I haven’t seen “The Other Guys.” Like Wahlberg. Like Ferrell. But the trailer looked hideous. Now, however, I might have to break down if the whole movie is like this scene, which seems to be an exercise in who refuses to break onscreen while Ferrell continues to improvise circles around everyone. The entire scene you can see both guys barely holding it together. I’m guessing oh, fifteen, twenty takes to get this exchange?
Case in point: the “Plums” scene in Eastbound & Down. Robinson and McBride are helpless while Ferrell just has his way with them (NSFW).
After all of the jargon about “job creators” (the Rich) and “new revenues” (necessary taxes), I defy anyone to watch this full press conference and tell me that this isn’t a man who hasn’t bent over backwards to make an adult, non-partisan deal. From where I’m sitting, John Boehner and his semi-psychotic ilk are playing fiscal chicken with the US economy in the attempts to make the economy nosedive, destroying Obama’s re-election chances. Party first, right boys?
I met a guy last night who said, “I refuse to subscribe to the idea that there’s any sort of class war going to happen.” I said, “Brother, your canary just died, and you’re pretending it’s taking a peaceful nap. This shit is ON.”
Bill Simmons has posted one of the best things he’s ever written onGrantland, “The Movie Star,” which examines both Ryan Reynold’s and Will Smith’s perceived stardom, and the differences with the average fan knowing, definitively, who is or isn’t a movie star. His read on Will Smith seems (for now) spot-on, and I hope the future proves Simmons wrong (and suspect it will).
Simmons on his (and my) complete mystification of all things Kevin James:
I took my daughter to see Super 8 last week … they showed a preview for The Zoo Keeper and she laughed her ass off for three minutes, then said, “I want to see that one!” That’s when the Kevin James Era finally made sense for me. By the way, taking her to Super 8 wasn’t the worst idea I’ve ever had, but it has to rank in the top 10.
I’ve loved Grantland and the Grantland model since its inception- it’s a bold, brilliant move that I think really works: a literary super-team of writers that sit in their Hall of Typerwriters (they’re all steam-punk and shit with leather codpieces- the atosphere is part City of Lost Children, part Sky Captain) and send out the occasional Mark Twain-style missive that keeps rock bands, NBA stars and terrifyingly aspirational Will Smiths of the world honest. And then, cuddle up in their plasma-ed Man Caves to debate how Pavement’s is the Detlef Schrempf of indie rock albums.
BBC reporter Ben Anderson, embedded with the British troops in Afghanistan, reports on the Afghani hashish-stoned troops being hopelessly outmatched by the Taliban.
So there was this adolescent named Adam. He was known in his family for eye-rolling. He was known in his peer group for being a young George Carlin (I’m assuming here that his peer group doesn’t know George Carlin).
Gee, I really could give this a proper introduction, but please spend a few minutes with Adam. You’ll find him annoying and kind of dumb, well, you’ll find him to be everything you’ve always thought was true about a fifteen-year-old boy. Hey, look at that! I gave it a proper introduction afterall.
I cannot believe he is on this shooting spree. And there’s nothing in the news about it. No outrage, no congressional attention- will no one think of the children?
There’s no way I’m buying his reggae album now. Reggae is about peace, AM I RIGHT?
Whilst our children are playing video games, the children of the former Soviet Union are doing feats of strength, dexterity, and fearlessness, making “Red Dawn: The Actual” an inevitability.
See their playfulness, oh Sons of Jefferson, and quail!
“Elvis or Johnny Cash?” “Dancing With the Stars or American Idol?” “Leno or Conan?”
You’re kidding me, right? Four wars, unprosecuted financial robber-barons, eroding civil liberties, unprecedented attacks on democratic unions, and an insanely bloated military industrial complex.
Go f*ck yourself, John.
(Stewart’s take-down of the whole ridiculous charade here.)
In this trailer, devil-horned Obi Wan Kenobi and hot manga apprentice Lucia Skywalker escort space cowboy/smuggler Indiana Jones Solo towards a courtroom/jail cell, when SUDDENLY- Lucia, what do you sense? “Darkness.” Jesus, not darkness!
Sith Attack!!!
