Even If You Can Make a Useful Contribution, Do Not Butt Into the Conversations of Strangers

Don't be an asshole. Don't do it. Do not insert yourself into the conversations of strangers, simply because you feel you could make a useful point, or could clarify something they've misstated.

It's bound to happen. You'll be sitting there on a bus, on in line at the coffee shop, or waiting in the dentist's office, and you'll overhear a conversation that relates directly to a strong opinion you hold, or an area of your personal expertise. You'll hear the strangers making factual mistakes, or wondering aloud about questions you could easily answer. You'll hear them make arguments that are plainly wrong for at least 3 reasons you can think of immediately. And you'll hear them serve up good-humored conversational softballs to which you could respond with any number of funny quips.

You will want to butt-in. The urge may be so strong that it seems irresistible. You will rationalize it to yourself. You'll think "These guys will be thrilled that they just happened to pose questions in earshot of someone who knows the answers! It's their lucky day!"

But you are dead wrong. You are setting yourself up to look like an insufferable prick, and the only thing you will make the strangers feel is a secret desire that you drop dead.

Imagine talking to your friend on the crosstown bus:
You: "I heard KFC's grilled chicken actually has more calories than the original recipe."
Friend: "You don't say?"
You: "Yeah, it's cause of the marinade."
(Suddenly, Colonel Sanders himself turns around from the seat in front of you)
Colonel Sanders: "Actually that's not true. The grilled chicken only has 2/3 the calories. And it doesn't even have a marinade."
Friend: (Silence)
You: "Fuck off, Sanders."

The more you know about the topic, the more you will feel compelled to butt in. This happened to me last week at a bar. The strangers were discussing a movie that happened to be one of my favorites. They were arguing over the fine points and they couldn't remember certain details. It was a fun, jocular conversation, they were laughing, and they were making lots of little errors in talking about the film.

I sat there and I knew what I had to do. I had to keep my mouth shut. I could have lectured them for 20 minutes on all the fine points of the film. I could have delivered an impromptu symposium on it. But the conversation - and this is what you have to understand - the conversation they were having was not really about the movie. The movie didn't really matter. What it was really about was a couple of friends unwinding after a long work day and sharing a couple of beers. Having a few laughs. Enjoying some good company. Even though we were in a public place, there was an expectation of privacy. And if it just so happened that their casual banter involved talking about a movie - and not even getting it right - then that was their prerogative. They couldn't remember the actor's name? Didn't matter. They were having more fun trying to figure it out than they would have if I butted in like a google search result.

There are circumstances I guess where you can break the rule and butt-in. If someone gives bad directions, or someone is about to get on the wrong train, then it's okay. If you can be a good samaritan and save someone from headache and inconvenience then do it. But otherwise stay out. Allow the strangers to say things that are wildly incorrect. Allow them to be offensive.

One of my goals in life is to write a book. And the reason is because I want to someday be tempted by the ultimate butt-in scenario: some strangers talking about my book while I am sitting right there. The urge to say "Actually, I wrote that book." will be so overwhelming, that by resisting it I might break out into sweats and the shakes - but it is the ultimate test. Because anyone who says "Actually, I wrote that book." is a douche. And that's the question you have to answer. When push comes to shove, when all the chips are down: will you respect someone's privacy? Or will you be a douche?

What the Hell is "Gay Panic" and Why is "Hot Tub Time Machine" Guilty of It?

I saw Hot Tub Time Machine last week. Funny movie. I recommend it. One habit I have is reading reviews of movies after I see them, to see if I agree with the critics and to see if they had any additional insights on the film.

So I'm reading some reviews of HTTM, and mostly I'm interested to see if the critics can give the film an endorsement for being funny, despite the raunch factor. To my surprise, the critics didn't seem to mind the raunch. Par for the course, they admitted. Roger Ebert was downright refreshed. No, the real problem was that HTTM traded in the lowest form of bigot comedy - not racism or sexism, but something called "gay panic." Well this was a new one to me.

Variety: "The pic ... later features projectile vomiting (twice), wayward pee and some of the lowest gay-panic humor in recent memory."

The Onion's AV Club: "Machine is engaging enough, but its characters’ path to redemption would be more satisfying if it weren’t greased with authentically ’80s-style casual sexism, gay panic, and frat-comedy clichés."

The New York Times: "The undercurrent of misogyny and homophobic panic that courses through most arrested-development, guy-centric comedies these days is certainly present here."

Rolling Stone: "But Pink goes way too broad with the screenplay partly credited to Sean Anders and John Morris, who lift a gay-panic joke out of their own She's Out of My League."

Film Journal International: "Not all the jokes land, of course; the movie unfortunately doesn't avoid the tired gay-panic gags that continue to plague most buddy comedies..."

I could have gone on. This was a common complaint. Now, the charge of homophobia - that one I'm familiar with. Movies that make jokes at the expense of gays. I've seen those. But the charge of Gay Panic... that's not really the same is it. Gay Panic isn't Gay Bashing. It's something else.

It's something more subtle. Direct accusations of homophobia in films like Hot Tub Time Machine seem to have died down lately. And I think this is not because everyone has mellowed. I think that the line of scrimmage has simply been moved. Those who would make jokes in sex comedies about men fellating each other have been pushed back towards their own goal and are now being accused of "gay panic" rather than outright homophobia.

I'm trying to figure out what the dictionary definition of gay panic is, but Google isn't being much help. I'm also trying to figure out where in HTTM some sort of offense to homosexuals occurred, and I'm coming up empty on that too. What Google and Wikipedia are telling me is that gay-panic is a term concocted as a legal defense by those whose have committed acts of violence against gays. A hetero person discovers that someone he is talking to is homosexual, or is actually hit on by that person, and the hetero guy becomes enraged, losing all bonds to sanity, and turns violent. Gay Panic is thus invoked as a form of temporary insanity to get violent thugs off the hook.

Now I have to say, that's pretty loony. I hope no one actually skipped any jail time on that legal defense. But this definition of gay panic is clearly not the one being employed in these film reviews. As best I can tell, when the New York Times or Variety is accusing HTTM of trading in gay panic jokes, they are referring to scenes where the (hetero) characters are panicking in the context of a homosexual act that may be about to occur or that they may have to participate in.

I'm mentally going through the movie and I can think of four instances where homosexuality was referenced at all, let alone panicked over. They are:

1) In the car ride to the resort, two of the characters get into one of those back and forths of "You're gay." No, you're gay." No, YOU'RE gay."

2) Rob Corddry, Craig Robinson and John Cusack all get into the hot tub naked. (off camera). The fourth guy is reluctant to disrobe and join them and has a line, something like "I just don't like the idea of a bunch of dudes naked together in a tub."

3) Rob Corddry and that same guy (forgot his name) are about to have a threesome with a woman. Corddry is very gung-ho about it, but the other guy is uncomfortable. He has a line where he says something like "Sure I'd be into a threeway, but not with another dude!".

