That whacky Mel Gibson… I am about two hours into this beast and I have one giant question.

Why does this movie look like shit?

Seriously, the cinematography is so straight-to-video awful, that I find myself having a hard time concentrating on the rest of the film. Especially when things were moving. HD sucks it when it comes to that. I guess it all matters on the camera or whatever, because I’ve seen HD shine. Maybe Gibson got his camera at Best Buy.

Also, I am no scholar, but I found it hard to believe that the Mayans just wrapped about balls all day long. I missed that part of my Anthropology minor.

All in all, this movie is nothing to write home about. Much like Mel Gibson’s other directorial efforts. And that includes Braveheart.

Today’s picture was drawn without the guidance of a mouse. Instead, I was forced to draw this with the touchpad thing on my laptop. That’s why this picture isn’t really that up to par with my previous efforts, which they themselves not being up to par with your average kindergarten finger-painter.

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Calling a film a “chick flick” is like saying the movie has no value to male viewers. I’d argue that many of those films have no value to any viewer. Sounds harsh? It’s meant to, but I’ll explain lest I offend anyone.

Let’s take the “chick flick” “28 Days,” for example. Some would argue that no man would want to see this, and that it was only made to appeal to women. I can’t testify that no man would want to see it (I didn’t want to, but I don’t know about everyone else), and I won’t argue the fact that it was most likely made with a female demographic in mind. I would, however, say the film had no value to viewers of either gender.

When a film is made and marketed to appeal to a certain segment of society, it changes the nature of the movie. This can be a positive or negative depending on how it is handled. A story like “28 Days” could have appealed to both men and women with a few changes in marketing and, less importantly, story. Instead, it gets deemed a “chick flick” and thereby loses any kind of substantial “value” (we live in a world that is male dominated, so anything that is geared toward men will have a greater “value” to society, which is why there are “chick flicks” — a demeaning term — and “action films” — an acceptable term). Hell, most of the movies my female friends like are ones that could never be called “chick flicks” in the first place, which means I either have very intelligent female associates (they are), or the term doesn’t mean what the studios think it means.
I remember when “Thelma & Louise” was called a “chick flick.” I saw it and kind of enjoyed it, as I usually do when it comes to tales of personal liberation. The only thing that really made it a “chick flick,” however, was that its two main characters were women and the way it was marketed. Compare it to “Baise Moi,” which is not a anything close to the standard definition of a “chick flick” and has never been called one (but is a female empowering film and has two females in the leads), and you start to see where the subtle differences come into play. Which was a better film? Hard to say. One definitely made more money than the other. One was better filmed. One had better actors. One got better reviews. The winner in all those categories is “Thelma & Louise.” “Baise Moi,” however, was a stronger film if only because it wasn’t sanitized for a primarily female audience. (Hollywood has some funny definitions of what it thinks females find appropriate.)

Maybe that’s the male in me. I don’t like my films to be pretty and cleaned up. Of course, that implies females do, and that’s just wrong. I think mainstream audiences in general like their films to be neat and clean and easy to categorize. They don’t like things that won’t fit into pre-made boxes. That’s what a consumer society has done to art. It’s not a female thing, it’s an American thing.

Guys and the media can demean “chick flicks” as much as they like (and plenty of the ones called that deserve ridicule, just like most Hollywood crap does), but they don’t get that their favorite films are just as stupid and petty as they stuff they claim to hate. Is “Old School” really that important to cinematic history? Does the Rambo franchise mean anything to anyone who has ever read an AK Press book?

I won’t use the term “chick flick” to define a film. I’ll stick to things that are gender neutral, though I will advise any woman who wants to see the ultimate “chick flick” to rent the two “Kill Bill” movies, as the “genre” doesn’t get much better than that.

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The world of video rental service hasn’t quite been the same since Netflix introduced their service, which involves red envelopes arriving in your mail box complete with a DVD inside, and the world is better off for it.

One of the oddest things about this service, and I am sure many members can attest to this, is that sometimes a film will end up in your queue that you have no idea how it got there. Or even why it’s there. What were you thinking?

