pc game suggestions please…

i play real-time strategy, first person shooters, rpg’s, etc.  i’ve been reading good things about Fallout3 and Sins of a Solar Empire.  any suggestions? 

i’m catching up on some blogs that i missed while i was out and expectedly there are a lot of Best of 2008 lists.  expectedly again, The Dark Knight is on almost all of them.  (Best Hardwood Floor Scrubber of 2008 is…. The Dark Knight!)  though most people seemed to have come to their own conclusion that Heath Ledger and The Dark Knight are indeed worthy of praise and not just beneficiaries of Ledger’s sudden death, there are still little contrarian pockets out there that claim that The Joker is being praised solely because he died.  in response to that i have two words: River Phoenix. 

River Phoenix was another beloved young actor who was showing some signs of serious potential.  Running On Empty was his breakthrough film performance that earned him an Oscar nomination.  no one said one peep about his latest films when he died several years later.  he wasn’t unpopular and his career wasn’t in decline.  the roles simply weren’t worth celebrating.  while it definitely happens sometimes, hollywood and the world don’t always dump praise where praise isn’t worthy just to capitalize on misfortune, and imo, definitely not this time.  sometimes we get it right. 

to conclude that The Dark Knight and/or Ledger’s performance aren’t worth unanimous praise is one thing.  you are free to judge as you see it, like i am free to judge you an idiot.  but to say that the world is being lead by a sensationalist media to see something that isn’t there, you’d be denying yourself the pleasure of witnessing a great thing in the making.  decades later from now, Heath Ledger’s death will be a footnote, but his Joker will be enduringly featured as one of the best ever. 

see you on the flip side, bitches. 

since i still xanga from work and i can’t really open up the page with giant pictures of Charlize Theron, Jennifer Connelly and especially that neck-breaking, sizzling hot pic of Monia Bellucci i have to post a really long post so that those pics can scroll down the screen.  so here comes a lot of randomness. 

first.  in response to my post of the beautiful women in my mind’s eye, sue_shi was asking me which guys i think are hot.  she even suggested i make a similar list of hot men.  silly girl.  that’s gay!  actually i was more game for that idea than i thought, even thinking of when would be a good time to hunt for pictures of these hot men for me to post.  (btw, putting together that last post of hot women?  the worst time ever.  who likes the idea of looking at pages and pages of google links of pictures of the hottest women on the planet?  what a pain.  )  in any case, i need a post now, and i don’t have any other xanga topic to think of, and i can’t go snooping around Google Images for pictures of my idea of hot men, so you ladies will have to live without the pictures and just use your imagination.  you have Google.  look them up yourself, and save me whatever tiny sliver of public masculinity i have left. 

so, here’s a list of this one heterosexual man’s idea of the Handsome Men.  taunts of gayness be damned.  in no particular order.  (btw, putting together my list of hot women wasn’t all that difficult but ranking them, on the other hand, was indeed a strenuous activity.  there was never any question that Charlize Theron would be my #1 straight from the get-go.  i simply love that woman.  Charlize was an easy #1 until i looked up that picture of Monica Bellucci and my eyes nearly popped out of their fucking sockets.  not only that picture but like EVERY picture of Monica on the internet ranks at least a 9.8 on the Shortness of Breath factor.  so hot…  but still… could i really ever consider demoting Charlize?  the lovely Charlize?  it might kill me in the end, but no, i could not.  Monica would have to suffer #3 if only for Charlize and Jennifer Connelly.  and that’s pretty much how the rest of the ranking went for every fucking gorgeous woman on that list of gorgeous women.  it was torture, i tell you.  i love them all.)

George Clooney
Johnny Depp
the late Gregory Peck
the late Paul Newman
a young Robert Redford
Robert Downey Jr.
Jake Gyllenhaal
Josh Duhamel
Hugh Jackman
Jude Law
Clive Owen
Patrick Wilson
Pierce Brosnan
Tyrese Gibson

so putting together this list of men is turning out to be a lot harder than i originally thought.  there’s a major switching of gears involved here, because when i think of the best men, i am tuned to think of their acting ability and the kinds of characters they played.  a studly role will add a lot to a guy’s attractiveness, i guess?  or maybe not?  Die Hard’s John Mclain is a pretty manly role, but would i consider Bruce Willis one of the hottest men?  no, not really.  Ben Affleck is a shit actor, but is he good looking?  yes.  but on my list of hot women, i’m not sure half of them are good actors.  Natalie Portman is a shit actor.  so is Jessica Alba.  yet there is no question that they are pretty hot women and belong on a list of hot women.

