Remember folks that next Tuesday is Election Day and that it is your civic duty to go to the polls and vote for another edition of my brief comments on various subjects I like to call Look At My Briefs.
Disney is apparently considering dropping Keith Richards from the latest chapter in that never-ending story called Pirates of the Caribbean because of past drug use. I normally wouldn't care except for the fact that I honestly can't recall a single moment of the last Pirates installment except for the brief scene where Richards showed up as Jack Sparrow's father. Seriously, did the rest of that movie even happen? Then again, no other person in the history of the planet has taken drugs including the other cast members, producers or even the very Disney executives who will be making the decision mere minutes after not snorting coke off a hooker's ass.
In yet another attempt for Rupert Murdoch to pretend that the old, withered peanut between his legs is still the massive didgeridoo it was back when he was a boy in Australia poking koalas with a stick, his company, NewsCorp, is threatening to not cover movies at all if its various media outlets don't have access to the movie stars. Seriously studios, call their bluff because a bluff is exactly what it is. You think they're going to stand silently by and watch the ratings and circulation numbers of their competitors rise when people who, for some reason, just have to see clips and screencaps of the latest Transformers movie all because Shia LaBeouf won't agree to be interviewed so he can say things like, "I really had fun making this," and, "Making this was loads of fun," and, "Michael Bay was so much fun to work with"? What I expect you movie folks to do is withhold those massive ad budgets from the Fox Network and see how long it is before NewsCorp starts running those precious puff pieces again.
Dear Hollywood: Really? I mean, I know the kid's popular and all, but, really?
SighFigh has canceled Caprica. Good. It was a flawed but decent show. I could just never get past the fact that, 60 years down the road, the actions taking place now were going to lead these people to prehistoric Earth where they would fuck Neanderthals according to the will of God.
Big Hollywood has been tying itself up in knots trying to pretend that this Saturday's Rally to Restore Sanity is a big fat dumb stupid thing stupid that no one takes seriously and no one will show up to anyway. Meanwhile, in the real world, crowd sizes are being estimated at being somewhere around 150,000 which is over 50,000 more than Glenn Beck's Whitestock event that happened back in August and was celebrated as the greatest thing ever by Big Hollywood. I've been experiencing many moments of schadenfreude recently and I wonder if it's possible to get hooked on it.
Speaking of shadenfreude, there was a time when groups like the Parents Television Council could threaten to never use toilet paper again if any toilet paper companies advertised on shows they found offensive and said advertisers would take them seriously but that time has passed. Television networks have too much on their plates these days to worry about a group of prudish tightasses threatening to sick their flying monkeys on them. They have to worry about competitors like HBO and Adult Swim taking away all their viewers by broadcasting donkey shows and don't have much worry left to spare over some self-appointed bluenose group trying not to look crazy when they say that pictures of two of the 24 year old stars of Glee posing in their underwear constitutes pedophilia.
Sure, disappointment with the last three films aside, I'd love to see new Star Wars films. I'm just worried that Lucas didn't learn anything from Episodes 1, 2 and 3 and will make them about the Sith instigating an intergalactic Teamsters strike.
Showing posts with label big hollywood. Show all posts
Showing posts with label big hollywood. Show all posts
Thursday, October 28, 2010
Thursday, September 23, 2010
Look At My Briefs -- 9/23/10
I've officially lost 40 pounds this week so I don't want to write anything big. What a perfect time for another round of brief comments on various subjects I like to call Look At My Briefs.
I was looking at gossip sites to see what the current whereabouts of Lindsay Lohan were (can't be too careful with that girl) when I saw this story about the possibility of Glee star Lea Michele posing topless for Playboy. The final two paragraph shows why this story defines the term "burying the lede."
Sacha Baron Cohen as Freddie Mercury? I'm in. Oh, I hope Cohen isn't the kind of actor who will hold back on screen and not give a completely fearless performance.
Variety blogger Michael Schneider says Fox isn't giving up on its new drama Lone Star just yet. My response: Really? Why not? For those of you who missed Lone Star, which is most of you if the ratings are true, it's the story of a con artist who married into a wealthy family who starts developing a conscience and tries to turn his life around. At the end of the first episode, one of the ways he does this is by taking on a second wife. I was expecting a fun, interesting look into the world of con artists and instead received a slow, depressing tale of a bigamist anti-hero. It's "critically acclaimed" which makes me think the critics who are going around and acclaiming it never saw the whole thing. The question isn't if Fox should give it another week but how it got on the air at all.
Speaking of unimpressive new shows, Hawaii Five-O also left a lot to be desired. I only watched it because my mother asked me to record it for her and it was pretty much what I expected. I am no longer a fan of old fashioned, conventional shows that could just have easily been on the air in the 1970s which doesn't leave much hope for shows like Hawaii Five-O that actually were on in the 1970s. This includes sitcoms with laugh tracks and standard fare cop shows. Oddly, this should have made me a huge fan of Lone Star but that's another story. Hawaii Five-O has generic characters, villains who are impossible to capture until suddenly they're easy to capture and lame jokes. It also had Grace Park in both her bikini and underwear so I do appreciate their effort on that front.
Big Hollywood's S.T. Karnick is well known to me as the guy who's always wrong. In the past, he has wholeheartedly endorsed shows like the quickly canceled Eleventh Hour and the sucky Kelsey Grammer vehicle Hank, embraced the Will Farrel version of Land of the Lost for a perceived anti-evolution message and tried to convince us the low brown Jack Black/Michael Cera comedy Year One was actually a deeply spiritual film. Given that track record, NBC should be thrilled that he didn't like The Event.
I was looking at gossip sites to see what the current whereabouts of Lindsay Lohan were (can't be too careful with that girl) when I saw this story about the possibility of Glee star Lea Michele posing topless for Playboy. The final two paragraph shows why this story defines the term "burying the lede."
Sacha Baron Cohen as Freddie Mercury? I'm in. Oh, I hope Cohen isn't the kind of actor who will hold back on screen and not give a completely fearless performance.
Variety blogger Michael Schneider says Fox isn't giving up on its new drama Lone Star just yet. My response: Really? Why not? For those of you who missed Lone Star, which is most of you if the ratings are true, it's the story of a con artist who married into a wealthy family who starts developing a conscience and tries to turn his life around. At the end of the first episode, one of the ways he does this is by taking on a second wife. I was expecting a fun, interesting look into the world of con artists and instead received a slow, depressing tale of a bigamist anti-hero. It's "critically acclaimed" which makes me think the critics who are going around and acclaiming it never saw the whole thing. The question isn't if Fox should give it another week but how it got on the air at all.
Speaking of unimpressive new shows, Hawaii Five-O also left a lot to be desired. I only watched it because my mother asked me to record it for her and it was pretty much what I expected. I am no longer a fan of old fashioned, conventional shows that could just have easily been on the air in the 1970s which doesn't leave much hope for shows like Hawaii Five-O that actually were on in the 1970s. This includes sitcoms with laugh tracks and standard fare cop shows. Oddly, this should have made me a huge fan of Lone Star but that's another story. Hawaii Five-O has generic characters, villains who are impossible to capture until suddenly they're easy to capture and lame jokes. It also had Grace Park in both her bikini and underwear so I do appreciate their effort on that front.
Big Hollywood's S.T. Karnick is well known to me as the guy who's always wrong. In the past, he has wholeheartedly endorsed shows like the quickly canceled Eleventh Hour and the sucky Kelsey Grammer vehicle Hank, embraced the Will Farrel version of Land of the Lost for a perceived anti-evolution message and tried to convince us the low brown Jack Black/Michael Cera comedy Year One was actually a deeply spiritual film. Given that track record, NBC should be thrilled that he didn't like The Event.
Thursday, August 12, 2010
Look At My Briefs -- 8/12/10
Yes, it's that time of the week again. Thursday used to be known as the day that sucked because it wasn't Friday. Now pretty much the entire globe shuts down so they can all read another edition of my brief comments on various subjects I like to call Look At My Briefs.
Am I the only one out there who isn't particularly excited over the release of The Expendables? I like the fact that it relies on real people doing real things and not how well humans can interact with animation but, other than that, it's written by the same guy who thought it was a good idea to play a guy who thought the best way to win his son's love was to enter an arm wrestling contest.
Saddest thing about this article is that Mel Gibson is no longer considered to be a good choice to play Mad Max despite the fact that playing a madman is now no effort at all for Gibson.
Haven't gotten no definitive answer of this question since I asked it on Twitter so I'll ask it here. We viewers are three years into True Blood but how much time has passed in the show. I think it's only been somewhere in the neighborhood of a month. I'm just wondering how long it took Sookie Stackhouse to go from being a timid virgin waitress to engaging in mutual choking during sex with Bill.
As of this writing, The Other Guys has spawned six bitchy Big Hollywood articles complaining about its politics. Now, people who have seen the movie and aren't hardcore right wingers weren't aware it had politics. One of the villains does use his hedge fund to run a Ponzi scheme and another ends up getting bailout funds instead of going to prison. Big Hollywood thinks this makes the film a fiery left wing screed and thus, to them, The Other Guys is now a front in the culture war. Still, their efforts did have an effect. The Other Guys opened at #1. If Big Hollywood hadn't managed to successfully blunt its box office take, it would have opened at #0.
Speaking of entertainment criticism being clouded by right wing ideology, here's a critique of the CW's revival of the USA show Nikita. The writer, Jason Apuzzo, compliments the old show for its terrorist fighting storylines while criticizing the new show for making the intelligence agency itself the villain. Those of you who remember the series and the Luc Besson movie it was based on may have already seen the fatal flaw in this argument. The villain in every version of the Nikita story was always the intelligence agency that recruited her. Both the movie and the first television show had Nikita spending most of her time trying to outwit and fight against her vicious, evil employers who would have killed her had they discovered her efforts or even if she tried to quit. I can only assume that the writer never saw the original series or that he thought no one else remembered it thus freeing him to say whatever the hell he wanted to.
Honestly Blockbuster, your attempts to once again become the biggest hitter in the movie rental park are just adorable. Maybe you could try using the VHS format instead of Beta next. I hate Blockbuster for a variety of reasons and have been very happy watching the rise of Netflix and Redbox.
Am I the only one out there who isn't particularly excited over the release of The Expendables? I like the fact that it relies on real people doing real things and not how well humans can interact with animation but, other than that, it's written by the same guy who thought it was a good idea to play a guy who thought the best way to win his son's love was to enter an arm wrestling contest.
Saddest thing about this article is that Mel Gibson is no longer considered to be a good choice to play Mad Max despite the fact that playing a madman is now no effort at all for Gibson.
Haven't gotten no definitive answer of this question since I asked it on Twitter so I'll ask it here. We viewers are three years into True Blood but how much time has passed in the show. I think it's only been somewhere in the neighborhood of a month. I'm just wondering how long it took Sookie Stackhouse to go from being a timid virgin waitress to engaging in mutual choking during sex with Bill.
As of this writing, The Other Guys has spawned six bitchy Big Hollywood articles complaining about its politics. Now, people who have seen the movie and aren't hardcore right wingers weren't aware it had politics. One of the villains does use his hedge fund to run a Ponzi scheme and another ends up getting bailout funds instead of going to prison. Big Hollywood thinks this makes the film a fiery left wing screed and thus, to them, The Other Guys is now a front in the culture war. Still, their efforts did have an effect. The Other Guys opened at #1. If Big Hollywood hadn't managed to successfully blunt its box office take, it would have opened at #0.
