Slowly Going Bald

I'm not even sure how often I'll do this, but it seems like as good a time as any to start slowly sharing the gospel accoring to alt-country with the rest of the world. I don't even know where to begin, so I picked this one at random. Great song, great performer:

"Back to Me," by Kathleen Edwards.

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"You know what would really make them the greatest generation? If they would hurry up and die and give me a refund on my Social Security payments."

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Hannibal Rising

Ghost Rider

The Man Who Wasn't There: A Salute to Character Actors

Reno 911!: Miami

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Today's installment: The necessity of quotes.

To borrow my own definition: "A nerd is someone whose intellect has at one point proven a barrier to social interaction; a geek is someone with an unhealthy focus on or obsession over any given band/TV show/created work. The two groups often overlap, but are, indeed, separate groups." You wanna be a geek? You need to know the quotes.

True geek devotion to a particular area is proven by demonstrating a knowledge of that area's arcana. It doesn't matter whether it's knowing the name of Uncle Tupelo's drummer¹ or what "TIE" stands for in TIE fighter²; you have to know the little details, and often, that means quotes.

Quotes are the key to bonding with strangers. Trotting out your ability to instantly recognize a movie or TV show from the most random or obscure bit of dialogue is like displaying your geek badge: "I know this. I am this much of a geek. Maybe even a loser. I know this."

I'm not just a geek, but a nerd-geek, meaning that in addition to being a film geek and book geek and music geek, a lot of my obsessions happen to be those related to, well, nerds. (There are other geeks, too, like sports geeks. But since I don't need to know the name of Ferguson Jenkins unless we're talking about the career crossovers of Janel Moloney and Aaron Sorkin, I'm happy to leave the sports alone.) This means that I swing a pretty big stick when it comes to nerd-geek quotes. There are at least a dozen Star Wars quotes I say on a regular basis³; I can recite the opening narration to "Quantum Leap"⁴; I have known since age 8 that you can't enter warp inside a solar system, though they did it once just for dramatic effect. I'm a geek. Those of you not laughing or crying out of pity should know that I've pretty much come to grips with it, though.

So, what can you do about it? Well, if you want to be a geek, you need to know facts and quotes, the more obscure the better. You won't impress anybody with the hackneyed quotes from Seasons 3-8 of "The Simpsons," which are now practically imprinted on a newborn's subconscious. ("You know those guitars that are, like, double guitars?") It's not enough to know the characters or places or objects; you need to know if, say, she'll make the Kessel Run in less than 12 parsecs. You can't just know the name of the main character; you have to know which of the Twelve Colonies he hails from, and the names of his dead son, ex-wife, and father⁵. You smell that? That smell of pointless knowledge and musty apartment air and free weekends and burned Hot Pockets? Congrats; you're one step closer to becoming a geek.

I'm a leaf on the wind; watch how I soar.

I'll leave you with this. It seems appropriate (dialogue NSFW):

^{1. Mike Heidorn.}

2. Twin ion engine. Duh.

3. Favorites: "Didn't we just leave this party?", when arriving at the office; "Just like Beggar's Canyon back home," when gliding onto the 101 northbound at Cahuenga; "She'll hold together. ... Hear me, baby? Hold together," when encouraging the car to make it home in one piece.

4. Call me up and I'll prove it. Anytime.

5. Caprica; Zak; Carolanne; Joseph.

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10. No one talks very much.

9. What little conversation takes place is limited to meaningless small talk.

8. Neither party is as interested in the small talk as they pretend to be.

7. The women are vaguely foreign, and older than they appear from a distance.

6. You're paying a woman to touch you in a way that is at once both highly personal and ultimately impersonal.

5. It's best to keep your hands at your sides unless otherwise ordered.

4. Bald spots are generally ignored.

3. Tips are never mentioned but always expected.

2. There's a constant stream of background music meant to put you at ease.

1. No matter how much you might want to, it's never a good idea to blow it in your pants.

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• "A lifetime of naturally unathletic abilities has contributed to your skin's natural alabaster sheen, which I find intoxicating."

