Siegel called it

Back in October, my good friend Rich Siegel, who writes the not-to-be-missed blog Round Seventeen, did something he's never done before. No, he didn't take the account team to a group lunch. He didn't suggest reducing the broadcast budget so he could do more banner ads. And he didn't start complimenting the British planner with the knit cap for his insights.

What he did was post a movie review of the film The Master. It was a scathing, no-holds-barred, flat out attack as only Rich can write on what he thought was a deplorable film, not to mention a monumental waste of time.

Here's the thing I found out this afternoon: he was right.

Now normally I'd say that one should make up their own mind about about a movie. I've seen many movies that weren't well-reviewed - Meet Joe Black, Signs and Unbreakable come to mind - that wound up being very entertaining. In fact some of them have even shown up in my Guilty Pleasures posts, like the Final Destination series.

Since the Oscars - which mark the official end of nights Hollywood honors its own because no one else will - are rapidly approaching, I usually try to see as many of the nominated films as possible. So I decided to fire up my screener of The Master, and give it a go. After all, I'm a big fan of the two leads, Jacquin Phoenix and Phillip Seymour Hoffman.

Sometimes that's enough.

This time it wasn't.

I would've rather been the terrorists being tortured in Zero Dark Thirty, Lincoln being shot in the head, or Django being beaten than to have had the Les Miserables experience of sitting through The Master.

At least I didn't have to leave the house and it didn't cost me anything.

Except two and a half hours I'll never get back.

Crazy control

Just when I said I didn't feel strongly enough about anything to post for awhile, this happens.

I didn't hear about the shootings at the midnight show of The Dark Knight Rises in Aurora, Colorado until this morning. My first thought was about the horror and sadness the victims and their families have been exposed to in this tragedy.

My second thought was that my son had gone to a midnight show last night, and thank God it didn't happen here. Of course the sad truth about that thought is it can happen anywhere. Unfortunately, crazy doesn't pay much attention to state borders or jurisdictions.

It knows how to travel when it needs to.

I won't try and make sense of it - there'll be pundits galore all over cable news tonight doing that.

I do know it wasn't the movie's fault. Warner Bros. has cancelled the Paris premiere, and pulled some of the advertising for the film indefinitely. Two things I believe they shouldn't have done.

For all the talk there's going to be about gun control, for me, here's the bottom line: more gun control laws wouldn't have helped. Colorado, like most states, already has a number of them on the books. But when crazy wants a gun, crazy gets a gun. You can argue a background check and waiting period might've prevented this, but crazy is also skilled at not looking crazy when it needs to. Ever see the neighbor interviews?

"He was always such a nice guy." "He was quiet but friendly." "He used to wave and smile when I saw him."

He bought the guns in his possession legally - in compliance with all the gun laws - from local gun shops. He purchased the ammunition legally off the internet. You simply cannot close all the loopholes.

For my pals against the death penalty, this is why you're wrong. He may plead crazy, but he was lucid enough to put on bullet-proof armor and buy tear gas first. There's no reason for this monster to be walking the earth. Hopefully it won't be years before the courts come to this obvious conclusion.

And while I'm on the subject, I think there should be a special category of execution for crimes as horrendous as this. In the same way that labeling something a "hate crime" makes one murder subject to a harsher penalty than the other, I think by creating a separate category of crime we could execute these abominations in the way they deserve to go.

And it isn't peacefully with an I.V. line in their arm.

All I keep thinking about, besides the victims, is the parents. As if there aren't enough reminders in the day you can't protect your children from everything evil in the world.

In the aftermath, all we can do is hug our kids, let them go to the movies and teach them that even though bad things happen, life goes on. Teach them fearful is not a way to live. That's what crazy wants. Don't give it to him.

And for as long as you can, hold the people in Colorado affected by this tragedy in your hearts, thoughts and prayers.

They're going to need it.

UPDATE: TDKR director Christopher Nolan's statement on the shooting:

"Speaking on behalf of the cast and crew of "The Dark Knight Rises", I would like to express our profound sorrow at the senseless tragedy that has befallen the entire Aurora community. I would not presume to know anything about the victims of the shooting but that they were there last night to watch a movie. I believe movies are one of the great American art forms and the shared experience of watching a story unfold on screen is an important and joyful pastime. The movie theatre is my home, and the idea that someone would violate that innocent and hopeful place in such an unbearably savage way is devastating to me. Nothing any of us can say could ever adequately express our feelings for the innocent victims of this appalling crime, but our thoughts are with them and their families."

Ned Reyerson & Mother's Day

I had this idea for a post about Mother's Day being like Groundhog Day. The movie, not the holiday. It was going to talk about how, like all holidays, it's the same year in and year out. How through a carefully planned program of brunch and flowers we show our appreciation for all the moms in our life.

Something we should be doing every day.

Frankly, it was going to be a thin thread connecting the two. And the only real reason for it was because I wanted to post this clip from the movie.

So consider the clip my gift to all the moms out there. Enjoy your day.

Over and over again.

Guilty pleasures Part 2: The Three Stooges

I'm just going to come right out with it. I don't care what you think: I loved it.

For the second installment in my Guilty Pleasures series - you can read the first one here - I've chosen everyone's (almost) guilty pleasure: The Three Stooges.

I've always been a Marx Bros. guy. But I've also always loved The Stooges. I've even been to a Stoogefest a time or two in my life. Don't judge me. And having just seen the movie, which is funny as hell, I can only hope there's a whole series of them planned.

The movie pays homage to the original Stooges short films by divvying up the action into chapters, right down to the original graphics and music. Is it stupid? Here's a clue: it has the word "stooges" in the title. But it's the perfect escape film, the very definition of mindless fun.