Speaking of entertainment criticism being clouded by right wing ideology, here's a critique of the CW's revival of the USA show Nikita. The writer, Jason Apuzzo, compliments the old show for its terrorist fighting storylines while criticizing the new show for making the intelligence agency itself the villain. Those of you who remember the series and the Luc Besson movie it was based on may have already seen the fatal flaw in this argument. The villain in every version of the Nikita story was always the intelligence agency that recruited her. Both the movie and the first television show had Nikita spending most of her time trying to outwit and fight against her vicious, evil employers who would have killed her had they discovered her efforts or even if she tried to quit. I can only assume that the writer never saw the original series or that he thought no one else remembered it thus freeing him to say whatever the hell he wanted to.
Honestly Blockbuster, your attempts to once again become the biggest hitter in the movie rental park are just adorable. Maybe you could try using the VHS format instead of Beta next. I hate Blockbuster for a variety of reasons and have been very happy watching the rise of Netflix and Redbox.
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
Top 5 Conservative Porn Films
Hello. I'm too busy for original thinking today so, until tomorrow, please enjoy this repost of something from February 16, 2009. This has received more hits than anything I've ever done here which means it's either really good or people are accessing it so they can shoot out their monitors. Either way, I'll take the hits.
Once again, I've been contacted by Gotterdamerung, one of the country's top right wing bloggers who often posts here to "bring balance" to my work. Today, however, he is presenting a companion piece to National Review's recent compilation of the 25 Most Conservative Movies. He's asked to post it here before he cross-posts it to Big Hollywood so, here you go. -- MC
Hi all, Gotterdamerung here. I'm sure you've all been enjoying National Review Online's recent attempt to name the Top 25 Most Conservative Movies. Naturally, the Liberal MSM is giving far more attention to the upcoming Pro-Jihadist event known as the Academy Awards than to this but then, what else have we come to expect from them? All that aside, I felt that NRO's list, wonderful though it may be, was ignoring a significant part of the conservative movie viewing experience and yes, I'm talking about pornography. I know that porn is evil and makes Baby Jesus cry but it's a sad truth that, since Obama was elected President, it's become very popular. We on the Right would be foolish not to fully embrace this medium as a tool with which we can advance our agenda, increase our power and, eventually and ironically, legislate out of existence the very thing that brought about our ascendance. I went ahead and made the sacrifice of watching literally thousands of porn films and now present to you what, in my humble opinion, are the five best pornographic showcases of conservative beliefs.
5. Three-Hump-Dred: Just like the Zack Snyder blockbuster for which it was named, this movie chronicles the true-life events of King Leonidas and his army of 300 Spartans battling the much larger Persian army at the Battle of Thermopylae. This version, however, is hardcore all-male action in which the Spartans do not use weapons but, instead, attempt to fuck the Persians to death. The movie's climactic scene (in more ways than one) is a final encounter between Leonidas (played brilliantly by actor Dack Hammer) and the Persian Emperor Xerxes who, while definitely being bigger than Leonidas in every way, lacks the Spartan King's skill and stamina. In the end, the sheer numbers of the Persian Army leave the Spartans too drained and spent to go on. While technically a defeat, their sacrifice will never be forgotten. This movie does teach us all the lesson that we should stand up to our enemies and that's good. My only real problem with it is that, instead of Persians, the movie's villains should have been Iranians.
4. Night of the Living Dicks: A town which consists of nothing but men has to deal with some sort of disease which causes the dead to return as zombies with an insatiable appetite for gay sex. This movie serves as a searing indictment of the militant homosexual culture as many of the living actually choose to allow themselves to be molested by zombies instead of just running away. That's right, they chose to be gay. Also, the zombie cure created at the end proves once and for all that even gays realize homosexuality is something that can be reversed even though all the former zombies celebrated their newfound life by having a massive gay orgy.
3. The Chronicles of Bonia: Hardcore sexual content aside, this movie serves as an excellent example of conservative values. The mythical land of Bonia lives under the grip the White Bitch (porn actress Sierra Cherry) who orders all her subjects to have nothing but boring missionary-position sex. Her enemy, Aslan (not a lion here but instead a very well endowed black man played by well known porn star Chocolate Thunder) brings a family of 4 from Earth to go forth and teach the Bonians the wonders of oral and butt sex. The Bonians' choice of Aslan's superior sexual pleasures causes them to rebel against the White Bitch, a stellar example of the power of competition and the free market.
2. Everyone Loves Bush: From the title, I thought this would be a documentary that finally dared to tell the truth about the wondrous achievements of the Bush administration. Instead, this movie with an all-female cast turned out to be...well, not that. Still, the title itself can go a long way toward cementing the former President's legacy as one of our greatest leaders and that alone puts it at #2 on the list.
1. Best Upskirt Videos: This collection of short films made by guys who surreptitiously stick hidden cameras up the skirts of unsuspecting girls serves as a devastating expose of the dangers of feminism and female sexual self-expression. Had these girls been dressed more modestly in floor length skirts instead of slutty mini-dresses then the brave men who took these shots would not have felt forced to expose their undergarments (or lack thereof) to the world. I, for one, commend the filmmakers, Jizz Spiller Studios, for the service they have performed in exposing these unsuspecting girls as the floozies they are. The fact that Best Upskirt Videos did not receive a Best Documentary nomination this year, to me, is a greater insult than the much better known snub of The Dark Knight.
Once again, I've been contacted by Gotterdamerung, one of the country's top right wing bloggers who often posts here to "bring balance" to my work. Today, however, he is presenting a companion piece to National Review's recent compilation of the 25 Most Conservative Movies. He's asked to post it here before he cross-posts it to Big Hollywood so, here you go. -- MC
Hi all, Gotterdamerung here. I'm sure you've all been enjoying National Review Online's recent attempt to name the Top 25 Most Conservative Movies. Naturally, the Liberal MSM is giving far more attention to the upcoming Pro-Jihadist event known as the Academy Awards than to this but then, what else have we come to expect from them? All that aside, I felt that NRO's list, wonderful though it may be, was ignoring a significant part of the conservative movie viewing experience and yes, I'm talking about pornography. I know that porn is evil and makes Baby Jesus cry but it's a sad truth that, since Obama was elected President, it's become very popular. We on the Right would be foolish not to fully embrace this medium as a tool with which we can advance our agenda, increase our power and, eventually and ironically, legislate out of existence the very thing that brought about our ascendance. I went ahead and made the sacrifice of watching literally thousands of porn films and now present to you what, in my humble opinion, are the five best pornographic showcases of conservative beliefs.
5. Three-Hump-Dred: Just like the Zack Snyder blockbuster for which it was named, this movie chronicles the true-life events of King Leonidas and his army of 300 Spartans battling the much larger Persian army at the Battle of Thermopylae. This version, however, is hardcore all-male action in which the Spartans do not use weapons but, instead, attempt to fuck the Persians to death. The movie's climactic scene (in more ways than one) is a final encounter between Leonidas (played brilliantly by actor Dack Hammer) and the Persian Emperor Xerxes who, while definitely being bigger than Leonidas in every way, lacks the Spartan King's skill and stamina. In the end, the sheer numbers of the Persian Army leave the Spartans too drained and spent to go on. While technically a defeat, their sacrifice will never be forgotten. This movie does teach us all the lesson that we should stand up to our enemies and that's good. My only real problem with it is that, instead of Persians, the movie's villains should have been Iranians.
4. Night of the Living Dicks: A town which consists of nothing but men has to deal with some sort of disease which causes the dead to return as zombies with an insatiable appetite for gay sex. This movie serves as a searing indictment of the militant homosexual culture as many of the living actually choose to allow themselves to be molested by zombies instead of just running away. That's right, they chose to be gay. Also, the zombie cure created at the end proves once and for all that even gays realize homosexuality is something that can be reversed even though all the former zombies celebrated their newfound life by having a massive gay orgy.
3. The Chronicles of Bonia: Hardcore sexual content aside, this movie serves as an excellent example of conservative values. The mythical land of Bonia lives under the grip the White Bitch (porn actress Sierra Cherry) who orders all her subjects to have nothing but boring missionary-position sex. Her enemy, Aslan (not a lion here but instead a very well endowed black man played by well known porn star Chocolate Thunder) brings a family of 4 from Earth to go forth and teach the Bonians the wonders of oral and butt sex. The Bonians' choice of Aslan's superior sexual pleasures causes them to rebel against the White Bitch, a stellar example of the power of competition and the free market.
2. Everyone Loves Bush: From the title, I thought this would be a documentary that finally dared to tell the truth about the wondrous achievements of the Bush administration. Instead, this movie with an all-female cast turned out to be...well, not that. Still, the title itself can go a long way toward cementing the former President's legacy as one of our greatest leaders and that alone puts it at #2 on the list.
1. Best Upskirt Videos: This collection of short films made by guys who surreptitiously stick hidden cameras up the skirts of unsuspecting girls serves as a devastating expose of the dangers of feminism and female sexual self-expression. Had these girls been dressed more modestly in floor length skirts instead of slutty mini-dresses then the brave men who took these shots would not have felt forced to expose their undergarments (or lack thereof) to the world. I, for one, commend the filmmakers, Jizz Spiller Studios, for the service they have performed in exposing these unsuspecting girls as the floozies they are. The fact that Best Upskirt Videos did not receive a Best Documentary nomination this year, to me, is a greater insult than the much better known snub of The Dark Knight.
Thursday, July 15, 2010
Look At My Briefs -- 7/15/10
Shockingly, the current plan to plug the oil spill in the Gulf has failed. What, then, is the answer? Perhaps it lies in my latest collection of brief comments on various subjects I like to call Look At My Briefs.
I've never seen I Spit On Your Grave. I only know about it because Roger Ebert usually refers to it as the worst movie ever made. It is, by all accounts, a horribly violent piece of crap with numerous rape scenes shown in an exploitive and titillating manner. Well, not only did some fucktards "reboot" it but they kept in the sexualized rape scenes and made the poster even more erotic than the original 70s version. I pity the poor actress who saw this as her big break and, perhaps talked herself into thinking the film had some sort of important social message or something. I hope this leads to roles for her where she doesn't have to be debased.
Finally, something that looks like it may be a decent film from M. Night Shyamalan. He didn't direct it but the script was adapted from his story which means he'll probably get all the credit no matter what his role in the movie. Of course, if it stinks, watch as he accuses the producers of stealing the story out of his desk and making the film without his knowledge. This is the kind of movie that Shyamalan should be doing, though. Small and intense films that center on characters more than cheap scares. That's assuming this movie actually does that. If it doesn't then at least Shyamalan gets the distinction of failing in two different genres this year.
I used to think Mark Ruffalo would be a good choice to play the Hulk's human alter-ego. Nice to see Hollywood is catching up to me.
I don't mind seeing a ripoff of Planes, Trains and Automobiles as long as it's a good ripoff of Planes, Trains and Automobiles. Like, for instance, this movie. The trailer looks good anyway though this is approximately the one millionth movie, plus or minus 3. to claim it will be the next Hangover. I just hope the filmmakers don't think I'd be willing to sacrifice the laughs in favor of an important and heart warming life lesson about the importance of friendship.