• "Tell me again about how you played 'Metal Gear Solid' on an endless loop when you were a freshman in college."

• "Wow, you bought bootleg DVDs of the original Star Wars trilogy that were ported over from the remastered laserdiscs. Take me hard."

• "Let's order Chinese. I'll pay."

• "The fact that you pitted out that old shirt merely means you can achieve a high level of focus during stressful situations, and is in no way gross or weird."

• "I read somewhere that the name Daniel is Hebrew for 'legendary cocksman.'"

• "The fact that you read The Hobbit in elementary school makes me extremely hot. Let's do it and put it on YouTube."

• "I made you some cornbread. Just because."

• "Who needs ambition when you can grow a nice goatee? Let's go to the movies."

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Friday, Feb. 23:

I can barely bring myself to come up with another list of Oscar predictions. I did this last year, but this year my heart just isn't in it. It's not that I suddenly realized that the correlation between cinematic quality and awards recognition is tenuous at best, and usually outright incompatible; I've felt that way for a while now. No, there are several reasons, mainly this: The awards aren't so much won as bought. Sure, every now and then a dark horse comes along and dominates, as The Silence of the Lambs did in 1991. But for the most part, Oscar recognition is the result of a long and arduous PR campaign meant to sell the Oscar voters (and the public at large) on the worthiness of the film in question. Miramax didn't just luck out when it came to distributing Oscar winners in the 1990s; the Weinsteins shamelessly sold their films as Oscar winners, and then sat back and watched the self-fulfilling prophecy fall into place. That's what was so shocking about Crash's victory last year over Brokeback Mountain; Paul Haggis' film wasn't just the lesser of the two, but Ang Lee's film had been so flawlessly marketed — with playdates platforming out a week at a time leading up to the Oscars, not to mention its branding as part of a national movement — that it was literally supposed to win.

I'm making two predictions this year, a main one and a "dark horse" selection that's meant to hedge my bets or just let me be a little hopeful for upsets. Last year I hit 18 of 24 only making one prediction per category, and I'm bound to do at least that well (I hope) by spreading out the guesses. I'm also playing two ballots in the office Oscar pool instead of one, in hopes of taking home some cash. Then again, I live and work in L.A. with some horribly well-informed coworkers competing against me in the pool; if this were Texas, I would clean up, but as it is, I'll probably have to settle again for a four-way tie for fourth.

Sunday, Feb. 25:

Well, it seems I'm getting my ass kicked in all new ways. Pride goeth before a great loss in the office pool.

This year I went for 19 of 24 categories, only one better than I did last year. I'm a little surprised that I managed a 79% accuracy rate this year even by making two guesses per category, but then again, this is far from an exact science. Sometimes I was happy to proven wrong: I liked seeing Melissa Etheridge win for original song for An Inconvenient Truth over the bloated, melismatic crapfest that is Dreamgirls. And I was happy to see Thelma Schoonmaker win for editing The Departed; she's worked with Scorsese for years, and his films aren't the same thing without her skill informing their relationship as director and editor. But I was disappointed with several other outcomes, most notably Alan Arkin's win for Little Miss Sunshine instead of Mark Wahlberg's work in The Departed. Sure, Arkin's performance as the lecherous grandpa (He's horny! He's profound! He's dead!) was entertaining, and the cast still managed to successfully pull off the prefab quirk of the comedy, and Arkin deserves some of that credit. But whereas Little Miss Sunshine was the ready-made indie-that-could — funny, sad, sweet, but still ready-made — Scorsese's fierce, sweeping crime drama contained the year's best everything: Story, performances, even the atmosphere. (Who could forget that gorgeous shot of the mobile of mirrors as Leonardo DiCaprio pursued Matt Damon over the wet streets and down that alley?) Wahlberg's ferocious but loyal cop was an integral part of Scorsese's film, which is fantastically, beautifully, wonderfully beyond its inspiration, the Hong Kong flick Infernal Affairs. It was fitting that Scorsese was presented his award by Francis Ford Coppola, Steven Spielberg, and George Lucas, the fellow kings of his era, the first kids to blast out of film school and change the face of American cinema. But Coppola has been phoning it in since Jack, and Lucas is a brilliant set designer and conceptual artist who long ago lost whatever connection he had to human emotion and his ability to write from the heart. Spielberg continues to grow as an artist, yet while he tackles the daddy and Holocaust issues that have colored his work from the beginning, Scorsese has become the most truly American filmmaker of the bunch. The Departed isn't just an adaptation of another film, or even a crime story, but a film that's relentlessly American, pulsing with the homegrown hate and love and despair and fratricide of the spacious boroughs and blood-stained waves of grain. A few of my coworkers have alternately referred to Departed as a "guy movie" or "popcorn actioner" (thus casting eternal doubt on their ability to actually discern good films from bad), but they're missing the point. From Jack Nicholson's coke-fueled Caligula to DiCaprio's lonely yearning to find a father in Martin Sheen, The Departed really was the best film of the year.

