Swedile at the Movies: Ratatouille

After last year's disappointing Pixar feature Cars [2/4], the buzz about Ratatouille has all been about one question; did Pixar get its groove back? I just came back from a screening of the film, and hopefully my review shall answer that question to your satisfaction.

I should hope that the Batman & Robin Movie Gradation Scale needn't be explained again anymore, but if you truly need a refresher, just check my earlier Flimsy Film Reviews.

Story:

The film stars two unlikely heroes; Remy, a rat who dreams of becoming a critically-acclaimed cook, and Linguini, an awkward French man who finds himself credited for Remy's cooking. Working together, Remy and Linguini become the most famous cook (notice the singular there) in all of Paris. But the pair face challenges from Skinner, the unpleasant head-chef, Anton Ego, an overly-critical food critic, and Remy's uncouth clan of fellow rats.

While certainly not an epic story in any sense of the word, the plot is perfect for an animated film, and is perfectly in taste (food puns; there will be many) with what one comes to expect from a Pixar picture. However, this film differs slightly in that it's longer than most (around the same length as The Incredibles [0/4]), and as such there are a great deal of twists and turns. Is this bad? Good graceous, no. It's one of the many charms of this film.

Character Development:

Whereas Cars was very bad in this department, using outdated stereotypes as opposed to real emotional personalities, Ratatouille has succeeded. The characters of Linguini and Colette, the aforementioned hero and his girl, are the best-explored characters in the whole movie. It may not seem it, but I'm a romantic at heart. But by romance I mean something believable, something with emotional pull to it, not just the obvious pairings of so many shippers in the online community. You really cheer for these two in the film, even me with my cold, immobile heart.

Remy's less explored than I had imagined the title character would be, mostly by virtue of him being quiet for a lot of the film. However, 90% of the stuff we do get is pure gold. Patton Oswalt is a very enthusiastic performer, and he brings his geekiness from his real-life obsession with comics to his character's obsession with food. His feelings of ostracization is also well-performed.

The villain Skinner was excellent. Ian Holm plays the perfect snooty, pompus French chef. One of the many nuggets this film offers.

Some of the background characters, like the rest of the kitchen crew and the rat pack leave something to be desired, but they're very much background characters. Not knowing everything about Remy's dad isn't the end of the world.

Comedy:

This film isn't exactly what you'd call "hilarious" or "a gut-buster," but it is indeed a very funny film. Most of the humor is witty humor, which if you're a clever person is certainly not a bad thing by any stretch of the imagination. It has a very adult sense of humor, while still appealing to the kids in the audience. The filmmakers don't presume to insult your intelligence like so many other CGI animated blockbusters by stuffing it with groin kicks and asinine pop culture references (though Chef Boyardee is mentioned). It's not stuff you'd be holding your sides for, but rather would promote a delightful (and appropriately quiet) little chuckle to oneself, with a few laugh-out-loud moments.

Music:

The music perfectly gives off the atmosphere of a pleasant little Parisian bistro in the evening, almost throughout the entire film. It was sublime.

Graphics:

Pixar only ever gets better in this regard. The people over there are artists, pure geniuses. Everything looks real, even when it looks cartoony. Skin looks like it's actually flesh, and not just a skin-colored layer on a polygon. Every hair on every rat is accounted for. Food looks like food. Paris looked like it had been filmed in person, and merely digitally enhanced to make it look almost dream-like. I often find it hard to believe that such magnificent art can come from a computer program. If you're into visual stimuli, go see this now.

Crazy Old Lady with a Shotgun factor:

Oh yeah, it's got that.

Life Lessons:

I very much liked the moral of this story. It teaches all the viewers, young and old, that art, true art and creativity and uniqueness, can come from anyone. It teaches you that if you have the passion, that you can do almost anything, and that one should not judge by appearences or preconcieved stereotypes. When I have a child, I am sitting them down in front of this film and hope they pick up something from it.

Direction/Did Pixar Get Its Groove Back?:

Brad Bird is an animation God, especially to the fraternity of geeks that I belong to. He knows how to tell a story. So is this a true Pixar film? Does it have that classic Pixar feel to it like the classics? Short answer, yes. Long answer, it has and yet it's also breaking new ground. It doesn't feel exactly like the classics such as Toy Story, Monsters Inc., or Finding Nemo. Those films were somewhat different in that they were more tender than Ratatouille. Each one had a very emotion plot that tugged at the deepest, thickest heartstrings burried deep within our sternum. Dealing with issues of abandonment, unconditional love, and just putting every ounce of being into reuniting with the absolute center of your world, these classics are an emotional roller coaster ride that pit the character's deepest hopes and dreams against absolutely impossible odds. In Ratatouille, there isn't that same sense of emotional urgency; Remy desparately wants to find his place in the world, but his is not a struggle of absolute life or death. The challenges are tough and many, to be sure, but they do not seem absolutely insurmountable.

