A Gilded Planet

Wolfen 1981. 115 minutes. USA. Directed by Michael Wadleigh. Watchdate: 11/7/2010. Tom Noonan is my new favorite supporting player. After seeing his haunting guest turn as a soothsaying doctor on an episode of Louie and his performance as the looming, suicidal anti-ego of Phillip Seymour Hoffman in Synecdoche, New York , I encountered him as a lonerish animal expert in Wolfen . I will now proceed to start to compulsively watch everything he has been in. Probably. What an awesome guy. Other than Noonan, this movie was pretty uneven. Though it did include one of the more sublimely ridiculous things I've seen in a while: a scene where Edward James Olmos strips naked, runs around like a wolf on a beach at night and then screams "It's all in your mind"at a bewildered Albert Finney. Actually, the movie reminded me a lot of Caroll Ballard's 1983 adaptation of Never Cry Wolf  by Farley Mowat. That's another wolf movie that I have mixed feelings about that features ...

My friend Ben Stanton has just started something that unfortunately bears a name that makes him want to vomit. It's the b-word. No, not those that Snoop Dogg has in the living room getting it on (and they won't leave 'til six in the moan-nin'). Still can't guess? Fine, I'll say write it. That doesn't mean I have to like it. Blog. The word is blog. Ben is right: it's quite repugnant. It sounds like the kind of thing you should flush down a dark hole or bury in the sand so no one will ever have to see it. I have always found this particular b-word loathsome, as has Maddox , and he's always right. I'm glad Ben has added his two cents to the matter, since it made realize something. We are not passive spectators in this world of b-words that we call an i-word. There's no good reason that putting words on a screen so that other people with other screens can read those very same words should have to be referred to as the b-word. Or at least ...