RED TAILS: Is It Racist?

A prominent executive producer publicly stated that financing and distributing the WWII-fighter pilot movie “Red Tails” was hindered primarily by movie studios’ racism. Or, to be more specific, the major movie studios feared that the rest of the world was too racist to go see a big-budget war movie starring a predominately black cast. Following through on the pessimism, 20th Century Fox dumped the movie in late January, when ticket numbers reach annual lows rivaled only by the month of September. This is a conversation worth having.

With the film starring Terrence Howard and Cuba Gooding, Jr, are we going to get some Oscar-caliber acting?

Nope. But Howard will chew on some scenery and Gooding will chew on his pipe in a distracting caricature of Black Douglas MacArthur. Also, both are given a smaller font than one George Lucas.

Wait. George Lucas? The Star Wars guy?

Lucas has an executive producer credit. Which is the same credit he had in “The Empire Strikes Back” and “Raiders of the Lost Ark.” However, it’s also the same credit he had in “Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” and “Howard the Duck.” In short, “Red Tails” can not be chalked up as yet another Lucas tragedy but his finger prints are there.

Is this a metaphor for George Lucas's career?

Only if that plane can earn billions of dollars over the next fifteen years.

Fake-looking, colorful CGI backgrounds?

Bingo.

This is a historical movie, right? How’s the history?

This is a war movie and as historically accurate as any war movie. The facts are there, but the characters were created by precedents and focus groups. In WWII, the U.S. military was racially segregated and movies like “Captain America” throw the audience out of a story by forcibly demonstrating otherwise. There was no unit that had the genetic makeup of a 1940s-version Power Ranger team.

So what, this is like “Saving Black Private Ryan”?

The worst irony may be that while studios won’t support all-black cast movies (for rather dubious reasons), they also require racial diversity. To be historically accurate, “Saving Private Ryan” couldn’t have black characters. But then again, the film’s platoon had Vin Diesel…though I’m not sure if he counts. However, since he was the first character to die in that film, I suppose he was meant to be at least a stand-in for diversity incarnate.

But there was a Tuskegee Airmen fighter group?

Yeah, of course. And this film doesn’t bother to stray too much from historical accuracy to be a sequel to “Soul Plane.”

Thank God. I hate Tom Arnold.

Unfortunately, the Tom Arnold-character is this time played Bryan “Breaking Bad” Cranston. For painfully dull reasons, the character articulates the driest Southern accent and every other white, superior officer character joins along.

Okay, forget about “Soul Plane,” I can think of one other cinematic black pilot.

Will Smith in “Independence Day”? Yeah. But his blackness is offset by his clearly black, sidekick, best friend character played by Harry Connick, Jr. And don’t worry, it’s okay for me to say that--as I have several white friends.

Wow, strayed a bit from “Red Tails,” there.

Al Sharpton, renowned for his cinematic clarity and expertise, called “Red Tails” one of the best movies he’s ever seen. This should not act as a deterrent to white audiences though. The movie is meant for easy consumption; cheap entertainment with a slight sense of self-importance. Aerial action scenes occupy more screen time than reflections on racism. Furthermore, the inevitable discussions on race only range between bland and stereotypical, with nothing coming within a mile of the venom or mean-spirited nature of a Spike Lee joint.

How is this even remotely a movie review?

The movie itself is regrettably secondary to people’s pre-conceptions of the movie. The movie offers absolutely nothing new in terms of cinema iconography. And regrettably so. The movie has to be discussed entirely in terms of racism because ultimately the movie is just a collection of war-movie stereotypes. Beautiful European girl named Sophia. Comically religious guy. The "kid” character. Stoic, straight-laced leader. Hot shot renegade. Dumb explosions. Pointlessly evil German. Racist befriending a black guy. Insurmountable odds overcome. More dumb explosions. Jive-talking mechanic. Unnamed characters taking the place of narrators in the middle of a fight-scene in case blind people are watching the film. Characters overcoming language barriers. The alcoholic. The musician. Uncanny predictions of the future. Ending title cards listing the numerical medals and causalities. The real-life war veteran in the audience who gives the film a solitary standing ovation during the ending credits.

Wow. Sounds like every war movie ever.

And to think, if the movie had only been filmed entirely in black and white we could have been talking about the virtues of archival footage. Or perhaps government-controlled media or the evolution of cinematic realism. Instead we are subjected to regurgitated banalities and aimless patriotism.

Is this movie ending or extending racism?

Ending, easily. While offering something new in the world of cinema would have been preferable, we can at least come together as a society to denounce weak storytelling techniques. It’s almost as if the filmmakers wanted to demonstrate to the audiences that not only were black pilots as courageous as whites in a pre-Truman world, but that they, seventy years later, can create a movie as devoid of originality as any production team of white millionaires.

Was there a black guy in “Flyboys?”

If you thought of that movie before this point, I pity you. Aerial warfare in movies is sweet, but mostly just in theory. Few movies about pilots are even watchable. God knows “Stealth” wasn’t.

I don’t think I’ll see “Red Tails”…

Don’t like black and white stories, huh? Then you might be interested in this new movie coming out, starring Liam Neeson called “The Grey.”

Oh come on!

Nailed it!

THE ARTIST (and LIFE IN A DAY): The Entertainment Gimmick

“The Artist” has become notable for winning more awards (likely including future Oscars) than any silent film in the last three generations. Admittedly the story is not entirely “silent,” vibrating the fourth wall just enough to remind the audience the power of sound—along with explaining why some silent film actors were/are doomed from becoming real, talking, American film stars. I suppose a real, completely, silent movie in this age would be gimmicky, audacious and probably Russian. However, a secondary gimmick elevates “The Artist” from being one ninety-minute long joke, ala Mel Brook’s “Silent Movie,” and that is having an earnest story.

