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Friday, December 30, 2005
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I'm trying to decide if I should read anything into the fact that these appear to be self-published. # | | Wednesday, December 28, 2005
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The Producers I enjoyed very much. I think some of the bad reviews are just that once you get the Broadway show to the big screen, you're reminded how good Zero Mostel and Gene Wilder (and Kenneth Mars also) were. Other criticisms I read and I wonder if the critic in question has ever seen a Mel Brooks movie since the things being criticized (old jokes, gay stereotypes, slightly dated worldview) are elements of all his movies. As an Overlawyered reader, I was amused to see in the credits that a two-second joke where a policeman, a cowboy, a construction worker and an Indian show up at the end of the "Keep it Gay" number required getting permission from the Village People. Speaking of the credits, you want to stay through all of them. You get a new song not in the show, a Will Ferrell-sung FM-lite version of Ferrell's big song in the movie, and some hilarity at the very end. # | | Saturday, December 24, 2005
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# | | Friday, December 23, 2005
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# | | Thursday, December 22, 2005
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# | | Tuesday, December 20, 2005
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In it, George Burns is sent out to be the guardian angel for a schmo in exchange for which he'll get to be with Gracie. A fairly simple premise, yet the fifth time Burns shows up to the schmo, the aforementioned schmo says "George, what are you doing here?" He knows what he's doing there! The funniest line in the movie was when Burns compares a life without friendship to performing in a theater without an audience; the line was, of course, made funny by the presence of only seven audience members for the movie. The second funniest line, for the same reason, was when Gracie demurred from a kiss from George because "everyone's watching". # | |
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That's still better than last month's issue of the the comic book where his left eye was eaten by a guy. # | |
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# | | Friday, December 16, 2005
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# | | Wednesday, December 14, 2005
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# | | Sunday, December 11, 2005
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4:05 PM
So we have this LA Times article that "all five record-of-the-year nominees are sprinkled with raw lyrics". Only at the end of the article do we find out that "hell" is the raw lyric that qualifies Mariah Carey's song. # | | Sunday, December 04, 2005
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12:53 PM
Another kid wanted a Playstation 2 and Ultimate Spiderman. Instead I got him this nifty motion-detector Spidey game which seems pretty good but I still feel like the aunt who buys you the wrong toy but you still have to say "thank you" to her. # | |
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12:38 PM
UPDATE: This Bob Hope clip is being passed around the conservative blogosphere. # | | Friday, December 02, 2005
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Given that they're running billboards on Sunset and Fairfax, that means they're aiming for the ironic hipster crowd. # | | Thursday, November 24, 2005
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Last year, I explained why this version works and the two remakes don't. # | | Wednesday, November 23, 2005
Monday, November 21, 2005
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8:32 AM
UPDATE: Commenter Marty McKee notes that the Godfather is also part of the villain team. # | | Sunday, November 20, 2005
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2:13 AM
UPDATE: Now they have Clark Gable plugging The Misfits in 1958! UPDATE 2: Hey, those iPods just keep getting smaller and smaller. That's crazy! # | | Friday, November 18, 2005
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# | | Monday, November 14, 2005
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A move made more difficult by DirecTV which is apparently trying to demonstrate that their service can be as crummy as cable's (Worse in some ways since DirecTV only gives you 8-12 or 1-5 installation windows whereas Comcast gives you several three-hour windows). Last time I moved, I had trouble with mail forwarding because my brother/roommate and I were moving to seperate locations and at different times. This time the confusion was that I unreasonably did not want my mail forwarding requested for November 10th to start before November 10th. Some things I learned at the Wal-mart (a trip necessitated by the fact that Target only carries fancy $20 designer kitchen trash cans):
# | | Monday, November 07, 2005
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3:54 PM
