She Likes to Watch

Wary as I am of the Hollywood hype machine, I can’t help posting this video clip of comic book hero Hellboy on “Inside the Actor’s Studio.”

Once again, James Lipton gets kudos for being a hilarious television host.

Who says education has to be boring?

The National Geographic Society has long championed the cause of knowledge and understanding. It’s also captured some of the most stunning sights known to man on film.

National Geographic offers a number of amazing videos on its Web site, such as this Czech church decorated with thousands of human bones.

There’s also a National Geographic channel on YouTube. Its slogan? “Inspiring People to Care About the Planet.”

Here’s a video about the annual rattlesnake roundup in Sweetwater, Texas.

Security specialists learn how to “drive like a spy” at a special training school.

And, in one of National Geographic’s more popular videos, a shark tussles with an octopus. (Just ignore the goofy narration.)

Get ready for a truly fabulous time.

“The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert,” a campy classic about drag queens in the Australian outback, plays tonight at The Palm Theatre in San Luis Obispo.

When two drag queens and a transsexual woman accept an offer to perform at a resort in remote Alice Springs, they set off on an epic journey aboard a bus dubbed Priscilla.

Along the way, the trio dish about fashion and sex, all while battling breakdowns, sexual violence and unfriendly natives.

“Priscilla” highlights the beauty of the Australian desert, and explores the nature of sexuality and relationships.

Part of the appeal comes from the fact that these drag queens are played by rather manly men.

British tough guy Terence Stamp has played a string of crooks, thugs and nasty villains, most recently Siegfried in “Get Smart.” Guy Pearce is the star of thrillers “LA Confidential” and “Memento.” And Hugo Weaving will always be known as Agent Smith in “The Matrix.”

Add deliciously catty humor and some truly memorable costumes (including the Oscar-winning “thong dress”), and you’ve got good, flirty fun.

To up the ante, the Palm has invited a real, live drag queen to perform at each of tonight’s screenings of “Priscilla.”

The movie will be shown at 7 and 9:15 p.m. at the Palm, 817 Palm St. in San Luis Obispo. Tickets are $7.50.

***

We go from the Australian desert to American suburbia for “Can’t Buy Me Love,” a 1987 romantic comedy in the John Hughes vein.

Ronald, a nerdy high-school senior, is tired of being ignored and mistreated.

So he makes a deal with a popular, pretty cheerleader: He’ll give her $1,000 to replace a damaged suede outfit. In return, she’ll pretend to be his girlfriend for a month.

Ronald’s plan works at first: He’s finally accepted by the school’s snobby in-crowd. But, as it turns out, being “cool” is not all it’s cracked up to be.

Patrick Dempsey plays Ronnie, complete with ’80s duds and a moptop ‘do. Even at this young age, he’s a little too McDreamy to be convincing as a loveless dork — but hey, he tries.

Seth Green plays Ronnie’s irresponsible brother, Chuckie, and Amanda Peterson is the beautiful Cindy.

A movie that contains lines like “He went from totally geek, to totally chic!” may be suspect as solid entertainment, but it’s an innocent enough look at peer pressure and young love.

“Can’t Buy Me Love” will be screened tonight at 8 p.m. at the Dolphin Bay Resort and Spa, 2727 Shell Beach Road in Shell Beach.

Free lawn seating begins at 7:30 p.m.

Moviegoers also have the option of a three-course dinner served on the patio, starting at 7 p.m. That costs $49 per person, plus tax and gratuity. Reservations are required.

Call 773-8900 for more information.

(No word yet on whether Dolphin Bay will also screen the 2003 remake “Love Don’t Cost a Thing,” starring Nick Cannon and Christina Milian.)

Pixar’s “WALL-E” is downright wonderful

Too bad you can’t give an Oscar to a computer-animated robot.

WALL-E, star of Pixar’s latest success story, would be a shoo-in for the vaunted acting prize.

For starters, he’s adorable — a battered, rusty box of bolts with personality to spare. He can convey more with a well-timed beep or squeal than your average Shakespearean soliloquy. And his binocular-style eyes speak volumes.

Pixar puts the little robot through his paces in “WALL-E,” a CGI marvel that offers laughs, thrills and some of the company’s best animation in years.

