We started off the day with a matinee showing of The Condemned, where the meeting of Battle Royale and MindHunters is given the Stone Cold Steve Austin treatment.

The Condemned starts off simply enough: the “contestants” – ten condemned Death Row convicts from around the world – are sent to a remote island where after 30 hours, a sole survivor will be given freedom and some cash, with the whole thing broadcast live over the internet to a world-wide audience. We even get, straight from BR, an over-enthusiastic Japanese contestant (fine, everyone in BR is Japanese).

However, what promised to be a straightforward movie was spoiled by:

• Some terrible dialogue about whether to blame the money-hungry producer for pandering to the baser tastes in entertainment, or to blame the public at large for harboring this bloodlust to begin with. In this movie genre, this kind of misplaced moralistic dialogue is known by me as the “don’t hate the player, hate the game” conversation.
• An extremely-unconvincing performance from my formerly-favorite gangster/criminal Vinnie Jones. They give him a bow and arrow, for Chrissake! Bow and arrow for John Rambo: yes. Bow and arrow for Vinnie Jones: no.
• Some side-plot involving the FBI trying to get to the bottom of this “illegal internet crime.”

After the low-brow art, we went to some high-brow art. The Yerba Buena Gardens had a free outdoor jazz concert where we picnicked for lunch, after which we went to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art for more free art:

May is “Museums on Us” month, sponsored by Bank of America: your ID and BofA ATM card grant you free admission to participating museums around the country. The SF MOMA was showing a Picasso exhibit where we were moved by Picasso’s avant-garde Cubism, his unbridled genius on full canvas display, still rendering people speechless almost 35 years after his death.

The FBI can be counted on to be a source of moderation in this world. They helped wreck what would have been a straightforwardly-fun movie, but they also made an appearance in what was threatening to be a plain-jane visit to the snoozeum. Today, I learned that the FBI “had interest in Picasso and his activities in relation to various subversive groups.”