Anyone who’s been paying attention would’ve guessed Mel Gibson was an anti-Semitic arsehole, but it’s always nice to get confirmation on these points. What I’m wondering is how he reconciles his right-wing political leanings with his anti-Semitism, given that the neocons are staunchly pro-Isreal.

I’d say the answer is that Gibson is probably a Libertarian who dislikes the neocons just as much as the Democrats.

I must add that the beard he’s grown really adds to the “crazy old guy” persona he’s cultivating. Keep up the good work, Mel!

Scrubs is a show that I initially started watching, but my interest soon drifted and I just didn’t stick with it. Zach Braff, however, always struck me as someone who was intelligent and had a good sense of humour. Garden State, from 2004, was his first go at filling the three roles of writer/director/actor, and he’s managed to create a film that is both interesting and creative without being self-conscious.

Andrew Largeman (Braff) is a prisoner of his medicated state, feeling neither the highs nor lows of ordinary life. The film opens on an aeroplane, the passengers in a state of panic as the plane rocks and dips, but Largeman remains unaffected. Physically, he is present in his life, but emotionally, he is disconnected — when his mother dies suddenly, even relative strangers express more emotion about the event.

As Roger Ebert points out in his review, the parallels to Mike Nichols’ The Graduate are unmistakeable (and coincidentally, Natalie Portman stars in both Garden State and Nichols’ recent film adaptation of the play Closer). Largeman, like Benjamin in The Graduate, returns home as a detached, passive observer of the world around him. The classic scene of Benjamin at the bottom of the pool was already referenced in Wes Anderson’s Rushmore, however, so instead we get Largeman awkwardly trying to stay afloat in a pool despite not knowing how to swim — though perhaps not intentional, the inversion of this imagery is interesting to note.

Despite its themes, however, the film isn’t dour, sombre affair. Largeman’s interactions with people from his past is peppered with wry observations on the kinds of people who get older but never seem to grow out who they used to be. It reminded me, in some aspects, of Ted Demme’s Beautiful Girls (which is yet another film featuring Natalie Portman that I highly recommend) — there, too, old friends had never grown up or moved out, and so seemed doomed to play out the same role in different guises again and again.

Garden State is a film about a man learning to embrace life, and certainly gives Braff standing as someone other than simply the star of a quirky television comedy. His next directorial effort, a remake of the 2002 Dogme film Open Hearts, will be worth keeping an eye on.

Braff’s blog can be found here.

I’m in shock, because this was the last thing I was expecting: Lance Bass, former member of ‘N Sync, is gay. My world has been turned on its head. If I find out that Boy George is gay, well, I may as well just throw my gaydar away!

If you’re an INTP and would like to converse with like-minded misfits and miscreants, why not join my new INTP Yahoo Group. It’s still very small at the moment (because it’s so new), but hopefully soon it’ll have a sizeable membership that will get things moving nicely…

(For more information, see this page.)

I finally got around to watching Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, which has to be one of the most visually unique films in recent memory. Its roots — science fiction and adventure movies and serials of the 20’s and 30’s — are failthfully recreated in a manner that is so uncompromising that it’s no wonder mainstream audiences were underwhelmed.

The look of this film is just extraordinary — words simply don’t do it justice, nor do single frames. Kerry Conran, the film’s writer-director, is the spiritual successor to George Lucas in more ways than one, particularly since Sky Captain exhibits Lucas’s dream of a film made completely without physical sets. Everything onscreen (bar the actors, their costumes, and a handful of props) exists only in the digital realm; extras were even shot individually in order to allow total freedom in composing shots in post-production.

Is it a good movie? I’m really not sure. The leads (Jude Law and Gwyneth Paltrow) lack the chemistry of (say) Harrison Ford and Karen Allen, and the plot is really just there as window dressing, but that’s all beside the point. This is a film that pushes the boundaries of film in terms of what’s visually possible. We truly are living in the World of Tomorrow.

Babylon 5 often looked cheap — as if the plywood sets were about to crumble at any moment — but to this day it remains one of the best examples of SF TV done well. Its five-season story-arc was as ambitious and risky as Star Trek: Deep Space Nine was safe and predictable.

