Let's preface this post with a short explanation about why I use "let's" a lot in these posts. According to my Business and Professional Speaking professor, Dr. Hutchinson, the use of words (or in this case contractions) that use words like "us" and "we" increases the verbal immediacy between the speaker (me) an the audience (you). Verbal immediacy meaning that we are in the same boat together, it makes me more relatable, and puts me on the same level as you. Let me know how that's working.
This post is going to take place in two parts: The first will be about an experience today. The second will be a reprint of something I wrote back in November while reading Stephen King's It.
Earlier today I found a great new site called listverse.com. Listverse is a blog that has an infinite number of Top 10 lists ranging from the historical to the pop-cultural (which in my mind are pretty much the same thing but that's another post). The neat thing about the site, besides the boundless avenues to venture down, is that fact that a large number of the lists are user generated.
One of the last lists I perused today was the Top 10 Unbearable Phobias. This list being comprised of those phobias that would be the most difficult to live with. Among them Ambulophobia - the fear of walking or standing. Decidophobia - the fear of making decisions. And Somniphobia - the fear of sleep. It would be easy to make light of any of these, but there is a certain terror involved in even thinking that these phobias are affecting people.
Everyone is afraid of something. A common fear is death. Allow maybe it's better qualified as dying. That is the long drawn out process of dying from an illness, or some other reason. Death is too quick, maybe it's a fear of not existing, but then again, if you don't exist, neither do your fears.
I'm afraid of getting cancer. This probably stems from both of my grandfathers getting diagnosed at the same time, and one of them dying from it. But I also know two people my age this year that were diagnosed with cancer. That's kind of frightening. Seeing healthy people your own age getting sick.
I know a lot of people have recently said they are scared of thunderstorms in the last couple of days, which I think is kind of silly but I will try and be understanding.
People say we can't let our fears control us, but that can often be difficult. Sometimes it' hard to be rational. It's hard to not let fear overwhelm you. Usually we can pull ourselves out of it, to only let that fear consume us for a little while before breaking back through the surface. Or we take the Jack Shephard method to fear, and if you know what that is, we can be friends, and I'll let you stitch up my stomach.
Speaking of which, I think most people have a fear of being alone. I certainly do. Loneliness is not a fun thing. It can be nice to have time to yourself, sure, but deep down, we are social and intimate beings. We want to be around people and we want to be able to share with people. We want to share our hopes, dreams, feelings, frustrations, and desires. We want to be fulfilled by having someone we can share the burden of life with. I don't mean that in a depressing way, like life sucks or anything. I mean it in a hopeful, uplifting way, and well, I probably shouldn't have used a word like burden then. Hopefully you understand.
I'm gonna close out the first part of this post by disclosing one of my irrational fears. Every time I cross train tracks I have a fear of being hit by a ghost train. If you know the name for that, or want to make one up, hit the comments.
Now Part 2, titled: On Fears & the Like (11/7/10)
When I was a child, I feared two things more than anything else: the wind and aliens.
The wind was silly and was a fear I outgrew by kindergarten. I have three distinct memories of
that fear:
The first was when I was 4. I ran around a neighbors van in endless circles. My neighbor's mother, aware of my fear, asked if I was doing this because I was afraid the branches above me would fall on me. I told her no. The real reason was that when I ran I created a wind against my face. This made me oblivious to the natural wind. It helped me deal with my fear.
When I was 5, I was being babysat by a friends grandmother who had a hill in her backyard. Being winter, my friend, his sister, and I were supposed to go sledding. But high winds were blowing the snow around, and instead I spent the day inside coloring. This may be the first memory I have of letting my fear dictate what I do.
My final memory is again at the age of 5 (maybe 6) and my mother forced me to go outside to play. It was a gray, gusty fall day. My biggest trick to avoid playing outside on windy days was to hide in my garage. The garage had hockey sticks and nets, so I could usually get away with playing with those as long as I left the garage door open. However on this day, one of my parents had left their car in the garage. So I stood inside next to the car, which probably would have worked if not for my grandmother's untimely arrival. She pulled up and caught me sitting in the garage, and while I strongly implied I would not like my mother to know I was hiding in there, she ratted me out anyway.
The wind was a fear of the elements, of that which cannot be controlled, of power, or sound. My fear of aliens was quite different.
My fear of aliens came quite suddenly after seeing a blurb for a news story about UFO sightings in Wisconsin cornfields. I didn't know much about aliens, but I knew immediately that I didn't like them. My mother assured me there was no such thing as aliens, and that the story was only on air because it was so close to Halloween. While this appeased me for the moment, the seed had been planted.
I couldn't even watch Star Wars without getting frightened. I recall Jack Nicolson getting killed by a creepy-crawly alien hand in Tim Burton's Mars Attacks! Yet at the same time, as much as I hated it, as much as I lost sleep over it, I still wanted to know more about UFOs and aliens.
I had an awful time with my imagination getting away from me (still do). I would have visions of long skinny gray arms, with skinny gray fingers appearing in door frames and beckoning me to follow them.
While most kids are afraid of the monsters under the bed, I was afraid of aliens. Whenever I was asked to go to the basement to get something, I had this idea of glowing gray bodies emerging from the darkness.
I hated it, and I hated the idea of fear. When I go down to that basement I find myslef revisiting those fear. Why? Because our fears never truly leave us. As much as we grow, change, evolve, and mature, we still have that person we were living inside of us.
The alien fear is obviously a fear of the unknown, of things that are different. But it is also a fear of drastic change. Of shattered realities and conceptions of truth. If aliens landed on earth tomorrow everything (most everything) I ever knew or believed to be true would be wrong and I would no longer know where I was.
The ground upon which I would stand would open up and swallow me whole.
But that might just be another fear.
[Narrator's Note: Ok, the second part of this post is kind of weird, and a little depressing, but I was reading It and it was probably about 1 a.m. when I originally wrote this, so clear thinking doesn't really factor into the occasion.]
Go ahead and hit the comments, what are you afraid of?
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
The Narrator's Negatives: Green Lantern
Narrator's Negatives focuses on pointing out what went wrong, why something was bad, and how those mistakes could have been avoided. Today we draw our attention to the film Green Lantern.
