From: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org (fegmaniax-digest) To: fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Subject: fegmaniax-digest V8 #296 Reply-To: fegmaniax@smoe.org Sender: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk fegmaniax-digest Monday, August 9 1999 Volume 08 : Number 296 Today's Subjects: ----------------- austin chronicle article [four episode lesbian ] I Wanna Destroy You II lyrics ["Capitalism Blows" ] Re: austin chronicle article ["Capitalism Blows" ] Rita Tushingham [Eb ] random notes and a Robyn dream (long) ["she.rex" ] TheCoolPerson? ["Andrew D. Simchik" ] Re: the timelessness of quality (long) [The Great Quail ] Eb Witch project (and Mystery Men review- skip if you don't like to read that sorta thing) [ultraconformist@] Re: TheCoolPerson? [BC-Radio@corecom.net (Brett Cooper)] Re: TheCoolPerson? ["Capitalism Blows" ] Re: Eb Witch project (and Mystery Men review- skip if you don't like to read that sorta thing) [Aaron Mandel <] Re: TheCoolPerson? [ultraconformist@mail.weboffices.com] Re: Eb Witch project (and Mystery Men review- skip if you don't like to read that sorta thing) [] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 07 Aug 1999 13:35:01 -0400 From: four episode lesbian Subject: austin chronicle article Neither Fish nor Fowl by Ken Lieck "The fact that I've mentioned fish or aquatic life forms maybe four times in my career has indelibly marked me as a fish obsessive," sputters Robyn Hitchcock, managing to sound at once put off and amused. He's responding to my offhand comment that there are, in fact, no references to fish, bodies of water, drowned sailors, or other aquatic matters on his new album Jewels for Sophia, and it's clearly a subject that has reared its ugly fin before. "A guy rang up yesterday," recounts Hitchcock, "and asked did I realize I'd mentioned bees three times in my career, so now I'm also a bee obsessive! What are you supposed to sing about -- rivets? The lyric police are out and prowling!" The fact remains that very few songwriters, barring those who expect to find fortune by tapping into the currently underdeveloped sea shanty market, mention fish at all, nor birds, nor bees, opting instead to content themselves with repetitive themes of love, lust, or some variation on the gaining or losing of one or both. Hitchcock, who's closing in on a quarter-century of defying rules on what kinds of songs he's supposed to write, is a welcome exception. Since he formed the Soft Boys in the mid-Seventies, Hitchcock has combined a Beatles-minded pop sensibility with quirky subject matter to form a career that has produced an incredible number of three-minute musical masterpieces -- though not always without opposition. The Soft Boys, appearing as they did at the dawn of British punk, were often damned (no pun intended) for daring to have the "wrong" influences (such as the Byrds) at a time when, supposedly, the most important thing for a new band to do was to follow its own star. "Again, there was a police," recalls Hitchcock. "There was a New Wave police, and [a band's influences] all had to come from three or four approved sources." Hitchcock never gave up on writing and performing the kind of songs he liked, however, even with the breakup of his band and into a long, label-hopping solo career. And to him, a song about bass or bream is no more unusual than a song about a beautiful girl -- he writes those very well also. "I sing about things I like," he says simply. "I'm more likely to sing about life forms, creatures, or old masonry than I am about baseball or computer firms. Everybody has preferences. Bo Diddley sings songs about Bo Diddley. I think you sing about things you want to invoke." Fortunately for Hitchcock, his perseverance has paid off into the turn of the century, as he has netted a decent core crowd of fans who continue to support his work in a time when musical careers seem increasingly subject to sudden rises and falls. For a cult-level performer with an extensive back catalog, the percentage of compositions the songwriter has recorded that are currently available on CD is astonishingly high; Hitchcock reckons only a few recent albums for A&M are out of print. He's also been the subject of a recent documentary/concert film by Academy Award-winning director Jonathan Demme called Storefront Hitchcock and has an online "museum" at http://www.robynhitchcock.com. Best of all, he's left alone to write and perform the sort of songs he likes without debate. "No one