Recently in Something That Bugs Me Category

As I mentioned in the previous post, my passion for the movies -- or at least for going to the movies -- has faded somewhat in recent years. I think the biggest problem is simply the reality of a busy semi-grown-up life. My schedule on weekdays makes going out inconvenient, and the weekends tend to get eaten up with all the mundane crap I can't manage to complete during the week. Basically, it's just damn hard to carve out a couple of hours to sit in the dark without feeling anxious because I think I ought to be doing something else. In addition, the general theatrical experience has really deteriorated since my multiplex days, largely due to the breakdown of good manners (Text-messaging! Grrr!) as well as various exhibition-industry developments, such as those abysmal pre-show reels of commercials and fluffy "behind-the-scenes" segments that don't tell you a damn thing except how great everyone was to work with. And then there's the not-inconsiderable problem that Hollywood just doesn't seem to be making much I want to see these days; I've apparently aged beyond the industry's target demographic.

The end result of all these converging factors is that I rarely get too excited anymore about upcoming movies. The last one for which I remember feeling much of a build-up was Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, and even then my eagerness was somewhat tempered compared to other movies in years past. I guess I'm finally beyond the running-countdown-clock, have-to-see-it-on-the-first-day, standing-in-line-for-hours, midnight-screening thing.

But every once in a while, something will grab my interest enough to trigger some vestige of the old anticipation reflex, and in recent months that film has been John Carter, the long-awaited cinematic adaptation of some of the best-loved pulp-adventure fiction of the early 20th century, namely the "Barsoom" novels of Edgar Rice Burroughs. I dearly loved those books as a boy, and I've gone from initially dubious to cautiously optimistic that the film's director and co-writer, Andrew Stanton of Pixar fame, might have actually made a movie version that's at least somewhat faithful to the source material. Certainly the look of the film is right, based on what I've seen in the trailers, and I'm hoping that the tone will be as well.What I'd like to see is old-fashioned, swashbuckling fun and romance, the sort of thing where the hero has a twinkle in his eye, rather than the self-important Dark 'n' Angsty Very-Important-Epic(tm) that every genre film these days aspires to be. That tone was appropriate for The Lord of the Rings, but not for anything created by ERB.

Unfortunately, my own feelings aside, John Carter is not attracting the kind of early buzz the corporate beancounters in Hollywood like to see. Last week, a much-linked article made the rounds of the nerd-o-sphere, predicting that JC is going to be a tremendous flop. The kind of flop that costs people their careers, maybe even the kind of flop that brings down studios. The first line of the article went so far as to compare it to Ishtar, the reviled 1987 Warren Beatty-Dustin Hoffman vehicle that became the poster-child for overblown vanity projects practically overnight.

To put it succinctly, this article pissed me off.

Does everybody remember that episode of The Simpsons in which Homer and Flanders go to Vegas, get completely devastated, and wake up married to a couple of vulgar, gold-digging floozies? And then Flanders actually tries to live with his new "Vegas wife," only to have her give up on her find-a-sugar-daddy scheme and run away because she just can't take any more of his saccharine piousness? (The second part may have been a separate episode... I don't remember for certain anymore.) As I recall, Flanders' Vegas wife flees in the middle of the night, Amityville Horror style, yelling back over her shoulder something to effect of, "Just stop being so goody-goody all the time!" Does that ring a bell?

Yeah, that's how I feel a lot of the time living in Utah. I mean, honestly, is there any other place in the known universe -- or at least a place that doesn't have a minaret in the middle of town -- where this outfit would be considered immodest?

The young lady in the photo is Brittany Molina, a 21-year-old student at Brigham Young University, who experienced a moment of Internet fame last week because this unremarkable ensemble of a sweater, dress, leggings, and knee-high boots evidently proved too provocative for the tender sensibilities of some anonymous bluenose. As recounted on the Salt Lake Tribune's Movie Cricket blog, Brittany was on the BYU campus, minding her own business, when a young man she didn't know walked up, handed her a note, and then scuttled off before she could read it. She thought at first it may have been a Valentine from a shy admirer, but it turned out to be something very different. The note read:

"You may want to consider that what you're wearing has a negative effect on men (and women) around you. Many people come to this university because they feel safe, morally as well as physically, here. They expect others to abide by the Honor Code that we all agreed on. Please consider your commitment to the Honor Code (which you agreed to) when dressing each day. Thank you."

