"Go talk to yourself somewhere else, you stuttering puh-puh-prick!"
"Think this thing's loaded?"
"They'll never find me in this old, abandoned refrigerator!"
"The nature guide says they're totally harmless!"
"Johhny Knoxville did this on Jackass, and it looked soooo funny!"
"No, I don't have any spare change. Smallest I've got is a fifty!"
"I can fly...FLY!"
"Ah, they couldn't hit the broad side of a barn!"
"I got it! I got it!"
"Check out my brand new gun, Mr. President!"
"Urka-durka-durka!"
"Those sure are silly hats you guys are wearing!"
"You people should go back to where you came from!"
"They all laughed at me! Laughed! Now, I finally prove them wrong! Throw the switch!"
"Hay, fellas! Hyuck! Look what Ah kin do!"
"Yes, Mistress. Your humble slave asks you to please make it tighter."
"And I say Marines SUCK DICK!!"
"Look, see? He doesn't bite!"
"Throw it, you pussy! Throw it!"
"Before I begin, I'd like to remind you all to not try this at home. I am a professional."
"Help me get my wheelchair down these stairs, will you?"
"I figure blow-drying my hair while I'm still in the tub will save some time."
"Hold on, I'll light a match to see where we are."
"It shouldn't be bleeding that much, right?"
"I've never payed for sex before in my life, and I see no reason to start now!"
"No, I'm not gonna sign your copy of 'Catcher in the Rye'!"
"Oh, shit! The concert's starting!"
"Well, suck the poison out, shit-for-brains!"
"What's everybody running from?"
"I mean it. Do not drop this!"
"Change my diaper! Change it!"
"Almost there...Almost..."
"Hey, I can fit my whole head in here!"
"No, I thought you fueled it before takeoff."
"Sure. I can swallow that!"
"What'd I tell you? Totally safe."
"Ha, ha. Fags."
"And by the way...I'm cutting you out of my will."
"What can he do from way over there?"
"Fuck you, cop."
"Oh, wait, don't-"
"What bus?"
"Fuck it."
"Whoops."
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
Thursday, February 22, 2007
Abracadabra...
The Prestige (B+)
On the surface, Christopher Nolan's The Prestige is a solid thriller about two 19th century magicians and how their escalating rivalry turns tragic. The film title itself refers to the third 'act' of a magic trick. (First, there's the pledge, where the magician sets up the audience that he will saw a woman in half. Then there's the turn, where he seems to saw the woman in half. And finally, there's the prestige, where the woman comes out of the box unharmed.) In stage magic, the secret to your success is in how effectively you can misdirect an audience.
Which is exactly what Nolan has done, to the point where most of the professional critics who's reviewed this movie seem to miss its point entirely. The movie is not about what you think it is. Why is it so easy for us to figure out both Robert Angier (Hugh Jackman) and Alfred Borden's (Christian Bale) secrets to their respective 'disappearing man' tricks so soon in the movie? (Remember the very first scene of the film.) Notice how certain motifs reappear through the film. (The Chinese magician who lives 24-7 as a cripple, the disappearing bird cage trick where the first bird dies in the collapsing cage) Look at this exchange between Nikola Tesla (a great bit by David Bowie, by the way...) and Angier. Angier's trying to convince Tesla to build him a machine that will trump Borden's act...
Nikola Tesla: Mr. Angier, have you considered the cost of such a machine?
Robert Angier: Price is not an object.
Nikola Tesla: Perhaps not, but have you considered the cost?
Robert Angier: I'm not sure I follow.
Nikola Tesla: Go home. Forget this thing. I can recognize an obsession, no good will come of it.
Robert Angier: Why, haven't good come of your obsessions?
Nikola Tesla: Well at first. But I followed them too long. I'm their slave..and one day they'll choose to destroy me.
Robert Angier: If you understand an obsession then you know you won't change my mind.
The price both men pay for their obsession is terrible, indeed, and it destroys one of them in ways he couldn't begin to anticipate. Remember this exchange between Cutter, (Michael Caine, in another fine bit of casting) and Angier...
Cutter: Remember when I told you about the drowning sailor?
Robert Angier: Yes, he said it was like going home.
Cutter: I lied. He said it was agony.
The other man is destroyed too, if you stop to think about it. When you figure out the movie, the real point's going to stay with you for quite a while. Or as Angier puts it...
Alfred Borden: You went half way around the world..you spent a fortune.. you did terrible things...really terrible things Robert, and all for nothing.
Robert Angier: For nothing?
Alfred Borden: Yeah.
Robert Angier: You never understood, why we did this. The audience knows the truth: the world is simple. It's miserable, solid all the way through. But if you could fool them, even for a second, then you can make them wonder, and then you..then you got to see something really special.. you really don't know?..it was..it was the look on their faces..
