COMPANY
Max Barry's third book has come out! His first two were called Syrup and Jennifer Government and I loved them both. Go out and get Company and let's read together! I'm currently trying to finish up the Narnia Chronicles as well as Al Franken's The Truth With Jokes, but any day now I'll be starting to dent Company. It has gotten nothing but praise so far so I'm really excited!

BIG BUCKS: THE PRESS YOUR LUCK SCANDAL

Press Your Luck was a game show in the 1980s that featured the "big board." The concept was that you sat and watched twenty small screens flash all kinds different prizes, and one screen at a time would momentarily become hilighted for a second or less. The idea was to smack your plunger at the moment you thought the hilighted screen was a big prize. The problem was that some screens had "whammys." If you landed on a whammy when you pressed your plunger, a little cartoon came on screen and took away all your winnings thus far.
Last week, on the Game Show Network, I was captivated by a two hour "documentary" called "Big Bucks: The Press Your Luck Scandal." In all honesty it was 2 half hour episodes of Press Your Luck, padded out with interviews and footage that had been previously edited out. That said, it was pretty fascinating. Here's the story in a nutshell:
In 1984 Michael Larson was a contestant on the show. It was his turn for the big board. A contestant plays the board as long as he wants to, without getting a Whammy, and then passes to the next player when he feels he's pressed his luck as far as he should. Michael played the board and won. And won. And won. And won. He kept playing and playing and playing. The total winning amount was climbing to $50,000, $60,000, $70,000 and up, up up. If he hit just one Whammy, he would have lost it all. The crowd was going crazy. The host was bewildered. The other contestants were bored. It got to the point where he was screaming with victory split seconds after hitting the plunger, before any normal person would know if they'd Whammied out or not. Then it was pointed out to us, the audience of this documentary, that every time he won, it was on one of two squares on the board.
Apparently there were two squares on the board that never got Whammys. But they flip by so fastt, how was one able to stop on them? Because there were 5 different patterns of lights. This guy went out and memorized all 5 patterns to the point that he always knew when a sure-thing was coming up. He won over $110,000 before doubting his strategy. Most winners were happy with $20,000. The suits at Press Your Luck figured out his scam and refused to pay him his winnings before the lawyers pointed out he did nothing illegal or against the rules. So, Michael got paid. The host asked what he was going to do with his winnings and Larson replied, "Real Estate!"
Confident with his skilll at winning, Larson put all his winnings into a real estate deal which turned out to be a scam. He lost it all. Desperate, he entered a radio contest in which contestants could win big money if they could produce a series of consecutively numbered dollar bills. Michael and his girlfriend emptied their bank accounts in 1-dollar bills and spent weeks looking through the piles. One day, they came home to find the piles of cash all gone. They'd been robbed. He lost everything.
Larson kept trying to get back on Press Your Luck, particularly after the movie Quiz Show brought the game show scandal back into vogue. But he was never invited back on and he ended up dying of cancer in 1999 after being divorced three times.

There are a ton of websites devoted to this story. Here are a few:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Larson

http://gscentral.net/larsen.htm

http://www.xanfan.com/pressyourluck/larson.htm

http://www.rotten.com/library/conspiracy/Press_Your_Luck

KING KONGS

I freakin' loved this movie. I just thought it was really good. The worst part, by far, was the asshole with the laser pointer pissing off the audience on 4 seperate occasions. The effects were mostly spectacular, the emotional aspect was heartbreaking and the action non-stop.
Which brings me to by only true complaint. There was too much action on the island. It was like an hour of continually trying to outdo the last scene. It got to the point where I was totally removed from any realism the action might have had. And the disgustingness of the monsters was way gratuitous. I'd heard the first hour is slow, as Kong isn't in the film yeat and it's all setup. I disagree. I thought it was very effective and not too slow at all. I will agree, however, that the kid on the boat was completely pointless. He could have been removed and saved me 20 minutes of the film. That said, I didn't mind it until the movie was over and I began to rethink it all.
Yeah, there are som leaps of faith you have to make, like why isn't Ann freezing her nuts off on top of the Empire State Building? But who cares? It was a fun film with fantastic effects.


