BartCop Entertainment Archives - Tuesday, 13 December, 2005

by Gene Siskel (RIP)

Angels with Angles, Scott Lane's new film opening at the Laemmle in Los Angeles this week, is a masterpiece, and I'm not saying that just because Satan is holding my children hostage. Oh yeah, I'm in hell. No critics go to heaven, don'tcha know. That's what makes it heaven. They wouldn't show Angels with Angles to me in hell because it would be too pleasurable. In hell, all I get to see are Jean-Claude Van Damme films (one of which, In Hell, is particularly appropriate), so special arrangements had to be made for me to sneak into a screening in heaven.

Sneaking into heaven is harder than it looks. Security is tighter than Roger Ebert's belt after a night at an all-you-can-eat Swedish meatball festival. Luckily there are lots of studio make-up artists in hell, so I was able to sneak in as Mother Teresa. There was a full body cavity search during which they discovered that Mother Teresa was apparently a man, but St. Peter didn't look surprised. "A lot of nuns are men," he said before issuing me my security pass and giving me his personal business card with a note on the back inviting me up to his hotel room after work for a bottle of Blue Nun.

Theaters are a lot better in heaven, not like the cineplexes in hell, where whatever film you're watching, you can hear the film next door just as loud. Theaters in heaven are the extravagant old baroque movie palaces, complete with grand staircases, chandeliers, and ushers - actually cherubs with wings and flashlights.

There was a red carpet leading to the lobby, surrounded by Klieg lights and banners for the start of the Heavenly "Top Ten" Festival. I settled into my seat with a bag of popcorn, marveling that even in heaven, they don't use real butter. The lights went down, the curtain went up, and the film began.

Rodney Dangerfield's last performance! Frank Gorshin's last performance! George Burns' first after-life performance! I feel like I died and went to heaven! Which I did! The first thing I noticed about Angels with Angles was that Jean-Claude Van Damme wasn't in it, which already made it the best film I've seen since I died.

Frank Gorshin as George Burns in Angels with Angles

According to the film, heaven is a "non-smoking paradise," which makes it less than heaven for level-one angel, George Burns (the amazing Frank Gorshin), who misses his precious stogies. He also misses Gracie Allen, who's already grown her wings and graduated to level-six while he's stuck in level-one. It turns out God (Rodney Dangerfield) has been cutting down on George's angel status because all the angels keep mistaking George for him. Just like in real life, God's got a bit of an ego problem (which is probably why he's keeping Sigmund Freud in hell).

George makes a deal with God. If he helps a mortal stay on the right path, he'll not only get to smoke as much as he wants, but he'll be able to join Gracie in level-six. Voila! Divine intervention!

Shoomie (Scott Lane) is the slob George has to help, and he needs it. He's a songwriter whose last hit, Kinky Kinky, hasn't produced any residuals in years. Lane charms his way through a role of a guy with none. He's perfected self-loathing as a performance art. He needs a shave, he needs a job, he needs a girlfriend, and he needs George Burns stepping out of his TV like a hole in the head. Soon Burns ends up joining Shoomie and his edgy pal Howie (David Proval from The Sopranos) in an escapade to Miami involving Castro's stolen cigars, counter-revolutionaries with guns (Julie Carmen and Henry Darrow), Fidel's elite guard, ditsy housewives, thieving pond scum, and Gurus with personality defects (Frank Gorshin again).

One of the best things about Angels with Angles are the celebrity guest appearances. It has cameos galore, Mae West, W.C. Fields, and the Marx Brothers, enough to make any film buff's heart go pitty pat, unless it was removed during an autopsy like mine. Einstein, who just happened to be sitting right next to me, thought the guy who played him in the movie didn't look anything like him, but George Burns, who was sitting behind us, swore up and down that Frank Gorshin should get an Oscar.