Set in the period of Hollywood already traveled by the joyful “Singin’ in the Rain” and lesser works, “The Artist” chronicles the fall of silent films and the catastrophic rise of talkies. The movie itself appreciates sounds enough to not be some ode to a simpler time. Quite thankfully, the audience is allowed to appreciate niceties of modern film making (sound, color, realism, 3D, smell-o-vision, etc.) without being judged or subjected to tragically misplaced nostalgia.

Our hero, George Valentin, initially mistakes the inevitable drums of progress for yet another fad. It’s a common enough sentiment in real life and readily picked up by most films that take place more than ten years ago. How easy it is to look back and understand that leg warmers would do so little for the betterment of mankind and that airplanes could become more than quaint toys.

Opposite of Valentin is Peppy Miller, a young upstart who isn’t so much a villain as she is just on the correct side of history—more thanks to the timing of being born 15 years later than possessing any particular insight, skill or intelligence. Peppy Miller is one part Debbie Reynolds, one part Anne Baxter. Cute and ambitious: insult or compliment is the choice of the audience. While I’d fault nobody for either quality, I also found Miller’s affection for Valentin a bit obsessive and creepy. A 25-year-old girl hounding and collecting the life of a 40-year-old man is every bit as unnerving as if their relationship was gender-reversed. No? Welcome to a post-feminist world.

While the movie has pluck and spunk, it stumbles with third act redundancies and I never quite got over how George Valentin could be so unendingly depressed when he had Wishbone as a constant companion. Thrillingly, the Jack Russell terrier does everything possible to secure an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor. Perhaps his canine character needed to embody some terminal, or at least inconvenient, disease to bait the voters. I’d go with narcolepsy; it doesn’t seem to come up in movies that often—except for the audiences in an Oliver Stone film.

Perhaps “The Artist” was doomed by the high hopes handed down to me. Perhaps it was the hope that a non-traditional film would walk off with the grand prize on Oscar Night. Could this be the first, again mostly, silent film to be nominated for Best Picture in the last 80 years? The foreign-language “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” was a note-worthy nomination. As was “Beauty and Beast.” Perhaps now we’ve reached a time to nominate a truly extraordinary film this year. A film unique not just in genre but in content and context, scope and intimacy. I want to argue the best film of 2011 was not the remake of “Footloose” (close one, I know) but was actually the documentary “Life in a Day.”

“Life in a Day” demonstrated what I had only hypothesized years ago, that the most realistic film would have to be a two-hour long montage of all humanity. While on a visceral level I might enjoy many, many others, I’d be fine with this one film being presented to our future alien overlords when they ask to understand mankind in under two hours.

Yes, there is some structure to it. And yes, some people included clearly present themselves in a controlled way. But that is us all the same. Putting on makeup or pretending is just another form of authenticity. Are people gross, sure. And yes, we kill animals, steal and occasionally trample one another for no discernable purpose. But coming to grips with reality is our own responsibility; it’s no filmmakers’ responsibility to shield us from ourselves.

Beautifully shot in every variation of beauty that can be described, I could not have felt bored for two minutes in the entirety of the piece. “Life in a Day” does not challenge in the audience in any confrontational tone that seems to coat the dreariest of indie films. Instead, the audience can just watch and be awed by the culmination of humanity’s own understanding. Granted, the film does not contain the grandeur of the Great Pyramids nor does it contain the everlasting mysteries of other, physical, art. However, I think this simple documentary, reaching to the farthest ends we, as all civilization can reach, means more to more people (viewers or not) than any other traditional piece of art or entertainment.

“Life in a Day” does not require viewers to better understand their own lives during and after; but if new questions and appreciation are not stirred from within, then I fear all hope is lost. Admittedly, this quasi-religious association with humanity—and by some extension, the film about humanity—is entirely my own and should not act as a deterrent to the scientists, misanthropes and devilishly good-looking people who read my reviews. “Life in a Day” is simply a cinematic Rorschach test. See what you will, but that doesn’t make it any less real.

As is, “Life in a Day” is a tough sell and the inaudible “The Artist” has a safe, generational gimmick for middlebrow moviegoers. There is a chance for the Academy, and America, to acknowledge and applaud a unique, entertaining and vivid film in the dark days of February, but I can’t help but think we’ll all be looking in the wrong direction.

"You like us, right? Even though this movie is essentially

a 90-minute set-up for one xenophobic joke?"

TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY: Fun Title

The next James Bond movie is in the works and movie audiences will likely be treated to the more familiar beats of the franchise than the last two films offered. Gritty reboots have run their course and the movie industry has begun to reestablish escapism proper. Fortunately, as in the 1990s, enough films will pride themselves on political intrigue and power acting—ala "The Stockholm Affair"—as to keep audiences moderately involved while gushing up and slurping down gummy worms. One such newly released mood-heavy movie is, the playfully titled, “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.”

Shot almost entirely with long-range lenses to give a not-so subliminal effect of voyeurism, the film also showcases actors looking out windows and other expected, though not entirely condemnable, traits of the stock drama. There is no real love, action, comedy, tragedy or grandeur in the film, but there is plenty of reflection. And still more characters looking out windows. Alfred Hitchcock once said, “drama is life with the boring parts cut out.” “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy,” apparently disagrees, feeling complete confidence in following the mundane, trivial and ridiculous nuances of life.

On some other side of the spy flick-dichotomy, not even a month ago, “Ghost Protocol,” fell back on several action movie cliches previously highlighted by “Team America: World Police.” This doesn’t have anything to do with “Tinker Tailor,” directly, but rather I just wanted it to be said.

“TTSS” (still with me?) is a pessimistic film reflecting on the Cold War era, but I suppose the only other option is to be an absurd comedy. The Cold War made as little sense as any war and was fought as enthusiastically and incompetently as any war before or since. Chief among these egregious regrets would be how the intelligence agencies—British in this particular film’s case—perpetually ran circles around themselves, surviving only by feeding on trumped up paranoia. For decades, politicians on all sides happily obliged the intelligence communities and their bloated budgets because war is good for the establishment and fake war is even better.