This reminds me that on Thursday when I was driving over to sign the lease to my new apartment that I saw a Daily Bugle truck making a left turn northeastward at Overland and Culver (which is where the Sony Studio is at). # | |
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# | | Thursday, November 03, 2005
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# | | Wednesday, November 02, 2005
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# | | Friday, October 28, 2005
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Diane Holloway has a blog. To explain for the majority of you, Holloway is the TV critic for the Austin-American Statesman. She was/is so out-of-touch that she once expressed confusion as to what house the title of the sitcom In the House alluded to. # | |
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# | | Wednesday, October 26, 2005
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6:38 PM
Speaking of the Monster Mash, here's Bobby "Boris" Pickett's website with an excerpt from his autobiography of that magical moment: Lenny sat down at the piano and began futzing with various four-chord progressions and I stood next to the piano. Like me, Lenny was a major horror movie fan from childhood. He loved Bela Lugosi as Dracula. He knew I had the Boris Karloff voice pretty nailed, although in reptrospect, I feel that what I actually had was a very cartoonish rendition of that wonderful actor's voice. In any case, we'd both seen how the audiences had loved it when I was with the group and we'd sing "Little Darlin'" and I did the monologue in the middle of the song in Boris's voice. We agreed that the Karloff voice was the most obvious one to tell the story. And what was the story?Sure the writer of the song says it's Frankenstein. And Arthur C. Clarke says HAL isn't one step beyond IBM. # | |
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# | | Monday, October 24, 2005
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In more pleasant news, I got confirmation of weight loss, not just from my visiting parents but from some photos a friend sent me from Xmas parties from 2003 and 2004. Of course, the euphoria of "I look much better" devolved into "Did I leave the house looking like this?" # | | Monday, October 10, 2005
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# | | Thursday, October 06, 2005
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# | | Tuesday, October 04, 2005
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# | | Wednesday, September 28, 2005
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# | | Tuesday, September 27, 2005
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11:45 AM
UPDATE: Based on this review, at some point during the show's run there will be a scene where Geena Davis is talking to some high muckity-muck on the phone while trying to get the kiddies ready for school with the inevitable "No, general, I did not tell you to eat your cereal" punchline. # | |
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UPDATE: Tim Cavanaugh suggests the optimism is unfounded. # | | Monday, September 26, 2005
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1:31 PM
The show [Get Smart] lived on in syndication and a cartoon series.Cartoon series? # | | Thursday, September 22, 2005
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11:05 AM
other pilot in the love triangle over the head with a wrench so he can fly the suicidally dangerous mission. I vividly remember a Carol Burnett sketch with a punchline of a) the two pilots knocked each other out, b) the girl in question flies the dangerous mission and c) the two pilots wink at each other after she leaves as this was their plan all along. I'd also swear MAD did a "Scenes We'd Like to See" type parody -- not that I'm finding it in my CD-ROM collection. So the question I put out to you good folk is what movie was this from? A Guy Named Joe was suggested to me but Spencer Tracy dies at the very beginning of the film. A Yank in the RAF seems like a good candidate but both pilots fly the dangerous mission so that can't be it. My Google skills are failing me. Or is this a cliche so widespread that there is no one origin? UPDATE: Wings seems plausible but it has the same flaw as A Yank in the RAF, both gentlemen go on the dangerous mission. Test Pilot was also suggested but judging from this description, a) it again seems like Clark Gable also went on a dangerous flight and b) Spencer Tracy's character doesn't appear to be in love with Myrna Loy. It does make me realize that I assumed it was a war movie but could be any pair of pilots that do dangerous stuff. In fact, a war movie in this situation makes little sense since assumably all pilots fly the dangerous mission at the same time. # | | Tuesday, September 20, 2005
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UPDATE: So is Mr. Peepers. # | | Friday, September 09, 2005
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# | | Wednesday, September 07, 2005
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# | | Tuesday, September 06, 2005
