At the risk of disparaging my previous employers, but wanting to explain my absense, let me just say that the newspaper gig crushed any desire I had to do extra writing. The fact that I’m not hunched over my keyboard writing up a meeting on deadline tonight is still freaking me out a little bit. But honestly, it was a fun job and I’m glad I did it. I honestly wouldn’t have quit if it weren’t for the new opportunity that showed up.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

What do I bring away from three months (honestly, it seemed a lot longer than that) in the fast-paced world of small town journalism? For one, I feel much more confident about my ability to work in this field. I was really never completely sure while in school, but just jumping right into it like I did was a great way to shock my reporting skills into action. The other thing, and this is something that I’ve heard about but never really believed in, is that I get a huge rush out of writing a good story. Part of it is the fact that I had competition (The Daily News Transcript), making it that much more enjoyable to get a big scoop (as much as those exist in Norwood). The other part is just watching all my thoughts coalesce into a coherent story. It’s tough to explain, but seeing the final output, and having it not suck, is just an awesome feeling.

The downside, though, was a seemingly endless string of late nights, along with  sitting through two hour meetings and getting nothing (which only happened a few times) and the pure aggravation of not being able to get the person I needed to talk to on the phone for days at a time. Oh, and the pay. That really killed the fun for me.

Although, Norwood was a great place to start my career. The people there were either crazy or brilliant at what they did, and there was no shortage of great quotes, characters and stories to cover. I realized, as my last two weeks ticked by, that everybody I dealt with on a regular basis had pretty much lived in town for their entire lives. Given that the average age of this group was definitely north of 50, I was just a blip on the radar to them. Kind of puts things in perspective, I guess.

So anyway, I’m now working for Harvard (technically as an independent consultant) at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism. I work normal, nine-to-five hours, and I get paid more, so I should be back onto this blogging business more often now. My last big hurdle is tracking down an apartment for the fall, but other than that, things are going well.

I’ll try to write more about the new job in the coming days, but for tonight I just wanted to pull a Favre and announce my unretirement. React accordingly.

Well, I finally did it. Against all odds, and in desperate need of a better excuse for not writing on my blog, I got a job. Starting Monday April 13, I’m going to be a reporter for the Norwood Record, located in the town of Norwood, just south of Boston. This has clearly been a long time coming, and, depending on my workload, it may mean that I’ll be spending less time on the blog, and more time getting paid. It’s an okay deal, in my mind.

Aside from the workload, I’m not sure what this actually means for the future of the site. I don’t want to consciously change my content to any extent, but I really don’t want to lose my job because of anything I write on this site. In all likelihood, this will probably be one of, if not the, only times I’m actually going to write about my work, unless something epic happens that absolutely must be related.

But I’m not starting the job until next Monday, so why is it going to be quiet this week? Well, two reasons. I’m flying home tomorrow (Tuesday) morning to get my car, and I’m going to spend all of Wednesday bombing up the east coast to Washington, DC, because this weekend is the NCAA Frozen Four at the Verizon Center. I’ve got my ticket, got a couch to crash on, and I’m hungry for a national championship.

On a related note, the Hobey Baker (College Hockey’s Heisman) finalists were named on Friday. The three finalists include BU’s own Matt Gilroy and Colin Wilson, as well as former-Northeastern (he just jumped ship for the Penguins) goalie Brad Thiessen. I’m a little worried that vote splitting between the two terriers might work in Thiessen’s favor, but Gilroy absolutely deserves this award. Dude’s been the heart and soul of the team, and the fact that we’re in D.C. while Northeastern is back in Roxbury can only help us.

Some form of post-game recap will surely be forthcoming, most likely to be written in an unintelligle string of vowels.

So my plan last week was to fire up the way-back machine and do my thing with Peter Travers’ zero-star review of Bad Boys II, arguably the second greatest Henry Rollins movie of all time. I ran into a slight hitch when I realized that, for a movie he considers to be in the category of all time worst movies, Peter really didn’t have that much to say about it. Not that I have anything against recycling jokes, as my running commentary on the awkward sexual tension of his Watchmen review should indicate, but there wasn’t much for me to talk about except  the irony of the most bombastic film-reviewer of all time hating a movie for being too bombastic.

So this week I’m delving into his review of I Love You, Man, the Rudd and Segal buddy movie that came out last week. Nobody’s ever accused me of punctuality.

You know the drills. Words after the jump:

Here’s the thing about comedies: Even when the script is freighted with formula, the right actors can keep it afloat, even airborne.

Apparently even writers for major entertainment publications are allowed to mix metaphors now. I’d probably be less bitter if I had a similarly cushy job, but I don’t, so I’m not.

In a down market for giggles (Miss March? Please!), Paul Rudd and Jason Segel are howlingly funny.

Quick, somebody get Geithner on the line. Giggles need a bailout!

They have skills.

True story. Peter Travers once saw the two of them build a campfire out of all the excess money they made by doing the exact same movie every six months.

They can get laughs without the sitcom pimping.

Is there a pimp sitcom out there I don’t know about? If not, Fox needs to get on that right away.

By the way, Jason Segel stars in the sitcom “How I Met Your Mother.” Just saying.