4) Rob Corddry makes a bet where if he loses, he has to fellate Craig Robinson. He does this only because he believes his victory in the bet is inevitable. For hilarious reasons, fate conspires to make him lose the bet. There is then a prolonged scene where Corddry and Robinson do indeed panic at the idea that they will have to make good on the bet and go through with the BJ.

These are the only times in the movie where any kind of gay activity is referenced at all. If I've missed any, please let me know. Presumably the charge of gay panic is being applied to these scenes.

Now here, finally, is where we get to my main question and the point of this blog. Does Political Correctness now dictate that heterosexual men, in films or in reality, are no longer permitted to be disgusted at the thought of committing a homosexual act? Is that what being accused of gay panic means? This is what I mean when I say I think the line of scrimmage has been moved. It used to be the case that overt, anti-gay prejudice was unacceptable. Now it seems that any expression of distaste at the thought of participating in gay sex is the new standard for opprobrium. And if that's truly the case, then I call foul in a big way, and say no to the new standard.

In the four references I cited above, I think you can make the case that the first one was a bad idea - you don't need a comedy reinforcing the use of "gay" as an insult that straight guys use on each other. The 40 Year Old Virgin had the same joke if I recall. I think movies could, by and large, make a point of not having characters call one another gay, the same way they make a point of not having anyone smoke. So if you want to get on HTTM's case that the "No, you're gay" routine in the car was in bad taste, I'm on board.

But as for the other three scenes, no dice. I stand my ground. There is nothing offensive to homosexuals there. It is simply a fact that hetero men are grossed out, always will be grossed out, at the idea of homosexual coupling. Hetero men are biologically hardwired to be that way. If men weren't grossed out by the thought of gay sex, if the idea was somehow a neutral one rather than a negative one, then the animal kingdom wouldn't have gotten very far. If same-sex coitus was a sort of acceptable, runner-up activity if you struck out with the ladies that day, then what species would have survived or thrived? It's not enough to be attracted to the opposite sex, it seems to me. You must also be repulsed at the idea of mating with your own gender for procreation to work. Straight sex and gay sex can't be interchangeable in the mind.

What this means is that no matter how progressive or enlightened we are, no matter how accepting of gay rights we are, no matter how well we can, intellectually, wrap our minds around the idea of gay sex being fine and dandy for those who enjoy it, we will never overcome the natural revulsion to participating in such sex ourselves. And no campaign to overturn that reality will ever be successful. 1,000 years from now, immature boys just beginning to understand their sexuality will taunt others in the playground with accusations that hey, that kid likes to suck cock. And the lesson that such language is offensive to gays will have to be taught and retaught every generation. That project will never be over.

Many people like to point out the similarities between the struggle for gay rights and the struggle for civil rights for blacks, or suffrage for women - they compare the laws against gay marriage to anti miscegeny laws and draw those kinds of parallels. And I just kind of sit back and brood on that. To some extent, yes there are similarities. But the big difference is the one I just discussed. No one is born a racist. You have to be taught that. People are, on the other hand, born to be powerfully sexually attracted to one gender, and (in most cases) powerfully sexually repulsed by the other. Therefore, while I can envision a world free of racism, I cannot envision a world free of "gay panic". And of course gays are not immune from this panic either. What would your average gay man say when contemplating sex with a woman? Would he be neutral about it? Or would he say "Ew! Tew-nahhhhhh!"

But that isn't offensive. That's normal. So when Rob Corddry balks at sucking Craig Robinson's dick, that is, dare I say it, a normal response to that predicament. Is it Gay Panic? Well what does that mean, and what's wrong with it?

It should probably be pointed out that in HTTM, none of the supposed gay panic scenarios involved anyone actually being gay or being mistaken for gay. The real gay-panic is supposed to involve one person's sudden discovery that the other is gay. That never happens in HTTM. The reluctance of Clark Duke (I looked up his name) to get into a hot tub with three naked guys is not about his fear that one or all of the men are gay or that gay sex is somehow imminent - it's about his fear of being perceived as gay by others. And that fear, in turn, is not about the diminished social standing that comes with being perceived as gay, it's about that perception limiting his chances with women and inviting overtures from real gay men, reasons that strike me as being entirely sound, with motivation that's deeply biologically hardwired. It is, in short, normal, fine and inoffensive.

If the situation was reversed (always a handy tool to sift through PC bullshit) and it was a gay Clark Duke asked to participate in a threeway with a dude and a girl, and Duke wanted no part of it because he wasn't into girls, would I, as a straight guy, be offended? Nope. Could a film critic cry out "Straight panic!"? Again, nope. If a gay Rob Corddry lost a bet and was forced to perform oral sex on a woman, and Corddry got all panicked at the thought, would that disturb me? Uh.... no. Why would it?

So the charge that Hot Tub Time Machine is guilty of something called gay-panic falls pretty flat for me, and it concerns me that the new standard of being a right thinking person includes being forbidden to take a negative position on your own participation in homosexual sex, lest you be committing the crude faux-pas of gay panic. Being grossed out at the thought of gay sex if you're straight, or straight sex if you're gay, is the most normal thing in the world. Where's the offense?

The Problem with the New Yorker's Cartoon Caption Contest

Every week, the New Yorker has a cartoon caption contest. They provide the cartoon on their website. They accept caption submissions. They choose three finalists and open it up to a public vote. There's no money, but the the winner gets the caption published in the magazine, along with their name.

The real prize of course, not openly acknowledged but universally understood is that one's mother will swoon with pride and joy if one wins the contest. "Hey mom, guess who got their cartoon caption published in the New Yorker?" is the sentence that the winner is permitted to speak. Because of the high value of this prize, I have been trying for months to win this friggin' contest. Thousands of entries are sent in every week and only one wins, so the odds are small. But still, most of the entries suck donkey balls, and so winning it shouldn't be so difficult. And yet success eludes me, most likely because the judges themselves also suck various parts of pack animals. Some of the "winning" captions are unbelievably bad. Even Roger Ebert, writing here about his own frustrations with the winning captions, was himself proposing stupid substitutes.

But let me tell you the problem with the contest. Besides bad entries and inept judging, the contest has a built in flaw that no one seems to have caught. Before I explain it in detail, have a look at some previous contest cartoons and the winning captions:





Okay now take a close look at the one with the subway panhandler in the hammock. And consider the winning caption "Brother, can you spare a lime?". Funny, right? Cause lime rhymes with dime. And he's not a typical beggar, see. He's on some kind of tropical vacation. And he's begging for fruit. In the subway.

Now I grant you, if you've been staring at that blank cartoon for a long time, trying to caption it, and someone says to you "How about 'Brother, can you spare a lime?'" then yes, you're liable to laugh and admit that that's a good one. But now, imagine opening up the New Yorker and looking at the same line, on the same cartoon - not realizing that it was a caption contest winner - just thinking that it was a normal cartoon. What do you think about it now?

