Will Arnett was classic as Jason Bateman's brother Job in the Arrested Development TV series. And Will Forte is a pretty weirdly good member of Saturday Night Live's current cast. Together, they make up The Brothers Solomon, who need to have a baby in order to make their dad (Lee Majors, aka The Six Million Dollar Man) so happy that he'll snap out of his coma.
The best moment of the movie is when Dean Solomon (Forte) goes to the front door of a blind date, who invites him in to meet her parents. Forte then leans in and gives the father a gentle kiss on the lips. This doesn't bode especially well for the date, but had me in stitches.
Chi McBride, as James, the big black janitor with a foul mouth and a sensitive heart (and an aversion to hearing the word "sperm"), is also great.
The floating-head, goofy-face, reappearing close-ups of Arnett and Forte's faces is also amusing, and a soundtrack that features The Flaming Lips and The Magic Numbers is also enjoyable.
When you need 90 minutes of brain-dead dumb fun, you could do a lot worse than The Brothers Solomon.
Fever/Dream might be the least-enjoyable play I've seen at DC's Woolly Mammoth Theater. It takes a 17th Century play by Pedro Calderón de la Barca about princes and monarchies and transforms it into a nonsensical corporate office environment.
Not only is the corporate version cliche (if you're going to take it on, you've got your work cut out to be better than The Office or Office Space), but the ridiculous premise isn't funny. A long-haired hermit has been locked in the basement of his father's corporation answering customer-service calls his whole life. Finally, the boss wants to retire and hand the company to his freakish captive.
It doesn't work. And neither does the play. There are possibilities for huge laughs, but they rarely come. It almost seems like playwright Sheila Callaghan is trying to make some important statement on society about how people aren't dealt the same decks of cards and rich and powerful people live in a fishbowl. In the end, it's pretty clear what has happened and there's unfortunately not much need to discuss any of it with your fellow theatergoers.
All that said, the set is cool. The show has a large cast, which is unusual for the Woolly, and one of the blogger characters is played excellently by Lauren Ciandella, who was newshound Jane in my Fringe production last year of Wiener Sausage: The Musical!Kate Eastwood Norris and Kimberly Gilbert are hilarious and goofy and mesmerizing as always, even more impressive considering the lacking material.
He offers the example of former Home Depot CEO Robert Nardelli's absence of a PR strategy leading up to his downfall. He was going to receive tough questions from the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees at the company's annual shareholder meeting, so he discouraged his executives from attending the meeting and imposed a tight limit on questions.
Internal and external relations counsel tried to discourage Nardelli (pictured, left) from these courses of action. He didn't listen and the media turned him into toast.
In an incident not too long after the shareholder meeting, he stonewalled Holstein during an interview. When the author realized Nardelli would look really bad once the article was published, he gave Nardelli the rare opportunity to take a look at the transcript and alter it if he liked. Nardelli stubbornly didn't alter it and the article showed that he clearly had no PR strategy behind ruling the meeting with an iron fist.
All kinds of bad things happened to Nardelli after Home Deport cut him loose, including being named "one of the worst CEOs of all-time" by CNBC, becoming head of Chrysler. and being "released" from the failing Chrysler.
This is from the first chapter, entitled "How Not to Manage the Media." Later in the book, Holstein goes deeper into what went wrong for Nardelli and other CEOs, recommends how to shape messages, and how to embrace the new media.
Recommended reading for anyone who runs a company or manages a lot of staff.
And although he states the obvious, the string of indictments he has for today's gossipy and self-absorbed Facebook generation makes a strong and scary case.
A few of the book's endless stats include:
-- 52 percent of high-school seniors picked Germany, Japan, or Italy over the Soviet Union as a U.S. ally in World War II.
-- Only 41 percent of teenagers can name the three branches of government.
-- Barely half of 15- to 26-year-olds agree that "paying attention to government and politics" is important to good citizenship.
-- In July 2006, only 26 percent of 18- to 26-year-olds knew that Condi Rice was secretary of state and only 15 percent knew Vlad Putin was president of Russia.
-- Of 18- to 24-year-olds, in the past 12 months, only 10 percent have attended a jazz performance, one in 12 attended a classical music performance, only 2.6 percent saw a ballet, and 11.4 percent went to a play. Those numbers have all been dropping over time, despite huge increases in the overall number of performing arts companies.
No matter what political stripe or class, Bauerlein finds that the more young people attend to themselves, the less they remember the past and envision a future. The minds of the young are plateauing at age 18. The small samplings of dummies on Jay Leno's "Jaywalking" segments are no lie and parallel the many, many studies that confirm our collective cluelessness.
