Some Random Stuff and a Very Short Movie Review

Chick-fil-A v. The Muppets

In the past year or so, I have been pretty vocal, here and on Facebook, about Chick-fil-A's sanctimonious stance on their Biblical positions and, in particular, their support for anti-gay marriage politicians and organizations.

Last week, after Chick-fil-A's CEO, Dan Cathy, publicly doubled down on the company's position on same sex marriage and a general condemnation of what they perceive as the rampant immorality of the American people who flock to their stores to fill their coffers, the Jim Henson Company publicly severed their promotional ties with the chicken sandwich chain, canceling a toy give-away.

                                                  Proving that hand puppets are more evolved than some humans.

Regardless of The Blog's opinion of the junk food chain's religious, political and social positions, The Blog has always given them credit for staying true to their convictions.

It would seem that The Blog has given them too much credit.

Within 24 hours of the Henson announcement, the sign below began showing up at Chic-fil-A counters around the country.

I guess that Chic-fil-A's new corporate policy is to lie to their customers.

Is lying a new "Christian value?"

Speaking of Christian...

Kudos to The Dark Knight, himself, Christian Bale for jumping on a plane from Paris and getting his bat-self to Aurora, Colorado to visit the victims and survivors of the movie theater massacre. Based on the numerous cell phone pics that have surfaced on the internets, Bale brought a lot of smiles to a place that is in desperate need of smiles!

                                                                                          Like this one.

There has been a push on Facebook to get Bale to appear in full Batman costume at the hospitals. A cool idea, but The Blog understands the logistical difficulties that would have been involved.

A tip of the hat to Warner Brother's, as well. The studio has donated a reported $2 million to the survivors and families of those who were murdered. If The Blog knows his Hollywood people as well as he thinks he does, the outreach has only just begun.

The Shortest Movie Review Ever...

The Blog and Mrs. Blog saw "The Dark Knight Rises" today.

A full and proper review would reveal far too many spoilers.

Maybe in a few weeks, when everyone has seen it, your Uncle PC will post a detailed review.

Until then....

Here is The Blog's bottom line review of "The Dark Knight Rises..."

HOLY FUCKING SHIT!!!!!!!!

That is all for now.

A Follow up to Last Night's Post

I had not thought of the "color blind" possibility. Very feasible.

Reports today tell us that the shooter is refusing to cooperate with the police. Considering the unusual level of cooperation when he allowed the police to take him into custody without a fight, his refusal to talk now does parallel the behavior of Heath Ledger's Joker. So a Joker fantasy seems to be becoming more plausible.

But, let's not rush to blame the movies.

To quote the classic line from "Scream..."

"Movies don't create psychos. Movies make psychos more creative."

And, speaking of movie quotes...

I had intended to begin last night's post with a quotation from "The Dark Knight," then forgot to use it. It has rung in my ears since the story first broke. After today's revelations, it seems more appropriate tonight than it would have been last night.

It is from "The Dark Knight."

Bruce Wayne wonders about what motivates The Joker. Alfred tells "Master Bruce" a story and concludes with the following words...

"Some men just want to watch the world burn."

Barring some earth shattering new piece of information that bears discussion, this is the last that I plan to post on the subject.

The only related topic that remains to be discussed is the subject of America's post 9/11 culture of fear and how it connects to our fetishizing of guns, and how our media and politicians exploit that.

Heavy stuff for a blog that considers itself to be, primarily a humor blog.

But, it's stuff that is worth discussing.

Just not tonight. Probably tomorrow or the next night.

That's a promise!

Armchair Psychology

Nearly 48 hours have passed since since the events in Aurora, Colorado began to unfold. And, as promised, The Blog has some questions and theories.

*WARNING!!!*

The Blog is not a psychologist or psychiatrist. Because The Blog has worked in Hollywood for three decades, he has come into firsthand contact with enough narcissists, sociopaths and, even a few psychopaths, that he feels that he knows what he is talking about. But the fact is, everything that you read from here on, The Blog openly admits to pulling out of his ass.

*END WARNING*

One widely reported piece if information that has been reported seems to have come from a single source and picked up and reported as fact by many other outlets. The shooter "painted his hair red" and told police that he was The Joker.

