Parrot Cage

Yul Love It

Know the standard Hollywood movie trailer formula by heart?  Try entering the simple equation into a classic Cecil B. De Mille campfest and you have the perfect promo:  10 Things I Hate About Commandments.  Brilliant.

Crashing the Oscars

It's all meaningless, but the Oscar went to....

Crash wins Best Picture.  As a cloying oversimplification of race relations, Crash is to baby-boomers what Driving Miss Daisy was to the greatest generation.

Ang Lee wins Best Director.  Obsession with hot gay sex finally pays off.  Brazenly, he doesn't apologize for Hulk.

Phillip Seymour Hoffman wins Best Actor.  Obsession with lack of hot gay sex finally pays off.  Truman Capote gets resurrected for another generation to ponder his boisterous mediocrity.

Reese Witherspoon wins Best Actress.  America's sweetheart postpones a career-resuscitating Playboy spread for at least another five years.  Coming soon: Legally Blonde 3: Matching the Drapes.

George Clooney wins Best Supporting Actor.  Reminds middle America that it's frequently good to be out of touch with the heartland's need to be dragged kicking and screaming into civilization.  Fox News programming schedule for the month of March writes itself.

Chronicles of Narnia wins Best Makeup.  Hollywood tosses middle America a bone.

Memoirs of a Geisha wins Best Cinematography, Best Costume Design, Best Art Direction.  Hollywood tosses studio investors a bone.  And no, Brokeback Mountain wasn't the gayest film of the year... not by a long shot.

Salma Hayek, Jessica Alba, Jennifer Anniston, and Keanau Reeves present awards which allegedly reward talent.  Irony police arrest all four and confine them to reality television. 

Underworld Evolves

Just a quick departure from our reality-based lives to say congrats to former colleague and all around cool guy Len Wiseman and his new film Underworld Evolution. Many years ago we worked with Len on his very first music video.  When he talked about his vampires v. werewolves idea we thought it a bit, uh, lowbrow.  As an evolving director he has taken a certifiably B-movie concept and turned it mythical.

The new Underworld is vastly superior to the first.  Danny McBride's dialogue seems much more comfortable in the mouths of the distinguished British actors, and the plot itself is downright Shakespearean.  And this time the film was carried entirely by Kate Beckinsale, Len's new wife.  Beckinsale has created an action/adventure hero of substance and depth--a rare, nearly unprecedented, feat.  Underworld Evolution is much more of a thinking person's action film than anything that Ang Lee has prostituted his talents for.

Kudos also to another former colleague, Nate Robinson, and his post production house Ntropic which composed much of the digital effects.  Nate has been one of the premiere digital artists in the world and it's always nice to see his work beyond commercials and corporate drudgery.

All told, Underworld Evolution is a bloody good time and highly recommended.