Well, it doesn't make a lick of sense, does it? Why is there a guy on a hammock in the subway between two girders? Why is he wearing a Hawaiian shirt and begging for fruit? Sure, you get the pun, but the pun doesn't explain the image. The image requires an explanation. The caption contest winners never furnish explanation. They only serve as verbal solutions to the puzzle of the image. The image is always something nonsensical, like a piano filled with fish; and the winning captioner is always the one who can find the pattern in the nonsense, with something like “They were caught swimming off the Keys.”

But this is insufficient. If you opened up the magazine, and saw that fish cartoon, you would simply be baffled by its randomness. The bizarre scene of the image demands some sort of explanation that’s anchored to reality. It has to speak to some sort of truth about music, or culture, or the shoddy state of public aquariums, or I don’t know what. But what it can’t be is some kind of pun that merely relates the concept of fish to the concept of pianos. That doesn’t work. All of the caption contest winners have this problem.

The winner needs to be the one that makes the cartoon feel organic. The winner needs to fool you into believing that the caption and image were created concurrently, with a point in mind, and not that one was reverse-engineered from the other. This is such an obvious problem, but the contest just rolls on, oblivious.

You might be saying that all this complaining and nitpicking is because I’m just bitter that I haven’t won. That I'm somehow saying that all that stands between me and earning my mother's love is the stubbornness of the New Yorker. And you'd be right. And yes they are.

My Attempt at a Jay Nordlinger Corner Post

In last week's Impromptus I had a followup to my Corner post of Wednesday last that engendered much comment. To briefly recap, I had written "I have written here and elsewhere, most recently in Impromptus, on a subject that raised a few eyebrows and occasioned much comment." Judging by the overwhelming response in my inbox, I see more discussion is warranted. I had responded previously on this topic, propelled to do so by a hearty influx of supportive email, but I see by the reaction solicited by the original item that, clearly, I had not given the subject a full airing.

Elsewhere I've written on peripheral topics, and I'm pleased to say they've borne just as much conversational fruit. (A quick search should bring up a trove of such). But I'd be remiss in not mentioning an item I included just two weeks previous, in which I mused that the response the original piece excited was notable not only for its volume but for the passions aroused. When I then wrote that I'd written similar observations, regularly, for years, and had predicted the elicited reaction at least once in NR dead-tree, I was deluged with letters! And - even though I've printed a few of the best in this space, I'd like to share just three more.

Final Fantasy is now Entirely About the Modeling of Realistic Human Hair

Final Fantasy is ruined. This great series of videogames, one that for over a decade delivered the best games of all time, strung together like pearls, has now officially died. By focusing on what didn't matter and ignoring what made the series so wonderful, Square-Enix has neutered the series. Specifically, they've abandoned the notion of creating "role playing games". And they've directed their energies, I think exclusively, on an aspect of gaming I wouldn't have considered essential: the realistic rendering of human hair. As a fan of the series since the beginning, I have to say, I didn't see that coming.

There were hints, I suppose, going back as far as the pointless and stupid Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within.

"Her movements (which mirror the actions of real actors) feel about right, and her hair blows convincingly in the wind." - Roger Ebert

"As you watch Aki, voiced by Ming-Na, you're struck by how realistic her hair is and imagine that much of the budget must have gone into giving it a special shampoo- commercial glow." - The New York Times

"It is said that a full third of the film's budget was spent on making the heroine's wispy hair convincingly wispy; how many heads of organic hair they could've bought is apparently irrelevant." - The Village Voice

Those of you who remember the movie remember that even though the hair was amazing, it was boring, the story made no sense, and the characters sucked. If only we had recognized this in 2001 for what it was: a warning siren. It was lauded though, at the time, for its groundbreaking CGI. We see now, 9 years later that a movie can only coast for a very short distance on special effects alone. Who now would rent or own this dog? The visuals, which looked fine at the time, now seem distinctly old hat. (There's a lesson here about Avatar by the way) But even in 2001, we can see Squaresoft's earnest passion to animate an uber-realistic head of follicles. Why? Why do they care so much about hair?

I have a pet theory. If you cast your mind back to the release of Final Fantasys 1, 4 and 6. (1, 2 and 3 in America) you remember that they were heralded as incredible games with terrible graphics. Even by the standards of the day, Final Fantasy games were far behind the curve, visually. Now as a fan I forgive that entirely. I personally would much rather that the limited memory available on an NES or SNES cartridge go toward gameplay depth in an RPG at the expense of graphical wonder. And the sales of those games bear that out. In fact, they prove a point. If a game that good doesn't need cutting edge visuals to be a best-seller, then the visuals aren't really what make an RPG good.

But here's where the pet theory comes in. Square knew it had a bestselling franchise. It also knew that the franchise had a reputation for butt-ugliness in the graphics dept. Square doubtlessly felt much great shame and experienced a loss of face. The President of the company may have even drawn out his seppuku knife and angled it at his ribs. So they committed to turn this complaint on its head. The worst looking graphics? From now on we'll have the best looking graphics. Final Fantasy games ugly? From now on, no game will be more beautiful. And the obsession with prettiness was born.

That also marks the exact moment when the gameplay excellence began to decline. And little did we know that the series would eventually become solely about hair. Thick, lustrous, silky hair. Feathered hair. Wind swept hair. Waterlogged hair. And the hair physics! A hair physics engine so complex and powerful that it could probably play Deep Blue to a draw at chess.

A brief recap of the franchise since it started going downhill:

Fans loved 8, but at the time I was worried. The Junction system didn't have the Materia system's depth, exploration and leveling didn't pay off quite as much, and the card game was given too much importance. I appreciated that the movies looked great (particularly the opening movie), but I was alarmed that the story was so weak. (No villain practically the whole way. What's-his-name, your schoolmate who turns bad, was set up nicely as a villain, but then abandoned)

IX was excellent. The crystal system was too simplistic, and again the real estate for meaningful exploration continued to shrink, but as a game it was fine. Chocobo Hot and Cold was a highlight.

X was the bombshell where you realized that the train was heading, permanently, in a new direction and you'd better ask yourself if you were on board. While superficially a huge world, in truth it was claustrophobic. No freedom to explore. No backtracking at all until the game was 90% over. The Sphere Board superficially appeared to offer freedom of customization, but in truth forced each character down a narrow development path. (If you think Kihmari is the exception, try making him a black mage). And the story that earned so much praise, made precious little sense.

X-2 was the same deal.

XI I ignored.

XII. Now number 12 was in some ways an improvement over 10. But while the characters all had rich, exciting, nuanced and compelling hair, they didn't have much in the way of personality. The story was so convoluted, incomprehensible and poorly written, that even now I can't remember a single thing about it. Not a thing. I cannot provide a summary, and I think I beat the game. I think there were some bad people in an army who wanted some bad things. And there were lots of political interludes where people I didn't know discussed incredibly urgent matters that made no sense, and then many of them died. I think the hero's name was Vaan. And there was another guy who was supposed to be a kind of Han Solo character but ended up being pretty lame. That's all I remember about 12.