Our story opens in the not-to-distant future, on an Earth ravaged by pollution and overpopulation.

WALL-E is the last remaining survivor of a huge robot horde assigned to clean up the planet. While his fellow ‘bots have broken down or run out of juice, WALL-E keeps on truckin’ — scooping up piles of rubbish and squeezing them into neat cubes.

Naturally, there’s a side effect to WALL-E’s longevity.

Over the years, the plucky ‘bot has become sentient. And very lonely.

When a sleek robot named Eve arrives to search for sustainable life, WALL-E does what any sensible, self-respecting machine would never do. He falls in love.

“WALL-E” capably mixes science fiction and screwball comedy.

There are moments of tender romance. Comedic pratfalls. High-tension thrills.

The fact that the action is virtually wordless makes it all the more poignant.

Meanwhile, audiences are treated to some of the best special effects on the market today: swirling nebulae, dust storms and gleaming spaceships.

With great visuals, a winning protagonist and a plot that appeals to both kids and adults, “WALL-E” rivals “Finding Nemo” as one of Pixar’s best.

To borrow a phrase, “S’wonderful.”

***

“WALL-E” is currently playing at Downtown Centre Cinema and Sunset Drive-In in San Luis Obispo, at Park Cinemas in Paso Robles, and at Regal Cinemas in Arroyo Grande.

Photo courtesy of MovieWeb.com.

Did you tune in last week for audio clips about “Get Smart” and “The Love Guru”?

Then you’ll be pleased to hear that there’s a whole new crop this week.

Once again, these streaming audio clips — about 30 seconds apiece — come courtesy of McClatchy Interactive. Keep ‘em comin’, guys!

First up, friends share memories of comedian George Carlin and muse about one of his favorite characters, the Hippy Dippy Weatherman.

Sigourney Weaver and others lend their voices to a scene from “WALL-E.”
And James McAvoy shares how he perfected that flawless American accent (ha!) in “Wanted.”

***

If you’re interested, here’s a 25-minute interview with “Star Trek” star George Takei and his partner, Brad Altman. They talk about how they met, William Shatner and the new “Star Trek” movie.

One of my favorite channels on YouTube is the Onion News Network, a phony font of television news segments from the folks who producethe parody newspaper The Onion.

Most of these segments are far too crude and foul-mouthed to post on a family-friendly blogs. Still, I can’t help sharing my love for The Onion.

Above is one of ONN’s milder news parodies, in which pundits discuss our beloved robot overlords. Destroy all humans!!

***

Some more breaking news, courtesy of ONN:

In a bold new move, Blizzard Entertainment has released a World of Warcraft sequel that lets you play — suprise! — someone playing World of Warcraft.

Here’s a video about kids who don’t support medical coverage for children.

And what scientific breakthrough is this? Why, it’s a sheep with the brain of a goat!

Today, Tribune blogger Pat Pemberton and I pay tribute to a former Central Coast resident.

Born in Stockton, Marcus Fuhrman attended Cuesta College and Cal Poly in the late 1960s and was stationed at Camp San Luis Obispo through the mid-‘70s. He later became a high school English teacher.

Fuhrman died April 29 in a small town outside of Page, Ariz. He was 59.

This afternoon, family and friends are holding a celebration of his life at Shoshone Point, on the south rim of the Grand Canyon.

Tribune staffer Jay Thompson became friends with Fuhrman in 1981 while the two were working as waiters at the Moqui Lodge, a 135-room resort near the southernmost border of Grand Canyon National Park.

Known jokingly as “The Last Resort,” Moqui was established in the late 1920s

Moqui became a landmark in the mid-1960s due to its glass-fronted A-frame. The resort was demolished in November 2005.

As Jay shared, “Serving the public can be tough. Some nights, it’s a job just to survive. Maybe it’s like going to war where your fellow waiters cover your back.”

Here are a few of Marcus Fuhrman’s thoughts on life at Moqui Lodge, told to Jay in 2006:

On living at Moqui:

We moved there from Death Valley in 1981 to ’85. We had an Airstream trailer we later sold to Billy Two-Beers and bought a doublewide in Tusayan. We borrowed Dave Miller’s Dodge and dragged it to the Moqui on a Sunday so the sheriff wouldn’t be around. We were probably the first doublewide. We were the only ones with kids back then.

