This theory, which belongs to me, is as follows:

The first time I saw Men in Black (1997), I enjoyed it, especially the performances by Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones. True confessions: I found Vincent D’Onofrio’s Insect-in-Edgar-clothing more repulsive than amusing.

In the intervening years, a funny thing has happened: Whenever I catch the movie on television, some aspects of the film (e.g., Smith’s and Jones’s performances) hold up better than others (e.g., many of the sight gags)… but D’Onofrio’s performance just gets more and more side-splitting (if you’ll pardon the expression).

[ahem] The next thing that I am about to say is my theory. [ahem] Ready?

My theory is along the following lines:

The comic payoff of D’Onofrio’s bug-filled corpse increases exponentially with each additional episode of Law & Order: Criminal Intent that the subject has seen in the interim. That is, Edgar’s post-mortem contortions are most entertaining when viewed as a gleefully savage parody of Detective Robert Goren’s erratic, expansive physical mannerisms.

That is the theory that I have and which is mine, and what it is too.

And what’s the Swahili word meaning “ridiculous”?

The envelope, please: And the Academy Award for Most Self-Destructively Idiotic Script in an Attempted Inspirational Drama of 1999 goes to… Instinct.

I haven’t read Daniel Quinn’s novel (Ishmael), but Gerald Di Pego’s witless adaptation doesn’t tempt me. Watching this movie was like driving by a horrible accident: I couldn’t bear to watch, and yet it’s so unreal that I couldn’t look away.

And mind you, the deck was stacked in favor of my enjoying the show: I like Cuba Gooding, I like Anthony Hopkins, I adore Maura Tierney (News Radio sparked a crush that even ER couldn’t diminish), and I’m inordinately partial to gorillas. (And let’s not even start with the primatological/sociological contradictions… the more you think about the story, the less there there is there.)

Our society, in a nutshell

Subway poster:

“Sperm donors needed… Help prospective parents realize the dream of starting a family.”

The sign’s most prominent aspect is a depiction of dozens and dozens of spermatozoa, thickly surrounding an “egg”… except it’s not an egg, but a dollar sign.

Don’t blink

The envelope, please: And the Academy Award for Best Momentary Sight Gag of 2002 goes to … that gloriously athletic sea creature near the end of Undercover Brother.

Goldberg on Limbaugh

Medical fact: I have congenitally low blood pressure. So, every now and then, I’ll turn to the Fox News Channel for a compensatory spike.

This week, I chanced upon Bill O’Reilly’s circus, where I was privileged to hear this week’s Stupidity/Duplicity Hat Trick, courtesy of Bernard Goldberg. The topic was Rush Limbaugh’s mockery of Michael J. Fox in the latter’s ads for U.S. Senate candidate Claire McCaskill of Missouri. (Limbaugh claimed that Fox went off his medication and/or exaggerated his Parkinson’s symptoms for the camera, when in fact the uncontrolled spasms seen in the ad are solely a side effect of the medication. Limbaugh had pledged to apologize if proven wrong; he’s been proven wrong, and—surprise!—refuses to apologize.)

Goldberg tried to “prove” liberal bias in media coverage, by citing the following thought experiment: What if a) Rush Limbaugh were deaf, and b) Limbaugh were to make a political advertisement, supporting a candidate for his/her position funding deafness research? Well, according to Goldberg, Limbaugh would receive a far colder reception in the media than Fox has, because Limbaugh is conservative and the media maintain a liberal bias.

1) Why did Goldberg feel the need to invent the deafness scenario? Why not simply imagine the scenario in which Limbaugh supports funding for drug addiction research? (Answer: Deafness doesn’t carry a moral stigma; drug addiction does; so, better not to remind audiences of Limbaugh’s chemical-dependency issues.)

2) Okay, I’ll bite. What if Limbaugh were deaf, etc., etc.? Limbaugh would still receive a cold shoulder, not because he holds right-wing views, but because for a decade or so he’s been a vicious, unprincipled hatchet man for the right. Al Franken’s title “Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot” is certainly accurate, but doesn’t get to the more fundamental problem: Limbaugh has made a career as a right-wing shock jock, someone whose main talent is talking without thinking, someone who can fill air time with extemporaneous character assassination, unfettered by inconvenient facts.