so, what say you, women?  is this list similar to your list? 

notable absences:

from my list of women, you might notice that Scarlett Johanson and Liv Tyler are not present.  i considered Scarlett Jo but decided to leave her off because i couldn’t really categorize her and honestly, sometimes she just doesn’t do it for me.  i regret this decision, because she is pretty at the least and sometimes very hot to me.  i don’t  know what i was thinking.  she should have made the cut.  Liv Tyler was just a case of me forgetting about her otherwise she would have been a shoo-in for at least the third list, probably even the second. 

from the men, i am noticably leaving off Christian Bale.  that’s not an error.  and Matt Damon.  and Leo Dicaprio. 

ok, enough of that.

****

have you guys been following the case of this florida woman under arrest for murdering her daughter, Caylee Anthony?  normally, i hate the media saturation of these select criminal cases that achieve celebrity status, like Drew Peterson… or was that Scott Peterson or something or other.  the missing white girl in Aruba or some shit whatever.  who knows.  it’s all voyeuristic and very racist (and sexist!), as it’s almost always involving some pretty white damsel in distress.  anyway, this case of Caylee Anthony is fucking disturbing to me.  this mother, who looks younger than most of us, lost her kid then apparently went out partying, got a tattoo, etc.  now they found a human infant skull in the woods near this accused girl’s parents’ house and positively identified the skull as the baby daughter’s.  i can’t not read news about this story for some reason because it pisses me off.  i want to punch this fucking girl in the face whenever i see her on tv.  i would not be an impartial juror for this case, which makes me wonder how difficult it will be for this woman to get a fair trial by an impartial jury.  good luck, defense.  you’re fucked.

****

but on a brighter note, A Christmas Story has its very own museum and museum gift shop where you can buy the leg lamp!  remember that?  “fra-JEE-lay.  i think it’s Italian.”   is that friggin nuts or what???  oh Santa, is there no end to your awesome ways?  i wonder if they sell the Little Orphan Annie Secret Decoder Ring. 

check it out here. 

because we all love sexy and because it’s christmas time and because i love you.  and this list doesn’t include international stars because that would just take too damn long.

1.  Charlize Theron – my quintessential gorgeous hollywood icon.  beauty that causes ache. 

2.  Jennifer Connelly

3.  Monica Bellucci – dude are you kidding me with this picture?  no, i am not kidding you.  she exists on this same planet we walk on.  why is she at #3?  quite frankly i don’t know the answer to that.  gravity? 

4.  Jennifer Aniston

5.  Megan Fox

6.  Angelina Jolie

7.  Jessica Alba

8.  Sheetal Sheth – you might not know her but you should.  she’s friggin hot. 

9.  Kelly Hu

10.  Penelope Cruz

girls not so much hot as in smoldering, insta-rise, sexy but hot like just damn pretty.  of course, that doesn’t mean these women don’t have sex appeal…

1.  Natalie Portman

2.  Kerri Russel

3.  Rachel McAdams

4.  Keira Knightley

5.  Zhang Ziyi

6.  Grace Park

7.  Zooey Deschanel

8.  Amy Adams

9.  Gabrielle Union

 
10.  Friday Night Lights tv show girls: Minka Kelly and Adrianne Palicki

11.  Anne Hathaway

12.  Beyonce

girls that aren’t the prettiest (though definitely still pretty) and aren’t really the sexiest (though definitely still sexy) but just girls that i wouldn’t mind drinking with one day.  call it male intuition. 

Claire Danes

Amanda Seyfried – i think you  might have to watch Big Love to understand her appeal

Anna Faris

Michelle Monaghan

Ginnifer Goodwin

Chandni Chowk to China – say what?  you heard me.  Chandni Chowk to China, foo.  this has the potential to be the greatest film ever made.  (or the worst)  a mash up of bollywood and kung fu, complete with a stunningly gorgeous Indian damsel (stunning!)  and …..  drumroll please……    gordon liu!  you remember Gordon Liu.  the 36th Chamber of Shaolin, that Gordon Liu, motherfucker! 

