The Dictator... Really?!

Like an excited schoolgirl, I rushed to my computer to watch the trailer for Sacha Baron Cohen's upcoming comedy, The Dictator.

I've been a huge fan of his since Ali G, but I've admittedly been skeptical of both Borat and Bruno before they came out. When they announced Borat, I was actually disappointed. It was not my favorite character on Ali G, and I was hoping for an Ali G or Bruno movie--I thought they were stronger characters. Of course, when I saw it, I thought it was a masterpiece. Then when they announced Bruno, I was a little disappointed again. I thought SBC was going to just follow the same formula, I thought it was a bit of a cop-out. But then Bruno blew me (ahem) away! I also really enjoyed SBC's supporting performances in Talladega Nights and Sweeney Todd.

So when I heard he was making a new movie called The Dictator, for the first time I was thrilled. Maybe this was going to be another schmuck-the-real-people flick, but now he's a huge leader of a nonsense-named country, or something like that. I was going to forgive the potential that it would again follow the same formula, since it worked so well last time. He's gotta outdo himself with this one, right?

Well, when I fired up the trailer on YouTube, I was pretty excited until I saw all the famous people supporting in his cast--Ben Kingsley, John C. Reilly, Megan Fox. And his jokes were the same pointedly offensive jabs at modern culture, but the only thing that was missing was the look of genuine horror/confusion/anger on the real non-actors he played against in the past.

I'll have to go back and check the other movies, but I suspect if the Borat or Bruno gags were taken into a pure narrative filmmaking scenario, they wouldn't be very funny. The "straight man", in the comic sense, in the other two films was absolutely integral. And while both movies had very funny narrative elements sprinkled in, and some of the candid moments were probably a little less candid than they let on, the places where I laughed and cringed the most were when people genuinely reacted--not acted reacted. In fact, the narrative sections of those movie just supported the anticipation of the real-people scenes.

I'll give it a chance--I've been wrong about SBC before, maybe I will be surprised again. But the trailer doesn't seem to do a potentially great movie justice. It looks like Adam Sandler in a schlocky remake of Coming to America. Am I alone here?

And, I mean, come on... Am I crazy for thinking this looks like a funnier movie:

Thanks for the 'tude, Doctor!

Had to take the boy in for his scheduled vaccines. Robin and I have done a lot of research and discussion about putting together a vaccination schedule. Being itinerant for the first year of his life, then being on and off health insurance, we've unfortunately had to bounce from pediatrician to pediatrician.

Today, we saw a new doctor for the first time to get his fourth DTAP and his Chicken Pox vaccines. I brought in the spreadsheet that we made up for his schedule and showed it to her. I also showed her some of the past height, weight, and head size data I had in my iPhone. She seemed put off by it all.

First, she said she couldn't find all of his records paperwork, but she almost brushed off my iPhone with disdain. Sorry, lady, technology trumps your absent tree-killing papers! And then she had the gall to tell me, "I don't believe in this schedule," referring to our spreadsheet. The boy is almost two, he's been getting shots all along the way, he's healthy as a horse--now is not the time to judge our process. I didn't need her opinion about our method, I needed her recommendations, and we'll make the final decisions about our child's future, thanks.

And she also could have spared us the line about how she's seen children die of mumps, chicken pox, and HepB. I'm not a small-time bumpkin that just stepped off a boat. Of course I didn't go to medical school for X amount of years, but I do live in the 21st century, where a much better educated decision can be made than just blindly going along with whatever snotty person with a PHD has to say.

The little guy cried a bit at the shots but then recovered like a champ. I think I'll recover from the doctor visit by taking my child's healthcare elsewhere.

End of rant.