Netflix allows you to have up to 500 films in your rental queue at any given time. Since I became a member, back in June if 2004, my queue has been full to the brim. Every time they send me something, I add another title. Cruising through the selections, there are some films I have no real interest in seeing and have no idea how they made it in there in the first place.

5. Eragon (Stefen Fangmeier, 2006)

Pete Vonder Haar (and every other critic really) called this film “laughably bad,” but somehow it ended up in my queue at number 478.

4. Basic Instinct 2 (Michael Canton-Jones, 2006)

I barely remember the first one, let alone have interest in seeing this one. But there it sits, at number 475, just waiting to enter my mailbox. I can’t fathom why anything that may have Sharon Stone appearing naked would end up in anything of mine.

3. Beyond the Poseidon Adventure (Irwin Allen, 1979)

I’m not a big fan of the original. I didn’t like the remake all that much (though Kurt Russell’s death scene is one of the best I’ve ever seen). So why would this crappy sequel be at number 442 in my queue? Maybe because Kojak is in it…?

2. The Island of Dr. Moreau (John Frankenheimer, 1996)

While I am an old school Frankenheimer fan, nothing about the advertisements of this film (or the publicity it got) made me the least bit curious about how well HG Wells’ fantastic book would translate to screen. Fast-forward a decade, when Steven Spielberg anally raped War of the Worlds, my curiosity for proper Wells adaptations drowned like Charlie in Lost.

1. In The Cut (Jane Campion, 2003)

Am I the only one who thinks Meg Ryan is kind of hot? When I heard she was doing a film where she would bare us her all, I couldn’t help but be a bit curious. But now, after I’ve heard nothing but awful things, I have no interest whatsoever to see her bits.

Some things are just better off left to the imagination.

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How much would you pay for a new movie? Eighty dollars? A hundred?

An interesting article I read in Entertainment Weekly last week explained that cable companies are working on getting theatrical premieres on our television, in a way to increase profits, and somehow enhance movie going.

It’s not a surprise that this idea has been brought up, as these days, Hollywood seems to be swallowing itself whole with movies that get worse year by year; it seems the think tanks are scrambling for something new. Hell, even I would rather wait on the release of a film and watch it at home than commute and sit elbow to elbow with people who aren’t even there to see the film.

The cable company Comcast is trying to bring this possible new evolution in movie going to subscribers, and the price tag is said to be 30-50$ per film. Other companies have jumped on to the bandwagon, but many in the industry suspect it’s simply because of Comcast’s ownership.

Said the article: ‘’The truth is, going day and date doesn’t benefit anybody but Comcast,'’ said Shari Redstone, president of National Amusements Theaters as well as vice-chairman of Viacom, the parent company of Paramount Pictures. ‘’The revenue streams for movies begin in the theaters. This proposal would hurt the studios overall, and the quality of movies would go down. Filmmakers don’t want to make films that are made to be seen at home.'’

The comment does indeed hold some truth, but there are some filmmakers I’ve talked to who would enjoy any format beyond peddling DVD’s on the internet. There have even been filmmakers who have uploaded their films on Torrent websites for the purposes of publicity and have attributed this function to the word of mouth of their film.

At first this seems almost ridiculous, in fact completely ridiculous, but then people these days are willing to pay almost a hundred dollars for a special edition DVD, so apparently Comcast thinks they know something we don’t.

Would you really be willing to pay 30-50$ for a movie premiere in your home and then spend money on the home release? And would you actually watch an event film that is meant for a huge screen? Much like I-Pod video, some movies are not meant to be shown at such a small location. Speaking as someone who really can’t afford a huge television, this seems unnecessary. Film like “Grindhouse” and “28 Weeks Later” really do deserve to be seen on a big screen as an event, and not some normal task.

It seems Comcast has the right idea, but as all evolutions in technology, there are some missteps. Would you pay double for a movie you loved? These days with low ticket sales, and two new technologies trying to make its way onto shelves with even larger price tags, it’s possible either movie goers will adapt and be willing to pay the high price tag for a premiere, or just completely avoid the attempts at increasing profits and order every so often.