It’s a rare gift, staying hilarious and recognizably human.

Yes, rare is the gift that allows these two humans to continue to be recognized as humans while being hilarious. Personally, I’m hilarious, but I tend to look more like a North American Grizzly when I do it.

Their presence and ace comic timing kick the movie up a notch.

You know what? I totally missed that fact that Peter Travers decided to open with a lightning round. In a five-line dual-knob slob-off, Peter travers has managed to say absolutely nothing of value, which I guess is a win for him.

Director John Hamburg (Along Came Polly), who teamed on the script with Seinfeld writer Larry Levin, hangs the plot on a flimsy premise: A dude with no dude friends needs a dude to be best man at his wedding.

Look, I use dude to open pretty much every third sentence I say. I’m tired of my lifestyle being mercilessly persecuted by these out of touch wind bags who don’t understand my cultural upbringing, man.

Never mind that the needy dude, tightly wound L.A. realtor Peter Klaven (Rudd), has a brother, Robbie (Andy Samberg), who could easily do the job.

This is what passes for analysis in a Peter Travers movie. Christ, he’s the kind of guy who watches Law & Order and feels smart for guessing that the wife did it, isn’t he?

That would leave no reason to get Peter out on man dates.

Two things: First, whoever it was that came up with the term “man date” and chuckled about the fact that it sounds like another word, despite the lack of any kind of related double entendre, should be deported to Slovakia. Second, does he seem a little too insistant that Peter go on these man dates, or am I really just reading way too much into this?

That’s right, Peter’s fiancée, Zooey (a sparky Rashida Jones) — whose girl network is so in the loop they know precisely the first time Peter went oral on Zooey (“Lock that tongue down, girl”) — encourages the poor schnook to go out and find a best buddy.

A Google Image search for Schnook, which apparently means a stupid or gullible person, similar to a “dolt.” It takes mere seconds to google a word to find out if it sucks, by the way.

After several disastrous tries, including a gay close encounter, the search ends with Sydney Fife (Segel). Sydney is Peter’s polar opposite, a likable slob who holes up in a Venice Beach man cave stuffed with porn and video games

Let’s see: gay close encounter…pole…slob…holes…man cave…stuffed…porn.

Sydney has a comfort level inside his own skin that Peter never dreamed possible.

Jesus Christ. Peter Travers is actually writing I Love You, Man slash fiction.

Without ever infringing on Brokeback territory, Sydney is man enough to make Zooey jealous.

Just a little late there, buddy. I think you’ve already “infringed” all over Brokeback’s “territory.”

And that’s it. That’s all. It’s the variations that Rudd and Segel spin on this theme that make the movie hugely enjoyable.

Right, because that line couldn’t be used whenever these guys do the exact same thing every six months.

There’s no one better than Rudd at putting an affable face on awkwardness.

Woody Allen is so pissed off right now.

it’s always Peter who drops the ball.

Yes, it is always Peter who drops the ball. It’s nice when he writes my side for me.

Cool is always just out of Peter’s reach

I’m just going to pop out and grab a coffee. Anyone else want one?

It’s a passion for Rush (the band puts in a surprise appearance) that bonds Peter and Sydney.

Surprise? Well, not any more. Way to drop the ball Peter.

Segel has a ball playing the other side of the inhibited musician he wrote for himself in the underrated Forgetting Sarah Marshall.

Well, Rotten Tomatoes, Metacritic and imbd all have Forgetting Sarah Marshall rated pretty highly. I guess that’s good for a movie that sucked, but remind me again what “underrated” means?

He also lets you in on the loneliness that’s eating at this free spirit.

Yet another sneak peek at Peter’s upcoming romance novel, Travers of the Night.

Jaime Pressly is terrific as Zooey’s BFF. Her battles with Jon Favreau, excellent as her blowhard husband, have genuine comic bite.

Honestly, I don’t know what “genuine comic bite” means, so I’m just going to let it be.

The movie goes soft in its final stages

Lest anyone think I’m out to paint Peter Travers as some kind of sexual deviant, bear in mind that he actually wrote that.

“Sweet, sweet hangin’,” says Peter of knowing Sydney. The same goes for the movie.

That’s it? Honestly, if Rolling Stone gave me any money at all, I’d be willing to invest the minute and a half it would take to come up with a better ending line than that.

Quick programming note: At some point in the next month or so, I’m hoping to spin this feature off into its own website at www.ihatepetertravers.com (it currently redirects to a listing of posts tagged “I Hate Peter Travers”).  I’m looking for writers who can do posts in this same vein (hopefully directed at a wider range of bad critics) as well as people who are interested in doing actual movie reviews. If there’s anyone out there with an interest in getting in on the groundfloor of this non-lucrative enterprise, drop me an email at jon@seitzwrites.com.

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That’s my last update for the day. But it’s St. Patrick’s Day, so I’m going to share something I wrote for one of my classes back at BU. The assignment was to write a travel feature, and all of it is true. The professor who taught the class loved the piece, and it’s within a few degrees of relevancy to today’s festivities, so why not?

My drink recommendation is Jameson and Ginger Ale. Be safe. Don’t Drink and drive. Don’t wear orange.

