Flippin’ the Bird at Legoland

Even at Legoland, it’s politics as usual:


"F--- you, President Obama."

"Up yours, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, John Roberts."

Blah blah blah, etc. . . .

"I solemnly swear to execute YOU!!!"

Oosh oosh! (punching noises) Blam! Blam! Rat-a-tat-a-tat! (gun noises)

“Yeaaaarrggghhh!” (death rattle)

Panormous Redux (Yes, there are two pizzas)

My recent research into the fraud in a box known as the Panormous pizza from Pizza Hut unearthed this ridiculously droll video review of said abomination:

Forgive the pun, but how can anyone be as deadpan as this reviewer? Intrigued, I viewed the various videos posted by this character and also visited the pizzawars.net website. Tom, as he calls himself, is ostensibly an independent reviewer, but he basically seems like a shill for the “Big Three” pizzamakers – Domino’s, Pizza Hut, and Papa John’s – as his web pages consist primarily of profiles seemingly ripped from the companies’ promotional materials.

His video reviews, however, are refreshingly non-partisan and devoid of self-awareness. They all share the strange whimsy and resigned attitude on display in the Panormous review. Tom has mastered the art of unenthusiastic enthusiasm, something like watching the scenes in King of the Hill where Hank and his brew crew idly muse on nothing in front of a fence. “Not too bad” and “pretty decent” seem to encapsulate Tom's opinion of everything. I can’t help but admire his systematic treatment of the products, describing the “deal,” unveiling the pizza, commenting on topping distribution, examining the “bake” of the crust, (sometimes) doing a taste test, and then a final plug for his website.

A quintessential example:

Perhaps the richest part is his use of the royal “we,” when this is almost surely a one-man operation, just a guileless dude with a camcorder and a fistful of pizza coupons. Oh, he also has a review of the Madden 09 video game, but his strength clearly lies in pizza pies.

Tom, wherever you are, wherever “your area” happens to be, I hope they put a Giordano’s there. Keep on greasin’!

Panormous? Preposterous!

Behold this disgraceful rubbish:

This insult comes straight to you from the same blackguards who foisted “restaurant-quality” Tuscani pastas and the P’Zone onto the world.

Where does my bile spill first? Let’s start with the claim: “A pizza so big it never ends.” Really? Eagle-eyed observers will note the final image of the product, which shows (sneakily) that it’s actually two pizzas in one box. No crime there, but why the deception of calling it one big pizza? The name “Panormous” is only meaningful if we’re getting a giant pizza. You don’t tell someone, “I’m giving you a crumb-normous cookie,” then present a tray of Toll House minis.

But big is big, right? One pizza or two, what’s the difference? Well, there’s a big difference if you were hoping for some “inside” pieces, you know, the ones with no crust. The two-pie layout ensures that every slice will have at least one edge of bready crust. If you like crust, it’s a boon. If you don’t like crust, or at least enjoy variety, it’s a boondoggle.

And there’s the quick splash that informs us that the pizza is “over 40% bigger” than their large pan pizza. I’ll forego the math, but it’s quite clear that 40% bigger means that, individually, each of the Panormous twins is smaller than Pizza Hut’s large pan. So is this really their “BIGGEST pan pizza ever,” as the box proclaims? Or is it just two smallish pizzas combining to form one ungainly gestalt? It would be like claiming that Devastator is the largest Decepticon. The Panormous doesn’t even combine as elegantly and seamlessly as the Constructicons did.

And while we’re on the topic of pan pizzas, I’ll be fair and say that I’ve enjoyed Pizza Hut’s version of pan pizza in the past. But those were their round pizzas. The Panormous is two rectangular pizzas cut into square slices – the term “square pizza” will do. Historically, the square shape has been most closely associated with pan pizza. For another example, the “Papa’s Perfect Pan,” which actually is a square, from that other pizza peddler for the undiscriminating masses, Papa John’s.

To me, the squareness of the Panormous is the biggest insult of all, at least 40% bigger than their other insults. Do they take me for an utter fool? Maybe they thought I had never had square pizza before, and so they could bamboozle me with a novelty both exotic and rare for most people. Message to unscrupulous hucksters: I am not fooled by your baloney.

The only square pizza worth the pan came from the long-defunct San Diego chain, Square Pan Pizza. This local chain had shops in several malls around the county, and as a child, my mother would take me to the College Grove shopping center, where I was often treated to a few slices of Square Pan, while she shopped at Mervyns, another now-defunct institution. Now, I’m not saying that sentiment and time gone by haven’t provided a little extra seasoning to the Square Pan flavor. But it truly isn’t the taste that I miss most, or even remember most.

To me, Square Pan marked a more generous time, or at least a less cynical time. This was not an era where a pizza chain would offer a “555” deal, and deliver three undersized, desiccated, cheese-impoverished flatbreads. This was not an era when that chain’s competitor would copy the cheapskate formula, dumbing down their quite acceptable regular pizza to create the “Pizza Mia” – a bread wheel so meager of cheese, toppings, and heart that I vowed never to go back to those soulless charlatans.