On the surface, Christopher Nolan's The Prestige is a solid thriller about two 19th century magicians and how their escalating rivalry turns tragic. The film title itself refers to the third 'act' of a magic trick. (First, there's the pledge, where the magician sets up the audience that he will saw a woman in half. Then there's the turn, where he seems to saw the woman in half. And finally, there's the prestige, where the woman comes out of the box unharmed.) In stage magic, the secret to your success is in how effectively you can misdirect an audience.
Which is exactly what Nolan has done, to the point where most of the professional critics who's reviewed this movie seem to miss its point entirely. The movie is not about what you think it is. Why is it so easy for us to figure out both Robert Angier (Hugh Jackman) and Alfred Borden's (Christian Bale) secrets to their respective 'disappearing man' tricks so soon in the movie? (Remember the very first scene of the film.) Notice how certain motifs reappear through the film. (The Chinese magician who lives 24-7 as a cripple, the disappearing bird cage trick where the first bird dies in the collapsing cage) Look at this exchange between Nikola Tesla (a great bit by David Bowie, by the way...) and Angier. Angier's trying to convince Tesla to build him a machine that will trump Borden's act...
Nikola Tesla: Mr. Angier, have you considered the cost of such a machine?
Robert Angier: Price is not an object.
Nikola Tesla: Perhaps not, but have you considered the cost?
Robert Angier: I'm not sure I follow.
Nikola Tesla: Go home. Forget this thing. I can recognize an obsession, no good will come of it.
Robert Angier: Why, haven't good come of your obsessions?
Nikola Tesla: Well at first. But I followed them too long. I'm their slave..and one day they'll choose to destroy me.
Robert Angier: If you understand an obsession then you know you won't change my mind.
The price both men pay for their obsession is terrible, indeed, and it destroys one of them in ways he couldn't begin to anticipate. Remember this exchange between Cutter, (Michael Caine, in another fine bit of casting) and Angier...
Cutter: Remember when I told you about the drowning sailor?
Robert Angier: Yes, he said it was like going home.
Cutter: I lied. He said it was agony.
The other man is destroyed too, if you stop to think about it. When you figure out the movie, the real point's going to stay with you for quite a while. Or as Angier puts it...
Alfred Borden: You went half way around the world..you spent a fortune.. you did terrible things...really terrible things Robert, and all for nothing.
Robert Angier: For nothing?
Alfred Borden: Yeah.
Robert Angier: You never understood, why we did this. The audience knows the truth: the world is simple. It's miserable, solid all the way through. But if you could fool them, even for a second, then you can make them wonder, and then you..then you got to see something really special.. you really don't know?..it was..it was the look on their faces..
Wednesday, February 21, 2007
"Oops, I Did It Again..."
An Open Letter from Britney Spears...
Hi, everyone!! How was your President's day weekend? Went shopping? Laid around 'fucking the dog', as J.T. used to say, back when we were together? Good, good... Uh, my weekend? Hoo, boy...
See, It's like this... For years now, I've been the reigning pop diva, and along with you all buying my cd's, and going to my concerts, and watching 'Crossroads', I've been pretty much the Homecoming Queen of contemporary American culture. But this weekend, I had what alcoholics call, 'a moment of clarity'. See, I was in this nightclub so exclusive that the most popular girl you went to high school with wouldn't have a bricklayer's chance of getting into. So there I was in the 'chill-out' room, doin' what I like to call 'shake-n-bake' (a little concoction of my own consisting of cocaine and ground-up Percocet) when some Nina Simone came on the sound system.
And for one goofy moment, I had a flash of inspiration. Maybe my next album could be a cover of old torch song standards! I could do some Edith Piaf, some Billie Holiday, heck, maybe even some Judy Garland (for all my gay fans! Love you guys! Mwah!) Then it occurred to me... Who the fuck cares? Look, I'll let you in on a little secret... I'm not really that good a singer, am I? I mean, I can carry a tune, and with a little practice I can play Scott Joplin's "The Entertainer" on a piano, but really... In a sane world where actual talent is proportional to one's success, I'd be lucky to be doing backup vocals for a car dealership's jingle. The only reason I'm so popular is because all you girls (and some guys,tee hee) want to be me, and all you boys (and your middle-aged dads-eww, gross!) want to fuck me. That's it, really. My entire career is based on wanting what you can't have. Namely, little ol' me!
