Don’t get me wrong—the TV Pilot Reviews are a lot of fun, and even still, there were so many I never got a chance to write up (THRESHOLD and COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF among them) and still so many others I decided to spare you from altogether (the hackneyed E-RING, the sorry TWINS, and most every other sitcom beyond the few I wrote up), and now the season is upon us. Still, the essentials for the season remain EVERYBODY HATES CHRIS, MY NAME IS EARL, and to a lesser degree, some of the spooky dramas like INVASION and SUPERNATURAL. I'm starting to think that I might be better off doing a sort of Stephen King-in-EW thing in this space, trying to find something worth talking about once a month rather than forcing 'em out. (That said, I'll be back next week with a look at a hurricane relief event featuring TENACIOUS D, Dave Grohl, David Cross and others.)

Since I last did this column, we ran a big Third Anniversary contest, where I attempted a Fark.com-like contest, asking people to submit their version of a movie poster for MOVIE POOP SHOOT: THE MOVIE. The prizes for this contest were a wide array of books and movies that all had some association of or other with this site. Now, I mean no offense to the few entrants who offered up their entries… but MAN, did that contest suck. It was easily the worst one we’ve ever run here. It got the fewest number of entries, and the ones we got were very far away from what the contest actually called for. So maybe we’ll try this again some day, but this one was just too much of a bust to really properly conclude (but thanks, all you entrants! And by "all," I mean "you five." Odd, because it was the best array of prizes we've ever offered up. Maybe the sentence in e-mail form of contest entry we've done in the past is more palatable to most (if so, check out this week's contest, up now). Ah, well. The prizes all remain, anyway, so I’ll find some way to give all these away at some point.

Also in the time between the last column and this one, my stack of books, movies, and pop culture detritus has grown considerably—I’ve been sent all kinds of things, and much of it is very cool, so I thought I’d catch up on a good portion of it here.

STUDIO 360’S AMERICAN ICONS

As I type this, I’m sitting on a plane heading to the East Coast. Typically, when I fly, I’m all music, all the way, sometimes taking time out for a DVD. But usually, I turn on the iPod at first opportunity and listen to anything and everything. This time, I’m giving Podcasts a shot—I’m usually not one for talking while flying—music is much more pleasurable to me—but I’m trying it. What prompted me to finally do this is a CD I received last week, a copy of the MOBY DICK episode of Kurt Andersen’s STUDIO 360-AMERICAN ICONS radio show. The show is a weekly public radio program that explores creativity, pop culture and the arts, looking at works that have achieved icon status and talking to various people about how they got there. Andersen is an author and critic who I’ve read for years—his TURN OF THE CENTURY speculative novel was particularly interesting—and he’s a well-suited host for this show. He not only knows his pop culture, but he presents it in an educated, erudite way, and approaches familiar topics from unexpected directions.

The MOBY DICK episode I was sent (others include THE WIZARD OF OZ, Superman, Charlie Chaplin;s MODERN TIMES, Frank Lloyd Wright, MILES DAVIS’ Kind of Blue, Andy Warhol, and more) won a 2005 Peabody Award, and looks at the structure of Melville’s famous novel, and how it’s inspired people as diverse as Laurie Anderson and Ray Bradbury. Laurie Anderson wrote a song about the book; an instructor in New York talks about the ironies and time changes in the book and how they inspire and inform jazz pieces. The show also offers up a two-minute, contemporary take on the long novel for those attention-challenged who never read the entire book (this part, read by a guy doing his best “Bill and Ted-type” voice, is a bit obnoxious).

Overall, the program manages to explain why the book is so important even 150 years later, and looks at its impact even on the events of September 11, 2001—a flood of articles after the attacks all used analogies from the book to equate W’s pursuit of Osama bin Laden. This same analogy was made during the American civil war, too. Basically, it’s used as an allegory for anyone who stops at nothing to gain his objectives, letting his mania supercede any sense of reason.

The program also looked at the difficulties of adapting the book and all its asides and exposition into a workable screenplay. Ray Bradbury did just this in the early 1950s, for a movie that was directed by John Huston. At the time, Bradbury hadn’t ever even read the book, but he said he was taken in by the metaphors in the book and accepted. This part of the show is a replay of a conversation between Andersen and Bradbury, and it was this part that really won me over—I could read, or listen to, Bradbury any day of the week. Bradbury spoke about how even trying to crack the book became his own “white whale,” and it took him months for him to finally “become” Herman Melville, but he eventually did, and typed the bulk of the screenplay in one night. While I’m not totally sold on Podcasts (the whole time I was listening to this, I was thinking about getting back to some music), this program is definitely one I’m interested in checking out future programs.