However, where this film fails to recapture these basic elements, it replaces them with some new elements that are just as good. This is a very uplifting film, I will not mince words. I felt literally better when I left the theatre than I did when I entered it. Just the power of the human spirit shown in this film really makes you feel at ease with yourself. You get to watch as the lives of many, of both mice and men, are forever changed by these two unlikely heroes, and it just makes you feel happy to be part of it. My compliments to the chef!

FINAL SCORE:

0/4

Wow, my first Perfect/Near-Perfect score of the year. I was hoping I'd see one. Now there's finally a nominee for the 2007 Vesty Award for Best Picture, to be decided sometime after December 31st, 2007.

This movie has everything an animated film, especially one from Pixar should have; 2lbs chopped excellent characters, a compelling story wrought with hurdles and served with a light Hollendaise sauce, a peppering of intelligent humor, 1 cup creme de romance, calorie-friendly life lessons, a pinch of warmth, and the delightful aftertaste of a happy ending. Ratatouille is a 7-course meal for the senses that has great selections from both the adult and children's menus. If you trust my taste in films, then please, trust me when I say this is a film you'll be wanting seconds of.

Bon appetit!

- Silent G

Holy Rollers!

Yesterday, while shirking work as usual, I was watching CNN Newsroom. Among stories like the 9 firefighters perishing in a blaze and some no-name actress getting knocked up was something rather interesting. The Vatican has released a list of Ten Commandments...for Driving. Suffice it to say, the implications of this announcement are both disturbing and hilarious.

CNN lead into the story, in the same campy, unprofessional nature that has encapsulated their quality as of late, by playing AC/DC's "Highway to Hell." This is one of those moments where one says to oneself, "Ugh, here we go," and this was no exception to me. The second CNN tries to be funny by playing classic oldies that have some slight connection to the story, you know it's going to be some corny-ass fluffy human interest story that no one really cares about or has any affect on anyone's life.

But they had valid reasons for playing the song, Don Lemon assures us:

LEMON: The reason we played that music, "Highway to Hell," the Pope wants you to avoid road rage.

Does he now? See, I always figured that the Pope wanted people across the globe to drive like goddamn lunatics, firing guns at those who cut us off and picking off small children as they walk to school. "Pedestrians have the right of way," my ass!

Oh, but it gets better:

LEMON: It's kind of funny but its[sic] serious. Cars are such a big part of modern life, the Vatican, get this, has issued a ten commandments of driving. It calls for motorists to exercise a heavenly host of Christian values. Bear with me. It's quite a long list, but lets hope we get through it.

First of all, I love being able to correct the grammar of an official CNN Newsroom transcript. It makes me feel like I'm smarter than CNN. But that's not a huge feat these days. "Its" is possessive, CNN stenographers! "It's" is a contraction of "it is!" Seriously, why do these people have a 24-hour news network?

Anyway, back on topic. The Vatican has all of a sudden issued a list of Commandments for drivers, because the Vatican suddenly wants "motorists to exercise a heavenly host of Christian values" on the road. Unlike everywhere else, of course. Seriously, when your faith calls for you to "exercise a heavenly host of Christian values" everywhere on a daily basis, doesn't your car already apply? Why write a specific list of rules for this? Did the first 10 Commandments fail to cover all the bases? I shall get back to this later.

And, really, I love how Don Lemon finds this so asinine. "It's kind of funny?" "Get this?" "Bear with me?" Seriously, this guy thinks this is stupid as I do, and I'm sorry, I find that robustly hilarious.

But, without further ado, here it is, the unabridged Ten Commandments of Driving:

1. You shall not kill.

2. The road shall be for you a means of communion between people and not of mortal harm.

3. Courtesy, uprightness and prudence will help you deal with unforeseen events.

4. Be charitable and help your neighbor in need, especially victims of accidents.

5. Cars shall not be for you an expression of power and domination, and an occasion of sin.

6. Charitably convince the young and not so young not to drive when they are not in a fitting condition to do so.

7. Support the families of accident victims.

8. Bring guilty motorists and their victims together, at the appropriate time, so that they can undergo the liberating experience of forgiveness.