XIII. And now we get to the death knell. The end of the line. The deeply disappointing, completely inexcusable Final Fantasy 13. Now you might say it's unfair of me to judge a game I haven't seen or played, but I ask you - since I never intend to see it or play it, how long am I supposed to wait to pass judgment? Can't I just say that it sucks? Consider: 1) No towns. 2) All shopping is done from save terminals. 3) It's the Sphere Board system all over again. 4) Every map is just a straight line tunnel with fancy graphical wallpaper on the sides. 5) The story (from what I've read) is weak-sauce Aeon Flux, and the hook of "If they win they're going to die anyway" was lifted directly from FFX.

Most of that I would have expected, but the complete abandonment of non-linearity did come as a surprise. We knew this was where the train was heading. Each sequel since VIII has given you less and less freedom. But we've suddenly and unexpectedly arrived at total, unforgiving linearity. We are now fully on rails. The only navigational spaces in XIII are death tunnels. The story is utter nonsense and the characters (Lightning honorably excepted) are apparently really annoying.

But the game does have one saving grace, and here I quote a review of the import:

"The Graphics: My God, I want to eat everyone's hair." - Tim Rogers, actionbutton.net

Yes. The hair is stunning. Judging the game purely on the hair standard, which I have to assume is how Square-Enix intends it should be judged, the game is an obvious home run. Let's check out some stills:





That is some great animated hair. I have no doubt each individual hair has independent motion and under windy conditions is programmed to move with a partly-randomized, partly-scripted flutter that mimics pure realism. And then upon contact with any other neighboring hair is programmed to interact with the correct balance of friction and attraction. I think this is the technology Peter Jackson used to animate battles in Lord of the Rings with 100,000 orcs, only now it's being used for hair.

The only reason I am bitching is because I used to love these games. They accomplished something that all video games want to do, and few succeed at: immersion. Not the kind of immersion where you like the game and are into it. The kind where the game permits you to be the director of the story - where you can put yourself in the game. This series used to put you in the driver's seat to an extent not seen anywhere else. You could explore and fight and adventure in your own way and at your own pace while still staying within the confines of a scripted story. A massive world was given to you, one that you could navigate by land, sea and air. Because you could customize your hero with great depth, the game gave you an opportunity to personalize the experience. No two players played Final Fantasy VI or VII the same way. No two players had the same experience. Now look at XIII, and turn the question on its head: Will any two players have a non-identical experience? Is this a game, or some kind of bad movie where you occasionally tilt a thumbstick upward to move the story along? I don't plan on finding out.

I hope there's a backlash. I hope Square does a reassessment and decides to go back to basics. The series could be great again. But for now I say so long to Final Fantasy. I wish it well, with lots of conditioner and no split ends, but I will look elsewhere for gaming this year.

Ben Affleck Can't Act

I mean really. Stinkeroo. What an amateur. I actually got so annoyed with how bad his performance was in Boiler Room that it took me right out of the movie. And this wasn't even a movie like Gigli where the badness was legendary. This was supposedly a solid performance in a solid movie.

People kept telling me I had to watch this movie Boiler Room. If I liked Wall Street, which I do - and if I liked Glengarry Glen Ross, which I really do - then I owed it to myself to watch Boiler Room. So I picked it up as a rental. (In a nutshell: it was watchable but mediocre.)

Now here's what Variety said about this movie: a "likable ensemble, with a bravura turn from Ben Affleck". And: "Almost every character in Younger's elegantly staged thriller is borrowed from Stone or Mamet, beginning with Affleck's Jim Young, essentially the Alec Baldwin role from "Glengarry Glen Ross".

Here's the New York Times: "In its close attention to the hard-sell ethos of buying and selling, lying and cheating, "Boiler Room" calls to mind another movie its characters occasionally quote, James Foley's 1992 adaptation of David Mamet's play "Glengarry Glen Ross." (At times it hews a bit too close for comfort. Affleck's role -- to say nothing of his suit, his hair and his handsome hint of jowliness -- seems to have been traced over the outline of Alec Baldwin in that earlier movie.)"

One more, from the LA Times: "The way this movie deliberately evokes memories of "Wall Street" and "Glengarry Glen Ross" invites the audience to make comparisons. Ben Affleck plays a small role that is clearly modeled on the tough, arrogant Alec Baldwin character in "Glengarry."

Strong praise, right? I mean - it sounds like Affleck's got a really juicy role where he channels the Alec Baldwin part from Glengarry Glen Ross. Now, I want you to watch both scenes. I want you to watch Alec Baldwin's scene from Glengarry Glen Ross, and then watch Ben Affleck's similar part in Boiler Room. Then we'll come back for discussion.

So you've watched both of them? Me too. Do you see now how godawful Ben Affleck is when you compare it to an actual great performance? And God help me - I never thought I would ever say this - but Alec Baldwin has some serious acting chops. He absolutely nails it. Or maybe he doesn't? Maybe Ben Affleck is just so bad that he makes Baldwin look like Lee Strasberg.

Affleck can't blame the Boiler script. It's top notch. The editing seems okay. He's lit well. He has no one to blame but himself. Seriously this is one of the most botched, painful, amateurish community-theater-level performances I've ever seen. He works himself up into belligerence... and then just keeps it there. He just shouts out every line in faux-drill sergeant anger. No modulation, no playing around with tempo, volume, intensity... it's just memorized lines being barked at you. Look at the Glengarry performance again. Look at how Baldwin changes gears throughout the scene. How he uses body language. How he plays off the other actors. How (if I can borrow from the SNL cowbell sketch) he really "explores the space".

Baldwin rotates through smarm, menace, fury, sarcasm; he drips with contempt for everybody and needles them expertly. Look at when he towers over Lemmon and put his hands on the desk. "These people are sitting out there waiting to give you their money! ... Are you going to take it? ... Are you man enough to take it?" There's a little smile there. He finds the humor in the line. Is he smiling because he feels a little sadistic pleasure in humiliating Lemmon? Or because he recognizes the ridiculousness of what he's asking? Or because he's trying to encourage Lemmon to get mad? You can interpret it many ways.

Another aspect of the performance is how comfortable Baldwin seems in his viciousness. He's not giving a screaming rant of a performance where his face gets red and his neck veins bulge. He's calm - even as he's dishing out withering abuse and shouting obscenities. You get the feeling that he has a whole other level of anger that you don't even want to tap into. It's such a controlled, compelling character and performance. There's a lot baked in there for just 7 minutes, and Baldwin hits it out of the park.

Now, painful as it is, go back to Affleck. After watching the Glengarry scene can you even sit through this open-mike-night quality bullshit? Who at Variety was calling this a "bravura turn"? First of all, terrible casting. Who could possibly believe chubby-cheeked, baby faced Ben Affleck as some sort of corporate pit bull? His anger is whiny. Listening to him it sounds like he's never yelled at anyone before in his life. He doesn't know the rhythm of it. He sounds like a high school jock who unexpectedly has to give the team pep talk because the coach is out sick. He thinks the shouting is the performance. But it's not supposed to be. The script has him singling out Giovani Ribisi for praise, and it clearly makes Ribisi uncomfortable. Is Affleck even aware of that? When he tells the other guy "It's not funny.", does it sound even remotely natural? His hand gesture at the end... do you buy it for a second?