There've been many big names attached to this project. At one time, Benicio Del Toro was going to be Moe, Sean Penn was Larry and Jim Carrey Curly. For whatever reason, it didn't work out that way. And it's everyone's good fortune it didn't.

The cast they went with not only look like the Stooges, but they inhabit the roles with a disturbing ease. With the exception of Will & Grace's Sean Hayes as Larry, the mostly unknown cast (Chris Diamantopoulos as Moe and Will Sasso as Curly) does a stellar job of not only reincarnating the Stooges, but bringing them into the modern world.

There's a "kids don't try this at home with real hammers and sledgehammers" disclaimer at the very end of the movie that the studio lawyers clearly made the producers include. It's done in a humorous way, but if you give it even the tiniest bit of thought it's a sad statement about the times we're living in.

Anyway, I imagine there's not going to be any middle ground on this film. It's going to be a love or hate, all or nothing deal.

But for me, the best way to sum up my feeling is with those three little words.

Nyuck nyuck nyuck.

Let Titanic rest in peace

Yesterday my family and I went to see Titanic 3D. The wife and I, along with our great friends Dave and Maureen (yes, that Dave and Maureen) originally saw the movie on the second day of its release at the Village Theater in Westwood when it first came out. Because the Village screen is so big, it felt like we were actually on the ship - even at the end.

They've got to get that air conditioning fixed.

You may know, I'm not a fan of 3D. And in this particular case I'm not sure it added much. But at least it didn't distract from the movie.

As I write this, a 100 years ago the Titanic was already underway on its fateful voyage. It's still one of the great "what-if's" of history, like the Kennedy assassination, Pearl Harbor, the Challenger shuttle or 9/11.

The movie was better than I remembered. Love story aside (still a stroke of movie marketing genius on Cameron's part), it gives an unflinching glimpse of the sheer terror that must've gone on in the two hours it took the ship to sink.

When Kathy Bates as the unsinkable Molly Brown looks back at the sinking ship from her lifeboat and says, "God almighty," she's speaking for everyone in the theater.

There's currently a diving expedition company that, for $60,000, will take you on a ten-day cruise out to the site where Titanic rests, and bring you down to the ship in a submersible for an up close and personal look. There've already been couples who have been married down there.

How far behind can the floating gift shop be?

The unrestricted scavenging of artifacts and ship parts by unauthorized divers and treasure hunters has already taken its toll. I think it's wrong. For all the fascination, Titanic, like the Arizona that rests under Pearl Harbor, is a gravesite that deserves the proper respect and decorum.

Even though it only sailed once, it's not too late to give Titanic a second chance.

Justin time

Here's how it happened.

We were sitting around having dinner one night, and my son was making fun of my daughter for liking Justin Bieber. Now, I'll admit I've been guilty of this many times my own self.

Every time a song of his would come on, I'd turn to my daughter and say, "Man, that girl can really sing."

She didn't think it was nearly as funny as I did. Especially after the 50th time.

Anyway, not liking to see her brother making fun of her, I promised to take her to see the Justin Bieber film "Never Say Never." When she asked if I'd take her to the midnight show, her brother laughed and said, "Dad will never go to a midnight show of that."

So I looked right at my daughter and said, "Absolutely." Besides, midnight show, months away, on a school night. Really, what were the odds of that ever happening?

That's what I was thinking as I sat at the AMC Theaters in Downtown Disney one minute after midnight Friday morning watching the movie with my daughter and her friend and a theater full of Justin Bieber fans.

Midnight. Seventh circle of hell.

I took this picture of the marquee as I walked in, and was going to post it to my Facebook account with this caption. But a funny thing happened.

I liked the movie.

Not going to go so far as saying I caught Bieber fever, but I will say my perception of who he was going in was changed by the time I walked out.

The first thing that struck me peculiar was the audience. I'd expected a theater full of screaming 11, 12 and 13 year-old girls with their parents snoring loudly in the seat next to them. Not the case at all. The audience was a cross section of tweens, teens, and surprisingly many, many adult Beiber fans.

I understand that you always have to keep in mind the filmmakers are showing you exactly what they want you to see. However, as the film - a combination of documentary and concert footage, home movies and interviews unfolds, what I realized is even though I don't like most of his music, Justin Bieber is a crazy talented kid.

It would appear he is surrounded by people who genuinely care about him, as opposed to someone like Michael Jackson who was surrounded by people who only knew how to say yes to anything he wanted. The dangers of surrounding yourself with people like that are tragically obvious.

No adult in this movie - in particular the tough-as-nails vocal coach who travels on tour with him - has a problem saying no to Justin. He's not the Golden Goose to them. He's a kid, and they're trying to protect as much of that as they can given the extraordinary circumstances he finds himself in. (Yes, I know they're all out of jobs if something happens to him, but that doesn't seem to be their main motivation).

Before I said I don't like most of his music. I've only been exposed to the songs my daughter plays over and over. But in the film there are other songs, many of which I liked.

Owen Gleiberman has an interesting take on it in a piece he wrote for Entertainment Weekly. He makes a lot of good points, but this is the part I think I agree with most:

A lot of people, in other words, hate Justin Bieber because they’re scared of him. Scared of the power that teen pop now wields in our world. But I’m here to tell you that they’ve got it backwards. Justin Bieber isn’t just a product; he’s a genuine, talented, true-blue appealing star. They have pinned their fear and loathing on the wrong phenomenon.

I know I'm going to get a lot of comments and razzing for liking the movie. It's okay, I can take it. And I'll answer them all.

Right after I get back from seeing the movie again with my daughter. And her brother.