded this show to NO SPUD 4 U. I watched a couple more episodes and was amazed at how quickly it fell into the "formula crap for brain-dead idiots" mold. Too bad because I had high hopes for it and honestly thought it had more legs than it actually did. Nia, my dear, the ethnic thing isn't what it used to be. Time to move on.

THE ACADEMY AWARDS SHOW

I can't tell you how angry I am that Martin Scorcese, arguably, the greatest living film director in the world today, got snubbed at the Oscars. And there's nothing Steve Martin could ad lib that would compensate for that injustice. Guess the powers that be just didn't feel the need to have any dirty historical laundry on display while they are trying to get another middle eastern country ready for Mickey Dees and The Gap. Man, I'm seriously pissed about that.
See you next week.

COPYRIGHT 2003, Jim Murray COUCH POTATO CHRONICLES