Issue 177

News: An Alternate View of Aldo Raine.
As I mentioned earlier, I have become increasingly immersed in the life of this autistic manchild by the name of Christian W. Chandler and his crappy webcomic. By this point, I am less horrified by what I see than I was. What I didn't mention was that he claims to be part Native-American, noting that, especially in the south, where he is from, having Native ancestry was often cover for having Black ancestry (apparently the one-drop rule didn't apply to the native folk.) This immediately got me to thinking about somebody from a movie I had seen a year ago who claimed to be of Native American ancestry, Aldo Raine from Inglorious Basterds. In addition, he has a scar on his neck that is supposed to be rope burn (this is not so easy to see in the film itself, but it is much easier to see in publicity shoots and the cover of the one-disc edition,) and the published script implies that Raine was the survivor of a lynching. So my theory is that the people in his hometown of Maynardville, TN, discovered he was partially black, and attempted to lynch him for a crime he (considering his brutality in the film) might have actually committed, but by some freak accident, survived, and turned his anger towards the bigotry of his region, and after it became clear that the American Army was going to fight them, their international equivalents, The Nazis. And, as soon as he realized that the Army would be less unkind towards both being mixed-race and the sociopathic behavior Raine clearly harbored, he fit in like a glove, and he rose through the ranks. And knowing Quentin Tarantino, I'm fairly certain that Fritz Lang's anti-lynching film Fury somehow fits in, but I don't know where.

Film Idea of the Day: N/A.

Film Review of the Day: My Sister's Keeper. I managed to get this movie recently, and I have to say that the idea is certainly an interesting one, and, indeed, seems somewhat Randian in its plot: a child is born pretty much as spare parts for her leukemic sister, and eventually has enough and files for medical emancipation, seeming to recall the interesting things of Ayn Rand's novels, namely the triumph of the individual over the demands of altruism, without the romantic plot tumors or fighting collectivism from a collective. What I really liked about the film was its ending, and especially how different it turned out to be from its original novel. In both, the well sister got medical emancipation, but in the original novel, according to TVTropes, she immediately got killed by a bus and had her kidneys donated anyway. However, in the film, it turned out that the sick sister actually masterminded the plan for the well sister to apply for emancipation to let her mother finally know she had had enough and wanted an end to all the suffering, and so, it turns out that both sisters get the suffering to stop on both ends, and even their hard-ass of a mother ends up lightening up in the end, as seen as when they go to Montana. Unfortunately, a lot of the movie, particularly the parts which didn't have to do with the major plot (read: the flashbacks) I just couldn't relate to.

Quote of the Day: "Your definition is narrow; life insisting on life’s viewpoint, when alternatives exist."
______________Dr. Manhattan on the point of view of the mother in My Sister's Keeeper.

Link of the Day: A song I think should have ended the movie, and could have even lightened the mood, and would still be fitting.