The dumbest thing in this right wing look back at Independence Day isn't the writer's insistence that Americans all agreed with him that the real star of the movie is Adam Baldwin or that the reason the movie killed off the First Lady was so the Clintonian President would be free to date. No, this is the dumbest line:
If you saw the premiere of TNT's new police drama Rizzoli and Isles, you may be asking yourself the same question I did: why the hell is it called Rizzoli and Isles? Isles entire contribution to solving the crime in the pilot episode was to give a time of death. She did run an important test but only did so at the instructions of an FBI agent. The rest of her scenes consisted of a few casual chats and a pompous lecture about turtles. Rizzoli, meanwhile, risked her life more than once and barely escaped death in order to capture a pair of serial killers. She did all the work and it should have at least been called Rizzoli and Company. I didn't care for it too much anyway but I will give it another episode or two in case this turns out to be one of those shows that improved after its crappy pilot.
I've never seen I Spit On Your Grave. I only know about it because Roger Ebert usually refers to it as the worst movie ever made. It is, by all accounts, a horribly violent piece of crap with numerous rape scenes shown in an exploitive and titillating manner. Well, not only did some fucktards "reboot" it but they kept in the sexualized rape scenes and made the poster even more erotic than the original 70s version. I pity the poor actress who saw this as her big break and, perhaps talked herself into thinking the film had some sort of important social message or something. I hope this leads to roles for her where she doesn't have to be debased.
Finally, something that looks like it may be a decent film from M. Night Shyamalan. He didn't direct it but the script was adapted from his story which means he'll probably get all the credit no matter what his role in the movie. Of course, if it stinks, watch as he accuses the producers of stealing the story out of his desk and making the film without his knowledge. This is the kind of movie that Shyamalan should be doing, though. Small and intense films that center on characters more than cheap scares. That's assuming this movie actually does that. If it doesn't then at least Shyamalan gets the distinction of failing in two different genres this year.
I used to think Mark Ruffalo would be a good choice to play the Hulk's human alter-ego. Nice to see Hollywood is catching up to me.
I don't mind seeing a ripoff of Planes, Trains and Automobiles as long as it's a good ripoff of Planes, Trains and Automobiles. Like, for instance, this movie. The trailer looks good anyway though this is approximately the one millionth movie, plus or minus 3. to claim it will be the next Hangover. I just hope the filmmakers don't think I'd be willing to sacrifice the laughs in favor of an important and heart warming life lesson about the importance of friendship.
The dumbest thing in this right wing look back at Independence Day isn't the writer's insistence that Americans all agreed with him that the real star of the movie is Adam Baldwin or that the reason the movie killed off the First Lady was so the Clintonian President would be free to date. No, this is the dumbest line:
Despite the preachy subtext of environmental-wacko-ism, and the unlikelihood of a hungover Quaid winning the day...So, the most unlikely thing about Independence Day was Randy Quaid doing a kamikaze run into an alien spaceship. This was a movie in which countless people outran fireballs, Will Smith was to instantly master an alien fighter because he had once seen one fly and (my favorite) a Macintosh, that being the computer that's incompatible with most of the computers on Earth, easily interfaced with and disabled the computer system of the alien invaders. Okay.
If you saw the premiere of TNT's new police drama Rizzoli and Isles, you may be asking yourself the same question I did: why the hell is it called Rizzoli and Isles? Isles entire contribution to solving the crime in the pilot episode was to give a time of death. She did run an important test but only did so at the instructions of an FBI agent. The rest of her scenes consisted of a few casual chats and a pompous lecture about turtles. Rizzoli, meanwhile, risked her life more than once and barely escaped death in order to capture a pair of serial killers. She did all the work and it should have at least been called Rizzoli and Company. I didn't care for it too much anyway but I will give it another episode or two in case this turns out to be one of those shows that improved after its crappy pilot.
Thursday, June 3, 2010
Look At My Briefs -- 6/3/10
As this is the first Thursday of the month, I figured the best way to commemorate this very special Thursday by doing what I do every Thursday. Namely, I will present to you another edition of my brief comments on various subjects I like to call Look At My Briefs.
The new Ashton Kutcher/Katherine Heigl comedy Killers, coming out tomorrow, so far has a big old N/A as its Tomatometer rating because the studio has not made it available ahead of time to movie critics. This is normally done when a movie studio realizes that they have the cinematic equivalent of the Necronomicon on its hands and they figure that they can get a few rubes to plunk down some bucks before the word on it gets out. Maybe this time it's different. Maybe the movie is so good that studios fear it will set a new standard for movie excellence and will literally rewire the brains of they who see it in a way that will create a better world. If that was the case, they'd want everyone to see it at once and not give critics a sneak peek, right? After all, what are the odds that a romantic comedy starring Katherine Heigl could be an unwatchable piece of crap?
I agree that Mission Impossible III was the best entry in that series so I'm not necessarily against another one being made. The fact that it's going to be directed by Incredibles/Iron Giant director Brad Bird sweetens the deal. Of course, with Bird at the helm, I'd feel a lot better if MI4 was an animated movie made by Pixar but I suppose I could say that about any movie.
The trailer for The Last Airbender certainly looks action packed but it doesn't fill me with optimism for the movie itself. I've been watching the original animated series from which the movie was adapted and it's filled with humor and whimsy in addition to the action and serious storyline. The trailer, on the other hand, looks like a very solemn affair. This could be because they decided to concentrate on action in the trailer or it could be that the movie is written and directed by M. Night Shyamalan, a filmmaker who isn't exactly known as Mr. Haha. His movies always have characters who are clinically depressed and I hope he resisted the urge to do so in Last Airbender. Also, he changed the original name which was Avatar. Why the hell would you do that?
This Big Hollywood review of Sex and the City 2 is one of the more unintentionally hilarious things I've read in a while. John Nolte is a fellow who, in the past, has written articles praising Transformers as a fine example of American values and trashing The Blind Side for a five second Bush joke even though the rest of the movie is probably the most overtly conservative film made in a while. Now that you have a taste of how he thinks, it won't be as much of a surprise when you hear that he absolutely loved Sex and the City 2 not for its quality, intelligence of wit but because it trashed Muslims. He even makes damn sure that he's always hated anything with the name Sex and the City before this and that you know he disapproves of women using their ladyparts for anything but Jesus approved procreative sex. However, because Kim Cattrall's Samantha character gets in trouble for kissing in public in defiance of Abu Dhabi's Islamic laws, Sex and the City 2 is now blessed with Reagan's tears. I can't imagine the kind of mind it takes to write something like this that isn't meant to be satire:
The new Ashton Kutcher/Katherine Heigl comedy Killers, coming out tomorrow, so far has a big old N/A as its Tomatometer rating because the studio has not made it available ahead of time to movie critics. This is normally done when a movie studio realizes that they have the cinematic equivalent of the Necronomicon on its hands and they figure that they can get a few rubes to plunk down some bucks before the word on it gets out. Maybe this time it's different. Maybe the movie is so good that studios fear it will set a new standard for movie excellence and will literally rewire the brains of they who see it in a way that will create a better world. If that was the case, they'd want everyone to see it at once and not give critics a sneak peek, right? After all, what are the odds that a romantic comedy starring Katherine Heigl could be an unwatchable piece of crap?
I agree that Mission Impossible III was the best entry in that series so I'm not necessarily against another one being made. The fact that it's going to be directed by Incredibles/Iron Giant director Brad Bird sweetens the deal. Of course, with Bird at the helm, I'd feel a lot better if MI4 was an animated movie made by Pixar but I suppose I could say that about any movie.
The trailer for The Last Airbender certainly looks action packed but it doesn't fill me with optimism for the movie itself. I've been watching the original animated series from which the movie was adapted and it's filled with humor and whimsy in addition to the action and serious storyline. The trailer, on the other hand, looks like a very solemn affair. This could be because they decided to concentrate on action in the trailer or it could be that the movie is written and directed by M. Night Shyamalan, a filmmaker who isn't exactly known as Mr. Haha. His movies always have characters who are clinically depressed and I hope he resisted the urge to do so in Last Airbender. Also, he changed the original name which was Avatar. Why the hell would you do that?
This Big Hollywood review of Sex and the City 2 is one of the more unintentionally hilarious things I've read in a while. John Nolte is a fellow who, in the past, has written articles praising Transformers as a fine example of American values and trashing The Blind Side for a five second Bush joke even though the rest of the movie is probably the most overtly conservative film made in a while. Now that you have a taste of how he thinks, it won't be as much of a surprise when you hear that he absolutely loved Sex and the City 2 not for its quality, intelligence of wit but because it trashed Muslims. He even makes damn sure that he's always hated anything with the name Sex and the City before this and that you know he disapproves of women using their ladyparts for anything but Jesus approved procreative sex. However, because Kim Cattrall's Samantha character gets in trouble for kissing in public in defiance of Abu Dhabi's Islamic laws, Sex and the City 2 is now blessed with Reagan's tears. I can't imagine the kind of mind it takes to write something like this that isn't meant to be satire:
A little later, back in America and with red, white and blue fireworks exploding overhead, Samantha’s getting her brains screwed out on the hood of a jeep as Carrie’s (Sarah Jessica Parker) voice-over mentions with no small amount of appreciation, “the land of the free.”Finally, Get Him to The Greek comes out tomorrow. I hope Jonah Hill manages to get Russell Brand to the Greek. I don't think life will be worth living if he doesn't.
Yes, I get misty eyed just thinking about.
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Twos-day
Two-day on this Twos-day I'm going two talk about 2 different sub-two-jects. I hope the rampant hilarity of this first line didn't cause anyone to pass out from laughter.
First, Lost. I'm assuming you've seen it, by the way. Don't go bitching about how you were saving the last episode for the 4th of July and now I've ruined it for you. Judging from Twitter/Facebook/message board reactions, it went over fairly well with the show's fanbase. Even people who thought the show started going downhill after that awesome first 15 minutes seemed to gain a measure of satisfaction and completion from Sunday's final episode. I can say I liked it a lot and was impressed at how much sense everything made in the end.
One of the biggest conclusions I reached is that Jacob did a lousy job in his role as island protector. It was obvious from the episode that showed us his origin that his mother didn't even intend for him to end up with the job. Hell, the first thing he did in that role was something his adoptive mother had told him not to do. As an act of revenge, he tossed his brother down the light cave and ended up creating a very powerful and pissed off enemy that was just as immortal as he was. Then Jacob decides to spend the next 2000 years trying to convince him of the sheer awesome swellness of humanity. You'd think around year 1200 he'd figure it to be a lost cause but no, he soldiers on. To me, the biggest unsolved mystery is whether the people who ended up on the island, including Desmond, were brought together as part of an intricate plan that Jacob concocted to put an end to the threat of the Man in Black once and for all or if he threw darts at names to choose his candidates and got lucky that everything worked out.
I'm not going to worry about the unsolved mysteries. If I ever meet any of the main creative forces behind Lost, I won't ask about polar bears or what was so great about Walt or if that Dharma peanut butter was smooth or crunchy. My question would be, "How close to your original vision of the ending did the actual ending turn out to be?" I'm curious about how much of the plot was planned from episode one and how much was just winging it.
Topic #2: I haven't given much space to Big Hollywood recently but this post today by Jeffrey Jena caught my eye. he claims comedian Elayne Boosler defriended him on Facebook for the crime of being a conservative.
On the other hand, we have Elayne Boosler saying he's full of shit. She pays Jena the courtesy of linking to what he actually said instead of providing us with her own vague characterizations of Jena's words. I also looked at some of her older Facebook posts and found this thread in which she criticizes Starbucks for allowing armed customers into their stores. In the comments, some guy states that we must allow this because a crackhead might someday find a gun while rooting through trash. According to Jena, Boosler should have lost her shit and defriended him. Instead, she disagreed and calmly stated that, if she encountered an armed customer in Starbucks, she would leave after registering her complaint to the management.