Anyway, on to my predictions and the winners:

Best Picture

Prediction: The Departed.

Dark Horse: Little Miss Sunshine.

Winner: The Departed.

Best Actor

Prediction: Forest Whitaker, The Last King of Scotland.

Dark Horse: Leonardo DiCaprio, Blood Diamond.

Winner: Forest Whitaker, The Last King of Scotland.

Best Actress

Prediction: Helen Mirren, The Queen.

Dark Horse: Meryl Streep, The Devil Wears Prada.

Winner: Helen Mirren, The Queen.

Best Supporting Actor

Prediction: Eddie Murphy, Dreamgirls.

Dark Horse: Mark Wahlberg, The Departed.

Winner: Alan Arkin, Little Miss Sunshine.

Best Supporting Actress

Prediction: Jennifer Hudson, Dreamgirls.

Dark Horse: Abigail Breslin, Little Miss Sunshine.

Winner: Jennifer Hudson, Dreamgirls.

Best Director

Prediction: Martin Scorsese, The Departed.

Dark Horse: Clint Eastwood, Letters From Iwo Jima.

Winner: Martin Scorsese, The Departed.

Best Original Screenplay

Prediction: Michael Arndt, Little Miss Sunshine.

Dark Horse: Paul Haggis, Iris Yamashita, Letters From Iwo Jima.

Winner: Michael Arndt, Little Miss Sunshine.

Best Adapted Screenplay

Prediction: William Monahan, The Departed.

Dark Horse: Sacha Baron Cohen et al.,Borat.

Winner: William Monahan, The Departed.

Best Cinematography

Prediction: Emmanuel Lubezki, Children of Men.

Dark Horse: Guillermo Navarro, Pan's Labyrinth.

Winner: Guillermo Navarro, Pan's Labyrinth.

Best Film Editing

Prediction: Clare Douglas, Christopher Rouse, Richard Pearson, United 93.

Dark Horse: Stephen Mirrione, Douglas Crise, Babel.

Winner: Thelma Schoonmaker, The Departed.

Best Art Direction

Prediction: Eugenio Caballero, Pilar Revuelta, Pan's Labyrinth.

Dark Horse: John Myhre, Nancy Haigh, Dreamgirls.

Winner: Eugenio Caballero, Pilar Revuelta, Pan's Labyrinth.

Best Costume Design

Prediction: Sharen Davis, Dreamgirls.

Dark Horse: Consolata Boyle, The Queen.

Winner: Milena Canonero, Marie Antoinette.

Best Original Score

Prediction: Alexandre Desplat, The Queen.

Dark Horse: Gustavo Santaolalla, Babel.

Winner: Gustavo Santaolalla, Babel.

Best Original Song

Prediction: Henry Krieger, Scott Cutler, Anne Preven, "Listen," Dreamgirls.

Dark Horse: Henry Krieger, Siedah Garrett, "Love You I Do," Dreamgirls.

