Eye of the Tiger, baby. Eye of the Tiger.

Further developments in Heffie's ongoing struggle to get in shape (in time for Halloween pictures).

So a few days ago, in an effort to maintain my personal trainer Carolyn's prescribed diet of 3-8 egg whites every morning, I went to Whole Foods to get more cage-free organic eggs. If I'm gonna gulp down egg whites, you bet I'm gonna go for the organic kind. However, it was 9pm, and Whole Foods was closed, so I was forced to go to Safeway. They had *one* container of the cage-free organic eggs, but one seemed like enough, and the next morning I had my egg whites as usual. However, I felt paranoid for the rest of the day. I'm fine, of course. If I weren't, Mom assures me, I'd know it soon enough. But you guys know me. I'm a worrier. I'm the Worrier King!

Fast forward to just an hour ago. I'm working out with Carolyn, she's kicking my ass as usual, and I decide to share this story with her, to hopefully alleviate my own paranoia and take my mind off the burn.

ME: So I've been feeling a little paranoid over the egg whites lately...

CAROLYN: What, you're concerned that you've been undercooking them?

...

...

...

ME: ... nnnnnno. I've... been sucking them down raw.

CAROLYN: !!!!!! WH--WHUH--WHAT?! RAW?! WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT?! OH MY GOD!

ME: But... but... I thought that was the point.

CAROLYN: NO! JESUS CHRIST, NO!!! ISN'T THAT DISGUSTING?!

ME: ... yes. They're raw eggs whites. Isn't that the whole point?

CAROLYN: OH MY GOD!!! WHAT IN GOD'S NAME WOULD POSSESS YOU TO DO THAT?!

ME: But... but that's what Rocky did!

CAROLYN: YEAH, BACK IN 1976! HOW ARE YOU NOT DEAD?!

So of course she had to tell one of her co-workers, this strapping big trainer who was making this little middle-aged suburban mom do crunches. Nearly breathless, Carolyn forces herself into story mode and regales past five minutes to her colleague...

CAROLYN: And he's been eating them raw.

GUY: Oh yeah, I've done that.

CAROLYN/SOCCER MOM: What?! Really?! GROSS!

GUY: Sure, a lot of guys do that. Wait, you use the organic kind, right?

ME: Totally.

GUY: Psh, yeah, you're fine.

CAROLYN: I can't believe this. I'm so sorry for not being more specific. But why the hell wouldn't you cook them?

ME: Because... honestly, I can't stand cooked eggs. They make me throw up.

CAROLYN: Jesus!

ME: With the whites, I can use my patented Irish Car Bomb technique and suck 'em down in one slimy, flavorless gulp.

CAROLYN: Ugh. Wow. Can you put that on a résumé?

ME: I think it'd attract the wrong kind of people.

Carolyn let me go home after that, bowing and chanting "We're not worthy. We're not worthy." The other trainer and the Soccer Mom, on the other hand, announced my triumphant departure by singing, in unison:

Duh-dun da-da-dun da-da-dun da-da-dun, da-da da-da-dun da-da-DA da-da-dun...

Movie Ramblings Part 2: The A.V. Club Edition

First, happy birthday reazik!



The Onion's A.V. Club has become one of my favorite entertainment sites. It nicely bridges the gap between b-movie geekery fandom sites like CHUD and Ain't It Cool News with the elitest indie snobbery of the Washington CityPaper, and other such free city indie newspapers. Of course, that doesn't mean I agree with everything they say, but they're usually entertaining and insightful, which is all I ask.

I'm currently addicted to their biweekly feature My Year in Flops, in which the head reviewer watches 150 or so flops, bombs, and utter financial disasters, analyzing them with a combination of snark and genuine understanding to figure out what went wrong, and if the film actually had merit or truly deserved its failure status. Along the way, he's celebrated and championed personal favorites of mine, such as PENNIES FROM HEAVEN and THE FOUNTAIN. Here are snippets of my favorite entries so far:

ISLAND OF DR. MOREAU: For in my entry on Missouri Breaks, I proposed what I call The Great Gazoo Theory: that sometime in the mid-‘70s Brando began taking marching orders from the Great Gazoo, the tiny, effeminate green alien only Fred Flintstone could see. For example, Brando’s behavior on the set of The Score is wholly understandable if you imagine The Great Gazoo hovering over Brando’s ear and whispering “Hey dum-dum, if you really want to show that Frank Oz fool what’s what, call him Miss Piggy and refuse to talk to him. That’ll show him”.

