Robocop: The (trailer) review

A remake of Robocop. Sigh.

You knew this was coming, because the laws of physics practically demand it. Hollywood is rebooting every movie made between 1964 and 2010, and Robocop falls within that minuscule timeframe. And like 99 percent of those, um, creations, they exist due to one overarching factor:

Movie studios are in trouble (or think they are) and need to make money. Robocop is a cultural icon (or simply a badass justice cyborg, depending on whether or not the person has missed the point entirely). Therefore, a Robocop remake will bring hero-obsessed fanboys to the cinema. And much popcorn and SnoCaps will be bought.

I remember the first time I ever saw Robocop. Not the movie itself, but the life-size cutout of Peter Weller that stood proud in the movie-theater lobby as I walked in the other direction to see Roxanne with my mom. (Also a great movie, by the way. Not disparaging it one bit. I consider it a lost opportunity that I spoke with Daryl Hannah last year and didn't say, "Earn more sessions by sleeving!")

I had to wait another year to see Paul Verhoeven's masterpiece. The night it premiered on Showtime, my dad taped it for me, because I have awesome parents. The next morning — my first day of third grade — he let me watch the first two minutes of it before catching the bus. That tease totally overshadowed school, and I couldn't wait to rush home and watch the rest of it.

The movie had a profound effect on me. And by that I mean, I incorporated unimaginable violence and profanity into everything I did that year. My brother and I accentuated our usual horseplay with pretend dismemberment, leg-shooting and curse words we didn't understand. A girl friend and I became a recess cop team like Murphy and Lewis, and I imagined us busting up mountains of cocaine in the schoolyard (there wasn't much). I drew pictures of bad guys getting mutilated by worse guys. I told my mom I wanted to grow up to be a "murderer murderer." That Christmas, I got a Pound Puppy and named him Clarence.

But there were positives as well. Combined with my newfound love for the Hardy Boys, Robocop inspired me to write (or at least draft) a series of police stories. I know who Lee Iacocca is because my brother laughed at "Lee Iacocca Elementary School" and I wanted in on the joke. I came to appreciate my family more because I realized they could get shot in the head at any moment by Kurtwood Smith.

Most importantly, I learned to avoid vats of toxic waste. That has served me well in life.

My point is, Robocop (and its sequels, which I also like) has a deep-rooted canon to me and fellow fans. The remake has a lot to live up to. Even if its story is entirely different, it should offer at least some glimpse of the brilliant satire that, as much as the cyborg itself, made the original such an enduring classic. 

Somehow, I doubt that will happen. Slam-bang is the rule these days, because robot explosions are the world's universal language.

Still, after watching the trailer, I'm actually excited about one aspect: this Robocop is not back from the dead and doesn't appear to have an erased memory. This offers a great chance to explore the dynamics of such an enduring familial relationship, as well as the politics of a megacorporation turning a human being into a drone.

But ultimately, this exchange from Robocop 3 will most likely sum it up:

Bertha: "Where the hell is Robocop?"

Moreno: "Well, we could drive around and listen for explosions."

Either way, and I almost hate to say it, I'll be there.

The peril of poor-people habits

Slate: Bad decisions don't make you poor. Being poor makes for bad decisions.

I know all about poor-people habits. When I was less-than-scraping by as a movie extra, my refrigerator was often completely empty. I'd walk to the grocery store next door at meal time and buy enough food to eat then, sometimes spending no more than $2.16.

You learn to make it stretch. With $2.16, I could buy a single-serving frozen pizza and a bag of 99-cent chips. That bag could last through the next meal, so maybe next time I'd only buy the pizza (hoping the sale price didn't surge to $1.29), and maybe a fruit pie with the extra change. Buying a drink was too much of an indulgence.

Because I am educated and had past professional success, I fully understood how far I fell and how it affected me physically and morally. But a lot of people live their whole lives this way and thus can't see any bigger picture.

Now, I have a full-time job again. It pays the most money I've ever made and offers full benefits. I have my own apartment again. I don't have any kids or pets to feed. My bills are manageable and my debt is only to my mom. And yet, I'm still getting used to the idea that I can undertake a massive shopping trip anytime I want. It seems overly indulgent. Time was, I'd buy mostly healthy (expensive) food, but it's been two years since I had that standard of living. When I go shopping now, the guilt of recent setbacks is still there. I'm used to austerity and all the self-defeating trappings that go with it. I'm not sure the feeling will ever entirely go away. People I know who have made lots of money for years after decades of struggle still exhibit extreme thriftiness.