comes 'round to the hotel room and says, 'Listen, I don't detect any dub reggae influences in your work. Jump out the window now!'" he relates happily. "In a way, in the Nineties you can do what you want. There's room for everybody to chug away in their own individual corner and there's usually some kind of market for it. Even progressive rock, and that was one of the forms most vilified -- and rightly so -- by New Wave." Hitchcock chugs away in more corners than usual with Jewels for Sophia, recorded with a number of different musicians, including members of the Young Fresh Fellows and R.E.M., as well as ex-Soft Boy/Katrina & the Waves guitarist Kimberley Rew. "I found them in the various cities they were in, booked the studio time, very briefly showed them how the songs worked, and we were off," relates Hitchcock. The result is a more unevenly paced album than Hitchcock fans are accustomed to, but one which nonetheless delivers the goods, from atmospheric tracks like the title tune to melodic rockers like "Viva! Sea-Tac," which the Seattle Chamber of Commerce might well take an interest in until they catch the chorus line of "They've got the best computers and coffee and smack." On this particular visit to Austin, Hitchcock is promoting Jewels in the midst of a new experience, a package tour ("Sort of like the Sixties when you had Freddie & the Dreamers and the Jimi Hendrix Experience touring together," he explains with little regard for reality), in which he'll be sharing the bill with the Flaming Lips, Sebadoh, and others. One might expect the equally eclectic young Oklahomans in the Lips to have assaulted their current labelmate by now, dragging him into some hidden subterranean studio with the intention of writing and recording a vast, twisted symphony with the eccentric Brit, but Hitchcock says that so far, he's not had the chance to get to know his tour cronies. "Everybody's too busy trying to work out their own logistics, so I've been left in peace so far." In any case, the Lips' latest predilection for string-laden lush pop should be finely paired with Hitchcock's catchy ditties, usually linked together with the Dylanesque storytelling patter he's demonstrated to various extents in previous Austin appearances, most notably at a Cactus Cafe show where the songs actually took a backseat to the elaborate, deceptively nonsensical tales spun by the artist between them. Mention of the Cactus Cafe prompts Hitchcock to ask a desperately important question in anticipation of his visit to our fair city: "Will the bats be coming out?" he wonders. Hmmm, bats, bats... Perhaps it's time to pull out the Hitchcock discography and check for references to flying mammals. We may have spotted another obsession!* _____________________________________________________________________________ The First International Music Against Brain Degeneration Revue, featuring the Flaming Lips, Sebadoh, Robyn Hitchcock, Sonic Boom's E.A.R., and IQU, visits Stubb's Saturday, August 7. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 08 Aug 1999 23:35:10 PDT From: "Capitalism Blows" Subject: I Wanna Destroy You II lyrics I wanna destroy you I don't care who you are I'm a mean-minded person And I just wanna make my mark here In this world So I wanna destroy you While I can I wanna destroy you I wanna scrub out every atom of your name I'm a simple-minded person And I haven't done a real thing all day Or even in my lifetime Could it be a lifetime Without a life that lasted as long as yours If I'd been there? No, sir Nobody knows why I wanna destroy you I wanna destroy you Looking back on all your life Would you trade in everything? Well, would ya? also, jeme wanted to know the correct tracklisting for LIVE AT THE CAMBRIDGE FOLK FESTIVAL. here it is: 1. So You Think You're In Love 2. Driving Aloud (Radio Storm) 3. Birds In Perspex 4. Railway Shoes 5. The Yip Song 6. Uncorrected Personality Traits 7. Egyptian Cream 8. Satellite 9. A Globe Of Frogs 10. Oceanside and here is how it's listed on the sleeve: 1. So You Think You're In Love 2. Driving Aloud [sic] 3. Uncorrected Personality Traits 4. Satellite 5. Birds In Perspex 6. Railway Shoes 7. The Yip! Song [sic] 8. Egyptian Cream 9. Globe Of Frogs [sic] 10. Oceanside the museum's disco. gives the same song order, and makes the same naming errors, *plus* misspells Satellite thusly: "Satelite". _______________________________________________________________ Get Free Email and Do More On The Web. Visit http://www.msn.com ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 08 Aug 1999 23:37:26 PDT From: "Capitalism Blows" Subject: Re: austin chronicle article > this is the best laugh i've had in some time! _______________________________________________________________ Get Free Email and Do More On The Web. Visit http://www.msn.com ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 9 Aug 1999 00:35:59 -0800 From: Eb Subject: Rita Tushingham Eddie: >> > >this is the best laugh i've had in some time! I guess this proves you didn't find the South Park film nearly as funny as you claim. ;) Speaking of which, the current People magazine has a story detailing the commercial failure of Eyes Wide Shut. Among other things, it quotes a professional pollster who says *73%* of the polled audience over the age of 25 rated the film a "F" (!) on an A-F scale. The same person added something like, "If that many people rate a film a D or a F, the film shouldn't even have been made." Yiiikes. Heil Hollywood. The writer also commented that the film got "mixed reviews," but that word-of-mouth was "uncommonly hideous." Ugh. KEN "Sydney or the Bush" THE KENSTER - ---- LONDON (Reuters) -- He spent his life going around in circles, but still achieved international fame. Tish, the world's oldest known captive goldfish, has died at the age of (at least) 43. First won by seven-year-old Peter Hand at a fairground in 1956, Tish the fish grew to four and one-half inches and outlived all Peter's other pets. When Peter grew up Tish moved in with his parents, Hilda and Gordon Hand, in their retirement home in Yorkshire, England. Last year Tish, having acquired a distinguished silver color, was recognized by the Guinness Book of Records as the world's oldest captive goldfish. Hilda Hand found him dead at the bottom of his fish tank earlier this week. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 08 Aug 1999 12:53:10 From: "she.rex" Subject: random notes and a Robyn dream (long) Hi, all! Just some thoughts on current & not so current threads: Taste - I believe the tastemakers have conditioned us through the media to accept things we naturally wouldn't and to feel we *should* like, even appreciate, them, though many are not deserving of the distinction. There is also true art and quality craftsmanship, which one can appreciate without necessarily liking it. Everyone should be free to express themselves in whatever way they want, whether or not a single other person on the planet appreciates it - as long as it doesn't infringe on anyone else's enjoyment of *their* freedom. This is expression, but not necessarily ART. Cartoons - Underdog was my hands-down favorite growing up. Young Ones - this is one of my all-time fave shows ever! I have all the episodes and at one time my friends and I would quote constantly - it seemed every situation had an appropriate YO line to go with it. (I still do this in my mind, though the friends have moved away. But I *am* cultivating a new batch of fans. ) We never consciously set out to memorize them, just watched them so much they became part of us. I have audiotapes of favorite pieces so I can listen in the car. I get the wierdest looks as I go down the road laughing so hard I can't see - say this could get dangerous... I was definitely Neil because I have lots of hippie traits (still get teased for this by non-YO watchers). His was my favorite character, but Rick was a close second. Yes he was obnoxious - the guy you loved to hate, but Rik Mayall was obviously brilliant, and I thought pretty cute as well.:) (Ade Edmondson wasn't bad either if you saw him without all that stuff on.) I have and love Neil's Heavy Concept LP and actually tracked down originals of some of the things off it and thus became acquainted with the Incredible String Band, Tomorrow and Steve Hillage. Yeah! Genesis - this was a great find for me just after high school. A friend was always talking about them (more along the lines of Abacab) so I finally checked out their older stuff (mainly while Peter Gabriel was still with them) and that's what I like best - And the Word Was, Wind and Wuthering, A Trick of the Tail, Nursery Cryme, etc. Saw some old footage with Peter Gabriel dressed as a giant flower and Phil Collins with his hair past his shoulders but bald on top (heh heh - this looks real funny, esp. when it's not in a ponytail or something) - would love to have gone and seen some of those shows live! Of course I would've been pretty small... Why I like RH - sorry this is too late for Joel, but... My favorite