MagicThought

Just when you thought it was safe to watch the superbowl becuase they’ve made sure there will never be another wardrobe malfunction by hiring only people over 50 to perform at the half-time show (God help us if Tom Petty’s wardrobe malfunctioned; if Prince’s wardrobe had malfunctioned last year you would have needed to hold up a magnifyng glass to your tv screen to see anything)….enter GoDaddy.com, whose superbowl ad this year flirts with a wardrobe malfunction, this one purposefully undertaken by Indy500 race car driver, Danica Patrick.

Here’s the ad you saw if you watched the superbowl:
http://www.godaddy.com/gdshop/media/play.asp?isc=superbowl&mediaID=spoton&ci=11467&tab=sb

And here’s the one GoDaddy wanted you to see, but were prevented from doing so by that grand arbiter of good taste otherwise known as Fox:

http://www.godaddy.com/gdshop/media/play.asp?isc=superbowl&mediaID=exposure&ci=11526&tab=sb

For those of you who aren’t familiar with the company, i.e., don’t spend a lot of time oggling Candice Michelle’s (aka Nikki Capelli) Silicone Valley, GoDaddy.com is a company that sells web domains. Yes the Symbolic/Digital revolution is being sold piece-by-piece by a company named GoDaddy.com. Makes perfect sense to me. But what makes even more sense, in the most intellectually perverse of ways, is the singular obsession with Michelle’s/Capelli’s obviously silicone-stuffed breasts that has dominated their superbowl ads in previous years.

Here are GoDaddy’s ads for the previous three superbowls:

2007: http://www.godaddy.com/gdshop/media/play.asp?isc=superbowl&mediaID=sb07ext&ci=11199&tab=sb

2006: http://www.godaddy.com/gdshop/media/play.asp?isc=superbowl&mediaID=sb06ext&ci=11200&tab=sb

2005: http://www.godaddy.com/gdshop/media/play.asp?isc=superbowl&mediaID=sb05ext&ci=11201&tab=sb

You’ll note the rather conspicuous product placement of the company’s name and logo on the site of the Imaginary image par excellence in all of the ads, and in those aired during the 2005 and 2006 superbowls, there are rather overt representations of the Law of the Father: a committe hearing and an elderly patriarchal judge-like figure in a study crammed with books, respectively.

This year’s ad, however, replaced Michelle with Patrick, and displaced the anatomical locus of the commercial from a threatened-but-unrealized “exposure” of the Maternal/Imaginary to an implied focus on what Freud, wistfully referring (in Civilization and its Discontents) to from whence we all come, characterized as “between urine and feces”, in the ad represented by animatronic Beavers. The underlying joke, of course, builds on recent well-publicized panty-malfunctions “suffered” by the likes of Britney Spears, Lindsay Lohan, and Paris Hilton. Presumably, the ad’s central joke contends, Danica Patrick doesn’t need to expose her beaver in public because unlike Mademoiselles Britney, Lindsay, and Parisy, Patrick gets all the exposure she needs thanks to the domains and websites she’s bought from GoDaddy.com. Asked by camera-wielding paparazzi as to the whereabouts of her beaver, Patrick suggestively begins to unzip her leather jacket, then immediately zips it back up, assuring us that GoDaddy.com enables her to keep her beaver “safe and out of sight.” Not for Patrick the cunning stunts of the aforementioned publicity whores she seeks to differentiate herself from. Accustomed, perhaps, to the “genteel company” of the NASCAR crowd, she momentarily flirts with the self-promotional antics of her charming contemporaries, then opts out. But in that brief, unzipped moment, the name of the company emblazoned across her chest is bifurcated as follows: God — bare flesh — addy.com. Thus, our Father who art in heaven, the Symbolic realm (represented here by “.com”), and the Law of the Father (the censorship laws that compel her keep her clothes on for the 97 million people watching the game) are thrust together, remarkably enough, on the site of the Maternal/Imaginary courtesy of a company that traffics in web space.

