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ROB'S RETINAL FETISH


A LETTER FROM DAVE
By
David Hargrove
With
Robert Meyer Burnett

First off, sorry I haven’t been around for the last two weeks. I must thank all of you for the outpouring of emotion in regards to my absence. I’m sure I’m supposed to break out the Sally Field quote right about now, but why even go there? Whaddya’ want? I was working, playing ONIMUSHA 2 and eagerly awaiting the finale of THE WIRE (incredible).

I did have two different columns ready for today, which I couldn’t decide upon. The first dealt with my disdain for the more interactive qualities of DVD (which I’ll run next week).

The second column covered a discussion with TROOPS creator Kevin Rubio, STAR TREK: THE MOTION PICTURE Director’s Edition Visual Effects Supervisor Daren Dochterman and myself had about how strange it is that many Classic Trek episode titles seem to euphemistically reference cunnilingus. Really. I’m not kidding. Remember the very first episode of Classic Trek ever broadcast? That’s right; “The Man Trap.” Then there’s “The Trouble with Tribbles,” “Devil in the Dark,” “The Enemy Within,” “A Piece of the Action,” “Obsession,” “Wolf in the Fold,” “The Apple,” “The Paradise Syndrome,” and even “The Corbomite Maneuver.” If you really think about it … there’s something there.

Somehow though, such a column seemed just too off-topic. Especially this week.

Then, I received the following e-mail from my friend David Hargrove. I’ve known Dave since the late ‘80s when we met at USC. We’ve been through a lot together, everything from relishing the theatrical experience that was WILD ORCHID 2: TWO SHADES OF BLUE to expousing the virtues of ALIEN CUBED on opening day. For those of you reading since the beginning, you may remember I swiped the name of this column from Dave’s old column from the late SCI-FI UNIVERSE Magazine.

Inspired by the excitement I felt upon seeing the second teaser trailer for the 20th OFFICIAL Bond film DIE ANOTHER DAY, combined with my ambivalent feelings toward our amazingly great yet deeply flawed nation, I’ve decided Dave’s letter perfectly captures my conflicted feelings for the week.

I give the floor to Dave …


(TO BE CONTINUED IN 60 SECONDS)

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part 2

Hi Bob,

It's Dave. But you already knew that, didn't you? I'm the only one that still calls you Bob. I just wrote to see what's going on. I haven't heard from you in a while, and while I know that you are quite busy with the DVD-producing, script-writing and being-married thing, I figured you could probably find the time to respond to this query. I also figured it would be less intrusive than calling you at work or at home, when you're about to eat dinner.

Anyways, there's only two things on the top of my mind right now. First, how truly awful TRIPLE X was, and second, how truly horrifying the 2002 MTV VIDEO MUSIC AWARDS were.

First things first. I saw TRIPLE X with Wallace (READER’S NOTE: Wallace would be the fabulous Eric Wallace, portrayed in FREE ENTERPRISE by Phil LaMarr) at the AMC Beverly Connection. In case you didn't know it was an AMC theater now, the fact that the staff is clueless and that there is always something wrong with the picture or sound should tip you off. I suspect it will only be a few more months until the entire complex begins to reek of that patented AMC theater smell; a combination of rancid artificial butter flavoring and ass.

Remember the good old days (as little as five years ago), when you could go to any General Cinema in Los Angeles and you could always be assured that the projection would be bright and clear and the sound would be cranked to a dynamic (but not painful) level? Well, kiss them goodbye. The Galaxy is now a second-run house, the Beverly Connection is run like one and, fuck it, the Avco has never been the same since they split their main auditorium in two. In fact, the overall quality of the theatrical experience has fallen everywhere around L.A. Even the premier showplaces like the Village, the National and the Bruin are starting to slip a bit. The only venue where things have improved is the Arclight complex at the Cinerama Dome and there, you have to pay $11.00 to $14.00 dollars for the "privilege" of seeing a film presented correctly. (Note: I’m also quite fond of Pacific’s new cinemas at THE GROVE at Farmer’s Market). But I digress.