9. On the road, protect the more vulnerable party.

10. Feel responsible toward others.

This is just too rich. Let's first study each commandment with scrutiny and cynicism, which will show why this list is essentially useless:

"1. You shall not kill." - Already one of the first Ten Commandments. It is also a law.

"2. The road shall be for you a means of communion between people and not of mortal harm." - TRANSLATION: Don't kill. Same as Number 1. Useless.

"3. Courtesy, uprightness and prudence will help you deal with unforeseen events. " - This reads less like a commandment and more like a fortune cookie. Lucky Numbers: 23 14 6 9 52 4.

"4. Be charitable and help your neighbor in need, especially victims of accidents." - This one is actually a good idea. But it doesn't need to be restated. Christians are urged to help their fellow man anyway, why do you need to tell them to do it on the road, too?

"5. Cars shall not be for you an expression of power and domination, and an occasion of sin." - This one really amuses me for some reason. I can't really imagine someone using a car as "an expression of power and domination" without thinking of some crazed car-themed supervillain.

"I, Dr. Destructi-Truck, shall conquer you puny mortals in your weak hybrid cars! Bow before the might of my Hemi!"

And the addition of "and an occasion of sin" is also very funny. It is a tacit forbidding of, essentially, back-seat lovin', which is the spot where roughly 73% of all unwanted births are first conceived. Jesus, that Pope is just hellbent on keeping kids from fucking, isn't he?

"6. Charitably convince the young and not so young not to drive when they are not in a fitting condition to do so. " - TRANSLATION: Don't let others drink and drive. Also illegal anyway. And why the need for distinguishing between "the young and not so young?" Just say "anyone." Age doesn't really apply as much to drunk driving as you might think, Pope.

"7. Support the families of accident victims." - Again, a good idea. Probably the only thing I don't have anything cuttingly witty to say about it.

"8. Bring guilty motorists and their victims together, at the appropriate time, so that they can undergo the liberating experience of forgiveness." - Oh, here we go. Does the Vatican really think this will fly? We're a litigious people, not a forgiving one.

"Oh, hello. You must be the motorist who ran a red light because he was late meeting his friends at the bar, and who plowed right into the driver side of my car, which crushed my legs and broke my spine, which will necessitate years of expensive physiotherapy and astronomically costly prosthetics. You ruined my life and my livelihood, you've paralyzed me from the waist down, my wife left me because I can no longer please her, and I'm essentially the lifeless husk of a once-proud man, forever doomed to live the remainder of his life as a ward of the state. But, hey, let's let bygones be bygones. No harm done."

Pope Benedict, I will pay you a million dollars if your commandment ever warrants this exact response.

Also, this commandment implies that you're a third party, getting these two together to talk forgiveness. What business is it of yours, Christians? Let the courts handle it.

"9. On the road, protect the more vulnerable party." - This one is sort of vague (like the entire Bible), but I presume that it refers to children. That's what booster seats are for. We already force kids up to age 9 to use them. How much more humiliation do you need to put them through?

"10. Feel responsible toward others." - And it is shit like this that has people like Scott Zimmerman taking on the self-imposed role of missionary to convert "heathens" like myself. I already get emails from the jackass, now he's supposed to yell the bible at me out his car window?

And those are all the commandments. And one has to wonder, with the Vatican bothering to make this list, what are the implications?

I wonder if the Vatican NEEDED to make these rules, that Christians were murderous felons on the road. Did Christians forget the commandment "Thou Shalt Not Kill" when behind the wheel? Seriously, why Vatican, why? What is the need for this useless list?

Secondly, can one really call these commandments? I thought the first ten commandments were from the mouth of God himself. Unless... what if God spoke to the Pope? Maybe he went into some secret Pope cave or something and God said to him "My faithful servant, your Lord has a mission for you. You are to present the world with another ten commandments, each one more asinine than the one that preceded it. And they shall pertain to...oh, I don't know...how does driving thrill ya?"

You know what I think? I think this list is a knee-jerk reaction to the recent attempt on the Pope's most precious life:



That right, someone tried to jump the Popemobile (oh, "Popemobile," how outrageously funny you are). It's all so close together, this has to be the reason. That or the Pope is genuinely concerned about road safety. But since road rage has existed for decades before this, and since the original Ten Commandments and the general Christian values Chrisitans are supposed to adopt should apply to the road as much as anywhere, I have to think that at best this was the straw that broke the camel's back. "This is it, I could watch as millions of good people die on the road each year, but someone tried to get into MY Popemobile? THIS SHALL NOT STAND!"

It's really the only way I can see why he would think anyone would take driving advice from a man who is chauffeured around in the back of a bubble car his whole career.