On one hand, it's absolutely vital to have a healthy sense of thrift and perspective, regardless of income level. You need to know where you come from and all the good and bad that goes along with it. On the other hand, you have to figure out how to jettison the worst, self-defeating habits.

Chris Rock said (I'm paraphrasing for my purposes) that when poor people get a lot of money, "it's just the countdown to them being broke." This is because people who never have money are wired to scrimp, and overcompensate when falling into more money than they can comprehend. 

In my experience interviewing successful business owners, most had any combination of capital, education and grounding. All of these external factors require, to some degree, not being hungry. Poor people are so often in survival mode that they can't even begin to ascend to that level of ingenuity without a lot of help. To quote Rock again, "Chris isn't dumb. Chris is tired."

I don't know if wealthy conservatives really believe that poor people are too lazy to be innovative, or if that's a self-aware excuse to gut the safety net. Either way, the playing field is not level as long as access to basic necessities is imbalanced. And it never will be if continue to abandon our worst-off. 

It's not about dependence. It's about making sure people are in the right shape to begin improving their lives — preferably in childhood, when the brain's wiring is still fresh. The poor aren't the enemy, but poor-people habits are everybody's worst enemy.

The most important tip for hosting a dinner party

J. Bryan Lowder's article at Slate is a pretty good primer on how to accommodate different kinds of picky eaters at a dinner party. It's mostly irrelevant to my life, given how little I'm invited to (or would likely go to) the kind of Upper East Side-type functions where cuisine is the primary focus. But the overarching point here is relevant to any party involving food — hosts and picky eaters must meet in the middle.

I do this everywhere I go. I'm a famously picky eater, though not of a traditional, quantifiable stripe. My biggest bugaboo is creamy, white food. Also, seafood. And trans fats. And many other random things that aren't your fault (for example, I love potato wedges but hate mashed potatoes). It's enough to where I sometimes eat nothing at a fancy function; at my brother's first wedding, I ate only grapes. When that happens, I know it isn't my fault, and never make any kind of deal about it. If someone asks, I'll say I'm not hungry, which will be true, because I'm good at deferring my appetite until I can get food I want. Anyway, most of the people with whom I mingle already know my proclivities and usually indulge them by leaving mayo off at least one finger sandwich.

Side bonus: they've (mostly) quit making fun of my plate, which tends to have much less glop on it than everyone else's. I'm not so into glop.

That brings me to an important tip, perhaps the most important tip, left out of Lowder's article:

Don't be pushy.

If I refuse something, leave it at that. Take no for an answer. Don't make me explain why I don't want it. And definitely don't insist I'll like yours because you made it. Oh please sweet Food Channel Jesus, don't do that! It only makes it far more awkward for both of us. I realize many foodies invest their self-esteem into their creations, but there are better taste buds to validate such items. Everything I tend to like gets discontinued anyway. So you should actually try to make me not like your food.

The flip side is that if something does satisfy all my quirks, I will probably love it and eat a lot of it. But again, that's up to me. I won't make a fuss if I don't like something. But meet me (and anyone like me) in the middle. Don't put me on the spot about it, and we'll all have a bon temps.

Belated Labor Day wisdom

I spent my Labor Day at King's Beach along North Lake Tahoe in California. I swam in the icy waters, ate a delicious pineapple chicken sandwich at a shoreside diner and realized how much wet sand looks exactly like a case of the runs.

Later in the afternoon, I strolled up to a corner of the pier and stood there for at least half an hour, totally zoning out to these waves. It might have been the highlight of my day.

I'm lucky to be so close to Lake Tahoe (this was my fourth trip there — and my third beach — since moving here a month ago). But everyone has a place where they can zone out. For me before this, it was an ant pile. I love watching ants live and work when I want to relax and clear my mind. The beach isn't bad for that either. 

No matter where that place is, though, everyone needs to recharge once in a while by doing absolutely nothing apart from just being. If you haven't already, do yourself a favor and find that place. There's always time for it, and it might make your time last longer.

Whoosh.

The silver lining of Syria

I've been asked a couple of times what I think about the Syria situation. 

Well, when George W. Bush gleefully skipped into war in Iraq, I deplored everything about it. I thought he was basing his venture on flawed evidence and seemed too eager to get it going. Also, I worried that there was real connection to 9/11 and that it would strain our resources in Afghanistan. History, unfortunately, bore out those suspicions. 

I worry about the same effects of the Iraq disaster in Syria, just as I did in the Bush era when it seemed we might attack Syria then. Questionable objectives and alliances. Destruction. Death. Politics. I don't like the idea of America mounting offensives against other nations, and I believe war in general represents a failure of diplomacy. It should be the last, desperate resort rather than commonplace.

