Opera song from The Fifth Element, just because: Awesome Pass

This requires no explanation. The Fifth Element is one of the best cult movies ever made. If you haven't seen it and like Bruce Willis, rent it immediately.

Also, this clip implies that our future musical arts will mesh genres even more than they do now. Kenny Rogers and Eminem anyone?

And yes, Milla Jovavich is wearing orange rubber... and kicking ass. Ultraviolet was clearly a step down from The Fifth Element.

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Smoking ban in Michigan: Fail

For those who might not know, the state of Michigan recently passed a ban on smoking in all restaurants AND bars. Casinos were excluded from the list after a revise was made, and beginning this week all places in my hometown will require that smokers go outside for their fix. Our papers have done a lot of coverage on the ban from its beginnings to its passage. I'm not pleased. I'm not a smoker, but I feel this is a complete abuse of public policy and the law. Below is a letter to the editor written by a man in Chelsea that explains my feelings perfectly...

Most people on both sides of the smoking ban issue miss the underlying and truly troublesome aspect of the recently enacted smoking ban legislation in Michigan. If you are making your arguments for or against it because you like smoking, don't like it, or even know someone who died because of smoking, then you are throwing a dangerous and blinding emotional plea into a serious public policy debate.

This will lead you to say things like "I'm glad they banned it. I don't want to be around smoke." In that world of public policy discussions, one could also make statements such as, "I like vodka. I think they should outlaw schnapps." Or my favorite futuristic statement, "I don't like french fries. I am glad the health care reform of 2013 bans them."

Most importantly, let's simply look at the new law's treatment of bars and restaurants, even though more is included in the final law. Essentially, the recent public act lumps private businesses in as public places. The common argument for those in favor of these bans is that second-hand smoke is harmful (we will take that aspect as true). However, they leave out the crucial component that this argument for a state law is based on the premise that you are being exposed to this harm against your will and thus the public needs a law to protect individuals.

Despite the opinion of many singles "in heat," in a true legal sense, bars and restaurants are not places that you have to enter ever. No one is forced to go to a bar. Even if that were true, one would then have to convince me that you have to go to a bar that allows smoking. Remember, before this law, any business in Michigan could ban smoking at any time. Many, in fact, had done so.

If you are not forced to go to these places (i.e. they are not a government building or hospital or even -- and I'll stretch it here -- an airplane), then the argument for the policy falls apart. These are places you choose to patronage and drown your liver. Why do you get to drown your liver, but someone else doesn't get to dirty their lungs and drown their liver?

A more disturbing aspect is once you deem a private business that chooses what to serve a "public" space, you open a dangerous door and break down the free market determining business outcomes (preference theory). If the activity is a legal activity in all other places, then it is irrational to determine consumer choice on a premise of public health at a place where all choices one makes directly affect health (i.e. the food you eat and the amount of liquor you drink).

Under the new law, for these rational choice theories to exist, the government will need to take continuous polls of customers and health experts to determine what that business should do for all health related choices. You have taken the free market out of the free market.

Why not have bars that are for smokers and bars that are not. Oh wait, that's the way it was before the ban. If your argument is that you can't find a bar near you without smoking --and you just "have to go to a bar" -- then you are saying again that your convenience overrules another person's preference and the result should be state law.

If you are arguing that employees deserve a smoke-free environment when working in a bar, then again, you have to convince me that employees have no choice but to work as a bartender or waiter in a bar that allows smoking. Even if you could do this task, wouldn't a more sensible approach be to just ensure there are equal numbers of bars that are "smoking" and "nonsmoking" per capita in a particular area?

This could be done through liquor licensing which, under current law, determines how many places can serve alcohol in a local area per capita. It's clear the sponsors of this legislation were not thinking of logical solutions, especially given the fact the law actually stops any new cigar bars from opening in the state. I mean who expects to be around smoke when going to a cigar bar?

I know in an era of term limits and emotion-based democracy, this might be overly rationale or too much to think about. However, I would like to think the founders were right in originally making one body of the legislature known as the Senate as the body to stop mass emotional lawmaking. Perhaps the progressives of the early 20th century made that impossible when they made the Senate popularly elected?

Of course, rational debate is the core of my argument, so I encourage disagreement. However, if you are going write a response to tell me that smokers stink or smoking is bad for your health, etc., then don't respond because you need to re-read my statements.

In addition, if you truly want to ban all smoking, then promote a law that makes cigarettes illegal. Although extreme, it would actually make more sense as a public policy debate. I suspect that is what the backers (i.e. American Cancer Society) really want, but they were afraid to say it because it suddenly begs the question: Why focus on smoking when the No. 1 killer in the United States is heart disease and obesity? Perhaps these same people would be willing to ban people over a certain weight from going to McDonald's?

In addition to the complete lack of logic in the law's formulation, we can all look forward to its wonderful reliance on "self-righteous" enforcement. Due to a lack of funding for direct enforcement from health departments, you will be able to watch those lovely people approaching smokers to say, "I really want to drink more beer and eat more salty pork rhines, so go smoke outside!"

Know your rights, or you'll lose them.

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President Obama gives UM commencement address: Pass

I got to cover the University of Michigan commencement ceremony this morning/afternoon. President Barack Obama was the keynote speaker.

Now, let's be honest... whether you like him or not, that is a pretty sick person to be delivering your graduation speech. Amirite? I went to UofM too, and graduated two years ago. We had Bob Woodruff, a journalist... so for me that was pretty exciting. Plus our class was the only one to graduate on the Diag instead of in the Big House. Still, Obama trumps Woodruff.

It was a pretty solid speech. There were some tinkerings that I didn't like here and there, but on the whole it had the appropriate level of inspiration, motivation and story telling to make it worthwhile. He kept the audience laughing, sometimes at his own expense, for the duration.

