And here’s Cheech and Chong on Geraldo talking about legalization with some evil harpy.

Some students were offended by this showing. Instead of just getting over it, they complained, and it wound up that the school principal gave the flag kids the option of turning their shirts inside out or being sent home to become martyrs for the teabagger crowd. Guess which they chose.

See, this is one of those stories where everybody involved is an asshole. The flag kids were assholes for thinking that this would be some great big statement. The kids who were offended are assholes for getting their panties in a bunch over a lame stunt perpetrated by assholes. The principal is neither a prince or a pal (I’ve been wanting an excuse to say that ever since Xander said it to Principal Snider on Buffy way back when),  but instead is an asshole for not telling the offended kids to man up and stop being such a bunch of oversensitive whiney assholes, and for turning a lame stunt into a potential rallying cry for the real racists (who happen to be enormous assholes). The media are assholes for covering this ridiculous story about a bunch of assholes. The teabaggers who will no doubt make this about how they’re all victims of this and that are all a bunch of assholes. And I’m an asshole for keeping it going on my blog which I keep saying isn’t going to be political while taking tiny little pot shots at the teabaggers here and there like some kind of asshole.

So if you want to waste another second on this, here’s the story and here’s a better comment thread about it than this barely-read blog could ever produce.

And now, if you’ve made it this far into this godawful post, here’s your reward… the new trailer for Robert Rodriguez’ upcoming film, Machete!

So, you can wade in to the whole list here, or go with some of my personal favorites like Danny Trejo, Illeana Douglas, Luis Guzman, Kevin Corrigan, and Olivia Williams.

As of this posting there are 87 interviews, all of them lengthy, in depth and insider-y. If you enjoy film like I do, get set to spend a good chunk of your time with these interviews.

During the TV writers strike a few years ago, I was inspired to do a short about it under the premise that the producers of The Office would hire some bad fan fiction writers as scabs and I shot this in a couple of hours with some friends. YouTube pulled it due to a copyright complaint from Sony which I cannot for the life of me figure out since there is no music and the characters talk about characters on other shows which is well within any kind of fair use. Corporate types, go figure! I think they didn’t like how they were portrayed.

So, without further ado, The Writers Room…

So we sat through moody ass whatzerface waking up from a dream where she’s an old lady while Edward is the same age (insert Matthew McConnauhey in Dazed and Confused reference here)  and with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer she’s being all moody about it being her birthday, then  slow-mo shots of Edward walking toward her in the parking lot, and then the awkward bit with the werewolf guy, and then back to Edward reciting Shakespeare in class. After a failed birthday party at casa de vamp where her paper cut almost set off a feeding frenzy, she starts whining to Edward about wanting to be a vampire and he starts going into some boring bit about who knows what and we just shut it off right there and watched some Community reruns instead.

True Blood can’t come back soon enough to wash away the taste of lame vampires. In the meantime, I’m probably going to have to see From Dusk Till Dawn, or Near Dark, or any Dracula movie with Christopher Lee from the 70′s, or even Blackula or Love at First Bite.

So off we went to see Alice in Wonderland in 3-D. I ran ahead to get the tickets. First thing I noticed was the theater was being picketed. I HATE crossing picket lines. People don’t leave their jobs and stand out in the elements over unimportant issues, and I do not like supporting any business that can’t do right by their employees. But I also don’t like disappointing my wife on one of our all-too-rare dates, so I apologized to the picketers, bought tickets, and then went back to the parking lot for a new and exciting opportunity to disappoint my wife. She was circling the lot and I saw one open, so I did what any man would do, I stepped into it to hold it for her. But some woman in some urban assault vehicle decided that I was not allowed to do that and appeared ready to ram me with her gas guzzling tank to prove her point. I shared some choice words with her as I left the space and got into the car.

After driving around fighting about what an asshole I am for saying such mean things to a lady who was willing to kill me for a parking space (though for what it’s worth I probably would not have exploded on a stranger had I not already been a bit stressed and cranky), we finally calmed down, scored an even better parking space, and walked into the theater. But at that point, any decent seat had been taken and we were smack dab in the middle of the second row.

I thought perhaps that since it was a 3-D movie that it would be like we were in the middle of everything, but it was just like being in the second row at a regular movie. You have to crane your neck and the whole frame is bigger than your field of view.

The movie itself was great. The visuals were amazing, and incredibly detailed. Every tree in this Wonderland (or “Underland” as it’s known in this telling) has unearthly twisted and textured branches, and the card suits are hidden everywhere, even making up the chain of the Bandersnatch’s  collar. The acting was your standard Tim Burton over-the-top quirky with his usual players. Crispin Glover definitely fits in well with Depp and Bonham Carter’s oddball styles. The computer generated characters were equally fun to watch, particularly the even-madder-than-the-Hatter March Hare.

The 3-D was pretty cool too, though I think that after this and Avatar, the novelty is starting to wear off with me. The one funny thing I noticed though was how in medium and farther away shots, Anne Hathaway was a gorgeous White Queen. But close up, she looked like a linebacker. I’m not sure if it was a quirk of the 3-D, or just that our eyeballs were inches from the screen, or that I’m just a wackjob, but it was like that episode of Seinfeld with the man-hands. Oh no, she’s cracking open the lobster tail!

Afterwords we went to pick up our little gymnast. There did not appear to be any kind of checking out procedure and the staff did not seem ready to talk to the parents about anything. We felt kind of weird about leaving her someplace with such minimal attention given to the parents who would like to just basically know how it went and who these people are who are looking after our kids. But she did come home in one piece without any new bad habits, so this could be a good way for mommy and daddy to get out on a Friday night every now and then!