It's a sunny Friday morning but I'm in a black mood. The dog just threw up on the carpet for one thing, and it's not even my dog. (We're minding him for friends.) The Times says the Golden Globe ceremonies may not happen due to the writers' strike but I'm finding it tough to care given the state of the rest of the world. My boss sends me an e-mail wondering why there was such a disparity between movie quality and commercial success this year -- why, essentially, "Spider-Man 3" and "Shrek the Third" are the top box-office films of 2007 despite being measurably dreadful (and don't get me started on "300"; real no-brainer entertainment never needs to try that hard) -- and I hesitate to answer that American audiences are increasingly desperate to be diverted from current realities. (Why we don't actually engage said realities isn't much of a mystery; why change the world when you can change the channel, or the playlist, or the Wii)?
Like I said, a black mood. Not helped, either, by a reader e-mail getting all up my nose over my review of "Aliens vs Predator: Requiem" because, come on, the first "Alien vs Predator" sucked much worse and if you'd been paying attention you would have seen the PredAlien at the end of that installment and known that's why it showed up in #2. To which my response is mostly unprintable. Other than, dude: it's "Alien vs Predator". It means precisely nothing. Read a newspaper and get a life.
Oh, and one more thing: "There Will Be Blood," a movie that in its magnificent, eccentric way actually does manage to explore the roots of the American personality, the 20th Century, and why we love oil so much, is already playing in New York City but doesn't come to Boston until January 4th. Am I drinking the Kool-Aid on this one? Yes, gratefully, since so much else tastes like swill.
