Some Light Reading

I'm not in the business of telling you how to live your life, but you're a horrible person if you don't go over to Amazon.com this instant and order a copy of Sex: Our Bodies, Our Junk.

It's a sex manual written by the Association for the Betterment of Sex, and one of the members of that fine institution is Mr. Mike Sacks. If that name sounds familiar, it's because he was the guy behind "And Here's the Kicker," a highly praised book of interviews with comedy writers that was published last year. Mike is a regular contributor to McSweeney's, the New Yorker and lots of other stuff. He's very funny, and I should know, because I used to work with him.

And if you aren't into reading, buy it anyway -- I'm flipping through an advance copy, and there are tons of pretty (and at times hilariously disturbing) pictures. Some top-notch prodcution values on this thing, folks.

You only have about three weeks left to read a book on the beach, and no book will attract a more interesting crowd than a comedic sex manual. Or you can read it on the subway. Whatever works for you.

Tags: books

You Bet Your Life

I am a connosieur (sp.?) of fine Internet advertising. We are so used to tuning out sales pitches, I admire anyone who cuts through the crap storm and grabs my attention. For example, the Facebook ads that assume I really want to take a gay cruise. That makes me take notice.

Well, there's a hot new kid in town, and you can see a sample to the right. They're selling life insurance, often through news sites, wisely calculating that shut-ins who respond to Internet ads are at low risk of getting hit by a bus. Mostly, they're just puttering around the house sorting garbage into recycling piles, and the greatest risk they face is tripping on one of their many cats. That's the kind of customer you want when you're selling life insurance.

I'm a little concerned about the image to the right though. Apparently, in this ad, I have died. That's very upsetting to me, but I can take it -- I do eat a lot of salty lunchmeats, and you have to pay that toll eventually. The bigger issue here is that no one is around to take care of my family, because apparently, I was not very good at doing so during my short life. I guess I tried, but you know how showbusiness is, and I really thought investing in that carnival was a good idea at the time. How was I supposed to know it was downwind from a hog rendering facility? Long story short, we have no savings, so once I'm gone, my widow might have to sell the children on Craigslist.

All this is fine. What bothers me is that picture. Who exactly is on my grave there? Is that my daughter? If it's my daughter, why is she visiting my grave wearing a) anything other than black; b) short shorts and flip flops? I'm really touched that she's having a hard time coping with my death (maybe it was a motorcross accident, those things are always sudden and shocking), but why did I raise such a disrespectful ingrate?

Obviously, I didn't -- my daughter is going to be a lady. She might not even have time to visit my grave, since she'll be so busy learning all the romance languages and composing sonatas for the cello. That girl in the ad can't be my daughter. That means she's clearly a local teen drinking in the cemetery, pausing for a moment to hork all over my final resting place.

I guess what I'm getting at is, I don't really want life insurance.

Tags: advertising

Movie Review: The Other Guys

Michael Keaton, playing a police chief in "The Other Guys," keeps quoting TLC lyrics. It's enough to be amusing, but you aren't trusted to get the joke -- the other characters keep asking him about it, and he keeps denying it. Something that would have been a cute throwaway in a farce becomes more of a set piece in an Adam McKay movie, where they just bludgeon you over the head with the appetizers and tell you it's the main course.

"The Other Guys" isn't bad, by any stretch -- I was amused, even though it runs out of gas with about an hour left. It's just stuck in between genres. It isn't a full-blown send-up of cop movies; it's not really gritty enough to be in the "48 Hours" genre, and it's not silly enough to be absurdist. Like so many comedies of the last few years, there's something lazy about it. It's less of a movie than a collection of mildly amusing scenes. Instead of elaborate sight gags or slapstick -- stuff that would be planned -- you get verbally based "improvised" scenes, which top out at light chuckles. They never even attempt the brilliance of something like Leslie Nielson at an Angels Game -- that would require more writing, or actual commitment to a style of comedy. Honestly, it looks like they hijacked someone else's script about financial crimes, attached Will Ferrell to the project and then just let him gut the script. There are all these characters and plot elements that sort of disappear -- the whole thing seems like it was meant to be more plot heavy, but they had to axe a bunch of stuff to make room for 342 takes of awkward extended conversations.

Case in point: the absolute best part of the movie is the first five minutes, where Dwayne Johnson and Samuel Jackson play ridiculous sterotypes of heroes in cop movies. It's brilliant, because they had a clear vision of what they were going for; nothing that follows ever matches that level of comedic intensity or density.

I hope all this improv-heavy stuff dies off before too long. It's not worth $11 to see these kinds of movies in the theater.

Fun extra note: the closing credits are a graphics display on financial crimes. Seriously. Like that was the point of the movie (it's in the plot, but this isn't a message movie). It's like they gave someone entirely different the job of directing the credit sequence, and he thinks he's the next Michael Moore. Bizarre beyond belief.