Exhibit 2: Jim Gordon (also Gary Oldman) only has a job when Gotham thinks Batman is a problem.

Hey Oldman, you get a leading role for losing your mustache;

you get awards for losing your eyebrows!

As the scenes fade into one another, the layers stack up and the plot becomes a bowl of spaghetti. At a particular turning point, Smiley (Oldman) interrogates one of the possible traitors and brings the man to tears. The deceptions upon deceptions reach a breaking point when every side is giving the other side all of the information to learn the secrets of one another. It’s unfortunate the parties of the Cold War didn’t just print monthly newsletters and send copies to one another. Instead, Oldman just watches his colleague collapse into an emotional fetal position, not far removed from Dean Pelton, crying about how he just can’t say no to anybody’s conspiracy opportunity.

Despite a perplexing ending montage, the film itself doesn’t offer or force any overt summary on its characters or story. Things happen and being a spy is a job with self-imposed levels of stress. I’m not one to say any movie “went over my head,” but I can’t mock anybody who would voice such a sentiment after seeing “Tinker.”

Also, let’s talk some Writing 201 (sophomore year stuff, really). A twist doesn’t work if you force the audience to guess the ending. Crime movies drive me nuts when they start off, “one of these characters is the real killer” and then try having a twist. Invariably, the twist was predicted at some point by every conscious audience member and so no ending can really be a surprise. To a story, the best twists come when the audience doesn’t know there is going to be a twist at all. The plot, the story, the characters all have to be more than just the dots that connect to a pre-conceived ending.

A second element of a twist is understanding that the audience knows certain basic movie rules. For instance, if someone is a big actor, they get a big role. These rules can be broken to powerful effect, but they exist all the same and should be accounted for.

Continuing, the power of the twist is directly related to the number of clues left behind in the movie. If Bruce Willis found out in “The Sixth Sense” that he was really the little boy’s father, that ending would have sucked. There were no clues leading to that point and so “the twist” would have been random, nonsensical or even a cheat (looking at you “Ocean’s 12”!).

Perhaps any point I make regarding story structure is muted when a blog post that gets a few hundred (mostly accidental) views is placed in the shadow of a best-selling novel and award-winning screenplay.

As is, “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy” only contains fun and intrigue in few and far between portions.

Las Vegas: America Town, USA (Part Two)

When did Las Vegas become legitimate? Did it? It seems such a distinction from legitimate capital has become arbitrary. It’s pretty easy, and maybe accurate, to accuse politicians (Estes Kefauver, Bobby Kennedy, etc.) of going after organized crime because it sounded good on TV. Is it a legitimate enterprise for politicians to pre-package themselves in an image? Can we ignore our flaws or, better yet, say we have none because they are what make us who we are? Philosophy aside, the so-called criminals were not paying millions of dollars in taxes. As is, tax evasion has become the lawlessness of choice for individual millionaires; and not to mention that tax season is a downright profitable time for GE, Bank of America, Exxon, Chevron and other vulgarities of capitalism.

On the other hand, shiny things are nice!

On election night of 1976, the East Coast criminal underworld cheered from top floor hotel suites and penthouses. Or rather, the business executives, community leaders and generous benefactors cheered. Gambling was legalized in Atlantic City. Las Vegas was still the hub of hedonism but Atlantic City became the New Jersey of gambling. This set in motion other communities legalizing gambling (including Springfield), though none seemed to prosper or entertain as much as blindly anticipated (excluding Springfield). The shortsighted fear that Las Vegas would lose its unnamable appeal did not factor in how the influx of gambling just made it more acceptable. This meant moralists who would not have gone to Vegas a generation ago could now ride their high horses, safe from charges of innate hypocrisy. And ride they do; few people list “gambling” as a reason they go to Vegas, despite over 80% admitted they gambled while there.

Las Vegas is an honest place, it has no reason not to be.

Idealists bask in the American Dream, the ultimate sale job. But how we gamble reveals our true selves. That we gamble at all is evidence that the American Dream—prosperity by way of tenacity—is a mere back-up plan to the real goal: get rich quick, abandon the status quo. With a sneer, most casinos sell books or cards detailing specific advice on Blackjack and other game. Insulted that we should be so much as expected to read on our vacations, these pocket-sized advisers are almost entirely disregarded, in favor of alcohol and testosterone. Winning isn’t good enough, we have to win our own way so that we can feel validated by previous life decisions.

Sure, be as confident as James Bond, I’m sure that’s the key to winning.

The most regrettable misconception of Las Vegas stands as the notion that somehow the city is a beacon of libertarian freedom. But oh no. Casinos are regulated by the government. Heavily, at that. Politicians won’t stand by and have their fanny-pack-wearing constituents cheated by a roulette table. Apparently though, such regulatory efforts can’t be mustered and directed at, a much more dangerous locale, Wall Street. Many casinos even brazenly advertise these regulatory effects, boasting “97% return” on their slot machines. Literally, the machine promises to give players, collectively, 97 cents for every one dollar. And at such a deal we just can’t stuff our money in the game faster enough. Is it any real surprise, though? After the third financial collapse in a decade, how many people would kill for a 97% return on their now-defunct stocks, real estate purchases or 401k? You can’t afford to not lose money in Vegas!

Yet still, Nevada, with it’s one-part Mad Max, two-parts Gomorra reputation ranked only sixth in terms of “most free states” according to George Mason University. This put the entire state beyond such bacchanalian havens of debauchery, hedonism and villainy as New Hampshire, South Dakota, Indiana and Idaho. Truth is, the answer for this poor standing is simple: Nevada (at this point a synecdoche of Vegas) is not that free.

Marijuana possession cares a possible (albeit unlikely) life sentence. There is no gay marriage. There is no Internet gaming. There are smoking bans, with the exception of a few bars. There are health insurance mandates and a state-regulated minimum wage. Even the number of divorces in the state is only marginally above the national average. Same can be said for the marriage rate, which essentially makes Vegas “pro-family.”