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# | | Friday, September 02, 2005
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# | | Thursday, September 01, 2005
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3:17 PM
Most people think that the "fair" price for the gas they buy is the wholesale price of the gas the station has already purchased plus a reasonable markup for profit[...]However, the price of a gallon of gas you buy doesn't reflect the cost that particular gallon but rather the expected cost of the gallon of gas the station will have to buy to replace it. As the expected replacement price soars, so does the cost to the customer for the gas already in stations tanks because that is where the station is getting the money to buy the replacement fuel[...]It might look like price gouging when the local station raises prices three times in one day but if they didn't you might have cheap gas today but none tomorrow. # | |
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3:10 PM
Jack Stokes, AP's director of media relations, confirmed today that [photographer Dave] Martin says he witnessed the people in his images looting a grocery store. "He saw the person go into the shop and take the goods," Stokes said, "and that's why he wrote 'looting' in the caption."And a direct quote from the "finding" photographer: I believed in my opinion, that they did simply find them, and not 'looted' them in the definition of the word...We were right near a grocery store that had 5+ feet of water in it. it had no doors. the water was moving, and the stuff was floating away. These people were not ducking into a store and busting down windows to get electronics. They picked up bread and cokes that were floating in the water. They would have floated away anyhow.Sounds like looting and finding to me. # | | Wednesday, August 31, 2005
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It's the Hitler curse! # | | Tuesday, August 30, 2005
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9:42 AM
One thing omitted in the article is how come if the gas refinery business is so profitable in Hawaii ("far more profitable than similar facilities on the mainland"), how come there are only two refineries? I half suspect there's some government regulations involved here. Buried in the back of the article is that many state regulations (including California) don't allow selling gas at below-cost prices. So if a station wants to lose a few cents on gasoline (under the theory that they'd make it up with Coke and Twinkie puchases (which is where the real money is in gas stations)), they can't do it. # | | Thursday, August 25, 2005
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# | | Saturday, August 20, 2005
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8:21 AM
Phil Harris: The men haven't touched land in a year. They're going crazy for the sight of a woman.To my modern ears, that originally sounded like they were saying that Jack Benny is gay. I'm fairly sure that if this was part of the show, it wouldn't be the first I'm hearing of it. Now, I'm guessing that they're implying that Jack is so old that he has no libido. Or maybe my first interpretation was right. UPDATE: I'm now sold on the idea that these were "Jack is gay" jokes. I dropped a comment on the Radio Memories site to get their opinion. # | |
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8:10 AM
So what have I been doing with this amazing 21st century device? Dowloading old radio shows! Podcasts of old-time radio shows are available through Radio Memories, OTR and this podcast of what looks like the complete run of The Great Gildersleeve (cartoon fans "know" the show from any Warner Brothers character who giggles "Yes" and its catchphrase "Well, now I wouldn't say that" (swiped by "that dope from the draft board")). # | | Wednesday, August 17, 2005
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5:04 PM
*As in Val Kilmer says that he doesn't know any German and the female lead says "I know a little German...he's sitting over there" and the camera pans to a German little person who waves. # | |
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4:40 PM
The United Nations bankrolled the production of thousands of banners, bumper stickers, mugs, and T-shirts bearing the slogan "Today Gaza and Tomorrow the West Bank and Jerusalem"No, that's not going to encourage more violence. Article here. # | |
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# | | Tuesday, August 16, 2005
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# | | Wednesday, August 10, 2005
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UPDATE: Tom Spurgeon makes the same "don't most folk give up reading MAD around age 11?" point I did. # | | Monday, August 08, 2005
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10:32 AM
Jack Black: I've come into possession of a map; an uncharted island.I noticed this when I saw the Bad News Bears remake. The alternate title for that movie should have been "The Kids Today Like That, Right?". One funny playing-on-our-expectations bit was a montage of Buttermaker trying to get a sponsor which ended with his entering Chico's Bail Bonds. However, it later turns that Chico is not the sponsor of the Bears. # | | Monday, August 01, 2005