As for the game itself — wherein the Giants vanquished the Patriots (a victory the NYT called “stunning and historical) — remarkably enough it replicated in reverse the movement that gets elaborated in Hesiod’s Theogyny, precisely two days before the first serious female contender for the presidency in the history of this country tries to seal the deal in twenty-two states. (Has anyone noticed that the contenders for the Democratic nomination embody the printed page, as in the old joke: What’s black and white and read all over? Indeed, the nomination presently stages a struggle between white female flesh (parchment) and a black male (penis/pen). If, etymologically, “patriot” can be traced back to the Latin word for father (pater), then the outcome of the game stages a reversal of the movement in Hesiod’s genealogy of the Gods, in which the Giants (Titans), the first race of beings to occupy the world are ultimately displaced by the gods in the transition from the matriarchy to the patriarchy. And it does so at a moment in this country’s history when – as the outcome of the game suggests – we are poised to undo this primordial movement by putting a woman/mother in a position of executive authority over the epistemic system, the maternal/imaginary over the paternal/symbolic. Thank God for such things, because otherwise the game had the same score for nearly three quarters and the half-time show sucked.

You know the symbolic is testing our patience when for the first time in American history a woman/mother has a plausible shot at being President, and fathers no longer get angry at men who try to seduce their daughers. Indeed, as the following banned commercial suggests, “A father with a sense of humor: Priceless:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ez9O8qkQW0&feature=related

Not at all coincidentally, the very next youtube video suggested after watching the above literally collapses the analog with the imaginary, vis-à-vis – I kid you not – the maternal breast.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBgyGnOhBu4&NR=1

And the very next suggested video takes on the thorny subject of paternity and shows you how to avoid it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1oHaYfF4-aE&feature=related

Clearly, this kid seems stuck in the Maternal/Imaginary Realm, often characterized by the infant’s incessant, pre-symbolic demands, demands – which like those of Samara in The Ring – remain unmitigated by the intervention of the father, the symbolic, and the symbolic law of the father.

Given the hastening subordination of reality to the symbolic, courtesy of digitalization, it should come as no surprise that one group of inadvertent holdouts against this trend, wildlife, is now the subject of a new film that “focuses” on capturing their pre-oedipal existence on camera, albeit through the efforts of stoners who are themselves trying to reconcile themselves with “the law of the father,” when, that is, they are not trying to escape it all together. It is also worth noting that one of the actors in this film, Jonah Hill (no doubt named for the biblical story of parthenogensis and male maternal fantasies — Jonah and the whale) has also been in some of the other recent films that are monitoring the cultural unconscious, including “Knocked UP” (pregnancy and paternity), “Evan Almighty” (a retelling of the apocalyptic story of Noah and the Ark), “Superbad (in which adolescent boys are obsessed with their penises), and the “40-Year-Old Virgin” (the title speaks for itself). Hill’s next film, interestingly enough, is utterly grounded in the imaginary, the realm of the ear, as it’s an animated film based on a book by one of the great masters of Magic Thought, Dr. Seuss: “Horton Hears a Hoo.” And after that he’s slated to star in a film titled, “The Middle Child.” Hmmmmm

February 2, 2008
Attention, Slackers: It’s a Jungle Out There

By MATT ZOLLER SEITZ
Underachieving even by the standards of stoner comedies, “Strange Wilderness” is so inert that it doesn’t so much unreel on screen as loiter there, giggling at its own outrageousness.

Steve Zahn, who can do better than this, stars as Peter Gaulke, the rascally, pot-smoking host of a nature show that he inherited from his father and allowed to degenerate into a ready-for-cable-access shadow of its former self. When Gaulke’s fed-up employer (Jeff Garlin), the boss of a Nature Channel-type network, threatens to cancel the series, Gaulke loads up his Winnebago with camera equipment and deranged, intoxicant-inclined, seemingly incompetent crew members (including Allen Covert of “The Wedding Singer” and Jonah Hill of “Superbad”) and drives to Costa Rica in search of Bigfoot.

What follows is copious bong humor; a mobile bacchanal sparked by nitrous oxide; an encounter with a deranged survivalist Vietnam veteran (Robert Patrick) who proudly shows off his mutilated testicles; several lame, cutesy-profane acoustic guitar numbers performed by Mr. Hill that make you wish you were watching a Jack Black movie instead; piranha and shark attacks played for laughs; and an unprintable, perhaps indescribable, admittedly audacious gag that puts a turkey in a compromising position.