- Silent G

TOMORROW: Part 2 of Holy Rollers! How has the new commandment affected the world? CNN, again, bothers to tell us!

Swedile at the Movies: Rise of the Silver Surfer

I've got to admit, I didn't quite know what to expect from this movie. On geek forums and comic book cinema news sites everywhere, people were giving wildly different opinions on the film. Some said it was brilliant. Some said it was dog-turdish. Some said it was a bit of both. It was hard to tell just from them what I would be seeing in the theatre on June 15th. Since mine is ultimately the opinion I care about, the only way to settle this hot debate was to see it myself. I'd know if it was good or bad.

And thus, my review of Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer begins. I will be using the same Batman & Robin Movie Gradation Scale as before. The varying degrees are chronicled here, but a quick rundown of the possible scores:

0/4 - Perfect or near-perfect
1/4 - Pretty good, but with serious flaws
2/4 - Mediocre
3/4 - Bad with some good aspects
4/4 - Bad
5/4 - Detrimental to your mental and physical well-being

For reference, the first Fantastic Four film was a 3/4 in my eyes. Now, onto the nuts and bolts.

Story:

It's the classic Galactus story; Galactus, devourer of worlds, is headed for earth and his slave, The Silver Surfer, has come to earth to prepare it for destruction. However, the FF help the Surfer to remember his humanity, who then works to help spare earth from his near-omnipotent cosmic master. Pretty classic stuff, and they surprisingly got most of it right. The Surfer, I will say right now, was awesome. Very easily the best aspect of the film. I loved watching him, listening to him. They even got his comic book back story perfect. It was a character comic book fans the world over could enjoy.

They also tried to throw in the later storyline of Dr. Doom stealing the Surfer's board, and to some degree they pulled it off, but it seemed sort of out of place. Dr. Doom seemed forced; he always did. Tim Story doesn't get Doom. He never did, and he still doesn't. However, I will say that Doom was marginally more entertaining and more Doom-like than he was in the first. He still had the lame one-liners, but he did at least look and act the part with some understanding of the great lord of Latveria. Luckily he's only in it for so long that it's not too annoying. All in all, I'll say Doom was okay. But Doom should never be just "okay." He should be fucking awesome.

The power swapping. Not as lame as I imagined it would be. But there was some lameness, which I shall address later.

Acting/Character Development:

Nothing noteworthy besides the Surfer. Chris Evans as Johnny Storm was still pretty good, and the rest of the four except Jessica Alba were believable in their roles. The extras were horrible, I hate them like I hate eggs. But I say, the Surfer is really the diamond in the rough in this department. You really feel for him after a while, despite his relatively short amount of time on screen.

Faithfulness to the Source Material:

Pretty damn close, actually. The Galactus Saga was pulled off very well, with a few exceptions. First, Galactus is a giant seemingly-sentient uber-storm cloud. Now, I am like many other fans who would have loved to see the giant purple armoured man, or at least something with more of a physical form than a cloud. But Galactus is more of an imminent threat than a character; you should only really seem him in the final quarter. And to this effect, they did Galactus rather well. And they even had hints of his classic form (keep a close eye when he passes by Saturn), enough to make me think they didn't totally rape the character. However, they killed him. Which, in a movie, is fine, we'll never see him again anyway. But the comic book geek inside me is screaming, "You can't kill Galactus! He's a necessary aspect of the universe! He's like a cosmic bacteria! Killing him will fuck up the universe!" But if you can live with that, then he came off okay.

And they got the Surfer's history dead-on; he was once Norrin Radd, he sold himself into slavery to spare his planet, everything. Seriously, the Surfer was so awesome.

Music:

Nothing outstanding, but it was John Ottman, so it was fairly decent. Just nothing memorable or worth noting any further.

Comedy:

Ugh. This film is full to the brim with all the corny, raunchy pop-culture jokes Fox is famous for. It was one of the worse aspects of the film. Watching Reed Richards dance with sluts at his bachelor party, using his stretching powers for comedic effect, was really not all that funny. Most of the humor in this film is groaner humor. But there were a few gems. I just can't remember them. Luckily this dies down once the action starts.

Product Placement:

This film would have received a higher rating if it weren't for all the shameless shilling this movie did. I could have easily written an article entitled "Ad Nauseum: Rise of the Silver Surfer," it was so bad. Almost throughout the movie, it was everywhere. And I mean, it's one thing to have Ben Grimm sipping a Slurrpie on camera. That's subtle. Or billboards in New York. Those are everywhere, it's fine. But when Johhny wears a Fantastic Four uniform with logos sewn into it (he does too, but not through the whole film) and Dodge built the Fantasticar, that's just absurd. Seriously, it's revolting. Johnny even says something like "What have you got against capitalism?" Yuck. Seriously, the very worst aspect of the film. Maybe even worse than I, Robot.