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10:09 PM
Now, I have to get the second volume. UPDATE:The Slumbering Lungfish gets proof of the joke's prior existence after asking about it. I, of course, stupidly answered the question for proof before checking that someone else had answered him. # | |
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# | | Sunday, July 31, 2005
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Of course, he does never get promoted past Lieutenant but then promoting Columbo out of solving crimes is like promoting Kirk out of commanding starships. # | | Wednesday, July 27, 2005
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UPDATE: This post hits the same points. # | |
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# | | Monday, July 25, 2005
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UPDATE: OK, I'm full of it about point 1. See here. # | | Friday, July 22, 2005
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It was reported that Rock developed the pilot with Fox. The network ultimately passed on it, fearing that the comedian would withdraw his involvement after the show was picked up. # | | Wednesday, July 20, 2005
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2:06 PM
After a Rooney anecdote about the legendary producer and director Cecil B. DeMille that only Caesar seemed to understand, Buttons asked, "By the way, Mickey, was Lincoln a nice guy?"Cathy Seipp was also there and reported on it. # | | Sunday, July 17, 2005
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What's interesting to me is that with the Marx Brothers or Laurel and Hardy or The Three Stooges or Bob Hope, I'm handed a body of work and can cooly determine "these movies are good whereas these in the later part of the career aren't so good". As opposed to Mel Brooks, Woody Allen, Monty Python and David Letterman, where I'm watching the decline as it happens which pains me. # | |
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6:06 PM
From the meme passed on by my brother, This is favorite, not "best": 1977 - Wizard of Oz 1979 - Animal Crackers 1980 - Airplane! 1982 - And Now For Something Completely Different 1983 - Return of the Jedi 1984 - Bill Cosby, Himself 1985 - Zelig 1986 - Brazil 1988 - Who Framed Roger Rabbit 1994 - Pulp Fiction 1998 - Run Lola Run 2001 - X-Men 2002 - Spider-man/The Kid Stays in the Picture 2004 - Animal Crackers/It's a Mad, Mad, Mad World Years are approximate and sometimes based on release date (and taking my brother's word that 1982 was when we discovered Python which sort of gels with my memory). I pass this on to Jim Treacher, Bill Sherman, and Mark Evanier (if he's not too exhausted from this weekend). Also if my friends and frequent commenters Chip Pope and Jim Woster want to throw in theirs in the comments, I'd be interested to hear them. # | | Thursday, July 14, 2005
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11:53 PM
Actually, I'm not sure why it's being called a remake since if you read the Defamer article, the only similarity between the remake and the original appears to be its setting of school in the summer (which, contrary to Fat Albert, does sometimes have classes in session). This is also where I'd remind folks that I've met Richard Horvitz. Speaking of remakes, complaints by Gene Wilder about the upcoming Charlie and the Chocolate Factory movie being about money is funny given that the original film was funded by Quaker Oats as essentially a big product placement for their new Willy Wonka candy line. Tim Cavanaugh mocks misplaced nostalgia by Gen X for their kiddie films and the comments thread detours into a discussion of the two network TV attempts (this one and this one) to cash in on the popularity of Raiders of the Lost Ark. Speaking of Roald Dahl, Dark Horse has announced (scroll down) that they're reprinting Dahl's classic Gremlins book which has been out-of-print for some 60+ years. Illustrations by various Disney artists since the intention was to make the book a Disney movie. Update: Tales of the Gold Monkey is available on DVD from this bootleg DVD store who also has the other Raiders rip-off show as well as Quark and When Things Were Rotten. The bootleg store is part of a larger site dedicated to Gold Monkey. # | | Wednesday, July 13, 2005
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8:54 PM
UPDATE: Mike Chary theorizes that Whoopi is doing the set because the first two sets made too much money. The conspiracy-minded would note that Warner Brothers was unsure that a Looney Tunes DVD set would sell. Presumably there exist executives at Warner Brothers who made that prediction. Often when someone predicts failure for a project, one then proceeds to do all one can to make that prediction come true. # | | Friday, July 08, 2005
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# | | Sunday, June 26, 2005