This past weekend Green Lantern premiered to scathing reviews and tepid box office receipts. Usually I'm not one to bash a movie I haven't already seen, but in this case I'm making an exception. I'm usually all down for the superhero fare. I went and saw Ghost Rider on opening night, and I own a copy of Daredevil. I'm also a big Ryan Reynolds fan. Remember the show Two Guys, A Girl, and a Pizza Place. I do, I watched it pretty religiously until it went off the air. (Also on that show, Nathan Fillon, who had a strong fan campaign going to star as Green Lantern before Reynolds got the job, go figure). But from the minute I heard Reynolds would be playing star role as Hal Jordan, something just didn't click. Then came news that the Lantern suit would be completely CGI'd. Then the first image of Reynolds in said suit, all glowy green, with those scary eyes that didn't seem quite connected to his body. Then the trailers started coming out, and again something failed to click, everything was too green, the jokes too lame, and the speech, just couldn't seem to have the impact it should. Alright I'm drifting a little so let's start to structure this post a little bit, shall we?
Let's start small and work our way up, with the decision to CGI the suit. This isn't the first time this has been done, but it It might be the first time it has been completely done. a good chunk of Spiderman's action is CGI, but we also have a good handful of scenes where the audience knows Tobey Maguire is in that suit. But Chris, what about Iron Man you ask? Well Iron Man is a suit, a full suit, and that is where the advantage lies. Its a metal suit, with defined limitations, and a mask that doesn't reveal any facial expressions. It was believable because of this. The Lantern suit was glowy, why the hell was everything in that movie so glowy? And why was it veiny? I mean it was oddly veiny. Didn't we learn our lesson from rubber nipples? Now we need to CGI muscles and veins on the suit? next time around make the suit real. Yes, it'll probably take an outrageous amount of time to put on, and no the green lantern is probably one of the harder suits to bring to life because it doesn't have too many discernible breaks in the fabric, but someone in Hollywood should be able to figure it out. I recommend whoever did Gaga's meat dress.
Next we need to address the issue of choosing Hal Jordan as the Green Lantern. As one of my friends said, they should have used the black one. For those of you unfamiliar with comics, there are about a half dozen people going by Green Lantern. All with the same powers and galactic connection. The original is not even Hal Jordan. But he is arguably one of the most well known. At least that's what Warner Brothers believed. But the most prominent Green Lantern in the mainstream media in the past ten years has been John Stewart (or as my friend called him, the black one). You might know him best from the Justice League and the Justice League Unlimited cartoon series that ran on Cartoon Network in the early 2000's. This was a great version of the character, and one many of the main demographic this film was targeting, the 16-24 male (demographic may be entirely made up by me). These are the people who grew up watching these cartoons, and that is the version of the character they are most familiar with. Let's think of this another way too, this would have been the first superhero film to feature a prominent African-American as the lead since the Blade franchise died out. Perhaps the reason this film didn't perform, it couldn't stand out in a what was already a crowded summer, because it was just another superhero film with another white pretty boy in the lead.
Which brings me to my next point. One argument for Green Lantern's, at this point we'll call it lack of success rather than outright failure, is that Green Lantern is not a character audiences are familiar with. To which I call bullshit. Audiences know the Green Lantern, what they don't know is Hal Jordan. People know Batman is Bruce Wayne, Peter Parker is Spiderman, and Clark Kent is Superman. Most people couldn't tell you what the Green Lantern's alter ego is. Now there are two arguments that can be made, first, what about Thor? True most people don't know Thor's human identity (it's something like Blake Donaldson), but the film maker's handled that nicely by simply ignoring this aspect of the character. The other argument what about Iron Man? Again prior to the film's release, I bet many people couldn't tell you that Iron Man and Tony Stark are one in the same. But that's where acting comes in. Downey Jr. took that character and made him cocky, arrogant, and immensely likable. Ryan Reynolds simply decided to be Ryan Reynolds, and not even a fun version of Ryan Reynolds. He played a toned down bland version of Ryan Reynolds who gave lame jokes. He played it without the zest that makes Ryan Reynolds so appealing.
There were other points I wanted to make, but since it took me two days I've forgotten most of the rest. I could go on about the lame supporting cast, and the cartoonish world Reynolds enter whenever he isn't on Earth. But really if you're still reading this, I'm not sure why.
 |
| Eyes, those haunting, haunting eyes |
Let's start small and work our way up, with the decision to CGI the suit. This isn't the first time this has been done, but it It might be the first time it has been completely done. a good chunk of Spiderman's action is CGI, but we also have a good handful of scenes where the audience knows Tobey Maguire is in that suit. But Chris, what about Iron Man you ask? Well Iron Man is a suit, a full suit, and that is where the advantage lies. Its a metal suit, with defined limitations, and a mask that doesn't reveal any facial expressions. It was believable because of this. The Lantern suit was glowy, why the hell was everything in that movie so glowy? And why was it veiny? I mean it was oddly veiny. Didn't we learn our lesson from rubber nipples? Now we need to CGI muscles and veins on the suit? next time around make the suit real. Yes, it'll probably take an outrageous amount of time to put on, and no the green lantern is probably one of the harder suits to bring to life because it doesn't have too many discernible breaks in the fabric, but someone in Hollywood should be able to figure it out. I recommend whoever did Gaga's meat dress.
Next we need to address the issue of choosing Hal Jordan as the Green Lantern. As one of my friends said, they should have used the black one. For those of you unfamiliar with comics, there are about a half dozen people going by Green Lantern. All with the same powers and galactic connection. The original is not even Hal Jordan. But he is arguably one of the most well known. At least that's what Warner Brothers believed. But the most prominent Green Lantern in the mainstream media in the past ten years has been John Stewart (or as my friend called him, the black one). You might know him best from the Justice League and the Justice League Unlimited cartoon series that ran on Cartoon Network in the early 2000's. This was a great version of the character, and one many of the main demographic this film was targeting, the 16-24 male (demographic may be entirely made up by me). These are the people who grew up watching these cartoons, and that is the version of the character they are most familiar with. Let's think of this another way too, this would have been the first superhero film to feature a prominent African-American as the lead since the Blade franchise died out. Perhaps the reason this film didn't perform, it couldn't stand out in a what was already a crowded summer, because it was just another superhero film with another white pretty boy in the lead.