Special Effects:

A mixed bag. The Surfer and Galactus look pretty wicked. Especially the Surfer. They put a lot of much-needed attention into him. And Johnny looked like he was on fire. But at the end, when he uses everyone's powers at once, that is just way too cartoony. It looks really bad. But you will be mesmerized by the Surfer. He is so awesome.

Direction:

I'm actually rather impressed with Tim Story. This is by no means a perfect film, but the pacing was actually rather good. The film's only an hour and a half and yet it never seems like it's being rushed, unlike X-Men: The Last Stand. He got a lot of characters right, especially the Surfer, and I really rather enjoyed myself. He really raised the bar from the last one. But to be perfectly fair, that's like saying that a pimple is better than a tumor.

FINAL SCORE:

1.5/4

I rarely give out a .5 on a film; I'm usually very steadfast in what I like and don't like. But this one was hard to judge. There are moments where it's a two, like with the lame jokes, the lame Doom, and the shameless product placement, and then there are moments where it's a one, namely whenever the Silver Surfer is on screen. Seriously, this guy was fantastic. Doug Jones and the voice of Laurnece Fishburn really brought the character to life. I was blown away. I didn't know Tim Story could be that good. So on that note, I have deemed it a 1.5/4; If you're a comic book fan, especially if you like the Silver Surfer, you can't miss this movie. If you're not a big fan, then you probably can live without it, but still be entertained if you did go see it. It was a hard movie to score, but in the end, I stick by my indecisiveness.

But either way, this is a huge improvement from the first. I actually enjoyed myself. Fantastic.

- Silent G

Ad Nauseum: Edy's Slow Churned Ice Cream

Ever since I got sick in 1997, with the combined might of renal failure and anabolic steroids, I seem to have lost my sweet tooth a bit; Whereas I once loved things like suckers, Chunks Ahoy and chocolate bars, today I can only eat them in small amounts (except Chunks Ahoy, where the only appropriate helping is none). I still like cakes, muffins and general pastries, but the one sweet where no love is lost for me is Ice Cream. I love it like heroine. However, even I know when to stop shoveling it into my mouth.

Edy's Slow Churned ice cream is a low-fat brand I've been seeing a lot of lately, at least on TV. Just watch this commercial and see if you notice the logical fallacy:



Edy's claims to use half the fat of regular ice cream. This may very well be true, and if it is, kudos to you Edy's. And since it's only half the fat, Edy's suggests that hey, why not have a bit more? Well guess what, Edy's. If you're eating two bowls of ice cream with half the fat of regular ice cream, you're just eating the same amount of fat as a single bowl of ice cream. Genius move, Edy's! What a smart, health-conscious ad campaign! Instead of having less fat, why not have the same amount with twice the ice cream?

See, unbeknownst to the fat stupid consumers that litter North America, fat isn't the only thing that makes us overweight. Ice Cream also has sugar, calories, milk solids, and numerous other sweeteners and chemicals. If you're looking to consume the same amount of fat for twice the bang for your buck, then sure, have "a little bit more." But know that you're also consuming twice the calories and twice the sugar. You might have diabetes and clogged arteries, but at least you're not fat.

Idiots.

This sort of sentiment is something that really pisses me off. It's the bloated western mentality of "Consume, then consume some more." We have it so fucking good here, whereas people in Ethiopia and other third world countries would kill for a morsel of food. But do we try and help them, when we have so much to spare? No, we strive to eat even more. This commercial speaks to the deepest-most recesses of the human psyche. This ad appeals to those who like to stuff their face. Well, now you can stuff just a little bit more into that festering gullet of yours thanks to Edy's, America! Is it sweet? I hope it's worth it.

I'm no member of Greenpeace, nor do I contribute to the Christian Children's Help Fund. But there is an arrogance in this commercial that even baffles me. Learn to eat a single bowl and be fucking happy you have that, gluttons.

As for some of the less politically-charged aspects of this ad, notice how the teenagers here get up to dance upon noticing their empty bowls. "Hurrah, our bowls are empty! We can fill them again! Let us dance to the Gods of High-Fructose Corn Syrup!" The people this commercial is trying to appeal to are the people who want to lose weight. The people who respond to commercials like this are the folks who want a quick, easy fix to weight gain; they'd like to lose weight, but not have to move to do so. These people then see "low fat" on a product and think therefore it must be the answer to their woes.