After all the test-marketing (seriously, somewhere in Sherman Oaks some focus group is being asked, with a straight face, 'would you like Kelly Clarkson to sing about Global Warming?') pre-production, sound production, post-production and what not, my actual creative contribution to my own music is equivalent to the guy at the G.M. plant who puts the back seats in the mini-van. Real singers like Nina Simone, Bille H., and Edith Piaf still affect us after all this time because their voices were full of all the yearning, heartbreak, and emotion that had gone into living their lives. What the fuck, really, do I have to say? That I'm bummed 'cuz my Ferrari has Spanish leather seats when I wanted Italian leather? Boo fucking hoo. I mean, if I really knuckled down and worked at it, I might have a shot at being a fifth-rate Alanis Morrisette. So, forget that shit...
I guess my subconscious was telling me that it's been a fun ride while it's lasted, but it's time for me to get off this roller coaster. An act of penance, if you will. C'mon, guys, don't pout. We've had some laughs, you've had your thrills, your little brother came of age when he beat off over my Rolling Stone poster; you know, the one where I'm dressed like an eight year old holding a teddy bear- kinda creepy in retrospect...So it's over. I'm leaving the spotlight, I'm leaving the whole entertainment industry. Let's face it, I don't see you all pining over the halcyon days of Debbie Gibson or Tiffany. And really, aren't I just Debbie with a belly button piercing?
Okay, so tell you all what... You make all the jokes you want to, and I'll leave, quietly and gracefully. I'll even start you out..."Look, it's Bald-ney Shears!" "Uncle Fester!" "Seinaid O'Connor!" "G.I. Jane!" "Aliens III Ripley!"-oh, and my favorite one so far..."Now the drapes match the carpet!" Oh, ha, ha. Thank Madonna for that one. Dried-up old hag... Oh, look, I promised myself I wouldn't be bitter about this, but it's time for me to move on. Sorry for wasting your time, everyone,
Huh? What's that? What's my game plan now? Welp, I'm gonna change my name, move to a split-level bungalow with the kids, drive a mid-level sedan like a Toyota Corolla, work part-time at a Target all somewhere in the mid-west, presumably where normal people don't give a shit about my warm, pink, and totally hairless. I'm keeping all the money, though. I may be crazy, but I ain't stupid... Don't come looking for me, please. And if anyone stares at me a little longer than normal, and asks me, "Hey! Didn't you used to be somebody?..." I'll just say, "Nope. I never was."
And that's the truth.
Peace out,
Britney.
(P.S. Kevin, BTW, I lied. Four inches erect is NOT the average.)
(Ah, who'm I trying to kid? If B. says anything, It'll be like this...)
DEER EVERBODEE.
FUK ALL-Y-ALL!!!
PEESE OWT_4_MY_NIGGAZ!!!
B.
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
The Departed, and.. a dillemma...
The Departed -(A-) It's a remake of a Hong Kong thriller called 'Infernal Affairs'. The premise being that a crime boss has had one of his boys infiltrate the police so as to keep the boss one step ahead. At the same time, the police have one of their own infiltrate the crime boss's gang so they can gather enough evidence to put him down for good. An American remake of this in the hands of say, Antoine Fuqua, would've been okay enough, I suppose.
Well.
Giving the like of Martin Scorsese this type of movie takes it into high orbit. Notice, firstly, how he ramps up the tension by moving the plot along at a breakneck pace. Which forces you to try and keep up. Then, he casts Jack Nicholson, who plays his part both histrionic and low key. (You'll have to trust me on this, see the damn movie!) Is everyone in Boston (really, the only place in America this premise would work) this aggressive? He keeps that odd Catholic obsession of his mostly in check this time around; There's a bit where Nicholson confronts a couple of priests just to illuminate what an utter shit he is. Compared to the other stuff up for Oscar best pictures awards, I'd say this one was a shoo-in.
So why the 'A-' if I've got such a film-boner for this? Well, the two leads (DiCaprio and Damon) aren't bad actors in their own right, they just seem a little outta place here. Damon has the look, but his 'Bawstawn Aggcent' seems a little forced. As for Leo.. Well, he's got what Camille Paglia called, "Young Lesbian Good Looks" which kinda makes him look like Michael J. Pollard as time goes on. (He was really miscast in Scorsese's 'The Aviator', I think.) Finally, Marty... What's with that 'signature shot' of yours where you fade the frame to a single spot on a 'significant' object? It's getting as overused as that 'Spike Lee' bit where he has the actor stand on a dolly and shoot him from a worm's eye view like he's running? Marty, Marty, Marty...
T.V. On The Radio -Return to Cookie Mountain (A+) Here's the thing: I'm not wired to write about music, mainly 'cause I'm as liable as any Robert Christgau-wannabe at Rolling Stone to fall into using 'stock' phrases like 'throbbing bass lines' and 'dark, foreboding melodies'. Secondly, my taste in music is all over the place. (f'r instance, I've got 'Sister Golden Hair' by America in heavy rotation on my Ipod...) Yet this is the best new album that I've heard in such a long time that I can't not mention it. So, here goes...