The following night I rented the original, as I'd never really watched it before. I settled in for comparison viewing, rather than to fully enjoy it on its own merits. You know when you read a book and then see the movie and they've shortened it and sucked all character development and emotional interest out of it? That's how I felt about the original Kong. There was so little plot and no sympathetic characters. It was pretty tedious to watch. The effects are mostly terrible by today's standards, as you can imagine. But I mean, look at the picture above. Does it even resemble a gorilla? I know, I know, it was 1933 and audiences actually fainted when it was released. All I can say is it didn't age well. I was amused to see some scenes and some dialogue lifted completely from this version to the 2005 version. I don't remember the 1976 version at all. The funny thing is, the dialogue and scenes taken from the original are played off as corny or purposefully badly done in the 2005 version. For example, the natives' dance in the 1933 version is used in the 2005 version to show the bastardization of the culture on the stage show in NY. Very clever, I thought.

Anyway, I highly recommend the new remake and the original for curiosity's sake.

You know, I was going to make some kind of "best of 2005" list but after thinking about it, I saw very few movies and none of them really blew me away. My little girl turned 1, we got our driveway and steps of the house redone and we got a new fence installed. All good things, to be sure. Nothing else really made much of an impression on me, as far as entertainment goes, so I'll just do the best I can to recap the year.

WORLD

First, George W Bush got inaugurated. After winning 51% of the country's vote and losing 49%, the man claimed he had a mandate to spend all the political capital he'd earned. In his mind, he'd won the presidency, so he that meant most people supported him and he could do whatever he wanted. More on that later.
Then we had to sit through this Terry Schiavo crap. The woman was a vegetable with a liquefied brain, so of course, the religious right wanted to keep her around. The woman was a living, breathing piece of meat. Her husband wasn't some kind of monster. He simply understood the situation. The court did the right thing in letting him remove her feeding tube.
Then, the Pope died. Another death circus. As far as Popes go, I guess John Paul II wasn't the worst of them, but he still helped hide child molesting priests, told millions that gays are evil, and told tons of AIDS-stricken Africans not to use condoms and to simply stop having sex. Unfortunately, this new Pope looks like a hundred times worse.

Katrina hit in August. The botched rescues and loss of life here is pretty astonishing. This has all been covered in better detail than I can ever hope to. But one thing that hasn't been covered too much was why Katrina was so huge. Why are there more storms this year and why are they all worse than ever? Global warming? YES! You fools! Global warming exists! It screws with the ecosystem and causes all kinds of crazy weather! And yet, did the United Stated sign the Kyoto Protocol? No! According to Wikipedia, "The Kyoto Protocol or Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change is an international treaty on climate change. .... Countries that ratify this protocol commit to reduce their emissions of carbon dioxide and five other greenhouse gases, or engage in emissions trading if they maintain or increase emissions of these gases. The objective is the "stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system." The Bush administration has said that signing this deal and helping the world's environment would bankrupt America. In other words, screw the air and water, business is business!

The White House spokesman had said "If anyone in this administration was involved in it [the outing of CIA operative Valerie Plame], they would no longer be in this administration." Then, when people actually started getting investigated, they said that if anyone was "convicted" in connection with this scandal, they would no longer work in the White House. Backpedaling jerks. And America said, "Well, alright." Then Bush said that he acknowledges that Iraq was no threat to us and yet it was the right thing to go to war. It was right to alienate the world and kill thousands of innocent people even though they were no threat to us. America said, "Well, alright." Then it was revealed that George Bush's administration illegally wiretapped phones and spied on Americans without a court order. He said, "Yeah, I did it, but I did it to keep you safe!" America said, "Well, alright." So now, George W Bush knows for a fact that he can do whatever he wants, legal or otherwise and "America" will sit back and take it. Thanks, everyone. Why have laws if the president can just break them over and over again with no recourse? And Clinton got impeached? This is ridiculous.

Speaking of ridiculous, this brand new version of the evolution/creationism debate is insane. If you believe in creationism, that's fine (I guess), but it is NOT science and therefore should not be mentioned in science class. Kudos to the amazing FSM movement. Should I ever renounce my Athiesm, I will no doubt become a Pastafarian.

MOVIES and DVDs

Most of the movies I saw this year sucked, with one or two exceptions.

