I still owe you The Hangover (which I will gladly see, as Zach G is a personal favorite) from last week. And this week, it remained in the #1 slot.

#2 was Up, which I did two weeks ago (kinda).

#3 was… The Taking of Pelham 123.

As if my wife’s cancer wasn’t bad enough.

If all goes well on Wednesday morning, maybe I’ll take Teresa along on Thursday (for the former movie, not the latter — I love my wife) and post a review before the weekend.

In retrospect, I guess America’s taste is OK (assuming The Hangover isn’t a train wreck). I just wish they’d have made me see Drag Me To Hell.

And I know they’ll make me see Transformers: So Much Computer-Generated Clanking! next month.

Sigh.

Speaking as a big guy, there are NO advantages to being a big guy (except maybe people not wanting to sit next to you on the train, but that might be because I never stop singing “Gonna See Miss Liza, Gonna Go To Mississippi” whenever I use the MTA). And despite crippling back pain that flared up whenever I wiped my ass, I would never ever nenver use this.

And stop dissing the 1880’s, Comfort Wipe!

(thanks Chris ‘n’ Lisa!)

There’s a gigantic float parked across the street. It’s for the GMAD (Gay Men of African Descent), which keeps its street cred by not including women (I kid, I kid). It has a sign that reads “Serving the Black Gay Community for Over 20 Years” and if my wife was better, I would insist she take a picture of me sitting on it and wiping my mouth.

There’s also a street fair on Prospect Park West (they shut the street down — seemingly all the way to Grand Army Plaza) which is like any other street fair but for the inordinate number of gay people trying to give out stickers.

The reason I bring all of this up is that I went to get the glowing wife a bagel earlier and some young kids (early teens at the latest) were heading towards the park for a little league game and one boy was pushing another boy and pointing towards Bartel Pritchard Square (which is now festooned with rainbows of balloons) and saying, “That’s why you’re going to the gay pride parade! That’s why you want to go to the gay pride parade!”

Two elderly Irish ladies happened to be standing next to them waiting for the light to change. One said to the taunter, “Tat’s royt. ‘eez goan to dah ghi proyd pareed and good fer him!”

The light changed. The women crossed, the boys stayed behind and, once the old ladies were out of earshot, the tunted boy said, “I ain’t no faggot!” which caught the attention of… a pack of greasy lesbians (I’m not trying to foment stereotypes here, but they all had on wifebeaters (ha!) and slicked back hair and were calling each other “nigger” despite all of them being Hispanic).

As interested as I was in seeing how publically humiliated these boys were about to become, I sped home to feed the Mrs.

But if you see some young boys hanging by their underwear in the trees of Prospect Park, remind them that it isn’t nice to hate on gays.

And on that note, I am going to see what else I can do to make my lady in the next room happy. Maybe I’ll re-enact Castillo’s beautiful sampling of fuck-ups that resulted in a Yankee win last night…

Or maybe I’ll show her this:

It’s like that Donovan song: First, there is no water. Then there is some water. Then there’s still water, but your thirsty daughter can go fuck herself (after all, if she dehydrates to the point of death, that’s at least one more bestseller for you, right, Kate?)

This is why only PROFESSIONAL NON-CHILD-ABUSING ACTORS should be allowed to have TV shows.

Teresa is doing great (relatively). Her excellent chef of a husband has been making her delicious treats (once that meant candy… now it means sweet corn) and she is thoroughly enjoying what passes for discourse (more like discharge, am I right?) in the ol’ IRC Political Forum. Beyond that, we’re taking it easy. Thanks again to all the well-wishing from all you well-wishers.

Maybe if Teresa was pushing a blind man out of the path of oncoming traffic when she took the radioactive stuff… maybe then she’d get superpowers…

Real quick: Teresa’s doing OK. Drank the drink this afternoon. We’ll know tomorrow if she has to stay another night or not.

Her asshole endocrinologist showed up and told her “she needed to put ‘all that’ behind her” referring to his acting like an irresponsible piece of shit and telling her “you’ll just have to be an outpatient” before hanging up on her.