Winner: Melissa Etheridge, "I Need to Wake Up," An Inconvenient Truth.

Best Makeup

Prediction: David Marti, Montse Ribe, Pan's Labyrinth.

Dark Horse: Aldo Signoretti, Vittorio Sodano, Apocalypto.

Winner: David Marti, Montse Ribe, Pan's Labyrinth.

Best Sound Mixing

Prediction: Dreamgirls.

Dark Horse: Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest.

Winner: Dreamgirls.

Best Sound Editing

Prediction: Letters From Iwo Jima.

Dark Horse: Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest.

Winner: Letters From Iwo Jima.

Best Visual Effects

Prediction: Superman Returns.

Dark Horse: Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest.

Winner: Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest.

Best Animated Feature

Prediction: Cars.

Dark Horse: Happy Feet.

Winner: Happy Feet.

Best Foreign-Language Film

Prediction: Pan's Labyrinth (Mexico).

Dark Horse: The Lives of Others (Germany).

Winner: The Lives of Others (Germany).

Best Documentary (Feature)

Prediction: An Inconvenient Truth.

Dark Horse: Deliver Us From Evil.

Winner: An Inconvenient Truth.

Best Documentary (Short Subject)

Prediction: Two Hands.

Dark Horse: The Blood of Yingzhou District.

Winner: The Blood of Yingzhou District.

Best Short Film (Animated)

Prediction: The Little Matchgirl.

Dark Horse: Lifted.

Winner: The Danish Poet.

Best Short Film (Live Action)

Prediction: West Bank Story.

Dark Horse: Binta and the Great Idea.

Winner: West Bank Story.

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1. The title's punctuation takes some getting used to. To be honest, it's kinda distracting.

2. One of my favorite lines: "This city has hot Latin flavor up to its nuts."

Anyway: Clickety-click.

In completely unrelated news, this is highly entertaining.

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This one is dedicated to my friend and traveling companion from my youth through today. He and I grew up together on the names of unknown actors, and that's what this list is meant to celebrate. (We also saw Croupier on the big screen, meaning we loved Clive Owen way back in the day. So there.) This one's for you, little brother Collins, and everyone who loves movies. So here it is:

The Man Who Wasn't There: A Salute to Character Actors.

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www.neomyz.com/poll

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"Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip" has by now established itself as perhaps Aaron Sorkin's weakest work (well, except for Malice). But it's certainly the weakest of his TV series, falling well behind "Sports Night" and "The West Wing" in terms of character development, creativity, storylines, and everything else. Sorkin is even up to his old tricks when it comes to dropping storylines whenever they begin to bore him; wasn't the "Studio 60" set supposed to be redesigned, like, months ago?

But the biggest change is perhaps in Sorkin's newfound cynicism for his characters that believe in God. Of course, Sorkin's distaste for zealots is hardly new; the pilot episode of "The West Wing" revolved around Josh almost getting fired for pissing off the religious right, and when the smug representatives of that movement came to the White House, the president smacked them down by quoting the Ten Commandments. This set two important precedents for the show: First, the religious right was going to be a pretty standard whipping boy for Sorkin's idealistic Bartlet administration. Second, Bartlet would be a man of well-reasoned, compassionate faith.

Sorkin's diatribes against narrow-minded religious extremists first appeared on "Sports Night," as in (for one of many instances) Casey McCall's on-air insults aimed at Jerry Falwell. Attacking the right-wing nutbars that are destroying the public faith of a lot of Americans is fine and dandy, it really is. However, the important thing on "The West Wing" wasn't just Bartlet's strong stance against the religious right, but his balancing that with his own yearning, personal faith. In the show's mythology, Bartlet minored in theology at Notre Dame, and his struggle to reconcile his faith in God with the horrible choices he faces as president added tremendous depth to the first few seasons of "The West Wing." The first season's "Take This Sabbath Day" shows Bartlet's spiritual vulnerability as he debates the commutation of a convict's death sentence, decides to let the sentence stand, and ultimately talks to his boyhood priest and asks forgiveness for his acts. Bartlet's spiritual vulnerability came to a head in Season 2's "Two Cathedrals," in which Bartlet curses and shouts at God as he reels from the death of Mrs. Landingham. Bartlet's soliloquy in Latin is heartrending, but he's not abandoning his faith: He's reasoning with it. There's never a sense that Bartlet is turning his back on his beliefs.