One more thing. I loved this statement Jena makes about the poor, persecuted Hollywood conservatives.
First, Lost. I'm assuming you've seen it, by the way. Don't go bitching about how you were saving the last episode for the 4th of July and now I've ruined it for you. Judging from Twitter/Facebook/message board reactions, it went over fairly well with the show's fanbase. Even people who thought the show started going downhill after that awesome first 15 minutes seemed to gain a measure of satisfaction and completion from Sunday's final episode. I can say I liked it a lot and was impressed at how much sense everything made in the end.
One of the biggest conclusions I reached is that Jacob did a lousy job in his role as island protector. It was obvious from the episode that showed us his origin that his mother didn't even intend for him to end up with the job. Hell, the first thing he did in that role was something his adoptive mother had told him not to do. As an act of revenge, he tossed his brother down the light cave and ended up creating a very powerful and pissed off enemy that was just as immortal as he was. Then Jacob decides to spend the next 2000 years trying to convince him of the sheer awesome swellness of humanity. You'd think around year 1200 he'd figure it to be a lost cause but no, he soldiers on. To me, the biggest unsolved mystery is whether the people who ended up on the island, including Desmond, were brought together as part of an intricate plan that Jacob concocted to put an end to the threat of the Man in Black once and for all or if he threw darts at names to choose his candidates and got lucky that everything worked out.
I'm not going to worry about the unsolved mysteries. If I ever meet any of the main creative forces behind Lost, I won't ask about polar bears or what was so great about Walt or if that Dharma peanut butter was smooth or crunchy. My question would be, "How close to your original vision of the ending did the actual ending turn out to be?" I'm curious about how much of the plot was planned from episode one and how much was just winging it.
Topic #2: I haven't given much space to Big Hollywood recently but this post today by Jeffrey Jena caught my eye. he claims comedian Elayne Boosler defriended him on Facebook for the crime of being a conservative.
I got “unfriended” on Facebook a few months ago by comedienne Elayne Boosler. Out here in the real world I wasn’t really “friends” with Ms. Boosler. We had met a few times and I think we may have shared a stage or two somewhere along the way but that was it. Our Facebook friendship was almost as brief. When I disagreed with one of her political postings I was soon scratched from her “friend” roster. It seems that Ms. Boosler does not like to have her opinions challenged. She is one of many “progressives” who believe in diversity of appearance but not of thought. Fair enough. You want to be narrow minded and intellectually lazy so you don’t have to defend your opinions, that is your right as an American. Second in my mind only to the right to be as stupid as you want to be is the right to put your fingers in your ear when someone who disagrees with you is so rude as to start throwing facts at you.He then goes on to claim that another progressive friend also dumped him from Facebook and from these two incidents draws the conclusion that liberals are vicious and intolerant. What caught my attention, though, is that, in both cases, Jena doesn't show us the comments that were so offensive to liberal sensibilities. As you can see from the quote above, all he says is that he disagreed with a political post without a hint of whether he said, "I think tax cuts increase revenues," or if it was more along the lines of, "Why does Der Führer Obama think he can change our health care system when he won't even release his birth certificate?" He goes into a bit more detail in the second example in which he paints himself as a calm debater going up against an emotionally immature and out-of-control liberal but, again, he fails to show us the actual Facebook posts that set this person off. We only have his word that he is the sad victim of liberal intolerance.
On the other hand, we have Elayne Boosler saying he's full of shit. She pays Jena the courtesy of linking to what he actually said instead of providing us with her own vague characterizations of Jena's words. I also looked at some of her older Facebook posts and found this thread in which she criticizes Starbucks for allowing armed customers into their stores. In the comments, some guy states that we must allow this because a crackhead might someday find a gun while rooting through trash. According to Jena, Boosler should have lost her shit and defriended him. Instead, she disagreed and calmly stated that, if she encountered an armed customer in Starbucks, she would leave after registering her complaint to the management.
One more thing. I loved this statement Jena makes about the poor, persecuted Hollywood conservatives.
I look at folks like Dennis Miller, a guy who I have admired for years, and Drew Carey, and wonder what their brash conservatism has cost them.Well, let's see. Dennis Miller now has a radio show because of his conservative beliefs as well as numerous tour dates. Drew Carey is an even sadder story. Because of his conservative beliefs, he was only allowed to make 200 episodes of his sitcom The Drew Carey Show. He now, tragically, makes an excellent living as host of The Price Is Right so yeah, let's all weep for Dennis Miller and Drew Carey.
Thursday, March 4, 2010
Look At My Briefs -- 3/4/10
It's that time of year again, kiddies. Time for another edition of my brief comments on various subjects I like to call Look At My Briefs.
I suppose it was only a matter of time.
I wonder what it says about me that Nip/Tuck is going off the air and I've yet to see a single episode. I suppose it means I don't have 100 hours a week to watch television. I thought some grand philosophical observation would suddenly pop in my head after typing that first sentence but now...nothing. Moving on.
The only really classic moments of the third Pirates of the Caribbean film happened when Keith Richards showed up to play Jack Sparrow's father and people in the audience started muttering, "I think that's Keith Richards." The depth of Johnny Depp's affection for Richards makes me look forward to his planned documentary of the bass player though I've no idea how you're going to stretch, "I don't really remember that due to the drifting dunes of heroin I was doing at the time," into a full length feature but I'm sure Depp will find a way.
Young people may not know that there was a time when video games didn't have even the bare bones storylines they have today. Space Invaders, for instance, didn't take place during World War II or in a zombie infested post apocalyptic world. It was just "Shoot stuff out of the sky" and they made millions off of it. This makes me wonder how exactly one goes about turning something like Space Invaders into a full length feature film but why worry? If there's one source of filmmaking ideas that always delivers quality product, it's video games.
This woman writes an entire article advocating for The Blind Side to win Best Picture before finally admitting this in the second to last paragraph:
Dealers of illegal hallucinogenics will notice a sharp drop in business tomorrow when Alice in Wonderland, a movie that makes them unnecessary, is released. Let your friendly neighborhood drug merchant know you still care and that he'll be back in business in a few weeks when the film slowly drifts out of theaters.
I suppose it was only a matter of time.
I wonder what it says about me that Nip/Tuck is going off the air and I've yet to see a single episode. I suppose it means I don't have 100 hours a week to watch television. I thought some grand philosophical observation would suddenly pop in my head after typing that first sentence but now...nothing. Moving on.
The only really classic moments of the third Pirates of the Caribbean film happened when Keith Richards showed up to play Jack Sparrow's father and people in the audience started muttering, "I think that's Keith Richards." The depth of Johnny Depp's affection for Richards makes me look forward to his planned documentary of the bass player though I've no idea how you're going to stretch, "I don't really remember that due to the drifting dunes of heroin I was doing at the time," into a full length feature but I'm sure Depp will find a way.
Young people may not know that there was a time when video games didn't have even the bare bones storylines they have today. Space Invaders, for instance, didn't take place during World War II or in a zombie infested post apocalyptic world. It was just "Shoot stuff out of the sky" and they made millions off of it. This makes me wonder how exactly one goes about turning something like Space Invaders into a full length feature film but why worry? If there's one source of filmmaking ideas that always delivers quality product, it's video games.
This woman writes an entire article advocating for The Blind Side to win Best Picture before finally admitting this in the second to last paragraph:
“The Blind Side” is not a great film but it is a great story which is documented at its end by the real life pictures of the characters portrayed by Bullock, Tim McGraw, Kathy Bates and others.The only reason she wants The Blind Side to win is because she sees it as something that affirms her world view. The reason it won't win has nothing to do with values or a liberal agenda. It won't win because there are nine other nominated films much better than The Blind Side, a mediocre film that shouldn't have been nominated in the first place.
Dealers of illegal hallucinogenics will notice a sharp drop in business tomorrow when Alice in Wonderland, a movie that makes them unnecessary, is released. Let your friendly neighborhood drug merchant know you still care and that he'll be back in business in a few weeks when the film slowly drifts out of theaters.
Thursday, January 7, 2010
Look At My Briefs -- 1/7/10
It's a new year and, if you're reading this, it means you have also lived long enough to bear witness to this exotic future world. To celebrate, let's all partake of another edition of my brief comments on short subjects called Look At My Briefs.
Some of you may remember how much I loved the Swedish film Let The Right One In, the story of a boy who befriends a girl that turns out to be a vampire. It was an intelligent, serious and violent film that was blessedly free of characters who sparkled or werewolves with six pack abs. An American remake called Let Me In has been given an October release date. Now we start the waiting game to see if Hollywood proudly upholds its tradition of taking intelligent foreign films, crapping on them and adding chase scenes. Good news: the plot synopsis is similar to that of the original. Bad news: it's an American remake of a foreign film which means it is subject to the previously mentioned proud tradition.
Caprica, a show set 50 years before the events of Battlestar Galactica about the creation of the Cylons, is premiering this month on Sceyefae. I saw the DVD of the pilot and it looked okay but I can't get excited about a story that I know eventually ends in a combination of Von Danikenism and Deus Ex Machina 50 years later.
Youth In Revolt and Daybreakers are getting surprisingly good reviews considering they're both coming out the first week in January, a week usually reserved for what turns out to be on of the year's worst movies. Could this be the start of a trend? Oh wait, what's this? Phew, I was getting worried for a minute.
This trailer for Kick-Ass is lousy. This redband clip concentrating on Hit-Girl, however, is at least better than the other trailer. It still doesn't make me overly optimistic about the movie's prospects but I'll admit there's now a glimmer of hope. The action was cool and who doesn't enjoy seeing little girls portrayed as foul-mouthed homicidal vigilante psychopaths? Coincidentally, the kid playing Hit-Girl is also playing the vampire in Let Me In. Circle of life and all that.
I predicted that Big Hollywood's anti-Avatar attitude would change once the film made money and that they would change their tunes and say that the movie was actually a very conservative film. If I ignore the fact that this Leigh Scott article isn't meant to be serious, I can say I my prediction was accurate so that's what I'm going to do. Hurray for me!
Some of you may remember how much I loved the Swedish film Let The Right One In, the story of a boy who befriends a girl that turns out to be a vampire. It was an intelligent, serious and violent film that was blessedly free of characters who sparkled or werewolves with six pack abs. An American remake called Let Me In has been given an October release date. Now we start the waiting game to see if Hollywood proudly upholds its tradition of taking intelligent foreign films, crapping on them and adding chase scenes. Good news: the plot synopsis is similar to that of the original. Bad news: it's an American remake of a foreign film which means it is subject to the previously mentioned proud tradition.
Caprica, a show set 50 years before the events of Battlestar Galactica about the creation of the Cylons, is premiering this month on Sceyefae. I saw the DVD of the pilot and it looked okay but I can't get excited about a story that I know eventually ends in a combination of Von Danikenism and Deus Ex Machina 50 years later.
Youth In Revolt and Daybreakers are getting surprisingly good reviews considering they're both coming out the first week in January, a week usually reserved for what turns out to be on of the year's worst movies. Could this be the start of a trend? Oh wait, what's this? Phew, I was getting worried for a minute.