thing about RH is his lyrics. You know how the first time you hear a mainstream song your mind jumps ahead and says - ok he said *this* and *this* rhymes with *that* so he's obviously going to say *that* next... - and it usually happens. Bleh. Not so with RH - the first time, he usually succeeds in surprising me, and pleasantly at that, since his sense of humor is similar to mine. In fact I often end up laughing with pleasure the first time I hear a new RH song. After that, I'm no longer surprised, but still enjoy the brilliance of it. I think - YES! That's great! Sock it to 'em, Robyn! It also helps that I like folk music a lot (so the acoustic stuff doesn't drag for me) and that his jangly pop is very easy on my ears. And when he occasionally *rocks*, well that's the ultimate for me. Robyn dream - I had this just before waking the other morning. Somehow several fegs (none of whom I'd met in person, but anyway) were visiting a ranch Robyn had bought and turned into a sort of display for his art - all of it - music, paintings, and now he had gone into three dimensional stuff like sculpture from found objects. A lot of this sculpture was placed about on the inimproved grounds - he wanted it very organic so everything was left natural and you would be walking and suddenly come upon it. The main display (where the paintings were kept and there was a big screen for video and discreetly placed speakers) was in a big unpainted barn, which one reached through a labrynth (which is like a maze except it has no dead ends so you can't get lost - I'd just been reading a link off Quail's site). The walls of this were just split-rail fence like three feet high, in keeping with the rest of the place, so they weren't really like walls at all - still you had to go through the whole thing to get to the barn. And a monster of some sort was chasing me through this but I could run it really fast, just lots of twisting and turning. When I got to the barn, the monster had disappeared and I started looking at the first exhibit - a t-shirt on a dressmaker form. It was dull teal with a copy of the labrynth I had just run through in light purple. Within the labrynth drawing were little drawings (like icons on a website) which when pressed, grew larger, displacing the rest of the design and taking up the whole shirt with writing at the bottom, also in purple. Robyn said it was an interactive t-shirt and each icon on this particular shirt represented a different part of the exhibit in the barn. It was a new medium he was working with. I think he'd invented it himself. Anyway, then I woke up. This description, of course, is cleaned of all the stress and confusion which are always present in my dreams. They're never peaceful or just plain pleasant - only in parts. Oh well. I'm pretty happy all the time I'm awake - maybe I get all the stress out while dreaming? That's it. Sorry for the length! If I've enriched anyones's life, or just entertained, it was worth it.:) She.Rex BTW - Fegbooks was updated July 30th. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 9 Aug 1999 06:46:18 -0700 (PDT) From: "Andrew D. Simchik" Subject: TheCoolPerson? > From: Jeff Dwarf > > Was it the Young Ones that they used to show before 120 > Minutes > on MTV back in the late 80's? Yup. That's when I first saw it. (And first heard Robyn, actually. Late 80's 120 Minutes was fabulous. Come back, Dave Kendall, all is forgiven!) > i remember thinking that it > was > pretty funny, but the only gag i remember at all was when > they > were being attacked by a vampire, someone called out for > a > stake, and some hippy-ish guy ran to the fridge, and came > back > yelling "all we've got is a vegetarian sausage." > but maybe that was something else altogether..... Nope! It was "Nasty," and the hippie was Neil. > From: "Capitalism Blows" > "Doctor Who" (1963) playing "Lord Kiv" in episode: > "Mindwarp" (episode # > 23.2) 1986 Yes! Lord Kiv. Thank you. [Kate Bush albums] > perhaps not so much that you *didn't* enjoy them, but, > looking back, you're > not sure why you did. No, not at all! I'm quite sure I know why I did! It's the same reason I still enjoy them. I just know them so well and have heard them so much that I rarely feel the urge to put them on. Also, they create in me a mood that I craved some years back, but crave less these days. [I argued:] > yourself find Citizen > Kane boring. Most film critics would put Kane up there > with any Kurosawa > film. Why don't you say it's great?