Now comes news that new Babylon 5 is in the works. It’ll be a direct-to-DVD anthology series written and directed by JMS and apparently called Babylon 5: The Lost Tales. JMS will have complete creative control as well, so this will be Babylon 5 in its purest form!

Now all I have to do is save my pennies for the complete set of B5 scripts…

Sure, I’ve written about some pretty geeky things in the past, but I hadn’t really plumbed the depths of sheer geekiness… until now.

I give you the trailer to the new Ninja Turtles movie.

Now, I’ll grant you, my interest in the Ninja Turtles evaporated sometime in 1991, but the visual style depicted in this trailer interests me very much. Somehow, using CGI alone (it seems), they’ve managed to create something that at once looks like a hand-drawn comic book and a live action movie. It’s quite exciting, actually.

Most people seem to find the following clip painful to watch: it’s David Lee Roth performing a bluegrass version of “Jump” by Van Halen. Personally, I think the arrangement is great (particularly the solo) and Diamond Dave’s voice is as strong as it ever was. I’ll take this over his cover of “Just a Gigalo” anyday.

See the clip here.

I’m actually tempted to pick up the album. Yes, I have no taste.

Remember those two kids in the early 90’s who were such rebels that they wore their clothes backwards? They were so cool that they even had their own game on the Sega (Mega-)CD! (In actual fact, I don’t recall anyone at the time thinking that they were anything other than laughable.)

Their name was Kris Kross, and Wikipedia gives us the following update:

In 2005, Christopher Fraser Smith a.k.a ‘Kris Kross’, had a substantial civil suit brought against him in Australia for flagrant violations of the Australian Copyright Act (1968). Under section 115(4) of that Act an additional $300 000 was awarded to the plaintiffs due in large part to lewd and threatening SMS messages sent by Smith to various music executives. The threats were in response to the applicants’ refusal to give Smith permission to use various copyrighted materials in a compilation CD Smith was creating. The case was recently released by the Federal Court of Australia and is referenced as Sony Entertainment (Australia) Ltd. v. Smith, (2005) 215 A.L.R. 788.

It speaks for itself, really.

By now, you’ve no doubt heard about Bush saying “shit” when he thought the mic was off. The entire transcript is just better than anything you could imagine, however.

Now the moron is going around squeezing the shoulders of “Angela”, the German Chancellor. This creep has no idea about what’s appropriate in a formal setting. Today I heard it compared to the sort of thing you’d see in The Office.

Imagine David Brent being the “leader of the free world” for a second. Seriously, it’s no wonder the world is screwed.

I just watched Being John Malkovich for university — the last time I saw it, it’d just been released on video, so it’s been quite a while.

Charlie Kaufman has to be one of the most inventive screenwriters working in mainstream Hollywood today. This is certain evident when following a viewing of Malkovich with Adaptation, his (in a sense) “sequel” to it. Whereas Malkovich subverts the expectation of reality within the film’s universe, Adaptation is a complete exercise in self-referential irony, making its point (that the reality of film is an illusion) by undermining itself at every turn.

The magic of film is that, unlike real life, good films have events unfold because it’s right that they do so — be it a happy or sad ending, the ending should feel dramatically appropriate. Life is rarely so ordered, and it’s this aspect that Adaptation plays up.

Finally, there are many great quotes from Being John Malkovich, but this is my favourite quote today:

Craig: I’ve fallen in love, and this is what people who’ve fallen in love look like.

Maxine: Well, you picked the unrequited variety. It’s very bad for the skin.

The Chaser’s War On Everything, which is (in my opinion) the funniest Australian comedy show since Shaun Micallef’s show was axed by Packer, is in trouble once again.

This time, Chas has been arrested after trying to sell a Bulldogs Supporters Kit (including fake knuckle dusters, a fake knife, and a balaclava) during a Bulldogs vs. Dragons match last night. Personally, I think the stunt was hilarious and quite a justified dig at some football fans.

My favourite bit of the article (linked to above) is the very last sentence, which notes the final score of the match.

If you haven’t seen The Chaser’s War On Everything, it’s on Friday nights on the ABC, and is well worth a look. Their website is also very entertaining.