So, let's recap:
- The ice cream is for people who want to lose weight
- The people who will buy this ice cream will do so as a substitute for exercise
Therefore
- The people who buy this ice cream will not be likely to jump out of their seats and boogie with excitement. They will more than likely bitch and wheeze just walking over to the fridge to get another helping.

I know exactly why they do it, but it always seems so funny to me that young, slim, sexy people are used to push every sweetened glob of sugar on the market, especially the ones being sold as a healthy alternative. "If they're thin, and they're eating McKeener's Syrup Fudge Nuggets, then I can eat them and be thin too! Praise the High-Fructose lord!" Drumstick is notorious for this sort of thing. I remember last year they had a feel-good craphat of a spot where all sorts of half-naked teenagers were on the beach, eating some prepackaged ice cream cones, living every day to the fullest. It was lame, it was crap, and the whole time I was wondering "why aren't they fat from eating this shit?"

Drumstick shall receive my full attention, specifically in regards to their latest piece of shit advertising, at a later date.

Oh, and nice American Idol reference, Edy's. You really have a deep, fundamental connection to the youth demographic of people 18-34. Way to go!

Well, that's about it for this edition of Ad Nauseum. Do me a favor, dear readers; go home, enjoy a delicious bowl of ice cream, and then don't have seconds. There are children starving in China, you know.

- Silent G

The Gift of Life, Where it's Needed Most

No real story here, folks. I just think this is ironic as hell and hilarious to boot. Enjoy.

- Silent G

P.S. - New Ad Nauseum coming soon, plus maybe a rant on the job market in Nova Scotia.

Eat My Dust Jacket!: Nothing's Sacred

Alex Colgan writes excellent book reviews. He says I should write them too. Who am I to argue?

I am also stealing his format.

"Nothing's Sacred"
- Lewis Black

[Just to clarify, I will be judging this and all future books by the following criteria: what I learn from it, what emotions it brought out in me from reading it, how long it is, how long it took me to read it, how much it cost, writing style, creativity, and a slew of other random things that somehow affected my experience.]

When I first became aware that the great Lewis Black had written a book, I was overjoyed. Something he wrote must have been pure comedic genius. I even made a day of going out to Bayer's Lake just to get it. But sadly, writing books is not Mr. Black's area of expertise.

Much of the material, at least most of the funny stuff, was stuff he wrote for his stand-up comedy routines. He told the story of how he auditioned to be himself, how the end of the Universe is two Starbucks situated across from each other in Houston, his youth spent under wooden desks patiently awaiting Armageddon. It's all there. And it's funny stuff, to be certain. But it's funnier when Lewis Black is saying it. This book is ultimate proof that comedy is all about the delivery; even some of the funniest things he's said lose some oompf because you've heard them before, and now you're experiencing it without Lewis' outraged mannerisms.

The book, however, does explore some interesting, and sometimes funny, aspects of his childhood and young adulthood. His recounting of his days working for the Appalachian Regional Commission and fucking with the authority figures of the Yale School of Drama were witty and fantastic to read. He even has one of his plays copied in its entirety in the softcover edition, a play which has most certainly bled into obscurity. As an autobiography of Lewis Black, this is a good book. It's just not all that funny.

It is a shame, it really is, that I am sitting here and typing the words "not funny" in conjunction with Lewis Black. Black is an exceptionally funny person, probably the best of our times. He's like this generation's Richard Pryor or George Carlin. This is a man I will be raving about in my forties while my kids ask me who the hell he is. But alas, this book isn't really all that funny. He could have come up with some new jokes for his book, but he just recycled old ones. Which leads me to believe that he didn't take the book seriously. He even warns the reader never to write a book within its pages.

This is also not a book that one cannot put down. I found it rather simple to, in fact. I'd not touch the book for weeks when schoolwork came up. Nothing Sacred is a bathroom book; the only time you make for it is when you're taking a shit. Oh, that's the other thing; this book is hardly as hardcore and cuss-erific as when Lewis speaks. The word "fuck" appeared within the pages, but nowhere near how often he says it in person. I suspect the editor is responsible for this. When will publishers learn, when people buy a book from someone like Lewis Black, they are not going to be shocked by his expletives. This is so simply because no one who had not heard of him and heard his routines would buy his book. Simple economic psychology, people.

In the end, the book was probably not worth the $18 I paid for it, but if they had knocked off about a fin, it would have been worth it. Anyone who is interested in Lewis Black's history and progression to the finger-pointin', vein-poppin', authority-hatin' "Migranocrat" he is today, pick this book up. If you're interested in laughing until your side hurts, don't.