Which brings me to my next point. One argument for Green Lantern's, at this point we'll call it lack of success rather than outright failure, is that Green Lantern is not a character audiences are familiar with. To which I call bullshit. Audiences know the Green Lantern, what they don't know is Hal Jordan. People know Batman is Bruce Wayne, Peter Parker is Spiderman, and Clark Kent is Superman. Most people couldn't tell you what the Green Lantern's alter ego is. Now there are two arguments that can be made, first, what about Thor? True most people don't know Thor's human identity (it's something like Blake Donaldson), but the film maker's handled that nicely by simply ignoring this aspect of the character. The other argument what about Iron Man? Again prior to the film's release, I bet many people couldn't tell you that Iron Man and Tony Stark are one in the same. But that's where acting comes in. Downey Jr. took that character and made him cocky, arrogant, and immensely likable. Ryan Reynolds simply decided to be Ryan Reynolds, and not even a fun version of Ryan Reynolds. He played a toned down bland version of Ryan Reynolds who gave lame jokes. He played it without the zest that makes Ryan Reynolds so appealing.
There were other points I wanted to make, but since it took me two days I've forgotten most of the rest. I could go on about the lame supporting cast, and the cartoonish world Reynolds enter whenever he isn't on Earth. But really if you're still reading this, I'm not sure why.
Thursday, June 16, 2011
Music Video Mayhem: Matt & Kim "Block After Block"
Matt & Kim's latest music video from their album Sidewalks is for the the track "Block After Block". Matt & Kim's previous music video for Sidewalks featured an epic battle royale between the two bandmates. So how do they up the ante for this one? Turn New York City into what everyone wants it to be, their personal playground. Never has New York City been this much fun, and its mostly because they don't seem to be trying. Lots of movies and TV shows have portrayed New York as a fun place to be, but the characters always have specific destinations in mind, items that they are checking off a list. Matt & Kim manage a to capture a sense of complete spontaneity running through NYC at a break neck pace with an entire crew of jubilant fans in tow.
What do think a good time you wish you could have? Or does is it a failed run for fun?
What do think a good time you wish you could have? Or does is it a failed run for fun?
Something New About My Blog
If you came here looking for an amazing revelation about an entirely new direction this blog is taking, I'm afraid I'll have to disappoint you (for now). However if you came here looking for something interesting to read, well I might still need to disappoint you.
Take a look on the right hand navigation of this blog and you will notice a new feature: My Blog List. This a list of a few of my friends' blogs. Check them out, and if you have a blog, and you're my friend, I'll throw your blog on that list too. Here's a quick run down of what those blogs are about and a little something about the people who run them.
Ray O'Brien's The Hot and Bothered Effect the oldest blog on this list, even older than my blog. Ray is my sister's friend and we share a love of pop-culture and boots. Ray blog's about a lot of stuff and takes a long time to do it. Not that this a bad thing, rarely will you find a blog with thoughts as well laid out as his. Also, it has pictures with funny captions, usually much more clever than mine.
Andrew Bray's Travel Blog chronicles his study abroad semester in Spain and his various travels around Europe. Andrew Bray is my friend from high school, a skilled chef, and lives on a lake during is free time. Highly insightful (though nowhere near as detailed as my posts about Pittsburgh), and filled with dry humor and fantastic photos, it's almost as good as being there. (But probably not) Catch it now while he still updates it, because I'm pretty sure he's home tomorrow.
Claire Westlie's Untitled Blog and Sasha Zweifelhoffer's Blog That's Refreshingly Sweet All Over are still in very early stages of development and I won't try and inaccurately describe them. That being said they are humorous and heartfelt. They both go to St. Norbert College, and work on the paper with me, and according to Sasha, are basically the same person.
So check them out they may be worth your time, especially if you have a lot of it.
Take a look on the right hand navigation of this blog and you will notice a new feature: My Blog List. This a list of a few of my friends' blogs. Check them out, and if you have a blog, and you're my friend, I'll throw your blog on that list too. Here's a quick run down of what those blogs are about and a little something about the people who run them.
Ray O'Brien's The Hot and Bothered Effect the oldest blog on this list, even older than my blog. Ray is my sister's friend and we share a love of pop-culture and boots. Ray blog's about a lot of stuff and takes a long time to do it. Not that this a bad thing, rarely will you find a blog with thoughts as well laid out as his. Also, it has pictures with funny captions, usually much more clever than mine.
Andrew Bray's Travel Blog chronicles his study abroad semester in Spain and his various travels around Europe. Andrew Bray is my friend from high school, a skilled chef, and lives on a lake during is free time. Highly insightful (though nowhere near as detailed as my posts about Pittsburgh), and filled with dry humor and fantastic photos, it's almost as good as being there. (But probably not) Catch it now while he still updates it, because I'm pretty sure he's home tomorrow.
Claire Westlie's Untitled Blog and Sasha Zweifelhoffer's Blog That's Refreshingly Sweet All Over are still in very early stages of development and I won't try and inaccurately describe them. That being said they are humorous and heartfelt. They both go to St. Norbert College, and work on the paper with me, and according to Sasha, are basically the same person.
So check them out they may be worth your time, especially if you have a lot of it.
Monday, June 13, 2011
Top 3: Fictional Works of Fictional I Wish Were Real
It looks like its going to be a Top 3 kind of week.
I keep perusing around the avclub.com and they have a lot of interesting subjects but not many interesting responses. They have their writer's respond to reader questions, but none of their writer's seem to get real creative with their answers. Or other times they try and be two clever. I find it hard to believe the people writing for that website could be so dull.
The most recent Q&A I read dealt with which fictional work of fiction did the writer's wish actually existed. If that's confusing let's take a moment to go through an example. The easiest example is of course, fake movie trailers. There are two prominent examples, we will go through both of them. First 2008's comedy blockbuster, Tropic Thunder. Tropic Thunder began with a whole host of fake movie trailers. There was Robert Downey Jr. playing the method actor role in his forbidden priest love-fest Satan's Alley. Jack Black's Mike Meyers/Eddie Murphy skewing comedy The Fatties: Fart 2. And Ben Stiller's worn out action hero franchise Scorcher VI. Now imagine you'd like to see one of those made into a real film, that's the idea. Unfortunately, none of the above mentioned trailers are YouTube. So let;s try again.
