Thursday, February 26, 2004

Movie Review

My friend Paul Dini sends the following...

Saw your piece on your blog re: The Passion of the Christ. I saw it in December at a screening in Austin. I can appreciate the passion Gibson himself undertook in making the film, but the violence in it turned me off. There was so much of it. We all know what happened to Jesus and how he died. Showing a little of that goes a long way. I found the attention to detail in Christ's tortures was almost fetishistic. It went beyond unpleasant and became after a while, numbing. I watched as the torture began, then as they were doing nothing but beating Jesus for about five minutes straight, I began to nod off. I woke up a few minutes later and they were still beating Jesus. I walked out of the theatre (it was morning) went down to Katz's Deli, had matzo brei and juice, read the local Austin paper, walked back to the theatre, took my seat again and discovered they were still beating Jesus. Once they started to take out the nails and hammer, I split for good. I knew how the story came out and didn't need to see it through to its bitter, though for many, ultimately uplifting ending. Give me Ben-Hur any day.

• Posted at 9:19 PM · LINK

The "In" Place on Sunday!

• Posted at 6:07 PM · LINK

This Morning

All the power went out in my neighborhood around 11:30 this morning. This happens every month or three around me, which is one of the reasons I just bought one of these. ($85 for the next few days at Costco Online.)

Around Noon, I was wondering what the Department of Water & Power hotline had to say about when service might be restored. Usually when you dial the number I have, you get a recording. This time, I got a person. I asked if they had any idea when the juice might be on and a man said, "No idea. We have men out in the field checking but so far, they have no idea what caused it. If you do, let us know."

I said, "Yeah, well, maybe I'll get out my cleats and start climbing poles." We both chuckled and I hung up, then spent the next few hours writing something on my battery-powered laptop and going through Internet Withdrawal.

Around 2:40, I had to decide if I was going to drive somewhere to run an errand. With the car in the garage and the power off, this involves crawling over the hood to disconnect the automatic garage door opener. I decided to call again and see if they had an Estimated Time of Electricity. The same guy answered the phone and just as he did, all the lights came on here.

"Oh, sorry," I said. "Just as I was about to ask you when the power would be restored, the power was restored."

I guess he recognized my voice from the earlier call. He said, "And we could have done it a lot sooner if you'd climbed a few poles and helped out."

• Posted at 3:53 PM · LINK

Won't Be Going

Reader Nat Hines is the latest of about eight folks to write and ask me if I've seen The Passion of the Christ and if so, what did I think of it? No, I haven't seen it. And since most of the reviews say, as did Roger Ebert, "This is the most violent film I have ever seen," I won't be going. A critic saying a movie is bad or good rarely has an impact on me but I don't want to see the most violent film anyone has ever seen. Even if it's brilliant.

• Posted at 1:40 AM · LINK

Together Again for the First Time!

This is just for those of you in and around New York...

Saturday nights at the popular cabaret Don't Tell Mama, you can see "Judy Garland and Liza Minnelli Live." In this case, Judy Garland is noted Garland impersonator Tommy Femia while Liza (with a Z) is my pal Christine Pedi. I haven't seen them together but I've seen them individually and I wish I was back there to see them together.

• Posted at 12:58 AM · LINK

Stern Stuff

A couple folks asked to write what I think it means that Clear Channel Communications has dropped Howard Stern's radio show from six stations. I think it means Howard will wind up changing stations in six cities.

Beyond that, I dunno. It may depend on whether Clear Channel just wanted Stern off those six channels or if this is the first wave in a general laundering of the entertainment venues it controls. Somehow, I can't see them imposing decency standards on the rock music business and still retaining their colossal market share. And while Stern's show is no longer the ratings juggernaut it once was, there are many stations around the country where he brings in the A.M. listeners and then the station builds the rest of its broadcast day around that audience. So I don't think we'll see a wave of cancellations.

• Posted at 12:12 AM · LINK