> > > i acknowledge that if so many people think so highly of > it that it must be a > great work of art. Does the same obtain for _Titanic_? > i'm completely aware that the fact > that i don't like it > is some sort of flaw in my own person. I couldn't disagree more. That it's a flaw. Drew, who has a post left over that he couldn't send this weekend === Andrew D. Simchik, schnopia@yahoo.com _____________________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Bid and sell for free at http://auctions.yahoo.com ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 9 Aug 1999 12:20:01 -0400 From: The Great Quail Subject: Re: the timelessness of quality (long) Eddie says, >folk-punk-rock s like drama -- drama seems inherently heavier and >more "serious" and closer to greatness.> > >i wonder if we've been socialised to believe this? why should >brilliant comedy be any less "great" than brilliant drama? >especially when, like South Park (or, say, mojo nixon, whom eb >inexplicably dismisses) the comedy is quite political and/or >subversive. Well, there's the classic theory that dramas and tragedies have a longer appeal than comedies. And that durability factors into "greatness" and "brilliance." Much of what makes a comedy funny is highly topical. (Think about your great-grand children watching the South Park movie. Some of that topical humor will be as over their heads as the WWII humor in Bugs Bunny was to us.) Of course, not all of what makes a comedy funny is merely topical -- even Shakespeare's comedies (which, by the way, are often edited/shorn of the topical humor) are funny because of our cultural response to the sexes. Which is another reason why tragedy/drama has a greater durability . . . it crosses culture more readily than comedy. I mean, I fucking LOVE Kurosawa . . . but Japanese comedy? Hmm. . . . - --Neil, the topical quail, fresh back from a small vacation in the Antipodes. . . . ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The Great Quail, Keeper of the Libyrinth: http://www.libyrinth.com The places I took him! I tried hard to tell Young Conrad Cornelius o'Donald o'Dell A few brand-new wonderful words he might spell. I led him around and I tried hard to show There are things beyond Z that most people don't know. I took him past Zebra. As far as I could. And I think, perhaps, maybe I did him some good... Because finally he said: "This is really great stuff! And I guess the old alphabet ISN'T enough!" --Dr. Seuss, "On Beyond Zebra" ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 9 Aug 1999 09:30:04 -0700 From: Tom Clark Subject: Re: Young Ones On 8/7/99 12:27 AM, Jeff Dwarf wrote: >Was it the Young Ones that they used to show before 120 Minutes >on MTV back in the late 80's? i remember thinking that it was >pretty funny, but the only gag i remember at all was when they >were being attacked by a vampire, someone called out for a >stake, and some hippy-ish guy ran to the fridge, and came back >yelling "all we've got is a vegetarian sausage." yup, that's them. That episode contains some of my favorite YO dialog: Passerby in graveyard with corpse in wheelbarrow: "Do you dig graves?" Neil the hippy: "Yeah, they're alright..." Has anyone told a stiffy joke yet? - -tc ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 9 Aug 1999 13:45:48 -0600 From: ultraconformist@mail.weboffices.com Subject: Eb Witch project (and Mystery Men review- skip if you don't like to read that sorta thing) >> > >this is the best laugh i've had in some time! Hey! I wanna see that! When's it coming out? Seriously tho, I saw "Mystery Men" last night and enjoyed it very much. I haven't read the original comic, so I don't know how true it is to the spirit and can't report on that. I will say tho, that those who were worried that this was going to be about ridiculing the characters- it really isn't. It celebrates them in all their flawed glory. Even though Ben Stiller seems to have gotten the most attention, I thought the standouts were William H. Macy, who gave a performance of almost startling depth and nuance as The Shoveller, and Hank Azaria, who turned in a very sweet and funny performance as the Blue Rajah. In a different kind of performance (pretty much straightforwardly comic), Greg Kinnear was hilariously smug as Captain Amazing, and Tom Waits was born to play a mad scientist. I could have done without Spleen. That's my only real complaint. It's not as if he really added anything, nor, for that matter, did Paul Reubens give a particularly interesting performance (disappointingly, as I was