Any comic book nerd worth his action figure collection knows that The Joker's hair is green.

That leads to one of two conclusions.

Either the source of this information is full of bat guano, or the shooter really doesn't know shit about Batman lore.

(As I mentioned last night, I will not contribute to the shooter's infamy by mentioning his name. I am sticking with that and will only call him "the shooter.")

So, whether he sees himself as The Joker or not, one thing seems clear...

At some point, the shooter went from "aspiring scientist" to aspiring super-villain.

We now know that the shooter spent many months planning and ordering ammo, armor and other supplies, many of them delivered by UPS to his university workplace, long before he dropped out of the PhD program.

Based on his apparent planning, the term "premeditated" seems inadequate.

I do not want to glamorize or glorify what this monster... sorry... shooter did.

But, lets get into the mind of evil genius and break the plot down, based on what we know, so far...

1.) Rig apartment with complex incendiary booby traps. Set radio alarm clocks to play loud techno music at a few minutes after midnight to generate noise complaints and draw police to the apartment.

(We now know that the booby traps were so complex that it took nearly 36 hours for the Aurora police bomb squad to figure out how to disarm and dispose of the bombs without destroying the building.)

2.) Park car filled with armor and weapons outside of theater emergency exit.

3.) Buy ticket to midnight screening of movie.

(Something that I have not seen talked about... The people in this theater have been watching the first two Batman movies since 6:00 PM. Thirty minutes into the premier of "The Dark Knight Rises," the audience is already fatigued and will be easily disoriented by sudden chaos.)

4.) Pretend to get a phone call and exit theater through emergency exit, propping the door open.

5.) Armor up and strap on. While, he assumes, police are distracted by an exploding apartment building.

6.) Throw smoke bombs and proceed to shoot the stadium seated audience members like ducks in a shooting gallery.

Bottom line....

This wasn't some idiot with C4 in his shoes, who couldn't operate a Zippo lighter, or a moron with explosives in his underwear. This was, (and I hate to give him this much credit, but) an evil genius who had every little thing planned out.

The obvious question is, "What would make a smart young man do something like this?"

The Media wants to find some correlation to the movies or the 1980s graphic novel "The Dark Knight Returns." Those avenues are too much of a stretch. But, Alan Moore's late '80s graphic novel, "The Killing Joke" offers a more likely insight.

In "The Killing Joke" The Joker attempts to convince Jim Gordon that all it takes is "one bad day" to break a person's sanity. Gordon responds by demonstrating that "one bad day" will only break one whose psyche is already pretty fragile.

The real mysteries, as far as The Blog is concerned, are as follows...

How does anyone go that far off the rails without any friends or loved ones noticing that there is trouble brewing? Loner or not, he had friends and family. Did no one see this coming? It seems like, maybe, his mom did know. When informed of the attack, the shooter's mom responded, "Yes, you have the right person."

But, the real mystery is this...

Rampages like this are usually suicide missions. They take as many as they can with them, then either turn their guns on themselves, or wait for "suicide by cop."

This guy was armored from head to toe. After the slaughter, he waited in his car, then allowed the police to take him in without a fight.

He had no intention of dying.

It seems that he intended to live to witness the destruction that he wrought.

That is the most baffling aspect of this story.

Aurora, CO. July 20th, 2012. 12:39 AM

Well...

SHIT!

This is sure as hell not the way I wanted to wrap up a week of Batman themed posts.

Unless you have been in a coma for the last 24 hours or so, you know about the horrific shooting in a Colorado movie theater in the very wee hours of this morning. I'm not going to rehash all of the details here. The truth is, even after a full day, the details are still pretty sketchy. I imagine that much will become clear (or, at least, clearer) over the next few days.

Right now, I am more interested in the various responses to the tragedy.

True to form, "The Media" began it's news reporting day by wetting itself over what could be a Pulitzer and Emmy worthy story. Every news broadcast, every radio talk show devoted every single goddamned minute to the story. By the time we got to the 11 'o Clock AM news, I was wondering how they were going to tie the shooting in with the weather report.

As the day wore on most of the media outlets began flailing around, trying to keep the story going, with no new information to report. This is not a unique situation. It happens whenever there is a story of this magnitude. Watching reporters and anchors go from initial enthusiastic reportage to that "deer in headlights" look as they realize that they have said all there is to be said four hours ago is one part amusing to two parts sad. But, God bless 'em, they do soldier on!

