DAY 52- One for every week of the year. Also the Atomic Number of Tellurium! Bet you forgot that.

TRAILER TALK!

Have you seen the new trailer for YOGI BEAR? I have! It looks terrible!
I really liked the choice of Dan Aykroyd for Yogi Bear (just as I think Bill Murray as Garfield was an inspired choice), however Justin Timberlake as Boo-Boo is stunt casting if I've ever heard it. (I guess you can't really make the argument that Americans were waiting for Dan Aykroyd and J-Tizzle to really GO AT IT with each other...but still.) Justin Timberlake's Boo Boo voice is just Justin with a high pitch whine. Every time Boo Boo has a line I think, "Hey Justin Timberlake's in this movie." (Truth be told though, every time I see Justin Timberlake anywhere I think--"Hey! There's Justin Timberlake.")

Also, I'm not a tech nerd, but the CGI just looks terrible. The other bummer is that Anna Faris is in this movie. She has such a promising career! I don't know why she would lower herself to this "Alvin and the Chipmunks" ripoff garbage. (I mean...I do know--$$$!)

**Sidenote-- Since Alvin and the Chipmunks came out a few Decembers ago and made like $200 million, every old cartoon is being converted into a CGI movie. The Smurfs Movie is coming out soon, starring Neil Patrick Harris. There is also a Speedy Gonzales Movie starring George Lopez, a He-Man Master of the Universe Movie and a Thundercats movie all in the works. Not to mention past movies like Speed Racer and Underdog. The hope is that teens/adults who remember these cartoons will take their kids to see the movies, thus appealing to 2 or 3 of the 4 crucial demographics (those being: MEN, WOMEN, Kids, Older Folks). The only problem is--a lot of those cartoons werent good, and were not meant to have characters sustained for over 10 minutes. For example, Speedy Gonzales is funny for 5 minutes. I can't imagine watching him for 90. Hollywood--stop turning fine cartoons into shitty movies!

BUT BACK TO YOGI BEAR--What good is having this movie in 3D? (I know I know! $) but still! Unless Yogi can actually steal the popcorn on my lap, there is nothing that 3D can help this movie "achieve." I think in some cases 3D will end up hurting the movie more than helping it, like with Cats and Dogs 2 in 3D which came out this past weekend. Parents aren't going to be willing to shell out 18 bucks for a real shitty movie. 12 bucks maybe, but not 18.

MOVING ON:
The Social Network- You've probably already seen the trailer for this movie, but if you haven't you should watch it now! It looks awesome, which I'm sure the movie will be, considering it's directed by David Fincher (Se7en, Fight Club, Zodiac) and written by Aaron Sorkin (A Few Good Men, The West Wing). The acapella use of the song "Creep" against backgrounds of facebook's features really gets the audience uncomfortably thinking about their own facebook use. The trailer is also interestingly and intensely cut.

A few years ago, Aaron Sorkin started a facebook group so he could find out more about facebook from the inside. This was a while ago, before your mom and your seven year old sister could sign up. So I appreciate that he did his research. But this movie isn't going to be about where "poking" comes from. It's a drama about friendship and business and trust and money and relationships. The intriguing part is that the backdrop of the movie is obviously a website, nay--an institution that is so integral to our every day lives, but who's origins are still quite the mystery for most of us. I'm excited for this movie. But this is the last movie I want to see Jesse Eisenberg in, playing a more confident, smarter Michael Cera. Ok Jesse?

LET'S TALK ABOUT CRAZY THINGS IN HOLLYWOOD
1. Paramount signed on to make a 3D Justin Bieber biopic/concert film. To be directed by none other than the director of Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth." WOT! I'm not even mad that they're making a Justin Bieber movie, cause honestly, that was to be expected. After all, it's Justin Bieber's world now. We're all just living in it. The sooner we realize that the faster we can get on with our lives. (By the way Usher is smiling in this picture because for every record Bieber sells, Usher makes like $15. Usher owns Bieber. He's like Strombolli, the evil puppet master who discovers Pinnochio, lets him sing "I've Got No Strings" and makes straight up cash money.)

But Mr. Director sir (Davis Guggenheim), who also just directed a documentary about the failure of the public school systems, How can you possibly go from directing movies of the utmost importance and relevance to America and the global community to a CONCERT movie starring a universally disrespected 15 year old pop queen. And no disrespect to concert movies--Martin Scorsese does excellent work with the Rolling Stones. But Mr. Guggenheim, The Rolling Stones Justin Bieber is not.

IMPORTANT BREAKING NEWS! (2 days after I began writing this post.) Guggenheim just dropped out of the movie. Darn. That was so close to being the craziest thing I've ever heard. The fact that he had legit signed on to do it is still crazy, but in the end, thank God, all this Guggenheim talk is for naught.