looking forward to seeing him in action again). There were points, too, where I felt that the pacing was a little jagged- this was a very ambitious project for a guy who up to now has mainly directed Taco Bell commercials, and it shows at times. For the most part tho, it's pretty delightful. I'm even thinking about seeing it again. Love on ya, Susan 'Momus? That guy is sinister!' Marilyn Manson, as reported by Haig Bedrossian ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 9 Aug 1999 11:00:32 -0800 From: BC-Radio@corecom.net (Brett Cooper) Subject: Re: TheCoolPerson? >> From: Jeff Dwarf >> >> Was it the Young Ones that they used to show before 120 >> Minutes >> on MTV back in the late 80's? > >Yup. That's when I first saw it. (And first heard >Robyn, actually. Late 80's 120 Minutes was fabulous. >Come back, Dave Kendall, all is forgiven!) Does anyone remember Post Modern MTV? That's where I first saw/heard Robyn in 1989. Brett ***************************************** Cooper Collections P.O. Box 876462 Wasilla, AK 99687 (907) 376-4520 http://www.corecom.net/~no6pp/Cooper_Collections.html ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 09 Aug 1999 12:30:03 PDT From: "Capitalism Blows" Subject: Re: TheCoolPerson? < > i acknowledge that if so many people think so highly of > it that it must be a > great work of art. Does the same obtain for _Titanic_?> while Titanic got some decent reviews and won a gaggle of oscars, i'd hardly call it a critical smash. it's the all-time box office champ, of course. but the perception is that it's grosses were driven largely by massive repeat business, and not really by a wide demographic cross-section. whether the perception is accurate, i couldn't say. but it *is* interesting to note that Titanic doesn't appear on the imdb top 250. anyways, if, sixty years down the line, Titanic tops all known best-of movie polls, then, i'd say, yes, the same obtains for Titanic. _______________________________________________________________ Get Free Email and Do More On The Web. Visit http://www.msn.com ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 9 Aug 1999 15:36:48 -0400 (EDT) From: Aaron Mandel Subject: Re: Eb Witch project (and Mystery Men review- skip if you don't like to read that sorta thing) On Mon, 9 Aug 1999 ultraconformist@mail.weboffices.com wrote: > Seriously tho, I saw "Mystery Men" last night and enjoyed it very > much. I haven't read the original comic, so I don't know how true it > is to the spirit and can't report on that. as far as i know, there is no original comic. a group of working-class superheroes named the Mystery Men were in a few issues of Flaming Carrot. some of the movie characters were there (Mr. Furious, The Spleen and maybe the Shoveler, in somewhat different incarnations) and some were not. there is now an adaptation of the movie written by someone other than Bob Burden, and a series unrelated to the movie but written by Bob. i have the first issue of the latter -- according to Burden, the Mystery Men have been around for decades with a constantly-shifting membership, at one point reaching 30 active heroes. so the fact that the characters are different doesn't mean they're incompatible, but the movie's version of Champion City is very different. good movie, not great. the Flaming Carrot comics are being reprinted in big collections, and i highly recommend them. (Burden's sexism and McCarthyism are upsetting, but superficial.) aaron ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 9 Aug 1999 14:48:48 -0600 From: ultraconformist@mail.weboffices.com Subject: Re: TheCoolPerson? >while Titanic got some decent reviews and won a gaggle of oscars, i'd hardly >call it a critical smash. it's the all-time box office champ, of course. >but the perception is that it's grosses were driven largely by massive >repeat business, and not really by a wide demographic cross-section. I feel that there is a lot of accuracy to that perception. I never saw it, but I know people who saw it 4 or 5 times, and I think those folks made up a LOT of the ultimate gross, cause there were loads of 'em. Of course, I'm a contrary soul, the more you say "everyone's going" the more I stubbornly insist "I'm gonna be the last goddam person on earth who doesn't". I have a good track record on this- I successfully avoided "Phantom Menace", "Top Gun" and "Pretty Woman", among other "you've got to see it, everbody's seeing it" flicks that held no interest for me. But I think I'm a minority in that respect. I think that as it