On the “sweet mix”:

I’ve been in some pretty cool times and places with people, with different activities, situations and different types of social groups … and Moqui … it was just a sweet mix. It was a little bit on the outside of the company’s strong thumb, so we were a little loosey-goosey out there. It might have been the altitude, I don’t know.

On the people:

It was a little bit Looney Tunes. (Moqui) was a little campground for crazy people who didn’t fit traditional careers. There were some odd people who could survive there and have some sense of a normal life even though no one was normal.

On the dining room:

It was so fun, man. It was the craziest dining room. I liked going to work because you didn’t know what the hell was going to happen. One night a big old lady on a German tour fell down and had a heart attack. Somebody else lost their whole tray of food … like six plates. Some doofus who didn’t know how to set his tray. They pulled from the wrong side and it was unbalanced and the whole thing slipped over. It was so funny.

On the challenges of waiting tables:

I liked waiting tables because it demanded so much of me — quickness and memory and anticipation and planning and speed and accuracy. But customers could very easily make me feel subservient. It didn’t take much — a look, a word, an attitude or a kind of brush-off.

Maybe one out of 20 tables I’d get that sense. But the other 19 it was like a challenge: Go get them, bust them, dominate them with dialogue or interest — draw them out and find out who they are.

The coolest part of living at Moqui:

It was when we closed after New Year’s. They had a big New Year’s party. Everybody worked and then we hung out. The next day we would watch whatever game was on New Year’s Day … And then two months of quiet.

On the magic of Moqui:

I don’t know when I learned it, but I learned a long time ago for me my time does not belong to somebody else. And the time I get on this planet I just want it to be full of people and experiences that are memorable and important and intimate.

So Moqui fit that for us. It let you leave cheap. I mean we paid $50 a month rent then. It was cheap and easy and they left you alone. That was it. It was a very simple life.

***

Blog entry composed by Jay Thompson.

To learn more about Moqui Lodge and the 100 resort workers who called it home, click here.

To see a slide show, click here for Mac computers and here for PCs.

Remember when Guy Ritchie was known for something other than being Madonna’s husband?

Back in 1998, he was Hollywood’s hottest new find, the director of the funny, fast-paced crime blitz known as “Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels.”

The movie, about four working-class stiffs who find themselves mixed up in high-stakes poker, pot and the search for two antique guns, made stars out of former Olympic diver Jason Statham and footballer-turned-actor Vinnie Jones.

It also set a new standard for British action flicks — and some unforgettable lines and one of the best movie soundtracks in years.

“Snatch,” released in 2000, ups the ante with more stars, more violence and and an even more confusing plot.

This time, a tangle of boxing promoters, bookmakers, amateur thieves, gangsters and jewelers are all after the same sparkling 84-carat rock.

Ritchie’s music-video-on-acid visual style makes for a wild time.

There are big names, like Benicio Del Toro and Dennis Farina, as well as a few familiar faces from “Trainspotting” and “Lock, Stock.”

But the most unexpected standout is Brad Pitt.

Pitt, playing an Irish-Gypsy prizefighter, is hilarious here — a tough scrapper with a nearly unintelligible accent and a deep love for “dags” (dogs) and “me mam” (his mother).

***

Watch “Snatch” tonight at The Palm Theatre, 817 Palm St. in San Luis Obispo. Showtimes are 7 and 9:15 p.m.

Tickets are $7.50.

Next in the Palm Wednesday movie series is “The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert” on July 2.

***

Photo courtesy of MovieWeb.com.

I love celebrity cameos.

Whenever famous faces pop up in films, I’m always abuzz with anticipation. What will they say? What will they do? Will they tap into a familiar on-screen persona or, even more delightfully, play themselves?

More often than not, they steal the show.

Naturally, whenever I get a great idea, the Onion A.V. Club has done it first. Better. And with video clips.

Click here for 19 stellar “one-scene wonders,” courtesy of the A.V. Club.

(A warning: Not all of these picks come with videos, but those that do feature occasional foul language. Headphones required.)