X-Men Origins: Wolverine – females, take notice.  that is indeed Daniel Henney.  for you fanboys, there seems to be some discussion about a potential re-writing of the Weapon X myth evident in the trailer.  personally, this is all new to me, but i thought you might like to see what this one blogger is saying. 

***

also of interest: Holiday Health Myths Debunked!  apparently, sugar doesn’t give kids a sugar rush and you don’t lose any more heat through your head than you do through any other body part.  who knew?

previous reviews here.

Slumdog Millionaire (2008) – Danny Boyle’s (Trainspotting, 28 Days Later, Millions) latest film about an orphan street kid who is accused of cheating after he wins the Indian iteration of the Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? show.  shot entirely in India, starring a cast made up nearly entirely of South Asians, this is for all intents and purposes a South Asian film.  and a very enjoyable one at that.  the film tells this somewhat unconventional orphan story through flashbacks and paints a vividly emotional and visually rich picture of life as a “slumdog” street kid.  early reviews that hail this as Danny Boyle’s best film are fucking retarded, imo, but that doesn’t mean this film isn’t easily one of the best films i saw this year.  4 stars.  (this film has a slowly expanding release schedule and is probably playing some theater near you right now.  nominated for Golden Globes: Best Director and Best Drama)

Welcome to the Dollhouse (1995) – this film is the reason why Todd Solondz is still widely considered a great American independent film maker despite not having a memorable release in ten years.  all the awkwardness, crushed hopes and straight up pain of growing up a dork are perfectly encapsulated in this film that should be the Godfather of all adolescent angst films.  make no mistake, this is not a film for kids per se.  a re-creation of this sort of pain is strictly for mature viewing, hopefully by adults that are well-adjusted and socially functioning.  there’s some sort of relief and scab picking pleasure to watch a movie about painful childhood as a grown adult.  somehow it’s fun, and even if you don’t think so, perhaps we can all agree that it’s great indie filmmaking.  4.1 stars.

State of Grace (1990) – Sean Penn, Ed Harris, Robin Wright, Gary Oldman.  Sean Penn returns to Hells Kitchen after a long absence to find his old best friends running the irish mob in his neighborhood.  i never heard of this until a little while ago and i immediately put it on my queue on the strength of the cast alone.  this film features another Gary Oldman over-acting performance, and a disappointing narrative for some reason.  i can’t put my finger on the cause, but there’s definitely this kind of feeling of disengagement in the story that’s never a good sign for a movie.  i didn’t give a shit any which way.  Robin Wright (the Princess Bride!) is the only real bright spot of this movie.  she provides the only emotional presence of this film as the neighborhood girl trying to run away from the crimes of her brothers and her love for an ex-bf.  2.5 stars.

The Promotion (2008) – john c reilly, seann william scott (stifler) and that girl whatshername from The Office.  seann william scott is a grocery store manager who finds himself in a competition with john c reilly for a promotion to store manager.  this should have Great Shenanigans written all over it, but it turned out to be not very over the top, nor filled with witty banter.  it’s all so lukewarm, and forgetable in this Apatow-conscious world we now live in.  2 stars. 

Tropic Thunder (2008) – Ben Stiller, Robert Downey Jr., Jack Black, Nick Nolte, Tom Cruise.  pretty damn funny and i thought it was also notably intelligent in the way it shreds itself.  the film is basically one huge therapy session of hollywood making great fun of itself.  “you never go full retard, man.”  i fucking love it!  the cat’s out of the bag now so i’ll comment about how tom cruise makes a brilliant career decision by choosing this role and knocks it out of the ballpark.  simply brilliant.  but he wasn’t even the funniest part of this film, the part that literally had me laughing my ass off as i watched this alone in my apt.  i was laughing out loud!  alone!   who does that?  anyway, yeah i enjoyed this.  4 stars. 

The Visitor (2008) – a bored college professor’s life is intruded on by an immigrant couple who are scratching it out in NYC.  pretty standard story here.  bored dude gets a shot of life from an outside influence, in this case the immigrant couple.  this independent film is also a timely political commentary, but hopefully that shouldn’t distract from a nice story about decent people.  3.5 stars. 

