Uma Thurman’s Severed Head
When I saw the poster on the left for Uma Thurman’s upcoming movie My Super Ex-Girlfriend, I immediately thought, “Oh my God. Poor Uma. Someone did an awful job grafting her head on a totally different body.” Then I saw the poster on the right, and I did a double take. Someone grafted the exact same head onto this poster, too. If they weren’t going to do a good job, couldn’t they at least make it less obvious that it’s the exact same head? And I think her (body double’s?) breasts are bigger in one shot than in the other.
If you want to see just how exactly matched the heads are, click here to watch a little animation.
Hmm. “Uma Thurman’s Severed Head” would make a great band name.
Madagascar tells the story of a bunch of animals at the Central Park Zoo who break out hoping to live a better life on the outside. So, naturally enough, the story starts at the Central Park Zoo. It’s rendered fine enough, I guess, but it doesn’t really have much character. Nearby buildings — the Plaza Hotel, Essex House, etc — are recognizable in the background. And I guess it looks like the Central Park Zoo. But it’s so sterile and just kind of bland.
You won’t be surprised to learn that the animals escape the zoo and have an adventure in New York City. There are a couple cute moments, like the one where the zebra sees the woman wearing zebra stripes outside Saks. But for the most part, I felt the renderings of the city were a little too real-world-photogenic. I mean, this is a cartoon where all the characters have definite style. So why doesn’t the city get any style?
Look at Rockefeller Plaza, for example. It looks… more or less just like Rockefeller Plaza. I guess I would complain if it didn’t, but it’s just a little too clean and sterile to look good this way. It just bothers me. It’s like they’ve found the 
The more I think about it, the more I think the uncanny valley metaphor is exactly what’s wrong here. They created a version of New York City that’s photo-realistic and accurate in most details. But they missed the mark in so many subtle ways that it ends up being disturbing more than anything else.
And they put benches in Grand Central Terminal. There are no benches in the main concourse of Grand Central Terminal in real life. But in the movie there are. But here’s one detail they did get right: They accurately depict the sign on the building as showing the words “Grand Central Terminal” and also accurately depict everyone in the movie referring to it as “Grand Central Station” instead.
I’ve heard “Margaritaville” about 500 times too many on jukeboxes in bars. It might be worth five bucks to me to be able to skip that song the next time someone plays it. Someone should make a jukebox that features a big “SKIP” button and charge five bucks to use it. I think five dollars is just the right amount. It’s high enough that someone won’t keep skipping songs just to be a jerk, but low enough that I can afford to skip that one song that I really just can’t stand to hear one more time.
Many people are already familiar with the disorder known as Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy. This is a form of mistreatment where a caregiver, usually a mother, pretends that a child has an illness, and the child is subjected to all sorts of unnecessary testing and treatments, just so the mother can get some attention.