Which is what makes Sorkin's newfound bitterness toward Christianity in general so perplexing. He's got a track record of respecting characters of honest faith, yet Matt Albie is becoming an increasingly bitter spokesman for what one can only assume is Sorkin's developing animosity for people who believe in God. Entire episodes have revolved around the fact that Matt doesn't respect Harriet for having faith. The pilot episode revolved around a sketch called "Crazy Christians." And yes, both the sketch and Matt's mockery of Harriet are related to the religious right. But there is no Bartlet on "Studio 60," no man or woman who seems to represent the non-insane swath of believers out there. Sorkin keeps mounting attacks, but there's no one to respond with apologetics. I'd thought Sorkin respected people more than that, but I'm starting to think I was wrong.

So I leave you with this:

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Over at The Stream, there's apparently going to be a new installment of Friday Fangirl Fantasm, which, word has it, is worth your time and attention. They'll be talking about when good TV shows go bad.

So at the risk of turning this site into deadline-driven place that relies on timeliness — as opposed to the history-making, timeless kind of vibe it currently puts out — you should all head over to The Stream on Sunday, Feb. 18, at 5 p.m. PST. (Which would be 8 p.m. Eastern, 7 Central, and 6 for anyone who lives in the Mountain time zone and has access to an internet in their woodsy little shack.)

That's all.

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"This movie's retarded." I thought that at least a dozen times. I couldn't even form a more complex thought under the assault of The Being That Is Cage. "This movie's retarded."

Anyway: Clickety-click.

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Two quick points, and the lesson is yours:

The Pajiba trade round-up.

and

What Pajiba's reading.

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Sis: there was a body found in a field here. the big country is falling apart

me: ...whoa

wow

murder?

suicide?

Sis: i have no idea

just a body

me: wow

"just a body"

were any fingers missing or anything?

Sis: haha, i don't know

[...]

brb

Sis: back

me: did you go out to see the body?

Sis: haha, no

i moved my car

me: ah

did avoid seeing the body because you're actually the killer?

it's ok. you can tell me

Sis: ...

me: ...crap, sarah

not again

not the murders AGAIN

Sis: :-/

me: way to let down mom and dad

and the state of texas correctional system

Sis: sorry

me: ah well

just don't do it again

now go out and play, you rascal

Sis: ok!

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For those of you on Facebook who are so inclined:

Join the Pajiba group.

It might not solve all your problems. Or even most of them. In fact, it probably won't solve any of them.

But you should still do it.

P.S. A bright shiny penny and a pat on the asshead to whoever can name the inspiration behind this post's headline.

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revenge

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[A special dedication and salutation up front to the citizens of Curious People for a Curious America. This has been a long time coming.]

O "Lost."

Things have been going pretty poorly for the castaways for a long time now, and though the show isn't out of the woods (or jungle) yet, it just might be headed for a turnaround. Might.

• The biggest problem facing the show is that very, very little happens in each episode. Since half of each weekly installment is devoted to a flashback (the merits of which are also up for debate), only 20ish minutes per eipsode are used for actual plot progression. It's like watching one season of "24" stretched over three years, and it's more than little trying. The narrative boredom is compounded by the fact that this season, instead of sprinkling in repeats with the new episodes, the show took a 13-week break between its fall and spring segments. "Not in Portland," the most recent episode, feels so far removed from last fall's events I can't remember anything but the last few minutes of the fall "finale." (To be addressed shortly.) As for what's happening with the rest of the islanders: Who the hell knows.