This trailer for Kick-Ass is lousy. This redband clip concentrating on Hit-Girl, however, is at least better than the other trailer. It still doesn't make me overly optimistic about the movie's prospects but I'll admit there's now a glimmer of hope. The action was cool and who doesn't enjoy seeing little girls portrayed as foul-mouthed homicidal vigilante psychopaths? Coincidentally, the kid playing Hit-Girl is also playing the vampire in Let Me In. Circle of life and all that.
I predicted that Big Hollywood's anti-Avatar attitude would change once the film made money and that they would change their tunes and say that the movie was actually a very conservative film. If I ignore the fact that this Leigh Scott article isn't meant to be serious, I can say I my prediction was accurate so that's what I'm going to do. Hurray for me!
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
Baby Hollywood's First Year
Regular readers know the delight that Big Hollywood has given me over the past year. It was this day, January 6, 2009, that they first went online. BH is a group blog that tries to show a conservative perspective on the happenings in show business. As a progressive, I have enjoyed it because it's often delightfully insane, or at least it was. When they first started they had prominent right wing names like Ben Shapiro truly bringing The Crazy with an article about rap music that would have been relevant he been a 60 year old man writing it in 1985. Unfortunately this early spirit was not to last as Big Hollywood started publishing one post after another from a group of nobodies talking about how the reason you'd never heard of them was because they were conservatives and Hollywood won't give a job to anyone who thinks tax cuts increase revenues. That theme started looking foolish after outspoken conservative Kelsey Grammer was given his second post-Frasier mediocre sitcom so instead they basically started abandoning their main theme and allowed around 40% of their content to have nothing to do with show business which is why I mostly stopped devoting two full posts a week to them and mostly just give them a paragraph per week, if that. Still, they seem to be on the upswing (check out Adam Baldwin's recent defense of Brit Hume's religious nuttery for the most recent example) so, without further ado, I shall present what I think are the best examples of the lightning and madness that has been Big Hollywood over the past year, breaking it down by their most commonly used themes.
SEEING THINGS THAT AREN'T THERE -- To many Big Hollywood writers, entertainment is like a pair of pants that don't fit. Some people won't admit their pants don't fit so they pull, yank, stretch and eventually cut holes in them so they'll fit then insist they look good. Likewise, these people want movies to be something they're not so they twist their meanings around to suit their agenda. This is how 300, a mindless, badass action film with no political axe to grind became the symbol of conservative toughness. It says a lot about an ideology that claims to hate gays yet lionizes men in loincloths wrestling on a battlefield. The finest example in the past year, however, belongs to a review of the movie Taken written by insane racist Debbie Schlussel. In her eyes, the movie's Albanian villains were "clearly" Arabs despite having been named several times as Albanians and having their speech translated by an Albanian dictionary. She also described their employer as a Sheik even though they worked for a tuxedo wearing French gangster. I assume the reason Big Hollywood published this is because it was so epically stupid that it made the rest of them look smarter as a result.
CONCERN TROLLING -- Big Hollywood loves to show how much they care about Real Hollywood by giving them helpful advice about which movies make the most money. Coincidentally, if this advice were taken, it would eliminate from the big screen movies that conservatives don't like. Big Hollywood is constantly advising actual professionals to stop making Iraq War films or movies with sex and violence not for the sake of conservatives who don't like those but because they care ever so much about movie studios' profit margins. I hold up the work of Dr. Ted Baehr as this year's finest example of concern trolling. Baehr is an evangelical Christian who likes to helpfully tell Hollywood that clean films makes so much more money than dirty, filthy ones. True, family films are usually the year's biggest hits but movies like Inglourious Basterds also make money while many clean family films lose money.
POLITICAL CORRECTNESS -- To Big Hollywood writers, everything must be ideologically pure. They would fiercely reject that that they are practicing Political Correctness since that is supposedly a liberal term but the endless quest for purity can't be described any other way and there is no one on Big Hollywood more fiercely P.C. than their Editor-In-Chief John Nolte. His recent jihad against Avatar is a good example but I have a better one. The new Sandra Bullock film The Blind Side should have been lauded by BH and in fact did receive a good review from Pam Meister. Nolte, however, ignored the fact that the movie is about a white, Southern Republican NRA-loving family whose Christian decency causes them to open their home to a black street kid who has no one else. Instead, he focused on less than five seconds of the film devoted to a mild jab at George W. Bush. He also saw the new animated A Christmas Carol and ignored that this was probably one of the more pro-religious versions of this story ever made to, again, concentrate on a single line about religious hypocrisy. I can see why that so enraged him since the same sentiment was expressed by one of history's most infamous Socialist creeps.
BATSHIT INSANITY -- This was a tough one. I really wanted to give this to Dirk Benedict's rant against...well, to this day I don't know what the hell he was talking about. Something about Mickey Mouse not being immortal because he had surgery. You read the whole thing and try to figure it out if you can. In the end, though, Victoria Jackson really had no competition. She's the only person from Big Hollywood to actually rate her own label. I can't bring myself to choose from her body of work, though. It's like asking what sort of meat tastes best when deep fried or, more aptly, what sort of incredibly stupid meat tastes best when deep fried in crazy sauce. I suggest you read her entire Big Hollywood oeuvre. In it you'll be treated to the work of a woman who wonders why it is that shop clerks quietly smiled at her while she harassed them with right wing talking points, inadvertently threatens the woman whose is third in line for the Presidency and is unable to look smart even when engaging in imaginary conversations with people she's never met. This woman whose greatest show business achievement is that she managed to get through six years on Saturday Night Live without creating a single memorable character now distinguishes herself with the combination of thinking that her writing makes her look good and her inability to write in a way that make her look good. Or smart. Or sane. Or decent.
Happy birthday Big Hollywood. Here's hoping you find your way back home and publish some articles criticizing Harry Potter for being a Satanist or for making Lord Voldemort a dark wizard instead of a Muslim.
SEEING THINGS THAT AREN'T THERE -- To many Big Hollywood writers, entertainment is like a pair of pants that don't fit. Some people won't admit their pants don't fit so they pull, yank, stretch and eventually cut holes in them so they'll fit then insist they look good. Likewise, these people want movies to be something they're not so they twist their meanings around to suit their agenda. This is how 300, a mindless, badass action film with no political axe to grind became the symbol of conservative toughness. It says a lot about an ideology that claims to hate gays yet lionizes men in loincloths wrestling on a battlefield. The finest example in the past year, however, belongs to a review of the movie Taken written by insane racist Debbie Schlussel. In her eyes, the movie's Albanian villains were "clearly" Arabs despite having been named several times as Albanians and having their speech translated by an Albanian dictionary. She also described their employer as a Sheik even though they worked for a tuxedo wearing French gangster. I assume the reason Big Hollywood published this is because it was so epically stupid that it made the rest of them look smarter as a result.
CONCERN TROLLING -- Big Hollywood loves to show how much they care about Real Hollywood by giving them helpful advice about which movies make the most money. Coincidentally, if this advice were taken, it would eliminate from the big screen movies that conservatives don't like. Big Hollywood is constantly advising actual professionals to stop making Iraq War films or movies with sex and violence not for the sake of conservatives who don't like those but because they care ever so much about movie studios' profit margins. I hold up the work of Dr. Ted Baehr as this year's finest example of concern trolling. Baehr is an evangelical Christian who likes to helpfully tell Hollywood that clean films makes so much more money than dirty, filthy ones. True, family films are usually the year's biggest hits but movies like Inglourious Basterds also make money while many clean family films lose money.
POLITICAL CORRECTNESS -- To Big Hollywood writers, everything must be ideologically pure. They would fiercely reject that that they are practicing Political Correctness since that is supposedly a liberal term but the endless quest for purity can't be described any other way and there is no one on Big Hollywood more fiercely P.C. than their Editor-In-Chief John Nolte. His recent jihad against Avatar is a good example but I have a better one. The new Sandra Bullock film The Blind Side should have been lauded by BH and in fact did receive a good review from Pam Meister. Nolte, however, ignored the fact that the movie is about a white, Southern Republican NRA-loving family whose Christian decency causes them to open their home to a black street kid who has no one else. Instead, he focused on less than five seconds of the film devoted to a mild jab at George W. Bush. He also saw the new animated A Christmas Carol and ignored that this was probably one of the more pro-religious versions of this story ever made to, again, concentrate on a single line about religious hypocrisy. I can see why that so enraged him since the same sentiment was expressed by one of history's most infamous Socialist creeps.
BATSHIT INSANITY -- This was a tough one. I really wanted to give this to Dirk Benedict's rant against...well, to this day I don't know what the hell he was talking about. Something about Mickey Mouse not being immortal because he had surgery. You read the whole thing and try to figure it out if you can. In the end, though, Victoria Jackson really had no competition. She's the only person from Big Hollywood to actually rate her own label. I can't bring myself to choose from her body of work, though. It's like asking what sort of meat tastes best when deep fried or, more aptly, what sort of incredibly stupid meat tastes best when deep fried in crazy sauce. I suggest you read her entire Big Hollywood oeuvre. In it you'll be treated to the work of a woman who wonders why it is that shop clerks quietly smiled at her while she harassed them with right wing talking points, inadvertently threatens the woman whose is third in line for the Presidency and is unable to look smart even when engaging in imaginary conversations with people she's never met. This woman whose greatest show business achievement is that she managed to get through six years on Saturday Night Live without creating a single memorable character now distinguishes herself with the combination of thinking that her writing makes her look good and her inability to write in a way that make her look good. Or smart. Or sane. Or decent.
Happy birthday Big Hollywood. Here's hoping you find your way back home and publish some articles criticizing Harry Potter for being a Satanist or for making Lord Voldemort a dark wizard instead of a Muslim.
Sunday, December 13, 2009
Prediction
Currently, Avatar is being trashed in conservative circles because it portrays good, decent white humans as villains trying to steal the land of a non-white primitive people.
Unfortunately for them, most other critics seem to like it. This means Big Hollywood will adopt the strategy they used for movies like The Blind Side where they trash it for being politically incorrect then, when it becomes a huge hit, they backtrack and claim it's actually a win for conservative values.
Therefore, after they see that they failed not only to kill Avatar but to even blunt its box office, expect to see several Big Hollywood articles saying that it's a conservative screed that vindicates the Iraq War and that Sam Worthington's wheelchair bound character who enters an alien body clearly represents George W. Bush.
Another possibility is that it will make $300 million and they'll claim that they prevented it from making $400 million but I'm sticking with my first guess.
Unfortunately for them, most other critics seem to like it. This means Big Hollywood will adopt the strategy they used for movies like The Blind Side where they trash it for being politically incorrect then, when it becomes a huge hit, they backtrack and claim it's actually a win for conservative values.
Therefore, after they see that they failed not only to kill Avatar but to even blunt its box office, expect to see several Big Hollywood articles saying that it's a conservative screed that vindicates the Iraq War and that Sam Worthington's wheelchair bound character who enters an alien body clearly represents George W. Bush.
Another possibility is that it will make $300 million and they'll claim that they prevented it from making $400 million but I'm sticking with my first guess.
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
Look At My Briefs -- 11/25/09
As I anticipate possibly not posting on Thursday due to the fact it's a special day (I'm going to try on new pants that day and that always overwhelms me) I present a special Wednesday edition of Look At My Briefs.
Shouldn't this be Orson Welles and I?
I like Kat Dennings and am glad to see she joined the Thor cast. Sadly, it looks like a small part so, for now, she'll still be stopped in the street and be asked if she was the girl in Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist who got fingered by Michael Cera. It's nice to be a working actress but it's still a hell of a thing to be known for.
