Five Second Movie Reviews

By far, my favorite thing they show on the TVs in the back of cabs is the Six Second Movie Review. If you're not familiar with the Six Second Movie Review, you can probably dream up what it is: a snarky guy yays or nays a new release with a Micro Machines-esque few lines of quip. Example: "We Bought a Zoo? More like We Bought a Turd - I'm out!!!"

Six Second Movie Review guy has inspired me...to do him one better and leave him in the dust. Introducing FIVE SECOND MOVIE REVIEWS!!! That's right: anytime I see any movie, from any time period, I will post a review of it right here on this very website, and it will take no longer than five seconds to read. This will allow me the opportunity to post more things, thus making me feel better about myself writing-wise, without actually having to do a whole lot more work.

I'm very excited to kick off the Five Second Movie Review with a special Kaptain Kvetch 2nd Annual Oscars Edition, reviewing all of the Best Picture nominees. Strap your socks down.

THE ARTIST
It will probably win, which says a lot about how talented screenwriters who use dialogue are these days.

THE DESCENDANTS
Clooney's Clooney, Alexander Payne's quirky, hot teenager in bikini. Worth seeing.

EXTREMELY LOUD AND INCREDIBLY CLOSE
This kid's not changing my mind on the whole reluctant-to-have-children thing.

THE HELP
A race relations film revolving around the hilarious practical joke of shitting in someone's food. Powerful stuff.

HUGO
Okay, I get it. Hollywood enjoys sucking its own dick.

MIDNIGHT IN PARIS
One of the better Woody Allen films. Also one of the better Owen Wilson films.

MONEYBALL
Never been more pleasantly surprised by a book adaptation. That Aaron Sorkin has a bright future.

THE TREE OF LIFE
A two and a half hour perfume ad. So...wonderful, if you like that kind of thing. Which I do not.

WAR HORSE
Unbelievably cheesy. But has inspired my forthcoming NC-17 directorial debut, WAR WHORES.

The Pigeon Whisperer

So I’m up on the observation deck of the Empire State Building, taking in the view. Outdoors, 86 stories up, 55 degrees. Beautiful day. As I’m standing there, I notice a pigeon walking around near me on the ledge, on the other side of the guard rail. “What the hell is a pigeon doing all the way up here?” I think to myself.

A few paces away, a small cluster of people are gathered around something. I go over and see that they’re watching a man who is clutching another pigeon in one hand, belly up, as he works to untangle some thread that’s caught in its foot.

My first thought is that this man must be an employee of the Empire State Building, some sort of bird handler who is treating this wounded – or at least inconvenienced – wild animal. Then I think, wait a second. That doesn’t make any sense. This isn’t a fucking zoo. Why would the Empire State Building care that a pigeon has some thread in its feet? That’s like the city paying a guy to comb the rats’ fur in the subway.

So then I think, well what’s the alternative? That this guy just picked this pigeon up off the building ledge, and is now fucking grooming it? Is that what’s going on here? It’s not like this guy was homeless; he was around my age, wearing a beanie and a shoulder bag. I stood and watched this guy, along with like four other people, for about ten minutes. In fact, there was another pigeon on the ledge also watching, clearly distressed, because he was pacing back and forth, warbling frantically. All the while, the captured pigeon is just hanging out, calm, cool and collected, while this man holds him and picks thread out of his foot. Here’s a picture I took of this bizarre scene:

I was losing my mind. I had to know what was happening. Finally, I spoke up. “Excuse me?” I said. The guy looked up at me. “Did you just pick up that pigeon?” I asked.

“No entiendo,” he said. So there you go. Dude didn’t even speak English. He was a tourist. He had come to see the Empire State Building, and while he was up there, he fucking picked up and cleaned a pigeon. I mean, that’s a hell of a story. I’d never seen anything like it in my life.

A minute later a security guard came over and told the man he had to put down the pigeon. The guy muttered something and kept working at the bird’s foot. The guard became more insistent. The guy held up a strand of thread to the guard, who then lightly smacked the guy on the arm, saying forcefully, “Sir! Put down the pigeon right now!” Finally the guy released the pigeon back onto the ledge, its foot now unencumbered from the thread.

The guard calmed down. “That’s nice of you,” he said. “But don’t pick up any more pigeons.”

A quick epilogue: I ended up behind this guy on line for the way out. He was with a female, who he at one point put his arm around. Which means his girlfriend is totally cool with her man intimately handling stray pigeons, then handling her.