I have deadlines to meet, so I’ll just add this:

kgw.me

It contains all of the Kleenex Girl Wonder albums of the last few years, including the one that was released yesterday. Some great stuff, some not.

But Graham is kind of a dick, so just listen to it. Don’t, you know, buy it or anything.

G’night!

If not for our good friend, Bethany, I would be in police custody with my wife’s endocrinologist’s skull in an evidence bag.

After taking the two injections that prepare her for tomorrow’s treatment, we found out that:

a) no one asked the insurance company for all of the necessary approvals

b) her endocrinologist insists that we all agreed that I would move out for a week or two and let Teresa fend for herself in our home (where we share common areas with two young children), and that she will do all of the radioactive treatments as an outpatient

c) if you tell this endocrinologist that he is mistaken, he will yell at you (even if you are in tears, feeling helpless and betrayed) and hang up the phone on you

d) how Bill Hicks felt about marketing professionals, I feel about doctors

I would write more (I’ll provide this asshole’s name and induct him to the Hall of Fame for Jerks soon), but I am expecting to take my wife to the hospital tomorrow (where hopefully she’ll get to be an inpatient!) and I want to spend as much time as I can with her.

To the handful of people that are actively (and sympathetically) scrambling to help my wife, I thank you from the bottom of my heart. To everyone else, not only should you feel ashamed to the pit of your soul (or lack thereof), but I promise you that the AMA will be getting a whole bunch of letters from me.

We don’t need healthcare reform in this country. We need healthcare.

The Republican senator said something yesterday that struck me as asinine, then infuriating, and ultimately both. He called my BFP’s healthcare plan, “the first step in destroying the best healthcare system the world has ever known.”

Senator Shelby? Fuck you. Not because you’re a Republican or because you’re from Alabama, but because I live in New York City. I’ve been to emergency rooms in Manhattan more times than anyone should ever have to. I’ve seen the misery on people’s faces at 2 in the morning. I’ve spent months (at two different points in my life) begging Oxford to let me take the medicine that I’ve used for years and not be a guinea pig just to see if they can give me something cheaper.

I’ve seen the horrors that my wife has had (and continues) to go through just to get treatment for the cancer she was diagnosed with. Which they wouldn’t have found if they hadn’t removed the thyroid that they discovered was crushing her windpipe. Which Teresa has complained of for roughly a decade or two with each one telling her it was nothing to worry about.

They might not have been so blase if they thought her insurance carrier would approve the tests necessary to properly diagnose her without fighting tooth and nail to save a buck. Or maybe they would. Or maybe, in Alabama, everyone is healthy and there’s just no need for fancy medical what have yous, and that’s because of you, Dick, and I should kneel to your infinite wisdom. Or maybe, as you read this, your neighbor is defecating on your driveway.

Shelby further warned (on Fox News Sunday, don’tcha know) that a government plan that would compete with private insurers “can destroy the marketplace for health care, and it will be a mistake, and the American people better be careful in what they want.”

Fuck you, Dick. I read these quotes on page 12 of today’s “paper.”

On page 16, there was a story about Todd Johnson, 42. He was in diabetic shock (though he didn’t realize he was diabetic) and was rushed to Interfaith Hospital and placed on a gurney and ignored for seven hours.

Well, ignored is a harsh word. He passed in and out of consciousness and tried to leave and get help elsewhere TWICE. Each time, he’d collapse outside and get brought back in by security. Put on the gurney. Not given insulin. Not given a glass of water despite obvious signs of dehydration. Just put in the corner to be dealt with later.

He was a co-owner of Bed-Stuy’s Le Starving Artiste Cafe. He had a loving family. And in March of 2006, he died on a stretcher because his insurance wasn’t as good as someone else’s. Because unlike my wife, he didn’t have someone by his side, demanding that someone actually LOOK AT HIM.

Remember that woman at Kings County Hospital? The one who waited in the ER for roughly A DAY before keeling over and dying? The one who was also completely ignored by staff as she withered away, alone in a crowded room?