These days the commute to theaters and the environment in theaters are hardly worth the price, but I think I’d ultimately rather pay ten dollars, and six for a matinee, if it could mean undercutting a forty dollar price tag for a movie that may or may not be worth the money spent, in the end. Even as a film critic, I wouldn’t spend thirty dollars on “The Hills Have Eyes 2” if it meant first dibs on the review.

Hollywood as always doesn’t really seem to really have grasped evolving with the times as they’ve made efforts to stop piracy to no avail, and even introduced two new technologies that have higher price tags, and require even more expensive add on’s that many still can’t entirely afford, it’s likely this idea will be realized, but not for a long while.

There have been rumblings in the past that movie theaters will soon be a dying part of pop culture, and Hollywood has devised attempts to create new ways to revive the experience, and somehow evolve with it. Many movie websites are now offering legal downloading, and Hollywood has sought out to fight piracy, along with shortening the window of releases during movies.

This is only an experiment at the moment, as IFC is also offering simultaneous releases on-demand, and in theaters where many movie-goers can’t watch independent films, but the price tag for their movies range from 3-5 dollars per title. And this service should really be available to independent films that can’t normally be seen in many venues, because large studios have so much more of an advantage.

But paying 30-50$ for a film like “Night at the Museum,” or “Georgia Rule” is a price that seems awfully hefty when most films these days aren’t even worth ten dollars. Sooner or later, it seems possible that studios will willingly team to invent a new form of movie-going that keeps up with the times, rather than work against it, and downloading could be the new wave of the movie-going.

Whether or not this does take form, as it’s all allegedly in the talking phases, but not even films like “28 Weeks Later,” or “Grind House” could inspire me to spend 30-50$. And I doubt introducing a new format that requires spending on new add-ons that are impossible to afford for the average American, and simply upping the ante on On-Demand is going to help the movie-going experience any more.

Rather than looking for alternatives, studios should be enforcing a better movie-going experience, and possibly the stay of execution for movie theaters nationwide could extend. Cleaner theaters, lower concession prices, better sound and picture, and especially a better selection of films for all audiences, and stern crowd control with assigned guards, and ushers standing at theaters to assure no rowdy audiences would make the price of ten dollars for a film worth it. Or perhaps, focusing on making better movies and on forms of media that could benefit movie going would also work.

Even if this experiment takes off, only time will tell if people will cough up the hefty price tag for mainstream movies at home, or, like many have done for years, just wait for the goddamn DVD.

Closing Note: In honor of the opening of “Hostel II,” here’s an oldie, but a goodie. Read and continue the bashing.

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July 4th, 1990. I was 9-years-old at this time and I was kicking it with my dad. My dad loved taking me to the cinema. On this particular weekend, he was super-pumped. He had the choice of seeing Die Hard 2 or RoboCop 2.

“Which one would you rather see?” my dad asked me.

Are you kidding? I wanted to see RoboCop 2 more than anything. I remember a few years prior to this when he brought home the first film on VHS. My 7-year-old mind loved every second of it. Violence and robots - what more did I need?

We arrived at the cinema and to my utter disappointment, RoboCop 2 was sold out, even though it was in theaters for a week or two already. I wasn’t hip to John McLane at this point so there was no part of me that was interested in Die Hard 2. There wasn’t any fucking robots in this movie. Who wants to see a movie without robots? That’s just stupid, like putting a song and dance number into a Spider-Man film and then calling it “the best” of the trilogy.

To my surprise, Die Hard 2 was actually quite exciting to my 9-year-old world. That movie blew up a plane full of innocent travelers without blinking. The villain liked to practice his karate skills naked but who doesn’t? Oh, and look! It’s the dad from Family Matters!

Why don’t we see more of this guy?

Last night, at the screening of Pirates 3, they showed a trailer for Live Free or Die Hard. The first few moments of it brought me back to 1990. After Die Hard 2 was over, I was more than curious to see the first one. When I finally did, I no longer understood the second film. So, he was a cop from New York who became a cop from Los Angeles, but is visiting Washington DC? Die Hard with a Vengeance made matters worse. He was a cop from New York, who became a cop from Los Angeles, but returned to New York to be a cop again. Why? When did this happen?