The other example of fake (or apparently faux is the more appropriate term) trailers is the 2007 Robert Rodriguez/Quentin Tarantino double feature Grindhouse. The film included fake trailers before the film as well as after the intermission. The fun thing about these trailers was that they were directed by some pretty well know directors, and featured some pretty big name stars. The other fun aspect about these trailers is that not one, but two of them were actually made into feature films. The first you may be familiar with, it goes by the name, Machete.
The other is a little more obscure. To promote the film in Canada the film distributor there held a contest for amateur film maker's to submit their own trailers, with the winner appearing along with the other "real" fake trailers. The winner was a trailer for a film called Hobo with a Shotgun. This was made into an actual film that premiered at the beginning of this summer in a very limited release.
So that's the general idea? Get it? Probably not, I did a pretty poor job of explaining it, but anyway here are my top three fictional works of fiction I wish were real.
1. Thanksgiving (film directed by Eli Roth)
As long as we're talking about Grindhouse, I might as well thrown in my favorite trailer I would like to see be made into a real movie.
I'm not a huge horror fan, but I do like Eli Roth, even though he hasn't really done a whole lot in his career. There is so much to love about this trailer, from the croaky bored voice giving the narration, to the absolutely ridiculous plot line. Of all the holidays that are in need of a good horror film, Thanksgiving is probably at the top of the list. Plus I can appreciate any film that can come up with creative new ways of killing people. As a comedian I recently saw on Comedy Central once said (and I'm paraphrasing): A gun is a tool with one purpose, if you point a gun at me, I know you want to kill me. A knife however, a knife is versatile. If a pull out a knife, I could stab you, I could open letter, I could frost a cake.
2. George Stark Novel's
Who is George Stark, you say? I respond, a character in a Stephen King novel? You ask, who is Stephen King? I tell you to get the hell off my blog.
Follow me if you will down the twisted path of one of my favorite King tales, The Dark Half.
The Dark Half was published in 1989 (year I was born, coincidence? probably) and is in a small way a partial autobiography of King himself. At this time King had recently retired the pseudonym Richard Bachman, under which he had published a handful of novels. The plot of The Dark Half, similarly, revolves around an author named Thaddeus Beaumont who kills off his psuedonym George Stark. The parallel continues as King's Bachman books (as they have come to be known) were known to be darker in a more psychological sense than in King's more traditional supernatural style. The same was true of Beaumont's George Stark novel's. However the differences begin to arise when George Stark actually comes to life and starts killing those close to Thad Beaumont.
George Stark wrote a series of roughly four novels focused on the psychotic killer named Alexis Machine. The prose is delightfully simple, dark, plain, and violent. There are some fantastic tease's of these books that King uses to divide the chapters of The Dark Half, and I would love to see King flesh one of them out into a full-length novel, or maybe write a few novella's that were collected into one work.
3. Expose (Fake TV from Lost)
Lost's third season was riddled with difficulties and triumphs. One of the biggest failures of Lost was an experiment that needed that needed to be tested. Between the second and third season's fans were beginning to wonder what the rest of the castaways were up to while our heroes were off fighting smoke monsters and discovering buried hatches. So Lost tried to integrate some of the background players into the main story. These players went by Nikki and Paulo and were universally despised by fans the moment they stepped onto the screen. The third season of Lost was also home to another experiment where the execs at ABC tried to string as many new episodes together as possible by airing a short six episode run in the fall, with the rest of the season running uninterrupted in the spring. The break in the season was also despised by fans but offered the writer's to course correct themselves. In their one and only back-story episode, Nikki was found to be an actress on a syndicated television program called Expose. The show was about secret agent stripper who had to go up against none other, than Billy Dee Williams.
This was maybe the one redeeming factor of the Nikki/Paulo story line, and it was a great one. And hey if it's good enough for Hurley, it's good enough for me.
There you go, but wait! There's more!
In a first time ever move, I offer my Top 3 Honorable Mentions
1. Gumbel to Gumbel (TV show from Family Guy)
Family Guy's commentary on fan-favorite shows being cancelled by networks took the form of this fake TV Show starring Greg and Bryant Gumbel as beach cops.
2. Kickpuncher (Movie from Community)
One of Troy and Abed's favorite movie's, they liked it so much they made their own version:
3. Any of the Lucas Lee films (From Scott Pilgrim vs. The World)
One of the many highlights of this film was Chris Evan's playing one of Romano's evil exes. Once a pro skateboarder, now a big time action movie, Lucas Lee is the star of some of the most wonderfully idiotic action films of our time. If only we could a full length version. Just check out the taglines to some of these posters:
So what did I miss? Hit the comments and let me know what fictional works of fiction you'd like to get a hold of.
I keep perusing around the avclub.com and they have a lot of interesting subjects but not many interesting responses. They have their writer's respond to reader questions, but none of their writer's seem to get real creative with their answers. Or other times they try and be two clever. I find it hard to believe the people writing for that website could be so dull.
The most recent Q&A I read dealt with which fictional work of fiction did the writer's wish actually existed. If that's confusing let's take a moment to go through an example. The easiest example is of course, fake movie trailers. There are two prominent examples, we will go through both of them. First 2008's comedy blockbuster, Tropic Thunder. Tropic Thunder began with a whole host of fake movie trailers. There was Robert Downey Jr. playing the method actor role in his forbidden priest love-fest Satan's Alley. Jack Black's Mike Meyers/Eddie Murphy skewing comedy The Fatties: Fart 2. And Ben Stiller's worn out action hero franchise Scorcher VI. Now imagine you'd like to see one of those made into a real film, that's the idea. Unfortunately, none of the above mentioned trailers are YouTube. So let;s try again.
The other example of fake (or apparently faux is the more appropriate term) trailers is the 2007 Robert Rodriguez/Quentin Tarantino double feature Grindhouse. The film included fake trailers before the film as well as after the intermission. The fun thing about these trailers was that they were directed by some pretty well know directors, and featured some pretty big name stars. The other fun aspect about these trailers is that not one, but two of them were actually made into feature films. The first you may be familiar with, it goes by the name, Machete.