Time was, a hardscrabble family would be awash with coupons for two large pizzas with two toppings each (at least two toppings, and sometimes, one of them would be a specialty pizza) for under $15, including tax. Yes, it would be the chains, Pizza Hut primarily, but others, notably that old Roman, Little Caesar’s, would dish out more than edible fare for a palatable price. Nowadays, those same chains (here, Little Caesar’s remains a welcome exception with their $5 Hot ‘N’ Ready large pepperoni or cheese pizzas) shove toasted plywood down your throat and tell you it’s a bargain.

Okay, so con men will try to fleece people by any means necessary, and have done so since man learned to scratch himself. But since when did we start being okay with this kind of treatment? I’ve been asked why I keep haranguing against the Panormous. Why not just ignore it? Because it makes me mad. As a wicked but insightful villain once said, “We live in mediocre times.” But mediocrity should not be celebrated!

Can’t we demand more of our pizza purveyors? Yes we can! Can’t we show them that we won’t be hornswoggled into choking down their overpriced leavings? Yes we can! Can’t we tell the world that enough’s enough and we need to bring back Square Pan Pizza? Yes we can!

If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible. . . I remind you, even the New Kids on the Block came back.

The Swim Back

I recently watched the movie, Gattaca, for the first time. Equal parts science fiction and detective story, the film came out in 1997, and it became one of those movies I “wanted to see, but never saw.” Years went by without me ever making the time to actually watch it, even though it was one of those movies that, judging by my fuzzy memories of its purported themes, would be the sort of movie I’d like. (Over time, it may have become unfavorably associated in my mind with the unappealing Halle Berry thriller with a similar name, Gothika, thus reducing the urgency to see the movie.)

Gattaca was recently made available for free on hulu.com, and I almost thought someone was thinking of me, giving me the kick in the pants I needed. For anyone who hasn’t seen it yet, especially those of you who, like me, were drawn to its previews and thematic sensibilities years ago, see it now. Don’t wait. It’s free, for God’s sakes!

The plot: The protagonist, Vincent, dreams of going to space, but he is thwarted by his genetic deficiencies. He lives in a world where science can engineer the genetic “quality” of every person before he is even born. Most children are thus the products of extensive gene manipulation by parents and doctors desperate to give their children a leg up. Vincent is an exception, and chance has given him a heart defect and a life expectancy of a mere 30 years. And while science allows you to give your child every possible advantage, the flip side is that the genetically “inferior” are forced to become the social underclass. After all, who would invest anything in someone who only has 30 years to live? Knowing this, Vincent makes desperate choices in order to con his way into space. Hijinks of the most believable sort ensue.

Gattaca is the sort of movie I hope to see every time I go to the theater, every time I pop in a new DVD, every time someone says, “Hey, you should watch such and such; you’d really like it.” The best movies (and best works of art, for that matter) leave a part of themselves in you, or rather, I think they show you something about yourself, and thus restore you to yourself.

What Gattaca restored in me was the belief that dreams are worth fighting for. Space is the only dream Vincent ever had, and he gives everything he is to his dream, even though it means defying the principles his society is founded on. He dares to believe that he can be more than the story told by his genes. To not try would be a capitulation to the injustice of his society.

Like the best science fiction, Gattaca is about ideas, not special effects. To me, the movie channeled the aesthetic of early science fiction, the works of H.G. Wells and Jules Verne. In their books, the sci-fi elements were almost incidental to the ideas and evocation of human conflicts. Gattaca isn’t about space, nor is it even about a eugenics-mad dystopia. Genes and space are the mechanism for exploring the choices we face about whether we can be more than what others condemn us to.

The movie is elevated by some of the best actors in the business. Ethan Hawke, as Vincent, carries off emotions ranging from sarcastic to gentle to entreating to terrified, and above all, he owns the role of heroic dreamer. Uma Thurman plays his frosty on the outside, yearning on the inside love interest, Irene (though for Vincent, romance will prove to be an afterthought). Jude Law, in one of his first major roles, scorches the screen as Jerome.

I was moved as much by Michael Nyman’s extraordinary score as by the story itself. I think he one-ups even his fine and better known work in The Piano.

This was the first movie from writer and director, Andrew Niccol, who went on to direct Simone, and who also wrote The Truman Show. All three of these movies share sci-fi characteristics, generally involving Niccol’s pet theme of a protagonist pitted against a world that tries to constrain what he is capable of becoming.

Because of The Truman Show’s big budget and the involvement of megastar Jim Carrey, producer Scott Rudin (Zoolander, No Country for Old Men) reportedly could not entrust the project to a rook (Gattaca had not been made at that point). Veteran Peter Weir (Dead Poets Society, Master and Commander) was brought in to helm the movie, and though I admire the work he did, I can’t help but wonder what Niccol would have done with his own script as director.

The most recent Niccol movie was Lord of War, a strictly non-sci-fi film that starred Nicolas Cage as an incorrigible arms dealer. With his typical care, Niccol takes a conventional genre thriller to a more thoughtful level than most viewers would expect from this material. Despite the radically different milieu, Lord of War plays to Niccol’s raison d’être: to glorify a man who wants to do one thing and who pursues it, no matter the cost.

I like Niccol’s later movies, but I think none of them has the emotional weight and technical completeness of Gattaca. In the spirit of the new year, I resolve to set aside old prejudices and give everything I am to my dreams.