I covered it as a photographer and basically did everything in my power to keep up with the photographers standing next to me. I know I didn't because their cameras cost well over $3,000 and mine was only $800. Mere peanuts in comparison.... which means of course that my close-ups weren't really close-ups and so on and so forth.

But it was still an incredibly experience and definitely a highlight of my career as a journalist. Getting to listen to the sitting president speak is an incredibly thing. In fact, this speech was to the largest audience he's had since the speech he gave at his inauguration. About 90,000 people were there.

... and I was one of them. =)

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Anchorman 2 plans pulled: Fail

NOOOOOOOOOO!

Anchorman was the best lovechild to ever come out of the Will Ferrell/Adam McKay partnership IMO. You might not have known that studios were even considering making an Anchorman 2, and that's part of the reason why Paramount pulled out of the project. McKay is spouting off on Twitter about it, clearly bereaved.

Here's the thing, as a cult follower and admirer of everything that is Ron Burgundy, I would no doubt see this in theaters. The first film made just under $90 million, so if they can make the sequel cheap enough it could be worth it. I have a feeling, however, that Anchorman was just another funny comedy and that they aren't as hyped about the characters as I am. Maybe someone else will pick it up, who knows.

Until then, I'll continue to live my life while reusing phrases such as "you're a dirty pirate hooker," "arggghhh, they killed baxter" and "it's so hot! milk was a bad choice!"

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Saving Stephen Baldwin from himself: Fail

Oh man. I love celebrities sometimes. I really do. It's like... I try really hard to WRITE stuff that's as funny as this. But they do it for REALZ.

So... remember Stephen Baldwin? He's one of the Baldwin brothers whose name is NOT Alex. Yeah, the one on the right. He's the one from that show, The Mole, that was briefly cool in the first decade of the 2000's.

Well anyway, he did a stint in celebrity rehab and then became a Born Again Christian. I'm not sure which came first in this instance... the chicken or the egg.

But basically he is bankrupt and some people have creating a website that is COLLECTING DONATIONS TO SAVE HIM. I'm not making this up. Check it out on www.restorestephenbaldwin.org. I know, creative website url, right?

I guess the idea they're pitching is that, since he is a religious man now, we should all pitch in to keep him cool in Hollywood... then he can influence the Perez Hiltons of the world to be, I dunno, religious too and stuff. Maybe then they'll stop wading through their LA purgatories. They assure me that there is no other way to restore him, because money is all that matters in Hollywood, and he'll only be cool if we all pitch in to make him rich.

I dunno, I think it might be a tad more than that. Sort of like old money versus new money. I'm pretty sure agents are going to know he didn't earn that money by being a box office leading man. But on the other hand, if he succeeds it does breed a new realm of blogging platform power. I mean we're talking Obama campaign stuff here, if he can actually pull it off.

Oh Stephen. If only you could have the same comeback your brother is having...

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Breaking Dawn officially gets its director: Pass

IT'S HAPPENING OMG EVERYBODY SCREAM HOLY CRAP!

.....

Bill Condon. That's the name that will helm the next-big-thing-aka-the-next-big-twilight-porn.

He's actually sort of a big deal, everyone. He directed Dreamgirls, Kinsey, and Gods of Monsters. He also produced the Oscars when Hugh Jackman was the host, aka the time recently when the Oscars wasn't boring/annoying. He won Oscars for adapted screenplays, coached actors/actresses into Oscar noms, and snabbed a bunch of Oscar noms for various directing and writing reasons. He's, like, cool n stuff.

.... um... and Breaking Dawn author Stephanie Meyer is said to be a producer this time around. All the horny teens are probably screaming their heads off right now because it's pretty obvious why that is going down. She wants control over how much sex n violence finds its way onto the movie screen. She's a Morman, guys, ok? We do fade-outs ONLY.

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Help! Help!

Ok kids...

remember back a few weeks when I gasped about how overworked I was when it came to blogging and that I was about to add another to my plate? Well that time has come.

Since I felt like everyone else was crap at it, I volunteered to write an entertainment blog for the SE Michigan News Herald website, www.thenewsherald.com, and Heritage Newspapers website, www.heritage.com. I'm about to get that set up.

Now the most troubling dilemma of all time. What should I name it??

I asked one of my witty and amusing friends, Mr. Alex Ball, to help me come up with some ideas. Here's the list we assembled. Some of them are good. Some of them are terrible. All of them are possibilities.

Before you pick a favorite, the blog is basically a forum for me to add funny, serious or blah things about movies, books and music. Basically, it's a place for me to get snarky about entertainment. Which is basically what I do already in most cases.

Let me know what you think is best....

THE LIST!
Bibliodiscography
T-u-r-t-l-e POWER
Real Horrorshow
Vulture Pickings (not actually an option)
Playing in the kiddie pool
A dime's 2 cents (in the running for the top spot)
Elven pen of reviewery +3 (absolutely going to be at least integrated into the blog as a once-a-week gimmick)
The Mill
Peerless Reviews
Filmographic Racket for Saline's high income tax bracket
Heil Entertainment: Nazis suck. Movies sometimes don't. (in the running for top spot)
More like Gay York Times Entertainment section
Papyrus to open your eyelids
Roll credits

I think I like "dime's 2 cents" the most for its cleverness, but it isn't immediately obvious what the blog is about from that title, so maybe that's better as a once-a-week gimmick as well... like a review every week that I call "A Dime's 2 cents." Whereas with Heil Entertainment, people know it's entertainment but it still has a phrase to set the tone. I'm leaning towards this one.

P.S.
It was very sweet of Alex to call me a dime... aka (for the slow learners) you know how you rate a girl from 1-10? A 10 = a dime? Yeah, awww. There we go.