Hancock (2008) – will smith, charlize theron (*swoon*), jason bateman.  Will Smith’s John Hancock is a foul-mouthed, douchebag, drunkard superhero in need of a public relations facelift.  after its lackluster box office performance this summer, i expected very little and was pleasantly surprised by this film.  it starts out in great fun, comedic fashion then injects some character depth and interesting plotlines.  by the end, i found it to be a decently well-rounded and entertaining film that i thoroughly enjoyed.  3.5 stars. 

Ocean’s 13 (2007) – the strength of the previous film was the focus on this bunch of actors that have a blast working together and it showed.  they played around, threw plot and story to the side and gave the impression that you’re watching them at an amusement park rather than a serious film shoot.  that was all to its benefit.  all that is gone in this film that focused on a ridiculously assinine scheme, the same old jokes and character quirks from the previous two films and cultivated a burning desire in me for the film to finally end.  2 stars. 

Fracture (2007) – Ryan Gosling, Anthony Hopkins.  two notable actors joined forces and created a film whose only note-worthiness is the fact that it’s so thoroughly UN-noteworthy.  ryan gosling plays a hot shot DA investigating Anthony Hopkins under arrest for murdering his wife.  blah blah blah.  just get to the twist ending already!  1.5 stars. 

I Am Legend (2007) – Will Smith, a german shepherd, some mannequins.  a virus has infected nearly the entire planet and will smith is the last man in manhattan, living a solitary life with his dog trying not to get eaten by the infected ones.  there are some decent moments in this film that are all will smith.  he’s not a bad actor, you know.  just too in love with the blockbusters to let anyone notice.  and it’s an interesting story, in the Cast Away, man living alone sense.  not a bad film, not a fantastic film.  3 stars.  
[UPDATE] this film’s ending was famously changed from (spoilers! —>) the book ending.  i just looked it up and it’s a substantive change from the ending i saw on HBO last night, which i assume is the new ending that made it into the final cut.  i think arguments can be made that both contain some hollywood elements but the original ending, the ending online and on the dvd, unmistakably adds a level of depth to the film that wasn’t there before.  look it up.  now that i’ve seen the original ending, i feel like the final version is incomplete and significantly less interesting.  damn you, hollywood!  *shaking fist*

here’s a list of actors that i think have long since become a public nuisance and should be hanged by the neck for their ability to single-handedly destroy most movies they participate in.  if not hanged, then at least pointed and laughed at in public.  i think some of these are fairly obvious, but i suspect that you might object to my pillorying an actor or two that you still might enjoy.  to you i say, get off my planet.  you vex me.

Cuba Gooding Jr. – this motherfucker won an Oscar.  including CRASH, the Academy has a lot to atone for in my adult life.  i didn’t know behaving like a child and yelling “Show me the money!” could reap such a grand award.  someone get me a camera and shoot me scooping feces out of my ass while yelling “i like-a da corn bits!”  stand back and wait for greatness to wash over me.  the negative about his current situation: he’s still prolifically acting in many films.  the positive: aside from bullshit like DADDY DAY CAMP, his films are completely off the radar and drifting away out of consciousness.  show me your early retirement!

Nicholas Cage – the walking embodiment of over-acting.  another Oscar winner.  no one over-gestures, over-spazzes out, over-talks, over-emotes than this fucking soap opera hack.  i practically feel his spit flying off the screen into my face as i watch.  there’s really no reason why this guy should still be making movies other than to serve as testimony to society’s reluctance to accept new and better things.  this big name still brings in the bookoo bucks.  do you see that?  every day he works to make new films, is another day we fail as a people!  he is an obstacle to human enlightenment! 

Rachel Weisz – just shut your fucking hole right now.  i don’t care what you say, this girl annoys the fuck out of me. 

Renee Zellweger – ditto.  ditto on the Oscar winner, too.  i thought she was so cute in Jerry Maguire, but now.. gawdddd i want to punch myself in the crotch whenever i hear her voice. 

