Okay, so it is never a good idea to watch a DVD when the box garnishes the quote, “Awake does for operations what Jaws did for the beach.”  Awake features the most ludicrous story line possible, except for maybe Lindsay Lohan’s I Know Who Killed Me.  The movie opens with a type of factual documentation of “anesthetic awareness,” which rivals most documentaries opening clarifications.  This occurrence is when a surgery patient is paralyzed physically, but still remains conscious of the surgical procedure.  So, this does not sound so bad, but add total out of body experiences where the patient can actually wander around and figure out who killed them  (unfortunately, just like Lohan),  and we have completely  reinvented the medically proven experience of “anesthetic awareness.”

Horrible acting and just a flat out stupid premise makes this film unbearable.  Hayden Christensen, who I only can pray is descent in Jumper, is a rich New Yorker with a weak heart, but of course, not weak enough to not have a hidden affair going on with Jessica Alba.  I must stray for a moment to say that I would be hard pressed to name a more horrible actor than Ms. Alba. Even Jessica Simpson seems to have more range.  Maybe that is too harsh, but does anyone forget a movie like Honey?   When I rant about Alba, many people like to remind me of Dark Angel and the sort of cult following that ensued.  My response to any demands that I should recognize her for her work in this TV sci-fi series would only be that it cannot be very hard to play the living dead when your acting is just dead.  And, what happened to Terrence Howard?  He comes out swinging with an Oscar nomination for Hustle & Flow and then gets the Cuba Gooding syndrome and starts taking any script sent his way.  In Awake, Howard is the surgeon who will perform a heart transplant on Christensen’s character, against the wishes of Christensen’s mother (played by Lena Olin).  Here is where it gets just plain silly.  Christensen is like a young Donald Trump and we are supposed to believe that he would allow a team of surgeons, at what looks to be a local urgent care clinic in Manhattan, do a heart transplant for him?  Also, we are told that Howard’s surgeon has had four malpractice suits against him, making it even more unbelievable that Christensen would find his “friendship” enough to risk a successful transplant.

Whenever there is money involved, there is likely to be deceit.  Of course, in Awake what Christensen discovers in his state of anesthetic awareness is that Howard and his surgical team is plotting to kill the young tycoon.  Although, to some the discovery that Alba, the love interest, is not on the up-and-up, may be shocking, to others it seems like the same old recipe to another ridiculous thriller.  Not to ruin this movie for anyone, but the martyrdom of the mother by the end almost turns Awake into a spoof of  The Sixth Sense.  If you do not want to place yourself in an “anesthetic awareness” where you are paralyzed with stupidity, please don’t watch this film.  Count backwards from ten and make sure you are completely unconscious!

Amid insipid articles on Miss Pettigrew Lives For a Day (fluffy!), the Bloody Mary (spicy!) and a repeat feature on George Rodrigue’s NOMA exhibit (from dogging to doting in one week flat!), today’s Times-Picayune “Lagniappe” insert proffered this intriguing tidbit: Some enterprising film company saw fit to celluloid-ize Robosapien, and auditions for the upcoming New Orleans shoot will be held next Friday, March 14. Robosapien, you may know (provided you’re sub-5 feet tall and possess a Y chromosome), is the flagship product of WowWee, a consumer electronics company specializing in robot design. Its inventor, Mark Tilden, is a former physicist for NASA whose applied principles in biomorphic robotics allow the 24-inch feller to perform a virtual acrobatics act — fluid motions, gestures, walking, turning, the works. (He can even speak, belch and flatulate at random, making him not unlike his target demographic.) Before visions of a climactic, albeit miniaturized, Cloverfield-style climax begin dancing in any heads — faulty wiring causes Robosapien to take out an unsuspecting family of nutrias! — it should be said that the picture is billed as “a beautiful family feature film about a boy who finds a robot and the adventures they have together.” Groan. Maybe the sight of all those damn inscrutable blue dogs around town will set him off. Hey, it works for art critics.   

Animal crackers stalk the tables at J’Anita’s, the new Lower Garden District barbecue joint I reviewed this week.

In just one of the little quirks that abound in this colorful restaurant, proprietor Craig Giesecke and his crew like to sprinkle a few of the pale, zoologically correct cookies around the plate before they send them out to the dining room. It doesn’t matter if you order a plate of beef brisket, a burger or even biscuits with gravy (pictured above) from the breakfast menu, you’ll probably get a few.

During our interview, Giesecke told me it was a touch he thought would make a meal just a bit more memorable, a little lighthearted gimmick to make customers smile. Certainly, it made me smile. Visiting J’Anita’s several times over the course of a month I had more animal crackers through this riff on lagniappe than I have eaten in all the years since grade school combined.

Though they come out with the meal – and sometimes even embedded in the coleslaw or gravy – I began to look at them somewhat like fortune cookies and saved them for the very end. In this case, however, instead of discovering a fortune within the cookie the treat is learning just how a the old, familiar animal cracker tastes with remnants of your lunch or breakfast stuck to it. I doubt I’ll ever dip an animal cracker in barbecue sauce again, but I must admit the sweet, mild little cookie did have a little something going for it with a smear of that peppery white sausage gravy at breakfast.

- Ian McNulty

by Sam Winston

After Rush Limbaugh drizzled heavy praise on Louisiana’s new governor, talk flaired and then fizzled on Bobby Jindal’s chances of getting on the Republican ticket to be Vice President. The Republicans loved his social conservative credentials, not to mention his ethnicity as a counter punch to the Democrats’ claim of first black man or first woman president. Nevertheless the notion was quickly dismissed due to Jindal’s relative lack of experience.

Now a columnist at Congressional Quarterly has flipped the script on that logic, especially if Obama is the Democratic nominee. Read the rest of this entry »

Seeing as how the New Orleans VooDoo play their season opener on Sunday, I want to encourage everyone to read Adam Norris’ feature from last week’s issue if you haven’t already.

More importantly, though, is that the VooDoo will be holding a pep rally tonight at 7 at the Lakeside Shopping Center in Metarie. When was the last time the Saints held a team-organized pep rally? Anybody? All the details can be found here.

Also, Norris mentioned the Arena League has a Fan Bill of Rights but he didn’t really get into the actual wording. Allow me:

• The word Fan is capitalized in every reference. In honor of this, I will do the same in any AFL-related post starting with this one. Read the rest of this entry »

The long-awaited Imagination Mover’s CD, “Juice Box Heroes,” will be available through iTunes and in stores starting on March 18. If you, or your favorite kid, can’t wait that long, you can get a first sip of the new CD and support children’s art education. Starting on March 11, fans can download the new single “Can You Do It?” from iTunes. Sales of the single will support the nonprofit group KIDsmART, which brings visual and performing arts education to public schools throughout New Orleans.

Due to the writers’ strike, it appears the Mover’s Disney show won’t become a regular part of the Disney Playhouse lineup until this fall. Until then and in anticipation of the show and CD, Disney will be releasing three new videos of the “world’s first alternative rock band for preschoolers.”