Now, I should probably explain for some of my Loyal Readers that BYU, which is owned by the Mormon Church, expects its students to follow a rigid set of rules -- the aforementioned Honor Code -- which regulates everything from attire and grooming to where students are allowed to live (BYU has to approve off-campus housing) to sexual behavior. Especially sexual behavior, which not-too-surprisingly seems to be the pitfall that trips up most Code violators, at least in the cases that come to the public's attention. So just how strict are these rules? Well, believe it or not, they were a major factor in determining which local college I would attend following high school. Yes, yours truly applied to the Y back in my college-application days. And lest you think that seems, well, odd, I'll be honest and admit that I was incredibly naive, knew little about the place, and chose to apply there largely because it was close to home and I wasn't interested in going too far away for school. I even got accepted, on a provisional basis pending submission of a letter from my Mormon bishop or other ecclesiastical leader (this was a bit of a problem for me, given that I've been indifferent to religion since I was a small boy; I briefly considered writing my own letter and signing it "Master Yoda of Dagobah") and, of course, my signature on a document promising I would obey this precious Honor Code of theirs. A handy rule book accompanied the acceptance letter so I could familiarize myself with the Code. I dutifully read through it, becoming more and more convinced with each new line of text that somebody, somewhere, was putting me on. It all seemed so... unnecessary.

Two items stand out in my memory as particularly insufferable: men were required to be clean-shaven (mustaches were allowed, although the Code's phrasing on this point made it sound like they were grudgingly accepted at best, but beards and stubble were absolutely verboten), and you had to wear socks with your shoes. Leaving aside the fact that this was 1987 and I was still occasionally emulating Don Johnson's Miami Vice look at the time, I couldn't understand why a university, an institution of higher learning, a place whose mission is to educate and whose informal role is to help you learn how to be an independent adult, ought to have the slightest concern over whether I was wearing socks. I admittedly have something of a knee-jerk anti-authoritarian streak -- I reflexively resent being told what to do, especially when I think I'm being told to do something stupid -- but this was nothing short of insane micromanaging, as far as I was concerned. I was utterly repelled. However, I can thank my brush with the Honor Code for one thing, at least. It made a big life decision very simple for me. A week later, I was enrolled at BYU's crosstown rival (and complete cosmological opposite), the University of Utah.

It's probably also relevant to note that BYU is located in Provo, Utah, the seat of Utah County, which comprises the geographical area called Utah Valley. (It's the Utah-iest place in all of Utah! In more ways than one, actually...) Utah Valley lies directly south of the Salt Lake Valley (and Salt Lake County), which is where I live. Things are different down there. Seriously, almost mind-bogglingly different. Non-Utahns tend to think of Salt Lake City as repressed, uptight, and highly conservative, but SLC is practically San Francisco's Castro District compared to the UC. I actually try to avoid going down there, as my beard and ponytail instantly brand me as an outsider, and I'm not exaggerating when I say people do stare. Honest to god, I sometimes feel so out of place there, I expect a bunch of the locals to surround me and start up with the Body Snatcher scream. Even some of my Mormon friends report feeling less than worthy when they're visiting Provo.

Anyway, given my complete alienation from the BYU/Provo mindset, I have a hard time grasping what's so terrible about Ms. Milano's outfit. The consensus among my friends seems to be that her dress is too short to meet the Honor Code's standard, as it falls well above her knees, and I suppose that makes sense. But still... this is offensive to someone? Really? I mean, it's not as if she's dressed like one of the girls in a ZZ Top video, or like Julia Roberts in the beginning of Pretty Woman (not, just between you and me, that I have a problem with either of those looks; I guess I lack the gene that codes for moral outrage as generated by displays of feminine anatomy).

