I'm Salivating

The star and director of my favorite all time movie reuniting on what may be my favorite play. And it will play in New York, so I can see it! http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2010/aug/26/kevin-spacey-shakespeare-richard-iii

Like why?

I'm a hypocrite. I will rail about celebrity worship, yet if it's the terrible sin I claim it to be, I belong in Satan's bedchamber. Worse still, my railing at 2010 celebrity worship is simply a defense for the pathetic, shameful, state of my favorite celebrities. Those that are alive of course. But even the dead one's I can shame later in life. Olivier in the Neil Diamond remake of the Jazz Singer? Orson Welles in Transformers? Richard Burton in the Exorcist II? John Lennon's solo career? Shakespeare writing Two Noble Kinsmen?

Malcolm McDowell's career started with If... and Clockwork Orange, two of the greatest films and performances of all time. Progressively it worsened to Caligula (McDowell, Sir John Gielgud, Helen Mirren, and Peter O'Toole all in a film that was unsophisticated by Hustler Magazine softcore porno standards) and Cat People (incestuous were-cats: enough said), and in the past five years it has reached an appearingly horrifying nadir in joining the voice cast of Disney's Bolt with such shameful company as John Travolta and Miley/Hannah/Destiny Cyrus/Montana. In a movie about a talking dog. But no, it got worse: he joined the cast of Heroes. Bob Dylan's achievements are far greater than McDowell's. Then he made a Christmas album. Keith Richards is such a pathetic parody of himself that he's somewhat amusing. This guy was the greatest riff writer who ever lived, and now he's most famous for snorting his dad's ashes. Can still play great guitar though.You can't get off to a better start with your career than Peter O'Toole did, with the leading role in one of the biggest movies of all time in Lawrence of Arabia. And sure he nearly drunk himself to death during the next 20 years, and did some crap, but he still had room for Becket, the Ruling Class, and My Favorite Year, and some great stage work. He still does the occasional good work, but basically he's just become the stereotype of the drunk old actor.

All of the above are great examples of why a 4 foot 7, orange painted smurf from Long Island by the name of Nicole "Snooki" Polizzi is the biggest star in the universe. When there's no one great to choose from, one must idolize the most worthless human beings in the world, aka the cast of Jersey Shore.

A list

I realize that almost all my posts have been tributes to people I admire or assaults on people I can't stand, so I decided that this I will make the once and for all list of the 50 greatest and worst men of all time. While this may seem slightly sexist, I am under no ability to rank women whatsover. As a man, this is a list of 50 men who have helped shape the kind of man I am today. This means that Ronnie Spector, Tina Turner, Bette Davis , Mother Teresa, Mary Queen of Scots, Meryl Streep, the goddess Parvati, and many other esteemed women may not make the good, while Oprah, Anne Frank, Yoko Ono, Patti LaBelle, and others of lesser esteem may not make the bad. Another list may be in order soon. Enjoy.

50 Greatest
To be among the 50 greatest people of all time there are no definite criteria. There must be a certain philosophical beauty to your life, and that can be interpreted many different ways. In most cases I will try to avoid fictional characters. For some great characters I'll have an actor who played them or a writer who wrote them. In rare exceptions (Lester Burnham, William Shatner, Omar Little) I have the fictional character himself. Being that this is not a list of the number of post offices owned, Johnny Mathis is not on the list.

1. Keith Richards
2. Peter O'Toole
3. Malcolm McDowell
4. Bob Dylan
5. Wilt Chamberlain
6. Jimi Hendrix
7. Ike Turner
8. Buddha
9. Lou Reed
10. Sam Cooke
11. Shakespeare
12. William Shatner
13. Lester Burnham
14. Muhammad
15. Marlon Brando
16. Buddy Holly
17. Seth McFarlane
18. John Lennon (B.Y.: Before Yoko)
19. Hugh Hefner
20. Huey Newton
21. Laurence Olivier
22. David Crosby
23. Phil Spector
24. the Marquis de Sade
25. Emperor Caligula
26. Maximilien Robespierre
27. Roger Moore
28. Liberace
29. Morgan Freeman
30. Jesus
31. Omar Little
32. Samuel L. Jackson
33. Beat Writers
34. Alfred Hitchcock
35. Quentin Tarantino
36. Every member of the Zombies
37. Muddy Waters
38. Jack Nicholson
39. Dennis Hopper
40. Andy Warhol
41. Ivan the Terrible
42. Henry VIII of England
43. Jim Morrison
44. Moses
45. Triumph the Insult Dog
46. Trey Parker and Matt Stone
47. Roger McGuinn
48. Jimmy Page
49. Original SNL Cast
50. Tony Chang

50 Worst
Same criteria as above: a philosophy so offensive to me that it makes me puke my fucking guts out every time I think of them. Some of these people (Bono, Brian Wilson, Brett Favre, Gandhi) have done great things, but have such a cringe worthy countenance that makes them unbearable. On those people I have a few comments respectively: South Park was right; a few great songs and mental illness doesn't make you that cool; I don't care if you might well be the greatest quarterback of all time, the offseason shouldn't be a retirement soap opera; wear clothes.