And you have the nerve to tell me that I don’t want the marketplace for health care to be destroyed, you miserable shit? I should be concerned that Pfizer might not be able to charge people $40/pill for medicine they might need to live? Are you kidding me?

In all seriousness, I hope that members of your family who aren’t covered by what I’m sure is your full-coverage senatorial plan have need of doctors in an immediate way. I hope that your flippant attitude hits a brick wall when you hear your grandchild weeping into the phone that no one is bothering to look at her sick infant. That all they do is insist she fill out paperwork. That they need to get confirmation from her plan and it will take hours for an approval, which she might not get. I hope your epiphany chokes you into a lucid coma where your testicles constantly itch and you can only shed tears and soil linens.

What my wife and I have had to deal with in the last year is despicable. And we HAVE insurance. Oh, it’s costing us enough money each year to have a second smaller apartment, but it’s better than most other plans out there.

But the system is horribly broken. Possibly irreparably. The insurance companies aren’t going to voluntarily lower their rates. They’ll keep raising them (bigger profit margin, you see. Makes the stockholders who benefit from our infirmities reeeeeeeal happy, you see.) and we’ll beg to pay them. Because we don’t want to end up on a gurney in a corner begging for help.

Congratulations on your induction into the Hall of Fame for Jerks, Dick.

And look who’ll be waiting for you in Hell! Your old pal, Saddam!

Are you… holding hands with Mr. Hussein, Dick? Does anyone in Alabama know about this? Or evolution?

This is not only NSFW, it’s NSFPWVTTAPOM (not safe for people who value their time and peace of mind).

Allegedly (and I’m throwing up too hard to research this myself), Kobe Bryant’s rape victim did a “freestyle rap” about a year ago. It’s, um, in poor taste? Awful? More embarrassing than the Don’t Call Me A Homo Boy?

If you have any pity or empathy or compassion for this woman, and you want to maintain it, do not watch. And I apologize that the title of the video is also kinda NSFW. I didn’t name it.

And freestyle rap is in quotes because I know for a fact that her science is way too tight for that to have been made up on the spot.

Look away or may God have mercy on your soul.

Chicken fried steak, y’all!

The Cell 2 just moved down a peg on my “Most Unlikely Movies That Somehow Get Made Anyhoodles” list.

You remember Adaptation.? Great movie. Really great.

Remember the movie-within-the-movie (not the one based on The Orchid Thief — the spec thriller called The 3)? Remember the really horrible twist ending? Remember how we all laughed when Nicolas Cage pitched it to Nicolas Cage? Yeah. It sure was a terrible idea (but great comedy).

I just learned that there exists a best-selling book. A thriller. Ted Dekker’s Thr3e.

Did you know they made a movie based on it a few years back?

I just had the woeful misfortune of watching it (as I read the paper, cleaned the kitchen and did my nails).

I kept waiting for Charlie Kaufman to come in and deliver a punchline, but no. It’s The 3, sans snark and irony and cliche-embracing. Oh, and plus lots of Jeebus-thumping (I guess Dekker is a big fan of G*d [I am not against saying or typing "God" but I like placing a little puckering void in the middle of his name -- when I get my winning Lotto ticket, I'll totes be pious]?).

Seriously, universe. What the fuck?

Movies can be magical. Some are so magical, they remain as popular today as when they were first released many DECADES ago. Pixar makes magical movies. Up is magical.

The opening short film? Adorable and magical.

The first ten minutes of the movie? I wept.

The rest of the movie (starring a septuagenarian and the fat boy scout he hates) is a beautiful story of a man who wants to fulfill his dead wife’s life-long dream (despite the logistical improbability).

I briefly considered doing one of my regular “break-it-down-and-expose-the-nuts-and-bolts” reviews, but then I thought, “why ruin any of the magic that I got to experience?” So, I’ll tell you it’s worth seeing (in my opinion, the 3-D version was nice, but I don’t think it was necessary — I’d like to see the 2-D version soon) and that it seems to be geared more to the adults than the kids (or my arrested development is showing), and that it gets a solid A from me (I cried at the end, as well), but that’s all you’ll get.

