I am a big fan of Gregg Araki’s movies, but I simply could not roll with this one. The story, acting, and direction were all top notch, better than any of his films to date. The problem was that the subject matter was just too goddamned awful to bear. I expect comedy in an Araki movie, and there was none of that in Mysterious Skin. All you get for the 99 minute running time is near-constant child molesting. There are maybe 10 minutes of the movie where a child is not getting molested, and that ain’t a good ratio.
Normally I avoid reality TV. I try really really hard, but occaisionally a show comes along that looks genuinely interesting and even enlightening. Black.White. is one such show. The makeup is pretty good, but the really interesting angle is seeing how these people change (or don’t) when they don the makeup.
The teens don’t make much of it, they behave as they normally would and resist “acting” black or white (Rose even has emotional difficulties pretending during a poetry class and eventually “comes out” to the all-black class because she can’t stand it any more). Brian and Rene Sparks are the black parents, and they really bring the perspective to the show. You can tell they really understand what this series can teach us. Brian seems like a smart guy, funny, and he’s a fantastic sport about the whole thing. The segments where he works, in makeup, as a bartender in an all-white neighborhood are fantastic. You don’t see much of Rene in makeup, I assume because it isn’t very convincing, but she provides a lot of insight with her talking-head pieces and is always very good at explaining to us why the Wurgel parents are so ridiculously ignorant.
Which brings us to the real reason to watch this show; Bruno and Carmen Wurgel. Oh my, the pathos! They are the kind of suburban, clueless people who insist that they aren’t racist, but exude racism from every orifice. Rather than try to explain, I’ll just bullet some tidbits:
- Carmen, when selecting a tasteful Sunday outfit for church, choses elaborate African dashikis. With headdresses. At church, Carmen and Bruno hoot and holler while doing the raise-the-roof dance during choruses.
- Bruno Wurgel insists that racism doesn’t exist in today’s society. His explanation: black people have bad attitudes and only see racism because they seek it out.
- While Rose’s poetry class was visiting their home, Carmen became so moved by their words that she felt she had to say something about each of the members. She proceeded to insult each and every one. She calls someone a “beautiful, black creature,” and to another she says, “I don’t know if you’re gay, or straight, or what!?”
- Bruno will take any opportunity, and will create opportunities at times, to use the n-word around Brian. He really seems to think it’s cool, and Brian always lets him know that it is clearly not.
Random Rating: 7 dashikis out of 10.
The Village Green Preservation Society by the Kinks
I’ve always liked the Kinks but I have had a hard time finding this album in stores (I know amazon is good, but I just like going to record stores). Something Else by the Kinks and Muswell Hillbillies are two of my favorite albums. Everyone I know says that Village Green is their best, and now that I’ve finally found it and spun it a few time, I agree wholeheartedly.
This is one of the best rock albums. Period. In fact, the Kinks will now be replacing the Beatles on my top-5 musician list’s generic classic band slot. I think there are levels of music fanaticism for that particular slot. First is the Doors, then you move up to Pink Floyd, next is the Who or Zepplin (one or the other, never both), then Beatles, then Kinks, then Velvet Underground. At that point the music snob sheds his flesh and becomes a being of pure sound.
So I finally got my Xbox 360, microsoft found a new manufacturer so you will start to see more and more units popping up in stores. I have been pretty unimpressed with the games I’ve played so far, except for Burnout Revenge which doesn’t really count since it was designed for the previous generation of consoles. But the killer app has been released, it is fucking rad, and it is called Oblivion.
It is a worthy succesor to Morrowind, actually, a huge step above it. The world is bright and green, not murky and brown like the previous game. The dungeons are improved as well, just the right mixture of dark and creepy, and easy to navigate while still providing plenty of danger and surprises. The textures are crisp and detailed, the only thing keeping the game from being photo-realistic is the weird way the light bounces off of the character’s faces. I’ve yet to see a game that uses dynamic lighting get this right.
The combat and leveling systems are pretty much identical to Morrowind. The more you do something, the better you get at it. You gain blade skill by hitting things with your sword, you gain magic skills by casting spells, and more (you can even gain acrobatics skill by jumping.) The character creation system is fantastic, all of the facial features have sliding scales so you can make your face look however you want. The races are the same as Morrowind, with all the normal human and elf subraces, orcs, cat people, and lizard dudes. There are many character classes that cater to different playstyles for you to choose from, or you can just select your favorite abilities and create your own class.
The story is sweeping, the standard “you are the hero destined to either save or destroy the world” schtick, but there are plenty of twists and surprises along the way. Whether you want to actually do the main story is up to you. The world is 16 square miles, with many cities to get quests from, factions to join, and additional storylines to uncover. Also, you can break into people’s homes, kill them, remove their clothes, and use the rag-doll physics to drag their bodies into funny positions on the stairs. Additionally, when you shoot arrows at enemies they stick to the bodies, so you will often find arrows poking out of monsters’ butts. Need I say more?
Random Rating: 10 butt arrows out of 10.
Gone Elsewhere 