Adrien Grenier/Kevin Dillon/Kevin Connolly – did you also find it so honest and fitting in Entourage this season that Ari basically told Vince that he’s a bad actor?  i did.  i mean a bad actor can’t fake being a good actor, so why not just lay it all out there and admit to the audience what is so obvious to them?  adrien grenier, aka vincent chase, is a bad actor.  that goes double for kevin dillon as johnny drama and triple, no, quadruple for kevin connolly as “E”.  every scene with E and Ari together is like your sissy sister trying to cross the middle against Ray Lewis.  (btw, that season finale?  never happened, imo.)  luckily for all of us, these fools don’t seem to be having any success parlaying their Entourage exposure into feature film roles. 

Keanu Reeves – again.  another example of our failure as a species.  at least this guy’s good looking though, which is more than i can say for…

Sigourney Weaver – i’m not sure i’ve ever enjoyed watching this woman in movies.  even in the first few Alien films, which were awesome despite her starring role, she annoyed the shit out of me.  maybe i just have issues with the strong, assertive, bitchy characters she always plays.  or it could have something to do with the fact that she has a penis.

Actors That Don’t Necessarily Need To Retire Right This Moment But Definitely Get On My Nerves At Least Sometimes

Gary Oldman – this guy is right on the line for me.  he’s just a very slight, thin, blond hair away from Nicholas Cage levels of over-acting.  think about this for a second.  think about the movies you remember him for and tell me if his performance is more over-the-top or more subtle and nuanced.  anyone can yell bloody murder with a bad accent for 90 minutes.  nuance is harder. 

Kevin Spacey – again.  shut your pie hole.  he’s NOT the awesome actor everyone says he is.  he has one shtick, the smug, know-it-all, mouthy, nerdy, annoying douche, and he beats it to death.  he’s never overly offensive, which is what is keeping him from the top half of this list, but he’s never not at least slightly annoying to me.  another Oscar winner.  woopity do!

Al Pacino – this guy should be arrested immediately for killing the promise that was his younger self, and devolving into a gruff voiced one trick pony.  again, why do you have to yell so much?  who are you mad at?

if death in jihad is rewarded with 70+ virgins and eternity in paradise, what does a shoe pitch get you?  an iraqi reporter threw both his shoes at president bush’s face during a news conference in iraq this weekend.  the president nimbly ducked both throws.  maybe this reporter worked out a deal with his mullah for a pack of yodels or something.  very low tech.  he’s old school gangsta. 

whatever your opinions of this current sitting president, it is NOT cool to throw your shoes at him.  he’s still the President of the United States of America.  i.e. OUR president.  plus, whatever blame bush might shoulder for the mess that is Iraq, the iraqis share EQUAL blame, imo.  throw thine shoe at thine own fucking face, jerk. 

this also begs the question…  how the hell did this guy throw two — not one, but two! — shoes at the president???  what if this guy were a serious jihadist?  with serious ninja skills?  to all you JFK conspiracy theorists out there that claim the secret service is too competent to let the assassination happen without their direct participation or complicit knowledge, i give you exhibit A in the case against secret service omnipotence.  the pair of shoes thrown at our president.  he threw those shoes hard! 

$73 an Hour: Adding It Up

Seventy-three dollars an hour.

That figure — repeated on television and in newspapers as the average pay of a Big Three autoworker — has become a big symbol in the fight over what should happen to Detroit. To critics, it is a neat encapsulation of everything that’s wrong with bloated car companies and their entitled workers.

To the Big Three’s defenders, meanwhile, the number has become proof positive that autoworkers are being unfairly blamed for Detroit’s decline. “We’ve heard this garbage about 73 bucks an hour,” Senator Bob Casey, a Pennsylvania Democrat, said last week. “It’s a total lie. I think some people have perpetrated that deliberately, in a calculated way, to mislead the American people about what we’re doing here.”

So what is the reality behind the number? Detroit’s defenders are right that the number is basically wrong. Big Three workers aren’t making anything close to $73 an hour (which would translate to about $150,000 a year).

But the defenders are not right to suggest, as many have, that Detroit has solved its wage problem. General Motors, Ford and Chrysler workers make significantly more than their counterparts at Toyota, Honda and Nissan plants in this country. Last year’s concessions by the United Automobile Workers, which mostly apply to new workers, will not change that anytime soon.

And yet the main problem facing Detroit, overwhelmingly, is not the pay gap. That’s unfortunate because fixing the pay gap would be fairly straightforward.

The real problem is that many people don’t want to buy the cars that Detroit makes. Fixing this problem won’t be nearly so easy.