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10:35 PM
UPDATE: Duh. It wasn't until I saw the Winchell/Mahoney theme on the site that I realized this was the website of the daughter of the just recently-late Paul Winchell (ventriloquist, inventor of the artificial heart, and voice of Tigger). # | | Tuesday, June 21, 2005
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Q:Tell me why we laugh at something and feel free to swipe your answer from The Dick Van Dyke Show.I was willing to give it the benefit of the doubt that there were funny things in the musical not represented on the soundtrack but this Slate review reveals sins hidden by the soundtrack. Specifically, after the "There are those who call me...Tim" joke, Arthur sarcastically replies "Oh, Tim—what a scary name". The Python of old used to mock comedies that explain the joke by holding a sign that read "Joke" during a sketch or two. I now have another example to add to my "Police Squad vs. Naked Gun rant" that I often bore friends with. # | | Tuesday, June 14, 2005
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# | | Friday, June 10, 2005
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Actual conversation I had many years ago: Me: Mentioned Phil Silvers in some context. Friend: Who's Phil Silvers? Me: He was the star of The Phil Silvers Show. # | | Tuesday, June 07, 2005
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Now see if I had been in charge, I would have cast Stiller in the Roger Moore role of an English lord for three reasons:
# | | Friday, June 03, 2005
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# | | Thursday, May 26, 2005
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# | | Monday, May 23, 2005
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In October 2001 Faizal Aqtub Siddiqi, president-general of the International Muslims Organization, warned that the bombing of Afghanistan would create 1,000 Osama bin Ladens. In April 2003, Egypt's President Mubarak warned that the bombing of Iraq would create 100 bin Ladens. So right there you got a 90 percent reduction in the bin Laden creation program -- just by bombing a second country! # | |
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10:06 AM
I also noticed a lot of applause lines in the Weekend Update segment. An "applause line" is a joke where the punchline is not particularly funny (and sometimes isn't really a punchline) but expresses a politically correct viewpoint. The audience applauds the sentiment but doesn't actually laugh at the joke since laughter is involuntary but applause isn't. # | |
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9:39 AM
Spoilers below:
# | | Friday, May 20, 2005
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7:52 PM
I will have time tonight to watch the combination of two of my greatest childhood loves: the Muppets and Oz. (Hey, what if the Muppets did a version of a different Oz? What would that be like? It might go something like...) I do have memories of how terrible Muppet Christmas Carol was* but I'm hopeful. *The basic problem with Muppet Christmas Carol was that it was a fairly straight adaptation of A Christmas Carol. We don't need that what with there being 500 other adaptations. Plus you end up with Michael Caine giving the are-there-no-workhouses speech to Beaker. The great Frank Gorshin died. One of the triumverate of great impressionists (the other two being Rich Little and Frank Travelena), the inventor of the hack Brando impression, the Riddler (whose performance literally revived a one-appearance character into one of Batman's more popular foes), and one of two comedians whose action figure I own (well, technically it's a Bele doll but I call it my Frank Gorshin action figure). (The other one if you care is a Bob Hope GI Joe doll). # | | Monday, May 16, 2005
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8:30 PM
You can tell that the audience of a theater is filled with film nerds (besides the fact that they're watching a Jack Benny movie) when they burst into wild applause at the unexpected appearance of Charles Lane. And a microcosm of how African Americans were treated in Hollywood can be seen in the IMDB entry of Theresa Harris, the very attractive love interest of Rochester. Count how many times the word "maid" appears. # | | Sunday, May 15, 2005
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# | | Wednesday, May 11, 2005
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1:45 PM
Reading books chronically understimulates the senses. Unlike the longstanding tradition of gameplaying—which engages the child in a vivid, three-dimensional world filled with moving images and musical sound-scapes, navigated and controlled with complex muscular movements—books are simply a barren string of words on the page... UPDATE: I forgot to link to the review. D'oh! # | |
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1:32 PM