I should give positive recognition to a couple of outlets here in Los Angeles.

CBS affiliates KCBS Channel 2 and KTLA Channel 9 resisted the urge to call the shootings anything like "The Batman Massacre" or "The Dark Knight Rises Movie Shootings." (Unlike CBS and ABC national news who did just that.)

And, to former KNBC anchor and current KTLK radio personality David Cruz, who not only called out the media outlets who did succumb to the temptation, but also used his considerable Colorado connections to investigate far deeper into the story than any of the TV stations did.

But, no praise goes to the usually reliable and venerable Associated Press, who lowered themselves to posting this story, (rife with inaccuracies and wild speculation,) or to CBS' "48 Hours Special Report" and so many newspapers, who picked up the story and ran with it.

No surprise, both sides of the gun debate came out (forgive the idom) "both barrels blazing." The arguments, predictable. The Blog, of course, has his two cents to contribute to that argument. And, if you have been following for a while, you know where I stand on the topic. And, I will talk about it in a day or two. But, tonight is not the time or place for it.

President Obama and candidate Romney both suspended campaigning for the day and used their scheduled campaign stops to express their condolences to the victims and their families. For a few minutes, at least, both candidates were in complete agreement.

Lesser politicians were not so classy. Like this idiot.

Of course, the "social media" has been hopping. Here are a couple of my favorite posts from Facebook and Twitter....

From comedy writer and internet satirist Andy Borowitz...

"Dear Internet People: Maybe choose another day to make pro-gun statements. Sincerely, Good Taste"

From Cass McCune, friend of The Blog's sister and wife of Hollywood special effects legend John Dykstra...

"You never wake up with stories about how someone with a bunch of guns saved lives."

From "Star Trek's" George Takei...

And a really cool idea that is going viral on Facebook...

And finally...

One of the shooting victims was a young woman named Jessica Redfield. Her tragic death at the hands of this lunatic is even more chilling when you read the last post to her blog, dated June 5th, 2012.

The Blog has some questions and some wildly irresponsible speculation about the shooter. (I feel like I don't want to contribute to his infamy by calling him by name. So, I wont.) We will see what new information tomorrow brings. And then I will comment further.

My thoughts are with the victims, their families and the survivors.

That's all for tonight.

The Top Story Tonight...

The media is all atwitter tonight, about the story that comedic actor Fred Willard was caught with his pants down in a Hollywood adult movie theater.


Holy shit! What decade is this?

I mean, really?

We are well into the 21st Century, where you can access any sort of porn you want with a mouse click or two away from this blog.

(Or... well... that is what I have been told, anyway.)

The Blog is stunned to learn that there are still X-rated theaters in Hollywood. Who knew?

Okay, so Fred, who was the subject of a terrific article about his comedic awesomeness  in the Los Angeles Times not a week ago, might have been caught pulling a "Pee Wee Herman" in a  porn theater.

So fucking what?

The dude is nearly 80 years old.

If a porno in a movie theater is what he needs to get a proper hard-on... well... more power to him. At least he isn't diddling children or stalking Lindsey Lohan.

And, what the fuck? PBS has already fired him from his new hosting job, without due process of any kind.

The Blog stands with Fred.

(But, Fred. Between you and me, stay out of theaters. The internet is your high-tech friend.)

Crap! This doesn't fit with my Batman theme week.

So here is this...

Mrs. Blog and I went to the movies this morning. "Ice Age" part 348, or whatever.

An entertaining movie, but really, I think it is time for the "Ice Age" franchise to hang it up.

But, at 9:30 AM, the line for the Batman trilogy was already a half a block long. All midnight shows were sold out.

The Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turran calls "The Dark Knight Rises" "genius " and "Oscar worthy."

The Blog will see it sometime next week, when the crowds have thinned.

A review will come.

Rush Goes Bat Sh*t

In keeping with this week's "Batman" theme... (Yes, it's "Theme Week" at The Blog. It didn't start out that way. But, with three Batman related posts in a row, a theme has become evident. Work with me here.) Let's discuss the "Dark Knight Conspiracy."