In the 1990s, Las Vegas tried to repackage itself as a destination for the whole family. This effort went absolutely nowhere when it became aptly apparent that kids just don’t seem to gamble that much. Las Vegas, like the rest of America, is only family-oriented when such an orientation is profitable.

Aside from gambling, the only other prominent freedom permitted by the state/casino corporations is the sale and consumption of alcohol—though that’s only because the casinos want would-be gamblers to bludgeon their own annoying inhibitions. It’s the lack of foresight that comes with drinking, they like. It’s the inflated sense of self-esteem that comes with a BAC of .10 that one can just will the next card to be an ace and such will be done.

The casinos fear and fight competition. Not just competition among each other (indeed there’s not much of that at all), but fight the competition for your life. Casinos don’t want professional sports teams in Las Vegas, though that may become an increasingly difficult battle as Vegas has become a metro area of 2 million plus and nothing to cheer for besides the farm team for the Toronto Blue Jays. Gambling, like life, is no spectator sport; you’re spending money at movies and sports arenas, anyway, you might as well spend it fastest and most directly at the casino.

Within the next decade, the religious groups that stake out and infiltrate Vegas might find an inspired and powerful ally by teaming up with casino owners to eradicate their common enemy: lust. Strippers, prostitutes and escorts are facing battles on the fronts of immorality and commerce, and not to mention a third: technology. The immorality argument, to me, ranges between mute to uninteresting; but the casinos’ dilemma with regards to sexuality is quite the exercise in cost-benefit analysis.

Basically, Harrah’s or MGM or the Bellagio would each sacrifice their artificial sense of propriety if it meant bringing in enough new customers to cover the wages of the new nude hires. However, each of these properties are owned by people who own other properties, meaning a business backlash would go up the trunk and burn each branch connected to that same base.

Imagine this: one McDonalds’ restaurant sells tainted meat (stretch your imagination just to humor me). Even if the McDonalds CEO or whatever goes on TV saying no other branches have questionable meat, don’t you think sales would take a punch? Basically, casinos in Vegas can’t endorse the explicit selling of sex because the rest of the nation simply hasn’t caught up (or fallen so low; have your pick).

Most businesses take in 15-20% profit. Casino range closer to 50%. You giving them money costs them nothing. Business at its best.

Curiously, the symbiotic entity of Las Vegas business took its first real hit on September 12th, 2001. For years, the city was successfully cut off from all forms of geographic distractions; meaning that even if tourists didn’t come to Vegas with the explicit intention of gambling, when they arrived they had few alternatives. There are no parks, no symphonies. There is no ocean. There really isn’t any scenery or mountains or kayaking or even other nearby cities. Being in the middle of the desert was a hindrance for the earliest Nevadans, but the lack of options propelled the gambling industry. Catch was, the drive from any direction was hell and so when the airline industry nose-dived Vegas got shafted as much as any city.

Vegas became uncharacteristically regretful in the following months and years when the American public knew we had been victims of a freedom-hating enemy and that Vegas was the Superbowl of freedom. Frankly, I find it incredible that Vegas wasn’t the primary target of Al-Qaeda. Think of how many (replica) monuments could be destroyed on one city block. Beyond that, its been documented that several of the eventual 19 high-jackers actually spent a few nights in Las Vegas before their murderous end and so would have known the general city layout. Moreover, just years earlier, Las Vegas housed 12 of the 15 largest hotels in the world.

Of course it’s equally likely that the city of Vegas simply won the terrorists over, sparing itself from unwarranted reprisal. To follow that logic, maybe the world would just become a safer place if we replaced the 700-plus military bases spread around the globe with an equal number of hotel casinos and nightly performances from half-retired musicians.

Such a proposition isn’t entirely ridiculous. Virgil “The Turk” Sollozzo voiced a common enough sentiment that he and other businessmen, “don’t like violence; blood is a big expense.” And such economically motivated pacifism isn’t limited to self-directed violence either. War (like sports teams, marijuana and strippers) is a distraction from the true point of Vegas/America: gambling. Or to stretch out the point of gambling: to gain the most with the least amount of effort.

Most regrettable of all is how the casinos hold a Faustian power over the citizens of Las Vegas. The hotels and casinos are the state’s largest employers, but taxes paid are negligible. Every year, the industry shoves millions of dollars into the coffers of both Democrats and Republicans. In response, the government avoids taxation like a disease. Millions of dollars in campaign contributions, millions of dollars in tax breaks; how is this not money laundering?

To hate Las Vegas is to hate a state of mind. No city in the world is as fitted, built on and operated with such direct philosophy. Best yet, the philosophy is America taken to its ultimate end. We are founded on the idea of freedom. After speech, the right to earn money is as principal as any other and the casinos do just that. What they do with the money is a virtue of freedom. The end of capitalism is global rule of one company, in which all dollars and their multi-national variants would fall under. The end of freedom is when one’s freedom dominates another’s. The ideologies are neither opposed nor mutually exclusive, but rather they are each inevitability paradoxical, variable and self-defeating.

Once we accept Las Vegas for what it is--that the city is not an escape from the world, but rather a physical prophecy of the world--we can begin to accept the world for what it is.

NFL Predictions: Division Weekend

As teams are eliminated, football fans become more divided in their ideological entrenchments—thus this round is known as the “divisional.”

Houston at Baltimore

NICK: Of the AFC teams, I’d like the Ravens in the Superbowl most, but getting three good games (in a row) out of Joe Flacco would be among the biggest shockers of the year—right beyond discovering the mortality of Al Davis. The Ravens got the bye week and they might have needed it as much as any team, if only for the extra deliberation. Flacco, leading the second-seeded Ravens, is something like the 26th best quarterback in the league, so he’s kind of become the Trent Dilfer of Ravens’ quarterbacks. I’d Ray Rice over Arian Foster, and not just because Arian is a stupid name. Ray Lewis eats running backs to fuel his pre-game pump ups, The Texans can make their real Superbowl run next year. Ravens.