Enjoy:

DUBLIN-The Irish hangover is a strange beast. A violent half-mad cur abandoned and left to wean itself on whiskey and stout lapped from the gutters of Dublin.

You should never look a mad dog in the eye, but looking the Irish hangover in the eye is inevitable. You must never flinch, or else it will pin you in bed to wallow the day away wishing for death.

Act carefully. Appease it with carbs and coffee. Get straight enough for normal human functions.

But today is not a day to be straight. I need to go on the offensive if I’m going to get twisted enough for what’s coming.

Ice. Rum. Coke. An American drink to curb an Irish Hangover.

Today’s the Irish Gay Pride Parade. More specifically, it’s the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer Pride Parade. While not representing any of those categories, I’ve agreed, at the request of a friend working with Amnesty International, to walk in the parade.

Better pour another one.

It’s the summer of 2007, and I’m staying at Dublin City University with a study abroad program from Boston University. DCU, despite its name, is located about 20 minutes away in the relatively quiet suburb of Glasnevin, so getting into town requires a trip on the Dublin Bus service.

It’s an imperfect system. They’re not strict on fare collection, and the top floors of the busses are generally dens of lawlessness, where drinking and smoking run rampant despite the sternest protestations of the law.

Regardless, they get you from A to B.

But the bus will not be depositing me in the friendly confines of the early alphabet and its childish connotations. I’m headed for the exotic, unwieldy region. The outcasts. The Ws. The Xs. The Qs.

Ireland is a Catholic nation, but also a liberal one. In Dublin, churches and pubs blend together seamlessly to form a subdued, but uniquely European cityscape.

Abortion became legal the same time divorce did-the ’90s.

Gay Rights are still in the air, but on the ground that day the situation was strange, bordering on surreal. Angel wings, rainbow wigs and hot pants were being worn proudly in every direction. A crowd of Irish lesbians were dressed in black and pink spandex, looking not unlike a roller derby team. I saw a member of the Gardai-the Irish police force-walking through the crowd to, I assumed, keep the peace.

Nope. He was wearing leather pants.

This was the scene in Parnell square, near the top of O’Connell Street. Had the parade never moved, I still would have seen something more bizarre every time I turned around.

But it does move, affording Dubliners on both sides of the River Liffey a look at the spectacle.

In any political demonstration, poignancy and irony are always separated by fine lines. It was poignant when the parade passed the General Post Office on O’Connell Street, site of the 1916 Easter Rising that kick-started the Irish freedom movement. Here a new generation of Irish citizens was standing up to be treated as human beings.

Outside the GPO is the Dublin Spire, dedicated in the early 21^st century as a monument to the Irish freedom movement. The Spire towers over everything around it, an expression of pride beyond the usual Irish capacity.

The locals call it the Stiffy on the Liffey.

The parade continues over the river into the south side of Dublin. This train of free-willed individuals beyond the norms of religious society passes within a few scant meters of Trinity College, home to one of the oldest known versions of the Bible, the Book of Kells.

The parade makes more sense on Dame Street, near Temple Bar. The shirtless men in angel wings, the Marilyn Monroe costumes and the yards upon yards of rainbow spandex would be at home here any night of the week. It’s where tourists come to drink, and the locals laugh at their expense.

Dame Street runs by the green dome of City Hall and the mortared stone of Dublin Castle, ending at the spires and steeples of Christ Church Cathedral. The parade surges past them all, begging for political or religious defiance.

It never comes.

There are no protests. No picketers. No violence. Instead, the parade simply ends in a park, where revelers enjoy a festival of human freedom.

Maybe that’s too much to comprehend for an American accustomed to harsh reprisals for coloring outside the lines, or maybe walking has worn me out and left me dehydrated, but I’ve seen enough.

I’m heading back to normality, or whatever passes for it in this country.

Well, I promised you two editions as atonement (punishment?) for my laziness, so here you go. I started this one after I finished Milk yesterday, but I only finished it today. Sorry.

Believe it or not, I’ve actually seen Watchmen already, so we’ll see if that has any influence on how hard I rip into Peter Travers’ braindead bastard child of a review.

If anyone’s actually curious about the movie, it’s good, but that’s all I’ll give it. It’s not the great masterpiece that everyone hoped it’ll be. If I were ranking it on a totem pole of other comic book movies (and really, that’s all it is), tt’s probably on par with first two Spiderman movies. There are some big flaws in the filmmaking, but there’s a good chance that if you like the book that you won’t be too dissapointed by the result.

But if you’re like me, you probably don’t want to read the reviews until you’ve seen the movie. In that case, don’t go read Peter Travers’ review here, and don’t continue on past the jump for my comedic stylings:

Listen up, “Watchmen” virgins. I don’t care if you know squat about the orgasmically received 1987 graphic novel written by Alan Moore and illustrated by Dave Gibbons: It’s time to bust your cherry.

Look, we all know what he was going for here, but considering that the midnight showing I went to had no fewer than six people dressed as Rorschach, and a guy who literally “blue” himself to look like Dr. Manhattan to do backflips in front of the screen before the movie, “virgins” might not have been the ideal word to describe people who haven’t read the book. Furthermore, implying that the comic book brought people to orgasm is just gross. Besides, having an orgasm while reading a comic book does not mean that you have, in fact, busted your cherry.

