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"Daniel Frank is a very funny guy with a funny weblog." --- Mark Evanier.

Once I bagged six tigers

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Friday, December 30, 2005

Posted by Daniel Frank at 2:21 PM

Speaking of books, Barnes and Nobles (or at least the Grove location) has a mess o' good stuff on sale for 50% off, including Neil Gaiman's latest, the Chris Elliot novel, a couple of books on the San Francisco earthquake (including Simon Winchester's) and the latest Mitrokhin Archives book.

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Posted by Daniel Frank at 2:13 PM

Why do I have to find out from Simpsons DVD commentary that Simpsons writer John Swartzwelder has written a novel? Even the commentary was dated because he's written two novels.

I'm trying to decide if I should read anything into the fact that these appear to be self-published.

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Wednesday, December 28, 2005

Posted by Daniel Frank at 8:02 AM

A lost letter by Upton Sinclair reveals that he knew that Sacco and Vanzetti were guilty. Story here (via Reason).

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Tuesday, December 27, 2005

Posted by Daniel Frank at 8:58 AM

On the 24th, I saw King Kong. The only way it could have been better would have been if, at the end, Spider-man had teamed up with some citizens of the Planet of the Apes to rescue Kong. Comments with possible spoilers (but let's be honest, how spoiled can you be on this movie?):

I watched the original after having seen Peter Jackson's version. Learning all the hidden jokes and references Jackson made, I realize that Jackson made a 200-million-dollar fan film. It's a really good fan film but it's not so different from the guys making new Star Trek episodes on the 'Net.
Chip Pope asked me if the original had a gay subtext between a black first mate and young Jimmy. Oddly enough, yes, yes it did.
Speaking of which, I didn't care for the whole explaining Heart of Darkness part. I am reasonably sure there's unused footage of Jimmy asking "Are we in a Heart of Darkness now?"
during the dinosaur stampede, some velociraptor-looking dinosaurs kept either getting shot or crushed by T-rexes. Was this some sort of "Ha! Our dinosaurs are better" slam on Jurassic Park?

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Posted by Daniel Frank at 8:53 AM

Speaking as we were a few days back about Airplane and the Golden Age of Leslie Nielsen playing the comedic role straight, Police Squad, the great TV show, is coming to DVD. Story here.

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Posted by Daniel Frank at 8:37 AM

I had a traditional Jewish Christmas by seeing The Producers and having Chinese food. The Chinese food, not so good. "Number One Buffet" is anything but.

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.

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Saturday, December 24, 2005

Posted by Daniel Frank at 8:55 AM

Not to get all War on Christmas here, but why does jdate say "Happy Holidays"?

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Friday, December 23, 2005

Posted by Daniel Frank at 4:57 AM

Alaska's infamous Bridge to Nowhere which was removed from the budget actually never left. Alaska got the federal money; it just wasn't earmarked for a bridge. Details here.

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Thursday, December 22, 2005

Posted by Daniel Frank at 7:37 AM

The Chappelle Theory is, in fact, viral marketing.

It also inspired this parody site.

(via Defamer).

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Tuesday, December 20, 2005

Posted by Daniel Frank at 5:26 PM

Angels with Angles (mispronounced by the Moviefone guys as "Angels with Angels") manages to disappoint despite the low expectations set by a film which was unreleased for a couple of years and has now rented a theater out of a deluded attempt to gain award nominations.

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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Posted by Daniel Frank at 11:59 AM

I stumbled upon today's Spider-man comic strip. In it, Peter Parker's bag with his Spidey outfit is accidentally taken by another guy with the same kind of bag. If the pace of the strip matches what I remember, Parker will realize what happened by mid-February.

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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Posted by Daniel Frank at 11:57 AM

Either the writings of a loon or a great viral campaign: YOU DECIDE as you read The Chapelle Theory.

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Friday, December 16, 2005

Posted by Daniel Frank at 11:04 AM

Via Slate, I learned about this teaser video for the 2006 Nintendo box's controller. Basically it's a remote-control-shaped doohickey that detects motion on all three axes. So it can simulate a tennis racket, a baseball bat, a gun, a sword, or whatever. If they come out with a good Star Wars game where you can use the controller as a light-saber, I might get it.