The other is a little more obscure. To promote the film in Canada the film distributor there held a contest for amateur film maker's to submit their own trailers, with the winner appearing along with the other "real" fake trailers. The winner was a trailer for a film called Hobo with a Shotgun. This was made into an actual film that premiered at the beginning of this summer in a very limited release.
So that's the general idea? Get it? Probably not, I did a pretty poor job of explaining it, but anyway here are my top three fictional works of fiction I wish were real.
1. Thanksgiving (film directed by Eli Roth)
As long as we're talking about Grindhouse, I might as well thrown in my favorite trailer I would like to see be made into a real movie.
I'm not a huge horror fan, but I do like Eli Roth, even though he hasn't really done a whole lot in his career. There is so much to love about this trailer, from the croaky bored voice giving the narration, to the absolutely ridiculous plot line. Of all the holidays that are in need of a good horror film, Thanksgiving is probably at the top of the list. Plus I can appreciate any film that can come up with creative new ways of killing people. As a comedian I recently saw on Comedy Central once said (and I'm paraphrasing): A gun is a tool with one purpose, if you point a gun at me, I know you want to kill me. A knife however, a knife is versatile. If a pull out a knife, I could stab you, I could open letter, I could frost a cake.
2. George Stark Novel's
Who is George Stark, you say? I respond, a character in a Stephen King novel? You ask, who is Stephen King? I tell you to get the hell off my blog.
Follow me if you will down the twisted path of one of my favorite King tales, The Dark Half.
The Dark Half was published in 1989 (year I was born, coincidence? probably) and is in a small way a partial autobiography of King himself. At this time King had recently retired the pseudonym Richard Bachman, under which he had published a handful of novels. The plot of The Dark Half, similarly, revolves around an author named Thaddeus Beaumont who kills off his psuedonym George Stark. The parallel continues as King's Bachman books (as they have come to be known) were known to be darker in a more psychological sense than in King's more traditional supernatural style. The same was true of Beaumont's George Stark novel's. However the differences begin to arise when George Stark actually comes to life and starts killing those close to Thad Beaumont.
George Stark wrote a series of roughly four novels focused on the psychotic killer named Alexis Machine. The prose is delightfully simple, dark, plain, and violent. There are some fantastic tease's of these books that King uses to divide the chapters of The Dark Half, and I would love to see King flesh one of them out into a full-length novel, or maybe write a few novella's that were collected into one work.
3. Expose (Fake TV from Lost)
Lost's third season was riddled with difficulties and triumphs. One of the biggest failures of Lost was an experiment that needed that needed to be tested. Between the second and third season's fans were beginning to wonder what the rest of the castaways were up to while our heroes were off fighting smoke monsters and discovering buried hatches. So Lost tried to integrate some of the background players into the main story. These players went by Nikki and Paulo and were universally despised by fans the moment they stepped onto the screen. The third season of Lost was also home to another experiment where the execs at ABC tried to string as many new episodes together as possible by airing a short six episode run in the fall, with the rest of the season running uninterrupted in the spring. The break in the season was also despised by fans but offered the writer's to course correct themselves. In their one and only back-story episode, Nikki was found to be an actress on a syndicated television program called Expose. The show was about secret agent stripper who had to go up against none other, than Billy Dee Williams.
 |
| Hello Readers, welcome to the cool side of the blog |
There you go, but wait! There's more!
In a first time ever move, I offer my Top 3 Honorable Mentions
1. Gumbel to Gumbel (TV show from Family Guy)
Family Guy's commentary on fan-favorite shows being cancelled by networks took the form of this fake TV Show starring Greg and Bryant Gumbel as beach cops.
2. Kickpuncher (Movie from Community)
One of Troy and Abed's favorite movie's, they liked it so much they made their own version:
3. Any of the Lucas Lee films (From Scott Pilgrim vs. The World)
One of the many highlights of this film was Chris Evan's playing one of Romano's evil exes. Once a pro skateboarder, now a big time action movie, Lucas Lee is the star of some of the most wonderfully idiotic action films of our time. If only we could a full length version. Just check out the taglines to some of these posters:
So what did I miss? Hit the comments and let me know what fictional works of fiction you'd like to get a hold of.
Friday, June 10, 2011
Top 3 Classic: Movies to Watch Anytime
Top 3 Classics will be reprints of my Top 3 column that originally appeared in the St. Norbert Times. I'm reprinting them here, and tweaking them a little bit from how they originally appeared to add a little flavor. This repost was inspired by reading the A.V. Club's response to a reader question asking what movie they watch over and over. Not one of the movies listed below was listed as any of their responses.
I would like to preface this list by saying it is a fairly male biased list, and being male, I’m ok with that. (This is what you need to say when you're publishing in a college newspaper).
The subject of this list is my top three movies to watch anytime. What I mean by this is that I can turn the TV on at any point of these movies, already in progress, and know exactly what is happening. It also means I know exactly how it will end, allowing the freedom to walk away from it at any point. Most importantly it means that no matter what else is on during that time, I will be watching this movie if it is on TV. These movies also qualify because they on almost any given weekend you will be able to find one, if not all on your basic cable. These movies are best viewed on a Saturday afternoon or late Sunday evening. Here we go:
1. Air Force One
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| When Harrison Ford tells you to get off his plane, you get the FUCK off his plane |
Arguably one of the best movies where Harrison Ford is asking the bad guys to give him back his family. Harrison Ford plays the President of the United States and is on Air Force One when the plan gets overtaken by hijackers mid-flight. This movie is great on its own account due to its strong supporting cast that includes Gary Oldman, William H. Macy, and Glenn Close. But what makes this movie great is Harrison Ford at his peak. This not to say he is better in this movie than he was as Han Solo or Indiana Jones, but that in this movie he is playing up all the things that he is known for. This is Harrison Ford at his grouchiest, raspiest, and most resolved to take down the bad guys.
