Volume 3, Issue 13
June 21 - July 4, 2001

FEED MY CRAP-ENSTEIN

When we heard Alice Cooper was opening a restaurant in LoDo, everyone's hand went immediately up in the air to be the first to make fun of it. I decided, what the hell, let everyone have a poke. It's not everyday such an obviously misconceived marketing ploy comes to town and drops a pretty pile of cash to announce itself.

What shocked us was the red carpet: Glowing media coverage from every television news anchor; Giddy proclamations of excitement from the Denver Rocky News Mountain Post; The mayor declaring May 29, 2001, Alice Cooper'stown Day; Cooper taking out a full page color ad in Westword just to let everyone in Denver know that May 29, 2001, was Alice Cooper'stown Day.

Now our mocking is not just for the fun of it. It's for the good of Denver citizens everywhere. Cooper'stown isn't just another stupid theme restaurant. It's a blight on the good taste of our city's citizens, right down to the awkwardly apostrophized name. First, I appeal to Rockies fans: Cooper'stown is owned by an Arizona Diamondbacks fan! Avoid it like the plague! What do you want next? Al Davis'burg in the parking lot of Invesco Field Near Mile High? Detroit Hockeytown squatting outside the gates of the Pepsi Center?

Second, I appeal to jocks. You had enough sports bars before this one came along. The only dimension Cooper'stown adds to your evening of high fiving and chest thumping is easy access to men in makeup.

Third, I appeal to our die hard readers. Take these two weeks to write down as many insulting things as you can about Alice Cooper'stown and send them in. We'll publish them all in this space next issue. Then we'll stop devoting any space to the joint whatsoever. Maybe if we ignore it, it will go away.

Oh, and to any of our sales people who thought they'd land the whopper of a lifetime with Cooper'stown ... sorry about all this.

FLICKERS OF DOUBT

Oh man. I've been a fan of this publication for about a year now-- and for the most part, it has remained an utter divine pinnacle of the independent publication community (typing hard now-- recently back from bar) ... but ... these movie reviews this week [ www.gogomagazine.com/0311/film.html]. Specifically, Pearl Harbor and Moulin Rouge.

There could be nothing good said of that shit piece of crap-ass whorish mercantilism that is Pearl Harbor. And yet, your paid-money-to reviewer did so. Completely. Off the top of my ethyl-soaked cerebellum I can't remember him mentioning any drawbacks to that three-plus hour how-to-spend-140 million-the-worst- way-possible assfest. Yeah, look at me being ever so articulate. Let it be ... really. Typing/thinking/focusing is difficult now.

But goddamn. And I've never heard anyone actually use "suspension of disbelief" as a failing point of a musical. Moulin Rouge is a fun little musical. It's like a vapid action movie for drama queens. It isn't high art. It isn't brilliant filmmaking. It's flashy glitz-n-sparkle in copious amounts, presented in the unique cinematic flavour of Baz Luhrmann. The bottom line of this rant is ... if you're going to criticize a film's failing points, at least do it properly. Shit, next thing that happens this guy is gonna question why there's not enough recoil in Sam L. Jackson's Desert Eagle in Pulp Fiction.

Yeah, this is all a roundabout way of saying that suspension of disbelief is genre-specific. And as far as musicals go, there's a fuckload of leeway to be had.

Okay, really though ... I love your rag (and I use the word 'rag' lovingly). Keep on rocking ass. Favorite new addition (as I know you've heard excessively) is Capt. Back Page. Whatever-his-name-is-that-I'm- too-fuckin-lazy-to-look-up-right-now. Andrew Wells. Damn fine humorist.

With love (and biting, drunken criticism), --Erik

I'm a movie guy. I mean, I'm a music guy and an art guy and a theatre guy and a dining guy, too. My renaissance dabbling has extended to every corner of this magazine except fashion-- an area I'm so frighteningly incapable of conquering, a sales clerk at the Gap once asked me where I got the outfit I was wearing, and I had to inform her, "The Gap ... eight years ago." Before she was born, practically. But most of all, I'm a movie guy.

When we first got going with this venture, I greedily hogged all the movie criticism, pushing aside pleading freelancers and attending every screening that would have me. I quickly realized something about reviewing movies: it's appallingly easy to do, and appallingly hard to do well. If you think about it, the movie critic's only job is to be right, all the time, in the eyes of all people, on a subject that boils down to opinion. There are a select few superhumans capable of this (The New Yorker's Anthony Lane is the only one who springs to my mind), so all the other movie reviewers have to settle for the other side of the coin: being wrong, and controversially so, as much as possible. Not that Neal or Chris or Josh form their opinions around what they think the readers might think; indeed, I hope they don't give a shit what you all think. Still, they work hard to see things other moviegoers don't, to explain plots and characters in a way that others wouldn't immediately come up with. Sometimes genius happens, and everyone agrees. Most of the time, though, people just wonder what they're thinking.

Who's to say Neal's not a genius for falling in love with Pearl Harbor? It's so easy to heap immediate backlash on any pretentious and expensive project. I've often wondered what would happen if Ben-Hur or The Ten Commandments was released today ... would these classics be ridiculed by the elite? In 50 years, Neal could be seen as the only voice of reason in a time when populist movies were regarded with suspicion and scorn.

As for Luhrmann's movies, and Moulin Rouge, I've yet to find two people who completely agree about the work of Baz, good or bad. For Chris to have taken a stand at all is admirable.

PS-- We found Andrew camped out at Fiddler's Green to get first crack at Quiet Riot tickets. He came highly recommended by both his mother and seventh grade math teacher.

CONTEST WINNERS

Congratulations to Joel Solomon and Heidi Gehret, the winners of our dinner date with Bobby and Stephanie! We hope they enjoy their evening out at the Avenue Grill ... we'll see how it went when the reports come back next issue in Tattooed Food Critic and Siren Chat. Stay tuned for more contests coming soon.

--Chris J. Magyar