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Posted by Daniel Frank at 10:50 AM

Regarding Angels with Angles, I could not get into the premiere. Judging from the ad in the paper, the folks behind the film paid the Laemmele's chain to let them screen it so they could get award nominations. Thus I'm getting in for free, thanks to the two sweetest words in Hollywood: "Plus guest". Also you get a free admission to the Comedy Store with your ticket stub which tells me that members of the Shore family have some dough invested in this turkey. (I half-suspected that maybe it meant that Pauley Shore was in the film but if they listed Frank Stallone in their cast list, they'd list Pauley Shore.)

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Wednesday, December 14, 2005

Posted by Daniel Frank at 8:59 AM

Since I know you care passionately about such things, I've decided to take the $80 I would have spent on the Calvin & Hobbes collection and the $40+ I would have spent on some DVD sets I don't need and get the fancy Little Nemo in Slumberland collection that tries to recreate the look of the strip back then (as featured in this New York Times article).

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Posted by Daniel Frank at 8:55 AM

The Airplane discussion below came up as we were discussing the old Sledge Hammer! show. I noted that in the commentary on the pilot episode Alan Spencer discuss how great and subtle the comic direction of the director was. However as he says that, the camera does a close-up of a zany bumper sticker on Hammer's car and holds the shot for a minute. Contrast to the Simpsons or a good Zucker-Abrams-Zucker movie where the bumper sticker would just be there and you'd notice it after a second or third viewing.

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Posted by Daniel Frank at 8:28 AM

A friend and I were joking on Sunday that the new DVD version of Airplane that came out Tuesday would be digitally edited so that Leslie Nielsen's deadpan performance would be digitally replaced by images of him making goofy faces. Thus I found it hilarious that the back cover features a picture of Nielsen acting muggier than an August day in Houston (said picture is also prominently featured in the DVD's website). My original complaint was "They found the one image from the movie of Leslie Nielsen making a dopey face" but I'm not entirely sure that this picture is from the movie.

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Posted by Daniel Frank at 7:32 AM

An incomplete script for Studio 7 (the Aaron Sorkin behind-the-scenes-at-SNL pilot) pieced together from sides here.

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Sunday, December 11, 2005

Posted by Daniel Frank at 4:05 PM

A common feature of newspaper articles about how all of something have characteristic X is to stretch the definition of characteristic X beyond its traditional meaning. Like a couple of years ago when Lord of the Rings:The Two Towers was called a period film to support the claim that all the Best Picture nominees were period films.

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.

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Sunday, December 04, 2005

Posted by Daniel Frank at 12:53 PM

I was buying some toys for disadvantaged children (no applause please; I do it for the kids) and one child asked for Operation Shrek. I thought it was a video game of some nature until I did some research and discovered that the "Operation" in Operation Shrek refers to the wacky doctors' game. Operation also has a licensed Simpsons game and original Operation does not refer to itself as the wacky doctors' game.

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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Posted by Daniel Frank at 12:38 PM

The obvious joke about the Joe Dante "soldier-zombies-rise-from-dead-to-vote-out-Bush" TV thing ("Billionaire Bill" Sherman review here) is that the dead voting Democrat is nothing new. (I said it was obvious, not funny). (In an alternate universe where SNL's audience is mostly Republican, Tina Fey would have told that joke to boisterous applause.)

UPDATE: This Bob Hope clip is being passed around the conservative blogosphere.

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Friday, December 02, 2005

Posted by Daniel Frank at 4:49 PM

Via Evanier, Book Steve's Library, a nifty site of the scans of flotsam and jetsam. Here he displays It's a Mad, Mad, Mad World and here's a children's book featuring an early version of the Flintstones (with Fred, Jr!)

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Posted by Daniel Frank at 4:17 PM

Angels with Angles, starring Frank Gorshin as George Burns and featuring Rodney Dangerfield, Adam West, Soupy Sales, Frank Stallone, Richard Moll, Jerry Mathers, Dwayne Hickman and three guys playing the Marx Brothers. I'll find out how much show biz power I have by trying to get tickets to the world premiere. I want to go because of the stars there and because I'm not entirely sure there'll be a showing after that.

Given that they're running billboards on Sunset and Fairfax, that means they're aiming for the ironic hipster crowd.

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