• Juliet's ex-husband is Edmund Burke, apparently named afer this guy. This is not in any way deep or significant or a sign of writerly skill. The Wachowski brothers weren't brilliant for naming their hero the prefix for "new" and the anagram for "one," either. "Lost" already has Locke, Rousseau, and Hume. Adding Edmund Burke to their roster is neither original nor meaningful.

• Edmund is played by Zeljko Ivanek. You should all learn his name.

• Juliet is also one of the few hot grownups on TV. (Most women are in their 20s playing 18 or in their 30s playing 26.) I don't really know where to go with that. I'm just saying, if she made a movie with Diane Lane ... boy howdy.

• This is probably one of the better episodes of this season. The six episodes last fall had sporadic moments of greatness — the opening of the season premiere that revealed the second island was right up there — but on the whole, the best part of those half-dozen installments was the final moments of the previous episode, "I Do," which was a Kate-centric episode showing how she kept on breaking hearts and running from her problems back in her old life (this is easily the billionth time that's been pointed out to us). But it ended with a spectacularly taut sequence that recalled the show's heady early days: The stakes were high, the choices were clear, the consequences were unknown, and something big and bad was about to rain down.

• Jack's decision to use Ben's life as leverage to free Kate and Sawyer was a strong one, and Juliet's complicity in planning the murder finally gave her character some depth beyond the ice cold schoolmarm vibe she was putting out. "Not in Portland" picks up in that heated moment of balance, with Jack screaming at Kate over the walkie to run and escape with Sawyer.

• Juliet's backstory, though it follows the same pattern as everyone else's — get involved in something bad in the real world, look for similar situations on the island, attempt to right past wrongs, repeat — is rewarding because it actually has a bearing on the overall story and the reasons the island(s) exist in the first place. But for every sly hint the show makes at the details, it also beats the viewer over the head with meaning.

• For example: Juliet tells Shady Hispanic Doctor (Nestor Carbonell) that she can't go work for his creepy-ass experimental hospital without her husband's okay, and that will never happen, so unless he gets hit by a bus, she's stuck in Miami. SHD laughs it off, but sure enough, not too much later, Edmund is steamrolled like that kid in Final Destination. It's pretty clear that SHD arranged the vehicular manslaughter, which is driven home by the fact that he shows up atthe morgue to pass on his condolences, and he just so happens to have Ethan in tow. The shock of recognition as Juliet puts the puzzle together is wonderful, but it's completely undone by the fact that she keeps telling SHD about how she'd mentioned the bus thing before, and then SHD has to deny this, and blah blah go on already. The scene would have been stronger if she'd figured things out and then internalized it and gone right to "Why are you here?" The series wants to be a smart mystery, and that won't happen until it respects its viewers enough to expect them to keep up with the emotional changes of the characters and not spell out every little thing.

• What the hell happened to Walt and MercutioMichael? Oh, that's right, they sailed off into the sunset and were promptly forgotten by everyone. I haven't seen a series so spectacularly blunder characters since "The West Wing" phased out Ainsley.

• I strongly identified with Jack's mix of what could be called bemused indignation when Juliet informed him that yes, he would have to go back to his cell until his fate could be decided. That look is the look I usually have when watching "Lost" now: I just can't quite believe this all still happening.

• I've written before that "Lost" feels like two shows trying to co-exist in the same space, with one show following the medical conspiracy of Dharma and the other connecting the castaways through unbelievable interpersonal contrivances¹. The series is straining under the weight of its breadth, which is why "Not in Portland" could herald good things to come in that it represents a small but marked attempt to streamline the two warring shows-within-a-show. The relevance of Juliet's backstory provides welcome hints at the kind of genetic hijinks the Dharma folks have been up to, as well as explain why she's on the island and how she relates to its inhabitants. Granted, "Lost" still has a long way to go if it ever wants to come close to recapturing the fiery brilliance of its first season, which blended mystery and action in a kind of pop art/comic book mix that is poorly imitated to this day, most notably by "Lost" itself. But the show seems like it might finally have gotten the crap out of its system, and could be once more returning to its roots. I'm hopeful.