The success of any bailout is probably going to come down to Washington’s willingness to acknowledge as much.

Let’s start with the numbers. The $73-an-hour figure comes from the car companies themselves. As part of their public relations strategy during labor negotiations, the companies put out various charts and reports explaining what they paid their workers. Wall Street analysts have done similar calculations.

The calculations show, accurately enough, that for every hour a unionized worker puts in, one of the Big Three really does spend about $73 on compensation. So the number isn’t made up. But it is the combination of three very different categories.

The first category is simply cash payments, which is what many people imagine when they hear the word “compensation.” It includes wages, overtime and vacation pay, and comes to about $40 an hour. (The numbers vary a bit by company and year. That’s why $73 is sometimes $70 or $77.)

The second category is fringe benefits, like health insurance and pensions. These benefits have real value, even if they don’t show up on a weekly paycheck. At the Big Three, the benefits amount to $15 an hour or so.

Add the two together, and you get the true hourly compensation of Detroit’s unionized work force: roughly $55 an hour. It’s a little more than twice as much as the typical American worker makes, benefits included. The more relevant comparison, though, is probably to Honda’s or Toyota’s (nonunionized) workers. They make in the neighborhood of $45 an hour, and most of the gap stems from their less generous benefits.

The third category is the cost of benefits for retirees. These are essentially fixed costs that have no relation to how many vehicles the companies make. But they are a real cost, so the companies add them into the mix — dividing those costs by the total hours of the current work force, to get a figure of $15 or so — and end up at roughly $70 an hour.

The crucial point, though, is this $15 isn’t mainly a reflection of how generous the retiree benefits are. It’s a reflection of how many retirees there are. The Big Three built up a huge pool of retirees long before Honda and Toyota opened plants in this country. You’d never know this by looking at the graphic behind Wolf Blitzer on CNN last week, contrasting the “$73/hour” pay of Detroit’s workers with the “up to $48/hour” pay of workers at the Japanese companies.

These retirees make up arguably Detroit’s best case for a bailout. The Big Three and the U.A.W. had the bad luck of helping to create the middle class in a country where individual companies — as opposed to all of society — must shoulder much of the burden of paying for retirement.

So here’s a little experiment. Imagine that a Congressional bailout effectively pays for $10 an hour of the retiree benefits. That’s roughly the gap between the Big Three’s retiree costs and those of the Japanese-owned plants in this country. Imagine, also, that the U.A.W. agrees to reduce pay and benefits for current workers to $45 an hour — the same as at Honda and Toyota.

Do you know how much that would reduce the cost of producing a Big Three vehicle? Only about $800.

That’s because labor costs, for all the attention they have been receiving, make up only about 10 percent of the cost of making a vehicle. An extra $800 per vehicle would certainly help Detroit, but the Big Three already often sell their cars for about $2,500 less than equivalent cars from Japanese companies, analysts at the International Motor Vehicle Program say. Even so, many Americans no longer want to own the cars being made by General Motors, Ford and Chrysler.

My own family’s story isn’t especially unusual. For decades, my grandparents bought American and only American. In their apartment, they still have a framed photo of the 1933 Oldsmobile that my grandfather’s family drove when he was a teenager. In the photo, his father stands proudly on the car’s running board.

By the 1970s, though, my grandfather became so sick of the problems with his American cars that he vowed never to buy another one. He hasn’t.

Detroit’s defenders, from top executives on down, insist that they have finally learned their lesson. They say a comeback is just around the corner. But they said the same thing at the start of this decade — and the start of the last one and the one before that. All the while, their market share has kept on falling.

There is good reason to keep G.M. and Chrysler from collapsing in 2009. (Ford is in slightly better shape.) The economy is in the worst recession in a generation. You can think of the Detroit bailout as a relatively cost-effective form of stimulus. It’s often cheaper to keep workers in their jobs than to create new jobs.

But Congress and the Obama administration shouldn’t fool themselves into thinking that they can preserve the Big Three in anything like their current form. Very soon, they need to shrink to a size that reflects the American public’s collective judgment about the quality of their products.

It’s a sad story, in many ways. But it can’t really be undone at this point. If we had wanted to preserve the Big Three, we would have bought more of their cars.

E-mail: leonhardt@nytimes.com