I was sure I saw Jerry Mathers (the Beaver) in the "Gone but not Forgotten" Lounge in the eighth level of hell but I must have been mistaken. He's still alive and in Angels with Angles along with Dwayne Hickman, Soupy Sales, Adam West, Frank Stallone, Zelda Rubenstein (the diminutive "house" exorcist in Poltergeist) and Richard Moll, making this a perfect film for playing a game of "where've I seen that face before?" Donald (Hide the Dog) Marino did a particularly fine job memorizing his lines as Harpo Marx. Here's another fun game you can play while watching Angels with Angels. Down one Red Bull every time you see someone you recognize and you'll get wings, unless you're already in heaven in which case they're superfluous.

The heavenly revival circuit is much better than the one in hell, where all the prints are scratchy and the soundtracks messed up. The only version of Van Damme's Cyborg that's ever shown in hell is dubbed into Portuguese with Farsi subtitles, so I stuck around heaven as long as I could. In heaven, all films are shown with pristine prints in their original language. I ended up catching a lot of other movies I hadn't seen in a long time. Among the other films joining Angels with Angles in the heavenly top ten are Warren Beatty's Heaven can Wait, Albert Brook's Defending Your Life, Wings of Desire (in hell, all we get to see is Shwings of Desire, starring a Van Damme look-alike), Beetlejuice, Bedazzled (the original), Bill and Ted's Bogus Adventure, Monty Python's The Meaning of Life, that episode of The Simpsons where Homer goes to heaven, and mysteriously, Die Hard, presumably because it takes place on Christmas eve. Apparently God's a real Bruce Willis fan. I inquired why It's a Wonderful Life wasn't on the list and was told that everyone in heaven had already seen it too many times on television, so seeing it again would be too big a slice of hell for their delicate sensibilities.

All good things must come to an end, which means the Bush administration might go on forever. I decided to make a dramatic exit, took off my disguise, and loudly announced to anyone who cared, "Look, I'm Gene Siskel, I'm a critic, and I'm in heaven." I was promptly maced by a cherub and dragged down to the eternal pit of fire and damnation, where I am now, typing this into a computer. In hell, all computers use Windows 98, so let's hope you don't get this review with a virus. All I can say is if Frank Gorshin doesn't get a posthumous Oscar nomination for his astounding portrayal of George Burns, there is no God.

Oh, and Roger? Roeper sucks. See you soon.

Heavenly Cryptogram of the Week

Answer below

Angels with Angles, Lies, Lies, and More Lies

by Chester Gigolo: Honorary Chairman of the God-Fearing Atheists of America

This film is an insult to atheists everywhere. Not only do rational atheists have to do battle with those who think God is a bearded old man in the sky who watches everything we do, now we have to do battle with those who think God is Rodney Dangerfield, a stand-up comic famous for his addiction to cocaine and prostitutes. So let's get this straight. God is not anything like Rodney Dangerfield because God doesn't exist, and if he did, he hasn't done any coke since his college years.

On the other hand, Rodney Dangerfield definitely exists, and I can prove it. Just watch Caddyshack. Proving God's existence is another thing altogether. It's a matter of faith, and not the prostitute named Faith whom Rodney had a thing for, even though she shouted "Oh God oh God" every time he was with her.

Angels with Angles perpetuates the myth that heaven is a place where good dead people gather to have fun, and conversely, that hell is a place where bad dead people gather to have misery. Nothing could be further from the truth. Heaven doesn't exist and dead people, good or bad, don't do anything but decompose. If it was writer/director/star Scott Lane's purpose to show how ridiculous the Judeo-Christian version of the afterlife is, he did a good job. But if it was his purpose to show that good deeds can actually reserve you a bit of eternal bliss, he can go to hell, if it exists, which it doesn't.

I also question whether George Burns would have actually gone out of his way to spend more time with Gracie Allen. Maybe he was sick of her. After all, it was George Burns himself who said "Happiness is having a large, loving, caring, close-knit family in another city."

The makers of this film clearly believe in God. As a member of the Jehovah's Witness Protection Program, that means everybody involved in this film must stay at least 50 feet away from me or I can have them arrested.

Since any ultimate reality like God is probably unknowable, I really can't commit to believing in either the existence or non-existence of angels who smoke cigars, or whether this film is any good or not. Quantum mechanics shows that the world isn't as logical as we thought, so movies that make absolutely no sense are the only ones that accurately reflect reality. Since Angels with Angles makes sense, it's clearly fiction, which proves there is no God unless it cleans up at the box office.