Congratulations though. Two sentences in, this review already contains as much awkward, misplaced sexual tension as a junior high dance.

With its alternate universe of vigilante superheroes and power-crazed U.S. politicians heading for nuclear disaster, Watchmen took comic books to the next level as literature.

Fact: I enjoyed Watchmen the comic book. Another fact: the “next level” of literature above comic books is Stephen King.

Even if you don’t see Snyder’s version, which has its problems, it won’t kill you to peek at the comic book that Lost co-creator Damon Lindelof called “the greatest piece of popular fiction ever produced.”

There has to be someone else you could have cited here besides the one of the guys who created one of the most unneccesarily convoluted television series that I’ve never seen. Besides, what are the chances that the kind of person who would be influenced by what the co-creator of “Lost” has to say would not have already read the book?

As for you Watchmen junkies, enough with tearing down the movie before you even see it.

Yes. How dare you pass judgment on an adaptation of something that you love so much that the only rational comparison is to that of a smack addict.

Moore, soured by the Hollywood mangling of From Hell, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and V for Vendetta, has removed his good name from the credits. In the process, he has inadvertently inspired a band of rabid loyalists ready to shoot Snyder on sight.

Nothing like some unnecessary hyperbole to keep a Peter Travers’ review moving right along.

Sheesh. Whether the movie soars or tanks, it won’t make the comic book extinct. Get a grip.

And whether or not a bunch of fanboys love or hate the movie, it won’t make the movie extinct, or your review good.

Caught between the rock of fanboy adulation and the hard place of newbie indifference, the R-rated, nearly-three-hour movie version of Watchmen is a cinematic piñata getting whacked from every side.

Current awkward misplaced sexual tension level: Watching History of Violence with your grandparents.

One look at mutant physicist Dr. Manhattan (Billy Crudup), standing 200 feet, glowing with blue light and flashing a few yards of giant blue wiener, and you’ll think you’re in for the colossus of campfests.

Correction: Canteen Boy.

Or glom onto Rorschach (Jackie Earle Haley), the vigilante in a white mask who shows a face of ever-changing ink blots, and you’ll think a popcorn night at the movies has morphed into a Rorschach test administered by a lethally sadistic shrink.

I’ll leave “glom” alone becuase it’s actually a cool word used correctly, if awkwardly. But don’t you think that comparing a character called Rorschach to an actual Rorschach test is just a little obvious and lazy?

What’s the truth? A little of both, I’m afraid. Moore recalled his four years of toil on the 12-issue DC Comics series as “slam-dancing with a bunch of rhinos.”

What?

That description also fits watching the movie, which stumbles and sometimes falls on its top-heavy ambitions.

No. I don’t think that description fits watching the movie at all. When I watched the movie, I sat in my seat and enjoyed a bucket of popcorn. No Rhinos. But I suppose “slam-dancing with a bunch of rhinos” is still better than “flashing a few yards of giant blue wiener.”

Snyder, a director of TV ads (yikes!) who made his feature debut with a rockin’ 2004 remake of Dawn of the Dead

So he gets a “yikes!” becuase he had to work his way up to being a major film director. I might as well start referring to Peter Travers as a “writer of obituaries who made his film reviewing debut with People magazine.”

Snyder sums it up in a yowsa opening that merges Vietnam, moonwalks, you name it, into a visionary time capsule.

Yowsa? YOWSA!

Plot point coming: Since 1977, masked heroes have been banned from doing their thing. Except for Dr. Manhattan, rendered übermensch in a lab accident, they have no superpowers, just a jones to fight in drag.

More strangely sexual writing coming: nobody in the film even remotely dresses in drag, but apparently Peter Travers has a bit of a mask fetish.

Wilson (Angels in America) gained a few pounds but otherwise suggests nothing less than an Adonis in a role that cried out for, say, Philip Seymour Hoffman.

Correction: Peter Travers has a fat guys in masks fetish.

He’s all limp-dick with Silk Spectre II (Malin Akerman), a.k.a. Laurie Jupiter, until cracking heads makes him rock-hard.

If that weren’t an accurate description of what happens in the movie, I’d be much more creeped out. Let see how this goes…

Laurie had been getting it on with Dr. Manhattan, a.k.a. Jon Osterman, but his interests had turned to physics and Mars despite his giant blue penis.

…and we’re now at greco-roman wrestling awkward…

What’s a girl to do, especially one with a mom (Carla Gugino, perfecto!), the original Silk Spectre, who may have been raped by the Comedian?

…clown-rape awkward…

For Laurie, it’s out with the Doc and in with the hottie spandex (hello, Killer Barbie), just the thingie to put new hoot into Nite Owl II.

…and we’re at defcon 1:  Olympic Gymnastics awkward.

Even in the time of a popular new leader, Watchmen tells us to be on guard about our alleged protectors.

No, it really doesn’t, but I assume that people saying things like this is why Alan Moore is completely insane.

Moore worried about winding up with “a big, messy, steaming bowl of semiotic spaghetti.”

Here are some other insane Alan Moore quotes, courtesy of wikiquote.