Back to the trailer… something about it really got to me. The PG-13 rating has more than pissed people off, especially since all the other ones had no problem being Rated R and making money. There is a scene in this trailer where Bruce Willis launches a car into a helicopter. As if that wasn’t ridiculous enough, the pilot of the helicopter jumps out before the car hits it, insuring his survival. Why couldn’t the dude just fucking die hard like the title suggests? It reminded me of that GI Joe cartoon from the 80s, where no one ever got killed. They just jumped out of their vehicles seconds before they exploded.

This summer has been pretty grim so far. Shrek was just more of the same. Spider-Man 3 raped my eye sockets without having the common decency to remove my eye balls first. Pirates 3 was just really long exposition for the inevitable Pirates 4. 28 Weeks Later was pretty good but the best thing I’ve seen so far (and granted it’s still early in the season) has been Knocked Up. Seriously, this is the funniest movie I’ve seen in a really long time.

Judging by what’s left to come (a certain Michael Bay film comes to mind), I doubt it’s going to be topped.

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I went to a midnight screening of the second Pirates of the Caribbean on the eve of its official release and couldn’t remember a single thing about it when I woke up the next day. I am not sure if it was the cans of Foster’s me and my friends brought with us into the theater that might have helped this or if my short-term memory was starting to fade.

This didn’t happen with other films however. This is the first time it ever happened. I even remember going to a press screening of Les Mayfield’s The Man, one of the worst films in recent memory, and the fact that it has a fart joke involving nuns.

In order to prepare myself for this new Pirates film, I decided to Netflix the second one, so I can see that which I do not recall. I got it in the mail yesterday and popped it on. All I can say is this: that movie is a lot longer without the assistance of some canned Fosters. I think I started it at 5:30pm or so and it ended just after 8pm. Damn, how much pirate action can a single person take?

Then I woke up this morning, pondering what I could blog about for the six people who actually read this daily, when it happened again. I seriously have no fucking recollection of the film I just watched mere hours ago.

So let me give this a good thinking… I remember something about a giant wheel and a sword fight. I remember something about Kiera Knightley having to disguise herself as a man while on board a ship. But does she really have to ‘disguise’ herself? I remember watching Domino and almost wanting to kill myself when she showed her chest. It was like I was staring at Steve McCollum from my Little League baseball team from my youth all those years ago. Why does that chick look so much like a dude? Why are my non-existent boobs bigger than hers? Why do people think she is hot? She is like the older sister of the Olsen twins or something. Just as creepy and just as gross.

My brain goes on that Kiera Knightley tangent and prevents any further memories of the film. I remember two or three things about it and I just watched it not even a day ago.

There are 8:00pm screenings of the third Pirates film all over the country tonight. Being the theater-going geek that I am, I will make the journey to Universal Studios to view the film in their spectacular AMC Loews Cineplex. Cans of Fosters will no doubt be in my man-purse. The real question now is, will I remember this film in the morning?

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She was a psych major at a local college. I was a junior in high school. She was a Smiths fan. I liked the Misfits. She and I used to get into some pretty interesting conversations at the resort where we worked.

“Most girls,” she told me because she was such an expert, “like a guy who can be nice, be romantic and also be tough and confident. They like a guy who will hold the door open but also fuck them hard enough to make them think they’ve just had a gang bang with the football team.”

Richard Gere is not that man.

I can’t figure out why women find him attractive. Sure, he may be easy on the eyes, and he has that whole spiritual thing going on, but come on. Really? Is he the kind of man a woman would like to be with. He seems like the ultimate pretty boy … like a less crazy Warren Beatty.

I know a lot of women like Sean Connery. Maybe it’s his accent. Maybe it’s the Bond thing. Either way, I can at least understand it. Gere is an utter mystery, however, like folks who still watch “Saturday Night Live” or vote Democrat or Republican.