MAC: Two great defenses, two great running backs, special teams play is relatively even. This game is going to come down to the pass offense. Joe Flacco, no matter what is said, is a strong-armed thrower with many targets. TJ Yates is a timid player that is doing an amazing job care-taking this playoff team. Yates too has many targets, especially if Andre Johnson continues returning to form. This is one of the few playoff games this year with the classic strong run, strong D style. Passing will have to decide it and Flacco is head and shoulders above Yates. Arian Foster will have to have an even better game this week, which is tough considering he was flawless during Wildcard Weekend. Ravens win and no headline will get to say “Flacco on His Back-o” this week.

New York (Giants) at Green Bay

NICK: New York kept Green Bay honest earlier this year in a game, losing by three to the undefeated Packers. Now Eli is playing well, the Giants have formed a running game and tightened their defense. Really, this game has several components of the 2008 Giants-Patriots Superbowl. Football stops making sense when people start assuming things and while the Packers’ loss to Kansas City might have refocused them away from the worst 18-1 record imaginable, I don’t think the astronomically better 18-1 record that Green Bay now has a shot at is “a lock.” Giants in the upset!

MAC: Can we all just assume that the Packers and the Saints will get to play a rematch of that spectacular Week One showing? Well before that can happen, the Packers will have to deal with the pesky Giants. This team, as I’ve stated pretty much every week, is ridiculous. Their sieve of a defense has only been able hang their hat on the pass rush all season, until miraculously they have gelled at the end of the year, holding a dynamic Falcons offense to no points in the Wildcard match up. Even the Giants non-existent run game finally showed up for the playoffs. The Packers were beat by the Chiefs in Week 15 because a strong pass rush, shutdown corners, and a balanced offense that killed the clock and kept Rodgers off the field. The Giants don’t have the corners, but they also have great passing game that can keep them in a shootout and a pass rush that could cause Aaron Rodgers to turn it over (cuz GB isn’t punting it). I look for this to be an amazing game and a one of the first games to push Rodgers to his limits. But Packers win, close game, lot of points.

New Orleans at San Francisco

NICK: The 49ers strike me as the softest 13-3 team in recent memory. They’re good, but they’re not that good. Alex Smith has thrown 17 touchdowns for 3,144 yards—which Drew Brees could do while filming another Nightquil commercial. Seriously, the Saints have more weapons than the entire Russian military. It’s amazing that Brees hasn’t started foaming at the mouth with glee while Sean Payton tried to sneak additional footballs onto the field. However, I like that Alex Smith has had enough low points in his career (i.e. his entire career) to be kept honest. Here’s hoping Alex Smith throws at least some interceptions to his own teammates, but all of San Francisco could not score as much in three hours as the Saints. New Orleans.

MAC: A Harbaugh Superbaugh would be great. A Packers-Saints 100 point duel in the NFC championship would be so much better. Did you watch the Saint-Lions game? Drew Brees and Sean Payton are terrible people. With the game in hand and a running game that is shredding up the defense, the Saints decided to keep throwing on the Lions. When I say “throwing” I don’t mean using pass plays. I mean chucking it to the end zone and snapping the ball with 20 seconds on the play clock. This team didn’t want to let the game end. Even on the final possession, both Brees and Payton were biting their lips when they started kneeling on the Lions 5-yard line. That doesn’t change the fact that the Saints are out for blood. The 49ers defense is strong, but the Saints offense is lethal. Packers-Saints facing off in the North of Forty-Conference Championship game.

Denver at New England

NICK: “Told you so,” is the sweetest phrase sport writers ever get to utter and many have been savoring the chance in the Great Tebow Debate. At this point, though, I don’t think they can bask in any self-serving joy--even if the Patriots crush the Broncos like a glue factory. Tebow had the best game of his career on the most important night for him to date. A best game that didn’t even require a 50% completion rate. Flip side, the Patriots have spent their last two playoff games getting carved up by the likes of Joe Flacco and Mark Sanchez and who can say Tebow couldn’t join that list? And this is not to mention the teams’ last meeting where Denver jumped to a 16-7 lead. Tom Brady had a guest spot on “Entourage” and Tim Tebow could only belong in a Wal-Mart-sponsored, straight-to-DVD, “family friendly” flick. Mac believes in magic and aced all of last week; I need to believe in New England’s offense and earn my bread. Patriots.

MAC: In Nick’s drunken stupor that was clearly caused by Tebow’s Wildcard performance, he called me up midway through the 4th Quarter of the game. He started babbling about the idea of football affecting our belief in God, posing the idea of Tebow being the Good and Patriots being the Evil. Nick loves creating this Republic-like description of the Patriots…(EDITED BECAUSE I FELT LIKE IT – Nick) All I know is I’m going to have to drink a lot of this Vodka to pick Tebow again, so here it goes.

First shot: The Patriots have a merciless pass game that few defenses can stop.

Second shot: The Steelers gambled by playing the safeties up to stop the run, but they didn’t have the cover corners to pull it off. This is not going to be the Patriots plan. Their defense strategy will be to allow the run, then clamp down in the red zone.

Third Shot: I should have bought UV instead of Svedka.

Fourth Shot: How tall are these shot glasses?

Fifth Shot: The Patriots destroyed them already, right?

Sixth shot: If the Broncos play like they did against the Steelers, can the Patriots play like they did in Week 15 and still win.

Seventh Shot: The Patriots are assholes and now Bill Bela-Fuck and “Scandals” McDaniels are reunited. It makes me wanna puke.

Eighth Shot: I did puke and now I feel better.

Ninth Shot: He’s Tebow. Do you believe in God? Sorry, that’s too personal of a question. Do you believe in Tebow? This question may garner more hostility. Broncos win and I need some sleep.