1. Ian Curtis
2. Michael Cera
3. Anyone elected in the state of South Carolina
4. Hitler
5. Steve Jobs
6. Sting
7. Fox News Staff (including Karl Rove)
8. Morrissey
9. Bono
10. John Lennon (AY)
11. Evan McGowan
12. Stalin
13. John Mayer
14. Nicolas Cage
15. Shia LaBeouf
16. Will Ferrell
17. M. Night Shaymaylan
18. Dan Simon
19. Jimmy Kimmel
20. Tom Cruise
21. Pol Pot
22. Republican Party elected officials since Lincoln other than T. Roosevelt (Bush I and II, Reagan, Cheney, Tom DeLay, Mitt Romney, Joe McCarthy, Nixon)
23. Thom Yorke
24. the Gallagher Brothers
25. "the Good" Roman Emperors
26. JJ Redick
27. Idi Amin
28. Coldplay
29. Kanye
30. Kim Jong Il
31. Gandhi
32. Brett Favre
33. Lady Gaga
34. Zach Braff off camera
35. K-Fed
36. Dean Martin
37. Nickelback
38. Bob Hope
39. Any writer for Pitchfork
40. Jason Mraz
41. Stevie Ray Vaughan
42. Pat Robertson
43. Carlos Mencia
44. Drake
45. Toby Keith
46. Bin Laden
47. Ted Nugent
48. Roy Cohn
49. Roger Waters 1980-the present
50. Vince Vaughan

Ian Curtis: FUCK YOU!

I love a lot of musicians who died at far too young an age. Lennon. Hendrix. Cobain. Jim Morrison. Robert Johnson. Buddy Holly. Otis Redding. Marvin Gaye. The list goes on. However, when someone is revered SIMPLY BECAUSE HE/SHE DIED, that, my friend is a heap of big, steamy, hairy, bullshit. I am of course referring to Ian Curtis, the phenomenally untalented lead singer/songwriter of the despicable post-punk band Joy Division. Ian Curtis proved that one good song ("Love Will Tear Us Apart") and killing yourself at 22 makes a rock icon. This completely ignores the fact that he invented the worst, most utterly painful, kind of talk-singing known to man. And that the songs he wrote often didn't have a rhyme scheme or a chord sequence. It wasn't music. It was pretentious bullshit. When Curtis killed himself, the remaining members reformed as New Order who were in fact a pretty good synth pop band. But hipsters hate them because they didn't have Ian Curtis. Joy Division also sucks because they're the kind of band that really "sensitive" kids with acoustic guitars would love to play and sing the songs of. And I can't think of anything more puke-inducing. And that makes Ian Curtis asshole of the week.

The playlist is anything made by anyone other than Joy Division, and to piss off Joy Division fans, any New Order record.

Malcolm McDowell: The Greatest Actor You've Vaguely Heard Of

Yeah, technically he's still working. If you're a connoisseur of crap, you probably know him as Rob Zombie's replacement for Donald Pleasance in the new versions of Halloween, and has done a lot of voice work for Disney movies and guest starred on the Mentalist, CSI Miami, Entourage, and Heroes. Trekkies know of him as the man that killed Captain Kirk. He was the title role in Hustler magazine's "historical epic," Caligula. But, (shockingly,) that is not why he's my all time favorite actor. It's really only two movies that make him a legend, one released in 1968 and the other in 1971 (To be fair, the latter is what he's most famous for.)

A Clockwork Orange is a true cinematic classic, more because of the controversy that surrounded it than for the content. It's detailing of gangs of young men raping and murdering for pleasure's sake, led to supposed "copycat" acts, which subsequently made director Stanley Kubrick compelled to withdraw the film from Britain for over 25 years. McDowell's character Alex might well be the most compelling psychopath in film history. Using his devilish grin and bizarre dialogue (droogie, ultraviolence, the old in out-in out, snuff it, etc.), McDowell creates an antihero to die for, not to mention the definitive version of Singin' in the Rain. Clockwork was a huge International commercial and critical hit, and should have catapulted McDowell to become one of the great stars of his generation, a British answer to DeNiro, Pacino, or Nicholson. Unfortunately, it was not to be. His biggest Hollywood role was in the remake of Cat People. As great as Clockwork was, however, for me it is not his definitive role. That would be the Brit cult classic If..., made in 1968.