^{1. I stole that phrase from JMW's latest review. Just so you know.}

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In response to just overwhelming demand, we at Pajiba have decided to compile something special just for you:

The Best of Pajiba.

Just take a gander:

• It's got all the Guides, which have been scientifically proven to improve the reader's quality of life.

• It's got a collection of each author's greatest hits, like Babel, Brokeback Mountain, Norbit, United 93, and "Freaks and Geeks".

• It's got ads. Hey, we have bills to pay.

Anyway: The Best of Pajiba.

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[The first in what could very well be a multipart series in which I, in my sadly infinite wisdom on such matters, provide you, the socially well-adjusted public, with the insights necessary to understand those geeks around you and the tools to better speak their language.]

The Lord of the Rings is not a trilogy.

Douglas A. Anderson writes in his opening note on the text of the 1987 revised American edition: "J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings is often erroneously called a trilogy, when is in fact a single novel, consisting of six books plus appendices, sometimes published in three volumes."

The book's acceptance among wider audiences, due to the overwhelming popularity of the hacky and derivative film series adapted from the book by director Peter Jackson, has furthered the spread of the incorrect terminology. Jackson's films could more correctly be called a triptych, as opposed to more classically recognized film trilogies as the original Star Wars triology, or the Godfather cycle, or even the Scream films.

But the novel? One story. One book. It was originally published in three volumes because of post-war paper shortages in the U.K. and to help keep costs down, and it's still often packaged and sold that way out of convenience. It's easier to carry one of the individual thirds than to lug around the entire epic. But it is one continuous story, and it's impossible — and foolish — to attempt to simply read one of the volumes, or to refer to one as "better" than the other two, as if the stories are part of a series and not one cohesive whole.

It's one book. Not a trilogy.

Thanks for your time.

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I almost titled this review, "More Like Hannibal Sucking." That ought to tell you everything.

Clickety-click.

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The new and improved, smaller and stronger, easier to digest version of:

The Pajiba trade round-up.

Because it's always worth your time.

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Another great entry in Pajiba's Guide to What's Good For You (and when have we ever steered you wrong?):

The Tearjerkiest Moments of the Last 20 Years.

I would throw in the moment where Casey McCall bonds with his young son, but that's about it. It's a solid list. Go read it right now.

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Placentia

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Did John Hughes ever sink so low/soar so high as he did with Weird Science? Of the four films¹ he wrote and directed between 1984-1986 — Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club, Weird Science, Ferris Bueller's Day Off — he was never more relentlessly cornball, more sexually outgoing, or more ferociously devoted to overly romantic young-male fantasies than he was in Weird Science, his 1985 ode to cars, boys, and falling in love with emotionally empty women. Think about that for a minute: He gave us Jake Ryan on the dinner table, a softhearted Judd Nelson, and Alan Ruck's unbearable little monologue about standing up to Dad, and Weird Science is cheesier than all those combined. Just let that sink in.

As Gary and Wyatt, Anthony Michael Hall and Ilan Mitchell-Smith are two amazingly horny losers whose sad, lonely high school existence revolves around fantasizing about the hot girlfriends of their school's popular jerks and consoling themselves in their mutual troubles; in other words, they're pretty average teenagers. But they go the extra step by using their computer — which can do anything, this being the 1980s — to create an actual woman to serve as their sex slave. (Needless to say, this premise could have gone way, way darker.)

But Hughes, like his randy heroes, is squarely in PG-13 territory here, meaning (a) sex will be minimal, (b) it will be usurped by true love, and (c) things are going to work out so well that the fantasy of the willing sex robot will seem normal by comparison. What's more, the guys won't just turn their lives around in the relatively minor ways of the characters in Hughes' other films, but will have their fantasy lives actually handed to them by digital/virtual Lisa (Kelly LeBrock).