Tenth Shot: Nick, if you pick the Broncos I will be angry.

Las Vegas: America Town, USA

With fluctuating arrogance, I have stemmed more than a few debates on historical events or actors by rejecting the premise that they have breached the cannon of history. Admittedly, by definition, everything that’s happened (including Terrell Owen’s career) is history. However, in all practical sense, I like to say that “history,” as we can reasonably understand it, ends at around 1975. This is because everything after that time is too recent and so the consequences can only barely be hypothesized—not to mention the year is also a convenient, transitional milestone (Vietnam, Fran Tarkenton, etc). Events and actors in the 1980s and 1990s are too often discussed emotionally because people feel a certain, sometimes inappropriate or unnecessary, responsibility. However, I will adopt the crafted attitude of this post’s subject and bend that rule, because there is no other way to properly understand the city of Las Vegas.

Las Vegas (Spanish for “the shiny”) may have been founded in 1910, 1829 or when Mark Twain was in the fourth grade, but that’s all just prologue and usually riddled with tidbits on how early settlers and natives played primitive games of chance. Such anecdotal history serves as light-hearted justification for the modern sensibilities of Nevadans and proudly flung about by the state’s modern gaming overlords. In short—past that point, I know—Las Vegas didn’t really start to become Las Vegas until 1966, because that's when it stopped being an economic island.

Pictured: Las Vegas; metaphor.

Now, some are quick to note the Gangster coat of paint that covered in the city from a week after World War Part Duex through the encore screenings of the original “Ocean’s Eleven.” (You know, the slick, half-assed, celebrity packed, casino heist film that didn’t star George Clooney.) But any fears that the Syndicate--or organized goons of any kind--could so much as own a burger stand in modern Las Vegas are rawest nerves for current casino magnates like Steve Wynn and Arthur Goldberg. These men sue their way into social grace where their 1950s counterparts preferred having an unsavory past (if only to make negotiations easier).

In either case, when there is trouble, casinos deploy their lawyers with a blood thirst that’d startle Meyer Lanksy’s hit men. No, Papa Joe Kennedy and the mob men have no real progeny in Las Vegas. That coat of paint has been bulldozed as unimaginable, monumental, intentionally-collapsible labyrinths are built up and painted with a similar, though different, shade of paint that tested better with focus groups.

Focus groups also liked beautiful women and all that got us was "Slutty Al Capone."

In 1966, Howard Hughes sold his near $600 millions worth of stock and bonds and had a hole burning in his pockets of which the likes not even a Saudi prince has ever felt. $600 million. $6,000,000. In 1966. Adjusted for nowadays, that’s an ass ton of money. And crazy old Howard Hughes bought up everything he could. Not sports cars, mind you, but rather controlling share of several casinos and hotels. More than just providing buckets of material for a sequel (or two!) to Scorcese’s “The Aviator,” Hughes did what the government wasn’t allowed to do: he legitimized Las Vegas from a 20th century pirate port to growing cultural center. A real life city.

Now, it’s important to understand Hughes wasn’t exactly cutting the legs out from Fat Tony or anybody else. Far from. Really, Hughes might have just as well been the latest front for the organized criminals who could run their casinos and partake in any other endeavors under the pitch-perfect guise of a crazed billionaire’s late-stage ambitions. The former playboy industry titan may as well have just been another front. Hughes, to his (cronies’) credit, lay the groundwork for the city to come by having Hughes apply for his gambling licenses (required by law) without ever appearing before the state gaming commission. Before this point, the owners of any establishment were held accountable for their casinos and actually had to be of some moral standing to own a casino—or they had to bribe the commissioners. The insane and reclusive Hughes, though, became a corporation onto himself—though not entirely orchestrated by himself—and took over places he never so much as actually saw, leaving in charge person (alleged gangsters) he never actually met.

As a short aside, as Hughes continued to lose touch with humanity and looking more like a Gandalf-Holocaust victim, President Richard Nixon became more paranoid about his own connections with Hughes. Specifically how the WWII Captain of Industry donated over $100,000 to the president in the last campaign and how most of Hughes’ latest millions came from contracts with the CIA. Nixon became convinced the Democrats, in the 1972 election, would exploit his ties to America’s last robber baron and he saw to hire thugs lifted from a friend’s Las Vegas Rolodex. And so went the botched break-in at the Watergate Hotel.

With Hughes’ death in 1976, Las Vegas was free from one man’s mythological, nonsensical, possibly non-existent tyranny. The city was free to be owned by absentee landowners and faceless corporations. Before F.F. Coppola made the regrettable Godfather Part Three, Las Vegas had been completely remodeled. Not as America’s Playground, Sin City or an adult Disneyland, but as America itself. Unchecked, unashamed, America. Old Las Vegas was flawed; old Las Vegas was gone.

In fact, calling Las Vegas an “adult Disneyland” does a disservice to the city that brings in more tourists than actual Disneyland. Add on that children don’t have much money to spend on themselves and it’s pretty clear where the great money pile is. A more apt comparison to Las Vegas may actually be the holy city of Mecca. Though, again, more pilgrims flock to Las Vegas every year, offering up their own sacrifices to the dream of escape.

People pray all over the world, but they mean it in Las Vegas.

The city is simply too American. We love freedom, sure, but only because it sells. What we really love is, in fact, selling things. We sell cotton, lumber, land, guns and the idea that somehow because my drunk neighbor’s political opinion has the same mathematical weight as my own, we, as a country, landed on the Moon.

The gangsters of olde stole millions of dollars from cheating people at casino. But as made evident years later, they left untold billions of dollars on the proverbial table by banning from the premises women, minorities anybody not wearing a suit. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Martin Luther King, Jr., Caesar Chavez and millions of others strove for a goal only made attainable by the one infallible dollar. Money is the equalizer. Sex, race, class, history and weight be damned; if your Franklins have their watermarks, you have a friend in the casino.