The main thing about this music that excites me is how it points to uncharted territory in pop music. It's certainly accessible, and everyone involved in this has the technical chops to pull it off. But how to describe it? Would 'Bauhaus(thanks, Lee)meets-trip-hop-meets-Ornette-Coleman-meets-Detroit-rock-meets-Jazz-fusion' work? Yeah, OK. If I described it as 'darkly optimistic', would that do it? Sure. Can I say that T.V on The Radio is so original, that while this album is undoubtedly going to be name-checked as an influence on future artists, these guys have set the bar so high that they're going to be the only ones in their own category for a long, long time? Uh, what the hell. And finally, can I say that I've still not managed to successfully illuminate for you what 'Return to Cookie Mountain' does for me?
Yeah.
Wednesday, February 14, 2007
I Preview the Previews So's You Don't Have To...
First up, 300, by Zack Snyder, based on the Frank Miller graphic novel. (uh, can we go back to calling them 'comic books' , now? Please?)
Aw, Dood! This looks SO FREAKIN' COOL!! There's like, war rhinos and ugly dudes with chains in their nose, and -aw, this is like a Frank Frazetta painting come to life! You know, like 'The Death Dealer', which was used for the cover of that one "Thin Lizzy" album? Maybe I'm thinking of 'Nazareth's' 'Expect No Mercy'? Anyway, the Spartans are these beefy dudes with six-pack abs, which I could totally have if I got back into doing sit-ups and crunches but anyways then there's a scene where some Arab Urka-Durka dude hisses, "Our arrows will blot out the sun!" and some Spartan Justin Timberlake says "Then we will fight in the shade!" and that's what's known as "Laconic Humor". Then Gerald Butler screams and they digitally remove the spittle flying from his beard. Oh, and NIN is on the soundtrack.
If you see this movie, you are gay. Or a fat-ass secretary who's got a 'hunky fireman' calendar hanging in her work cubicle. Or a comic geek. Or - Ah, who'm I trying to kid? I'm gonna go see it like every one else...
Next, The Astronaut Farmer.
So, Billy Bob Thorton is this quiet, laconic (Hee) farmer, and he's building a rocket to launch into orbit in his back 40, and his wife looks on in loving indulgence, and his kids look up to him with stars in their eyes, (double-hee) and those mean old FBI and NASA guys wanna stop him, and the bank's gonna foreclose on his land and Jay Leno cracks a joke. And the whole trailer is one long bathetic spiel about how it's great to have a dream, no matter how 'zany', and how this is America and you can reach for the stars, and how the laconic farmer zings the NASA guys when they ask him how they can't be sure he isn't building a WMD and he says, 'cause if he was, they wouldn't have found it! Oh, snap! At the end of the trailer, we see his satisfied look as the sun shines on his spacesuit visor, so obviously, he made it, so now you don't need to see the movie.
What would've been awesome if there's the final countdown, and his family is in the yard watching him prepare to liftoff, and "3...2...1..Blastoff-BOOOM! AAAGH! OH, MY GOD! I'M ON FIRE! I'M ON FIRE! AIEEEE! WE'RE ALL ON FIRE! MY BABIES! MY BABIES! DADDEEEE! NOOOOOOOOO!" Then the next scene has the FBI and NASA guys sadly collecting all the debris and charred flesh the next day, and the lead NASA guy shakes his head and says, "And this is why space flight should be left to professional aerospace engineers who've spent years studying this sort of thing!"
And that's one to grow on.
Michael Bay's The Transformers
Such is my outrage at Hollywood's lack of creative vision that they release a big-budget version of a half-hour commercial for a series of 80's toys... that I will wait until the weekend after the one it is released before I go see it...
And finally, Across The Universe (Sorry, no poster...)
Director Julie Traylor (Titus) uses Beatles songs to map that turbulent era, the 60's, amongst a group of young people. Moulin Rouge meets Forest Gump, if you will. The lead character is named Jude, like "Hey, Jude", and his girl is called, Rita as in "Lovely Rita, Metermaid", and so on. No doubt there's a skeevy drug dealer called, "The Eggman", and some snooty Chelsea girl named Prudence shows off the "Norwegian Wood" in her flat, and there's a groovy club called, "The Octopus' Garden", and Jude gets a job as a "Paperback Writer", and Rita is "Leaving Home" and then Jude's best friend is in the throes of a heroin addiction and he asks Jude for "Help"...and then they...and then...and...then...and..and...
Watch for the sequel, "March of The Pigs", where a bunch of disaffected young Chicagoans come together during that turbulent era, the 90's, united by the music of Nine Inch Nails and- oh, for fuck sakes...