"The insulated mindset of individuals who know precious little history and civics and never read a book or visit a museum is fast becoming a common, shame-free condition."
Scary stuff, and a book well worth reading ... at least for the few who still stoop to that sort of thing.
Afghan Whigs-Up In It (1990) Maniacal guitar popsoul. ****1/2 out of ***** stars Touchstone: Mudhoney meets The Replacements (This isn't the album cover. I just like the band shot.)
1990s-Kicks (2009) Catchy synth pop-punk. **** out of ***** stars Touchstone: The Strokes meets Franz Ferdinand
White Lies-To Lose My Life (2009) Dark sonic wave. **1/2 out of ***** stars Touchstone: Depeche Mode meets Interpol
The Replacements-Don't Tell a Soul, Remaster (1989 and 2008) Countrified raggedy pop. ****1/2 out of ***** stars Touchstone: The Lemonheads meets Paul Westerberg
As Barack Obama prepared to formally launch his campaign back in February 2007, President George W. Bush sat in the White House and said he had "no idea who would win the GOP nomination."
But he was absolutely sure Hillary Clinton would be the Democratic nominee. He said it with his feet propped up, Texas-cowboy style, on a glass coffee table. "She has staying power, star power, and money power. She brings a big organization that is well funded right off the bat, and one of the lessons I learned is you have to be able to play the long ball," Bush snickered.
Not surprisingly, Bush was very doubtful of Obama. "Certainly a phenom and very attractive. The guy is very smart." But he went on to say, while "popping an endless stream of peanuts into his mouth," that the primary election process would be rough and that Obama didn't have the experience to handle it.
The candidate was nicknamed "Renegade" by the Secret Service because he "repeatedly broke the rules." Obama had little money starting the campaign, rejected public finance, campaigned overseas, accepted his nomination in a football stadium, spent millions on a prime-time TV show, stayed positive. The list goes on.
I'm not all that enamored of Wolffe's storytelling style, so I probably won't read on past the first couple of dozen pages. But the tale about Bush's predictions was enjoyable. I had forgotten about it among all of Bush's other errors.
President Richard Nixon's Special Counsel Charles Colson was the ace up journalist David Frost's sleeve in getting the former president to confess to his Watergate wrongdoings.
That's the moment of great suspense and anguish on Nixon's face that culminates from two fully great hours of movie drama in last year's Frost/Nixon.
Colson (pictured right) was known as Nixon's "hatchet man" and as the "evil genius" in an "evil administration." He authored "Nixon's Enemies List" and news stories reported that he would "run over his own grandmother to get Nixon re-elected."
In 1974 he was indicted for trying to cover up Watergate. Before his sentencing, Colson became an evangelical Christian. He spent seven months in an Alabama prison and soon founded a group that examined prisoner and prison rehabilitation.
Colson is still alive and fairly active in public life, between his preaching and commentary writing for the pathetic conservative "news" site Townhall.com. One example of his ability to always be wrong is his glowing endorsement of Sarah Palin back in 2008 after John McCain had hastily named the Alaska windbag governor as his vice-presidential candidate.
Frost/Nixon isn't much about Colson. But that's a good thing because what I've told you here is all that's really worth knowing. More importantly, the Oscar-nominated movie is embellished a little bit, but its two dueling characters (Frank Langella as Nixon and Michael Sheen, who played Tony Blair in The Queen, as Frost) are excellent, which makes sense since they both already played these roles on the stage in London and New York.
This is too good not to repost (and just in time for a new Lemonheads album; one of my favorite musicians, Evan Dando, hasn't lost his marketing touch), courtesy of BBC news:
Lemonheads singer Evan Dando has taken legal action against US car maker General Motors for re-recording one of his songs and using it in an advert.
The musician sued GM at Los Angeles Federal Court for violating his copyright on It's a Shame About Ray.
Dando is seeking damages and a portion of profits from the 2008 TV campaign for Chevrolet and Buick models.
The US manufacturer, which has been hit by the economic crisis, recently sought federal protection from bankruptcy.
GM, along with music licensing company Asche and Spencer, have yet to respond to the claims.
The Lemonheads scored a number of hits on both sides of the Atlantic in the 1990s, including Into Your Arms and a cover version of Mrs Robinson.
The Hell's Angels gave the young writer his first break by allowing him full access to the group (and thanking him with a good beat down). He had a huge crush on Grace Slick of Jefferson Airplane during the San Francisco 60s heyday.