DROIDMAKER: GEORGE LUCAS AND THE DIGITAL REVOLUTION

You’d think that, with everything that’s been written and spoken about George Lucas and STAR WARS over the last three decades that there wouldn’t be much more you could say that’d still be interesting. And then you’d get a copy of DROIDMAKER: GEORGE LUCAS AND THE DIGITAL REVOLUTION by Michael Rubin and be proven wrong, like I was.

The book, being released on October 25 by Triad Publishing, is the inside story of George Lucas, his intensely private company, and their work to revolutionize filmmaking. In the process, they made computer history. Discover the birth of Pixar, digital video editing, videogame avitars, THX sound, and a host of other icons of the media age. Lucas played a central role in the universe of entertainment technologies we see everyday.

Rubin is a formerly employee at Lucasfilm, having spent time in the Computer Division. This division has been largely kept under wraps by Lucas and his stuff, functioning as a kind of Marin County Willy Wonka, turning out some amazing products while staying shrouded in mystery. It’s not quite been “nobody ever goes in… nobody ever comes out,” but close. And we all know that Lucas and his teams have inspired changes in entertainment technology, but the story of how they got there and just how many companies have been directly influenced by their work is even more interesting than it would seem.

This isn’t a book that’s out to spend time weighing the merits of the films themselves. Our opinions of what Lucas has done well or done less well on the movies isn’t up for discussion here, nor should it be. Rather, the book looks at a maverick filmmaker and how he got his start, and how he built his company into the influential powerhouse it is today. Lucas arguably started, or at least greatly changed, digital media and its development. The book doesn’t approach this from an outsider’s perspective, either. Rather, Rubin gets assistance from Lucas and his staff, and he also gets access to Pixar and Zoetrope.

Still, one of the more interesting aspects of the book isn’t the discussions of the technology and how it’s grown. Instead, it’s the look at Lucas and Francis Ford Coppolla and the way the two try to balance business, technology and entertainment. Along the way, the book looks at the way Lucas’s efforts inspired Walt Disney, The Grateful Dead, Akira Kurosawa, Steven Spielberg, Michael Crichton, Stanley Kubrick, Ross Perot, Robert Moog, Steve Jobs, The Doors, Steven Soderbergh and many others.

The book also looks at how movies are really made, so it’s even more captivating to those who are interested in the actual process of filmmaking. The book covers a lot of technical discussions, but Rubin’s writing style is accessible rather than dry. The greatest thing about the book is, after the last decade of people taking shots at George Lucas and his second STAR WARS trilogy, it felt like a lot of the Lucasfilm mystique was lost. This book is well-timed to remind everyone just how important Lucas and his company are, the commercial products aside. By finally opening up a bit and revealing some secrets to the world, Lucas has managed to regain some of his mystique that long seemed lost.

FAMOUS PAIRS

I have no idea why this book showed up, really. Typically, I receive pop culture books or proofs, books that focus on movies and comics and music. So when a copy of this book arrived, I was a bit puzzled. And happy, since it’s the kind of book that you flip through at the book store register but never actually buy, unless it’s for a gift. This was one of those books that makes me happy that strange packages arrive in my mail.

FAMOUS PAIRS (by photographer Jeannie Sprecher and writer Kim O’Brien), uh, a book with photographs of pears. Yeah, the fruit. Mostly, pairs of pairs. And the pairs are all shaped or posed to represent all kinds of celebrities past and present. You’ve seen lots of books like this, I’m sure, and it’ll no doubt fight for shelf space next to BAD CAT and BAD DOG, but this one’s good for a lark.

I’d run more pictures from the book, but since it’s not overly long to begin with, I’d hate to spoil the images. But you get pictures of pears as Anna Nicole Smith and the ancient guy she married, a pear as Hannibal Lecter and an Old Friend, Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky, Bonnie and Clyde, Adam and Eve, all kids of others. And all are presented in the best “art book” way, so this book’s good just for the images and the way it “takes the piss out of” more pretentious art books, Like I say, it’s a trifle, but it’s a well-shot, fun and funny trifle. You know anyone who’s got a little coffee table space, this is definitely worth picking up for them.

DIRTY LOVE

So some good things show up in the mail. But along with the good come the DIRTY. As in Jenny McCarthy’s movie, DIRTY LOVE. The movie’s getting big screen release this week, but if you can find it at your local Cineplex, I’d be surprised. If you can find it there next week, I’ll be baffled.

