The Hyperion Institute

“In any country there must be people who have to die. They are the sacrifices any nation has to make to achieve law and order.”
~Idi Amin

Some quick notes: I haven’t linked in a while, but Monkey Barn has tons of stuff going on. I’m not linking to my blog either, but I do post there too. Not as frequently as I should, but worth checking. I am working my way through the Oscar nominees, but have not yet decided whether to start posting the reviews now or save them for closer to Oscar time. Speaking of the Nominees, Koz tells me they are playing all five movies on one day again, the day before the Oscars. Last time I got sponsors and went up there, writing four gargantuan columns about the trip. Some of you love them, some of you tried to have me killed so I’d stop writing them. It was a physically punishing journey, but I am willing to undertake it again if my audience is willing and, ahem (cough cough work for free cough cough) sponsor such a pilgrimage. Email me if you’d like to be the Patron Saint of OscarFest.

Speaking of the 2007 Oscars, I still have not reviewed all of those movies. Many of them I saw last spring but for one reason or another never got to them. I’m going to try to get them off my to-do pile before the bulk of the 2008 reviews in a couple of weeks. With that in mind……

Movie-Hype #724 – THE LAST KING OF SCOTLAND

Forest Whitaker had for a long time been one of my “boys” (that group of actors who are incredibly talented but are consistently overlooked by Hollywood for commendation and major roles), so I was ecstatic when the Oscar buzz came, followed by the nomination and victory for Whitaker’s portrayal of Ugandan Dictator Idi Amin. Having lived in a neighboring country during part of Amin’s rein, my dad and I were particularly excited to see THE LAST KING OF SCOTLAND. We came away more impressed than ever with Whitaker, but a tad let down overall.[By the way, I’m assuming you know, but if for some reason you don’t know anything about Idi Amin, first: hang your head in shame, and second, go read his Wikipedia Page.]

First: by no means is Idi Amin the main character. Though Whitaker won for “Best Actor,” the central figure is a ficticious Scottish doctor (Nicholas Garrigan), played by James McAvoy. I don’t know if it was the disparate acting ability or the people they portrayed, but when Whitaker is on screen you can’t take your eyes off of him. The film was a British production based on a British novel (loosely based on the life of a Brit who spent time in Uganda), so in some ways it’s natural we’d see the Ugandan world through those eyes.

And, you judge the movie you have, not the movie you’d like to have. Still, Idi Amin is so controversial and compelling a figure, and Whitaker so amazing at playing him, I’d wanted to see so much more there. Absent is any attempt to explain the “cause” of Amin’s mercurial, and by turns charming and brutal behavior. One might say you can never explain evil, but I find that facile. Today in Uganda Amin is regarded as a hero by most of the people. Rather than just assert outside Western understanding and values, I want to know more about that. What made this man the way he was, and what made the people love him?

However, unless Whitaker does a sequel, we’ll never know. I am glad I got to see him in action, and any treatment of Africa is welcome when for so long it has been ignored by Hollywood (I’m not going to look a gift fad in the mouth, even as I know it can’t last), but overall THE LAST KING OF SCOTLAND gave me more thirst than it quenched.

Suspension of Disbelief: 3 (out of 10). Supposed to be an accurate account, with an understanding that they compressed events, etc. Personally, I think they made too much up, and for a “historical” movie, that’s a valid complaint.

Genre Grade: Do we go with Historical Epic or the new Genre Africa, We Hardly Knew Ye? Either way, B-.

Sex/Language Violence? Quite a bit. Nothing Tarantellian or Scorsesian, but not for kids.

Pantheon Percentile: Given Forest Whitaker’s remarkable performance, and the historical nature of the film (in other words, as it’s already happened, topicality isn’t an issue), LAST KING OF SCOTLAND has more of a shelf life than a film of similar quality. I wouldn’t own this, but I might watch it again at a friend’s house. 72. (Meaning, it’s better than 72% of the movies that came before.)

I had been stuck in my house for way too long, waylaid and infirmed with various injuries both physical, emotional, mental and valorical. (Yes, I know that “both” is usually used to mean two particular things, not four, but I couldn’t think of a word that would mean “four” things, and now that I think about it I could have omitted “both” and just put a comma after “injuries” and the sentence would have been fine, but after the whole big to-do of you calling me out and this parenthetical, I’ll be damned if I’m going back to change it now.)

In other words, I was not doing all that well. I think Carlos sensed this. He called Monday night to say he was coming down Tuesday.