The Fox Network gave us all a handy list of the shows that will premier next year, be cancelled after four episodes and be replaced by reruns of House and Lie to Me. Thanks, Fox.
Ninja Assassin comes out today. I wonder what it's about.
Good call, Producers Guild.
I'd like to meet the guys with top level college educations who think it's a good idea to take their sites off the world's most popular search engine. They seem like people who'd be really easy to beat at cards.
You really have to be a moron to think the extremely liberal Harlan Ellison is someone who should be held up as an example for conservatives. Fortunately for conservatives, at least one such moron exists.
The new clips from Avatar look a lot better than the ones that came out months ago but the title could still be Dances With Wolves In Space. This means that the spectacular visuals could get very old very quickly if coupled with a dumb story. But what am I worried about? Surely a top level movie studio would never commit to spending hundreds of millions of its company's dollars without making damn sure that it had a top shelf script, right?
If I find I don't have time to post for the rest of the week, have a good holiday, all. If I do find time, please have such a crappy holiday that you come here looking for solace.
Shouldn't this be Orson Welles and I?
I like Kat Dennings and am glad to see she joined the Thor cast. Sadly, it looks like a small part so, for now, she'll still be stopped in the street and be asked if she was the girl in Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist who got fingered by Michael Cera. It's nice to be a working actress but it's still a hell of a thing to be known for.
The Fox Network gave us all a handy list of the shows that will premier next year, be cancelled after four episodes and be replaced by reruns of House and Lie to Me. Thanks, Fox.
Ninja Assassin comes out today. I wonder what it's about.
Good call, Producers Guild.
I'd like to meet the guys with top level college educations who think it's a good idea to take their sites off the world's most popular search engine. They seem like people who'd be really easy to beat at cards.
You really have to be a moron to think the extremely liberal Harlan Ellison is someone who should be held up as an example for conservatives. Fortunately for conservatives, at least one such moron exists.
The new clips from Avatar look a lot better than the ones that came out months ago but the title could still be Dances With Wolves In Space. This means that the spectacular visuals could get very old very quickly if coupled with a dumb story. But what am I worried about? Surely a top level movie studio would never commit to spending hundreds of millions of its company's dollars without making damn sure that it had a top shelf script, right?
If I find I don't have time to post for the rest of the week, have a good holiday, all. If I do find time, please have such a crappy holiday that you come here looking for solace.
Thursday, November 5, 2009
Look At My Briefs -- 11/5/09
It's the first Thursday of November, an entirely non-momentous event that calls for another edition of brief comments on various subjects I like to call Look At My Briefs.
I normally would never condone people stabbing themselves but in this case it's not only understandable but it makes you wonder why more Blockbuster employees don't do it. Let's hope he didn't get the knife from Blockbuster or they'll charge him a late fee.
I didn't expect an Oscars ceremony hosted by Hugh Jackman to be the least bit entertaining only to be proven wrong. On the other hand, I think having Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin host next year's Oscars will be 10,000 pounds of awesome which probably means it'll suck on 10th-circle-of-hell levels.
It's a shame Whedon isn't serious about this as this certainly would be 10,000 pounds of awesome. (Think I'll make that my new catchphrase. It would replace, "Pour the lemonade, Admiral.")
This week's fantasy: New Moon turns out to be one of the greatest movies ever made, a fact that drives away hardcore Twilight fans and makes it one of the biggest money losers in history.
Summing up Big Hollywood: The Onion joking that they want Glenn Beck to die is the worst thing ever done in human history. Why, if Glenn Beck was to die, he would no longer be able to do awesome bits like fantasizing about putting poison into Nancy Pelosi's wine.
Speaking of right wing jerks trying to censor content, how much you want to bet that people who've never before considered watching Gossip Girl will now tune in because the PTC raised a huge stink about a threesome storyline on the next episode? Hell, I might watch it. You know, for research purposes. And for wanking material.
I normally would never condone people stabbing themselves but in this case it's not only understandable but it makes you wonder why more Blockbuster employees don't do it. Let's hope he didn't get the knife from Blockbuster or they'll charge him a late fee.
I didn't expect an Oscars ceremony hosted by Hugh Jackman to be the least bit entertaining only to be proven wrong. On the other hand, I think having Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin host next year's Oscars will be 10,000 pounds of awesome which probably means it'll suck on 10th-circle-of-hell levels.
It's a shame Whedon isn't serious about this as this certainly would be 10,000 pounds of awesome. (Think I'll make that my new catchphrase. It would replace, "Pour the lemonade, Admiral.")
This week's fantasy: New Moon turns out to be one of the greatest movies ever made, a fact that drives away hardcore Twilight fans and makes it one of the biggest money losers in history.
Summing up Big Hollywood: The Onion joking that they want Glenn Beck to die is the worst thing ever done in human history. Why, if Glenn Beck was to die, he would no longer be able to do awesome bits like fantasizing about putting poison into Nancy Pelosi's wine.
Speaking of right wing jerks trying to censor content, how much you want to bet that people who've never before considered watching Gossip Girl will now tune in because the PTC raised a huge stink about a threesome storyline on the next episode? Hell, I might watch it. You know, for research purposes. And for wanking material.
Saturday, October 17, 2009
Big Saturday
The first paragraph of this is possibly the shittiest endorsement of a television show I've ever seen. Please note that the guy actually wants you to watch the show. A "different comedic approach" seems to mean, "Let's not actually be funny."
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
He Has No Brains Down In Africa
Previously on Clear's Own:
Conservative movie critic and Big Hollywood contributor Christian Toto decided to take The Onion to task for writing a joke article about Ronald Reagan burying $20 trillion back in the 80s. This caused Toto to make this definitive declaration:
Well, no. This showed up in the comments from Christian Toto.
All rightie, Kumbaya moment's over. Let's get down to business.
Mr. Toto, sir, I had no idea that the print version of The Onion was the Super Duper Ultra Mega Official Version That Supersedes All Others and that you referred to that and nothing else when you wrote your BH article. You even said you should have made that clear. I look like a complete jerk now. You Big, Me Small. Or, rather, that would be the case if not for those damn pesky Fact Clouds coming to rain piss all over your victory parade.
You're saying you only read the print version yet the Reagan bit to which you linked was part of the web version. How can this be? Simple. It was in both. In fact, most of what you read on the web was mined from The Onion's print version. The web publication even lets you know which print issue it was taken from. The Reagan article, for example, was published in issue #4538.
This brings me back to Print Master Toto and this sentence, "Why The Onion saves the bits of Obama tweaking for the web-only postings is beyond me." I listed nine links in my post. One was a radio clip, one was a Onion News Network video and another was part of a feature called "Obama's First Hundred Days" which I think was web only. That leaves six-count em-six articles that Toto says were never in the Divine Print Version he reads except that they were.
We also see that Toto read the previous comments where it was pointed out that his attack of Bill Maher in the same article in which he called him "cowardly" for never going after Obama is also a crock because Maher has gone after Obama, a fact confirmed in an article by Big Hollywood's Editor-In-Chief John Nolte. Toto's options at this point were limited. He could have dismissed Nolte as an unreliable member of the liberal media but, instead, said that sure, Maher went after but Obama but did so with insufficient vitriol and anger. The only satisfactory action would have been to take a crap and wipe his ass with Obama's picture on the air.
So, what have we learned? We learned that backing up opinions with real world facts is better than backing them up with facts you pull out of your ass. We learned that some people think their fantasies are real. And we learned that, if you say something to me that is a total crock, I will fight tooth and nail to find the truth even if it leads me to the gates of hell...as long as doing that doesn't take me more than 15 minutes which was the total amount of time I spent researching today's column. The truth is a wonderful thing, Christian. Hurry boy, it's waiting there for you. You should be frightened of this thing you have become.
Conservative movie critic and Big Hollywood contributor Christian Toto decided to take The Onion to task for writing a joke article about Ronald Reagan burying $20 trillion back in the 80s. This caused Toto to make this definitive declaration:
Week after week The Onion bends over backward not to satirize The One. That’s keeping in line with most of today’s cowardly comics, from David Letterman to Bill Maher.That was an awesome observation except for the fact that it wasn't true. My response to that was to list numerous articles in which The Onion did, in fact, make fun of Obama and that was the end of that. He said something. I presented evidence that it wasn't true. Me-1, Big Hollywood-0. Right?
Well, no. This showed up in the comments from Christian Toto.
Christian Toto said...Where to begin? First off, I'm happy you and I could reach a bipartisan consensus on Fred Armisen and the major league suck factor of his Obama imitation. Lorne Michaels had the entire summer to find someone who looked and sounded vaguely like Obama and instead decided to keep the guy whose imitation reminds me more of Obama's dog than Obama himself.
Nice overheated rant.
I read the print version of The Onion every week ... that's what I based my commentary on. I'm assuming that's the definitive version of the paper of record. I should have made that clear in my post ...
Why The Onion saves the bits of Obama tweaking for the web-only postings is beyond me.
Each week I wait for The Onion's newspaper version, a generally terrific humor edition, to find something about Obama's policies and demeanor to mock. Unless I missed an issue since election day I've yet to see it.
Instead, they keep falling back on Bush and Cheney and other random topics. Nothing wrong with that, but they're missing quality humor targets. Just listen to Limbaugh once in a while and you'll see what can be done.
Even "SNL" screwed it up over the weekend. I thought their Obama sketch was lame ... the impersonation by Armisen is terrible and it read like a GOP talking point tally sheet. Nothing clever about it ... just mean, really. Made me feel sorry for Obama, and that's not the goal of sketch comedy.
As to the Bill Maher comparison, the day Maher tears into Obama with 1/1000 of the anger/invective/rage he saves for Bush, let's talk.
And you're not really addressing the cruelty inherent in making fun of Reagan's Alzheimer's. Guess we can differ on whether that's fair or tacky ... I lean towards tacky in the extreme.
The overall point of my piece, beyond The Onion critique, is that the humor world still is keeping, for the most part, a hands off policy on Obama. Presidents get mocked .. it's part of the territory, and Obama deserves his share of pies in the face like any other leader.
Jon Stewart has landed some comic blows against Obama, and good for him.
Letterman may be the worst offender here, but it seems he's been ... ahem ... busy on other fronts.
All rightie, Kumbaya moment's over. Let's get down to business.
Mr. Toto, sir, I had no idea that the print version of The Onion was the Super Duper Ultra Mega Official Version That Supersedes All Others and that you referred to that and nothing else when you wrote your BH article. You even said you should have made that clear. I look like a complete jerk now. You Big, Me Small. Or, rather, that would be the case if not for those damn pesky Fact Clouds coming to rain piss all over your victory parade.
You're saying you only read the print version yet the Reagan bit to which you linked was part of the web version. How can this be? Simple. It was in both. In fact, most of what you read on the web was mined from The Onion's print version. The web publication even lets you know which print issue it was taken from. The Reagan article, for example, was published in issue #4538.
This brings me back to Print Master Toto and this sentence, "Why The Onion saves the bits of Obama tweaking for the web-only postings is beyond me." I listed nine links in my post. One was a radio clip, one was a Onion News Network video and another was part of a feature called "Obama's First Hundred Days" which I think was web only. That leaves six-count em-six articles that Toto says were never in the Divine Print Version he reads except that they were.