Tags: movies

Movie Review: Step Up 3D

This was easily the best 3D movie I have ever seen about people entering dance competitions. Bar none. Hands down. No doubt about it.

Which is to say, the dancing is really very entertaining, and the "movie" portion is comedically awful. I guess they can't have 90 straight minutes of breakdancing, because no one has been visionary enough to do a breakdancing musical. There is no Gene Kelly of hip-hop, although I'm sure Ang Lee is working on something. So anytime they want to do a new dance movie, they put the following elements into a hat, draw four of them and put together a script:

• A classically trained dancer who wants to learn hip-hop dancing, or vice versa.
• A rich person who loves dance but wants to prove that they are "street."
• An evil white guy who heads an evil dance crew and will do anything to win.
• Dancers from the "good" crew who lose faith and go to the "evil" crew, taking all the secret moves with them.
• A particular move that no one can get right until it is required to win the final competition.
• A dance contest where the prize money is the only way to save something or someone.
• A teenager with at least one dead parent.
• Kids under the age of 10 who want to breakdance.
• A multi-ethnic dance crew.
• One guy who is really good at doing the robot.
• Someone is forced to choose between dance and something more "real world," like working in a paint store.
• Trampolines.
• A romance that tears apart the dance crew.
• A wise black guy. Steve Harvey if he's available.

In this case, we have Moose from "Step Up 2" fame, who is probably the least likely person to appear in a motion picture this year. He appears to be a 93-pound Jew with curly hair. Now, I like 93-pound Jews with curly hair, and I will be marrying one in two weeks. But when they're guys, it doesn't exactly scream "movie star looks." But guess what: he can do the robot really good! Moose is going to NYU, and on orientation day, he sees some guys dancing in Washington Square. He serves one of them, because that's how Moose rolls. The mysterious Luke, who is videotaping the whole thing like the usual kind of pervert who hangs out in a park with a video camera, invites Moose into his car. Moose, wise to the ways of the world, goes. And he is whisked away to a warehouse where a multi-ethnic dance team lives and rehearses.

The drama here is that the "World Championships" are happening in a few months, and the crew (The Pirates) needs the $100,000 prize, or they will lose their crappy warehouse to the bank. I would like to take a moment here to reassert that I do not understand the economics of breakdancing. After taxes, that $100,000 is going to be $60,000 tops. Now, the dance crew is already six months behind on their lease as the movie starts. None of them appear to have jobs, as all they do is live in a warehouse, be multi-ethnic and practice dancing. I won't tell you if they win the money, but let's say they do -- you're paying a good chunk of that to the bank, and then you still have about 12 people with no real income living in a warehouse where the property taxes alone have to be stupendous. Maybe you're getting some spots in a few videos, or cameo appearances on "ABDC," but you're splitting that money 12 ways, plus you have to pay rent, plus I'm guessing you need good medical insurance if you spin on your head more than once a day, plus someone in there probably has a coke habit or child support payments. It doesn't really add up.

Oh, and the other drama is that Luke's secret dream is to be a filmmaker. Also, there's a rich white trust fund guy who heads an evil dance crew and will cheat to win. And a hot love interest for Luke, who has a terrible secret. And a very plain love interest for Moose, who looks and dresses like a total frump, but suprisingly can dance a little bit.

But the story isn't important, unless you are playing cliche bingo. The dancing is what matters, and that's pretty damn awesome. Except for one thing: it's sort of hard for your dancing layman to tell what's awesome and what's REALLY awesome. In the battles in this movie and "Step Up 2," it always seems like the opposing teams in each battle are a little bit more impressive than the good guys. But maybe I feel that way because of HOMETOWN BIAS! In the battle between the Pirates and the "Asian champions," your keen-eyed reviewer thought he saw a familiar face. It was The Atomic Goofball! Me and my 93-pound Jew actually saw him in action last fall at a breakdancing competition in Adams Morgan. He entered by himself and advanced very far, all by his lonesome -- he was clearly one of the highlights of our day (click through to read about that day). His mug was on screen long enough for me to say to Allyson, "Hey! It's the Atomic Goofball!" Way to step up, DC.

Tags: movies

Why Care?

After one year and 17 columns, I've reached the end of my obligation to McSweeney's. For the last column, I tried to answer a question that truly motivates me: why it's important to care about the presidents at all. To keep it from being a big pile of schmaltz, I decided to zero in one guy in particular. Franklin Pierce, take us home! Check it out and let me know what you think.

My sincere and hearty thanks to everyone who read along over the last year, and especially to everyone who passed along some kind words via e-mail.

And on the positive side, it's not over yet! I've been given the option of contributing more columns. There won't be the regular publishing schedule I've had over the last year, but whenever a profound question comes to mind, I'll whip up a new column and send it along to the McSweeney's people. The hope is that, over time, I'll have enough material to maybe do a book. It's a lot of work, but it's obviously something I really enjoy, so I think it'll be worth it.

Tags: presidents