Final Score - 3/5

- Silent G

Ad Nauseum: The Globe and Mail

I like to think that I have a somewhat unique perspective on the Globe after my time spent in King's. Not on the paper itself, mind you, but rather it's status symbol...uh, status.

First let me say that The Globe and Mail is a fine publication. Very intellectual, covers interesting global and national stories, and has some excellent writers (they use the inverted pyramid and everything!). I have nothing against the Globe itself. However, the daily comes off as a very pretentious paper, if not because of it's writing, then for it's readership.

At King's, essentially 50% of the students were from Atlantic Canada and the other 50% from Ontario, with a few statistical oddities from the Bahamas or Boston. My Journalism class was no different. And since we had to subscribe to a daily newspaper for this class, it was easy to tell the two apart; the people from Ontario wouldn't shut up about how fan-fucking-tastic the Globe was. They treated it as if they had a daily subscription to the Bible.

I'm not entirely sure where this attitude started; if it was the readership who put it on such a pedestal, or if the Globe and Mail marketing department has brainwashed its subscribers to put it there. All I do know is that the Globe is certainly capitalizing on this attitude, as is evidenced by their recent ad campaign:



I've been to Toronto, once, 11 years ago, and I can tell you this; this ad screams urban upper-middle class Ontario. Every restaurant I remember going to in that city, including the produce market/deli in the basement of the Eaton Centre, had images very similar to that image of the wine being poured. There were watermarked letters on parchment-style yellow everywhere.

This whole ad is filled with hoighty-toighty imagery like that; The marquee, the "Globe Health" heart, the two Internet faces debating (because the Globe is such a community where your voice can be heard!), the two faces made of newspaper cuddling up to each other with the sound of Shenkar in the background to make it obvious that the Globe is multicultural, the whole spiel. It's as if the ad is trying to say, "Read our paper, it will make you a worthwhile person."

My favorite image in this ad, however, has nothing to do with how haughty the paper is, but is in fact a fascinating social commentary, and perhaps even a psychological one at that. When the bay doors open and you see "FREEDOM" written in big red letters on the screen, only to see each letter dropped successively onto the supposed chemical plant below like bombs, that's just so delicious. Almost Orwellian in nature. It very much reminds me of the slogan in 1984, "WAR IS PEACE." But it's such a compelling, and rather apt, analogy to this war in Iraq that America is waging. They're using the excuse of freedom (both for the Iraqi people and the Americans back home) as a sort of weapon of tyranny. "We'll be welcomed as liberators. Because, you know, Iraqis love it when people drop bombs on them." I'll be honest, if it weren't for my experience with the new generation of stuck-up Ontarian Globe yuppies and this one image, this commercial probably would not have grabbed my attention the way it has.

Last night, Alex and I were discussing the phenomenon of the annexation of one's personality from consumer products, in the process debating which was more sad; an individual looking to gain social status from buying the soundtrack to the upcoming Transformers movie, or Scott Zimmerman, a 30-year-old fundamentalist Christian from Pennsylvania who is trying to convert us and yet, ironically, doesn't know anything about the Bible. To be honest, we're still not sure which is worse (perhaps we shall have to hold an organized debate on the issue). But this Globe and Mail issue really flies under the same radar. Most of the people I know who read it from Journalism class acted like they were better, morally superior even, for reading the Globe. It was as if they thought only smart, politically-savvy people read the Globe, and those who didn't weren't. It was in fact not dissimilar to the story of the Emperor's New Clothes; "Only smart people can read the Globe, and we're certainly not stupid!" The worst for this kind of stuff was the Sexy Socialist, a denizen of the King's campus whom I shall address at a later date. But this guy, he was by far the most snobby and stuck up about the paper, as if he kept his copy wedged far up his own ass. But the funny thing is, he was about the only NON-Ontarian who I know who read it. It was almost as if he were hoping that maybe by reading it hard enough, he could be a stuck-up Ontarian by default.

The Globe and Mail is a good paper. Probably the best for a Canadian perspective on the events of the world. But it's not the fucking word of God. Stop acting like it is.

- Silent G

The Pussification of Tenth Grade English

For an early birthday present from my dad this year, I received a ticket to see John Pinette on stage at the Rebecca Cohn theatre in Halifax. The evening was a blast; drank wine, listened to a fat man make fun of his fat for an hour and a half live on stage, and I even got to meet him. I asked him what it was like working with the illustrious ALF, to which he replied "It was weird, the actors were all snooty, like 'Dude, you're on ALF." The night was a rousing success, except this was also the night I learned that my Alma mater, Yarmouth Consolidated Memorial High School, lost just another little piece of its mind.