So Wallace and I are in the downstairs auditorium located somewhere on the third ring of hell, when the previews finish up and the feature starts. After about ten minutes, we notice that the house lights are still on at half-strength. When it becomes clear that no one who works at the theater is going to do anything about this, Eric runs up three flights of stairs to the lobby to inform them. Just as Eric returns to his seat, the management adjusts the lights ... by turning them up to full strength. After a chorus of catcalls and jeering, the "projectionist" realizes that running the film with the lights at full strength might not be the best way to go and dims them to an appropriate level. Now we can enjoy an afternoon's entertainment. But wait, there's more.

You know the matting that's used to block out the extra headroom at the top of the frame that you might not want the audience to see; the extra headroom that might reveal the boom mic or splice marks? Apparently, the staff at AMC's Beverly Connection didn't know what it was for, because I could see a nice, bright, white line running across the top of the frame at every edit. It got to be so distracting that I had to run up the three flights of stairs to inform the management so they could do nothing about it.

Bob, after seeing TRIPLE X, I don't think Barbara Broccoli and Michael Wilson have anything to worry about. I guess the producers thought TRIPLE X would appeal to that segment of the population that feels alienated from the Bond pictures due to their high intellectual content. If you're going to make a film that opens with Bond literally being killed at a Rammstein concert and then having his lifeless, oh-so-unhip, tuxedo-clad body being passed around the mosh pit, you’d better offer something original in its place. But what do we get? Russian military cut-outs who want to destroy the world's governments with nerve gas and replace them with anarchy. But it's a cool kind of anarchy. The anarchy with the castles, the cars, the designer threads, the loads of cash and the chicks in thongs. Yeah, THE SPY WHO LOVED ME and MOONRAKER don't have shit on TRIPLE X.

Instead, Sony offers us "a new kind of secret agent." He listens to metal, he snowboards ,and he engages in radical performance art to preserve our 1st Amendment Rights. Oh, he also looks like a gay porn star. He is Vin Diesel.

It takes a truly special film like TRIPLE X to achieve that level of miraculous awfulness that borders on revelation. It takes a truly special film like TRIPLE X to get Eric Wallace to lean over and whisper to me that, "it would be OK for us to leave now if you wanted," after 40 minutes of running time.

Where to begin? What scene to single out for dissection? Well, how about Samuel L. Jackson dressing down Vin Diesel in a Prague opera house for bungling part of his assignment? Poor xXx complains about being subjected to opera as cruel and unusual punishment as the audience around us roars with approval. Because doesn’t everyone know opera sucks!?!

How about the scene where the evil Russian gangster treats Vin Diesel to a night of pleasure in his mountain castle, complete with a half-naked whore, pole-dancing on a canopy bed? This scene is so ridiculous, what with the vacuous look on the woman's face, her perfunctory grinding, and the conspicuous art direction that it looks like an abandoned section of the PIRATES OF THE CARRIBEAN. Diesel looks around the room like he's trying to find the "off" button, so he can shut the whole thing down and go to sleep.

And speaking of lack of sexual chemistry, anyone wondering about those rumors concerning Vin Diesel need only to see this film to confirm their suspicions. In their big make-out scene, Vin Diesel feels up Asia Argento like Moonwatcher and his tribe of missing links feel up the Monolith in the opening of 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY. It's obvious they are both dealing with something they've never encountered before.

Then there’s the scene that introduces us to xXx You know, the one where he steals the state senator's Corvette from the country club? The Corvette he destroys while staging an extreme stunt off of a suspension bridge? The stunt he and his buddies post live on the Web? The buddies who want to protest the senator's proposed ban on violent video games and rap music? The senator with an obviously much younger trophy wife which makes him the worst kind of hypocrite? The kind of hypocrite that needs to be reminded that committing felonies is an acceptable way of championing free speech? Yeah, that scene. Oh, did I mention that xXx calls the senator "Dick" because I guess his first name is Richard and the name "Dick" is just so, you know, inherently funny that even after you repeat it five or six times within a minute, it still gets a laugh? Yeah, that scene.