Granted, I may be missing a lot of the appeal. I’m a heterosexual man who thinks the sight of a naked, confident woman is one of nature’s most splendid displays. So maybe I don’t see what makes Gere so damn attractive to far too many women. (And not just older women, either. I know plenty of twentysomethings who think he’s pretty hot, too.) I believe if I challenged Gere to a fight, he’d cry, and that’s no man for you. That’s eye candy, pure and simple.

The psych major made some good points, or so I think. Many women do want what she described — a gentleman who can still be a man in the most traditional sense. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. All those years of social programming had to have some effect on the populace, and it’s probably more than that, too. It comes down to survival instincts and the need to breed. You want strong qualities to pass on to offspring and to ensure you stay alive long enough to enjoy them. Not all women want that, but I’ve talked to so many who do that I can’t chalk it up to an anomaly.

Gere may be a gentleman (when he’s not kissing Indian women willy nilly on stage and offending large segments of an uptight country), but he’s not the kind of guy who would ever, to quote Nashville Pussy, strut cock. He doesn’t have that “don’t fuck with me” swagger. Face it, if Gere were in prison, he’d be chattel. If a woman finds that attractive, more power to her.

As I write this, Paris Hilton is weeks away from jail. (It brings to mind something Henry Rollins once said about learning to eat pussy the hard way.) She is another person whose appeal I don’t understand. She, like Gere, may be pretty to look at, but she is hardly the ideal woman. She is weak, fairly moronic and seems to be lacking in the personality department. Yet she, like Gere, is held up as an ideal specimen of the gender due only to looks.

I do know one reason why women tend to be attracted to Gere: He’s non-threatening. Some women –not all — find the non-threatening male to be someone worth having around. More often than not, however, this man is the woman’s gay friend, the man who isn’t going to hit on her, who is going to tell her how nice she looks, and who is going to use “good manners” when they go out on the town. I think for many women, Gere fills the role of the gay friend, though with the added bonus that he’s straight. (I’m going under an assumption here. I know there have been rumors about him, but I’ve never heard him admit he’s gay.) Since, for all intents and purposes, he is straight, women can feel free to use him as an object of sexual desire — safe sexual desire. Because of that, he’ll continue to be an icon and his romantic films will continue to attract a female audience. Men, however, will still see through the charade and will know him for what he is — a pretty, pampered boy who gets the ladies solely on the basis of looks, but who is nothing more than an older generation’s Hilton. The women out there who are more introspective will probably feel the same way.

If I’m wrong, so be it. I can still take him in a fight

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Have you had enough “Heroes”? Annoyed about the constant references? Mad because you’re reading a TV entry on a movie website? Well suck it up, bitch! You’re going to sit there and read this. Don’t like it? Go read another blog! No, please stay… my editor sends dead birds to my house if I don’t meet his standards.

Anyway, the “Heroes” season finale was great, even if it was a bit of a let down. I get the feeling not only was this meant as a segue into season two or “Volume Two,” but it was an attempt by the writers not to set the bar too high. If we had an epic battle with explosions for season one, then we really can only go down from here. Sure “Heroes” has undergone scrutiny also. It’s a rip off of “Watchmen,” “Unbreakable,” “X-Men,” and whatever else, but hell, I still love it to pieces.

Well to celebrate, I just had a small run down of the series with different categories. There be spoilers, mate.

Favorite Hero
The popular choice is usually Hiro, and while I love the character with all my heart, I have to go with Peter on this one. In the end, we know what was what. Mother Petrelli would have rather killed everyone else and risked Peter than have Nathan die. But Peter prevailed in the end, not only did he stare Sylar down more than once, but he allowed the others to intervene and get their licks in, while also letting Hiro get in his last effort. Peter has been a thorn in the side of Sylar forever. Not only can he soak up other people’s powers without tracking them down and killing them, but he can match Sylar’s power. And I have a feeling this rivalry isn’t over.

Favorite Villain
Sylar, of course. The mean brain eating son of a bitch is really just a mama’s boy who is weak to her command, and he’ll saw anyone’s head open to take their power, but he refuses to kill humans. He refuses because not only are they innocent, but they’re also pretty useless to his effort. He surpassed reality and time, killed almost without conscience, and really gave everyone a bitch of a time throughout. In the future he killed DL, he killed Nathan, he killed Candace, he killed Claire, he enlisted the powers of Matt and Suresh, he became the president, and he settled a score with Peter. And did I mention he was so powerful he could outdo Hiro’s powers, too? Ah, Sylar, I love to hate you, buddy. Why do I get the feeling he’s the third Petrelli brother? Hmm… it’s possible.

