Moral Ambiguity in Movie Reviews: Wanted

We showed up for the afternoon matinée of Wanted on Friday about a minute before the movie proper started, so John, BJ and I had to sit in the third row. I don't think I've sat that close to a movie since I was forced into the same situation at a screening of Attack of the Clones.

"Better not let on that this will make it difficult for me to read the screen," I thought to myself, a fraction of a second before, "Fuck it, I can hang, there is no way I'm letting a close-sit get the best of me, I'm going to follow the shit out of this movie!"

So, facing the self-created challenge of absolutely following Wanted and definitely understanding what's going on and just outright getting why ratsplosions are a good idea (in context), I feel I can safely say, without bias or by duress, that Wanted is the greatest film of all time.

The Saturday Sketch: "The Joe Pesci Show"

Another sketch from when Jim Carrey hosted Saturday Night Live, featuring Mark McKinney as...Jim Carrey? Buh-buh-guh-whaaaaa?!?


And it just might be...the funniest comedy sketch...of all time.

Maybe.

A Grind-My-Gears Lesbian Experimentation Friday

You know what really grinds my gears? Awful videos for tracks that are at least alright. Just close your eyes and press play:



I know kissing a girl was a new and interesting experience for Katy Perry, and so it makes sense that she would respond positively to aspects of it that she will, in time, come to criticize. For instance, if I guessed a girl whose lips tasted like cherry Chapstick, I would suggest she try using a brand of lip balm that doesn't feel like rubbing glass shards on your mouth.

Oh shit, maybe I should just call and tell her that! Nah, I'd be really polite on the phone, all "Hey, all the other messages people have left you make me laugh. A lot. Also, your song is tits."

Zeitgeist, baby!

Homage v Coincidence in Primetime

BJ and I watched the pilot for Fastlane last weekend, and he thought the Miami Vice homage with Phil Collins' "In the Air Tonight" would make for a good post.


You bet it would, BJ. I mean, You bet it was. I mean, You bet it would.

But while that musical cue being used in two vice cop shows several decades apart is funny, it's not blow-your-mind insane, like, say, both Swingtown and The Venture Bros. using the same party game (having a famous person's name taped to your back and having to guess who it is based on people treating you like that person) in episodes that aired only THREE DAYS APART. Considering the hugely different production schedules that live-action and animated programs are on, that shit is straight-up universally resonant. Point: Coincidence.

So who wants to have a dinner party with that game this weekend, what what?

Addiction: Should You Goof On It?

So, Spider-Man walks into a bar, and has a little run-in with some supervillians therein, until the bartender decides to keep the peace...


Spider-Man is known for his goofing, but is it okay to goof on your friend's drinking problem? If that friend is Tony Stark, then yes, because that guy is a fascist asshole.

Scenario Dog v Cat

More here, point: dog!

George Carlin, R.I.P.

George Carlin died Sunday of heart failure.


Then I went back in time using a phone booth I built out of cardboard boxes to post this.

Subjects Not to Goof On by Categories of Severity

• Absolutely NO goofing on: race, religion (Hinduism, monotheistic belief systems besides Christianity), sexual orientation
  
• Somewhat no goofing on: nationality, Baptists, people you just met (three hang-out grace period)
  
• Probably best not to goof on because some people are related to retards or are married: retards, marriage
• You will make someone cry if you goof on: health (fatties)
  
• Goof at your own risk on: politics, education, children
• Practitioners don't want you to goof on this but you should: sleeping with married chicks (also good to do as a goof)
  
• Completely okay to goof on: All other Protestants, Catholics, clothing, drink selections, April
• Goof-proof: April's dancing
• Oh, COME ON HOW CAN YOU EXPECT ME NOT TO GOOF ON THAT?: dogs eating cats

Feel free to put these on an index card so you'll never be lost in a social setting again!

The Saturday Sketch: "Change for a Dollar"

Here's a sketch with a title that still gets a lot of play in my father's house. Ask that man for money, and you are likely to hear, "Change...for a dollar? Cch, Tch, Tch, Tkok,tkok..." Is that how you spell that? Anyway, here's Mr. Show's "Change for a Dollar":


Funny, yes. But the funniest sketch of all time? Maybe!