What I WILL do, however, is break down Armond White’s “review” of Up.

I will bold Armond’s words to differentiate between us and also because he’s Black.

The Way of Pixarism

By Armond White

Pixar rules pop media like nothing since mid-20th century General Motors held sway as the preeminent American corporation (and the bane of grassroots individualism). Every Pixar film—including the new Up, gushed over by Cannes Film Festival shills—is greeted with nearly patriotic fervor. This absurdity clarifies contemporary news media’s unprincipled collusion with Hollywood capitalism.

Wait. Are you saying that Pixar’s movies AREN’T worthy of their praise? That if not for the news media’s collusion, people would see that their animated emperors have no clothes? Really? Or do you just hate White people?

Up’s uninteresting story of an old widower who attaches his home to helium balloons and floats off to Venezuela with an overeager kid in tow follows the same formula as the previous nine Pixar movies. But artistic standards get trumped by a special feature: sentimentality. Pixar’s price sticker includes enough saccharine emotion to distract some viewers from being more demanding; they don’t mind the blatant narrative manipulation of a sad old man and lonely little boy. They buy animation to extend their childhood like men who buy cars for phallic symbols.

1) Armond found Up’s story “uninteresting,” but this is the same man who wrote (in his review of Dance Flick — which he really loved), “No matter how many people get verklempt over the lugubrious Benjamin Button, I know in my soul that history will avenge the Wayanses’ superior age/masculinity farce Little Man and fans who have already forgotten Eminem’s 8 Mile will one day catch up to Damon Wayans’ insightful hip-hop burlesque, Marci X.”

2) His car analogies are getting tiresome. Especially his comparison between buying a ticket to a cartoon and buying a car because you like big penises.

As a child, Carl Fredrickson, already a young fogey, thrilled to the airborne adventures of daredevil explorer C.J. Muntz. But in retirement, Fredrickson sulks; mischief deeply buried beneath blandness. Carl’s not an irascible audience-surrogate like the urban curmudgeon Mr. Magoo. Only Russell, the pie-faced, father-abandoned, 8-year-old scout, is cuter. “Cute” is how Pixar oversimplifies the world.

1) Mr. Magoo was an “audience-surrogate”? Armond, for serious, are you retarded? That’s like saying Toonces, The Cat Who Could Drive A Car was an audience-surrogate. For those of you who aren’t used to reading movie reviews by people who gets erections whenever they confuse their readers, an Audience Surrogate (no hyphen, Whitey!) is “like the audience, normally young — permitting the audience vicarious participation in the hero’s adventures.”* That’s certainly how I felt whenever Magoo yelled at that Asian fellow, or when Toonces’ mouth opened before the car crashed.

2) The kid in Up (Russell) is Asian. Armond just referred to him as “pie-faced.” I find that quite niggardly.

3) Pixar oversimplifies the world IN THEIR CARTOONS as cute? Um… have you ever seen a Disney movie? Or, you know, any other cartoon ever? They’re (almost) all cute (thanks for fucking up my theory, unwatchable Shrek franchise!) — not because they’re “oversimplifying the world,” you sanctimonious prick, but because cartoons do better when the leads don’t repulse children (thanks again, Shrek franchise!). And I’m glad that you found the old man lead (who is cranky, belligerent, borderline-hateful even) cute (or is that you oversimplifying your original review which explained that by saying “I loved it!” when everyone else says “I hated it!” and vice versa, you’ve made a name for yourself in the free-weeklies-no-one-cares-about market?).

Even the montage showing Carl’s marriage to childhood sweetheart Ellie (their wedding, companionship, XXXXXXXXXX, then XXXXXXXXXX), is over-sentimentalized. This silent interlude is no more daring than the utterly conventional Wall-E: It concludes with XXXXXXXXX. Sheesh. Although Chaplinesque music underscores these maudlin scenes, they’re not emotionally pure like Chaplin; they preen. Critics who forget that movies should be about people defend this reduction of human experience.