Yesterday, the bloated bloviator, Rush Limbaugh floated a conspiracy theory so whacked out, bat shit crazy that it makes pretty much anything that he has ever said before seem reasonable.

Here is the transcript....

"Have you heard this new movie, the Batman movie, what is it, The Dark Knight Lights Up or whatever the name is. That’s right, Dark Knight Rises. Lights Up, same thing. Do you know the name of the villain in this movie? Bane. The villain in The Dark Knight Rises is named Bane, B-a-n-e. What is the name of the venture capital firm that Romney ran and around which there’s now this make-believe controversy? Bain. The movie has been in the works for a long time. The release date’s been known, summer 2012 for a long time. Do you think that it is accidental that the name of the really vicious fire breathing four eyed whatever it is villain in this movie is named Bain?
So, anyway, this evil villain in the new Batman movie is named Bane. And there’s now a discussion out there as to whether or not this is purposeful and whether or not it will influence voters. It’s gonna have a lot of people. This movie, the audience is gonna be huge. A lot of people are gonna see the movie, and it’s a lot of brain-dead people, entertainment, the pop culture crowd, and they’re gonna hear Bane in the movie and they’re gonna associate Bain. The thought is that when they start paying attention to the campaign later in the year, and Obama and the Democrats keep talking about Bain, Romney and Bain, that these people will think back to the Batman movie, “Oh, yeah, I know who that is.” (laughing) There are some people who think it’ll work. Others think you’re really underestimating the American people to think that will work.
The Bane character in this movie was a terrorist. He’s out to destroy Gotham, New York City, which is the case in every Batman movie. But instead of sounding like Romney, he sounds like an Occupy Wall Street guy, in truth. Now, there’s a story in the Washington Times today: “Is Mitt Romney…Batman? — Opponents of Mitt Romney have noticed that the name of Batman’s villain in the upcoming film The Dark Knight Rises is homonymous with the name of an investment firm that Romney founded in 1984. The childish ‘aha’ moment was not unpredictable. Americans have tolerated condescension remarkably well for the past four years, so we can presumably take an insult to our ability to spell — or ability to follow a storyline, for that matter.
But, anyway, I didn’t really know what the point of this story is. They’re trying to point out that in Batman the good guy and the rich guy are one and the same, and that’s Bruce Wayne. And so what this guy is saying here, hey, instead of falling in with the evil guy being Bane, let’s just say Batman is Romney. Batman’s Romney, he’s the evil rich guy, he’s the good rich guy, he’s out to save New York. The rich guy’s the good guy. Of course the evil guy is always rich too in these Batman movies. You may think it’s ridiculous, I’m just telling you this is the kind of stuff the Obama team is lining up. The kind of people who would draw this comparison are the kind of people that they are campaigning to. These are the kind of people that they are attempting to appeal to."

The Blog has edited the transcript for length. But, if you think that any of this is taken out of context, you can listen to the full audio here.

I'll put it bluntly. This theory is nuttier than the Fox "News" theory, a few months ago, that "The Muppets" movie was a liberal attempt at indoctrinating children against the sheer awesomeness of corporate fascism .

Now, if "El Rushbo" had simply suggested that the Christopher Nolan trilogy contains some liberal leaning subtext about terrorism and security in a post 9/11 America, The Blog would be hard pressed to argue the point.

The fact is, Nolan's Batman movies are loaded with commentary about the moral ambiguity that has come with our "war on terror."

Which is no mean feat, considering that much of the source material for "The Dark Knight" trilogy comes from "Batman: Year One" and "The Dark Knight Returns," both written by the uber-macho, self-professed fascist Frank Miller. (See also, "300" and "Sin City.")

In Miller's Batman stories (as in much of his other work) Gotham City's real problem is not the over the top villains the city attracts, but rather, sniveling liberals, spineless intellectuals and politically correct media.

Miller's 1980s contributions to the comic book genre were edgy, brilliant, literate and, unfortunately, right-wing extremist wet dreams.

But, I digress.

The issue is about the villain Bane.