Adding to the sense that you’re watching a feature-length in-joke, Mr. Zahn’s character is named after Peter Gaulke, a screenwriter and former writer for “Saturday Night Live.” Mr. Covert’s character, a sound man, is named after Fred Wolf, who is making his directorial debut with “Strange Wilderness” and is also a former “SNL” writer. Mr. Wolf and Mr. Gaulke wrote the screenplay.

What rankles isn’t the gross-out humor or the verbal non sequiturs, which are expected, even welcome, in this sort of movie. It’s the smug sense of entitlement — that of intoxicated dweebs tittering endlessly and obnoxiously at their own supposed cleverness. “Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle” is the gold standard in this genre. “Strange Wilderness” is a counterfeit bill.

“Strange Wilderness” is rated R (Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian). It has profanity, drug use, nudity, violence and many graphic injuries to the gonads.

STRANGE WILDERNESS

Opened on Friday nationwide.

Directed by Fred Wolf; written by Mr. Wolf and Peter Gaulke; director of photography, David Hennings; edited by Tom Costain; music by Waddy Wachtel; production designer, Perry Andelin Blake; produced by Mr. Gaulke; released by Paramount Pictures. Running time: 1 hour 27 minutes.

WITH: Steve Zahn (Peter Gaulke), Allen Covert (Fred Wolf), Jonah Hill (Cooker), Kevin Heffernan (Bill Whitaker), Ashley Scott (Cheryl), Peter Dante (Danny Gutierrez), Harry Hamlin (Sky Pierson), Robert Patrick (Gus Hayden), Joe Don Baker (Bill Calhoun), Justin Long (Junior), Jeff Garlin (Ed Lawson) and Ernest Borgnine (Milas).

First “Teeth,” now “The Eye,” the latest American remake of a Japanese Horror film — a trend started by the success of the American remake of “The Ring” — movies this year seem to be increasingly (albeit unconsciously) troubled by the threat posed to human existence in an era dominated by the Symbolic, thanks to the seemingly unstoppable digitalization of life as we know it. And all in a year when, at least on the Democratic side of things, the race for executive authority seems to be grounded in epistemic authority, i.e., the written page, as in the old joke, “What’s black and white and read all over?” That one of those candidates was raised without a father, and the other is a mother, makes it all the more interesting.

Thus, the latest remake, “The Eye,” starring Jessica Alba, who rose to fame starring in the tv show, “Dark Angel,” shortens the distance between the symbolic and the real (Death) by eliminating the need for the analog video cassette and tv set Samara must rely on to share her disturbing vision of the real. Alternatively, Alba’s character is given all of the technology she needs to navigate the symbolic through a cornea transplant. Once a blind violinist who was compelled to live almost totally in the imaginary, the realm of the ear and the inner eye, she now has access to the external world. Such access, as in The Sixth Sense, means that “She can see dead people.” Inevitably, what the film may suggest is that now that the maternal/imaginary is threatened with extinction, all of us may see dead people if we look hard enough because — increasingly forced as we are to live in a virtual/digital world — we have essentially become dead. Here’s a review from today’s NYT.
Dr.B.

It’s Enough to Make Anyone Blink

By JEANNETTE CATSOULIS
“I want to see the world like everyone else,” the blind violinist Sydney Wells (Jessica Alba) whines at the beginning of “The Eye,” the latest Western deconstruction of a successful Asian horror movie.

If only Ms. Alba’s narration — as vapid as her acting — were the film’s only problem. Blind since the age of 5, Sydney is unprepared when a cornea transplant not only restores her sight but also allows her to see dead people. As the departed stalk her in elevators and accost her in corridors, Sydney resolves to trace the origins of her new peepers. Naturally, every step of this journey must be spelled out — twice.