A couple of people have pointed out that it doesn't matter whether I, personally, see anything wrong with her outfit or not, she was in violation of the rules she agreed to follow. I suppose there's no arguing that. Brittany presumably got a chance to read the rule book same as I did, and she had her chance to make a run for it, the same way I did. But instead she willingly entered into a contract with the Y to follow their wretched Code, and she's got to face the consequences if she doesn't live up to her obligation. And really I know this whole story is just a tempest in a teapot, probably already forgotten by everyone who read about it last week. Nevertheless, it sticks in my craw because, regardless of whether she actually did anything wrong under whatever standard you want to apply, this incident encapsulates so much of what I really, truly hate about my home state. The pervasive, heavy-handed moralizing; the sanctimony and intolerance for anyone who strays too far off program; the nosy preoccupation with what your neighbors are doing and how "cleanly" they're living, along with the misguided belief that you have the right to say anything about it; the casual misogyny that blames a young woman's clothing for a young man's sinful feelings; and, of course, the passive-aggressive behavior. Good lord, this place must surely be the passive-aggressive capital of the world. People who grow up here have it pounded into their heads from an early age to always be polite and agreeable, so few willingly engage in a direct confrontation if they can avoid it. (I'll admit I'm guilty of it, too, for what that's worth.) Instead, they find other, less direct -- and less honorable, in my opinion -- ways to attack: sarcastic jibes that are excused as good-natured humor, or intense competitiveness in sports and other social activities, or talking about people behind their backs. Or handing someone an anonymous note and running away before they can read it. Frickin' coward. I have to say Ms. Molina apparently handled this situation with far more aplomb than I could've managed. I would've chased the punk down, pinned him to a wall, and told him that if he's got a problem, he'd better tell me to my face. And then I would've impressed upon him how much better it would be for him to mind his own damn business...

(Ed. Note: For the record, I am not accusing every Utahn, or even every Utah Mormon, of behaving like this. Nor do I want to hear the usual defense made whenever a non-Mormon starts griping about how things are here, i.e., "if you don't like it, leave." This is my home, too, guys, and I have no intention of moving away. Nevertheless, there some aspects of life here that are... difficult... if you don't happen to belong to the majority faith. And Provo is just plain weird, no matter how you slice it; it's the world as designed by Ned Flanders, and that's no bull. If I had to live down there, I think I probably would end up fleeing in the middle of the night, Amityville Horror style.)

I wish there was some way of making clear to the account people I work with -- despite what they seem to believe, I don't actually work for them -- that the time I spend on the phone with them updating them on the status of their projects is time I could be, you know, working on their projects.

I'm just sayin'.

Not to belabor the point, but this is a tremendous pet peeve of mine. I know my job; I know the schedule. I know they've got people above them calling every fifteen minutes, probably because those folks in turn have people above them who are calling every ten minutes. But I also know that account people have a nasty tendency to make promises their butts can't keep, rather than setting realistic expectations, and that they also tend to think that their projects are the only ones that matter, indeed the only ones that even exist in this whole big corporate universe. Well, sorry, kids, but here's the score: you are not the only account person sending me work, and everybody says their particular job is urgent. It's all urgent, okay? So just take a number and chill; I'll get your project done. But I'll get it done a lot faster if you quit bugging me all the damn time...

News today that a "contemporized adaptation" of the Arnold Schwarzenegger-on-Mars flick Total Recall is in the works. Never mind the question of whether the world is clamoring for yet another version of yet another story that's already been told, or whether this particular story might benefit from being told again.* No, the thing that bugs me here is this obnoxious piece of jargon, "contemporized adaptation." That, my friends, sounds to me like a marketing department trying to find some clever new way of saying "remake" without using the prefix "re-." Because, I suppose, market research indicates that words beginning with "re-" too clearly state the obvious. "Reimagining," "relaunch," "reboot" -- they all stink of a trip back to the same well, don't they? So instead of using one of those words, dripping with all the negative connotations of creative bankruptcy, somebody sat around a conference table for hours to come up with this all-new term for the same old crap.

I can just imagine the pitch meeting for Total Recall, Take Two: A guy in a 5,000-dollar suit listens for a minute, then says with a slight, vaguely reptilian grin, "Wait a minute, this is just another bloody remake, right? We've done dozens of those in the last decade, why should I greenlight another one? Can't you give me something original?" And he's answered with, "No, no, it's not a remake... it's a contemporized adaptation." And then, since Studio Suits are so easily dazzled by multisyllabic words, the first guy nods and says, "Oh, well, then, that sounds swell. Here's a blank check."