Issue 176

News: Why I'm unsure that my Alan Mencken project will ever get off the ground.
For a while, I've been conceptualizing an idea for an album of covers of songs composed by Oscar-Winning Composer Alan Mencken, many of which will be changed from being relatively faithful re-imaginings of the songs to completely off-the-wall versions.
Some of the ideas I've been thinking about for this one:
*Somewhere That's Green: Very similar to the original, only piano and vocals, but the vocals are done like Tom Waits, with very little lyrical change. "I look like Donna Reed" indeed!
*Part of Your World: Ideally, the first verse would be done as a mambo, but the rest of the song would be done as a punk number in line with Sid Vicious' "My Way."
*Under The Sea: Style Parody of the Steve Miller Band, particularly "Fly Like an Eagle."
*Kiss the Girl: Done as Astral Weeks-era Van Morrison.
*Beauty and the Beast: Power Ballad in the style of Sister Christian, with similar slide guitar work to Badfinger's Day After Day.
*Medley: One Jump Ahead/Friend Like Me/Prince Ali. Done as a single medley in the style of Django Reinhardt's Quintet of the Hot Club of France, with solos on guitar and violin (which may or may not be synthesised), and possibly some extremely low-key vocals.
*A Whole New World: Done in Two Versions, Three if you count the intentional false start in one version: Version A begins simply, with the first line sung, punctuated with a single, extremely deep and dense piano chord which lasts for upwards of a minute. The song resumes as a style parody of The Moody Blues' "Ride My Seesaw," complete with synthetic three-part harmonies, for both male and female singers. Version B is done as a solo number only accompanied by violin, and possibly a whip (which once again, may or may not be synthesised.)
*Colors of the Wind: Part 1 is a style parody of Rod Stewart's Rhythm of my Heart, before I manage to hijack the song half-way through, turning it into a doo-wop number, and adding an entire instrumental break, which includes me arguing with the female singer about my interruption, before finally working on collaborating in the end.
*Savages: A style parody of two early-twentieth-century mental patients, one singing after getting into the doctor's supply of Amyl Nitrites, and the other playing pianos while in the first stages of neurosyphillis, or whatever the hell brought Nietzsche to his complete mental collapse.
*Heaven's Light/Hellfire-Done as a duet, Heaven's Light done as a Jimmy Webb song, but Hellfire done as a number from Sweeney Todd, naturally, pared down to the essentials for both cases, climaxing in Sweeney Todd's work whistle.
*True Love's Kiss: Well, Hurra Torpedo is probably the best way to go for this song.
*That's How You Know: Instead of the calypso beat of the original song, it would be done as a style parody of Led Zeppelin's "Fool in the Rain."

As you can imagine, this would definitely need to be more than just one man and his guitar. However, I'm not sure whether such a thing could get off the ground. Here's the sort of thing I'm looking for in the band members:
*Female Singer: Her voice should be pretty far-removed from the sort of Broadway feel that seems to pervade through many of Mencken's songs, and ideally, it should be somewhat like Kim Deal from the Pixies, or any other female singer to alt-rock bands who are mainly remembered because Kurt Cobain idolized them. She may or may not play any of the other four instruments below.
*Keyboardist: My plan is that the Keyboardist should be the skeleton key to making the band truly work, and to help realize the goals. Ideally, he (any he's used from here on in are gender-neutral) would have as varied musical tastes as me, and as you might have guessed, my tastes are extremely eclectic [In my music queue right now are Pierre Boulez, Tenacious D, The Byrds, Hot Rats, Van Halen (not Van Hagar), and Miles Davis' Bitches Brew.]
*Bassist: Should be able to play both bass guitar and upright bass (for songs with styles that wouldn't work on bass guitar, like the Django Reinhardt medley)
*Lead Guitarist/Drummer: No special requirements here, although, if possible, for the Django Reinhardt medley, should be competent enough on guitar to keep up the rhythm (along with me, as Django Reinhardt did have two rhythm guitarists.)
And to have these sort of musicians play mainly radically changed versions of Disney Songs? You see why I'm not sure about the future of the project.

Movie Review: Bruno. I finally managed to get my hands on a copy of the final movie in the Sascha Baron Cohen trilogy recently, and let me tell you, it may not be as funny as Borat was, but it certainly has its moments, including a Missed Moment of Awesome where Bruno meets the "God Hates Fags" gang and simply does nothing but walk past them onto a bus. It was while he was in leather, huddled and handcuffed onto another guy, but still. In fact, some of the best scenes, as the DVD release showed, ended up on the cutting room floor, including an interview with a Neo-Nazi leader. However, the material is almost all fresh, with very little reworking of past antics, as far as I remember, from the Ali G Show. Even where both the series and film have a gay converter, Bruno doesn't ask the same questions for both interviews. And yes, the Hitler references get old pretty fast, but there is a talking penis in the movie, but it is only on for a brief moment, shouting "Bruno!" and even then, only as computer-generated bumper for a prospective Bruno television series.

Idea of the Day: It's somewhat like Sex in the City, except aimed heavily towards men, and often seeming like In the Company of Men: The Series, including a short story writer obsessed with Charles Bukowski, a dirty cop who can, if the occasion strikes, be as much of a monster as Mr. Blonde from Reservoir Dogs, a businessman who moonlights as a blues guitarist and is the token nice guy of the group, and a cold, rational, neurosurgeon.