The original “Eye,” directed by the Thai filmmakers Danny and Oxide Pang, was an insinuating ghost story that cleverly exploited cinema’s fascination with all things ocular. But what the Pangs accomplished with little more than a talent for framing and focus, this remake (directed by David Moreau and Xavier Palud) fails to achieve, despite an arsenal of strobe lighting and crashing chords. The debt owed by both movies to “The Sixth Sense” and “The Mothman Prophecies” is only more obvious.

Louder and more literal than its inspiration, “The Eye” benefits from a spiky performance by Alessandro Nivola as Sydney’s rehabilitation counselor. “Your eyes are not the problem,” he tells her at one point. He is so, so right.

“The Eye” is rated PG-13 (Parents strongly cautioned). It has bleeding eyeballs, burning corpses and screaming violins.

THE EYE

Opened on Friday nationwide.

Directed by David Moreau and Xavier Palud; written by Sebastian Gutierrez, based on the film “Gin Gwai” by Jo Jo Yuet-chun Hui, Oxide Pang and Danny Pang; director of photography, Jeffrey Jur; edited by Patrick Lussier; music by Marco Beltrami; production designer, James Spencer; produced by Paula Wagner, Don Granger and Michelle Manning; released by Lionsgate and Paramount Vantage. Running time: 1 hour 37 minutes.

WITH: Jessica Alba (Sydney Wells), Alessandro Nivola (Dr. Paul Faulkner), Parker Posey (Helen Wells) and Rade Serbedzija (Simon McCullough).

This just in from the Huffington Post.
Dr.B.

Obama’s a Mac, Clinton’s a PC
Posted February 1, 2008 | 01:36 PM (EST)
Read More: Barack Obama, Barack Obama Hillary Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Mac PC Hillary Obama, Breaking Politics News

With John Edwards out of the race, Democratic voters must squarely confront a choice this election season every bit as stark as that facing millions of Americans each year as they replace their outdated computers: Mac or PC.

We have all seen the ads, we know the right thing to do is to buy a Macintosh, but we hesitate. Will I be able to open all my PC files? Will it be able to run Outlook? Am I really going to make those photo albums and movies anyway? Am I cool enough for a Mac?

Obama, like the Mac, seems almost too good to be true. He’s young, hip, inspiring, and promising to do for Democrats what Ronald Reagan did for Republicans, assemble and maintain the working majority in Washington desperately needed to enact changes in foreign policy, health care and energy security. And in soaring moments at the podium — at the Democratic Convention in 2004, in Iowa at the Jefferson/Jackson dinner, at Ebenezer Baptist over the Martin Luther King holiday weekend — Obama appears ready and able to make good on these grand promises.

But Democrats are still deeply divided. Having been in the political wilderness for much of the last 30 years, we are, understandably, a risk adverse bunch. We cling to Hillary like that old-reliable PC that we keep on our desks. We respond to her message: she’s tested, able to handle every dirty trick Republicans will throw at her, ready on day one.

All true, but there’s also the darker side of the story. As the hipster in the Mac commercial loves to point out, a PC isn’t actually all that reliable: reboot, reboot. We all experienced the rollercoaster ride that was the eight years of Bill Clinton’s presidency: we should be confident in voting for Hillary only to expect the unexpected. And PC owners just try to forget about the whole “blue screen of death,” melted hard drive thing, just like Democrats put Monica, impeachment and disbarment as far from their minds as possible as they contemplate pulling another voting lever for a presidential candidate named Clinton.

Still, what if the alternative is worse? We think we know what we’ll get with Hillary — more of that ’90s show — and right now that doesn’t seem bad. Plus no one is better at bare knuckles politics than the Clintons, and that may still be required to win the White House. What if Obama loses a foreign policy fight with John McCain, then where will we be. What if he can’t navigate the slings and arrows of Washington, and ends up slinking back to Chicago in 2013 the way Jimmy Carter slunk back to Plains in 1981. No Democrat can afford that.

But we can’t afford another four years of Washington infighting where nothing gets done either. For me, Macintosh sealed the deal last week when they introduced that new paper-thin, feather-light laptop. After clunking around my 10 pound, 2 inch-thick Windows job for the last 8 years, enough is enough. Perhaps for Democrats, seeing Obama trounce Clinton in South Carolina — after taking everything the Clintons’ could throw his way — will have a similar effect.