On a top ten film list, If... would definitely be in the top five, and possibly first. It's the greatest high school movie ever made. McDowell's character Mick Travis is what every rebellious teenager wants to be. He's stylish, attractive, outspoken, and slightly arrogant. His tell offs to prefects puts a smile on anyone who's ever been to boarding school. The final image of McDowell gunning down his schoolmates from the top of his armory, should be as iconic as DeNiro saying "you talkin' to me." And the film has perhaps the most fucked up, crazy, brilliant, and unique sex scene ever. The movie's mix of the real and the surreal leaves whether or not Mick is a psychopath up to the audience's imagination. And it's not even important. He's so utterly compelling that it doesn't matter. You're on his side no matter what. McDowell's mix of negativity and swagger is the perfect image of 60's British sexiness. 5 years later director Lindsay Anderson brought an ambitious douchebag version of Mick Travis back to the screen in the uneven, overlong O, Lucky Man, which mainly serves as a third primer in classic McDowell. Here the charming rebel has been brilliantly transformed into an ambitious asshole. Even still, McDowell's charisma wins.

McDowell's greatest skill as an actor is that he can play psychopaths so appealingly and charismatically. He's your favorite character, even in Clockwork Orange where he is a serial murderer and rapist. He's on the border of out of control and over the top but he never is. He was never Dennis Hopper. He really couldn't age as an actor. The roles he was born for were very young men. Malcolm McDowell middle aged became campy self parody. I still have hope that he can regain his early promise and give the world one last brilliant performance.

Now I'm going to do something new that I'll do for just about every post; I am going to post a playlist of movies and music to correspond to the post. This being a tribute to an actor, the movies will be no problem. However, for the music I'm going to post songs that have gone along with his great roles, and then songs that just epitomize the spirit of Malcolm McDowell. I know it's stupid for the reader, but it's a great excercise in self-indulgence. Alex from Clockwork and Mick from If became icons to the punk movement. Therefore, the playlist is heavy in early punk, with an emphasis on the British.

Movie Playlist
If...
A Clockwork Orange
O, Lucky Man
Caligula (for campy pleasure)

Music Playlist
1. Beethoven's Ninth
2. The Thieving Magpie-Rossini
3. Singing in the Rain-Gene Kelly
4. Sanctus-Missa Luba
5. O, Lucky Man-Alan Price
6. Cat People (Putting Out Fire)-David Bowie
7. Kick Out the Jams-MC5
8. Gimme Danger-Iggy and the Stooges
9. London Calling-The Clash
10. God Save the Queen-The Sex Pistols
11. New Rose-The Damned
12. White Riot-The Clash
13. Psycho-The Sonics
14. Paranoid-Black Sabbath
15. This Charming Man-The Smiths
16. Don't Look Back in Anger-Oasis
17. The Killing Moon-Echo and the Bunnymen

A tribute to the recently deceased.

Within the past 10 days, the world has seen its greatest living coach, a black midget famous for saying "whatchu talkin bout Willis," and a true master of over the top, crazy acting pass on. Unlike MJ and Farrah Fawcett, I don't really feel like making cruel jokes at the expense of the deceased. John Wooden won ten NCAA titles without cheating (try teaching that to Calipiari). Dennis Hopper never hit the highs or lows Jackson did, and could actually act unlike Farrah. And Gary Coleman is a great example of why some targets are just too easy.

Wooden was Basketball's Lombardi, a dignified image of what a great coach should be. He wasn't crude. He wasn't a high strung Larry Brown type. He wasn't a Coach K/Pitino like shithead. He wasn't a deranged maniac like Bob Knight. He was the model coach in attitude and in success. Any coach with an undefeated season becomes a legend. Nobody's had more than one except Wooden. He had 4. He won 88 straight games once, lost one, then won another 40 or 50 or so. He was also one of the first great players, a star of pre-NBA pro basketball and as a college player at Purdue. John Wooden was the definition of class and success in sports, a combination that doesn't exist too often, especially in college basketball. Look at the big names of the past 30 years. Coach K. Pitino. Calipiari. Knight. When I think about what's wrong with the sport it's those guys. Calhoun and Boeheim are good guys. Dean Smith was a class act. But no one will ever be John Wooden.

Dennis Hopper is one of those guys who is my kind of actor. Never afraid to go completely over the top, watching him you often get the idea that his roles are scarily close to reality. However, nobody could, and will ever, be able to play a crazed, often under the influence, maniac like Hopper. After "I love the smell of napalm," Apocalypse Now starts to drag until Hopper's insane photojournalist comes in. He keeps Hoosiers from being feel good goop. And Blue Velvet has become self-explanatory.

Gary Coleman was really fucking short of stature.

End of the School Year and Beginning of Summer

Thursday at around 2:00 was the end of my Sophomore year of High School. I am now entering the time in my life where what I do with myself becomes important. And that's fuckin' scary. Like I'll have to study for SAT's and shit like that. I'll have to try to get into a halfway decent College. This summer, I'm going to try to get permit. Me on the road. Just imagine how frightening that is. In two years I'll be able to vote. My future is here. And I'm not ready.