*Sidenote--Justin Bieber is really one of the most polarizing figures of today. Spending the summer around kids aged 9-15, I have realized that one either HATES Justin Bieber with a passion and want to rip out his larynx, decapitate him, take out his brain insides, fill it up with Smarties, and turn his head into a Bieber pinata....OR you LOVE JUSTIN BIEBER SO MUCH IT MAKES YOU PUKE! You have to watch BABY 30 times a day, you have pictures of him all over your bed, and you live your life by the Bieber code--just be yourself! There is no middle ground. Kids dont "not give a shit" about Justin Bieber. He's like the "Inception" of popstars.

Also, Justin Bieber is writing a memoir. Or more like telling a writer funny stories about his first haircut and the first time he was raped by pixies.

HOLLYWOOD NONSENSE NUMBER 2-

As pointed out to me by Daniel "I know Gregory Rollman" Arkin, Universal is developing the film BATTLESHIP, based on the board game, as a starring vehicle for Rihanna. The logline is as follows: "Battleship will unfold as a massive Naval adventure across the seas, in the skies and over land as our planet fights for survival against a superior force."

YEA FOR MAKING QUALITY MOVIES!

HOLLYWOOD NONSENSE NUMBER 3-
Hollywood is remaking Ahnuld Schwarzenegger's TOTAL RECALL.

What's with all the Ahnuld remakes! First Predator, then I hear about a Commando remake! Now this? STOP remaking Arnold movies! They're not going to get any better. They're perfect the way they are. Please! Leave AHNULD ALONEEEEE! Abadah.

Thanks for reading!

Until Tomorrow---

Day 50- The Golden Blogpost

First off, I would like to thank all you readers for your continued support of my blog. Your positive comments and enthusiasm makes it a joy for me to write. When I started the blog 2 years ago, I thought it was going to just be a summer project to keep me busy, but now, 50 posts later, because of your continued readership, I'm still going strong. So thanks!

Some interesting news: I have a statcounter on my blog so I can see how many hits I get, and two weeks ago for some reason I got an abnormally high amount of hits. 743! Then 300 the day after, 200 the day after that, and it has been in the hundreds every day since then. I tried to figure out why, and after some research I found out that a lot of those numbers come from people who get to the blog through a google image search. Specifically one google image has lead a lot of internet browsers to me.

This picture of BUG HALL. The kid who played Alfalfa in the Little Rascals movie. I wrote a post on him a couple years ago, and that page is considered a lead "entry page" into my blog. How could 235 people want to google a picture of Bug Hall? My guess. It's Bug Hall. Every day he googles himself at least 30 times, and he gets his parents and siblings to do the same, just to see if anything's changed. Anyway, thanks Bug! You've really increased my visibility on the internet.

ALRIGHT. Now the good stuff:

I've been really into Arnold Schwarzenegger movies lately. They are a pleasure to watch, the action is always pretty good, and they all rate about a 10.0 on the unintentionally funny scale. My most recent foray into Ahnuld cinema is the film: THE LAST ACTION HERO.

THE LAST ACTION HERO is the most Meta movie I've ever seen. It's about a loser kid who LOVES movies (no, that DOESN'T sound familiar to me). Especially Arnold Schwarzengger movies (interesting...). But he loves movies where Arnold Schwarzenegger plays a bad ass cop named Jack Slater. This kid is friends with this old dude (played by the guy who plays Jack Lundy in Mrs. Doubtfire) who runs a movie theater in the ghetto of Los Angeles. The old dude gives the boy a magic movie ticket that HARRY HOUDINI gave to him as a kid, and the action begins.

Now Harry Houdini was known for being a magician. But no one thought he was actually magical. This movie's entire plot is predicated on the notion that Harry Houdini is magical. Moving on.

The kid takes Harry Houdini's magic ticket with him to watch a Jack Slater movie, and suddenly BAM! The kid's in the Jack Slater movie! With Arnold Schwarzenegger. Playing Arnold Schwarzenegger playing Jack Slater. You still with me? The kid tries to convince Jack that he's in this movie, and that he is actually Arnold Schwarzenegger, but Jack refuses to believe this, even though the kid predicts when Jack is about to say things like, "Ill Be Back."

By the way: I hate "kids" in movies. They are so annoying and they ruin everything. Kids who are supposed to play self aware characters who say things like, "Mom wouldn't like this!" or "That was AWESOME!" just piss me off. Especially kids in adult movies. Kids who are cute and stuff like Mara Wilson are adorable, and I can't get enough of them. Alright. Back to the movie.