Thank God Indiana Solo has the fastest ship in the galaxy. He can “get ‘er out on the Falcon.” Let’s go!!!
Uh-oh. Here come the Sith. How many lightsabers? I don’t know. How many can you EFFING HANDLE, CHUMP?!?
Thank the Maker that Obi Wan DevilHornObi can sacrifice himself so that Lucia can Jackie Chan her way to the Falcon and they can “get to those guns/don’t get cocky kid” while getting ready for the hyperdrive and fly through a Destroyer like a Death Star trench and then they can OH WHO GIVES TWO SHITS.
That being said, the thing is effin’ gorgeous. The uncanny valley is almost gone, the movement is fluid, the sets are unbelievable, and the overall design is really spectacular. It’s a beautiful trailer that could’ve been directed by Micheal Bay. Every character looks like a superhero (yawn). The tropes are all there, in mind-numbingly predictable fashion. If everyone in your “film” (even if created by CG) is beautiful (or beautifully scarred/ugly/EVIL), well, your story probably sucks. And this one does.
But none of this should stop Lucas from casting me in the live action Star Wars. Just sayin’. I’d ugly up that stuff with some authentic cynicism, lemme tell ya.
I left the bar last night with the Dallas Mavericks down 15, with about 6 minutes left in the fourth. Apparently, the Mavs went on a 17-2 run to win the game, Dirk blowing by VeBoshiraptor like he was glued to the wood, finishing with his injured left hand.
Remember, people: the tears of David Stern, Pat Riley, Lebron James, Bosh and Wade can repair the polar ice caps. They can clean rivers, repair crumbling infrastructure, and put Goldman Sachs CEOs in jail. They can regrow amputated limbs, salamander-style. They can give everyone mutant powers: flight, invisibility, or Adriana Lima-attracting-musk.
And would you be sewprissed if I toweld yew, that’s theres no Rudolph MacFroody in the whole countystate of Mississsipi-alabama?
On the first take, John Grisley’s The Trial looks like a really clumsy Danish attempt at the micro-genre of Southern Courtroom Drama. You may experience a period of confusion where it’s difficult to tell who exactly is being made fun of. Is this artfully-crafted schlock or painfully sincere European imitation from the early nineties? Apparently the Swedish comedy collective Grotesco have suffered through as much of our bad tv as we have.
The technique is kinda brilliant in it’s simplicity: the words “how can I defend you if I can’t trust you?” is whimpered by lawyers in approximately 87% of legal dramas. It’s a phrase that should be in a home for battered cliches. Grotesco toys with your recognition of these tropes by showing that you still recognize them, even when they are delivered as near-rhymes or peppered with complete nonsense. The result is shame-inducing: “My god, did I really watch this exact same story that many times?”
Note for note, it is one of the most cutting mockeries of American middlebrow genre work that I’ve ever seen. I can tell you that Part 2 has a surprise ending, and you will still be surprised.
A staggering visual history celebration of Prague’s 600-year-old Astronomical Clock from Oct. 2010, with video mapping projection. This artform slays me. Unlike all of the people taking flash photography during a light show.
The Onion wins again. Genius. Goddamn, they piss me off sometimes.
“I walked up to one of them, tapped on the glass, and the test-tube Big Baby inside opened its eyes,” Allen continued. “I just kind of panicked and started screaming, and then the liquid in the tanks started bubbling and all the Big Babies were screaming in unison.”
I never thought I’d miss the liberal use of the word doink. The nauseating repetition of the Coach’s Clicker. The getting winded from speaking a compound sentence.
What a blowhard. What a meatball. But he made life more interesting. The bonehead.
Here’s the deal: I was listening to the Fox A team of Joe Buck and Troy Aikman. These are a couple of much more polished individuals who know a thing or two about the sport of football. I was watching the game when BAM!, WAP!, Turducken!, it hit me that there’s nothing overly idiosyncratic about anything they do. Nothing odd. Nothing at all unexpected. Which made me wonder how the broadcast would differ if Madden was still in the booth. Take off the polish and replace their civil, calculated opinions with real, live, in-the-moment reactions. Doink! Madden would be speaking his thoughts in real time, literally saying the words as they appear in his brain. That’s why his sentences could end so horrifically. Or trail off into stammering until the ball was snapped. Or end with grunts and stuff. He’s reacting on gut instinct, pure emotion, and undigested hot sauce.