The movie was written by Jenny, who seems anxious (desperate) to return to her obnoxiously sexy roots. Jenny’s salad days were the early 1990s, when she started as a Playboy Playmate (a quite impressive one, I must say) before building a modicum of a career by lambasting frat boys on some awful MTV game show. At the time, McCarthy was a unique specimen—hot enough for the teen audience, but willing to make an ass out of herself enough to not be oft-putting to females. Of course, this quickly turned to self-parody, as every time a camera was on her, she was mugging, sticking her tongue out and generally trying to make herself look as unappealing as possible. Since she was cute, it still (kind of) worked.

Then she went the whole “image-change” route. She died her hair an awful black. She spoke out against breast implants and how she was removing hers. She got married, got pregnant, and disappeared. Then she made a comeback of sorts, writing two well-received books on pregnancy. And now, post-kids, it’s time to release her inner bimbo again. She’s got her body back to pre-baby shape and is ready to loose her obnoxious self on the world again. Only… it’s now apparent that she’s mostly just shrill and annoying. Her UPN sitcom isn’t worth naming here. And then there’s DIRTY LOVE.

Yes, the title makes you think it’s Jenny’s paean to anal sex, and while that might draw some select few into theaters, they’re in for a big disappointment. Of course, so is anyone who goes and sees this movie. The story is this—Jenny plays a shrill, obnoxious girl named Rebecca, who is devastated when she comes home one night and finds Richard, her supermodel boyfriend, with another woman in their bed. To mend her broken heart, she takes a strange trip of sexual encounters. With the help of a bossy psychic and her off-beat friends, Rebecca finds that the path to true love is right in front of her.*

*The preceding paragraph was straight from the press materials. Because I myself wouldn’t necessarily describe the movie as having “a strange trip of sexual encounters.” I’d say that they’re more “chaste, obnoxious and unfunny moments in an obnoxious, unfunny film.

Carmen Electra plays a gangsta type, wearing bandanas and wife-beaters and trying hard (and in vain) to effect a gangsta attitude and accent. But at least she manages to remain likable. McCarthy… whew. No. The movie opens with her screaming in public, and while it’s interesting for two seconds to see someone totally embarrass themselves, it turns ugly at second number three. McCarthy’s acting range runs from shrill to… shriller. She really comes off as extremely unlikable in the movie, and since she’s the supposed sympathetic lead, that’s a bad move. It’s bad to spend 80 minutes watching a movie and thinking “shut up shut up SHUT UP” in your head the entire time.

With this type of movies, you figure that, since it’s not going to appeal to anyone who likes good movies, maybe it’ll at least appeal to prurient interests. Jenny’s bound to punctuate her return to bimbo-dom with a few showings of her new breast implants, right? Well, yeah… and man, I wish she hadn’t. The scene where she bears them, and kneads them like they’re the bags of sand that Steve Carell’s 40-YEAR-OLD VIRGIN character thinks they are, is just so degrading and sad. As is the overall movie itself. Jenny, there are other ways to make a comeback, y’know. Although the sitcom route didn't really work, and the E! show that's been running is also pretty obnoxious. Maybe writing another book's in order.

NICK FROST’S DANGER! 50,000 VOLTS!

He might be called Nick Frost in real life, but to pretty much everyone, he’ll always be “Ed” from SHAUN OF THE DEAD, or his character from SPACED. As that movie and TV show have demonstrated, Nick’s a funny, and quite likable, guy. So it was a nice surprise when a DVD set of his DANGER! 50,000 VOLTS! Program showed up at the Poop Shoot offices.

DANGER! Is a British comedy series that functions like those HOW TO SURVIVE ANYTHING books that’ve been popular of late. Only DANGER! is funnier. Hosted by Nick, the show looks at all kinds of solutions to dilemmas like Alligator Attack!, Thugs With Baseball Bats!, High Speed Chases!, Minefields!, Fires!, Being Impaled!, Lightning Strikes!, Tidal Waves!, Hostage Situations! and a lot more. The DVD collection contains seven of these episodes, where Nick brings in so-called “experts” in these areas and looks at solutions to high-tension, high-risk situations. And since we saw Nick’s SHAUN character survive a zombie attack (well, kinda), you know he’s the right man to host the show. He’s low-key and funny, not loud and abrasive like that Crocodile Hunter. And best of all, the DVD comes with a nice extra, “Zombies: How to Kill Them and What to Do When You Come Across One.” There, Nick’s joined by his SHAUN flat-mate, Simon Pegg. Nick also provides commentary on all the episodes, too. If you at all liked SPACED and SHAUN OF THE DEAD (and why wouldn’t you?), this is worth a look.

Next Time: The Concert for Katrina Relief at LA's Wiltern Theater, featuring TENACIOUS D and Friends (Dave Grohl, Fiona Apple, Josh Homme, David Cross, Sarah Silverman, and more), and a look at Joss Whedon's SERENITY

/chris

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