1) I replaced spoilers with “XXXXXXXXXX” so that Armond’s bullshit can be enjoyed while maintaining some mystery where plot is concerned.

2) Yes. The interlude wasn’t “daring.” What it was was emotionally true. I’m sure that someone like you goes to bed alone every night, wondering what love feels like. But, as someone who shares his life with someone who would bend over backwards for him (and vice versa), I can tell you that the unfolding of Carl and Ellie’s relationship was daring in its TRUTH. Go masturbate while crying, you goateed douchebag.

3) Chaplin never preened? Really. Do you mean Charlie or Oona?

4) Movies should be about people? Really? No wonder you hate Pixar! Their movies are about fish! Monsters! Cars! A rat! Bugs!

5) The reduction of human experience? Are you fucking high? It’s an 80-minute movie that takes YEARS to produce and you’re mad because it wasn’t unspooled in real time? Tell me how the 70-year version of the movie is.

When Up trivializes Carl and Russell’s loneliness—treating it to the same Journey/Rescue/Return blueprint as Finding Nemo, Cars, Wall-E, Monsters, Inc., A Bug’s Life, Toy Story 1 and 2—the predictability becomes cloying. And the inevitable shift to anthropomorphism—Carl and Russell float to South America, encountering a prehistoric bird and mysteriously “talking” dogs—is very nearly depressing. Almost as depressing as Wall-E. Despite some imaginative imagery (gray-blue night storms, dark yet vivid jungle scenes, compositional values J.J. Abrams knows nothing about), Up drops its emotional elements for chase mechanics and precious comedy. This way, Pixar disgraces and delimits the animated film as a mushy, silly pop form.

1) You should read some Joseph Campbell. Or hang yourself. And for more of the “Journey/Rescue/Return blueprint,” swing by a comic book store. Pick any one at random and, if the hero doesn’t win at the end, check the following issue.

2) Oh! Up has imaginative imagery! Well, too bad the imagery plays such a small part in A FUCKING CARTOON.

3) The reason the dogs talk is mysterious until 20 seconds later, when it is explained. Did you watch the movie while dreaming up ways to shit on it? Maybe if you had paid attention, you’d realize that the amount of “anthropomorphism” in this movie is NONE.

4) That’s right! Shit on Star Trek again, in case people forgot that you’re a contrarian by trade and a film critic by error.

5) Yeah! Fuck you for adding humor to this movie, Pixar! And chase mechanics! It should have been much sadder and far more maudlin! Why were no children bawling in my local theater!?!

6) I had to look up “delimits.” It means “limits.” I hate Armond White so much.

7) Saying that Pixar limits what animated films can be is like saying the Beatles ruined pop music with their records. Would Hollywood be as eager to dump trillions of dollars on cartoons if Pixar hadn’t shown them that solid, funny, well-animated all-ages movies will be embraced by everyone except Armond White?

Pixarism defines the backward taste for animation. Refuting Chuck Jones’ insistence that he didn’t create his great Warner Bros. cartoon for children, Pixarism domesticates and homogenizes animation—as if to preserve family values. The only exceptions have been Brad Bird’s Pixar movies The Incredibles and Ratatouille—both sumptuously executed in Bird’s belief that animation should show “how things feel rather than are. Indulging in the human aspect of being alive.” Yet their conceptual weak point was cuteness—same as Up’s glossing over Carl’s XXXXXXXXXX and that inconsistently imagined dog pack.

Did you just say that Pixar “domesticates and homogenizes animation”? Did you accidentally attend the screening of one of Michael Apted’s __ Up documentaries? At least you liked The Incredibles (which was so not about a Journey/Rescue/Return) (wait… yes it was) and Ratatouille (lots of people in that one, so you were OK with the anthropomorphism, right?). Oh! But those cartoons were also cute! Why couldn’t the rat have diseases? Why couldn’t some of the Incredibles have glaring birth defects?