Friday, February 9, 2007
Fame Saturation
(After my tirade, I would like to bring you all the world premiere of the very first Anna Nicole Smith Joke Ever...)
When asked by a reporter what she wore to bed, Marilyn Monroe responded, "Chanel No. 5"
So the weird thing about Anna Nicole Smith's timely death, (and, really, who didn't see that coming?) is the bewildered outpouring of commentary from the news media. Usually, when a public figure passes on, there's a respectful commentary on the person's life, and the accomplishments they have achieved that put them into the spotlight. Indeed, in the case of Princess Diana, it was if the news was trying to make me upset that my own mother had suddenly passed on. In Anna Nicole Smith's case, it looked like the news was hoisted by its own petard. You'd get the somber information, told in a respectful tone, then abruptly, when they tried to recap her life achievements, wandered into a equivocal swamp. Imagine, if you will, the grim scene around the desk at CNN...
"How the hell can we put any type of spin on this? Outside of showing off her titties and being a gold digger, what ever did this bimbo accomplish in her life? Aw, man, nothing we say is not gonna come across as a gloat! Jeez, you know some divorced thirty-something female newscaster in one of our red-state affiliates is gonna have some snide comment shoot out of her mouth.."
Well, you know what a Pollyanna I am, and how I always manage to find the silver lining in every cloud... If the U.S. wants to invade Iran, now's the time to do it! Imagine the flood of relief on that senator's face (you know, the one that was under investigation for allegedly killing an intern.) when 9/11 happened.
Here's the thing about being famous for being famous: In the basic, fundamental sense of the word, no one really gives a shit about you. Even a borderline retard like Smith knew it, which is why she kept scrabbling at the spotlight with the same level of desperation that a drowning man grabs for a floating hunk of wood. And, man, 'famous for being famous' seems to be at an all time high these days, isn't it? Britney Spears, Lindsey Lohan, Courtney Love... and Paris Fucking Hilton. Didn't fame used to mean something at some point? You'd achieve a consistent level of excellence in your field, a position you'd achieve after years and years of dedication and sacrifice in achieving your goals, and after you died, darker aspects of your person would come out, like your kids would say, "Sure, they were a brilliant politician/actor/musician/sportsman, but at the cost of their personal happiness", thus underlining the high maintenance cost that excellence brings with it.
On the plus side, you just know Paris Hilton is, at this very moment, pumping her fist, yelling "whoo-hoo", and making mean comments to everyone she knows. "Oh, I'm so glad that fat bitch keeled over!" And next week, she'll be at the funeral, wiping fake tears from her eyes. Oh, shit, Anna's funeral, I almost forgot! What do you wanna bet two days after the service, Florida police catch a couple of creepy troll guys who try to dig up her grave so's they can have sex with her corpse? Isn't that oddly appropriate?
And here's Fame's reward, in a nutshell: You get to go into a club that most people can't get into, no matter what, and you get to go behind the velvet rope into the V.I.P room where loud, shitty dance music is playing, and you get to drink watered down $50 vodka martinis, and you stand around with a bunch of other 'famous' people, and make small talk (well, try to; that music's pretty loud). After a few hours, you head on home, bored, drunk, stoned, and depressed. If you go home with someone, the sex is perfunctory and joyless, and you wind up sitting on the edge of the bed, emotionlessly watching the t.v. And there you are on E! news! "So-and-so was at the exclusive Bla-bla club tonight! They came in with this famous person, and left with this other famous person! Is a romantic battle-royale in the future for this unhappy menage-a-trois? Stay tuned!"
And that's it! That's your big reward! It's all downhill from here, baby! From here on in, it's lawsuits, divorce hearings, drug and booze addictions, bankruptcy court, doing humiliating info-mercials to pay your legal fees, public outbursts, arrests, suspended sentences, rehab, 30-day jail time, and so on and so on until your nude, bloated body is found in an alley covered in blood, vomit, and love fluids. And the first person to discover you has taken your watch. "This'll fetch quite a sum on e-bay!"
The upside: I can hardly wait for when Paris Hilton is found dead! (in about eighteen months) Aww, her post-mortem coverage is gonna make Anna's look like the Pope's! By that time, CNN, ABC, CBS, MSNBC and everyone else is just gonna give up on the 'respect' angle...
"STUPID, CALLOUS, WORTHLESS HEIRESS FOUND NUDE, FAT, DEAD." "Um, looks like 'famed' Hilton heiress Paris Hilton choked to death on someone else's vomit last night. But not before she slipped on a puke trail in her bathroom, and broke her neck landing face first into her toilet bowl. Then her pet dog ate her calf muscle. It was an eerie similarity to the death of '30's actress Lupe Lopez except for one humiliating detail. Earlier that night, she had tried masturbating in her intoxicated state with an empty Cristal champagne bottle. Paramedics on the scene found the bottle sticking out of her genitals upon discovery of her corpse. The bottle was later sold on E-Bay for cool six figures to a Las Vegas-based online casino. Ah, fuggit.