Best line:
Hiro: This is how we Roll.

Ando was being kidnapped by a group of people in a van giving Hiro time to escape. Hiro, being a hero, comes back for his faithful buddy. Ando’s death was highly suspected this season, but his current status of life is something I’m pondering on. Will he play a bigger role? We’ll see. Meanwhile, this little line of great dialogue was Hiro’s indication he’d been in Western culture too goddamn long, but hell thanks to Masi Oka’s acting, it was delivered with enough humor to make a potentially stinky line utterly hilarious. A close competitor would be: This is usually the part where people start screaming.

Uh, R-i-i-i-ght:
Nathan: You Saved the Cheerleader, and you Saved the World.

I’m shocked Pasdar said that with a straight face. Now, I’m not saying it was terrible, but in a gripping moment where Peter and Nathan are being brothers, preparing to take one last leap of death, this line was pretty flat and clunky mainly because it could have been muttered with a much more interesting wording. I was just ripped from the moment, what can I say?

Character death Mourned:
Charlie Andrews was a very close second for this category. Not only was she an excellent character, but she was someone we could really root for. Jayma Mays played her with a vulnerability that made many audiences fall for her, and it was no surprise Hiro did, too. Her death by the hands of Sylar, and then her death by cancer was heartbreaking, but for my money, Ted is the really sad death of the season. Ted was just a misunderstood little lad who couldn’t really help what he was in the end. He killed his wife, he demolished almost everything around him, and killed mainly anyone that wanted help him. It was a sad fate to see Ted sawed open for Sylar’s picking. I avoided that pun like a pro.

Character Death long time coming:
Isaac. Hey, the character was great at the beginning when predicting what would be a Earth shattering disaster, but after a while, he really overstayed his welcome. What with Matt being able to read minds, Primatech garnering connections all over the world, and Peter adopting Isaac’s power, was there really a need for him beyond six episodes? Hey, Isaac’s death was sad, and pretty cool to boot, but it had to come sooner than later.

They’re still Around?
It’s a real tie between Bill Fagerbakke and Eric Roberts. Not only did these two suddenly pop up out of nowhere, but they played some interesting roles. In a sub-plot I could take or leave, the sub-plot involving Bill Fagerbakke as a crooked cop was forgettable, but Eric Roberts as one of the head honchos Thompson was slimy, deceitful, and he was a memorable foil to Noah Bennett for half of the season. Roberts played him with a wry wit that worked. Well done, old bean.

Disappointing…
Peter and Sylar went at it all throughout the season, and all we really get are two punches, and Nikki intervening? I wanted a knockdown drag out that would shake my seat. I’m still firm in my belief that there’s more than what we saw in the climax, but I just wanted more powers, more bone crunching, more of Peter and Sylar smashing one another to pieces. I wanted blood, damn you! I’ll hold out hope season two is just as good.

Best Moment of the Season
Future Peter and Future Sylar throwing down; if you weren’t pleased with the finale, then you can rewatch Future Peter and Future Sylar beating the hell out of one another in a bout of fire and ice. Not only was the episode excellent, but Sylar and Peter were really going to knock at one another sooner or later. Watching the two match opposite elements and run at one another had me howling like it was the super bowl, and I still get tingles watching it.

Obvious, but Fun!
It was only inevitable that the best show on television would be granted a cameo by the man, the myth: Stan Lee. Having the man who birthed Spider-Man and X-Men on this excellent show was only a matter of time, and a well earned endorsement. His cameo as a bus driver in a pivotal point of the show between Hiro and Ando was entertaining and another great appearance from the master.