The one silver lining is that we have a president now who is measured and reasonable. Even if the decisions don't turn out the way I hoped, they'll at least be the result of contemplation rather than reckless cowboy tactics. And President Obama's decision to defer to Congress ensures that it isn't unilateral. Many have scoffed at that move, but I think it's what checks and balances is all about. The decision to strike in Syria is one requiring deliberation and consensus, and it won't happen without it. That's a sliver of progress from the past regime.

If nothing else, that's a plus.

A request to Comedy Central

I am a huge fan of your annual roasts. Comedy, by its definition, is hit-and-miss, but every roast has had more salvageable material than not. And even the disasters typically are entertaining in their own way.

But the roast of James Franco (which I watched part of for the first time last night) was by far the worst one yet. I wanted to give it a chance, even though I shuddered at the announced lineup. Sadly, the show exceeded (if that's the word) my lowest expectations.

The biggest problem with the show was one that sinks a lot of entertainment these days — self-indulgence. Unlike with most roasts, virtually everyone at this one was a close clique of best friends. And those friends were the Seth Rogen/Jonah Hill/Andy Samberg crew, the most self-indulgent of the self-indulgent working today. 

And yes, they're all working today to great success. That's another problem. These guys are young (many younger than me) and still climbing. Most of them are scandal-free, and Franco in particular is largely infamous for his inability to helm a major telecast. That's great, but it makes Franco an odd choice as a roast target. That, combined with their collective tendency toward lowest-common-denominator jokes, made the event an exercise in endurance.

They're all talented, and I have laughed at every one of them at one time or another. I admit I passed on an opportunity to appear in This Is The End and regret it now. I'll bet they're a blast to hang out with.

The problem is, these guys mostly hang out. That works in their movies, but not so much in the roast. Much of it felt like hearing inside jokes between hipster friends, where you don't get the references and they don't want you to get it, but they do want you to know you won't understand.

Samberg was always the hit-and-miss hipster of SNL, either killing it or copying a past success with diminishing returns. His routine was probably the single worst I've ever seen on a roast. It probably would have come off better as anti-humor if Norm Macdonald hadn't done it so much better on Bob Saget's roast. (I cried laughing then, and still do every time I rewatch it.) In Norm's shadow, Andy seemed like he was trying way too hard, and didn't help matters by making dick jokes instead of the overly inoffensive jokes that work better in anti-humor. Also, anti-humor needs a lot of funny around it, and a lot less self-indulgence, instead of vice versa.

I write a lot of jokes myself (not that most people ever see them). I'll often revisit past gags and realize that, while they were perfect for the time and place, they'd land with a thud if aimed at a national audience. My funniest conversations with friends would probably suffer the same fate. And they're hilarious.

It's probably no accident that my favorite performer of the night was Natasha Leggero, an outsider looking in. Jeff Ross' cornrows also deserved more airtime.

This group would be better off in a different comedy format, or apart. But the roast of James Franco didn't look or feel like a true Comedy Central roast. It was the Superman III of the franchise. My request is that you pick a better target next year and bring back more of the rotating crew of past roasters.

But that's just my self-indulgent opinion. See you next year!

A blog about Miley Cyrus ... sorry

When I hear "Miley Cyrus" and/or "twerking," my mind filters them out in the same way it does terms like "e-commerce," "reality TV" and other words I can't list because my mind won't even tell me what they are for fear of death by boredom.

The MTV Movie Awards "scandal" wasn't even click bait for me. I have yet to watch Miley's supposedly provocative performance, and the pictures I've seen of it suggest I'm not missing anything.

My take on the performance, though, is that it did exactly what it needed to. In this day and age, no performance of that scale and caliber goes wrong by accident. Real celebrity spontaneity is found on Twitter and forums like it (and sometimes even that is highly calculated). The whole world has been abuzz about Miley ever since. That's ultimately good for her career.

Everything else about it is lame. Miley Cyrus is 20 years old, attractive and was born into the entertainment industry. Did anyone really doubt that when she hit a certain age, she wouldn't want to be a squeaky-clean tween idol? When has that ever happened before, except every time?

But I admit I'm biased. I think twerking is more desperate than sexy. It's also become trendy lately (meaning, ironic white people found out what it is), so it's possible Miley did it as much to jump on the real-life hashtag wagon as to lamely assert the fresh commodity that is her sexuality. 

I guess what I'm trying to figure out is, who likes this sort of thing? Or, more specifically, who isn't bored by it? To each their own, I guess. 

Now I'm bored. I should probably write about Syria or Andy Samberg or something.