And if you have to go back to the comic to learn that the freaks in Watchmen are not only for geeks, maybe that’s not so bad. Just sayin’.

It takes balls to write a movie review that basically keeps telling you to go read the book. It’s really just the laziest tactic possible. I shouldn’t be surprised, but that’s just the way it goes for me.

Apologies to my tens of fans who have been left with next to nothing to read for the past week or two. I’ve hit a bad run of Writer’s Block and have been unfairly ignoring the website for a while. But I’ll make it up to y’all with a daily double of IHPT fun.

First up on the chopping block is Milk, which nabbed a couple of Oscars (including a completely bullshit win for Sean Penn. That Oscar belonged to Mickey Rourke.) and has been pretty well received. I, of course, haven’t seen it, but Peter Travers gave it four stars, so you know it must be good.

You can hit up the original review here, and my opinions below:

Maybe you don’t know a damn thing about gay activist Harvey Milk.

Well, that was a harsh opening. Did somebody piss in Peter’s Fruit Loops?

Maybe you ought to know that President-elect Barack Obama isn’t the only community organizer who went on to make a difference.

Maybe. I mean, I certainly couldn’t have gotten that idea from him being on roughly every third cover of Rolling Stone for the past two years, right? But on another note, has Obama actually made a difference yet? Especially considering that this review was published November 27?
Maybe thoughtful filmmaking, no matter how incendiary and intimate, isn’t worth squat at an infantilized multiplex.

Yes, I suppose people don’t like to be talked-down to, like when they read a review that opens with “Maybe you don’t know a damn thing about gay activist Harvey Milk.” I find it funny how people get all up in arms about movies like Beverly Hills Chihuahua and Paul Blart making hundreds of millions of dollars because they’re poor little “thoughtful” movie could only make $42 million. There’s probably some kind of moral lesson about our society there, if we really see a $22 million profit as a bad thing.

Stop me now.

Oh Peter, if only…

There’s really no maybe about Milk, directed with a poet’s eye by Gus Van Sant from a richly detailed script by Big Love writer Dustin Lance Black.

What, exactly, does “no maybe” acually mean? Is he saying that there are no questions asked about it, or that everything in it is purely black and white? An interesting idea. I’m also comletely lost on what an “poet’s eye” has to do with directing. I suppose the sound mixing was also done with a dancer’s ear.

It’s a total triumph, brimming with humor, heart, sexual heat, political provocation and a crying need to stir things up, just like Harvey did. If there’s a better movie around this year, with more bristling purpose, I sure as hell haven’t seen it.

If there is a more shameless lumping together of worthless platitudes in the hopes that one of them will make it to the poster/trailer around this year, I sure as hell haven’t seen it.

San Francisco City Supervisor Harvey Milk, the first openly gay man to be voted into office in America, was shot dead in 1978, along with Mayor George Moscone, in City Hall. Dan White, a troubled politico who had served with Harvey on the city’s board of supervisors, pumped five bullets into Harvey. The crusader for gay rights in San Francisco, and the nation, was 48.

So, you’ve already established that we don’t know a damn thing about Harvey Milk, as though it were unforgivable crime of ignorance, and then you give us his life story in three sentences. Can we at least get a spoiler alert?

That Harvey’s questing spirit not only lives but soars in this movie is a gift from Sean Penn, who plays him for real instead of for show.

No, he doesn’t play him for real. Sean Penn took this role because he was paid to do it, and he knew that it would get him an Oscar during a political year. It’s a movie. A piece of pop culture entertainment. Acting in a $20 million production can only be seen as doing something for show. The only way I’ve seen Penn actually stand up for Gay Rights is by him telling people to see his movie.

Penn uses makeup to lengthen his nose and look more like Harvey. He adopts a New York accent to get Harvey’s inflections.

No way. An actor actually made an effort to look and sound like the character he was playing? AMAZING!

But the physical transformation is nothing compared to the way Penn gets at the core of the man, finding the source of his joy and pain.

Okay…yeah…pursuit with certain anti-discrimination statutes in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, I’m just going to leave this one alone.

He disappears into Harvey with the artistry of an acting virtuoso.

You’re really not going to make this one easy on me are you?

There’s one word for Penn’s performance: phenomenal.

Or, you know, the 112 words you used praising Penn before the word phenomenal, which was the same word you used to describe Penn’s Oscar opponent Frank Langella in Frost/Nixon.

If you want to hate on this movie, bring it on.

I’m starting to get a little confused here. Why is he being so defensive of a movie that got everywhelmingly positive reviews? (for the sake of clarification, I’m hating only on Peter Travers’ review, not on the movie itself. I would have seen it if I wasn’t broke and single without a lot of movie-going friends)

To those who say Milk is hagiography, I say Harvey is my kind of saint: a New York Jew with a screwed-up past, a lively sex life and a goal to bring the gay movement out of the shadows even if he had to be a media whore to do it.

A Gay Jewish Saint? Well, now I’ve heard everything. And I’m absolutely not surprised that Peter Travers’ sees a media whore as his kind of saint. That one was more obvious than Clay Aiken.

Milk begins with Harvey’s 1972 arrival in San Francisco with his lover, Scott Smith (James Franco, warmly funny and touching). That’s right, Spicoli macks on the son of the Green Goblin.