Star Wars 3: Revenge of the Sith.
This was the best of the prequels, but that ain't saying much. A waste of time, but I'd invested so much of my life to the "regular" three movies I had to see all the prequels, but FOOEE, did they stink!

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
A great series of books, records and radio shows, a very decent (if poorly funded) TV show and a stinker of a movie. They got it all wrong. They made it all slapstick with no clever science fiction humor and dry British humor. Yech.

War of the Worlds
Great effects, lots of destruction, Steven Spielberg and Tom Cruise...how could it go wrong? I dunno, but it did. Maybe I would have liked it better in the theater instead of on DVD, but this was a terrible remake considering the talent involved.

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
The original was a classic, and yet it strayed significantly from the book. This one promised to be true to the book. Pshaw! It strayed just as much, just in different places...the wrong ones. The whole tone was wrong.

Sin City
I gave this one a "thumbs down" but in retrospect, compared to the other movies I saw, this one held my interest and had some art to it. I'll rent it, I'm sure, and re-judge it.

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
This was the best film I saw in the theaters in 2005. It wasn't perfect, but it was fun and respectful to the source.

Wallace and Gromit in the Curse of the Wererabbit
Not as great as the original shorts, but still better than most of the most of the other movies I've seen. I saw this one twice; once for me and once with my son. I enjoyed myself both times.

Flightplan
Not a great movie, by any stretch, but I had fun with it.

The Incredibles DVD
It's hard to believe this came out this year. This is an amazing film. I don't let my 4-year old son watch it for two reasons:
1. It's a little adult for him and there's no reason to go out of my way to expose him to it when there's plenty of appropriate stuff for him out there.
2. I don't want him watching it over and over again and ruining the magic of it for me. I've seen Monsters Inc. and Wallace and Gromit so many times that they've lost all emotional impact. Icredibles is mine!

Some Kind of Monster
Metallica's "Let it Be." See the band fight and make up and write and record their latest album! The music isn't great, but the movie is. I used to love Metallica, but they've gotten crappy over the last 10 years.

Me and You and Everyone We Know
This is an impossible to describe film, except to say it's beautiful and weird and not for everyone.


DEATHS

Holy crap did a lot of people die this year! And no, I'm not talking about the Iraq war and Katrina. I'm talking about entertainers. Let's list them:

Pope John Paul II: Ok, he wasn't really very entertaining.
Richard Pryor: A freaking genius. He spawned a bunch of terrible comedians, but he was a true artist
Patrick Crenshaw: The guy who played the hobo in "Pee Wee's Big Adventure." She'll be coming 'round the mountain, old fella.
Vincent Schiavelli: The guy who played the ghost on the subway in "Ghost." "Get off my train!"
Michael Vale: The guy who played Sam Breakstone and the Dunkin' Donuts guy in those commercials.
Johnny Carson: I wasn't a huge fan and I don't think he was a nice guy, but the Tonight Show was a really powerful show. It exuded respect. TV has changed to the point where there are no iconic shows like this anymore. Jay Leno sucks. No one will remember him when he retires. Letterman is the next best thing.
Johnny Cochran: The man who got OJ Simpson acquitted. Thanks, Johnny. Thanks a lot.
Hunter S Thompson: A real independent. You can't like him but you have to respect him.
Don Adams: Maxwell Smart, Inspector Gadget, Tennessee Tuxedo. A unique voice in TV. Just don't see "The Nude Bomb."
James Doohan: Scotty on Star Trek. I met him once in a restaurant my friend Gabe worked in. He gave me a heads up that he was going to be there with his daughter. We never got the nerve to go up to him.
Bob Denver: Gilligan and Maynard G Krebs. Goodbye, little buddy.
Ossie Davis: A great actor and activist.
Rosa Parks: Again, not very entertaining, but she changed the course of history for the better.
Wendie Jo Sperber: The woman who played Michael J Fox's sister in the Back to the Future movies.

Well, that's just a taste of who died in 2005. For a bigger list, click HERE. So, yeah, there you go. Not a big year for great things as far as I'm concerned. Maybe it's just because it's New Year's Day morning and I'm tired. Oh well, have a happy and healthy 2006! Read my brother's blog for a more uplifting recap HERE.