A Grind-My-Gears REMF Friday

You know what really grinds my gears? REMFs.


Those Rear Echelon Mother Fuckers are always, you know, fuckin' shit up and shit.

Shit.

This post brought to you by the Committee to Further Popularize Military Slang Already Popularized by Tom Clancy (CFPMSAPTC).

A comic strip you should be reading...

Kate Beaton's comics are great.


White Ninja Comics + History + Sometimes the character designs look like they could be in The Brave Little Toaster or maybe Davey and Goliath + also some Kyle Baker too = Kate Beaton's comics.

It's in my RSS feed. Shouldn't it be in yours?

Down at the Factory...

Looks like there's going to be some overtime down at the factory tomorrow, or as we call it, "Time-X." Which is weird, because people keep telling me that we're moving packages of Timex watches, so I can't tell if someone is fucking with me, coincidences abound, or management thought to consolidate purpose and distinction.

Kate Havnevik won't teach you a damn thing.

Sometimes when people make me a mix CD, I won't listen to it for at least a couple of years, on account of being so set in my ways and crotchety. But then I will listen to it and what do you know it turns out I like Kate Havnevik:


It's probably for the best that I didn't listen to her when I received a mix with Havnevik on it in 2006. On the one hand, I would have been totally up-to-date-at-the-time on my Norwegian electronica*, but on the other, dominant hand, her lyrics would very well have forced me to shoot myself. In 2008, I'm able to set my chin on my palms and wistfully wist to no one in particular, "Oh Kate, you've got it all figured out, don't you?"

*Although I remember this clip being on rotation in Rome when I was there in 2005, and also I remember not really liking it and wanting more George Harrison.**

**"I've Got My Mind Set on You" makes me want to play 13 Dead End Drive.

Batwoman Miniseries Announced

So that's pretty exciting.

Sometimes when you make a movie you have to label it a comedy after the fact.

American Psycho 2: All-American Girl is on TMC, and if the twist is that William Shatner is playing an old Patrick Batemen, it will be awesome.

UPDATE: that didn't happen, so I guess the movie was a resounding "not awesome."

The Saturday Sketch: "Poland Spring Water"

Expanding a little on the tardiness of Ultimate Wolverine vs. Hulk, the whole thing is really a matter of the book at first being so late it's funny, and then so late it's infuriating, and then so late it comes around to being funny again. In some ways, it's kind of like today's sketch, Dane Cook and Will Forte in Saturday Night Live's "Poland Spring Water":


Just make sure you stop it after the water sketch is over, because what comes next is kind of rough.

A Grind-My-Gears Ultimate Wolverine vs Hulk Friday

You know what really grinds my gears? Late comics. Well, not really. I mean, I grew up with Image, late comics are in my blood. But even my generation has its limits, and Ultimate Wolverine vs. Hulk has demolished that limit. UWvH began as a miniseries in December 2005, and only two issues of a planned six were released. The third issue is now close to two and a half years late. So Bob Gale had some fun with it in the new Amazing Spider-Man:


And it's too bad, really, because what the world needs now is Ultimate She-Hulk.


Ultimate Wolverine knows it, too.

"Don't call me Jeezy Creezy, da!"

I went to see a stage production of Jesus Christ Superstar, which was great, even if we did get the understudy Judas. And he was white.


It would be pretty awesome to play Judas, but you sure would have to be up there singing an awful lot over the course of two hours. So it would also be tempting to just play Herod and come in to chew up the scenery for one crowd-pleasing song.

The Dog Says "Chonk"

The new Dinosaur Comics is funny and informative, but I have personally always pronounced "$" as "Chonk." And I don't know about ALL dogs, but when Tom sounds like he's about to ralph, the closest that sound comes to is a duck honk. Chonk is not quite honk, but there you go.

Minimum Amount of Bullet Points Allowed for Bullet Point Post

• Oh man, I would have holla'd at this.
• Sometimes after it rains, it smells really super-oxygenated (you know...). Other times, it smells like cheese. Yesterday, it smelled like cheese. YMMV.
• Also yesterday, my mother's birthday, which apparently fell on the same day that Australia celebrates the Queen's birthday. Except Western Australia.
  

