I’m not sure if I was just blinded by Costner’s 80’s dominance of baseball nostalgia. But who the fuck stands like that? He looks like one of those drunks in cartoons who are about to lean against the bar but it turns out the bar is like 12 feet away.

Am I the first person to notice this?

I’ve had this theory about The Fantastic Mr. Fox ever since it popped on to IMDB.  If stop motion animation didn’t work for Wes Anderson nothing would.

Since the Royal Tenenbaums, or even before,  Anderson has surrounded himself with actors, crew, and writers that love him like the benevolent micro managing dictator of a South American island. And because no one is saying No to him anymore, Anderson’s quirks and flaws have magnified to the point of eclipsing the movie itself. Wes Anderson had become a style rather than a filmmaker. I told anyone who would listen 3 years ago, that I didn’t know why Wes hadn’t just made all of the Life Aquatic animated. It would have been his best movie to date.  So after waiting for The Dajeeling Limited to come in a lil red envelope, I thought Mr. Fox might be worth the $12.50.

Now right off, an aside in movie etiquette. The wife and I entered the freshly swept and now popcorn free theater, behind maybe eight people waiting at the door before us. We like the stadium seating first row  with the clear view and the railing to put our feet up and easy access to the exit for when my invitable bathroom break. So naturally when we turn to our right and start to go down the row we were not expecting to be met with a demure little peasent clothed gatekeeper who promptly told us.

Bitch: Um actually I was trying to save those seats.
Me: The whole row?
Bitch: Actually Im trying to save both these rows for my friends.

Both. Rows. 12 seats. 12.

I’m willing and prone myself to saving a seat or two, but it takes some nutsack hairier then her petulie stankin legs, to just claim up and claim the primest 2 rows in the theater like it was a Risk board and her armies were a scarf and her hippy communal sense of World Peace.  The only thing that kept me from lowering a dumptruck worth of attitude, plopping down, and setting the rest of the row on fire was the fact that the row across from us was still mostly available and I don’t like to hit girls unless they hit me first.

The rest of her water and vinegar compadres wouldn’t begin arriving for another 20 minutes in a stressfully packed room and I did take an elevated level of satisfaction watching her fend off every third movie goer from taking the seats she reserved for her ascot and designer baseball hat wearing amigos.

By the way, this also goes for all you cocksocks that love getting in line for big movies (the Harry Potters and Twilights of the world) and letting all your giggly sorority sisters trickle in ahead of me so that the line, that had 5 people when I got here 45 minutes early, suddenly bubbles up like a stepped on garden hose to about 17-18 tards. If I see this at Avatar, I will pee on you.

That being said, when I came out of the theater I couldn’t have been happier. I was right; the genre worked like a charm for him. His quirks and nostalgia, instead of seeming over done, read like attention to craft. The normally wooden deadpan performances became whimsical and charming behind the smiles and wide eyes of animals in clothes.

Adding a new first and third act onto the story seemed surprisingly natural to the Dahl story.  The heist film resetting felt especially comfortable in the voice of Danny Ocean himself, George Clooney. (BTW saw Men Who Stare At Goats last week.  Wow what a waste of time.  Nothing happens.  And not in a good existential way. It’s a waste of actors, waste of decent subject matter and worst of all: a waste of Jeff Bridges.)

What at surface seems like, and is heavily promoted as, children’s faire, Mr. Fox harkens back to the Bluth and Watership Down 70’s that weren’t scrubbed to bubbly Disney perfection.

I know Wes Anderson will probably go immediately back to making live action movies that I have no interest of watching until they stream on Netflix, but I hope that he’s at enjoyed the process enough to continue to push the Wes Anderson style into new paradigms.

Cause who doesn’t love paradigms.

(In honor, of Johnny Depp winning Sexiest Man Alive, I’ve decided to repost my responce from SMA version 2006 from my old site. Enjoy.)

It’s been over a week now and I’ve buried my discontent long enough. I would go as far as to say I am damn near cantankerous. It just sits there, everywhere, mocking me. In newsstands, book stores, websites, on Entertainment Tonight AND the Insider (that’s a straight hour). I could no longer hold back the flood gates of frustration. I had to know. How is it possible that, for the eleventh straight year of eligibility (although I was confirmed as a man by the Catholic Church at 15), have I been overlooked again for Sexiest Man Alive. Sure George Clooney won, I get it, I would be his man whore, but he’s already won before. Did you know for some God forsaken reason Richard Gere’s won twice (or in his case Buddha forsaken)? There is obviously very little thinking outside of the box going on in the editorial offices. Where’s the creativity? Are they just thumbing through Esquire and pointing when they see a splash page? Why tell people what they already perceive when they can be a voice of true authority?

I mean I could understand for the first few years of my youth. I was young and needed to be batted around a bit. In college, I was frequently covered in very un sexy paint stained clothing and rarely showered as much as I should, but I always cleaned up very sexily. So I needed to spend some time learning the ropes of sexy and paying my sexy dues. I was fine with that then, but now, even after all of my toil and preparation, it’s like they’re not even considering me. I have the hair, the eyes and my body isn’t gonna get any less fat. My time is now, I may never be sexier.