Lane got one thing right. In Hollywood, just like Rodney, God can't get any respect.

Dueling Quotes

The following quotes from the old testament seem to contradict themselves, but since God is perfect, they obviously don't.

Happy is the man that findeth wisdom, and the man that getteth understanding. - Proverbs 3:13	For in much wisdom is much grief; and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow. - Ecclesiastes 1:18
Those that seek me early shall find me. - Proverbs 8:17	Then shall they call upon me but I will not answer; they shall seek me early, but shall not find me. - Proverbs 1:28
Blessed is the man that feareth the Lord... Wealth and riches shall be in his house... - Psalms 112:1-3	It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God. - Matthew 19:24

How is it that the very same God said the things on the right AND the things on the left? Send your answers to What the hell was God thinking when he said such contradictory things?

Kabbalah View of Angels with Angles

by Eddie Zohar: Astrologist, Numerologist, Crystologist, and Madonna's faux henna tattoo artist

Angels with Angles presents us with a particularly wacked-out variation of the traditional Kabbalah view of the afterlife. Though the makers of this film have clearly done their spiritual homework, the Kabbalah neglects to inform us that to create a Golem, all you have to do is raise money to make an independent film.

I know what you're thinking. Is the Kabbalah a legitimate part of the Jewish Religion, an obscure form of Hebrew mysticism, or, as the Catholics think, just Gnostic heresy practiced by new age Wiccans? If none of the Kabbalistic writings were considered inspired by the Council of Jamnia in the 2nd century AD, which formally set the canon of Hebrew scripture, then why has it turned into a multi-million dollar industry? And what do the Jamnia have to say about it anyway? Doesn't Kabbalism date much further back than the Medieval Era, predating Moses and Christ? And since officially only men can study Kabbalah, is Madonna actually a man? Angels with Angles doesn't even come close to answering these questions.

While Catholics are bogged down reading St. John of the Cross or Catherine of Sienna or some of the other ridiculous Catholic mystics, us Kabbalists are mainlining ancient scripture we won't even let you see unless you're a celebrity. After all, they need spiritual guidance more than the rest of us poor slobs who work for them.

Just look at George Burns in this movie. He gives more guidance than he gets and still ends up dead. And Shoomie comes back from the dead, not because he learned anything, not because the first time we see him he's splayed out on the floor like the crucified Jesus, but because he pulls a con on a heavenly gatekeeper. What's wrong with these people? Hollywood is the new Sodom and Gomorrah and needs to be wiped off the earth like a pestilential hellhole in the final moments of Rapture and Armageddon.

But I digress. When the Kabbalah doesn't work for me, or in between the times I'm allowed an audience with her majesty in order to scribble on her hands, I look to other stars for guidance. The Love Goddess Venus is in passionate Scorpio right now, ready to unleash her seductive powers upon all who bask in her glow. But isn't she in opposition to Mars in Taurus, the "I'm in no hurry" lover? Doesn't this push-pull aspect actually energize relationships, but only if you reach out when your love interest is receptive? Angels with Angles doesn't even come close to answering these questions.

Angels with Angels proves that a Golem isn't necessarily an undead servant from the corpse of a deceased loved one. It can be a comedy.

Short Story of the Week

"Damn," a voice said. "I'm still alive."

"Who is that?" Ritchie Castleman asked.

"It's me, Moses Grelich," a voice inside him said.

Grelich? Ritchie had heard that name somewhere before. Then he remembered. Grelich was the body he had bought to live his new life in.

Grelich said, "I was supposed to be dead. They promised me I'd be dead."

"That's right," Ritchie said. "I remember now. You sold your body to me. And I was supposed to have bare-bones possession of it."

"But I am still in it. It's still my body."

"I don't think so," Ritchie said. "Even if you are still in it, you sold it to me. It's my body now..."