I did find one critical take on Affleck during my internet search, and it came from Maxim of all places: "Remember Bugsy Malone, that movie where there was a bunch of little kids acting like tough gangsters? Well, since Boiler Room was a pre-K version of Glengarry Glen Ross, it's no wonder Affleck delivers a watered-down, pre-pubescent version of Baldwin's classic castrating sales lecture. Affleck's about as intimidating as a male nurse, so the effect is, let's say, less intense than the stare-down from Alec's Blake. Hey, Ben, put that coffee down."

It's just a total embarrassment of what could have been a great scene, but for our boy Ben not having a single clue how to take advantage of an A+ part. A part where if he had just been adequately good he could have conceivably stolen the film. He is so godawful in that conference room that I was forced to write two full paragraphs praising Alec Baldwin. Ben Affleck should quit movies and find an entirely new career, maybe operating an apple pushcart in a park somewhere.

That's it! I'm done!

"To Be Honest" is a Perfectly Useful, Appropriate Phrase

I am really getting tired of the people who interrupt you when you begin a sentence with "To be honest". They stop you mid sentence and say "What do you mean, 'To be honest'? Does that mean you aren't honest the rest of the time? That you were lying?"

You get the same criticism for "Honestly," or "To be frank," - any of these phrases that connote that you're about to get serious with the other person. My last boss was particularly strict about this. He absolutely did not want to hear "To be honest" because he thought it spoke badly of your character. And because he was the boss, it filtered through the organization to the point where nobody could comfortably use the phrase.

Well I'm here to tell you that's bullshit. "To be honest" is an enormously useful, perfectly respectful phrase that conveys a definite message and says absolutely nothing about the character of the speaker.

Human conversation is full of artful deception. All of it. All the time. Most of it is benign. When someone says "How are you?", and you say "Doin' just fine Dave." it is understood that you elected not to give a full, detailed reply. Both parties are fine with that. The question was merely a greeting, and the response was just an acknowledgement. That's it. When the wife says "How do I look in these pants?" and you say "I'm not sure I like that style on you", you are choosing not to say "You look like a cow."

Every interaction we participate in has a certain amount of this. We sugarcoat. We spare each other's feelings. We hype up. We put a spin on our message. We highball. We lowball. We use euphamism. We temper, we boast, we use modesty or arrogance - depending on circumstance. We deflect, we downplay, we shift the focus, we exaggerate, we flatter, we console - all of it is to some various degree an acting job. We do not, absolutely do not use pure honesty all the time. Anyone who did try to offer total honesty all the time would be some kind of social outcast.

This is why the phrase "To be honest" is so useful. It alerts the listener that a bullshit-free opinion is about to follow, in a situation where bullshit would normally be employed. It doesn't mean that all bullshit is necessarily bad, or that in generally I am an untrustworthy person - it simply means that I am about to give you a fully truthful, unvarnished opinion. Many people do not even want to hear a fully truthful opinion, and the phrase "To be honest" gives them a second or two to tense up for the blow. It's a phrase that encourages you to pay close attention, to listen in. It advertises the arrival of a meaningful message. It does all of this in three simple words.

And it's particularly useful in a business environment where massaged and sugarcoated opinions are the norm. In my job, I'm expected to be optimistic in marketing, pessimistic to the top brass, and realistic to operations. The boss doesn't want to hear "to be honest"? He doesn't think that these aren't useful distinctions to make? If he asks me how sales are doing for the quarter, I can use A) "We'll get there, boss.", or B) "With a little luck, we can make quota." or C) "To be honest, I'm worried about making quota if that last contract falls through." All three responses are actually quite truthful. It depends on context. If he comes into my office with his shirt sleeves rolled up, closes my door and sits down, I'm going to use C. If he asks my opinion during a meeting where he's going around the table, it might be B. If he's walking through the office giving a tour to the board of directors, stops at my desk and introduces me, then asks, you better believe it will be A.

This is life. This is about the delicacy of using the right words in the right situations. So when I use C, how do you think I feel when I get rebuked for the implied dishonesty?

To be honest, the people who correct you when you start a sentence this way and rebuke you for the lies are deeply confused jackasses. Anyone who gives you a hard time for "To be honest" is saying that every conversation should be bullshit free. That is delusional. It takes a special pair of balls to correct people mid-sentence on their choice of words, and so if you're going to do it you should probably make sure you have a valid point, and are not simply advertising your lack of intelligence.

Thanks a Lot, Shoe Bomber

Thanks a lot buddy. Great job you did there. What with the bomb in the shoe. That was some strong thinking. Enjoy your prison time.

He's Richard Reid, and has any one person ever been responsible for the creation of so much annoyance? So much disgruntlement? So much ill-temper, brown study, disaccommodation and just general inconvenience? I mean sure, you've got Stalin, Hitler, Mao Tse-tung. But they painted their misery on more of a broad canvas. They were more direct. Richard Reid the Shoe Bomber is a more subtle operator. It's as if he wants to rival Stalin for evil, but he's not going to kill anybody - he's just going to poke you in the ribs and screech a soft, high pitched tone in your ear until the total evil inflicted is the same. He doesn't care - he's got time.

The terrible thing is that when I flew east last week, I didn't even get annoyed when the TSA made me remove my shoes. I'm trained now. I'm acclimated. There's no fresh sting of indignation when these incompetent, moon faced, drooling buffoons order me around. I had made it a point to continue to be aggravated at the requirement, just to remind myself that it truly was stupid and unnecessary. But this time I just gave up. Had to make the flight. Didn't care.

Of course we could also talk about the liquids ban. Some other terrorist plot involved a liquid bomb and now we can't bring drinks on the plane. The dirty secret here is that no one in the aviation industry is particularly interested in having this ban lifted. It forces passengers to make expensive purchases at the gate and on the plane. I'm sure it's been a boon to revenue. Don't look for that one to go away anytime soon.

What scares me though is the thought of where the next terrorist is going to hide his bomb. A book? His socks? What item of necessity will we next be forced to part with or subject to a scan? I'll tell you this, if I ever open the paper to read about the iPod bomber or the PsP bomber, I am officially quitting air travel.

Here's the bottom line. Some day the TSA will lift the liquids ban and the shoe scan requirement. Of course they will. Remember the "3 questions" you used to be asked when you checked in? Have you packed your own suitcase? Have you left it unattended? After billions and billions of repetitions of those questions and not a single justifying event to back them up they were discarded. It will be the same thing with the shoes. But the TSA, in its colossal stupidity, needs a lot of time to figure that out. Have I mentioned that the TSA are worthless? Have I mentioned that their front line agents are dumber than cheese? Seriously. The next time they're confiscating a nail file, ask them who the vice president is. Ask them to name a planet. It isn't normally fair to belittle someone for the crime of being dumb, but when that person is ordering you around like a child and making you surrender a diet coke, you should take the edge off their power trip by reminding them who they are and where they are.