“Get a good night’s sleep friend, for I arrive early on the ‘morrow. A hearty day out will restore your vim and refresh your wounded soul.”

Actually, those quotation marks are bogus. What Carlos actually said was,

“I’m coming down there tomorrow you homo, and you better get your ass out of bed. We gonna chase the Panocha, and give Rib Shots to anything who creeps on our Gangsta.”

Tomato/Tomahto.

We ended up watching NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN, which I will try to have reviewed by Monday. We also ended up plowing through the entire first season (10 hours) of Showtime’s The Tudors. I am going to review that as well, but I cannot separate the review from the experience of watching it with Carlos. To say Carlos knows very little about early 16^th Century British History would be, well, an understatement. Yet if only for irony’s sake, I think I enjoyed watching it with him more than I possibly could have with anyone else. More on that next week too.

So, since everything is next week, what AM I going to tell you about? Ah, I have it. We went to Smokey Bones for a light supper Tuesday before the movie. As is my custom, I asked three Questions of the Day, and recorded the answers. I thought you might find them interesting and want to use the questions yourself with co-workers, friends and mistresses.

I was going to do some sort of Heath Ledger question, in honor of his demise earlier that day. However, we felt there was not enough variety, as there can only be one or two favorite films. (I actually did ask this question over in Monkey Barn, if you wanted to weigh in.)
Here are the Questions I went with:

1. What Cartoon would you like to see made into a Movie Musical?

2. In honor of the recent MLK Day, who/what is your favorite King?

3. If you were journeying with Dorothy, Scarecrow and the rest to Oz, for what would you ask the Wizard?

Carlos and I answered first.

Hyperion’s Answers

1. G.I. Joe [Tell me you wouldn’t live to hear Cobra Commander sing All By Myself or something]

2. King Kong [How can you go against Kong]

3. Conscience

Carlos’s Answers

1. He-Man [He was excited about the possibility of a Skeletor/Evil-lyn duet]

2. King Ralph

3. Soul

Our server’s name was Amanda. She was an interesting lass, with three very distinctive tattoos on her hands and arms. She was reluctant to speak of them, but after prodding revealed they were all in honor/memory of the band Sublime. I did not know this then, but Carlos told me the lead singer died in 1996! That is devotion. I am currently listening to a few of their songs on You Tube as I write this, and it seems decent, but Hyperion will not be adding to his collection of tattoos any time soon.

Amanda’s Answers

1. The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy

2. Smoothie King

3. Willpower [When she said this one I said, “You needing willpower and me needing a conscience…I wonder what we’d talk about on the way there?”]

People were interested, so Amanda sent over another waiter and a bartender.

Adrian

1. Bleach

2. The Burger King [not the restaurant; the guy in the commercials]

3. $ [Technically, it is supposed to be something about yourself, but whatever]

The most interesting name was Canyon. I thought it was unique enough that I asked him about it. He told us, “It was a total accident. My mom told them Kenneth, but the nurse misheard her and put “Canyon,” and when she found out later she liked it, so it stuck.”

Canyon’s Answers

1. Family Guy [You know this is coming]

2. King Charles III (Fornication Under Consent of the King) [This is a total myth, as highlighted in this Michelle Tsai article, but I could tell this was a story he loved to tell the ladies in bars, and I just didn’t have the heart to tell him it was wrong]

3. Discipline

So there you go. I do not suppose you care what we had for dinner, so I will leave that out other than to mention that Smokey Bones makes their own donuts fresh for dessert, which I think TGI Friday’s does as well, and I am definitely of the opinion that more restaurants should do this.

What about you? What would your answers be?

Hyperion
January 25, 2008

There are numerous cell phone accessories for each type of cell phones, sold by the cingular cell phones. The reason of popularity of cell phone culture is the success of nokia phones and the offer of free ringtones for cell phone bought from cingular.

the Hyperion Chronicles
“Dedicated to getting Bil Keane to add a second ‘L’ to his name”

#275 Much Thanks

Like most of you, I’m saddened this morning—and yes, I’ll admit, extremely depressed—over the news that it’s now officially over for Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez. Obviously I’m not alone in doing a lot of soul searching today, wondering if there really is a point to it all. But, it is incumbent upon us to soldier on no matter how dark the world gets, and especially for me, as I have been sanctioned by the Powers That Be with the charge of making you people laugh. (Sort of like Patch Adams, but funny.)

