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	07 July 2005 PHOTO DIARY. We went to the premiere performance of Video Games Live at the Hollywood Bowl tonight. Video Games Live is a bunch of video game music performed by the L.A. Philharmonic, backed by a chorus. They played a "Pong medley" featuring Centipede, among others. They also played music from the beloved Mario series, Zelda, and Advent Rising. They even had a Frogger competition between two audience members, with the orchestra altering pace depending on how well the person was doing. Tron was performed as well, providing some lovely stills, but was ultimately marred by a hokey live performance element, one of a handful that evening. Sir, that's a frisbee. For their grand finale the orchestra played Halo, naturally. Everything was chugging right along, until... ...Steve Vai appeared and promptly missed his guitar solo cue. Perhaps he was high. Whatever the case, he made a complete embarassment out of himself. I've never seen 5,000 people all cringe at once. His guitar only squawked out about eight notes before choking up in confusion. After that incredibly awkward moment, a crowd of legendary game developers took their bows on stage, including Atari founder Nolan Bushnell. Hopefully Video Games Live will shake off its opening night jitters as it tours the country.   Back to main 06 July 2005 MOVIE: WAR OF THE WORLDS (2005). The world's hottest crane dock operator runs for his life as aliens arrive to exterminate the human race. It's official: Tom Cruise sucks. Apart from brief, shining moments in Magnolia and Jerry McGuire, he has slipped completely back into his usual hotshot, talking-in-italics schtick, the overblown intensity of which has become just another retro '80's joke. But that's to be expected—more disturbing is the decline of Steven Spielberg, who I used to just love. He's constructed not a cohesive film but a patchwork from his formidable bag of tricks, all of which inspire frustration as well as nostalgia. There's a creepy surveillance bot sequence straight out of Minority Report. The handheld camera work: Saving Private Ryan. There's the finely paced, Close Encounters-esque dread of an alien threat during the beginning, and best, part of the movie. Even the shining river from Empire of the Sun's refugee march makes an appearance, albeit for completely different and horrifying effects. While War of the Worlds remains a breathtaking spectacle worth seeing on the big screen, its meandering storytelling—a string of unrelated scenes really—bludgeons viewers with obvious bits of 9/11 allegory. As in: billowing dust clouds of vaporized people, littered with slowly drifting fallout debris; missing persons boards; melodramatic "why are they attacking us?" naivete. There's no excuse for mining such a recent tragedy simply to manipulate an audience, especially for a story with plot holes big enough to make even me, who for the most part neither cares about or notices such things, scratch my head. Dakota Fanning plays grown-up with annoying artificiality; Tim Robbins makes a bizarre and unintentionally comical appearance as a resistance fighter; and the whole shebang ends abruptly with typical Spielbergian luddite-isms. Once again, Spielberg dazzles us with technological wonders only to preach the ultimate superiority of nature over the follies of man. Sad that he's reduced himself to such high-school level moralizing. Where's the thunder?   Back to main 05 July 2005 MOVIE: ALFIE (2004). A swinging ladies' man realizes the serious consequences behind his endless string of casual sex. What could have been a fun, sexy romp turns into an moronically earnest exploration of life and God and infinity and other deep stuff. It's a lot like being cornered at a loud party by a blathering, intellectually retarded fashionista, who is full of awe at the complexity of the world and its many gorgeous ethnicities. The whole film is shot like an issue of Vogue. In the background, arty billboards with words in bold letters declare "Desire!" and "Hope!". Everyone is beautiful. And the pacing, a rapid-fire series of largely unconnected melodramas, clearly reveal the infuritating immaturity of the filmmakers, who you can practically hear: "I mean, what could be worse than trying to hail a taxi midtown in the rain after being dumped by Jude Law?" "Ohmigod you, are, a, genius!" Jude Law is great. His charming camera asides are performed perfectly, despite the adolescent writing. But one man and his Vespa can only do so much to stem the tide of storytelling incompetence, much less the appearance of a modern-day, Breakfast at Tiffany's Mr. Yunioshi, played with pitch-perfect self-loathing by Long "Wassa happening, hosstuff" Duck Dong. Toward the end of the film, poor Alfie's been run through the wringer (albeit a sleek, Italian-designed wringer), stylishly dressed-down in a vintage hooded sweat top with hemp drawstring pants, baseball cap by Diesel, as he weeps over his mistakes in a forest just far enough outside the city to seem, like, totally a whole nother world. And after he reaches his idiotic conclusions—life is messy, everyone gets old, it's hard to separate love from sex, &cetera—we're treated to end credits that feature stills not of the actors but of the cinematographer, set designer, and costumer. I mean, I've grown accustomed to the smug pride behind every "making of" documentary, but to include one within the movie itself? That's a new form of historicity. He's younger than you.   Back to main PHOTO DIARY. Spotted on the Interstate 5 south, one of my favorite Defamations of Character: the classic belligerent Tweety Bird. The mysterious popularity of these "mascots with attitude" intrigue me. Is it a safe way of publicly displaying one's love of cute things while avoiding being thought of as an emasculated softie?   Back to main PHOTO DIARY. A sky-written promo for The Fantastic Four off the coast of Santa Monica. Does this happen anywhere else?   Back to main PHOTO DIARY. So, apparently this whole The OC phenomenon has hit big. I grew up in Orange County. I never once called it The OC. Apparently the show featured this ice cream shop on Balboa Island, propelling it into fame. Tourists come by to take pictures of an otherwise ordinary stand. I guess you could add me to that list.   Back to main PHOTO DIARY. We went to Balboa Island over the weekend. It's a little man-made island right off the coast of Newport Beach. They have an auto ferry. The ferry putt-putts across the harbor to Balboa Penninsula, where lies the Balboa Fun Zone. The Fun Zone feels like a cleaner, safer, West Coast version of Coney Island.   Back to main PHOTO DIARY. We went to the San Diego Zoo over the weekend. We saw monitors, komodo dragons, and geckos. Big yellow snakes, snakes that looked like piles of leaves, and lazy snakes. Not to mention rhinos, elephants, 100-year-old turtles, monkeys, pandas, and anteaters. 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