We just happen to live in that unhappy twilight time: The Shoe Bomber is in the past. The TSA realizing that shoe scanning is ineffective is in the future. We're stuck in the middle. Plus, can't they just improve the full body scanners to find things in your shoes?

Thanks Shoe Bomber. And you did it all for God, right? Hope that works out for you.

240 Annoyances

221. Vegetarians who force their pets to be vegetarian.

222. Eddie Murphy's refusal to participate in any kind of SNL retrospective.

223. Songs that reference other songs. Like this recent one that won't go away about "Playing Sweet Home Alabama all summer long." What kind of balls do you have to have to make a song that's about the pleasure of listening to a much better song?

224. When you bump into a friend you haven't seen or spoken to in a long time and they get all petulant about how come you never write or call. Well why didn't you write or call? Why is the onus on me? Isn't a friendship a two-way street? This is particularly annoying when it was you that made the last contact. Your email was ignored or your call wasn't returned - and now she's wagging her finger at you because you don't keep in touch. Man that's irritating.

225. Asking for ginger ale and getting Sprite.

226. People: if you form a big semi-circle around the shopping mall mime disguised as a statue who freaks out the people who walk by, then everyone will know it's not a statue. Disperse! Watch from a distance!

227. People who call tomato sauce on pasta "gravy". Yeah, you're Italian.

228. That oblivious driver in front of you who if he pulled forward just a few inches would allow you into the turn lane.

229. When your friends make a St. Patrick's Day plan to all meet at around 9pm at that one Irish pub that's about 20 minutes away on the freeway - and when you get there, you realize, a) this is the most crowded you've ever seen an enclosed space, b) there's a $20 cover, and c) a portion of the floor has been roped off to feature a live band playing the loudest and shittiest music you've ever heard. Despite not having any fun at all, and meeting outside after 20 minutes to decide where to go next, you will all get amnesia and do the exact same thing next year, and ever year thereafter.

230. What good is a piece of sushi that's too big to put in your mouth? It's not like you can cut it into smaller pieces. Chefs: cut them smaller. Make 10 pieces instead of 8. Especially if its some kind of dragon-pizza-volcano-roll type deal.

231. I hate the expression "It's a glorious day." A "glorious day" means only one thing: that I'm about to get a hard time for continuing to sleep or watch TV.

232. Trivial Pursuit games with ancient pop culture questions. Also: Trivial Pursuit games with way-too-current, why-should-I-be-rewarded-for-knowing-this? pop culture questions.

233. TV shows where the opening credits spoil the surprise of which secondary characters you can expect to see in that particular episode.

234. People at the symphony who clap after the first movement.

235. Denise Richards as Dr. Christmas Jones.

236. Waitresses: if you're out of something, just tell me up front. Don't roll the dice that I won't order it.

237. The gauntlet of questions you have to answer at the Barnes & Nobles counter before they let you buy anything.

238. People who begin a speech with "The Chinese have a proverb: May you live in interesting times."

239. Who made the decision to replace the line "Until then we'll have to muddle through somehow." with "Hang a shining star upon the highest bough"? The original line is much better.

240. Can I get some sort of "Knows How to Navigate a Website" certification? So that I can opt of all these bullshit online training courses that I've had to take at two consecutive jobs wherein I am taught, click by click, how to use a supplier or client website? I mean maybe there are a few people out there who really do need to be shown how to navigate a menu bar and click on things, how to log on and change a password, how to select something from a pull down tab - but can't people who aren't fucking morons take a pass? Can't there be some kind of opt out clause?

Being Told That Your Password Isn't Rigorous Enough

It's been kind of a chore, over the years, to keep track of all my passwords. I don't want them all to be identical, and yet if I had 10 or 20 different ones there would be no way to remember them all. I do have about 5 passwords that I use, and they're all related to each other. So if I forget my log-on for some email account or customer-ID or something, it's a quick question of cycling through the list.

But I do have to gripe just a bit about these passwords at work. At any job where they give you a computer and a log-on, you're going to have to create passwords. Back in the olden days, you could pick whatever password you wanted. Then they started to tighten the rules. It had to be at least 8 letters. Fine. It had to contain at least one number. Well, okay. It had to contain both upper and lower case. Errr. And it had to be changed once a month, and could never be replaced with a previously used password.

Well Jesus Christ. So it has to be Mnz8sJk9, and you have to change it once a month. Putting aside the ridiculous notion that anyone would a) want to hack my work PC, or b) be thwarted at the last moment by my ingenious use of upper case, consider the following:

We are not robots. We cannot memorize multiple nonsense passwords, and then start fresh every month. I brought this up to my boss, who said, "Oh, just use 'Password1'. And then next month, 'Password2', and so on. It's what everyone does. It's easy." Good idea. And that's exactly what I do now.

But you just have to note the irony. This ultra secure, super fool-proof set of password requirements that was put in place to guarantee impenetrable ciphers of dazzling complexity... has instead resulted in everyone, EVERYONE, using the most obvious password you can possibly think of. Don't you just love that? Isn't this a great argument for just leaving people the hell alone?

New Blog Update

I had one or two other topics to go here that were poker related. But I'm starting to think that poker is a bit of a niche issue, and not everyone would be interested in my complaints about specific Las Vegas poker rooms. So I'm starting up a new blog called Poker Advice of Dubious Value. It will cover all the poker topics I want to talk about, and that way I can stick to general subjects here. If you're a poker player and want to check it out, the address is www.dubiouspoker.blogspot.com. The plan will be to update it every Sunday. As for the Petty Annoyances, I'm tapped out at the moment. I got nothing in the hopper.

But I do have a great quote from the author Jonah Goldberg, where he discusses his own petty annoyance. Read and enjoy:

Another useful ban would be to bar people from using foreign words when English ones work just fine. My favorite example of this, if memory serves, was a piece in the American Spectator in the mid 1990s by, I believe, Michael Vlahos who in the course of a perfectly insightful and intelligent article used the German word Konzept instead of the English "concept."

Even today a friend of mine will over-pronounce the word Konzept (spitting on the final "T") like a Disney movie German scientist whenever one of us comes up with a fairly banal idea or suggestion. For example, Me: "Some buffalo wings would be really good right now." Friend: "That is a fascinating Kooooooohhhhhhnnnnnzzzzzzepttttt!"

The Undeserved Reputation of the Bellagio Poker Room

The Bellagio Poker Room in Las Vegas is seriously overrated. It coasts on accolades like these year after year, without any real critical scrutiny. Yes, Bellagio hosts the biggest games. Yes, Bobby's room is cool. Yes, it's the place to go for poker celebrity sightings, and yes the Bellagio has made a big commitment to poker. But....