Despite their references to Lisa as a "sexpot," Gary and Wyatt never come close to engaging in any onscreen antics with her: They wear pants in the group shower, they don't do much touching, and they barely even kiss her. Lisa and Wyatt share a pretty awkward scene where she teaches him to kiss², but the scene isn't established as foreplay. Hughes injects a tone of such rampant sexuality into the rest of the film that it's almost hard to believe there's almost no real sex, but there isn't. This is just as well, because Gary and Wyatt are about 45 minutes away from turning into really sappy poetic types to be engaging in mindless lovin' with their dream girl.

Gary and Wyatt have true love in their futures, or at least the kind of one-dimensional relationships dreamt of by the very young and very foolish. Lisa's goal, ostensibly, is to help these guys realize just how much they've really got going for them, give them a shot in the arm and a boost of confidence, and in general make them comfortable talking to women. These are all noble goals, and really, any 16-year-old guy would welcome such a teacher. And the film still makes me laugh, too; I'm nostalgic like that. But things don't just "turn around" for Gary and Wyatt, or start to look up; they become so freakishly wonderful that the film goes from being a somewhat sweet sex comedy to a saccharine take on fictional love as only exists in the hearts of the simple.

After throwing a giant party and standing up to a marauding biker gang, Gary and Wyatt spend a little alone time with, respectively, Deb (Suzanne Snyder) and Hilly (Judie Aronson³). These are the two girls that Gary and Wyatt have been pining for since their party started, but it's not clear if they've had any earlier contact with them. Sure, they saw them around the mall, but it's not like Hughes gave Gary or Wyatt even a moment's exposition to say, "Wow, Deb's looking good today," or, "I'm pretty sure Hilly is my soulmate. Now if only I could talk to her." But they're cute, and they're around, so they'll do. And then Hughes has the girls do the unthinkable: They ask for the boys to love them. Hilly even comes right out with it, staring right at Wyatt and asking, "Would you kiss me?" This is the ultimate juvenile male fantasy: Not just the attainment of a woman, but not having to do any work to get her. It's pornographic in the most cinematic sense of the word; she throws herself at him with literally no provocation.

Gary and Deb have a similarly ridiculous hook-up, when Gary tells her that he created Lisa to have everything he wanted in a woman before he knew what that was, and that if he could do it all again, he'd make her just like Deb. This is a pretty ballsy statement, especially considering this is the first real conversation Gary and Deb have ever had, and he doesn't even know what kind of music she likes, much less what she's actually like as a human being. So of course they sleep together, and even when Wyatt's brother Chet (a typically crappy Bill Paxton) threatens them with a shotgun, Deb stays snuggled up against Gary's chest because, well, why not.

The thing about Weird Science that appeals to young men isn't just the idea of fashioning a sex slave with a computer, or seeing Kelly LeBrock make out with what could be a parallel-universe of themselves. But the real kicker, where Hughes goes just screaming over the abyss and rejects the pseudo-realistic touches of his other films in favor of outright fantasy, is that Gary and Wyatt finally "move on" from Lisa into an even more imaginary version of real life. They didn't meet women; they met warm bodies that begged to sleep with them and offered to serve as a willing continuation of the sexual self-delusions that led them to create Lisa in the first place. Of course, most of Hughes' stories end in harmony and bliss; like it or not, Duckie should have gone home alone, not hooked up with Kristy Swanson. But in Weird Science, Hughes doesn't just present a fantasy as reality; he holds up two fantasies and claims that one might actually be feasible.

^{1. Howard Deutch directed the Hughes-penned Pretty in Pink (1986) and its gender-reversed duplicate, Some Kind of Wonderful (1987). And while I recognize that the director is not the sole crafter of a film and that Hughes is a more recognizable screenwriting presence than most, I'm gonna stick with auteurism for the sake of this little piece. So, deal.}

2. Just typing that creeped me out.

3. It's another awesome moment to realize that Wyatt steals Hilly from Ian, played by Robert Downey Jr., and that Aronson had a bit part in Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, also with Downey, two decades later. Did she audition? Did they just need a random actress, so Downey called her up and threw her some work? Do they still hang out? I could think about this all day.

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