3) If the mainstream media maintain a liberal bias, why have airhead infotainment figures such as Katie Couric and Matt Lauer treated the attacks on Michael J. Fox as legitimate political discourse, rather than ignorant foolishness or scurrilous lies? And why didn’t the so-called liberal media attack Fox when he made ads supporting Arlen Specter in 2004?

As always with this crowd, the questions linger: To what extent do Limbaugh and Goldberg speak out of honest ignorance, and to what extent are they shamelessly lying? To what extent can they think rationally, and to what extent do they believe their carefully constructed fantasy world?

Lufthansa ads in subway cars

Posters for Lufthansa: The copy touts the benefits of flying Lufthansa (luxurious comfort in-flight, reliably on-time arrivals, hundreds of destinations worldwide), and the imagery emphasizes scenes of blissful contentment (relaxing to inflight music, mother-and-child reunion [non-culinary], a boy staring in wonder out an airport window).

But the tag line, “All For This One Moment,” works only if you don’t think about it for more than half a second. Doesn’t it implicitly acknowledge that most of the time you spend traveling by air is a drag? Schlepping around noisy airports, waiting in crowded gate areas, packed like sardines into cabin seats, then waiting again for your baggage to rejoin you… 99-and-44/100ths percent boring and/or exhausting, BUT nonetheless, all that ennui and fatigue is worth it for this one moment.

NB I’m not singling out Lufthansa as somehow representing a flight experience any worse than what other airlines offer. In particular, I’ll always be grateful to Lufthansa for expertly shipping a notoriously vulnerable musical instrument across the Atlantic, twice, protected only by a padded gig bag (I had planned to stow it in the cabin wardrobe), with no damage whatsoever.

How not to steal an idea

The Dish satellite network is running a TV spot that features various oversized props, to the soundtrack of a chorus singing “Big, big, big.” The ad blatantly rips off the brilliant Carlton Draught “Big Ad”, but with lower production values, and fewer ideas (which is paradoxical, given its ostensibly greater variety of images and situations). The resulting low-budget, dumbed-down mishmash isn’t even remotely as entertaining as the visually rich and inspired original.

How far the mighty have fallen

Don’t get me wrong; I’d love to hear Benjamin Franklin affirm my inner greatness. But what secret society worth its salt advertises its existence on television and the World Wide Web?!?

It’s a far cry from the clandestine power and influence described only a decade ago in the Simpsons episode “Homer the Great”:

Who controls the British crown?
Who keeps the metric system down?
We do, We do.

Who keeps Atlantis off the maps?
Who keeps the Martians under wraps?
We do, we do.

Who keeps back the electric car?
Who makes Steve Guttenberg a star?
We do, we do.

Who robs cavefish of their sight?
Who rigs every Oscar night?
We do, we do.

Just the stuff of silly parody? One might think so, if it weren’t for the striking fact that the Freemasonry website makes no mention whatsoever of the Stonecutters’ song: not to affirm its claims, nor to refute them, and not even to deny the group’s existence!

Now that you mention it… what better way to conceal a secret society? “Don’t be ridiculous; that’s just a fictional club in a single episode of an animated series.” So perhaps their storied global reach lives on, under another name…

Bud Light ads in subway cars

The images are standard issue: Sexy young bar patrons, with frosty bottles of Bud Light in hand, cavort amid cooling splashes of water.

The ad copy, though, executes a hat trick in stupidity: It proclaims in large print, “Bud Light: Always Worth It,” and then adds in smaller print, “In Boston.”

1. Hmmm, I dunno… do I really want to shell out my hard-earned dollars for something so pricey as Bud Light?!? Oh, wait… it’s “Always Worth It”! Yes, sometimes you really get a better value by choosing a premium product like… Bud Light?!?

2. Why are the words “In Boston” in smaller print? The typography screams, “Afterthought!” …and then sheepishly mumbles something about not having the time and energy to create a genuinely local campaign. At least throw a Sox cap on one of the models, fer cryin’ out loud… or better yet, just say, “Bud Light: Wicked Worth It.”

3. Why are the words “In Boston” there at all? They imply that Bud Light is outrageously overpriced in other markets… but IS always worth it, in Boston. Fortunately for Anheuser-Busch, our visitors from out-of-town never ride the T, or they’d learn what suckers they’ve been!