Have any of you actually tried to play there? At any given time there's 25 games going. Most of those games are not high limit, they're the same 4-8, 5-10, 1-2 and 2-5 games that you see everywhere else. They're the bread and butter of the poker room. And Bellagio's service is terrible. Let me outline what we commoners have to put up with:

1. The Tables Suck

One of the most irritating things a poker room can do is play ten handed holdem on a stud table. None of the Bellagio tables are big enough. No cup holders or wood border either.

2. And There's No Space Between Them

Good luck getting to one of those tables in the corner.

3. Drink Service Disappears When the Room Gets Crowded

4. The Brushes are Surly

5. They Use a Retarded Clipboard System for Lists.

Look, you can make an argument that the electronic lists are buggy and problematic and maybe there's a certain nostalgia factor for keeping an old-timey chalkboard list, but a pencil-and-clipboard list just doesn't work.

First, no electronic list, no remote monitoring of the list. That means you can't get it on your hotel room TV. Second, if you can't see the list, you can't decide what you want to do unless you're already talking to the brush. At Caesars, or the Venetian, or anywhere else, I can view the list at a distance, and I don't need to actually talk to the host until I know which lists I want to be on. The clipboard system means I always have to be crowded around the front desk craning my neck to see what's going on.

6. There's No Technology on the Tables.

There's no "seat open" button that the dealer can press, which means that Bellagio is one of the last houses in town where little old lady dealers still have to shout "I've got 2 on 15!!!" at the top of their lungs.

7. "You're going to table 8. Go and purchase chips first over there."

Thanks friend. Where's table 8? Oh, it's the one under the TV in the general direction where you're waving? That's helpful. And I'll go wait on the cashier's line first, I get it. Can I pick up some trash on the way?

Other poker rooms actually seat you and get your chips for you, but hey - this is the Bellagio.

8. They Won't Page You.

So what are you supposed to do if you're on a list that's a mile long? Just stand there awkwardly for an hour? Which leads directly to:

9. Where are Players Supposed to Wait?

Seriously. If you stand more than 10 feet from the brush, you will miss your call. If you stand in front of his face you clog the tiny space that people use to circulate in and out of the room. There is nowhere to sit. There is no alcove. The magazine rack is mysteriously on the other side of the room. If you wander even as far as the sportsbook bar, you will be out of earshot. This system of having players bottleneck the entrance by standing awkwardly against the wall is so poorly thought out that I'm surprised anyone puts up with it.

10. There are no Loyalty Rewards of Any Kind.

No swiping in, no points, no jackpots, no bad beats, no high hands, no drawings, no deli coupon, no monday night football square... there's bubkus. Absolutely nothing. Nada.

Although... it needs to be said: #10 is the reason why I do still play there. Not that I don't want a bad beat jackpot, but the lack of any kind of loyalty rewards keeps the poker zombies far away. The cranky, savage, nitpicky, liver spotted retirees that clog poker tables in Vegas like cholesterol. You know these guys. They're the ones who play one hand and then take an hour break. The ones fighting over who gets the next seat change button. The ones requesting setups. The ones more interested in enforcing obscure rules than in actually playing poker. At Bellagio they earn nothing for their play, and so they withdraw like Dracula from sunlight and actually make the games more playable.

But I digress. Have I painted a clear enough picture of what to expect at Bellagio at the lower limits? A sardine-packed space with crappy service? Even for all that, it's not a terrible experience. They have lots of games going all the time, which is a crucial plus. The quality of the opponents is a little lower than average (counter to conventional wisdom and due, I think, to the loyalty reward factor I noted above). And they make a good orange julius.

But let's be honest. Wynn has the best room in town, and Venetian isn't far behind. It's time for Bellagio to take inventory and sort a few things out. And it's time for the poker media to stop giving them a free pass.

I Hate the "Clock Manipulation" Portion of the Football Game

In my opinion there's just something unsportmanlike about it and it diminishes the game. That's probably an extreme position to take on it, but come on. There's something lawyerly, something unfriendly about those last two minutes where people are spiking balls, calling time-outs, running out of bounds, taking a knee, doing goofy things on the field for no other reason than to manage the clock.

I've said this before and I'll say it again. The rules of a sport exist to serve the sport. It's not the other way around. Football is an athletic contest. It's offense versus defense, broken down into discrete plays. The rules should be structured to promote the finest and fairest possible contest, so that pure athleticism is the deciding factor. If a running play is called for, but clock considerations force you to run a passing play instead, then you've got some flawed rules. The rules should always promote best play, all the time.

I don't think this is a hard line position. I've been complaining for years that I think there's something ugly about a basketball team running out the clock, and I've always faulted the rules of bridge for arbitrarily penalizing a 4 contract in the minors and a 5 contract in the majors. But football just takes it to a whole other level. Now, I come to football as a really casual fan. I don't watch a lot of it. I didn't grow up with it. When I sit through a game, there are always a few questions that come up for me about penalties and technicalities. I don't know all the rules.

But I know enough of the game to see that there are really 5 quarters. There's quarters 1-4, and then there's the really unfornutate final 2 minutes which can often last longer than a full quarter. Now, I don't fault the players or the coaches. They're just doing the best they can under the given rules. It's the governing body that's at fault. They've created a game which is doomed to always conclude with 10 or 20 minutes of pointless micromanagement. They've created time-outs for one purpose: extra time to confer about the next play, only to have coaches use it for a different purpose: stopping the clock. They've created distinctions about which plays cause the clock to stop and which kinds of plays cause the clock to keep going, that end up determining which plays players have to run.

As a spectator those last two minutes of gametime offer a completely different football experience, one that's not so much about great athleticism as it is about efficient coaching and a creative expoiting of the rules. Longtime, passionate football fans don't see this. To them, the whole micromanaged, litigous conclusion to the game is just part of the fun. To me, it's just kind of crass and it doesn't have anything good to show about the sport.

Do I have an alternative? Well, I don't have any well thought out plan - but clearly you need to rethink the clock, and some of the ways it can be cleverly manipulated. Baseball has no time limit. Other games like hockey and soccer manage to have time limits without the game turning into molasses at the end. Maybe you need to need to have a "last possession" rule when time expires. The clock ticks down to zero, at which point it's officially the last possession. Then you could see some real football because the team with the ball wouldn't be burdened with a time limit.

I don't know how many great, historic football coaches are now spinning in their graves, but I stand by my heresy - these rules are no good. I've got other suggestions as well: why should the winner of the overtime coin-toss get such a huge advantage? but that's an argument for another day.

I Am Tired of Hearing that Samus Aran is Some Kind of Videogame Feminist Icon

I don't get any pleasure out of saying this - but don't you think it is patently clear that the Metroid protagonist Samus was made female as an afterthought and as a joke? I mean, isn't it plainly the case that the Japanese programmers who made the original Metroid in the mid 80's made Samus a girl so they'd have a Ha-Ha twist ending? You win the game... the hero takes off his helmet for the first time... and surprise! It's a girl!