This is the same John Madden who loudly uttered:
“The team who scores the most points will win the game.”
“They’re either going to run the ball here, or they’re gonna pass it.”
“When a guy runs he goes faster.”
“His helmet flew off…that’s the bad news. The good news is his head wasn’t in it.”
In the baseball world, I’ll miss this about Ron Santo, too. I’m a Milwaukee Brewers fan (living near Madison), but I will occasionally tune into a Cubs’ broadcast. The recently-departed Santo made such astute observations as, “Aawwwww! Nooo!” and “What?…Woah!” It’s like he was speaking to whales. Santo drove me nuts because he was as much a distraction from broadcast partner Pat Hughes as he was a broadcaster himself. But real emotion from the gut of a human being counts for a lot with me. Maybe I should have appreciated him more, too.
I guess what I’m saying is, John Madden, I owe you an apology. I was bothered by your volume level and your bumbling, but my football enjoyment could have been better served by sitting back to enjoy the show you provided. Maybe someday we’ll run across each other while touring America in our recreational vehicles, and the two of us can share a laugh and toast a Miller Lite.
del Toro discusses his process, trials with Hollywood, The Hobbit, At the Mountains of Madness, monster theory, and squashes his daughter with his gut in Daniel Zalewski’s fantastic New Yorker profile.
“The Hobbit,” he said, “is much less black-and-white. The monsters are not just evil. They’re charming, funny, seductive. Smaug is an incredibly smart guy!” Del Toro later said that he inevitably imposed his sensibility on source material: “It’s like marrying a widow. You try to be respectful of the memory of the dead husband, but come Saturday night . . . bam.”
My son Aubrey had a recent brush with Bears fandom. With the NFC Championship approaching, I used it as a Teachable Moment.
We were at Saver’s (it’s a Least Coast thing, sort of a cross between K-Mart and a refugee camp). As it happens we were passing by the pre-stained visors, and Aubrey indicated that he really wanted this particular visor. I saw the blue and orange, but since it looked like a golf visor to me, I assumed it was for some caddy-training facility in North Carolina. I let him wear it until I noticed the insignia…then we had to have a little talk.
I knew it was time for some of life’s Harder Truths, but I figured it best to start gently:
“Son, the ‘Chicago Bears’ as they are popularly known, are a Communist front, and also a Satanic cult.“
I knew it would get easier from there. “The entire organization – from GM Jerry Angelo all the way down to the lowliest kielbasa-monger in Soldier Field – HATES CHILDREN. Soldier Field was built over a Chuck E. Cheese and a waterpark. In 2003 the organization bulldozed an orphanage just to build an extra warehouse for off-site penalty flag storage. Chicago Bears Football Organization, Inc. is also the world’s largest producer of poison lollipops.”
Some of the more famous Chicago Bears:
George S. ‘Papa Bear’ Halas: inventor, sadist, coach, arsonist, communist spy. Before he came to this country he was a Romanian dictator. After inventing the landmine, he lobbied for legislation to abolish Christmas. Then he coached the Chicago Bears for 40 years. Before he died in 1983, he created fat-free pudding and disco.
Dick Butkus: When he was 12, Dick Butkus used his dad’s pickup to run over a Nativity scene in his childhood neighborhood of Roselawn Chicago. When asked how he lost control so completely in the tiny church parking lot, young Butkus replied that it wasn’t an accident, he just “hates the Baby Jesus real bad.” He is also addicted to dog’s blood. That’s right – he’s like a vampire, but for dogs.
And Mike Ditka, my god. In the early nineties “Iron Mike” Ditka played weekly cribbage games with Richards Nixon and Cheney. In 1993 – in order to pay off his cribbage debts – Ditka sedated his mother and sold both of her kidneys to an unlicensed medical facility in Mumbai. She died of renal failure later that day.
Today’s Bears: When he’s out of uniform, Jay Cutler will wear nothing but puppy skins. He has been acquitted three times of date-rape. Each time he blamed it on drinking buddy Mathew McConaughey, but in the third case McConaughey was actually a plaintiff.
Kenwoode 