My tenth grade English teacher, Mr. DeWolfe, was also in attendance and we caught up while waiting for our autograph. I was about the only student in that class who really liked the material (The Chrysalids. READ IT!), so I took an interest in what he was teaching that year. "Still teaching To Kill a Mockingbird," I asked, knowing full well it was about the one book most of my class agreed was excellent. His exact response: "Uh, nope."

Apparently they can no longer teach To Kill a Mockingbird in our high school anymore, because it's a "sensitive issue" that hurts the feelings of pussies who don't get why racial slurs are being used. Why do schools ban books? Why are some of the best examples of literature, such as To Kill a Mockingbird or, one of my personal favorites, Catcher in the Rye, kept outside of arm's reach from young minds?

In my 20 years of life, one thing I've learned about society, especially the spoiled-rotten North American society I live in, is that when something bad happens, we lose our goddamn minds. Some mentally-unbalanced dipshit does something stupid, and suddenly whatever inspired them is ruined for the rest of us.

Take Catcher in the Rye. For years, the worst one could say about this novella was that there were some sexually explicit themes and some bad language. Both good reasons not to let 6th graders read it. But come 1980, Mark David Chapman gave us one more reason; it's a sower of degenerates.

Chapman, according to the American Justice episode about him, used to believe in little people that lived in his walls that talked to him. This was a sick man from the get-go. However, the only thing they remember about him is that he killed John Lennon, and he was "inspired" to do so by The Catcher in the Rye. Almost immediately, the book was taboo. It was as if J.D. Salinger had not written an imaginative and symbolic story of one young man's struggle to hold on to his innocence, but rather an instruction manual for murdering celebrities. If I were Salinger, I'd be a recluse too; I would rather not deal with people that stupid.

Though to be perfectly fair, I can understand how this would be an immediate knee-jerk reaction. Much in the same vein as removing all evidence of the WTC from every movie ever made, shunning a book that inspired a man to kill a Beatle is just the natural progression from an event like that. However, there's an imbalance; I can watch an episode of Friends that showcase the Twin Towers with every transition, but there's still a stigma on the adventures of Holden Caulfield. In fact, when in 11th grade I told my mother I intended to read it, she turned to me with concern and told me not to use it as an excuse to kill anyone. Seriously, she said that. With no hint of irony. She was genuinely concerned that I may decide to undertake murder because I read this book. And what's more, one of my friends from King's tells me that whenever she's tried to read it, she had to keep it a secret from her mother. Because her mother would find it, and dispose of it. It was like this book was the goddamn boogieman.

To Kill a Mockingbird, by contrast, never was made synonymous with the death of anyone famous (to my knowledge anyway), but it uses the N word. And apparently that's enough. Even when we read it in class, Mr. DeWolfe had to warn us not to use the word as we read it aloud, instead replacing it with "N-word" or, my favorite, "Nnn." But y'know what? That word is there for a reason. This book is supposed to be an accurate recreation of the time in which it takes place, in order to teach us a lesson about racism. The people who used the word? The inbred hick-hillbilly Ewells and any other ignorant bumfuck in the book. And through Atticus' shining example, the book teaches those who read it not to judge a man by the color of his skin.

But because some militant PMSing mother's group out there has an issue with the N-word, or "Fuck You" scrawled across a wall, their kids suffer because they miss the lessons taught by these amazing tomes. Angry parents across the globe, here me: you are protecting your children by censoring these books, but you protect them only from intellectual, emotional and spiritual growth.

Alex Colgan has told me that Franz Kafka said that books need to hurt people, and I wholeheartedly agree. Books that are approved for reading at High School level, such as The Book of Eve and The Giver, have taught me one thing; nothing. If they taught me anything, it was to hate literature distributed through public school. The Book of Eve, that's a book to fucking ban. Not because of the rape scene or the images of an octogenarian fucking a middle aged dutch man who can barely speak English, but because it's just BAD. Horrid. GAH! *ahem* But I digress. The classics, the really good books that could actually teach something to these nitwits in high school today, are being kept away from them because it may hurt some one's feelings somewhere. Well, you know what I say? Let that pussy cry. Maybe the rest of society can get past the crib and actually progress intellectually.

So in closing, all those young minds who may chance upon Swedile, hear this; if your school won't let you read anything good, strive to do so on your own time. That's what I did. Here's a great, comprehensive list of some excellent books to get you started. Or if you're too lazy, you can wait for University. There ain't no pussies in post-secondary education.

- Silent G