Please Return:
Peter, Claude, and Candace. In the future episode, Peter blew up the city, but he didn’t die. So, Peter’s end where he took off with Nathan to die is possibly not the end for the character. Hell, Nathan died, he’s gone. So long Adrian Pasdar, you’re a really intense actor, and your voice is great, but it’s time to go. Peter, will you return? Candace, she was cold cocked by Nikki/Jessica, and the character has so much potential, I’m anxiously hoping she returns. Missy Peregrym may not have been the star Hollywood touted her as, but damn it, she’s hot and her character is, too. And Claude played Obi-Wan to Peter’s Luke, now where did he go? Why did he go? And can he return for a bigger arc?

Biggest Surprise so far:
Someone is scarier than Sylar? After Matt talks with Molly, the survivor about locating Sylar, he fears she may be too afraid. In a shocking revelation, we learn from her that the Boogeyman she talks of was someone much worse than Sylar. Ah-wha?! Someone is actually scarier than Sylar? Not only does this mean that Molly really didn’t fear Sylar too much, but the person that killed her family was probably someone other than Sylar. Or perhaps the boogeyman came after or during? Ah, Season two already has its hold on me.

So there, that’s my “Heroes” fill until season two rolls around. This summer we have “Heroes: Origins” coming in a gimmicky hailstorm involving viewer voting, but I’ll be anxious to discover new characters and which ones will be coming on to season two. As for me, I’m glad I gave “Heroes” a chance. As a comic book geek, I’m glad we have a mature series on the air that can put “Smallville” to shame.

Will Season two be just as great, or fall from grace? We’ll see.

Thanks for sitting with me, the movie razzmatazz will be back tomorrow.

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I haven’t seen this movie yet. So I won’t comment on a single damn thing about. I don’t know if it’s either good or bad, nor will you hear me voice an opinion on the subject. However, I am aware of Sir Michael’s tendency to be as loose with the truth as any of his Republican enemies.

But since I haven’t seen the film. I cannot comment on anything. What I can do, is inform American viewers about what I know of the Canadian medical system. A system, that from what I’ve heard, Moore vaunts as far superior to the American system.

I really hope I heard wrong, because if he does that I can tell you right now that he’s gonna make LOTS of enemies in Canada. We despise our Canadian health care system. Every week on national TV news shows angry faces, red with rage, are shouting about how it’s is falling apart and failing. To a Canadian’s eyes, even a little bit of a praise for our shitty shit-eating shit system will look like an apologist’s “Triumph of the Wills” of health care.

And just so you’ll know. It ain’t fucking FREE either.

One look at my paycheck here confirms that I pay… lessee… 269.02$ CND to the government per month. I also pay 59.40$ in medical insurance AND I pay extra taxes at the end of the year. That’s not counting payment for other services which I will never be able to get. All in all it’s a little bit more than 474.30$ CND per month to be a citizen here. I’m no dummy, I know you guys pay more, sometimes WAY fucking more. I’m not making light of that, but Canadian’s are sick and fucking tired of never being able to go to a doctor without a 3 month wait and of having to beg a cold impersonal bitch secretary for test results. They’re also sick and fucking tired of having doctors nearly laugh at them for asking to do a little preventative medecine. I don’t know of a single person that does a yearly checkup. Doctors don’t suggest it and actively dismiss their use unless you’re over 50.

True story: My 50+ year old aunt went to go see her doctor with a numb left leg in 2006. Her doctor made a token examination (checking blood pressure and pulse, listening to heart, that kind of shit) and said it was just nerves. 4 hours later she had a stroke at home, was driven frantically to the Emergency Room and was made to WAIT there by the staff.

Nice.

Here’s a few more true things about the Canadian Health Care System:

#1 Because it takes so long for an appointment. The only place to go few a kinda-serious ailment that’ll dissapear by itself (like a bad bout of the flu) long before you get to see your asshole doctor, is the ER.
#2 A lot of ER’s close between Midnight and 6am
#3 To cut costs ER’s have also cut down on their cleaning staff, which explains why we can’t seem to shake our constant Clostridium difficile infections. Because no one correctly bothers to clean up the shit, vomit and blood.
#4 Dental care isn’t free unless you’re on welfare, and even then it’s not free to get root canals and crap like that.
#5 Glasses ain’t free.
#6 Medecines are cheaper, but not free. I will admit that we have a nice system of forcing drug companies to release their patents to public domain after a few years so that the drugs can be made generically. You guys could learn from that. But nothing’s free.