We're done here."
So, what did Anna Nicole Smith wear to bed? Her own diet-pill-and-booze-and-drug laden vomit, obviously...
When asked by a reporter what she wore to bed, Marilyn Monroe responded, "Chanel No. 5"
So the weird thing about Anna Nicole Smith's timely death, (and, really, who didn't see that coming?) is the bewildered outpouring of commentary from the news media. Usually, when a public figure passes on, there's a respectful commentary on the person's life, and the accomplishments they have achieved that put them into the spotlight. Indeed, in the case of Princess Diana, it was if the news was trying to make me upset that my own mother had suddenly passed on. In Anna Nicole Smith's case, it looked like the news was hoisted by its own petard. You'd get the somber information, told in a respectful tone, then abruptly, when they tried to recap her life achievements, wandered into a equivocal swamp. Imagine, if you will, the grim scene around the desk at CNN...
"How the hell can we put any type of spin on this? Outside of showing off her titties and being a gold digger, what ever did this bimbo accomplish in her life? Aw, man, nothing we say is not gonna come across as a gloat! Jeez, you know some divorced thirty-something female newscaster in one of our red-state affiliates is gonna have some snide comment shoot out of her mouth.."
Well, you know what a Pollyanna I am, and how I always manage to find the silver lining in every cloud... If the U.S. wants to invade Iran, now's the time to do it! Imagine the flood of relief on that senator's face (you know, the one that was under investigation for allegedly killing an intern.) when 9/11 happened.
Here's the thing about being famous for being famous: In the basic, fundamental sense of the word, no one really gives a shit about you. Even a borderline retard like Smith knew it, which is why she kept scrabbling at the spotlight with the same level of desperation that a drowning man grabs for a floating hunk of wood. And, man, 'famous for being famous' seems to be at an all time high these days, isn't it? Britney Spears, Lindsey Lohan, Courtney Love... and Paris Fucking Hilton. Didn't fame used to mean something at some point? You'd achieve a consistent level of excellence in your field, a position you'd achieve after years and years of dedication and sacrifice in achieving your goals, and after you died, darker aspects of your person would come out, like your kids would say, "Sure, they were a brilliant politician/actor/musician/sportsman, but at the cost of their personal happiness", thus underlining the high maintenance cost that excellence brings with it.
On the plus side, you just know Paris Hilton is, at this very moment, pumping her fist, yelling "whoo-hoo", and making mean comments to everyone she knows. "Oh, I'm so glad that fat bitch keeled over!" And next week, she'll be at the funeral, wiping fake tears from her eyes. Oh, shit, Anna's funeral, I almost forgot! What do you wanna bet two days after the service, Florida police catch a couple of creepy troll guys who try to dig up her grave so's they can have sex with her corpse? Isn't that oddly appropriate?
And here's Fame's reward, in a nutshell: You get to go into a club that most people can't get into, no matter what, and you get to go behind the velvet rope into the V.I.P room where loud, shitty dance music is playing, and you get to drink watered down $50 vodka martinis, and you stand around with a bunch of other 'famous' people, and make small talk (well, try to; that music's pretty loud). After a few hours, you head on home, bored, drunk, stoned, and depressed. If you go home with someone, the sex is perfunctory and joyless, and you wind up sitting on the edge of the bed, emotionlessly watching the t.v. And there you are on E! news! "So-and-so was at the exclusive Bla-bla club tonight! They came in with this famous person, and left with this other famous person! Is a romantic battle-royale in the future for this unhappy menage-a-trois? Stay tuned!"
And that's it! That's your big reward! It's all downhill from here, baby! From here on in, it's lawsuits, divorce hearings, drug and booze addictions, bankruptcy court, doing humiliating info-mercials to pay your legal fees, public outbursts, arrests, suspended sentences, rehab, 30-day jail time, and so on and so on until your nude, bloated body is found in an alley covered in blood, vomit, and love fluids. And the first person to discover you has taken your watch. "This'll fetch quite a sum on e-bay!"
The upside: I can hardly wait for when Paris Hilton is found dead! (in about eighteen months) Aww, her post-mortem coverage is gonna make Anna's look like the Pope's! By that time, CNN, ABC, CBS, MSNBC and everyone else is just gonna give up on the 'respect' angle...