The movie seems like it's just a spoof of Arnold movies, but starring Arnold himself. So you get intentional humor, like this funny sequence where you see a preview of Arnold playing Jack Slater playing Hamlet and there is this exchange:

Hamlet: Hey Claudius! You killed my father! Big mistake!
Narrator: Something is rotten in the state of Denmark, and Hamlet is taking out the trash.
Old Man: Stay thy hand, fair prince.
Hamlet: [shooting him] Who said I'm fair?
Narrator: No one is going to tell this sweet prince good night.
Hamlet: To be or not to be? Not to be. [shoots him].

And of course there are the weird, ridiculous, intentionally funny, but in actuality disturbing, lines of dialogue like this:

Danny Madigan: I though I was going to die.
Jack Slater: Well I'm sorry to disappoint you but you're gonna live to enjoy all the glorious fruits life has got to offer - acne, shaving, premature ejaculation... and your first divorce.

Premature ejaculation? WTF.

The movie is also weirdly meta because other actors appear as themselves playing a "character" in movie reality. The kid, Danny, recognizes this one policeman as F. Murray Abraham, the actor who played Salieri in the movie "Amadeus" (which is about Mozart). But then the movie gets weird. Jack Slater says he's never heard of Mozart, and then later on when Jack gets into the real world, he listens to Mozart for the first time and really likes it. So in MOVIE Land, Mozart never existed? No Classical Music exists? How did music progress? Was it just Gregorian chants? Reading too deeply into absurd ideas like this make this movie particularly fun to watch.

But back to META-LAND. As I just mentioned, Jack Slater gets transported into the real world to try and stop the movie's villain (an actor doing a half-assed Alan Rickman impression) from killing the "real" Arnold Schwarzenegger at a movie premiere for a new Jack Slater movie.

So lets try and sort this out. We have Arnold Schwarzenegger playing Arnold Schwarzengger playing Jack Slater. Then we have Arnold Schwarzenegger playing real life Arnold Schwarzenegger, who himself is just another parody of Arnold Schwarzenegger. Who is the real Arnold? What's going on!!!!@!#$%^#@$%^#$%^

Sidenote: This reminded me of the last episode of this season's Curb Your Enthusiasm, where Larry David plays George Costanza in a rehearsal for the Seinfeld reunion. What was bizarre and meta about this was that Larry David the person was playing Larry David the character playing George Costanza the character who was based on Larry David the person. TRRRRIIIIIPPY.

Anyway this movie was fun to watch, was directed by John McTiernan, the director of DIE HARD, and I recommend it to anyone in the mood to get their mind blown. Also Veronica Vaughn (Bridgette Wilson Sampras) is in it. Score.

To speak further about Arnold himself, I must say that he is such a fascinating person. The man is our governor. Californians elected Austrian body builder and film action star Arnold Schwarzenegger (who had no prior governmental experience) as our governor because we loved his persona. During the election, he played himself up as the action star and that's why we voted for him. We wanted an action star as our governor. That's why I don't lay the blame with him, I think that Californians have a very strange sense of reality. In our minds, we cannot separate him the character from him the person because we love Hollywood, and who really is Arnold the person?

Then we were surprised and disappointed that he had trouble balancing the budget and passing effective legislation. That's what happens when you elect the Terminator into public office!

True Story: I met Arnold Schwarzenegger as a child. I was in a dance studio with my mom waiting to pick up my older sister who was in a jazz class with Arnold's daughter. Arnold was there to pick her up. Two moments stand out for me 10 years later:

1- I was drinking a Mountain Dew, and I burped fairly loudly. He turned around in his chair and looked at me in disgust.
2- We were in the studio watching the girls show us (the parents) the new dances they had learned today and Arnold kept yelling things out to the 11 year old girls. Things like: "Shake it Katarine!" (his daughter). "Move your bodies girls!" and "YEA! That's GREAT!"

ARRRRRNOOOOLLLLDDD!

This is him smoking a joint.

I wonder if he's played the part of Ahnuld so long, even he cannot distinguish his persona from his true self. I hope so. That's the world I want to live in.

Until Tomorrow--

PS. If you are a reader of this blog, and you have your own blog, please feel free to link my blog to your blog. If you let me know, I will respond in kind. Thank you. And God Bless America.

Day 46- Should we refer to fans of Avatar as "Avatards?"

If you are a long time reader of the blog you may remember a feature I call, "Actors Who are the Same." Well today I'm expanding that to...."MOVIES THAT ARE THE SAME." Today I will be examining two blockbuster action films. "Commando" (1985) and "X-Men Origins: Wolverine" (2009). While made in different decades and seemingly different (one stars Arnold Schwarzenegger as a Commando and one stars Hugh Jackman as a Wolverine), these two films are in many ways, the same movie.


Essentially, both movies begin the same. "Commando" begins when you meet retired special agent named John Matrix (although he's changed his name) living in a secluded mountain home with his daughter Jenny (a spunky young Alyssa Milano). John used to lead an elite unit but disagreed with the goals of some of his previous missions, so he retired.