Also, the dog pack wasn’t inconsistently imagined. You were. By your parents. Oh no I dih-ih!

After ripping-off Albert Lamorisse’s classic The Red Balloon, dispersing it into Carl’s thousands of colorful orbs, Pixar then literalizes the meaning of flight as a commercial icon: Up. Here, it’s simply the means to “adventures” and not an ecstatic elevation of individual identity. Last year, elitist film nerds forgot how Hou Hsiao Hsien’s Flight of the Red Balloon also dishonored Lamorisse’s beautiful tale—as they cynically overrated the entropic Wall-E.

Um… The Red Balloon is a classic. But just because lots of balloons appear in both movies, you cannot accuse Pixar of plagiarism. Just as I can’t accuse you of stealing some of you smartest observations from the sign held by that homeless man who hangs out in front of Filene’s Basement on Broadway and 79th (he also thought Dance Flick was terrific, I assume). Also, anyone else having a hard time reading that first sentence? The one that whines about how the floating house is merely the means to an end and not “an ecstatic elevation of individual identity”? Yeah. But kudos to Whitey for managing to insult film critics for not screaming “PLAGIARISM!!!!” at The Flight of the Red Balloon (I haven’t seen it, but hey — it has a red balloon in it, so it must be plagiarism). But here’s the best part of the review (and not just because it’s the end):

All this deflated cinema and Pixarism mischaracterizes what good animation can be, as in Coraline, Monster House, Chicken Little, Teacher’s Pet, The Iron Giant. Up’s aesthetic failure stems from its emotional letdown.

Coraline was gorgeous. The Iron Giant was phenomenal. But the other three movies Whitey holds up as examples of what animation should be?

Chicken Little?

Just looking at this promotional art makes me sad. Shitty animation, a fish in a football helmet, a duck that is ugly… uh, weren’t cartoons supposed to be about PEOPLE, Whitey? And boo to anthropomorphing?

Monster House?

This animation is terrible! Oh, wait. This is the Game Boy Advance version. Hang on.

OK. So, dogs wearing collars that allow their thoughts to be heard? That’s bad. Too anthropomorphic. But a house that eats children? THAT’S about PEOPLE!

And Teacher’s Pet?

That doesn’t even look like Clark Gable! Wait. Wrong one.

How is this appropriate for kids? Oh. Sorry. Here we go…

Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I put it to you that Armond “Whitey” White is so utterly filled with shit that every time he burps, four unblemished logs tumble to the floor. Have you ever seen animation this shitty? Couple that with the fact that (I think?) these things aren’t people! They’re… horribly drawn.

That’ll do it for me, but here are some of my favorite comments on the website Whitey posted his review on:

you are an idiot
please turn your computer off and never turn it back on D-bag

by Your Mother

Let me be the first to congratulate Armond on using his dislike for Up (which I haven’t seen) as an excuse to bash Flight of the Red Balloon. It’s not every critic that can create such a penetrating dialectic between films involving balloons. I salute his speaking truth to power etc. etc.

by Vadim

You are a joke.
Go watch another Friedberg-Seltzer movie.
Your opinions are about as worthless as you are.

by Matt

hack. reviewer equivalent of a troll. trolling presumably to wring out clickthroughs. you randomly take a potshot at jj abrams half way through, and in case, you hadn’t noticed – you do a complete plot walkthrough, interspersed with meaningless verbiage. You moron.

pompous meaningless verbiage like:

“yet their conceptual weakpoint was cuteness..” if cuteness is in fact a weak point in an animation directed primarily at children, why is it conceptual? why say conceptual? Cuteness is not a ‘concept’ in the context of the animations you’re referring to – you utter, utter, utter moron.

by swimtwobirds

Im not going to say anything because you clearly get off to being a retard.

by Duke

Well said, everyone but duke.

To read the (many, many) other comments, click here.

And to you, Armond, I say: Please to shut the fuck up.

Good day.

*Googling takes so much time and energy!