"STUPID, CALLOUS, WORTHLESS HEIRESS FOUND NUDE, FAT, DEAD." "Um, looks like 'famed' Hilton heiress Paris Hilton choked to death on someone else's vomit last night. But not before she slipped on a puke trail in her bathroom, and broke her neck landing face first into her toilet bowl. Then her pet dog ate her calf muscle. It was an eerie similarity to the death of '30's actress Lupe Lopez except for one humiliating detail. Earlier that night, she had tried masturbating in her intoxicated state with an empty Cristal champagne bottle. Paramedics on the scene found the bottle sticking out of her genitals upon discovery of her corpse. The bottle was later sold on E-Bay for cool six figures to a Las Vegas-based online casino. Ah, fuggit.
We're done here."
So, what did Anna Nicole Smith wear to bed? Her own diet-pill-and-booze-and-drug laden vomit, obviously...
Thursday, February 8, 2007
Steve LeCoulliard's Favorite 'Hippie' Jokes...
So these two hippies were lying on the floor of their filthy, garbage-strewn hovel, staring at the stained ceiling. They were in the middle of one of their 'acid trips', wherein they 'drop' L.S.D. and 'drop out' for a period of several hours. After lying near-comatose for a while, the first hippie spoke up. "Hey, man. I've got a million-dollar idea!". The second one responded, "That's nice, man." Then he proceeded to dig a pea-sized 'booger' out from his nostril and flick it into a nearby bag of rotting detritus.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
One night during our evening family prayers, my precocious son asked me, "Daddy, should I even bother praying for all the hippies?"
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
As he watched the space shuttle roar off the Cape Canaveral launch pad into the sky, the hippie was heard to utter, "Far out, man." Little did his drug addled mind realize the truth of his statement.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
During my tour of duty in the Canadian military, I was sent to Africa on a humanitarian mission by the U.N, delivering food and medicine to a famine stricken village. On our arrival, the village chieftain approached our cargo plane cautiously, then, seeing our blue and white U.N. helmets, smiled warmly and greeted us.
"Oh, thank goodness!", he exclaimed. "For a moment there, I thought you were dirty Peace Corps hippies!"
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
As the nude hippie was loaded into the waiting police van, he was heard to remark to the disgruntled officers of the law, "I'm not naked, man! It's your society that's naked, man!"
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Q: What do you call a VW van full of hippies veering off a treacherous stretch of the Coquahalla highway into the jagged rocks of the distant ravine below? (I should add that the driver was 'high' on marijuana...)
A: A good start!
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
On a walk through Stanley Park, I was accosted by a long-haired fellow who seemed to be in kind of a haze. "Excuse me, man." he stammered. "Is this Haight-Ashbury street in 'Frisco?"
I tartly replied, "No, foolish hippie, this is Vancouver! We 'hate' Ashbury!"
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Encountering some stoned hippies on his way home from school, the clever young scholar was heard to remark, "Learning is MY heroin!"
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"I can fly! Fly, man, fly!" cried the hippie as he jumped off the roof of the building. Since he was not a bird, but point of fact, a hippie on a drug trip, it turned out he could not.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Our family dog, Daisy, slinked into the kitchen, smelling of patchouli oil. "Honey!", I sighed, alerting my wife. "Better get out the tomato juice. Daisy's been down to the hippie commune again!"
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"No, as a matter of fact, I do not have any 'spare change' on me!", I snarled to the unkempt young man standing before me with his outstretched hand. "Furthermore, I know full well, young man, that you will only use my hard-earned coin to purchase 'reefer' which you will smoke up, then proceed to sit in the park playing bongos. Also, you will fritter the day away in a non-productive manner, juggling sticks, hassling other upstanding citizens for money, keeping your ferret named 'Frodo' on a leash about your neck, regaling your fellow hippies with tales of drugs that you have ingested, attempting to seduce fifteen year old runaways named Dawn, and finally heading home, which in your case consists of a filthy, bong-water stained bare mattress in a basement suite that you share with five other hippies!"
"My ferret's named, "Gandalf", actually." muttered the dejected hippie as he shuffled off.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Two hippies in the depths of a drug haze sat crosslegged in front of an ancient air vent generator, mistaking its rhythmic wheezing and coughing for an outdoor music festival. Suddenly, one of them jerked up with a start from his nodding reverie.
"Aw, man.", he exclaimed. "Isn't this the Phish concert?"
"No, man.", said the second one. "I thought it was a Grateful Dead concert."
The first one slowly got up, gathering his satchel and blanket. Shaking his head, and teary-eyed, he sighed, "Jerry Berry's dead, man. He's dead."
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
One afternoon, I was enjoying a brunch on the patio of a bistro that I frequent. My repast was suddenly interrupted by the sight of an outstretched hand near the bistro's fence. A shaggy, filthy, ragged beggar was on the other side of the fence. He spoke in a cracked, tremulous voice.