Quick vote: Does Peter Travers seem to enjoy that image just a little too much?

Milk is entertaining and playfully erotic in ways that reflect life instead of political agenda.

Is there actually a way that playful eroticism can reflect political agenda? Oh wait…

But Josh Brolin is simply astounding as Dan White, revealing the inner torment of a man at odds with his own emotions. Sporting the calendar-ready look of a good Catholic husband and father, Dan is both repulsed by and attracted to Harvey and his gay agenda.

What? You promised that there were no maybes. Now there’s a character with inner turmoil and questionable motives. I’ll just go see Blart. There’s a movie with no maybes.

Penn makes Harvey so vivid and spoiling to be heard that you want to introduce him to people. John McCain, meet a real maverick.

Again, this review came out on November 28. Was there really any need for a John McCain dig?
And that’s it for Milk. I’ll finally be breaking out of the Oscar movie mold with another edition of IHPT later tonight. Stay tuned.

That research? The 2009 Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue.

Done? Feel free to keep looking if you need more time. I don’t blame you. Like I said, it took me all weekend to really parse all of the data. But just in case you missed some of the highlights, I’ll throw in a couple, like straight-up bombshell Brooklyn Decker (who, in my opinion, should have gotten the cover):

Oh, but if you’re like me and you actually bought the issue, it probably took you no time to get through it all. Because Sports Illustrated has actually succeeded in making the print edition of their magazine less interesting than their online content. I really can’t blame SI though. The ability to host more pictures, along with video, interviews, and a slew of other content means that the online edition has to be better almost by default. Plus, it allows me to post more pictures, like this one of Slovakian knockout Lucia Dvorska:

But I fear that the advances in online content left their print version a little lackluster. This is especially obvious in comparison to last year’s issue. For one, this year’s issue is 50 pages shorter than last year’s. But more importantly there aren’t as many ads. I know that this is going to sound counterintuitive coming from a journalist (especially one who is also a red-blooded mountain of a man who survives on whiskey and raw meat), but ads in the Swimsuit Issue are kind of like ads in the Super Bowl. Car companies, beer companies and just about everyone else who pays for space uses it to show off more models. They also like to use big foldouts, which double as space for SI to show off more models. So, more ads equals more models, like French-Canadian Kim Cloutier:

But this year’s issue contains exactly one model foldout (as opposed to cover foldout, which is all ad, though it does feature a model. it’s complicated). Since they lost the extra space to show larger picture in the issue, they instead decided to go with two-page spreads. Which means that I’m stuck ogling a model with a huge black line running right through them (I considered a half-dozen different wordings for that sentence, and that was the tamest). No where is this felt worse than in the bodypainting section, especially for Julie Henderson:

Her spread in the issue not obscures the model, but it obscures the intricate artwork that went into painting this bathing suit. Of course, those teases at SI have to use a pull quote that literally says “She has beautifully curved natural breasts, which I wanted to show off here” ON A SPREAD WHERE YOU CAN’T EVEN SEE THEM FULLY BECAUSE OF THE BINDING! DAMMIT SI, THIS IS WHY A-ROD DID STEROIDS! Here’s a picture of Israeli model (and covergirl) Bar Refaeli:

So the photo layout of the magazine has some faults. Considering that the only content in the magazine in the photos, that doesn’t work out very well. But the online version is still there, except, if you’ve been looking at the photos (presumably fewer people are reading the words) you’ve probably noticed that the they’re all in the same portrait layout. Yeah, it’s for a magazine, so I guess it’s understandable. But if they’re trying to push their online content, you’d imaging that they’d cater to widescreen monitors and resolutions with more landscape pictures like this one of Melissa Haro:

There is nothing worse than having to scroll through pictures of hot chicks. Melissa Haro clearly knows this. But in the end the issue is all about the models (or, for some, the largely non-functional “swimsuits”) and I really can’t complain on that front, except for the gap in Jessica Hart’s teeth and a couple dozen of Cintia Dicker’s freckles (and yes, I am actually refraining from posting pictures of beautiful women in the skimpiest outfits that can still justifiably be called clothing over these minor complaints). Because really, despite all the distraction, there will always certified Leggy Blonde Anne V of Russia to make everything better:

I probably should have mentioned this sooner, but all the words you’ve read on this site have officially become the work of an award winning journalist. Yes folks, that’s a real award right there. Third place for sports reporting in Weekly Class 2 of the New England Press Association’s Better Newspaper Contest. In other words, I made newspapers better last year. That, combined with my first place win in the Lee County Teachers of English fiction contest way back in the 8th grade, means that I am a more valuable human being than you are.

You can read my award winning story right here.

Now if I can just get my google ranking higher, all will be right with the world.

I was a mere child at that point, so I can be excused for overlooking the potential of a way to reach billions of people. I just wanted to find the cheat codes for Doom. But I want to know how seemingly every major industry on the planet managed to miss the boat on this. Instead, it was left to the “amateurs,” who developed things like Napster (and its spawn), facebook (and its ilk), blogs (including things like Dailykos and Huffington Post) and every other technology that could have destabilized the foundations of major companies.