...Just yesterday he had opted for the newly developed choice of putting his mind into a new body. This had become necessary when his congenital heart defect suddenly started acting up. There had been no time to lose. He had gone to Mind Movers Technology Company, and found that they had one body he could take over immediately. Moses Grelich had decided to opt for self-obliteration, to sell his body, and to leave his money to Israel.

Yesterday the operation had taken place.

- Robert Sheckley (RIP): reborn again -

Extraneous Editorial

Killing Me Softly

by Michael Dare

Okay, let me get this straight. Going to a priest and confessing your sins absolves you of them, but actually changing your ways and becoming a better person gets you the needle?

The death penalty is wrong in so many ways that the only way to be for it is to throw rationality out the window. Once you go through all the facts, that it doesn't deter crime, that states with the death penalty have a higher murder rate, that it actually costs more to execute someone than to keep them in jail for life, that we're one of the only countries left in the civilized world that does such a thing, and that it sends the confusing message that murder is bad so if you do it we'll murder you, the only excuses left are "they deserve to die" and "revenge is sweet."

Not that there aren't people who deserve to die. There just aren't any people with the right to decide who deserves to die, other than relatives of the dying with that right bestowed upon them by the incapacitated. I would say that anyone who thinks that Terri Schiavo deserved to live while Stan Tookie Williams deserves to die is out of their fucking mind.

Of course the one thing the Schiavo and Williams cases have in common is a governor who gets to poke his nose in someone's eternal soul. Florida's Jeb Bush decided the Schiavo case warranted the presence of his proboscis. Now California's Arnold Schwarzenegger gets to decide whether or not to commute the death sentence of an ex-gang member who may or may not have actually killed some people but who, as founder of the Crips, certainly encouraged others to do so, and has completely changed his ways, helping street kids to do anything but join a gang. Williams' life is right there in Arnold's overdeveloped Terminator hands. I bet when Williams saw Conan the Barbarian, it didn't occur to him that the muscle-bound monster of aggression on the screen would some day get to decide if he lived or died.

Charles Manson is a gibbering idiot. The last time I saw him on TV in an interview with Tom Snyder, he gave the most convincing impersonation of a raving lunatic I've ever seen. If Manson wrote a book, it would be called "How to Get Innocent People to Do Your Evil Bidding" and it would be a must read for all politicians, but apparently Chuck's literary ambitions are locked up in that little part of his mind where his conscience used to be.

We're keeping Charlie alive.

All the arguments the lawyers are making are beside the point. They're not arguing that it's just plain wrong. It doesn't make any difference if Stan Tookie Williams is guilty or innocent; any government taking the lives of its own citizens, much less foreign citizens, is an atrocity.

Once a species becomes self-aware, evolution becomes less random and more voluntary. The next step in human evolution is when we voluntarily stop killing each other. Tookie has resolved to stop killing which makes him higher evolved than those who would do him in. Those who don't believe in evolution want to stop people from evolving since it disproves their thesis, thus only those who believe in God want to kill Tookie, despite the pesky commandment that says thou shalt not.

Satan says go ahead and kill 'em. Anything that brings out mankind's baser instincts is good for Satan. God says keep 'em alive. Since life on earth is hell and there is no heaven, the life penalty is worse than the death penalty.

We own our lives, not the government. Do you really want your government, not just the present government, but any other potentially wacky group of religious co-conspirators who happen to find themselves in power, to have the power of life and death over YOU? Do you give them the right to take you out for any reason whatsoever? One day its murderers and rapists, the next day its gays and pot smokers, then Jews and blacks, and inevitably absolutely everybody who disagrees with them. It's a slope slipperier than a slug in Vaseline. The only place to draw the line that keeps every citizen safe is right at the beginning. The government can't kill anybody. Period.

Okay, if there's a sniper on a tall building picking off innocent people he needs to be dealt with, but even then there are non-lethal ways of doing it. Killing people to protect the public is the same lame excuse that got us into Iraq, and pre-emptive strikes need an evidence bar set pretty goddam high. Turns out Hussein was no threat to America at all. He's certainly not a threat while in jail and neither is Williams. Killing either of them out of vengeance says that killing is okay out of vengeance. That's not what I'm teaching MY children. Anybody killing anybody isn't doing it in my name.