Elsewhere he notes the consequence of a decision awarding 45K for a dead cat is apparently the state prefers one totals ones car to avoid hitting an animal in the street. Although if your car then damages the oldest tree in Bedford Falls, well, then you're screwed. (Maybe that's why George Bailey was going to kill himself; he knew he'd be sued for 45 G's for hitting that tree.) # | |
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# | | Sunday, May 08, 2005
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8:40 AM
First The Aristocrats opens August 5th. However the film's website sez July 29 in NY and LA and August 12th nationwide. Second, Stan Lee will be playing the role of Willie Lumpkin. I was going to say this was the first time Stan Lee played a character he co-created but he did play the guy rescued by young Matt Murdock in Daredevil. Yeah, the guy was just a MacGuffin to give Daredevil his powers and blindness and we never saw him again but Stan Lee co-created him. # | |
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3:26 AM
Maybe Jim Downey needs to resubmit his Sneaker-Upper sketch (scroll down). # | |
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2:54 AM
One interesting section deals with a lad named Charlie whose father wanted him to watch Star Wars in numerical/fictional-chronological order. Getting the child to watch the series with fresh eyes from Episode I through VI in order, in a way that we Generation Xers never can, would enable us to watch the child for signs of confusion: the child might spot contradictions that our chronology-skewed brains never would. Other obvious research questions suggest themselves: When would Charlie first notice that Senator Palpatine is a bad man who wants to become Emperor, for example? When would he first have doubts about Anakin? Would Charlie be saddened that in Episode IV Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru don’t remember their old friends C-3PO and R2-D2?The experiment fell apart however when the boy's mother rented Return of the Jedi one conclusion is unavoidable: due to contamination by girl, the experiment is now invalidated and must be abandoned. # | |
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One thing that's interesting about the movie is that technology is such that jokes Douglas Adams made because he was writing for radio can be realized on the big screen without looking like crap. Arthur can say that Ford is turning into a sofa and Ford can look like a convincing sofa. Heck, in 5-10 years, they could have Zaphod be two-headed throughout the movie with the same budget rather than do whatever the heck it was they did. Spoilers:
# | | Thursday, May 05, 2005
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# | | Wednesday, May 04, 2005
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Time Traveller: Excuse me, I'm looking for Koznofski. # | |
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One scene that does sort of date it is the scene where McFly orders beverages that haven't been invented yet. Were McFly to order these sodas in 2005, he'd have similar trouble, what with Pepsi Free having morphed into "Caffeine-Free Pepsi" and TaB only being available in speciality stores that carry Nehi and other such things. Although even in 1985, the comedy in that scene seemed forced since it wasn't like either beverage was likely to be carried in a small-town diner even in 1985 # | |
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1:33 PM
The idea is that you only have to hold one convention because you could always time travel back to it multiple times for repeat visits. But suppose time travel works like it does in Superman comic books and you become an invisible wraith if you time travel to a period where you already were? Then what? If no time travellers show up, there are two possibilities for why that would be:
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ME: Hey, the Jiminy Glick movie is opening Friday. Ya wanna see it Friday night or some time Saturday? FRIEND: I can't. How about Sunday? ME: Sunday? Are you crazy?!?! The movie will have closed by then. # | | Sunday, May 01, 2005
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3:12 PM
I was going to give A Damsel in Distress the same fast-forward-when-Burns-or-Allen-aren't-onscreen treatment that I gave Honolulu (with an exception made in Honolulu for Sig Ruman) but when I saw P.G. Wodehouse's name in the credits, I figured I shouldgive the movie my full attention so I'll wait until I have a full 90 minutes to watch. Coincidentally I found this DVD of three other Burns and Allen movies at Costco for 9 bucks; these pictures seem to have the same "doesn't actually star them" issue. # | |
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And talking of beverages, Virgils Root Beer is the best damned root beer ever. UPDATE: The Dublin, TX Dr. Pepper bottler makes Dr. Pepper with cane sugar and will sell it to you online. # | |
Posted by Daniel Frank at
2:30 PM
# | | Friday, April 29, 2005
Posted by Daniel Frank at
1:14 PM
# | | Wednesday, April 27, 2005
Posted by Daniel Frank at
7:50 AM
# | | Sunday, April 24, 2005
Posted by Daniel Frank at
8:59 AM
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