I've got an even better one. The scene where xXx prowls the nighttime streets of Prague, looking to infiltrate the shadowy underworld where his quarry dwells (Eurotrash discos, natch). The whole thing is set to the haunting strains of the zither music from THE THIRD MAN. You see, director Rob Cohen wants you to realize how truly clever he is by referencing a classic spy thriller from 50 years ago and thereby, somehow elevating his film to that level. Nice try, Rob. Oh by the way, genius, THE THIRD MAN took place in Vienna, not Prague.

There is one exciting scene in the film: the avalanche sequence. Yeah, they finally replaced all of those terrible temp shots in the trailer and now it really looks good. Then it goes on for about two minutes too long and ends up being just plain silly.

Well, that about polishes off TRIPLE X. Now on to the train wreck that was the 2002 MTV VIDEO MUSIC AWARDS. Ever seen a bigger collection of sub-literate no-talents in your life? How many of them could even sing? Even those that could carry a tune like Pink and Christina Aguilera (gosh, I hope I spelled her name correctly) dress like they were molested by Daddy in grade school. About the only performer that seemed to possess any amount of class or talent was Sheryl Crow, and even she has gone from being a serious musician to competing in the whore/diva category by wearing less clothes than ever before to promote her latest CD.

And while we're on the subject, what is with this obsessive sexualizing of kids at a younger and younger age? Shouldn't kids be allowed to be kids for a little while? I know the little tykes are growing up faster than ever, but things are getting out of control here. Should "artists" like Lil' Romeo and Lil' Bow Wow be glorifying "tha' playa' " lifestyle (pimping, whores, drugs, badly customized cars) at age 13? You realize we now live in a world where teenage girls consider having oral and anal sex viable methods of preserving their virginity?

I know I sound like my parents, but I find it disturbing that the VMAs represent the pinnacle of hip youth culture. I don't mind pushing boundaries or buttons, but where's the message or talent to back it up? And what is being offered as an alternative? Who will come forward to save us from the enslavement of white corporate music? The Hives, The Strokes and The White Stripes? Excuse me, but I liked these bands the first time I heard them in the '70s when they were called The New York Dolls, The Sex Pistols, The Ramones and the Stooges, etc.

I know that this whole thing reads like one of your columns instead of a letter to a friend, but I guess I'm just trying to keep you entertained. Speaking of columns, when are we going to see the next installment of "Rob's Retinal Fetish?" You go to all the trouble of asking my permission to use the name, and then you leave me hanging after five installments. What gives?

Write me back and tell me if I'm full of shit.

Dave

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i'm actaully reading this stuff because i have 60 seconds between each post

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ONE HAND CLAPPING

October 21, 2002

By Chris Ryall





"I'm in Love with a JERSEY GIRL, Day 4"


People think hangovers are caused by drinking mass quantities of alcohol. Which, you know, they are, as I've been able to attest to for years. But the fact is, there's another type of hangover that you can wake up with, a very specialized kind hopefully not too awful many people have been afflicted with. After all, this kind, there's not even any need to recreate the previous night's events or wonder who this strange person next to you is. No, this kind of hangover shows up and stays with you much longer than a day, and yet still allows you to retain all your memories of the events that led to it.

I'm talking about this rare strain of hangover called the God-I-Don't-Want-to-Leave-the-Movie-Set-and-Return-to-the-Real-World hangover.

You hear about all the on-set romances that can spring up during the shooting of a movie, and it's eminently believable. After all, you're spending more hours awake per day than you ever would at any other job, you're working in close quarters on material that can be emotional...sure, this all makes sense to me. It happened to me, of a sorts, too. Of course, this romance (with the girlfriend, who accompanied me to the JERSEY GIRL set) has been going on for nearly three years now, so this wasn't anything to cause the hangover. Since we came together and left together, there was no separation anxiety like other people on movie sets face. No, this one was harder to figure out...