2. Forrest Gump
Is there any part of this movie you can’t quote or don’t enjoy? This is the movie that changed America’s perspective on chocolates, shrimp, and girls named Jenny. Is there any movie that better embodies the phrase “something for everyone”? What makes Gump so watchable is that it’s like ten movies rolled into one. It’s an overall inspirational, feel good movie, but there is so much more to the movie than that. It’s a war movie, sports movie, and romantic comedy all rolled into one. Let’s not forget Tom Hanks, whose tremendous skill captivates the audience the minute he appears on the screen and makes it near impossible to change the channel.
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| What is he looking at, seriously even the text of the poster is on the other side |
3. Independence Day
We had the action movie, the feel good movie, now there’s the sci-fi movie. What more could you want from this movie. Alien invasions, awesome one liners, massive destruction, Will Smith, and what many consider the cheesiest speech in all of film history. This is the movie where America fell in love with Will Smith, here he became Hollywood's next big blockbuster star. This is also where Rolan Emmerich found his true calling as a director who loved to destroy the cities of America. Plus this movie has Jeff Golblum being used to the best of his ability as nervous science guy. Mostly though, I think people watch this movie because it’s patriotic, and people love to see America at its mightiest.
So there you go, I wrote this over a year ago, and I still think this is a pretty good list, but let me know what you think. Hit the comments with the movie you just can't turn off when it come son the tube. I'll do a follow-up if there are enough responses.
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| Help us Jeff Goldblum! Your computer virus is our only hope! |
So there you go, I wrote this over a year ago, and I still think this is a pretty good list, but let me know what you think. Hit the comments with the movie you just can't turn off when it come son the tube. I'll do a follow-up if there are enough responses.
Thursday, June 9, 2011
What's the deal with...South Park's Midseason Finale?
In my second "What's the deal with..." post, I will be examining last night's puzzling South Park episode.
South Park is currently in its fifteenth season. It was recently voted the greatest animated program of all time by the reader's of Entertainment Weekly, beating out Family Guy and The Simpsons. South Park has done what few shows can, which is maintain an audience, stay relevant, and stay fresh for fifteen seasons. A feat, few (if any), other television shows have ever achieved.
I'm a fan of South Park. As a kid without cable I remember only being able to watch when I was on vacation. One of the first episodes I ever saw was the classic Thanksgiving episode featuring Timmy and Gobbles in a Helen Keller musical. Coming to college, I enjoyed being able to watch new episodes each week with the rest of the guys I was living with. It was a quintessential college experience.
But in the first episodes of this season, South Park didn't quite seem to be hitting the mark as well as it once had. South Park has always been known for it's biting social satire, mixed with incredibly outlandish, childish, and grotesque humor. It was a balance that no other show has even tried to achieve. What other show wold dare combine the ideas of battling the growing popularity of Jersey Shore by asking for help from Al-Qaeda? I think what few people realize is that South Park became Saturday Night Live. I mean this in the best possible way. For years SNL used absurdist humor to comment on what was happening in the world. South Park was able to do the same, without celebrity guest stars or musical guests. As SNL wandered into a dangerous level of mediocrity in the past decade South Park executed brilliant social commentary in ways SNL could only dream of.
This season though the marks have been weak and the humor uneven. The South Park team is also famous for their ability to make an episode in a short amount of time, and some might argue they missed an opportunity to capitalize on the death of Osama Bin Laden, and this past week's Anthony Weiner scandal. Take last week's episode for example, where Butter's was mistaken for having multiple personalities, it's not really a topic on the American minds. And while the first half of the show had been laughing constantly, but in the second half the jokes just didn't seem to click.
Which us to last night's midseason finale, titled "You're Getting Old". Stan turned 10 and became a victim of cynicism. A condition diagnosed by his doctor as: everything he sees, hears, and eats will seem like shit. It was episode where half of the noise was simply farts. They also seemed to take a shot at something called Tween Wave music, which I still don't fully understand (if you know please explain in the comments). A crappy brand of kids music that Randy, desperate to reclaim his youth, insisted that he enjoyed. This in turn caused a riff between him and his wife Sharon.
The episode as whole was pretty terrible. I kept waiting for the plot to turn around, or to suddenly reveal itself to be something else, as it so often does. However this episode just seemed to be missing the mark. South Park has thrived on potty humor in the past (Mr. Hanky anyone?), but this episode was as shitty as the music it was making fun of.
And as I watched the clock slowly tick down, and it seemed the episode would not be salvaged, something happened. Sharon confronted Randy about his wild behavior, not just in this episode, but in past episodes that have focused on Randy's desire to be young again. Watching this was extremely odd, because even when characters in South Park take on a serious tone, they rarely have anything serious to say. I kept watching thinking I had to be missing something, that there was some grand joke staring me in the face that I just couldn't see. But what was really happening was a serious conversation between to people, and the startling realization from Randy and Sharon that they were both unhappy about their lives. That they weren't enjoying themselves any more. And suddenly it became more than a conversation between Randy and Sharon. It became a conversation between South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone, and their fans.
As the show ended with Stevie Nick's "Landslide" playing in the background. We watched as Stan's friends deserted him because they didn't want to be around someone who thought everything was shit, and Sharon and Randy separated. This was another moment about this episode that caught me off guard. South Park can often make you forget that you actually care about these characters. It was an oddly touching and sad moment that reminded me of the shockingly violent end to the Somali Pirates episode a few years ago.
So what does this ambiguous ending mean? Is South Park on it's last leg, and this is Stone and Parker's way of letting us know? Or is it simply a set-up for a new direction the show will take? It's hard to say. Stone and Parker are notorious for pulling the rug out from under their fans. On the other hand they are finding success elsewhere with their Broadway Musical The Book of Mormon. Perhaps they really do want to move on and avoid becoming like the shows they have lambasted in the past.
If South Park does end, expect them to pull out all the stops, maybe even trying to get one last crack and Mohammed, before leaving our favorite third graders behind. Regardless, South Park will live on in reruns on Comedy Central for eternity, and if Parker and Stone come back a few years down the line with fresh ideas, I'm sure they'll be welcomed back with open arms.
What do you think? Time to move on from South Park? Or do you never want it to end?
South Park is currently in its fifteenth season. It was recently voted the greatest animated program of all time by the reader's of Entertainment Weekly, beating out Family Guy and The Simpsons. South Park has done what few shows can, which is maintain an audience, stay relevant, and stay fresh for fifteen seasons. A feat, few (if any), other television shows have ever achieved.