Guys, let me tell you something: it doesn't matter how you say it. It doesn't matter how you justify it. The fact is, you're out of ideas. You're lazy, you're overly cautious, and you care more about extending brands than telling stories. And every one of these "contemporized adaptations" you keep cranking out just further proves my point. You know what? At this point, just remake it all, every movie from the last 50 years, and the sooner the better, because then maybe when it's all been done over with sparkly CG effects and processed into murky 3D for maximum gimmick-appeal, we can get back to actually, you know, making movies, the kind you don't have to make up words to describe.

Remakes. Grrr.

* For the record, I'm not really that big a fan of Total Recall. In fact, I outright loathed it when it was first released back in my old working-at-the-multiplex days. I don't much enjoy "mind-f**k" movies anyhow, the ones that want to leave you guessing about what's really happening to the characters and what's only in their heads, and Recall was a pretty clumsy example of that genre. It was also ridiculously, cartoonishly violent (or so it seemed to me at the time; I've since seen worse), and it was just plain stupid in a lot of places. I could buy the alien instant-atmosphere-making machine, but Arnold and Rachel Ticotin looking completely unscathed in the final scene after having their eyes bugged four inches out of their skulls and then getting explosively recompressed? Uh, no. And don't tell me this is proof that the whole movie was Arnold's dream/memory implant. I already told you, I don't like that mind-f**k crap. (I also dislike novels with unreliable narrators; I don't like the feeling of some writer somewhere having a laugh at my expense.)

The biggest problem with Recall, though, is that it has no third act. Following a reasonably good set-up and middle portion, the writers obviously couldn't figure out how to end it, so they just have Arnold shoot a bunch of people. Even though I hate remakes on general terms, you can actually make a pretty good argument in favor of remaking this one, assuming someone has come up with a solution to the problem of the third act. But of course, I don't believe anyone has. Because most screenplays these days aren't even as good as the dumb popcorn movies of the late '80s and early '90s.

And you know, now that I think about it, my attitude toward Total Recall has softened a lot in the last 20 years. Memories of it are bound up with memories of a good time in my life. And, as stupid as it was, it was still more entertaining than something like The Dark Knight. I'm really tired of all the Darkness with a capital D being sold as artistic significance in movies these days...

You gotta love the summer season around the old ad agency.

You see, my Corporate Overlords provide us downtrodden minions with a generous boon called "summer Fridays," i.e., four Fridays off with pay, which you can take at your own discretion, anytime between Memorial Day and Labor Day, workflow allowing. These days don't count against your vacation time, either; they're essentially bonus holidays. This particular perk is, no surprise, a very popular institution, but it tends to generate some strange side-effects for those of us who are left at work while everyone else is off, um, summer Fridaying.

For one thing, the office is eerily quiet, because roughly one-third to one-half of the 400-some-odd staffers are out. The building gets pretty chilly, too, without the extra bodies and running computers to warm the place up, and as the day wears on and the daylight outside begins to soften with the onset of evening, the basement cube-farm of this century-old brick pile starts to feel like a set piece from the latest zombie-apocalypse movie.

Then there are toddlers and pets who occasionally make appearances because their folks have to work and are unable to make other arrangements. This can happen anytime, of course, but it seems to happen more in the summer, and especially on summer Fridays, I guess because there are fewer management types around to care. These special guest stars aren't really a problem, but they have a tendency to wander off on their own, lured by the irresistible mysteries of a post-zombie-apocalypse cube farm. Which means that while I'm sitting here typing this, I can see a tiny Boston terrier/pug mix named after a Cimmerian deity wandering around at the edges of my peripheral vision.

And then of course there are the mental effects caused by the oppressive isolation and loneliness of this depopulated environment. Basically, summer Fridays make those poor devils who are left behind quite insane. A harsh accusation I know, but let me provide my evidence: You occasionally hear maniacal laughter echoing from the other side of the basement. You see random notes in the break room offering free cupcakes, but there is no evidence that a cupcake has even passed within sensor-range of that room for weeks. Assistant creative directors (the actual creative directors are always out of the office on Fridays, both summer and otherwise) putt golf balls down the aisles between the cubicles. And some account supervisors think that a 15,000-word document delivered to proofreading at 4 PM can be finished by 6, or "quitting time," as we like to call it. Fifteen thousand words, for you lay-people who don't deal in such things for a living is about 50 pages. Fifty brand-new, error-ridden pages that have never been seen by an editorial eye, and they want it in only two hours...