The Bane character was introduced by DC Comics in 1993. After the success of the "death" of Superman in 1992, DC decided that a similar fate was needed to pump up the sale of "Batman" comics. Thus, Bane was born. A hapless victim of a military experiment by a South American, third world regime, Bane was the result of a "super steroid" called "Venom." A bit of fake "science" so lame that it would have been right at home in the Marvel Universe, along side radioactive spiders and overdoses of gamma rays.

 Add a "lucha libre" mask and you have the villain who broke Bruce Wayne's back, making him wheelchair bound for a whole year. Much silliness followed, a pretend, apprentice Batman, and, well, a recovery from spinal paralysis after only a year.

So, wait! What's my point?

Oh yeah. The bottom line is, the idea that DC comics came up with a villain named Bane nearly two decades ago, just in case a Republican presidential candidate in 2012 would have connections to an evil corporation called Bain is about as fucking insane as the notion that someone planted birth announcements in Hawaiian newspapers in 1961, to cover the tracks of a 2008 presidential candidate.

But the story gets better!


After getting bitch slapped for his idiotic remarks by the likes of Dr. Rachel Maddow and Lawrence O'Donnell, Rush tried to backpedal.

"Everybody's out there running around saying I got this giant conspiracy theory that the Batman people, the creators, the comic book creators, created this thing to campaign against Romney. I never said that. I didn't say there was a conspiracy. I said the Democrats were going to use it. . . ."

Actually, Limbaugh did say it was a conspiracy.  He did so when he asked the question, "Do you think that is accidental?" about whether it could conceivably be an accident that this new Batman movie has a villain in it with a name that sounds like Mitt Romney's former firm.

The Blog wonders if Rush is back on the "hillbilly heroin." One major side effect of Oxycodone is, after all,  paranoia.

Or is it just that the $40 million a year that he gets from Citadel Broadcasting means that he has to come up with some shit, no matter how crazy and ignorant, to pander to his idiot "Dittohead" audience?

The Blog reports. You decide.

Oh. One more thing.

The right-wing will tell us that it is a low end, cheap shot to portray a candidate as a Batman villain.

                                                                                             Like this.

But, never mind...

                                                                                            ... This.

What Went Wrong With the Catwoman Movie?

In last night's post, The Blog blew off the Halle Berry "Catwoman" movie with the phrase, "The less said, the better."

That phrase guaranteed that The Blog would spend today obsessing about the question, "What went wrong?" in the same way that a passing reference to the worst musical ever produced "Grease!" would guarantee that "You're the One That I Want" would be stuck in The Blog's head for the better part of the day.

The Blog claims a unique expertise on the subject. Because The Blog was directly involved in the production of the Pamela Anderson mega-bomb "Barb Wire."

That's right.

Pamela  Anderson, Pamela Anderson's breasts and shit blowing up. Three elements that should have insured a blockbuster.

But, instead, "Barb Wire" became a Hollywood punch-line, along the lines of "Heaven's Gate" and "Howard the Duck."

But "Catwoman" made many of the same mistakes as those films, plus several others.

In the "plus" column...

"Catwoman" starred Halle Berry, one of the most beautiful women on the face of the Earth. Also, a talented actress who, with better material would have owned the character.

But, that's about it for the "plus" column.

The "minus" or "What went wrong?" column....

Ms. Berry's Catwoman was not a reboot of Selina Kyle. She was Patience Phillips. According to the plot, the latest in a long line of Catwomen. Not a resident of Gotham City. Rather a resident of New York, maybe. Or, maybe, Vancouver, Canada. It's not all together clear.

She enjoys the same supernatural elements as Michelle Pfeifer's Catwoman. Egyptian cat goddesshood, indicated by a shot duplicating the "Batman Returns" shot of Michelle/ Halle on the rocks surrounded by cats.

The high camp presence of villainess Sharon Stone as a corrupt cosmetics mogul pushed the movies demographic into the narrow, and not very "comics nerd" realm of women and gays only. The narrow "Death Becomes Her" demo.

Apologies to my female and gay friends, but this is the same move that made Pamela Anderson's "Barb Wire" and  "VIP" popular, not to the intended male audience, but  rather to women and gays. NTTIAWWT!

And then there was the CGI special effects that looked like they were designed on a Nintendo 64.

Here's hoping that the newest incarnation of Catwoman will bring her to a wider audience.

Looking forward to "The Dark Knight Rises."