When Thompson ran for sheriff, a couple of his platform stances were to change the name of Aspen to Fat City and to replace the downtown streets with sod.
Nobody had ever yet written political journalism like he had at his height as a Rolling Stone contributor. (Matt Tiabbi is following in the Gonzo tradition nowadays at the music magazine.) Thompson described Nixon as scum, claimed that Edmund Muskie was on drugs and therefore gave awful speeches, and helped Carter win with his endorsement. One of the many great video footages in the documentary is of Thomas Eagleton dripping sweat at the press conference when McGovern asked him to step down as his VP candidate because of health reasons.
Eventually, the Gonzo myth took over Thompson's public persona. He had earlier thrived as a semi-anonymous journalist, but his creativity was later stifled by his celebrity. It contributed to his eventual suicide by gun.
President Obama, Michelle, Bill Clinton, Vice President Joe Biden, and Jill Biden were greeted by Dale Penny, SCA’s CEO and Gayle Hazelwood, superintendent of National Park Service-National Capital Parks East. Two students were assigned to walk towards their "principal," greet them and bring them down to where Amtchat and I were waiting to do the introduction.
As they walked up the road toward the work area, a familiar voice was heard saying, “Brenda, Chris, where are you?” President Obama had been briefed and was looking for his students before they even got to him. He was so genuine and put everyone at ease. From where I waited, I watched them all walk down the road chatting, smiling, shaking hands, arms draped around each other like a group of old friends (some a little over dressed). Like any group on day one, it took a minute to get them into a circle. Then Obama walked around and shook everyone's hand (this was great because we could only pair two volunteers with each of them and, of course, the 10 who weren’t paired with Obama wanted to shake his hand).
Amtchat did a brief environmental education lesson and I gave a safety talk. Obama kept interrupting me [Editor's note: A particular pet peeve of my wife's]. I can’t even remember what he was saying other then "someone forgot my boots," but it made it that much more natural. It's funny; it was so natural talking to this group. I wasn't nervous at all considering I was telling the most powerful man in the world to wear his gloves and use good body mechanics when swinging a tool. I was more nervous standing in front of friends and family giving a toast at a wedding.
We were told to speed things up and that Bill had to leave early, so we got right to work. Bill planted the demo tree with Obama looking on and joking about needing to pay attention so as not to "screw it up." Bill responded, "Pay attention? I've got more experience then anyone out here." My favorite was when Amtchat told Bill, "You've got good body mechanics."
After this, the students paired with each of the principals got to work. This was genuine. They didn’t want anything done in advance, so it took some work. Some trees were in rocky soil, some in wet soil, and all required some serious digging. Bill had obviously dug some holes in his day and even commented to the students, "I'm a redneck from Arkansas. I've done this before" in between telling them all about shovel design. Joe Biden talked to his partners about putting fences up around his home in Delaware. Jill Biden worked hard in her pink boots that matched the flowers on the redbud tree she was planting. Barack and Michelle’s trees were next to each other and they kept up playful banter with each other throughout the project.
Barack picked up the pick mattock and started digging his hole. Had it not been the president, I probably would have stepped in and told him to put on a hard hat or that he shouldn’t be using that tool without boots! Michelle was working hard digging the biggest hole (which kept filling with water) while Barack teased her and offered to help (she responded by telling him "don't mess with girl power over here").
It was over fast. Before we knew it, we were moving everyone together for a photo and getting ready for them to depart. The students presented the principals with SCA vests and Obama put his on (the monogramming that SCA did and I thought was so cheesy may have worked in our benefit, since he said "it's got my name on it. I guess I have to try it on"). And before walking to the motorcade, Brenda and Michael, who will make great crew leaders one day, asked Obama to watch them do the boot dance (a goofy thing that we trailworkers do for fun or to warm up on a cool day). Obama watched with a smile on his face the whole time. This was genuine SCA!
As the motorcade pulled away and the staff and volunteers had a chance to talk to each other, the words that I heard and felt were “perfection” and “flawless” and that felt great.
Everything went as planned or better, and I can say that I played a big part in making that happen. Over beers that night, Amtchat, Leah, and I celebrated the success of the highest profile event we will probably ever be a part of and the work of a great team.
Will Arnett was classic as Jason Bateman's brother Job in the Arrested Development TV series. And Will Forte is a pretty weirdly good member of Saturday Night Live's current cast. Together, they make up The Brothers Solomon, who need to have a baby in order to make their dad (Lee Majors, aka The Six Million Dollar Man) so happy that he'll snap out of his coma.