So, with that in mind, I thought I would share with you a creative solution I found to a problem that creeps up every year about this time. I’m talking, of course, about Thank You Notes.

Now, don’t get me wrong; I’m in favor of gratitude. It demonstrates good breeding to formally give thanks, but more than that, it is a sign of a good person if they can be truly thankful for a gift, for the gesture itself, and the thought behind it more than any material windfall.

The problem is that in our digital age, the line gets fuzzy over what constitutes an “official” Thank You. If I thank someone in person when I receive the gift, is that enough? What about if I call them on the phone? Even if you argue that a written confirmation is needed, does email not take care of that?

These are tough questions, unless you belong in my family, where the answer is, “No, no, no, and NO.” It is not simply enough to say thanks, call with thanks, or email. (Skywriting has never been brought up, but one assumes that would be gauche as well.) For my family, it has to be the (hand) written word.

I have balked at this in the past. Partly this stems from my suspicion of why their insistence at the Thank You Note. The official reason is that my extended family desires me to be mannered and polite. I secretly wonder if there is not more to it than that. I believe when one gives a gift, it should be out of altruistic motives, and not because one desires a gift (or thanks) in return. Admittedly, the world doesn’t work this way.

Regardless of my suspicions, though (which are unproven and perhaps unworthy of me), the fact remains that I do agree in principle that writing thank you notes is a GOOD THING. It shouldn’t matter what the other person is demanding; I should be writing them anyway. Should I ever take leave of my senses and produce children, I will make them write thank you notes, not to set up conditions for future booty (an idea which is truly repugnant to me), but because it is the RIGHT THING TO DO.

However, with the exhausting amount of work I put in around the Hyperion Institute—writing this column, looking after the River Midgets, putting on a stage version of Grease starring Gollum—there is no way I can physically write all the personal thank you notes etiquette requires.

Hence my “solution” I referred to earlier: I have written a Choose-What-Applies-To-You Thank You Note. I am so pleased with it; I thought I would share with you, in hopes that you might get motivated to send out your own thank you notes. Obviously you may have to adjust it to fit your life, but you’ll get the gist.

Dear: _______________ [Please check what applies to you]
A) Grandma
B) Aunt
C) Father
D) Sister
E) Hugh Hefner
F) The inmates of Cell Block “D” at San Quentin Correctional Institute
G) Voice #3 in my head

Thank you very much the gift to celebrate:
A) Christmas
B) Hanukkah
C) Kwaana
D) Dinosaur Present Day (featuring T-Rex)
E) Festivus
F) My parole release
G) Good Times, C’mon (Yahoo!)

I cannot tell you how pleased I was to receive:
A) Cash
B) Gift Certificates
C) DVDs
D) A giant life-sized tiger
E) A statue with a lady with a clock where her stomach ought to be
F) Moon Sand
G) The collected works of Joey Lawrence (Whoa!)

I plan to use this gift to:
A) Buy much needed clothes and shoes
B) End horror as we know it
C) Have little Jeffy on Family Circus whacked
D) Become Lord of all Catan
E) Stop the unholy alliance between Fitty Cent and Vitamin Water
F) Bring back Troy McClure
G) Re-gift it

It is especially kind of you to think of me, considering:

A) I’m hard to find in the Witness Protection Program
B) I never liked you and used to dream you’d get eaten by pit bulls
C) According to the doctors, you technically “don’t exist”
D) I’m directly responsible for your amputated leg
E) I spent the money for your gift on the 700 Club
F) I’m recently evil
G) When I was 7 I ate all your raspberries

I hope you had a great holiday, and that the New Year finds you:
A) Well
B) Reasonably okay
C) NEVER putting Baby in a corner
D) No longer wearing a feather hat
E) Touring with Menudo
F) Back on your Meds
G) On the run from a gang of Latino hookers

Much Thanks, Best Wishes, and if you ever need me, please remember:

A) I am always here for you
B) I am always here for you, provided you can find me
C) I am not here for you, but nonetheless wish you no specific harm
D) Try being self-reliant for a change, you codependent punk
E) You’re a wizard, Harry!
F) I know what you did last summer
G) Attempt to reach me, and they’ll be dragging the creek for days

Hyperion
January 23, 2004

Credits
Thanks to Koz
Thanks to all the gift-givers

Motto Explanation
Bil Keane is the “author” of the Always-Terrible-Never-Good (I’d-Rather-Be-Vasectomized-With-A-Grapefruit-Spoon-Than-Read-It) comic strip Family Circus