Is our system better? Sure, probably. But it’s just as broken as yours in many ways. So I guess what I’m trying to say is that Moore’s looking in the wrong places if he thinks Canada has any kind of solution to the American problem, and God help us all because it’s only gonna get worse.

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Back in the golden days of cable television, the SCIFI channel was rather entertaining. I’d sometimes sit down in front of the television and watch it all day long basking in stuff like “The Twilight Zone,” that horrible show “Sightings,” and “Lost in Space,” while Saturdays brought cartoons, and anime.

These days, though, I barely ever want to watch it unless there’s a marathon of “Firefly,” “Heroes,” or a crappy television movie on, and even then it’s debatable. I don’t WANT to see “Lake Placid 2,” but… I couldn’t keep from watching it when it premiered!

The reason for my hatred of the current Sci Fi Channel is because, I have them to thank for my exposure to short independent films. Why? Well, a long time ago Sci Fi had a great show called “Exposure.”

“Exposure,” for those of you not familiar, was a weekly series, where aspiring filmmakers would send in their short science fiction or horror films, and we’d watch for an hour or two sifting through their shorts; the specials usually lasted for about an hour, to sometimes three hours. And it was possibly my favorite show from the channel behind “Invisible Man.”

When I first started reviewing movies, all I wanted to do was review the mainstream. I wanted to watch free movies, go to the theaters with friends and write about them. But there were contributing factors that made me re-think why I wanted to review movies.

Along with online websites that premiered short films, “Exposure” was a series that helped me learn that there was more to movies than what Hollywood gave us, or magazines discussed. There was something else going on behind the curtains, in the dark rooms, with people we’ve never heard of.

“Exposure” helped build my interest for independent films, and really helped me learn about films made for lower than a thousand bucks that was struggling to be seen. “Exposure” helped me build a love for short films, and it helped me want to seek out the directors no one really heard of, beyond magazines like Film Threat.

And because of the interest the series built, I learned of great directors like Amanda Gusack, Shane Ryan, Larry Longstreth, and many others who really did make excellent films that deserved to be placed front and center. The Sci Fi Channel isn’t much these days. It’s infinitely dumbed down, it’s angled for the youth, and all traces of past programming is nearly gone.

But with this new revival, “Exposure” was one of the great series that showed some utterly excellent short films. One in particularly was an animated short which involved a soldier stuck in a military outpost with an alien soldier. Another involved a futuristic government that used a common house fly as a probe to stop criminals.

And sometimes, there were truly creepy horror films that had their own takes on urban legends, and presented more skill and suspense than most any other film out in the mainstream. The show had Halloween episodes where some rather excellent horror short films were played, including one about a trick or treater who ends up being a monster, and even a Star Wars Fandom one which is probably one of the more entertaining episodes of the series. “Exposure” went through a few phases with a robotic host and then there was a narrator, and we’d also learn of the filmmakers who’d introduce their own films.

Before the DVDs, before signing on to Film Threat, before starting my own site, hell before I even learned how to use the internet, “Exposure” gave me a small glance into the world of independent filmmaking to struggling filmmakers who needed a chance to be seen and explored, and I wish we had more shows like this, especially considering I have about fifty movie channels on my cable system.

The closest to this wish would when AMC hosted an anthology of thirty second short films on Halloween, as well as Starz picking up the excellent 30 Second Bunny Theater for their station, both deals that were well deserved. But I wish we had more television series like “Exposure,” that put new talent in the spotlight. Thankfully, there are more and more sites that acknowledge independent filmmakers these days, but I’d love it if “Exposure” returned once again to give me a reason to watch a channel that plays ECW and a reality show about wannabe superheroes.

“Exposure” holds a special spot for me because it was one of the first places I learned to love independent films, and I’d love to revisit it and hope someone else could catch on and learn to love independent filmmaking, too.

Bring it back, Sci Fi.

And, no more Stephen Baldwin.

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