If I weren’t too lazy to do research, I could probably stretch this into a semi-coherent argument about how the internet is partially to blame for the entire current economic state (the crux of which would be that the glut of information on the web has undermined the need for intelligent investing). Instead, I’m going to focus on the journalism industry, because it’s what matters most to me.

At some point during the three years I spent getting my journalism degree, the industry suffered a stroke and is currently in a persistent vegitative state, waiting for the plug to be pulled. It’s kind of like the video for Metallica’s “One,” but less badass. The short reason why this happened is that people stopped reading newspapers because more information was available online. This means less circulation, which means less ad revenue. The rise of online classifieds (specifically craigslist) was a huge blow to local papers, which had previously been pretty safe thanks to the number of people wanting to sell cars or pets or what have you.

As I see it though, the real problem for newspapers is that the entire newspaper experience can more or less be reproduced online, but without all the inkstains and cumbersome shuffling of broadsheet pages. Newspapers have always more or less been about words on a page. There is relatively little in the way of design, because the focus of the paper is the news (novel concept, I know). So if you can read that news online without having to deal with the paper, why wouldn’t you?

Of course, every reputable newspaper now runs their own website in tandem with their print editions. That brings in some new problems. There’s a part of Drew Curtis’ It’s Not News, It’s Fark (which, in all seriousness, is one of the best books about the newspaper industry that I’ve ever read) where he explains that when a newspaper sells ads for their online edition, they’re at a disadvantage because there are tangible numbers for how many people actually respond to the ads (not as many as are usually expected), so the revenues go down. The logical alternative would be to sell subscriptions, but since there are other online-only publications that offer their content for free, the “papers” really can’t compete.

All of this is pretty basic stuff, and I’m probably rehashing things that you already know. But that’s all about newspapers, and I was a magazine journalism student, so I’m going to hold out hope that the magazines survive. I honestly think that they could too.

Like newspapers, most magazines post most of their content online (although a depressing percentage of the hits to this site were from people trying to find GQ’s Profile of Lil’ Wayne, which is not online). But reading a really good magazine article online sucks. Gay Talese’s “Frank Sinatra Has A Cold” is pretty much agreed to be the best profile ever written. It should be required reading for journalism students. But I’ve never finished it. I just can’t sit there and read a single column of text for that long. Magazines (good ones anyway) are about a balance of design and content. Everything about them is more in-depth than their newsprint bretheren, and every magazine (and every issue of every magazine) has a completely unique feel to it.

There is a character inherent to magazines that does not translate to the online medium, at least at present. I haven’t bought a major newspaper in a year or so, but I’ve bought dozens of magazines in that same time. I’ll keep reading them until they stop publishing them.

Apparently there haven’t been too many big releases lately, so I’m going back a little ways to bring you this week’s installment of “I Hate Peter Travers.” For once, I’m also going to do a movie that not only did I see, but also enjoyed.

Tropic Thunder was actually one of my favorite movies of last year. I went into it with fairly low expectations, and came out more than pleased. The whole concept sounded dumb from the start, and I pretty much expected that Robert Downey Jr.’s “blackface” role was going to be the best part, but I also figured that it wasn’t going to stay funny for long.

But this isn’t about me, it’s about our friend Peter Travers. Here’s the review. Hilarity, or at least an attempt at it, will follow after the jump.

Think of all the ways you can hurt yourself laughing, as in fall down, split your sides, bust a gut, blow your mind. You get it all in Tropic Thunder, a knockout of a comedy that keeps you laughing constantly.

Honestly, this ought to stand alone. Someday, Peter Travers will die, and I can only hope that this will be read at his funeral. But I’m actually worried about him. I mean,  I understand that people use these phrases to describe our appreciation of comedy, but I didn’t think anyone took them seriously until now. And “blow your mind”? I thought that simply referred to the amount of illicit substances one would need to have coursing through their veins to ever agree with Peter Travers.

It’s also killer smart, lacing combustible action with explosive gags.

Hey Barack Obama, I voted for you and applied for a job with your transition team. Is there something you can do about this? Can I at least be secretary of media, charged with assuring the children of this fine nation that just because Rolling Stone gives this man money, you should never, ever mix metaphors (I use that term loosely, considering that Peter still hasn’t mastered analogies) like this?

But seriously, think about this sentence. I actually get “killer smart,” assuming that “killer” was the only modifier available for smart. But let’s talk about “combustible.” This word would imply that the action is simply able to explode. Combustible is actually a fairly boring and pedestrian word, all things considered. On the other hand, “explosive gags”  is a very specific statement. Since I saw this movie, I can attest that there was, in fact, one explosive gag early on. It involved Ben Stiller losing his hands. After that, I think all of the “gags” revolved around RDJ’s makeup and cocaine.

Stiller took flak for the other three movies he’s directed: 1994′s Reality Bites was allegedly too soft, 1996′s The Cable Guy too dark, 2001′s Zoolander too airy-fairy.

What’s that sound? Why, it’s time for Peter Travers to prove that he knows how to use imdb.

Confession: I liked them all.

