Outis

Sony está a punto de poner en venta una camára de alta definición por solamente $2,000 (€1.600).

Mi reacción inmediata: ahora empieza la era de la pornografía en alta definición; y, por lo tanto, ahora HDTV sí que será el nuevo estándar.

Vamos, no es por nada que el nuevo Sony PlayStation Portátil (PSP) permite la reproducción de películas para adultos.

Cuando la industria pornográfica, entonces novata, adoptó el formato de vídeo VHS en lugar de Betamax a los principios de la década de 1980, éste triunfó mientras que aquél desapareció.

Vivimos en un mundo donde casi todo que se piensa se puede ver. Pero, como siempre, lo que más se quiere ver es lo que no se puede solamente pensar: el placer físico.

The Christian Science Monitor connects the dots in today’s “Return of the alien invaders: Tales of a nation under attack, which recur when public anxiety rises, multiply at theaters and on TV.”

While I believe the part about public anxiety, I don’t agree that the inevitable collective response is cowering in fear…of our own shadows.

Frankly, I think the American public is smarter than that.

If “The Swan” and “Survivor” are accurate reflections of the zeitgeist (and Mr. Nielsen certainly confirms this premise), there’s more hunger for dark comedy than black face.

I’m not sure when this era’s equivalent of Friday the 13th, A Nightmare on Elm Street or V will emerge but I’m quite confident that hysterical horror is more American than horrified hysteria.

As to the current fad of alien invasion stories, I think there’s a far more obvious explanation than some deep-seated cultural neurosis: lazy, overpaid, unimaginative writers.

Why should we credit the dream factory with revelatory powers? (Gigli.)

On the contrary, deep psychological insights tend to be surprising, rather than reassuring.

Facing a far more visceral national crisis than today’s, a famous American once said: “We have nothing to fear but fear itself.”

In other words, we are the aliens.

That kind of self-awareness doesn’t often come out of Hollywood, a hermetic world where narcissism is usually confused with introspection.

In yesterday’s El Pais sunday magazine, a cover-story (OK, a blowjob) for War of the Worlds ended with Tom Cruise describing Stephen Spielberg as the greatest storyteller of our time and an unparalleled genius.

Maybe, yes. Maybe that laurel does inded belong to Stephen.

Stephen King, that is.

Update: I had started to feel guilty about this diatribe. Maybe I was being to hard on Stephen Spielberg. I mean, what Oscar winning movies have I directed or produced? Where are my hundreds of millions of dollars of positive, mainstream affirmation? Did I make a the story of the Holocaust accessible to millions of Americans? Did I help E.T. phone home? Um, Poltergeist?

Luckily for my oversized ego, one of my favorite writers, Timothy Noah, has written the following critique of War of the Worlds for Slate.

Because War of the Worlds has nothing to say about 9/11, its appropriation of 9/11 imagery can only be described as pornographic. Tapping the audience’s memories of the 9/11 attacks injects a frisson of real-world suffering that’s completely unearned. The movie lacks any construct elucidating further parallels between 9/11 and the imaginary invasion of Bayonne, N.J., by space aliens. The 9/11 trope has no meaning. It’s merely an elbow in the side, reminding the audience of that day’s awful events.

Cruise vs. Lauer.

That’s the way the latest confrontation between Scientology missionary Tom Cruise and the faction we call reality came to a head.

Anyone who’s been following Tom Cruise lately knows being a star means never having to say you’re sorry.

Scientology, of course, promises all of its subjects their stardom in a space opera.

It also tells them they can get away with destroying people. Sometimes, literally.

Like all cults, Scientology promises to put you in a movie that’s all about you. You can do anything and be anyone you want.

The only problem is the price of admission: indentured servitude.

Even if you’re a wealthy star, perhaps even wealthier than many Catholic Popes have ever been, your higher calling is to use pseudoscience to win converts. Converts to a faith that disputes science.

What’s really amazing here is how bad people can use good arguments for very evil ends. Is there something to be said for avoiding the overuse (the abuse) of prescription drugs? Absolutely.

Is there something to be said for hooking people to an equally expensive trip to outer space, only more advanced because it’s prescribed by quacks?

Yes, there’s something we can say in polite society about such proselytizing: it’s shameful.

But as long as earnest, responsible artists like Stephen Spielberg don’t object to promoting missionaries from a cult, hey, what’s the problem, right?

My question is: will Tom’s phone still be ringing next year?

And if so,wtf?

A lover is someone who loves a partner through thick and thin.

So, what makes a good lover?

Someone who asks “How are we doing?”

A patriot is someone who loves a country through thick and thin.

So what makes a true patriot?

Someone who asks “How are we doing?”

Sometimes the lover asks: “How are we doing?”

and the answer is: “It’s about your mother, we gotta talk.” or “It’s about your father, we gotta talk.”

Sometimes the patriot asks “How are we doing?”

and the answer is: “It’s about your senior leadership. Honey, we gotta talk.”

Sure, sometimes it’s just a misunderstanding. But, sometimes, there really is something wrong with the in-law.

One answer no lover and no patriot should ever accept:

“Sorry, can’t talk now, too busy.”

Uh-uh.

When your lover calls, when your voters are on the phone, and it sounds like they’re really ambivalent about the situation you’re in, you put down your important meetings and you listen.

And I don’t mean listen as in nodding “Yeah, yeah. I see what you mean. OK, great meeting. See you in four years.”

I mean listening like very day was the day before election day.

You hear what I’m saying?

In light of mounting evidence that the U.S. has tortured numerous detainees in Guantanamo (some terrorists, some Taliban, some taxi drivers), Vice President Dick Cheney has joined a chorus of Republican partisan hacks in saying that the conditions at this lawless U.S. facility are, in fact, like paradise:

Meanwhile, US Vice-President Dick Cheney on Thursday defended the treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo.

He said they were well treated, well fed and “living in the tropics”.

You know who else is well treated, well fed and living in a tropical paradise?

The Cuban people.