I just heard another peal of maniacal laughter.

Oh, wait... that was me.

And I just scared the dog away. Sorry, little guy...

You remember the character Cyclops in the X-Men comics and movies, how if you take off his magic sunglasses, his "optic blast" superpower sprays everywhere, uncontrollable, until he shuts his eyes? That's what it's like to be a professional proofreader sometimes; you just can't help but see the errors people make when they write, even when you're not on the clock and you're just out and about in the real world, trying to mind your own business. The really annoying thing is that you tend to see the same damn errors over and over again, too. Stuff that really isn't that hard but which, for some reason, consistently trips up otherwise intelligent and well-spoken people.

Case in point (you knew I had one, didn't you?): I was just perusing some reader comments over at the Tribune web site and I see that someone thinks that "Draper [City] has a huge cross to bare." (Italics mine.) So... that would be an undressed cross? Perhaps you mean one that hasn't been varnished or painted? Or perhaps the expression you're really searching for is "cross to bear."

It's very simple, people: "bare" means naked. You bare your body, you bare your soul. "Bear" means "to support, carry, or endure." You bear your load (which is what that old cliche about cross-bearing is getting at), you bear children, you grin and bear it. See how easy? Sheesh...

Here's another of those trivial things that no one else seems to mind, but which drive me certifiably bats: people writing the word "loose" when they really mean "lose."

I don't know if this is just a Utah thing, or if people from other parts of the country do it, too, but it certainly seems to be endemic in these parts. I see it all over the place: in comments on the Salt Lake Tribune's web site (which is actually what inspired this post today), in e-mails from friends (no offense, kids), and in letters and diaries written years ago by dead relatives. I could understand it if folks were simply spelling the word the way it sounded when spoken, but that doesn't seem to be the case. Utahns pronounce "lose" with the proper "z" sound (i.e., "looz" ) in conversation, but when they write it down, they frequently use "loose" (i.e., "looce"), and I gotta tell you, as somebody who spends all day correcting written mistakes for a living, it's maddening.

So, let's have a little remedial lesson, shall we? "Lose" is a verb, as in "to lose," as in "I hope the Utah Jazz don't lose the big game." (Don't worry, they probably will.) "Loose," on the other hand, is an adjective, a descriptor of something else, as in "That screw is loose," or "She's a loose woman." Now, what's so tough about that?

So, I'm sitting here watching the AFI 100 Greatest Movies of All Time (10th Anniversary Edition) special, and I just saw a commercial for Blade Runner: The Final Cut, coming soon on DVD and (according to this commercial) to theaters this fall. Leaving aside my conviction that acknowledged classics shouldn't be revised or messed with (and also that Ridley Scott is horribly misguided in his efforts to convince us that Deckard is a replicant), it was pretty exciting to see this film being advertised again. However, something about the ad really grated on me: the obligatory slogan, "The One That Started It All."

I say "obligatory" because it seems these days that every single film that has inspired sequels or imitators uses it; for example, it popped up again recently when the original Shrek was aired on TV a few weeks back. I hate this slogan. It's hackneyed and virtually meaningless. What the hell is "it" anyway? "It" is never defined, and there are apparently lots of different "its" out there, since Shrek's "it" most likely is not Blade Runner's "it" (although it'd be interesting if it was -- imagine a dystopian future-noir fairy tale...). Really what "it" is, is lazy marketing. It's a simple, cliche'd fix for a copywriter who's staring down a deadline and doesn't have the slightest original thought in his head about the movie in question. As with all the other stuff that bugs me, this slogan will be forbidden when I become the Unquestioned Ruler of the Universe.

That is all. Back to the AFI list now...

In another example of what's likely to become an ongoing feature here at Simple Tricks, allow me to gripe about yet another trivial thing that's been annoying me for some time and has finally built to critical mass: my local newspaper's use of the term "tot" to describe young children.

FYI to anyone reading this: the film's title is Blade Runner, not Bladerunner. I see this mistake made all over the place (most recently here) and it grates on my nerves like stainless-steel fingernails on a chalkboard.

Two words, people. Two.

That is all.