THE CAT IN THE HAT: I have compiled a list of ironclad laws and restrictions regarding art I collectively like to call “Georgia Rules.” Don’t ask me why. I just think it has a nice ring to it. My first Georgia Rule: the words “rape,” “fascist,” and “Nazi” all belong behind glass imprinted with the stern warning “Break Only In Case of Emergency.” With that in mind, I’d like to discuss a fascist film made by Nazis that totally raped my childhood: 2003’s The Cat In The Hat...

THE POSTMAN: Before being pleasantly shocked by The Postman’s non-shitty-osity, I planned to irreverently propose a third and climactic entry in what I would lovingly dub the post-apocalyptic “What the fuck was Kevin Costner thinking?” trilogy. In keeping with the constantly ballooning gigantism of the series, it’d be a four-hour long, $400 million sci-fi epic in which Costner would play a poo-eating man-goat who must defeat an evil two-headed kangaroo-man played by Ice-T and Christopher Walken in order to save a world that has been reduced to a damp, nightmarish swamp by excessive cellphone use. It’d be called Swampiverse. Costner’s ornery, telekinetic (did I mention his character is telekinetic?) man-goat would be introduced eating his own poo and strangling an orphan. It’d pretty much go downhill from there. I realize it doesn’t make much sense for goat-men or two-headed kangaroos to live in a swamp but hey, is that really any more preposterous than anything in Waterworld or The Postman?



The A.V. Club also recently did a list on 24 Great Films Too Painful to Watch Twice. (which is where I found WHEN THE WIND BLOWS)

I admit, I haven't seen most of the films on this list, but I have to be amazed by how many people are so upset and disturbed by REQUIEM FOR A DREAM. Now, maybe it's my general personal lack of sympathy for addicts in the abstract, and maybe it's the fact that I've fallen in love with the REQUIEM theme for grand, over-the-top battle music... but really, I watch REQUIEM as a big ol' black comedy, a grand guignol in the tradition of TITUS. I just don't see the tragedy in these people, "heartbreakingly fragile" as the Onion calls them, towards whom I am frankly not sympathetic.

Similarly, it sounded like the reviewers couldn't even stand to watch UNITED 93 to review it. It read like they just assumed, based on what they'd read elsewhere, that it was one of those films. And y'know, I bet it is, for everyone else. spacechild and I just watched it recently, because no one else wanted to watch it with me, and it was damn good. We survived. We're all good. It was a downright excellent film, and honestly, for the sheer expertise of the film, I wouldn't mind seeing it again, maybe with director's commentary.

Clearly, there's something very wrong with me. But then, my favorite Shakespeare play is KING LEAR. I guess I'm just a sucker for a good heart-wrenching tragedy, if there art and a strange cousin of beauty behind it all.

Sweeney Todd trailer... and AMERICAN GANGSTER was great

SWEENEY TODD: THE DEMON BARBER OF FLEET STREET trailer.

Gay-For-Musicals as I am, I've never seen the show before. Unless there's an exceptional version playing somewhere in the area, should I watch the George Hearn/Angela Lansbury version first? Or maybe the George Hearn/Patti LuPone version? Or just go into the with no expectations?

I'm amused at how the studios are really frickin' nervous over SWEENEY TODD, between the fact that it's a musical and that it has family friendly Captain Jack killing people and baking them into pies.

Me, I just hope it's a return to form for Tim Burton. I mean, I know CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY worked for many of you, but it sure as hell didn't for me. And if it's not SWEENEY, then it might well be his next rumored project... a full-length stop-motion version of FRANKENWEENIE.

While we're at it, I strongly look forward to new great Danny Elfman film score music. It's been too long since we've had a brilliant theme of his. (Although I thought his HULK score was fantastic)



So Edd and I just came back from a sneak preview of AMERICAN GANGSTER, the new Ridley Scott film with Denzel and Russell Crowe.

Damn good film.

We have a serious Best Picture contender here. Not saying it's brilliant, and not saying it deserves it, but it's damn good. I give it a solid recommendation. Not much to comment on from here, other than to say it's Scott's best film in years (speaking as one underwhelmed by GLADIATOR). Damn good work all around.

Oh, and did anyone else realize that this is a reunion for the two stars of VIRTUOSITY?? Dude!