I need a real answer. After searching around a bit, using my sexy charm and calling in some favors, I finally got a number to an editor at People. Her assistant’s name was Barbara. Barbara had the cute and cordial accent of a girl from coal mining town, but I wasn’t disarmed. I was on a fact finding mission and immediately asked to speak to her boss. She said that my request, “was impossible,” and I knew it was crap. I should have held out but I just started in on her.

“Why haven’t I been considered for Sexiest Man Alive?” She then asked who I was and I told her. She said she’d never heard of me. I said why does that matter? She explained that you had to be famous to be Sexiest Man Alive. So I asked since when does being Alive have anything to do with being famous. Was she saying that my life was in balance with my Q rating? Or is anonymity like a malignant cancer? Would I live longer if I had starred in a movie with Susan Sarandon or Shaquille O’Neal? That’s when it became obvious that I was taking dead aim at Nick Nolte Mr. 1992, who is neither sexy nor alive. There’s been a distinct Weekend at Bernie’s vibe with him since Streisand denutted him in Prince of Tides. Did you also notice George Carlin started to suck right about that time? Also in POT. Then I listed past winners I was definitely more sexy then: the other being Ben Affleck.

I was too worked up to make sense. After taking a few breathes in the nearest black bodega bag, I laid back and thought of all the things I do have: like a very comfortable couch to lay back on. Then I apologized to Barbara. It wasn’t her fault, it was the editors, but next year I would prefer a phone call and left my number. I snapped my phone back into its folded rested position and took up my Play Station 2 controller. I felt, although no one could see me that I was very sexy at that very moment. Definitely sexier then Affleck and the world was just a phone call from finding out.

I don’t think these are techniquelly available as wallpaper but Nielsen has just put together some gorgeous shapes. That’s it.  Nothing else very funny here.

This is how I teach myself Illustrator.

She's hatin' on Apache Chief like Andrew Jackson.

Zombie's as cartoon villian is underrated.

Did anyone just assume he was Mr. Freeze when we were kids?

Gayest shirt in the Legion.

.

(Find this and other great writers at memoirbloggers.wordpress.com)

I would be fired the next day, but the night before I went out with Gino. I never really had any super Italian friends growing up. One of the more overlooked differences between Boston and New York is their flavor of Catholic. In my phone I had him listed as Ginoooooooo. Gino was an actor with a manic vibe and I’m not sure if we ever had a real conversation, but he was funny.

It was my first Halloween weekend and the real happening in NY is right after the parade in the Village. I followed my still co-workers down into Alphabet City, to a charming little dump called Doc Holladay’s named after my second favorite Val Kilmer role. It was the kind of bar where you spend hours behind a cheap beer excavating 70’s graffiti through the layers of wall grime with your fingernail. There was a thrill of possibly digging up a place where the Ramones had once pissed on a unsuspecting fan.

The costume contest had begun a touch before we arrived and sans costumes we could just sit back with a tub of Pabst and take in the seedy faire. It seemed like an easy formula. Round by round, the intoxicated contestants would stand on the bar so that the intoxicated crowd could cheer on the woman with the least amount of clothes. The frontrunner was a girl who had apparently tailor-made her outfit for just such a contest. She wore a cardboard box extending neck to knees, painted in black and bedazzled. On the front, she had cut herself some swinging door and wrote, in what I assumed was red lipstick, the words, PEEP SHOW 25¢. And just as promised when some forth coming patron would chuck a quarter up at her, she opened the doors revealin just the skin she was in.

It was going to be a landslide.

Her only competition was a girl in what could only be described in the Village as a delicious catsuit, showing off every curve and fold her body provided. Even the whiskers seemed like a detail I would be embarrassed to buy.
The conversation was again not premium but I enjoyed new friendships. Trying to pick out the ones I could hang out with in the future over those who I would just merely be friendly with at work. I really felt like I was settling to New York. Two months in and I was beginning to make friends and I had found a restaurant I could see myself at until I didn’t have to. It was Goodfellas kinda joint and the owner, a scion of another more established Italian icon, loved to keep me late drinking with him at the bar until his wife called. He loved me. He wanted to make t shirts with me out of these ironic lil drawing that I had made and once sold as postcards in Union Square for a buck a piece. He had plans for me. I felt like it was going to work out.

Around my 5th or 6th PBR, the semi finalists were announced and the Peep Girl, drunk with tangible confidence ascended the bar for what would merely be a victory lap. Her opponent, the cat, stood waiting and hissing and prowling the crowd intending to go down fighting. When Miss Peeps finally got her footing and the first quarter was cast, the unthinkable happened. She slipped. Fell straight off the bar into the bartender, the ice bin, a rail of cheap liqour and hopefully a latticed rubber and impossible unclean floor mat below. The crowd let out an audible gasp followed quickly by laughter and then cheer for the cat girl, left standing, who took the opportunity and egged the crowd to show her love for her balance and dexterity. Twenty minutes later, she would crowned with what ever one wins in a bar choking with cigarette smoke and tables piled with Spartan beer cans shrines.