started to get bigger, people started feeling as if it were some sort of event, some sort of marker of the cultural zeitgeist that one had to pay attention to, and that might have prompted some people to go who may or may not have actually liked it. I'm thinking that in the end, it'll end up being sort of like "Gone With The Wind", an audience fave that starts showing up on polls 10 years or so from now, just as an acknowledgement of the mass force of people who -do- remember it fondly and its place as a cultural touchstone of sorts. Love on ya, Susan 'Momus? That guy is sinister!' Marilyn Manson, as reported by Haig Bedrossian ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 9 Aug 1999 12:50:31 -0700 From: Mark_Gloster@3com.com Subject: Re: Eb Witch project (and Mystery Men review- skip if you don't like to read that sorta thing) >Hey! I wanna see that! When's it coming out? Dave and Hal are going into pre-production. The Hollywood grape vine suggests that Gene Hackman and Andie McDowell have both auditioned. I think it's going to be one of those "outsider heavy-on-the-x-gen-vibe" flix. I think Sandra (you may remember me from such brilliant cinematic extravaganzas as _While You Were Still Sleeping Through This Incredibly Boring Movie_ and _Speed 31- Bobsled to Hell_) is slated to play the girl who keeps fucking up Eb's (played by Tom Cruise) computer (a Timex Sinclair with the guts of a Cray.) I hear that they are tremendously over budget already and haven't shot a frame. It could be that they are out, even as I type, soliciting product endorsements from Ross for those yellow striped shirts.... >Seriously tho, I saw "Mystery Men" last night and enjoyed it very much. I >haven't read the original comic, so I don't know how true it is to the >spirit and can't report on that. I will say tho, that those who were >worried that this was going to be about ridiculing the characters- it >really isn't. It celebrates them in all their flawed glory. It did ridicule some characters, who had it coming. I enjoyed it quite a lot. It isn't exactly true to the original, but that wasn't a problem for me. It seemed like a cross between the Mystery Men comic book and a Batman movie, which worked well IMHO. As a Flaming Carrot nut, the differences from the comic book might have been a problem for me had Flaming Carrot been in it. >Even though Ben Stiller seems to have gotten the most attention, I thought >the standouts were William H. Macy, who gave a performance of almost >startling depth and nuance as The Shoveller, and Hank Azaria, who turned in >a very sweet and funny performance as the Blue Rajah. I completely agree. They kinda stole the show, though I went in predisposed to liking Paul R, and Ben S. I'm sure that this was one of the things that weakened the movie for Roger Ebert, I was glad to see such fun performances. >In a different kind of performance (pretty much straightforwardly comic), >Greg Kinnear was hilariously smug as Captain Amazing, and Tom Waits was >born to play a mad scientist. They probably could have let TW develop a bit more, but I liked how they handled the Captain Amazing character. Even the surprise which I won't divulge here. >I could have done without Spleen. That's my only real complaint. It's not >as if he really added anything, nor, for that matter, did Paul Reubens give >a particularly interesting performance (disappointingly, as I was looking >forward to seeing him in action again). There were points, too, where I >felt that the pacing was a little jagged- this was a very ambitious project >for a guy who up to now has mainly directed Taco Bell commercials, and it >shows at times. I wish they would have had Screwball and had PR play him. As it was, he did what he could with the part. It's funny, in the "love scene" with the Spleen it looked like a TV ad, and I was looking for product endorsements. I didn't know that the director was from commercial land, but it makes some sense now. I think it was well directed, although I agree with Ebert on one thing: the movie and the characters might have been served better by cheesier effects, and maybe a slightly cheesier feel. >For the most part tho, it's pretty delightful. I'm even thinking about >seeing it again. I think I liked South Park better, but this was close. I'm going to see both of them again fershure, but after I finish some of this damn work and a small bit of fun recording. Happies, - -Markg ------------------------------ End of fegmaniax-digest V8 #296 *******************************