'Bred Crumbs

Lost in Thought

In the interest of raising the number of this year's Best Picture Oscar®©™ nominees that I have seen to two, we rented Lost in Translation. The critically beloved film shows how a highly paid whiskey spokesmodel (Bill Murray) whiles away a travelogue of Japan with a young woman who is allergic to pants.

The movie certainly has some striking photography of Tokyo. And given how the theaters are glutted with '70s TV remakes, teen comedies, Adam Sandler vehicles, and martyr fetish films, it's a shame to knock a movie that tries to do something a little different.

But Translation is way too thoughtful. The two main players are constantly staring glumly into the distance, wishing they had lines to memorize. They do have an occasional night out together, but more often one of them will set off on a solo expedition to be visibly lonely in some artfully framed setting before repairing to the hotel to recover from the apparent exertion. (Robbie: "This movie is full of scenes that begin. And that's it.")

About an hour in, Robbie pointed out that I was twitching my foot. My impatience for something to actually happen had seized my extremities before enveloping my mind. I realized I was beginning to experience that same tense tedium I remember wracking my body back when I was trapped in a theater with American Beauty moving into its seventh hour. Or so it seemed.

To be fair, the DVD presentation of Translation, from Universal, annoys right off the bat. The disc starts with this screen:

PREVIEWS

YOU MAY FAST FORWARD TO MAIN MENU

Which sounds like a nice bit of hospitality: we have some previews for you, but you don't have to watch them. But back up and read the fine print. You may fast-forward through the previews, but you can't skip them. Even the Stop button is disabled.

Thus did Lost in Translation test my ever-shrinking attention span. It probably would have been a fantastic 45-minute movie. Unfortunately, it's twice that long. Maybe that introductory message was a clue. I probably could have fast-forwarded through the film, too.

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The latest Nike commercial has set a record. It hadn't even finished running once before I was tired of it. And as always, it left me with the question: how reasonably priced could Nikes be if they didn't make these commercials?

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I Do Vs. You Can't

I've kept quiet about the whole gay-marriage hubbub lately because my nephew is getting married (to a woman) this weekend, and if the institution of marriage is as flimsy as its supposed defenders suggest, I'd hate to do anything to bring it crashing down before he gets to enjoy it.

Also, the whole topic heats me into a blind fury so easily that I have trouble sticking to reason. Not that absence of reason has stopped those who can't bear the thought of anyone being happy, especially those homosexuals. From Governor Musclehead with his Terminator-style hallucinations of apocalyptic strife down to the 17-year-old Republican activist who proclaims that "communists are using homosexuality to push an attack on the family," it's clear the 'phobes have tossed logic to make room for paranoia in their arsenal of hate. But with fear, ignorance, and prejudice on their side, who needs strong arguments?

At least the fundies are standing by their convictions, vile and twisted though they are. That makes them more respectable than the Democratic politicos who claim to support gay people, domestic partnerships, and civil unions, but won't dare ruffle the Marriage feather. Ah, separate but equal. What a good idea.

See? You can practically see the blood vessels bursting in my forehead, can't you? Fortunately, others are standing up for gay marriage more eloquently and more humorously than I.

A surprisingly insightful dissection of the legal issues surrounding San Francisco's trail-blazing can be found at Slate. Particularly interesting is a comparison of Mayor Gavin Newsom's actions and that of the Alabama judge who wouldn't take the Ten Commandments out of the courthouse. While I feel confident about which man is standing up for freedom and which one for oppression, the comparison bears examining.

Oh, before I wipe the foam entirely from my mouth, please join me in directing a hearty laugh in the direction of Andrew Sullivan, the conservative columnist and blogger who just realized that George W. Bush and the Republican Party really do want to treat him, me, and millions more as second-class citizens. There he was, minding his own business, and the roof of his Log Cabin fell in. Poor dope.

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Turning to other avenues of evil, there's this great quote on Wired News about the threat of a new virus to harm the RIAA web server:

"Since the RIAA site seems to go down every time someone sneezes within a mile of its servers, chances are a DoS attack by MyDoom.F will have an effect on it," said Frank Calais, a New York network administrator. "Then again, if the RIAA site goes down again it could be MyDoom, or it could be the phase of the moon or whatever."

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