I'm a fan of South Park. As a kid without cable I remember only being able to watch when I was on vacation. One of the first episodes I ever saw was the classic Thanksgiving episode featuring Timmy and Gobbles in a Helen Keller musical. Coming to college, I enjoyed being able to watch new episodes each week with the rest of the guys I was living with. It was a quintessential college experience.
But in the first episodes of this season, South Park didn't quite seem to be hitting the mark as well as it once had. South Park has always been known for it's biting social satire, mixed with incredibly outlandish, childish, and grotesque humor. It was a balance that no other show has even tried to achieve. What other show wold dare combine the ideas of battling the growing popularity of Jersey Shore by asking for help from Al-Qaeda? I think what few people realize is that South Park became Saturday Night Live. I mean this in the best possible way. For years SNL used absurdist humor to comment on what was happening in the world. South Park was able to do the same, without celebrity guest stars or musical guests. As SNL wandered into a dangerous level of mediocrity in the past decade South Park executed brilliant social commentary in ways SNL could only dream of.
This season though the marks have been weak and the humor uneven. The South Park team is also famous for their ability to make an episode in a short amount of time, and some might argue they missed an opportunity to capitalize on the death of Osama Bin Laden, and this past week's Anthony Weiner scandal. Take last week's episode for example, where Butter's was mistaken for having multiple personalities, it's not really a topic on the American minds. And while the first half of the show had been laughing constantly, but in the second half the jokes just didn't seem to click.
Which us to last night's midseason finale, titled "You're Getting Old". Stan turned 10 and became a victim of cynicism. A condition diagnosed by his doctor as: everything he sees, hears, and eats will seem like shit. It was episode where half of the noise was simply farts. They also seemed to take a shot at something called Tween Wave music, which I still don't fully understand (if you know please explain in the comments). A crappy brand of kids music that Randy, desperate to reclaim his youth, insisted that he enjoyed. This in turn caused a riff between him and his wife Sharon.
 |
| Awww yeeeaaaah! O-BA-MA! |
And as I watched the clock slowly tick down, and it seemed the episode would not be salvaged, something happened. Sharon confronted Randy about his wild behavior, not just in this episode, but in past episodes that have focused on Randy's desire to be young again. Watching this was extremely odd, because even when characters in South Park take on a serious tone, they rarely have anything serious to say. I kept watching thinking I had to be missing something, that there was some grand joke staring me in the face that I just couldn't see. But what was really happening was a serious conversation between to people, and the startling realization from Randy and Sharon that they were both unhappy about their lives. That they weren't enjoying themselves any more. And suddenly it became more than a conversation between Randy and Sharon. It became a conversation between South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone, and their fans.
As the show ended with Stevie Nick's "Landslide" playing in the background. We watched as Stan's friends deserted him because they didn't want to be around someone who thought everything was shit, and Sharon and Randy separated. This was another moment about this episode that caught me off guard. South Park can often make you forget that you actually care about these characters. It was an oddly touching and sad moment that reminded me of the shockingly violent end to the Somali Pirates episode a few years ago.
So what does this ambiguous ending mean? Is South Park on it's last leg, and this is Stone and Parker's way of letting us know? Or is it simply a set-up for a new direction the show will take? It's hard to say. Stone and Parker are notorious for pulling the rug out from under their fans. On the other hand they are finding success elsewhere with their Broadway Musical The Book of Mormon. Perhaps they really do want to move on and avoid becoming like the shows they have lambasted in the past.
If South Park does end, expect them to pull out all the stops, maybe even trying to get one last crack and Mohammed, before leaving our favorite third graders behind. Regardless, South Park will live on in reruns on Comedy Central for eternity, and if Parker and Stone come back a few years down the line with fresh ideas, I'm sure they'll be welcomed back with open arms.
What do you think? Time to move on from South Park? Or do you never want it to end?
Monday, June 6, 2011
Exclusive(ish) Content: The Colbert Nation Gives Bells What's Coming to Them
Tonight Stephen Colbert noted that Palin supporters had taken to Wikipedia after hearing her version of Paul Revere's ride.
Colbert noted that the Paul Revere page had now been locked. However it the Wikipedia page on bells still had the opportunity to change history. I grabbed several screen captures of the changes that had been made mere minutes after Colbert sent out his instructions. About thirty seconds after I got my first picture, the page had reverted back to it original content. My apologies about the awkward sizing of the photos, hope it doesn't hurt your enjoyment. Here are the changes The Colbert Nation made:
And that is what we call a fast turn around.
Colbert noted that the Paul Revere page had now been locked. However it the Wikipedia page on bells still had the opportunity to change history. I grabbed several screen captures of the changes that had been made mere minutes after Colbert sent out his instructions. About thirty seconds after I got my first picture, the page had reverted back to it original content. My apologies about the awkward sizing of the photos, hope it doesn't hurt your enjoyment. Here are the changes The Colbert Nation made:
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| The bell page |
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| The bell instrument page |
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| Further down the same page |
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| Further down the same page |
 | ||||
| They even got the school bells page |
Sunday, June 5, 2011
Let's Get Real: Daniel Tosh is not coming to SNC
I consider myself a realist. Those who know me might mistake it for pessimism, or cynicism, but the truth is I like to try and keep everything in perspective. I try not to get too upset over things because I realize in the long run, they will be insignificant and my energy can be better utilized on other activities. I also openly admit that I have delusions of grandeur in terms of becoming overly successful and leading an easy life once I get out of college. However I am able to recognize them as such and therefore believe that also falls into the realm of being realistic. This new series of posts will focus on applying my realistic point of view to certain events. It's a reality check, it's a way to bring people back down to earth. It's to criticize, attack, or slam people for their efforts, although it will undoubtedly seem that way. I apologize in advance.
Over the last few days an event has kept popping up on my newsfeed as some of my college friends began RSVPing for it. The event was for the students of my college to organize and submit a video to send to Daniel Tosh to enter into his College Invasion contest. For those of you who do not know Daniel Tosh announced he will be filming an upcoming episode of his widely popular Comedy Central show, Tosh.0 on a college campus. Students are encouraged to send in videos about why Tosh should come film at their school. From some of the submissions posted on the Tosh.0 Blog it is astounding to see how many people do not seem to have the slightest idea of what will appeal to Daniel Tosh. Take for example the Michigan State video that was an elaborate seven and a half minute lip dub.