The Last Day

Yes, I had a lot of work to do on the site and for the other job -- both had been largely (and hopefully unnoticeably) neglected for the days I spent in Philadelphia. But still, the idea of leaving after only five days in town, and three on the set, well, it sucked. Even that morning, as we prepared to go to the set, the idea that we had to leave was setting in. Hard.

First, we'd drive our rental car to Paulsboro -- no riding in Gail's van this time. So already we felt more like visitors. The flight was in the late afternoon, so we'd have to leave in the early afternoon to return the car, get patted down, show the soles of our shoes, all of that. The last day would be a bisected day, at best.

We were starting to feel a bit more comfortable on the set so we got there (after I got lost on the freeways of Jersey and ended up in an even more Springsteen-esque town) and headed to the bar where the shoot was taking place.

We saw Kevin and crew getting ready to go. I headed into the bar to see Vilmos setting up the scene...it was all feeling so normal, so right, to start the day like this. For the love of God, don't any of you understand what I was going through...?!?

Uh, sorry...

Anyway, Liv Tyler was there, getting ready for her scene with the titular "Jersey Girl," Raquel. At one point, she saw me across the bar and I got the nice little fingertip wave. You know the one...the one that says "I remember you and more, I'm not disgusted by the sight of you". I gloated about that to the girlfriend for a suitable time, and then let it go (for now).

The scene was a very sweet one, and Liv and Raquel did their stuff nearly perfectly every time. Even more, it was a Steadicam scene. I'd never seen a Steadicam in action before, but it's pretty cool to watch, just seeing it strapped to the cameraman and seeing his movements as he captured the scene.

Before the next scene, we wandered out back. We'd have to leave soon after lunch, so I said some goodbyes, to Mosier and Carol (we talked for a while about internet lunatics, whom we've all seen our share of), Cara the publicist and "Ratface" (I swear, I was feeling like Dorothy, about to click my heels and go from Technicolor to awful, dustbowl-tinged black and white).

While we waited for the next scene, the sound guy (and I apologize for not having everyone's names) put on a video entitled "How Ben Spent His Summer Vacation." And no, it wasn't put together by the STAR. It was, instead, a solid two minutes or more of footage from Ben's little Valentine's movie...DAREDEVIL. Which looks really freakin' cool and Hong Kong-y (to use an NYU term). And speaking of...

Friggin' Affleck

That's right, friggin' Affleck. Ben shows up to do a scene with the Liv and Raquel and so they run through the scene before actually shooting it. And what happens? Bastard makes me cry.

Yeah, I got choked up just watching him work. Really, this was a rehearsal, no cameras rolling, no reason it should have hit me like this. And it did -- I know, I sound like a kid who got picked on by a bully..."Mom, Ben Affleck made me cry!" Not streaming tears, exactly, but the scene got me each time. Each time. I'm watching Ben Affleck in a Kevin Smith movie, and it's getting me choked up. At the risk of sounding like I'm just hyping the people I'm working for, Affleck is SO good in this, what I've seen. And the script delivers, too -- the combo of the two, the words and the delivery, yeah, it got pretty emotional. Very nice to see that for myself, instead of just on-screen a year from now.


The scene done, it was time for lunch, so we headed back to the trailer city. Kevin's wife (and our JERSEY GIRL scene co-star) Jennifer was there, so we reasoned that he'd much rather spend time with her than have us back in his trailer, so we ate in the large assembly room. We got in line for food, and when we got to the front of the line, the guy cooking asked us, "How many lobster tails do you want?"

Why...two, of course! And a couple claws, too. Lobster. I was eating free lobster and seafood pasta and about to go get on a plane and eat rubbery chicken-like meat and fly back to home and work and reality. Damn. I could feel the headache building.