And she thought BJ looked like Tobey Maguire ("Spider-Man!")

This last weekend at a BBQ, a little girl told me I looked like that guy from Batman.

"Wow, you think I look like Christian Bale? Awesome!" I said. Finally someone saw the uncanny resemblance.

"NO! The OTHER guy! From Red Eye and 28 Days Later," she said.

"Who's letting you watch those movies?" It was time to lose the heat, so I pointed to Patrick. "See that guy over there? Doesn't he look like the kid from Even Stevens?"

"Yeah!"

"Good, go tell him to comb his hair with some Dr. Pepper. And don't come back unless you're bringing me some chicken wings."

I am so good with children.

C'mon, Bishop!

Do it, man!


Snap!

The Saturday Sketch: "The H is O"

Before Akiva and the rest of The Lonely Island transcended awesomeness with their digital shorts, other folks at Saturday Night Live also tried their hand at such, including Adam McKay, as seen in this following sketch (suggested by April):


I mean, McKay did do Ricky Bobby. That's tight.

Symbolism Twice Removed

Rachael Ray was arrested yesterday for terroristic activities, including, but not limited too, wearing a scarf. Wait, is that what happened? All I know is that I've been reading my Marvel Comics more closely...you know...SYMBOLICALLY speaking...


If you see any butlers wearing keffiyehs from here on out, do not approach. They is Skrull terrorists, yo!

"Christian Bale would kick your ass."

What I want to know is, when Robert Downey Jr. says, "Did you bump your f$#&ing head?", is that, um, some sort of drug euphemism?

Today in Lapsed Connections: Bolton + Hercules

Radical Comics is a fairly new publisher, and one of the titles they are putting out is Hercules: The Thracian War, which looks to be getting a cover by John Bolton. Which is just amusingly synchronous to me because I've been reading the Classic X-Men series this last week, the first three dozen or so issues of which feature back-ups illustrated by Bolton.

And there's really no excuse for my brain to go where it did, but when I saw the headline "Bolton draws Radical's Hercules cover," my first thought was of Michael Bolton's single "Go the Distance" from the Disney Hercules movie. But, you know, I just watched that last week, too, so hey.

But I ain't buyin' no dang Hercules comic, anyway. The only thing I'm getting from Radical is this sweet new Yoshitaka Amano art book based on Mozart's The Magic Flute. woot.

Aimee Mann T-Shirt

Just thinking about Aimee Mann today, and how there was an issue of Savage Dragon where Dragon is wearing an Aimee Mann T-shirt. That issue is number 11.


If anyone else ever needs easy reference for what issue of Savage Dragon featured Dragon wearing an Aimee Mann T-shirt, this post is it, brother.


Again, Dragon wears an Aimee Mann T-shirt in Savage Dragon #11.

Seth Meyers as Blue Beetle

The new issue of Wizard has an interview with Bill Hader and Seth Meyers where they talk about how awesome comics are (they are right). If I had known that Seth Meyers was such a huge fan of comics when I met him, I probably would have tried to build an entire interview around that, too. That was in 2006, and as it turned out, at his birthday party later that year, he just happened (!!) to run into artist Kevin Maguire at the same bar, who drew him a picture of Blue Beetle on the spot.


And then, for his birthday the next year, Maguire drew Meyers a picture of Meyers as the Blue Beetle! Say whhaaaaaaaaa?! That is the greatest birthday gift I can imagine, and the likeness is spot-on, too. If Maguire ever drew a picture of Hader as Booster Gold, Meyers and Hader would have a pretty solid pitch for a Blue & Gold film.

Annals of Drinking Pt. 1,479

From Giant-Size Astonishing X-Men #1, Wolverine will teach you about mourning:


And from Astonishing X-men #7, Wolverine will also teach you about internal dialogue:


It's probably for the best that Marvel won't let Wolverine smoke anymore because then there would be panels where Wolverine's all "SNIKT" and a ninja's like "OH SHIT!" and then Wolverine would say, "I'm going to smoke you like this great cigar I'm smoking" and I would want to smoke a cigar so bad.


Yeah, it would look like that.