NFL Predictions: Wild Card Weekend

Ah yes, the playoffs. Finally, we have arrived at the week that hosts the best wild cards this side of “Always Sunny in Philadelphia.” Of course any summaries of the regular season would be woefully inept and premature, so let’s get to the games.

Pittsburgh at Denver

NICK: Let me get this straight, Tim Tebow goes 7-1 in his first run as a starting NFL quarterback, winning most of the games in dramatic fashion. Then, in the most audacious comeback (not perpetrated on the Giants), Tebow lets the Broncos lose three straight games by a combined score of 88-40 to actually end their season. THEN, about thirty minutes after entering their locker room Tebow has the Chargers trump the Raiders, thus catapulting Denver back into the playoff picture. Regardless, Tebow’s tricks have been figured out and that 7-1 streak looks rather mediocre now that none of the fallen teams made it to the playoffs themselves. At this point, I think the Broncos would be better off playing Brady Quinn at quarterback—if for no other reason than to throw the Steelers one helluva curve ball. Frankly, I think the Steelers put together one of the quietest 12-4 seasons in recent memory (their 4 losses all coming from eventual division winners). Steelers will bring some thunder to Mile High and Tebow will go back to being one-half of a quarterback controversy.

MAC: The Tebow Train seems to have derailed. Tebow Time doesn’t even exist anymore. The Steelers, despite the uncertainty of Big Ben, seem like a guarantee to defeat the Broncos that backed their way into the playoffs. But I like magic. I love the idea that Tebow, who can’t get his completion percentage over 50, still has the ability to batter defenses. This Broncos team plays how the Steelers did before the Big Ben era. Basically this ground game is going to slowly chip away at teams. They’ll settle for field goals, but every now and again they will bust out a big play. And because of their clock management that’s all they need. High powered offenses have destroyed the Broncos. The Steelers aren’t really that. Keep the score low and one big play gives them the ability to hold on to a tight game. I say this week they get that play, and they beat the Steelers. Magic.

Cincinnati at Houston

NICK: For me, gauging the Texans is like trying to find meaning in a Clint Eastwood film. Sure, all the pieces are there, and none of the pieces are particularly weak—good at times even—but something just doesn’t add up. The sum of the parts is greater than the whole. It’s a valid point to say the Bengals are a soft 9-7 team, a middle child of the AFC North. Indeed, they haven’t beaten any playoff team; but with the injuries the Texans have suffered, Houston isn’t a playoff team anymore. Cincinnati wins and the 3 of the 4 remaining AFC teams hail from the same division.

MAC: Do we really want to watch this game? How much will Andre Johnson’s possible return affect the quarterback-less Texans? The Bengals have done a great job of beating mediocre teams (9-0) but lost to every playoff team they faced this season (0-7), including against the Texans in Week 14. Neither team has a good shot against New England or Baltimore. I think the Texans have a better shot of making noise in the playoffs with a top defense and rushing attack. Clearly I’m picking the winners based on what I want to see happen vs. what probably will happen so….. Texans.

Detroit at New Orleans

NICK: The Saints got humiliated in last year’s Wild Card game and so they’re going to be ready this time. Beyond that, they are a better team this year and comfortably undefeated at home. The Big Easy, named after my ex-girlfriend (boom!), has housed the latest remake of “The Greatest Show on Turf” as the Saints’ offense set new marks in yardage and points. Seriously, they’re scoring in New Orleans as if every week is Mardi Gras. Drew Brees is going to fire through the Lions’ defense like a Roosevelt hunting party. Saints.

MAC: I predict a lot of points, a lot of passing yards, Suh punches a child wearing a Brees jersey, Suh receives a suspension going into next season, Suh denies punching the child, Suh claims the child hugged his fist so hard that it seemed like a punch, video evidence makes Suh look like a delusional douche, Suh appeals, Suh loses appeal, Suh says he beat the fear into a QB that wasn’t sacked and threw for 300yds/4TDs. Saints march over the Lions.

Atlanta at New York (Giants)

NICK: Winners of 3 of their last 4 games, Peyton Manning, Jr. has led the Giants from the brink of their annual, characteristic, seasoning-ending collapse to a viable chance at coming within two games from the Superbowl. The Falcons, good or not, just are not a very interesting team to me. So, for drama’s sake, I hope the Giants win the chance to be crushed by Green Bay next week. New York.

MAC: Eli’s back has got to hurt by now. The Giants shouldn’t be in the playoffs, but Eli keeps playing football at an elite level. People scoffed when Eli described himself as being among the elite QBs, specifically Tom Brady. Little did we know that he would have arguably the best season of his career. Which is weird because the Giants have straddled .500 all season. The defense has an amazing pass rush and absolutely nothing else. The Giants are dead last in rushing and outside of Manning’s performance, they are in turmoil. Falcons on the other hand are a tough team to judge. They seemed to be rolling, but the Saints lit them up in Week 16. This is a game that the Falcons should win but Eli has kept surprising me all season and the Falcons are clearly vulnerable. Giants

2012: Rooting for Mother Nature

And so reality has caught up to the latest so-called futurist movie: “2012.” Even more so than “Independence Day” or “The Day After Tomorrow,” director Roland Emmerich staked a highly destructive concept on the future. Emmerich’s unofficial Calendar Trilogy capped off an inconsistent banquet of chaos much like capping off a real banquet with a forty of King Cobra.

The first act of the movie introduces so many characters that the whole ordeal runs like a montage, helped by the fact that destruction is imminent and so the audience need not fear the extended presence of flat characters. Perhaps an infinite montage is the only way to capture our world in some viewable way, which would then make the peripheral and background characters all that more realistic. Indeed, if everyone is just an extra in a stranger’s life, then witnessing the citywide decimation provided in “2012” is no longer just a special-effects showcase. No, “2012” is the most philosophical movie that was originally a futuristic movie but has since turned into a period-piece since Stanley Kubrick’s “2001: A Space Odyssey.”