Welcome to New York.

Excuse Me, You've Got Some Shit on Your Face

I wanted to say that about a hundred times today. Every religion has its ridiculous customs. Jews are absolutely no exception. No pork? Are you kidding me? I've always said that if God himself asked me to choose between Judaism and pork, it wouldn't even be close. Bacon provides me infinite more fulfillment and inner solace than religion ever could.

But the stupidest tradition has to be walking around with a black, smudgy cross on your forehead all day long. I walked from my apartment down to the Empire State Building today, passing dozens of Ash Wednesday observers. Otherwise normal people, in normal clothes, walking around New York doing normal things, save for a huge, unsightly smear across their foreheads. They looked like extras from an exorcism movie.

I've never really noticed this practice before today, probably because I've never lived in a place where I'm amongst so many people all the time. But man, it's really a weak look. How can you expect to be taken seriously in a Starbucks or a business meeting or something when everyone is staring at you like you just tripped facedown in the dirt?

The only time I spoke to an ashhead was the woman selling the tickets at the Empire State Building. She told me admission was $22 to go to the observation deck on the 86th floor, or, for another $15, I could go another 16 stories up, to the 102nd floor. I asked her if it was worth the extra $15 to go higher.

"Well, it's a height thing," she said. "One is 16 floors higher, encased in glass."

"I understand," I said. "But in your opinion, is it worth the money for the better view?"

"It all depends on how high you want to be," she replied unhelpfully.

"You're really selling it. I'll just do the normal admission," I concluded. It was all I could do to resist licking my thumb, reaching under the glass and wiping that shmutz off her face.

Tune in tomorrow to hear about the weird scene I encountered up on the observation deck.

February: The Tuesday of Months

I just got an iPhone. My first one. Very exciting. I had a good, solid run with the Blackberry; I'll never forget those years. But it was just getting painfully obvious I needed to upgrade. I felt like Newt Gingrich, and my Blackberry was one of his early wives: frumpy, sickly, probably a real drag to bring to sexy Capitol Hill galas.

So of course, because I am me, I let the saleswoman at the Sprint store talk me into buying the protective shield that you put on the face of the iPhone. $30, and you just stick it on yourself. But because I suck at doing things myself (http://www.kaptainkvetch.blogspot.com/2011/06/light-of-my-life.html), I somehow fucked it up and got unsightly air bubbles trapped under the sticky protective film. My roommate wasted no time in publicly shaming me for taking it out in a restaurant.

Fortunately, this product came with a replacement guarantee. Anything goes wrong, they ship you a new one. I was pleased to remember this information for all of about two minutes, when I investigated how to get my totally free replacement shield, and it involved me shipping them back the old one, at my expense, and also providing them a shipping fee to send the new one.

It's such a no-brainer that I will never get around to doing this, it's almost laughable. Going to the post office these days is worse than going to the dentist. And I say that with a robust dislike of dentists. So, that's pretty much it. Another $30 just mindlessly flushed down the toilet. I hate doing that. So much.

Well, at least I have my cool new iPhone...which will have all the more use to me since, on my way home from the Sprint store, I dropped and shattered the screen of my semi-new Kindle Fire I bought recently. With no return policy whatsoever. Here's a picture of it I took with my iPhone. See? It's coming in handy already.

This concludes my feelings on February.

A Modest Proposal

You hear a lot of talk these days about Israel and Iran, and who's going to attack first, etc, etc. It's a very interesting geopolitical situation, and one that reminds me a lot of playing the board game Risk.

Just like in Risk, you have two countries on the verge of some sort of war. Each has its allies, who have their own interests at stake. And just like the game, there are very serious negotiations taking place leading up to whatever actions occur.

This got me thinking about a potentially interesting event that we could inject into our own political process. I think I speak for most political junkies when I say that we're all growing a little weary of these endless primary debates. When candidates are arguing about who's going to build a moon colony first, you know they're running out of material.

That's why I suggest that, in lieu of more debates, the candidates should all play a televised game of Risk. By pitting them against each other in a game of global domination, we would learn far more about their foreign policy and strategic methods than we ever could from debate talking points. We wouldn't have to watch the entire five hour game; they could get Stuart Scott to just give us the highlights later that night on SportsCenter.

And if they play the new-and-improved Risk: 2210 A.D., they can even colonize the moon. I think I know Newt Gingrich's strategy already.