The short list, for all you lazybones out there, is as follows:

1. Alec Baldwin in “Glengarry Glen Ross”
2. Ray Charles in “The Blues Brothers”
3. Pamela Anderson in “Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan”
4. Dean Stockwell in “Blue Velvet” (David Lynch film No. 1)
5. Janeane Garofalo in “The Cable Guy” (one of my personal favorites)
6. David Letterman in “Cabin Boy”
7. Billy Ray Cyrus in “Mulholland Dr.” (David Lynch film No. 2)
8. Ned Beatty in “Network”
9. Chris Rock in “I’m Gonna Get You Sucka”
10. Topher Grace in “Ocean’s Eleven”
11. David Spade in “Reality Bites” (another gem)
12. Sammy Davis Jr. in “Sweet Charity”
13. Vanessa Redgrave in “Atonement”
14. Charlie Sheen in “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off”
15. David Bowie in “Zoolander”
16. John Carroll Lynch in “Zodiac”
17. Charles Fleisher in “Zodiac” (That’s right, the voice of Roger Rabbit)
18. Samuel L. Jackson in “Kill Bill, Vol. 2″
19. William Hurt in “A History of Violence” (What a ham)

What do you think, readers? What celebrity cameos would make your list?

News of George Carlin’s death spread this week like a slow red tide.

Carlin, the counter-culture comedian known for his smart, sarcastic take on drugs, dirty words and the decline of human civilization, died of heart failure in Santa Monica on Sunday.

Since Carlin had a history of heart attacks and drug addition, his death at age 71 didn’t exactly come as a surprise.

Still, most people — like me — were taken aback by the loss of one of America’s funniest sages.

When I interviewed the bald, bearded comedian in September 2007, Carlin was on a national tour and preparing for his 14th and final comedy special for HBO. (”It’s Bad For Ya” aired this March.)

On stage, Carlin’s natural pessimism came to audiences tempered with gallows’ humor and a sly, sideways grin. The ship might be sinking, he seemed to say, but at least we were in the same doomed boat.

In person, though, there was little to temper the bitterness behind the comedian’s astute observations.

My first thought was, “Man, this guy is depressed.”

“I didn’t really care about my culture or my country. I really don’t have any emotional stake in either of them anymore,” Carlin told me, back in 2007. “I’ve kind of given myself a divorce from the Homo Sapien species … I’ll still live here and I’ll still take advantage to the things that are afforded me, because anything else would be stupid.”

“But, at the same time,” he added, “I don’t really participate emotionally in the American drama. I don’t really care what the outcome is. I have a suspicion, a very strong one, that this country is breathing its last gasps and maybe a hundred years is left.”

Not exactly inspiring words.

“I try to be skeptical,” he explained. “I try not to just believe everything I’m told, and I try to be realistic about what the world is, not what some people wish it would be.”

Carlin, of course, had reason to be realistic.

Raised Irish-Catholic and poor in a New York neighborhood, he grew up with an absent father and a working mother. He witnessed America grow in the prosperous ’50s and ’60s. He watched hope and freedom flourish, while he worked to establish his career.

Then, as Carlin battled relationship problems and drug addiction, he watched as almost every promise from the Summer of Love was betrayed by decades of greed and political maneuvering.

As he told me, “They say if you scratch a cynic, you find a disappointed idealist. I would have to admit to some version of that being true for me, way down deep beneath the surface.”

Added Carlin,”For those who wonder why I’m angry, I’m not angry. … What (people) hear on stage that they think is anger is disappointment and disillusionment with my fellow humans and my fellow Americans because they’re pursued such a silly path.

“They’ve made all the wrong decisions about how to organize themselves, and I just think it’s stupid. And stupidity sometimes will make you a little bit impatient. So that’s what it is.”

There you have it, folks: Brilliant. Edgy. And not afraid to speak his mind.

***

As tributes to Carlin pour in, here are a few that have caught my eye.

Here, you can read two interviews done by The Onion AV Club in 1999 and 2005.

Entertainment Weekly blogger Gary Susman shares his thoughts, along with a few video clips.

Director Kevin Smith, who directed Carlin in “Dogma,” “Jersey Girl” and “Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back,” speaks here.

And here’s a great picture, courtesy of The Associated Press and The Los Angeles Times: Carlin being led away by police during his 1972 arrest on obscenity charges.

But it really doesn’t get much better than this New York Times op-ed by — who else? — Jerry Seinfeld.