Someday, humanity will recognize the amazing archival power of the internet. Peter Travers spent half of his Zoolander review talking about 9/11, then gives the movie some pretty meaningless praise. The Cable Guy review (which doesn’t actually carry a Peter Travers byline, but reads like his work) is actually a pretty negative review. And Peter didn’t review Reality Bites.

Try to picture Apocalypse Now as conceived by Borat. The man from Kazakhstan doesn’t appear in Tropic Thunder, but damn near everyone else does.

Okay, I understand the need for comparisons when writing reviews. It’s usually the easiest way to make your audience picture something that you’re writing about, and it’s one of the few techniques that actually works well in most situations. But this is just an abyssmal failure. I can understand the Apocalypse Now reference, in that it’s a Vietnam movie and there are similar plot elements, but there is almost no connection between Borat and Tropic Thunder, which is made all the more clear by the fact that Peter Travers says there’s no connection right afterwards.

But even if you allow that Borat was a funny movie and Apocalypse Now was a vietnam movie, equalling a funny Vietnam movie, the styles of comedy are comepletely different.

And whoever the guy is who plays the short, fat, bald, f-bomb-dropping studio chief, Les Grossman, has a big future. Spoiler alert: It’s Tom Cruise

I clearly am not an expert on comedy, but I’m pretty sure there’s a rule that says that if your joke needs an explanation, it probably isn’t funny. Especially if your delivery sounds like an overexcited first grader who can’t wait to be the first one to answer the question.

Stiller excels as Tugg Speedman, a muscled superstar who has sequelized his franchise as the brawny Scorcher more often than Stallone has dragged Rambo back to the box-office well...Taking the role of the Rambo-esque John “Four Leaf” Tayback in Tropic Thunder — the name of the film within the film — can be Tugg’s ticket to legit

I’m just confused by these Rambo references. Couldn’t he have just as easily used Rocky or William Shatner for the first one, rather than setting up this weird parallel of Rambo being both a symbol of hollywood’s failures and as a role that could be considered legit?

We even see a trailer for a Fatties flick featuring Black demonstrating a Kama Sutra of flatulence positions.

I’ve finally found a proper description for Peter Travers writing.

This is Black’s zaniest performance since School of Rock, and he makes Jeff’s turn as a gunnery sarge look convincing as well. Nice touch.

Back to the archives. School of Rock came out in 2003. Since then, Black starred in Nacho Libre, where Peter Travers said he was “filled to bursting with comic helium” and “willing to use everything from indecent exposure to an outrageous Mexican accent to get a laugh.”  He also starred in Be Kind Rewind, in which Peter Traver said he “indulges in facial contortions that would shame a caffeinated cartoon” (side hate: That Be Kind Rewind review contains this gem “Without turning Luddite (named after the 1811 British social movement that opposed all technological progress), Gondry is taking measure of what we’ve lost in the name of progress.” My brain literally stopped working for a few seconds when I read that.) I’m not saying those roles were more zany than School of Rock, but being zany is what Jack Black is known for. There’s no reason to talk about it anymore.

That, and THE WHOLE POINT OF THE MOVIE WAS THAT THE ACTORS WEREN’T CONVINCING IN THEIR ROLES.

Downey has a ball with the role, and his explanation to Stiller about the dangers of going “full retard” if you want to win an Oscar belongs in a comedy time capsule.

Today, I actually agree with a Peter Travers on a point. That was one of the single funniest parts of the movie, and is pretty much the sinlge most memorable thing about it. Irony will implode if Downey wins the Oscar this year.

Downey is so off-the-charts hilarious that you want to stand up and cheer.

And I’m back to hating. Nobody stands up to cheer in a movie unless it’s Rocky IV. What world does this man live in where these strange behaviors are acceptable?

The low-comic ensemble acting in Tropic Thunder is of the highest caliber.

I’m lost. I think this is a compliment, albeit a very backhanded one, but what does he mean by “low-comic”? He just spent all of the review talking about how smart and funny everyone is, and they’re low-comic? Yeah, there was some kind of cheap humor in the movie, but it was a pretty intelligent film too.

Is it too much? Sometimes. Tropic Thunder can be silly, shallow and way too inside.

I’m going to have to start tracking weird sexual undertones in these reviews. I would have thought that the literal meanings of “shallow” and “way too inside” should prevent them from being used side by side, but then I don’t work for Rolling Stone

Plus, there is a shrewd method to Stiller’s madness. He knows firsthand that Hollywood is a microcosm for a world that has swallowed its own marketing strategy.

Hollywood is not a microcosm for anything, and only someone who spends their life reviewing movies and writing about how you could hurt yourself laughing would ever think that. Not to mention the fact that Peter Travers swallows marketing campaigns like Linda Lovelace.

Yet he’s caught up, as we are, in the fantasies it’s selling. We enter this bizarro fun house giggling at the clowns on view, but we exit — and here’s the wow factor — laughing at ourselves.

Is anyone else insulted that Peter Travers tries to speak for “us”?  I think I’ve hammered the point home by now that Peter Travers is delusionally caught up in Marketing, so I’ll leave that side alone. I don’t think this movie was supposed to reflect on any normal person. It’s making fun of Hollywood, actors, acting and ever other aspect of the movie business. Explain to me why someone is supposed to laugh at themselves after watching this film? I’m waiting.