We also see that Toto read the previous comments where it was pointed out that his attack of Bill Maher in the same article in which he called him "cowardly" for never going after Obama is also a crock because Maher has gone after Obama, a fact confirmed in an article by Big Hollywood's Editor-In-Chief John Nolte. Toto's options at this point were limited. He could have dismissed Nolte as an unreliable member of the liberal media but, instead, said that sure, Maher went after but Obama but did so with insufficient vitriol and anger. The only satisfactory action would have been to take a crap and wipe his ass with Obama's picture on the air.
So, what have we learned? We learned that backing up opinions with real world facts is better than backing them up with facts you pull out of your ass. We learned that some people think their fantasies are real. And we learned that, if you say something to me that is a total crock, I will fight tooth and nail to find the truth even if it leads me to the gates of hell...as long as doing that doesn't take me more than 15 minutes which was the total amount of time I spent researching today's column. The truth is a wonderful thing, Christian. Hurry boy, it's waiting there for you. You should be frightened of this thing you have become.
Thursday, October 1, 2009
Look At My Briefs -- 10/01/09
It's the first day of October which means I present today an extra spooky editon of Look At My Briefs. (There's nothing at all spooky about this. I made that part up. If you have a weak heart and weren't going to read this, don't worry. -- MC)
I guess this Twilight trend won't be ending any time soon. Twilight director Catherine Hardwicke didn't get to direct the sequel so instead she's doing a movie just like it. Then there's this lesbian werewolf version of Twilight whose director said this...
Proving that anything in Hollywood can become the subject of a movie deal if it just sits still long enough, a book called Candy written by The Hills star Lauren Conrad is slated for a filmed adaptation. That book, incidentally, was written by Lauren Conrad in the same way that the plays of William Shakespeare were written by me. This is how the writing process went:
If only someone would do this to the Saw movies.
This Variety article fascinated me:
All the entertainment industry heavy hitters who are losing their shit over the idea of Roman Polanski going to prison remind me of cops who form "The Blue Wall Of Silence" whenever another cop gets into trouble except that the cops have the good sense to be silent while the Hollywood people won't shut the hell up. I don't understand the thinking of people who think a guy should be issued a license to drug and rape a teenager just because that movie he made where Jack Nicholson got his nose sliced open was cool but I gave up trying to comprehend the mind of people who work in the film industry when said industry made Bride Wars. This whole situation has been good for some people, though. Big Hollywood has been having a field day expressing their righteous indignation over this issue. It was very lucky for them that liberal filmmakers came down on the pro-Polanski side thus granting them full license to really get outraged. At least their love of the rule of law has given them something else to do now besides condemning anyone who thinks that American officials who violated international torture laws should be held accountable in a court of law.
I guess this Twilight trend won't be ending any time soon. Twilight director Catherine Hardwicke didn't get to direct the sequel so instead she's doing a movie just like it. Then there's this lesbian werewolf version of Twilight whose director said this...
“This creature, though grotesque, becomes Diane’s way of saying, ‘I love you so much I want to eat you and put you inside me forever.’”...and I said this...
EW!
Proving that anything in Hollywood can become the subject of a movie deal if it just sits still long enough, a book called Candy written by The Hills star Lauren Conrad is slated for a filmed adaptation. That book, incidentally, was written by Lauren Conrad in the same way that the plays of William Shakespeare were written by me. This is how the writing process went:
Ghost Writer: I think I'll have the protagonist do this. Is that all right with you, Lauren?
Lauren Conrad: Um...sure. What's a protagonist?
If only someone would do this to the Saw movies.
This Variety article fascinated me:
Stephen King is taking another stab at the smallscreen, signing on to turn his novella "The Colorado Kid" into an hourlong series for indie studio E1 Entertainment ("Hung").Interesting idea, I suppose. May suck, may not. No way to know at this point. All I could think of, however, was, "What the hell does any of that have to do with The Colorado Kid?" That book was about two elderly newspaper men describing the biggest murder mystery that had ever occurred in their small Maine town to their college age intern. The town was not called Haven, there was no character in the book named Audrey Parker, and nothing that could even vaguely be called supernatural went on in all of the book's 184 pages. I was wondering if maybe King had another book out there with the same title but Google says no. How the hell do you get to call this an adaptation? Does that word have a meaning of which I am unaware? Hell, I can do this. I want to adapt Cujo into a television series about good looking singles in their 20s who take turns boning each other while trying to make it in Hollywood. Consider this an idea submission, E1 entertainment.
Titled "Haven," the project centers on a spooky town in Maine where cursed folk live normal lives in exile. When those curses start returning, FBI agent Audrey Parker is brought in to keep those supernatural forces at bay -- while trying to unravel the mysteries of Haven.
All the entertainment industry heavy hitters who are losing their shit over the idea of Roman Polanski going to prison remind me of cops who form "The Blue Wall Of Silence" whenever another cop gets into trouble except that the cops have the good sense to be silent while the Hollywood people won't shut the hell up. I don't understand the thinking of people who think a guy should be issued a license to drug and rape a teenager just because that movie he made where Jack Nicholson got his nose sliced open was cool but I gave up trying to comprehend the mind of people who work in the film industry when said industry made Bride Wars. This whole situation has been good for some people, though. Big Hollywood has been having a field day expressing their righteous indignation over this issue. It was very lucky for them that liberal filmmakers came down on the pro-Polanski side thus granting them full license to really get outraged. At least their love of the rule of law has given them something else to do now besides condemning anyone who thinks that American officials who violated international torture laws should be held accountable in a court of law.
Monday, September 28, 2009
Onion Makes Man Cry
Regular readers know that, from time to time, I love to comment on the goings-on at conservative movie site Big Hollywood. They like to do stuff like complain that the bad guys in G.I. Joe weren't Muslim, or that the bad guys in Inglourious Basterds weren't Muslim or that the title of Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs should have been called Cloudy With A Chance Of Evil Muslims Who Will Behead You In Your Sleep And Impregnate White Christian Women. I read them for the unintentional hilarity and I got boatloads of that on Thursday. All I had to do was read the headline...
It was written by Christian Toto, a writer who, most likely to preserve his anonymity, apparently writes under his drag queen pseudonym.
Christian Toto's response to this was what you typically get from Big Hollywood. He substitutes his right wing ideology for reality and ignores actual facts in favor of his made up ones.
Ultimately, Toto assumes that The Onion is doing what he would do in their position. He doesn't think that The Onion's staff gets together every day trying to figure out the best way to make their audience laugh. He thinks they meet up in their socialist collective and try to figure out the best way to advance their agenda, in this case a liberal one. Of course, if they did that, no one would read it because it wouldn't be funny for the same reason it wouldn't be funny if Christian Toto were The Onion's editor-in-chief and every day the front page included jokes that far right conservatives want to see like comparing Michelle Obama to a gorilla, photoshopping a watermelon patch on the White House lawn or saying that the President can't decide if his favorite book is Mein Kampf or the Koran.
Even if The Onion started tossing in stuff like that, it would do no good. Toto wouldn't be appeased unless The Onion became the official humor wing of the RNC and every day their front page had Obama spray painting a swastika on the American flag or that Obama should never be left alone with a fertile white woman lest his jungle nature assert itself. Until that day, Toto will have to console himself with the fact that at least he's not in Kansas anymore.
Cowardly 'Onion' Ignores Obama, Ridicules Reagan's Alzheimers...to know I had a good one.
It was written by Christian Toto, a writer who, most likely to preserve his anonymity, apparently writes under his drag queen pseudonym.
Week after week The Onion bends over backward not to satirize The One. That’s keeping in line with most of today’s cowardly comics, from David Letterman to Bill Maher.He's talking about this funny bit from TheOnion.com:
Jon Stewart of “The Daily Show” has shown some interest in pursuing the president’s comic potential, but it comes in fits and starts. But The Onion’s latest attempt at humor is both vicious and wrongheaded.
U.S. Government Finds $20 Trillion Buried By Absentminded Reagan In 1987This is especially well written because it combines a low brow jab at Reagan in the early stages of Alzheimers with what would almost certainly be a dead-on accurate portrayal of official Washington, up to and including Barack Obama, framing the burial of trillions of dollars as a sign of Reagan's foresight and genius rather than the actions of a sick, addled old man.
Christian Toto's response to this was what you typically get from Big Hollywood. He substitutes his right wing ideology for reality and ignores actual facts in favor of his made up ones.
The article tells how Reagan stored away a near endless array of Mason jars, shoe boxes and other small capsules with small amounts of money, keepsakes and other trivial goods toward the end of his second term.This is a damning indictment of the liberal bias of nation's premier news satire site. It's also an example of ridiculous stupidity to anyone who has ever read The Onion. Toto made his point in the same way hucksters and demagogues have always made their points. He embraces the evidence that reinforces his assertion while ignoring the evidence that his assertion is a crock of shit. Here are some examples of stuff Christian Toto claims doesn't exist:
The find means the country’s current economic crisis is over, we’re told, and the article further hints the nation’s money woes can be traced directly back to the 40th president.
Never mind Obama’s stimulus package has led to a ballooning of the national deficit to comic proportions.
Nothing worth satirizing there, folks. Move along.
- 'Time' Publishes Definitive Obama Puff Piece -- Skewers the media's perceived deference to Obama, something they've done more than once.
- Obama Win Causes Obsessive Supporters To Realize How Empty Their Lives Are -- Pokes fun at the way some of Obama's supporters all but deified him.
- Obama Practices Looking -Off-Into-Future Pose -- Makes fun of Obama's "Hope and Change" routine, again something The Onion has done more than once.
- They have even made fun of Obama's nerdy image with an article saying he was upset that no one on his staff knew the plot of a 1977 issue of a Conan the Barbarian comic book.
Taking his cue from President Obama's $800 billion stimulus bill, HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan goes on a spending spree not seen since the days of Caligula.Toto could have found all this, of course. It took me 30 seconds. He simply chose not to because he wasn't interested in seeing if his bullshit view of the world was actually true or not.
Ultimately, Toto assumes that The Onion is doing what he would do in their position. He doesn't think that The Onion's staff gets together every day trying to figure out the best way to make their audience laugh. He thinks they meet up in their socialist collective and try to figure out the best way to advance their agenda, in this case a liberal one. Of course, if they did that, no one would read it because it wouldn't be funny for the same reason it wouldn't be funny if Christian Toto were The Onion's editor-in-chief and every day the front page included jokes that far right conservatives want to see like comparing Michelle Obama to a gorilla, photoshopping a watermelon patch on the White House lawn or saying that the President can't decide if his favorite book is Mein Kampf or the Koran.
Even if The Onion started tossing in stuff like that, it would do no good. Toto wouldn't be appeased unless The Onion became the official humor wing of the RNC and every day their front page had Obama spray painting a swastika on the American flag or that Obama should never be left alone with a fertile white woman lest his jungle nature assert itself. Until that day, Toto will have to console himself with the fact that at least he's not in Kansas anymore.
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Look At My Briefs -- 9/24/09
If it's Thursday, that means it's time for yet another edition of everyone's favorite source of news about show business and swine flu prevention, my brief comments on various subjects called Look At My Briefs.
Oh look, another movie about zombies. I think it's been nearly two weeks since one of those was announced.
Oh look, another remake of a classic movie franchise. I think it's been two weeks since we've had one of those. I'm not a huge Highlander fan so it means jack and squat to me if it gets a "reboot" so by all means, feel free to boot this movie's re as much as you want. It has the director of Fast and Furious behind it which means it must be good unless you actually use Fast and Furious as some sort of indicator.
I see NCIS and its new spinoff dominated Monday night ratings. I wonder if the people who complain that television sucks are the same people who keep watching what is basically the same show over and over again.