I would call in to find out my schedule the next day, only to discover I had none. My eyes teared with shock.

Douglife Episode 7 is now online. The DL would like to welcome Miss Vassi and Duncan Wilder Johnson to starring roles as well as Jason Tierney, Mark Wood and the return of Miss Megan Sperry to its most metal episode yet. Douglife.tv

Duncan is Gerald Tenuta

Also bad news: I’ve decided to go ahead without word from Kurt Russell, but if anyone knows Dennis Quaid’s phone number. I’d gladly take it. (INNERSPACE IS DA BOMB!)
Also I’m trying to get Douglife up to 1000 fans on Facebook as a Christmas present to myself. Which is crazy cause I only have 149 so far. LETS BE FRIENDS. So, if you are already one of my 149 fans then thanks a bunch kids and go to the suggest a friend section as illustrated here:

and then click as many as you can and SEND INVITATIONS. I would do it for you but I don’t know your first cat’s name, first street or favorite Menudo member and therefore I have little chance to guess your password. PLEEEEEEEEEEASE! 1000 by xmas we can do it!

love,
Justin
Douglife.tv

And I had alot of time on my hands…..

This week it once again came down to 2 choices: Ricky Gervais’s Invention of Lying or the new Coen Bros. A Serious Man (cause Big Fan is apparently out of theaters already, the guy doesn’t bring Mickey Rourke outta rehab and can only get two week run at the Angelika, bitch please). I had reservations about both. Invention of Lying, as my wife but it, just had too many funny people in it. A Serious Man I want to see based solely on brand recognition, that my friend Chris knew “the wife,” and a very innovative, rhymic trailer, which told me nothing about the movie except that it was very Jewish themed and starred a guy who looked a lot like the “Can you hear me now?” Verizon guy.  I can’t remember the last time a great trailer guarenteed a great movie. (I’m talkin’ to you Watchmen.)

I thought about asking my improv teacher, who was the naked guy in Ghost Town, but decided against even acknowledging that I knew that fact. It would like knowing Paris Hilton from her sextape. After my improv class, I brought the query to one of my fellow classmates.

“Oh its terrible. Yeah there’s way too many funny people with cameos in it. And none of them do anything funny.”

So the lesson here is Hollywood, never bring lots of funny people in to do background roles. Movies, like it or not, are half expectation. If Tina Fey’s gonna play a secretary with 3 lines in your comedy she’d better be fucking funny. You can’t just have Steve Martin come in and press a button on the elevator and then walk out. (Oh wait, he’s been doing those roles for years now.) You can, however, do funny people in bit roles it to great effect in dramas (see the Informant, i.e. Joel McHale, the Smothers Brothers, etc.)

The fall back meant literally dragging my wife (just “going out to dinner” was seriously considered and probably cheaper) out to the middle of nowhere (Lower East Side) to the lovely yet remote Landmark theater and for the second time in two months, we were delayed over half an hour because of technical difficulties. By the time the previews started my wife had a look a disgruntled Dad had that’s missing a playoff game for his kids play: THIS HAD BETTER BE GOOD.

And it was. First of all, you know a movie’s gonna have a Jewish theme when the first 10 minutes are in yiddish, set in 1890’s Russia and dresses Fyvush Finckel up as a Hassidic could be zombie. Actually I could have just said Fyvush Finckel and made the same point.

Second, is there anyone who doesn’t immediately smile when Richard Kind appears on screen? That man’s head must be 75% smile. I think Mad About You and Spin City were extended at least 2 and half seasons just cause the network execs got a cute fuzzy feeling from having him around.

As for the movie, A Serious Man like many Coen Brothers movies, is beautifully shot, detailed world of amazing characters. They nail the local color of the late 60’s Jewish (probably Minnesota) surburbia inhabited by physics teacher Larry Gopnick, the Micheal Corelone of reactive protagonists. He literally says, I’ve done nothing, and has it thrown back in his face as a sin by his wife (who shacks up with a Palm Springs Francis Ford Coppola in polyester), his kids, his brother, the tenure commitie (have you published anything?), his rabbis, and even a Korean student he fails who in turn tries to bribe him for a passing grade. For Larry Gopnick, just going through life trying to do the right thing is not nearly enough.  The only thing he does do is sneak a look at his naked sunbathing neighbor.

A Serious Man is a great piece of comic existential film making where even God can’t help with the answers or tie up ends. It’s worth the movie just for the son’s bar mitzvah scene.  The only thing I regret is telling the cab driver on the way home that I wanted to go to Williamsburg instead of Greenpoint, since they no idea Brooklyn exists past Bedford Ave.