I have to bring this up because in the 20 years since the surprise ending of Metroid, Samus has evolved into a bona fide Videogame Feminist Icon. She's constantly trotted out as a prime example of how videogames provide strong female protagonists and role models for girls, and have been doing so since day one. And the more I read these gushing homages (like this one) to a great shattering of the videogame glass ceiling, the more of a fraud I think it is. I mean, isn't it clear she wasn't conceived as female?

It's actually a serious point. If she wasn't intended to be a female character, and her female identity was thought up and added as a postscript for a cheap "gotcha!" moment, then where does that leave the people who say that she represents gaming's first strong female protagonist?

Here's the original Metroid director, Yoshio Sakamoto, talking to IGN.com in 2007: "We were partway through the development process, when one of the staff members said Hey, wouldn't that be kind of cool if it turned out that this person inside the suit was a woman?" Exactly. The character had already been designed and scripted, and then they gave her a gender. And let's remember, this was a game that had a secret password to let you play as Samus in a leotard, and a bonus ending showing you Samus in a bikini. This is not the Marie Curie of videogames. This is joke territory, replete with 8-bit titillation.

Apparently I'm not the only one who feels that the empowered-woman reputation of Samus is sort of at odds with the way she's actually shown in the game. Here's Gamespot editor Greg Kasavin in the article "Samus' Suit Was Made by Men":

"Metroid, the perennial favorite sci-fi series from Nintendo, has a female main character. This was first discovered by surprise at the end of the original 1986 Metroid game, in which, if you finished the game having met certain special conditions, you'd see a brief cutscene of Samus Aran's red and gold armor magically disappear to reveal a shapely, scantily clad woman, who then waves at you. It comes as a bit of a shock, and why shouldn't it? Samus doesn't sound like a woman's name. ... While I wouldn't go so far as to say that I disapprove of this--I like the series, after all, and it's targeted at people like me--it also rubs me the wrong way. I don't appreciate that Samus being a woman is a punch line. Ironically, Metroid is often cited as one of those games that's quite progressive in its portrayal of women. It's obvious, I hope, that I happen not to think so."

Yes yes, this is all a big nitpick, but I've had to listen and read about the historic nature of Samus and her inspiration to girl gamers everywhere for 20 years. I've had to listen to how videogames were ahead of their time, morally serious responsible citizens because Nintendo had strong female protagonists like Samus Aran. And you know, if some young person out there is genuinely inspired by the example of Samus from Metroid, a retroactively designated woman, then shucks, I have no desire to piss on their parade, but how about we set the record straight for everyone else?

These Entertainment Weekly Best-Of Lists

This year, Entertainment Weekly published a whole issue of lists. Best 100 Movies of the last 25 years. Best 100 books, music albums, TV shows, etc. We all know that magazines use lists like these to sell copies (because if nothing else they allow you to show any celebrity photo you want, without the annoying burden of reporting any actual news) - but I had never seen an entire issue that consisted of nothing but lists.

In general, I like best-of lists. They're good conversation starters and fodder for debate. They're good old, empty calorie fun to read. So I'm reading these new Entertainment Weekly lists, and I'm enjoying them, but.... something wasn't quite right. There was that nagging little tingle on the back of my neck. That slight, barely perceptible sound of fingernails on blackboard or a violin out of tune. I knew that something about these lists was seriously wrong. And now, I think I've got a good grip on it.

Here's the thing. You've got the Academy Awards, right? Or the other top tier film award societies. The groups that genuinely try to reward the best films of the year. Then, on the other end of the spectrum, you've got something like the People's Choice, or better yet, the MTV Movie Awards, where someone like Tom Green can win Best Tongue or something like that. So you've got two completely different standards of seriousness.

The question is, where on this continuum of seriousness does Entertainment Weekly purport to be? Where is their disclaimer? I think the problem I have with them is that they clearly are claiming membership in the A category, putting on airs of total seriousness, while making B category choices.

Let's lay it all out on the table. And just to be clear, I have no problem with the B category. I have no problem with the MTV Movie Awards and handing out golden popcorn buckets to rappers and teenagers and Eugene Levy. My problem is solely with Entertainment Weekly's posturing.

EW is actually playing a very artful game here. I give them credit. I'm sure if I pressed them on naming "Speed" as the 40th best film of the last 25 years, they would respond with something like this: "Of course our standards are different than the Oscars. We don't dismiss all popular entertainment out of hand. Other critics won't consider the Matrix, Spiderman 2, Steven King, etc. because they reject crowd pleasers. We strip away that pretense and analyze everything on the merits. We're not afraid of looking at mainstream entertainment and calling it high art." That, I think, would be the EW retort.

And it's such a sensible, smooth, compelling explanation that it almost fools me. It sounds true, doesn't it? Think about it. Movies like The Dark Knight and Lord of the Rings - big blockbuster movies really can be high art, right? Maybe EW really does have the right idea?

But no. It's a lie. Here's what's really going on. And now that I've figured it out, I'll never be fooled by an EW list again. EW, when making these lists, is limited to pop culture product that the average Joe has heard of and seen. And that's it. They have to choose popcorn blockbusters to round out these lists because that's all they will permit themselves to consider.

Roger Ebert has a list of his own best movies of all time, and it's chock full of films you're never heard of. In his top 10 is something called Aguirre: Wrath of God. Now, maybe Aguirre: Wrath of God actually is one of the top 10 films of all time. But Entertainment Weekly could not ever, in a million years, acknowledge that. Why? Because you've never heard of Aguirre: Wrath of God, and if a magazine told you it was the 5th best movie of all time - then you'd feel just a little stupid. 'Cause you consider yourself a little bit of a movie buff. Hell, you subscribe to Entertainment Weekly after all - clearly you're into movies. And the 5th best movie of all time is something called Aguirre: Wrath of God? Kind of a let down. Kind of makes you feel dumb. This is the taboo that EW can't break. They can't risk making you feel dumb in this way, and so all risky and obscure choices are off the table.

Now that you understand the logic of the EW list, you can look at every category and finally understand the choices. The only category where I can bring any personal expertise is the best video game category. And looking at this list, I can say with certainty that each one of these 50 games is a mainstream, blockbuster best-selling hit. Every game there is a super safe choice. There are no misunderstood masterpieces. No brilliant Japanese imports that never found a US audience. Instead there are games like Guitar Hero, whose greatness lies solely in the immense number of copies it was able to sell. This isn't a list of the 50 greatest games you've ever heard of, it's a list of the 50 games you've ever heard of.

Look, EW is welcome to this shitty approach to the ranking of film and TV and music. It's nice that there's someone out there validating my enjoyment of Ghostbusters. But we need a disclaimer EW. We need you to acknowledge that you are limiting the candidates for these lists to movies found in the surplus inventory stock room at Blockbuster.

Oh my God, did they really list The Bourne Supremacy as movie #29? Was that the middle one? Man, I'm feeling a little nauseous now.