Speaking of television and sucking, The Vampire Diaries didn't get any better with episode 2. It really is following the Twilight formula of showing the development of a boring romance with approximately one minute of action to liven things up. I doubt I'll watch it again.
I shall close things out with a trip to Big Hollywood. Regular readers know that I have commented on their content many times in the past but haven't done so lately because they've gotten boring*. There was, however, one post written that caught my attention. Yervand Kochar has taken a break from his attempts to defeat Moose and Squirrel to tell us how mega awesome the past was. He tells us all what a man's man Cary Grant was and how he'd like to rub his penis against Barbara Stanwyck's ankle. Then he gets stupid.
*Click the "Big Hollywood" tag at the bottom to see some of the posts I've written about them.
Oh look, another movie about zombies. I think it's been nearly two weeks since one of those was announced.
Oh look, another remake of a classic movie franchise. I think it's been two weeks since we've had one of those. I'm not a huge Highlander fan so it means jack and squat to me if it gets a "reboot" so by all means, feel free to boot this movie's re as much as you want. It has the director of Fast and Furious behind it which means it must be good unless you actually use Fast and Furious as some sort of indicator.
I see NCIS and its new spinoff dominated Monday night ratings. I wonder if the people who complain that television sucks are the same people who keep watching what is basically the same show over and over again.
Speaking of television and sucking, The Vampire Diaries didn't get any better with episode 2. It really is following the Twilight formula of showing the development of a boring romance with approximately one minute of action to liven things up. I doubt I'll watch it again.
I shall close things out with a trip to Big Hollywood. Regular readers know that I have commented on their content many times in the past but haven't done so lately because they've gotten boring*. There was, however, one post written that caught my attention. Yervand Kochar has taken a break from his attempts to defeat Moose and Squirrel to tell us how mega awesome the past was. He tells us all what a man's man Cary Grant was and how he'd like to rub his penis against Barbara Stanwyck's ankle. Then he gets stupid.
The stars of the 40s seduce you, and you like it, because they make you feel comfortable. You believe they know what they are doing.This is a fine example of three things. One, the fact that he trashes Jessica Alba and then swings into how much he wants to fuck her shows that, on some level, he knows how full of shit he is. Two, Kochar, like a lot of conservatives, longs for an idealized past he didn't even live through in which men are men, woman know their place and no one is black. Three, Kochar, again like a lot of conservatives, can't tell fantasy from reality. He actually says that stars of the past must have been better lovers and fighters because of what they did on screen. He has no idea if Barbara Stanwyck was frigid in real life or if Laurence Olivier had a glass jaw nor does he care. He saw it in a movie so it must be true.
Does this mean they were better lovers in real life? Was, for instance, Clark Gable a better lover than Matt Damon? Was Barbara Stanwyck better in bed than, let’s say, Jessica Alba?
Absolutely.
(Unless, of course, Jessica Alba wants to prove me wrong.)
*Click the "Big Hollywood" tag at the bottom to see some of the posts I've written about them.
Thursday, September 3, 2009
Look At My Briefs -- 9/3/09
Time for a special Labor Day weekend edition of brief comments on various subjects called Look At My Briefs. It's special because...it is. Shut up!
I finally saw the Hannah Montana movie and I must say, I was shocked. The amount of nudity and graphic sex scenes were not was I was expecting. I'm wondering how the hell I could have not heard about this before I saw the movie. Miley Cyrus is only 16 so I doubt it's even legal to film her doing nude sex acts. Really, I just don't understand this at all.
This is nice to read since I'd been reading rumors that the Tim Burton-directed Dark Shadows movie with Johnny Depp as vampire Barnabas Collins wouldn't be made. Burton says, "One of the biggest challenges on ['Dark Shadows'] is to just capture that weird tone of the show." Gosh, I hope Tim Burton is up to making a weird movie.
Really, I was hoping this MacGruber movie was a joke or maybe just idle speculation from the people involved but no, they actually have photographic evidence that this dumb little SNL sketch with no real plot to speak of that's basically the same thing every time they do it is being made into a full length feature film. What, was Horatio Sanz not available to do a "Carol" movie so you all had to do this instead? Look for MacGruber in a year or two in the same DVD bin at Wal-Mart with Night at the Roxbury and Superstar.
I had never seen Mad Men before the recent season 3 premiere since I assumed it would be canceled long ago and I'd be annoyed that I got into it but lookee lookee it's already been renewed for season 4. Good work, AMC. I have no idea if you're making money on this show. I hope you are. At the very least, you'll get a few bucks from me when I buy the DVDs for seasons one and two.
This Big Hollywood post is the height of unintentional comedy. Author Michael Walsh discusses his desire to have his new book, a thriller about a covert super spy who is the sole person on the planet capable of foiling a complex, diabolical terrorist plot to destroy the United States, fill some sort of hole in our popular culture. Yeah, we're really short on stories like that.
CORRECTION: I mentioned above about the Hannah Montana movie showed Miley Cyrus in graphic, provocative sex scenes. It turns out that what I had actually seen was a porn film called Hannah Montan-Ass and it's about a girl who lives an ordinary life until she dons her blond wig to become the world's biggest porn star. I apologize for my mistake.
I finally saw the Hannah Montana movie and I must say, I was shocked. The amount of nudity and graphic sex scenes were not was I was expecting. I'm wondering how the hell I could have not heard about this before I saw the movie. Miley Cyrus is only 16 so I doubt it's even legal to film her doing nude sex acts. Really, I just don't understand this at all.
This is nice to read since I'd been reading rumors that the Tim Burton-directed Dark Shadows movie with Johnny Depp as vampire Barnabas Collins wouldn't be made. Burton says, "One of the biggest challenges on ['Dark Shadows'] is to just capture that weird tone of the show." Gosh, I hope Tim Burton is up to making a weird movie.
Really, I was hoping this MacGruber movie was a joke or maybe just idle speculation from the people involved but no, they actually have photographic evidence that this dumb little SNL sketch with no real plot to speak of that's basically the same thing every time they do it is being made into a full length feature film. What, was Horatio Sanz not available to do a "Carol" movie so you all had to do this instead? Look for MacGruber in a year or two in the same DVD bin at Wal-Mart with Night at the Roxbury and Superstar.
I had never seen Mad Men before the recent season 3 premiere since I assumed it would be canceled long ago and I'd be annoyed that I got into it but lookee lookee it's already been renewed for season 4. Good work, AMC. I have no idea if you're making money on this show. I hope you are. At the very least, you'll get a few bucks from me when I buy the DVDs for seasons one and two.
This Big Hollywood post is the height of unintentional comedy. Author Michael Walsh discusses his desire to have his new book, a thriller about a covert super spy who is the sole person on the planet capable of foiling a complex, diabolical terrorist plot to destroy the United States, fill some sort of hole in our popular culture. Yeah, we're really short on stories like that.
CORRECTION: I mentioned above about the Hannah Montana movie showed Miley Cyrus in graphic, provocative sex scenes. It turns out that what I had actually seen was a porn film called Hannah Montan-Ass and it's about a girl who lives an ordinary life until she dons her blond wig to become the world's biggest porn star. I apologize for my mistake.
Friday, August 21, 2009
Brief Hollywood
Today I once again delve into my favorite unintentionally hilarious right wing website Big Hollywood for an All Big Hollywood edition of Look At My Briefs.
Greg Gutfeld criticizes Barney Frank for daring to dress down and humiliate some right wing nut who called health care reform a Nazi policy. Gutfeld knows that Democrats at these events are simply supposed meekly mumble, "Bu...but it has nothing to do with Nazis," while they get shouted down by the insane protesters.
Bill Whittle, whose IMDB profile either doesn't exist or is laughable even by Big Hollywood standards, frames Obama's historic, record setting victory as America's first African-American President against a man who was once this country's most popular politician as a huge failure.
S.T. Karnick, a man who has in the past professed his love for ratings and box office failures like The Eleventh Hour and Land of the Lost, once again shows that he is the kiss of death for any piece of entertainment unfortunate enough to garner his attention and affection. In this case, it's The Goode Family.
Victoria Jackson doesn't realize how much she sounds like a stupid sociopath, probably because she's a stupid sociopath. (Full length analysis of her nutty screed here.)
John Nolte forgives any sins against good taste the Kardashian sisters have ever committed because one of them did what billions of others have done and chose not to have an abortion. Not mentioned in his article is the fact that, if Nolte had his way, the choice wouldn't have been hers to make.
And finally, Big Hollywood shows us that Sarah Palin has moved beyond the status of mere mortal and has attained a most sacred status in which even the tamest joke is forbidden. The joke that made their diapers wet is from the new Hugh Grant/Sarah Jessica Parker comedy Did You Here About The Morgans in which the two stars play a couple on the verge of divorce who are forced to enter Witness Relocation together in a small western town. When they see the female sheriff played by Mary Steenburgen firing a gun, Sarah Jessica Parker says, "Oh my God, it's Sarah Palin." That is not an offensive joke. It is the very definition of good natured ribbing. Had the line been, "Oh dear God, it's that stupid wolf slaying bitch Sarah Palin. We must give thanks every day that this crazy woman failed in her attempt to become Vice President and destroy our country. I hope someone knocks up her 14 year old daughter," then they would have had a reason to get mad. This is the very definition of Political Correctness from people who often criticize Political Correctness and it shows why Big Hollywood cannot be taken seriously.
Greg Gutfeld criticizes Barney Frank for daring to dress down and humiliate some right wing nut who called health care reform a Nazi policy. Gutfeld knows that Democrats at these events are simply supposed meekly mumble, "Bu...but it has nothing to do with Nazis," while they get shouted down by the insane protesters.
Bill Whittle, whose IMDB profile either doesn't exist or is laughable even by Big Hollywood standards, frames Obama's historic, record setting victory as America's first African-American President against a man who was once this country's most popular politician as a huge failure.
S.T. Karnick, a man who has in the past professed his love for ratings and box office failures like The Eleventh Hour and Land of the Lost, once again shows that he is the kiss of death for any piece of entertainment unfortunate enough to garner his attention and affection. In this case, it's The Goode Family.
Victoria Jackson doesn't realize how much she sounds like a stupid sociopath, probably because she's a stupid sociopath. (Full length analysis of her nutty screed here.)
John Nolte forgives any sins against good taste the Kardashian sisters have ever committed because one of them did what billions of others have done and chose not to have an abortion. Not mentioned in his article is the fact that, if Nolte had his way, the choice wouldn't have been hers to make.
And finally, Big Hollywood shows us that Sarah Palin has moved beyond the status of mere mortal and has attained a most sacred status in which even the tamest joke is forbidden. The joke that made their diapers wet is from the new Hugh Grant/Sarah Jessica Parker comedy Did You Here About The Morgans in which the two stars play a couple on the verge of divorce who are forced to enter Witness Relocation together in a small western town. When they see the female sheriff played by Mary Steenburgen firing a gun, Sarah Jessica Parker says, "Oh my God, it's Sarah Palin." That is not an offensive joke. It is the very definition of good natured ribbing. Had the line been, "Oh dear God, it's that stupid wolf slaying bitch Sarah Palin. We must give thanks every day that this crazy woman failed in her attempt to become Vice President and destroy our country. I hope someone knocks up her 14 year old daughter," then they would have had a reason to get mad. This is the very definition of Political Correctness from people who often criticize Political Correctness and it shows why Big Hollywood cannot be taken seriously.
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