When has Tosh ever featured a lip dub, and when has he ever showed more then a thirty second clip of a video on his show? Why would you make a video that would take up one third of his airtime if shown in its entirety?
Now this is the link of the event. I encourage you to read it before continuing with this post. (Also from here on out I am addressing the you generally, not specifically).
First off, it's not their idea. It's Daniel Tosh's idea. They can't claim its their idea to enter a contest. That's not an idea, it's a decision.
Second its says CW14 is interested in covering it. No they aren't. Somebody might have said maybe we could cover it. The person they say said that has posted on the wall of the event, that they need to talk their boss and then they'll see what he says. No offense but he'll say no. Probably.
Third, they have no definitive date, and are trying to arrange a large student participation (on a campus that doesn't see a lot of student participation) during a time when the campus is mostly deserted. You created an event without having a plan. Now if you had an actual plan, this would be a whole Other story. But you're jumping the gun. It's also commendable to ask people for suggestions, but this leads me to my fourth point.
They ask people to look at Daniel Tosh's favorite video so far to get ideas. Daniel Tosh isn't going to consider something that is simply a carbon copy of what someone else has done. He wants something original.
Ok those are my points about what's written on the info of the event page. Here a few more.
The contest will probably be over before we even submit a video. Tosh has been promoting this since the middle of the spring, and while he is still accepting submissions, he probably already has more than he cares to have. One more from a small catholic College in Northern Wisconsin is just going to be a drop in the bucket.
Here's my biggest point. Even if by some stretch of the imagination SNC would get selected, do they really think a college that wouldn't let a production of the Vagina Monologues be performed on campus, would let a comedian who mocks every race, religion, and gender come put on a show? No,
they wouldn't.
I want to close this post by saying a few things. First I'm a huge fan of Daniel Tosh and Tosh.0 and would be ecstatic if SNC was chosen. Again I don't mean to knock anyone for their efforts, but I also believe that it isn't fair to criticize if you don't have any ideas on how to do it better. So here are a few suggestions:
If you're going to do it, just do it. Don't wait around and try and coordinate the schedules of hundreds of people during the middle of summer.
Mention something about the girls on campus. It doesn't need to be mean, but maybe something about its hard to determine what gender someone is for most of the year because of our long winter season.
Make fun of our size, and the fact that there is little do in Green Bay. Tosh responds to people who can take themselves down a notch or to and can recognize their own inadequacies. The college that wins this contest isn't going to win because they told him how great their college was, it will be because they told him how much their college sucks. Although in a clever way.
Ok there it is, again I wish everyone the best in there efforts. If you think I'm wrong, being a dick, or have some other suggestions, throw them in the comments.
(Sorry there weren't a lot of visuals in this)
Over the last few days an event has kept popping up on my newsfeed as some of my college friends began RSVPing for it. The event was for the students of my college to organize and submit a video to send to Daniel Tosh to enter into his College Invasion contest. For those of you who do not know Daniel Tosh announced he will be filming an upcoming episode of his widely popular Comedy Central show, Tosh.0 on a college campus. Students are encouraged to send in videos about why Tosh should come film at their school. From some of the submissions posted on the Tosh.0 Blog it is astounding to see how many people do not seem to have the slightest idea of what will appeal to Daniel Tosh. Take for example the Michigan State video that was an elaborate seven and a half minute lip dub.
When has Tosh ever featured a lip dub, and when has he ever showed more then a thirty second clip of a video on his show? Why would you make a video that would take up one third of his airtime if shown in its entirety?
Now this is the link of the event. I encourage you to read it before continuing with this post. (Also from here on out I am addressing the you generally, not specifically).
First off, it's not their idea. It's Daniel Tosh's idea. They can't claim its their idea to enter a contest. That's not an idea, it's a decision.
Second its says CW14 is interested in covering it. No they aren't. Somebody might have said maybe we could cover it. The person they say said that has posted on the wall of the event, that they need to talk their boss and then they'll see what he says. No offense but he'll say no. Probably.
Third, they have no definitive date, and are trying to arrange a large student participation (on a campus that doesn't see a lot of student participation) during a time when the campus is mostly deserted. You created an event without having a plan. Now if you had an actual plan, this would be a whole Other story. But you're jumping the gun. It's also commendable to ask people for suggestions, but this leads me to my fourth point.
They ask people to look at Daniel Tosh's favorite video so far to get ideas. Daniel Tosh isn't going to consider something that is simply a carbon copy of what someone else has done. He wants something original.
Ok those are my points about what's written on the info of the event page. Here a few more.
The contest will probably be over before we even submit a video. Tosh has been promoting this since the middle of the spring, and while he is still accepting submissions, he probably already has more than he cares to have. One more from a small catholic College in Northern Wisconsin is just going to be a drop in the bucket.
Here's my biggest point. Even if by some stretch of the imagination SNC would get selected, do they really think a college that wouldn't let a production of the Vagina Monologues be performed on campus, would let a comedian who mocks every race, religion, and gender come put on a show? No,
they wouldn't.
I want to close this post by saying a few things. First I'm a huge fan of Daniel Tosh and Tosh.0 and would be ecstatic if SNC was chosen. Again I don't mean to knock anyone for their efforts, but I also believe that it isn't fair to criticize if you don't have any ideas on how to do it better. So here are a few suggestions:
If you're going to do it, just do it. Don't wait around and try and coordinate the schedules of hundreds of people during the middle of summer.
Mention something about the girls on campus. It doesn't need to be mean, but maybe something about its hard to determine what gender someone is for most of the year because of our long winter season.
Make fun of our size, and the fact that there is little do in Green Bay. Tosh responds to people who can take themselves down a notch or to and can recognize their own inadequacies. The college that wins this contest isn't going to win because they told him how great their college was, it will be because they told him how much their college sucks. Although in a clever way.
Ok there it is, again I wish everyone the best in there efforts. If you think I'm wrong, being a dick, or have some other suggestions, throw them in the comments.
(Sorry there weren't a lot of visuals in this)
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