In the beginning of "X-Men Origins: Wolverine" (which will be hereafter be referred to as simply "Wolverine"), you learn that Wolverine was also an elite commander in a special military forces unit. He has retired because he too disagreed with the goals of his missions. And he is living where? In a secluded cabin in the mountains with not his daughter, but his lover, Kayla. He too has been living with a different name.

In "Commando," John's hideaway is found out by the military, and it is revealed to John (who like Wolverine most often appears shirtless), by his former boss, General Franklin Kirby, that members of his former unit are being killed one by one. It turns out that the one behind the killings is a former member of Matrix's unit, BENNET.

Similarly, in "Wolverine", Wolverine's hideaway is found by the military, and his former boss, General Stryker informs him that someone has been going around killing former member's of Wolverine's elite mutant team. It is Victor! Wolverine's brother and former super mutant elite squad team member!

In "Commando," John Matrix is coerced by Bennett (who has kidnapped his daughter) to reluctantly go through with a political assassination for a man called Arius (impeccably portrayed by the incomparable Dan Hedeya), a South American warlord formerly bested by Matrix who wishes to lead a military coup in his home country. Arius threatens John that he will have Jenny killed if he does not accept the demand. One last mission.

In "Wolverine," Victor kills Wolverine's sexy girlfriend, which coerces Wolverine to reluctantly accept Stryker's demand to find Victor and kill him. One last mission.

Rather than comply with Arius's demands, Matrix, who has cinematically been transformed into COMMANDO, helped by a woman named Cindy, goes ape-shit on the bad guys trying to get him to set off the coup, and sets out to find where Arius and Bennett are holding Jenny captive. He goes straight into the lion's den, him versus the thousands of armed guards (who dont stand a chance), stopping at nothing to get his daughter back. Finally, he faces off with his former partner, for the last time!

During the adamantium procedure that is supposed to give Wolverine the power to beat his brother, Wolverine overhears that they are going to also wipe out his memory. Rather than go along with these corrupt assholes, he goes apeshit, escaping his captors. Then with the help of Gambit, he finds out that Victor and Stryker are in cohoots, and so he goes back to the lion's den (the giant military lab) to kill the men behind the murder of his wife (and the hundreds of guards who stand in his way). There, he faces off with his former partner, for the last time!

HAVE I CONVINCED YOU THAT THESE TWO ARE BASICALLY THE SAME MOVIE? If you are not convinced I suggest you rent Commando or watch it ondemand. It is truly one of the best films of the 1980s, and Arnold's muscles are so huge clothes dont even fit him. He has no choice BUT to be shirtless. The cheesy Ahnuld quips are also to die for. For example:

Matrix: Remember, Sully, when I promised to kill you last?
Sully: That's right, Matrix. You did.
Matrix: I lied.

AND

Cooke: You scared, motherfucker? Well, you should be, because this Green Beret is going to kick your big ass!
Matrix: I eat Green Berets for breakfast. And right now, I'm very hungry!


I couldn't leave out:

Matrix: [after killing a man in the plane] Don't disturb my friend, he's dead tired.

Alright that's enough.......Anyway you get the picture. Arnold is the best action star of all time and this movie---ALRIGHT ONE MORE!

Gen. Kirby: Leave anything for us?
Matrix: Just bodies.

This movie was so funny, that it also inspired Wild Willi$ and I to create an improv game. It is called COMMANDO. The game is, you are given the name of an object and you have to think of a funny quip Ahnuld would say after killing somone with that object. For example--Clock.
"Your time is up."
"Time to die."
"What time is it? It doesnt matter...YOU'RE DEAD!"

You get the picture. Anyway this movie is far better than Wolverine. In any sort of art duplication or replication, something is lost in the process, and the duplicate can never truly be as good as the original. Hence the reason why remakes and spin offs arent typically that good. GO SEE COMMANDO.

Finally, I was just watching "The Insider" (a 1999 movie about a tobacco company whistle blower (Russell Crowe) who tried to reveal top secret information about nicotine and cigarettes, and the 60 Minutes producer (Al Pacino) who tried to get the story on the air. First of all, this is a fabulous movie and I highly recommend it. But what I also liked about it, was that the cute girl from the old Pepsi commercials was in it! Hallie Eisenberg! She was soo cute! Much cuter than her brother, Zombieland/Adventureland/upcoming Facebook Movie actor Jesse Eisenberg. Remember how cute she was, singing with Aretha Franklin, bonding with Bicentennial Man Robin Williams, and talking to a stupid parrot named, Paulie? She hasnt done anything high profile as of late, and as the case with Mara Wilson, I think this is for the best. I would rather only remember her as adorable girl from those commercials. Anyway, I just wanted to remind everyone how cute that little girl was.

Until Tomorrow--