Once one gets past the drab introductions, we are subjected to teasingly minor destruction—not unlike a Mexican restaurant that brings you a third helping of chips and salsa before bringing out the main course. This feeling of “get on with it already”—which I may have actually yelled—exposed my own misanthropy after only two beers. I wanted the cities to crumble, I wanted the hordes of people I’ve never seen to get smashed, crunched, launched or washed away.

I have often said that my number one goal in life is to become the world’s oldest person. This can happen with my own health or being around for the end game, preferably the latter. If I can only watch a football game for five minutes, I want to see the last five minutes. I want to say, “hey, I’ve got pretty good timing.” I want to see the culmination of humanity’s efforts, and then judge the presentation. Egocentric? Perhaps. But where is a more modest place to admit one’s own ambitions than in the most public sphere, here, online? This comes back around to me finally watching the heroes of the story drive a limousine through Los Angeles with an earthquake tailgating them. “Go faster,” I screamed at the enlarging crack. The neutrinos (or whatever) that destroy L.A. do a pretty good job but they fail to capture and flatten John Cusack and some guy with prominent cheekbones (meaning he’ll die by the end).

"Go neutrinos! That'll teach those script readers for rejecting my screenplay!"

When I thought the characters were done for, I dropped the remote in celebration. By the damnedest luck, a button was hit and I heard a voice. A German voice, laughing. “God?” I asked. No, it was not God. It was the Director’s Commentary for “2012.” Roland Emmerich was explaining the nuances of his movie. I had found a gold mine.

After movies and shows with black Presidents repeatedly turned to stories about major disasters, such as “24,” “Deep Impact,” “The Fifth Element,” “Idiocracy,” “Head of State” and “The Event,” I always found it a curious decision that fictional Americans would elect Danny Glover. According to Roland Emmerich in the commentary, the character was originally a white woman but was changed after the 2008 Iowa primary—which the most obsessive politicos will remember that Barack Obama (black guy) surprisingly beat out Hilary Clinton (white woman). Oddly, the fictional president has only one daughter (ala Chelsea Clinton?) and—here Emmerich missed the best social commentary—the President is a widower. Would losing a spouse make Hilary more elect-able? The movie “2012” says so.

Emmerich goes on to point out that government conspiracies could exist because some people believe dying is better than being told you’re going to die. Furthermore, some people may kill to keep a secret, kill to learn a secret, die to keep a secret or die to learn a secret. This all adds up to humanity arriving at our most collectively suicidal evolution. A strange argument to be sure, but one I can not immediately dismiss.

Other, smaller, tidbits are similarly staggering; such as, Cusack’s character (“Jackson Curtis”) being named in honor of rapper 50-Cent (a.k.a. “Curtis Jackson”). Even more audacious, Oliver Platt’s character is a government official who argues for misinforming the public in order to save lives and is named “Carl Anheuser.” This name was taken from the beer distributor Anheuser-Busch--which pronounces “Busch” like “Bush”…as in President George W.

Emmerich defends himself and how the studio pressured him into creating a shorter film with more explosions, especially early on. He also apologizes for the puns and the tongue-in-cheek destruction of Las Vegas’s Eiffel Tower (as derided in a previous post). He points out ridiculously obscure references to classic films such as “North by Northwest” and “Jaws”—references which I can’t remember, didn't notice the first time, or still didn't notice the second time.

My bafflement continued when Emmerich literally said, “If we didn’t destroy the White House, people would have thought we were afraid.” What people? Afraid of what? I don’t know! Also, apparently, all of the Chinese actors in the film were supposed to play Tibetan workers, which meant several had to learn their Tibetan lines phonetically—a detail that’d make Wes Anderson roll his eyes. Emmerich later draws emphasis on the heroes risking their lives, or not, for the sake of global billionaires or the emigrant workers.

The director-titled “Billionaires’ Revolt” scene showcases the monetary elite running, screaming and otherwise acting like the crazed mobs of nobodies the rich people had spent most of the movie paying out the nose to avoid. Some people just can’t die with dignity and Emmerich made clear that such distinction is not related to wealth or nationality. Fortunately (?) the richest, greediest, most selfish (in that they kept the ultimate secret) and exclusive category of people are saved and so demonstrates how, at least American, leaders would select 100,000 people if that was all that could be saved.

Only moments before lamenting on humanist priorities, moral ambiguity and an inevitable labor crisis, Emmerich admits he takes a certain glee in destroying religious structures. The trailer-condensed symbolism isn’t enough for Emmerich, who elaborates that only after the institutions are destroyed can the characters find “internal spirituality.” I mean…wow. Religiously, “2012” may be on par with “Seventh Seal” and other far more suspiciously intellectual (or foreign) films. In Emmerich’s view, you shouldn’t pray in a big church because it just might fall on you, metaphorically. And literally.

Artistically—and yes, that has just become a classification of discussion about “2012”—Emmerich cracked open his own mind and said how much of “2012” was written around various dream-like images. In fact, the main plot point came from the question, how does a movie promise the end of the world? One answer would be the visual of water flowing over the Himalayas, the Roof of the World. Secondary inspirations included Air Force One underwater, titling an entire city and exploding a national park.

In a world where Michael Bay can brag about how he makes movies for (the dumbest of) teenage boys, there is another voice; a voice that says big, studio, blockbuster movies are the best films to articulate a message advocating world peace and the steps necessary to get there. Smirk if you must, but next to Bay, Emmerich is Akira Freaking Kurasawa.

The problem with classics is that everybody knows they are classics. To criticize a classic ranges between futile and obnoxious, with the possible extent of offensive. Similarly, simply slapping the “classic” label on a film without the support of millions of others makes the effort irrelevant. Still, there’s no reason to think only Oscar nominees—annually categorized as modern classics—will age into the ultimate pantheon.

The predictions surrounding the year 2012 will be depressingly dated in a year, but now I’m not so sure the film by the same name will be.