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After lunch, I talked for a while with Connie (Karlson, George Carlin's stand-in) and was saying my goodbyes. Even after three days, goodbyes suck. I was gonna miss Connie--he's a good chap. He gathered the other stand-ins, too, and I took a final group picture.

With that, it was time to find Kevin (ahh, our scarecrow, to use the OZ analogy once more) and head out.


He said a nonchalant, "Your flight's not for a few hours, why not stick around for a bit?" and right there, his Jedi training was complete, as I felt pretty mind-tricked into cancelling my flight, quitting the day job, hanging out and...well, just hanging out. Which, of course, I couldn't/shouldn't do, so instead I thanked him for the hospitality and got this final picture with he and Jen, and then that was it. We trudged out way back to the rent-a-car and already the color seemed to be bleaching out of the scene.

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The hangover doesn't hit right then -- it kind of creeps up on you afterwards. When the alarm for work goes off. When you buy your own lunch instead of cramming lobster into your gullet. And when you get these e-mails from Kevin or contributor Antony Teofilo about the goings-on since I left. Damn. Damndamn.

Renaissance Man

Speaking of Antony Teofilo, anyone who's been hanging here a while may recognize the name--Antony did an amazingly in-depth and well-written look at ROAD TO PERDITION. So good, in fact, that his stuff was purchased and run in PREMIERE MAGAZINE's Japan edition (which just shipped two weeks ago, if anyone's able to track it down).

Antony has been spending extended time with Kevin, cast and crew these past two weeks, and will soon be bringing us all the most extensive report on a movie that, probably, anyone's ever seen. No HEART OF DARKNESS this, instead, Antony will be running interview after interview with everyone from the lead actors, the supporting actors, the crew and everyone else involved. It's going to start soon -- in fact, today is the beginning of his RENAISSANCE MAN column that will set up the entire affair.

Antony's column is probably the last one we'll be adding for a while, following on the heels of fellow new columns NET WORK (Jim Kleckner's look at an internet start-up), GAME ON (Ian Bonds' new video game column) and YOU'LL NEVER WRITE A BOOK IN THIS TOWN AGAIN (D.K. Holms' deconstruction of Hollywood tell-alls). But there will be new comics joining the site, and, much like I did with ZOMBIEOPOLIS, let me also throw out this two-word teaser:

HUNTED DOWN.

Also (wrapping up soon, really!)...

The days are drawing to a close sooner, the leaves are starting to change colors (I've heard--doesn't happen here in CA) and huge-ass bags of candy are on sale at grocery stores, meaning...

Yes, a new SIMPSONS TREEHOUSE OF HORROR special (although not until Nov. 3 this year), but also, it means that Halloween is coming. And, since the whole vibe that Halloween produces makes it one of my favorite holidays, we'd be remiss to not focus on it just a tiny bit.

So, for the final five days leading up to Halloween itself, we (meaning the Shoot, along with the help of some talented freelancers) are happy to present the following themed content, in addition to the regular goings-on here:

Friday, October 25: An interview with the real "Freddie Krueger;
Monday, October 28: A look at poor, beleagured man-child Jason Voorhees;
Tuesday, October 29: A look at serial killer Ed Gein and all the Hollywood movies he's influenced;
Wednesday, October 30: The Death of the Horror Movie;
Thursday: A deconstruction of the FRIDAY THE 13th franchise

That's it. Peace, everyone!

[Fallen Angel]

Originally posted by Reepicheep

Isn't that the Fender that Mark Knopfler used (only his was red/white) to play Sultans Of Swing?
I'm pretty sure it is.

[Reepicheep]

All I know is that it's a Jazzmaster and I want one. He may have played it though.

[Bluedandy]

Originally posted by Adman

Those kanji... With a beckoning cat... Why?

[Pummel]

Epic threadsmanship.

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holy crap, that was pretty awesome...

i got warned for posting a girl jerking off a horse or something.

closed -Aquatiq