------------------------------------------------------------------- Living Hell - Volume #2, Issue #11 ------------------------------------------------------------------- November 16, 2002 ================= Contents ======== o Where's Mike Been Hiding? o Movie Review #1 o Movie Review #2 Where's Mike Been Hiding? ========================= Yours Truly is... working on a book! "Images of America: Raleigh and Wake County Firefighting," a compilation of 200+ historical photos from the late 1800's forward. Same'll be black-and-white throughout with a sepia-toned cover. Paperback, too, numbering 178 pages. Arcadia Publishing is publishing, probably sometime next summer. Watch this space! Movie Review #1 =============== BOWLING FOR COLOMBINE is a hoot. It's also horribly sad, as docu- mentary filmmaker / troublemaker / muckraker Michael Moore (ROGER AND ME) asks the all-American question "why is our country so vio- lent?" And, more importantly, why when other countries have just as many guns (Canada), poor people (Canada again), violent video- games (Japan), or bloodied histories (Germany)? The portly poke- arounder searches for answers in both Hollywood and his hometown of Flint, Michigan, in the latter wrapping commentary on the state's Welfare For Work program around the story of the shooting of a six year-old. He visits the title town and replays the high school's security tapes and then takes two teen survivors to K-Mart's corpo- rate headquarters, to return the bullets still lodged in their bod- ies. There's also a hilarious-- if nationally embarrassing-- ani- mated history of the United States, an aside (and amusing analogy) about killer bees, and one very funny Chris Rock concert excerpt. Plus interviews of course, including James Nichols (brother of Ok- lahoma City bombing co-conspirator Terry Nichols), Charleton Heston (who actually *lets him into his house*), and shock-rocker Marilyn Manson. It's wild, wooly, and scattershot stuff-- incendiary at times and certainly thought-provoking throughout. It's also about 20 minutes overlong. And consider the sheer amount of irony we're served, viewers shouldn't be the least bit surprised to hear Mr. Manson making the most sense of anyone. His description of "a cul- ture of consumption and fear" fits modern American to a tee. Yee- haw. Movie Review #2 =============== JACKASS: THE MOVIE is based on the notorious MTV series that, I'm told, featured a cast of stunt people slash sadomasochists engaging in all manner of rude, crude, and painful behaviors, some of which were emulated by the popular show's younger and more impressionable viewers. And thus, if memory serves, leading to the show's cancel- lation. Now in feature-film format, the adventures of Johnny Knox- ville and Company both opens *and* closes with the disclaimer that you're an idiot if you try these things yourself. Like try to walk a tightrope over an alligator pit. Or eat a "yellow" snow cone. Or shoot bottle rockets from your rectum. Yup, irresponsible, objec- tionable, and 100-percent dangerous. Gender and age are the chief litmus tests here. If you're (a.) young and (b.) male, then you'll probably laugh your hindquarters off, as this reviewer did, at times almost convulsingly so. (Four words: golf course air horn.) Nope, there's no plot to speak of. Hell, it's probably not even Art(tm). (Though the slow-motion introductory sequence set to Carl Orff's "O' Fortuna" featuring the cast riding a giant shopping cart certainly comes close!) It's just there to make you laugh. And maybe hurl. Warning, the stunts performed in this movie have been performed by professionals. Caution should be exercised when viewed by persons not possessing a "Y" chromosome. Copyright 2002 by Michael J. Legeros ------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------   Home Search Mike Legeros Copyright 2023 by Michael J. Legeros