"Listen, guy. I ain't gonna lie to you. I'm a homeless alcoholic. I swear if you give me some change, I'll spend it only on cheap booze, not drugs. I may be a bum, but I ain't no hippie bum!"
Moved by his forthrightness, I responded the only way possible.
"No.", I smiled. "No. Go away." Then I returned to my lobster salad.
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Have you seen the title of that leftist hippie Noam Chomsky's latest book? It's entitled, "Everyone's Looking At Me Funny."
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
During the recent WTO demonstration, a hirsute protester was seen attempting to stick a flower down the barrel of the shotgun of one of the dedicated police officers assigned to provide riot control. The protester's poignant gesture, however, was for naught, as the officer's gun 'accidentally' discharged, blowing the naive young man's head open like a ripe casaba melon! His blood, bone, and brain fragments spattered the surprised hippie crowd!
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
While passing through the airport, a travelling hippie caught the eye of a tax-paying man with his family. The man chuckled, then said to his wife, "Haw,haw! I can't tell if it's a boy or a girl!" Infuriated, the hippie turned to the man and exclaimed, "Hey, man! Why don't you suck my dick and find out-". Just then, the alert airport security police mistook the hippie for a member of Al-Queda, battered him to unconsciousness, and the hippie was sent to Guantanamo Bay for 'interrogation', where his 'smart-ass' remarks were not considered particularly amusing by the brave U.S. Marines who safeguard our freedoms.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(postscript: I'm sorry. I cannot keep up this facade. Steve LeCoulliard is a kind, generous-hearted man who had nothing whatsoever to do with this slanderous post. He is in fact, a considerate and compassionate human being who's depth of spirit extends to all mankind, even hippies. I, on the other hand, am a horrible, horrible creature who, if there was any justice in our world, would be stuck in a bamboo cage and exhibited to people, if they wished to pay a token fee of a nickel, who could poke me with a stick. Once again, I am truly sorry...)
(but I hate hippies.)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
One night during our evening family prayers, my precocious son asked me, "Daddy, should I even bother praying for all the hippies?"
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
As he watched the space shuttle roar off the Cape Canaveral launch pad into the sky, the hippie was heard to utter, "Far out, man." Little did his drug addled mind realize the truth of his statement.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
During my tour of duty in the Canadian military, I was sent to Africa on a humanitarian mission by the U.N, delivering food and medicine to a famine stricken village. On our arrival, the village chieftain approached our cargo plane cautiously, then, seeing our blue and white U.N. helmets, smiled warmly and greeted us.
"Oh, thank goodness!", he exclaimed. "For a moment there, I thought you were dirty Peace Corps hippies!"
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
As the nude hippie was loaded into the waiting police van, he was heard to remark to the disgruntled officers of the law, "I'm not naked, man! It's your society that's naked, man!"
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Q: What do you call a VW van full of hippies veering off a treacherous stretch of the Coquahalla highway into the jagged rocks of the distant ravine below? (I should add that the driver was 'high' on marijuana...)
A: A good start!
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
On a walk through Stanley Park, I was accosted by a long-haired fellow who seemed to be in kind of a haze. "Excuse me, man." he stammered. "Is this Haight-Ashbury street in 'Frisco?"
I tartly replied, "No, foolish hippie, this is Vancouver! We 'hate' Ashbury!"
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Encountering some stoned hippies on his way home from school, the clever young scholar was heard to remark, "Learning is MY heroin!"
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"I can fly! Fly, man, fly!" cried the hippie as he jumped off the roof of the building. Since he was not a bird, but point of fact, a hippie on a drug trip, it turned out he could not.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Our family dog, Daisy, slinked into the kitchen, smelling of patchouli oil. "Honey!", I sighed, alerting my wife. "Better get out the tomato juice. Daisy's been down to the hippie commune again!"
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"No, as a matter of fact, I do not have any 'spare change' on me!", I snarled to the unkempt young man standing before me with his outstretched hand. "Furthermore, I know full well, young man, that you will only use my hard-earned coin to purchase 'reefer' which you will smoke up, then proceed to sit in the park playing bongos. Also, you will fritter the day away in a non-productive manner, juggling sticks, hassling other upstanding citizens for money, keeping your ferret named 'Frodo' on a leash about your neck, regaling your fellow hippies with tales of drugs that you have ingested, attempting to seduce fifteen year old runaways named Dawn, and finally heading home, which in your case consists of a filthy, bong-water stained bare mattress in a basement suite that you share with five other hippies!"
"My ferret's named, "Gandalf", actually." muttered the dejected hippie as he shuffled off.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Two hippies in the depths of a drug haze sat crosslegged in front of an ancient air vent generator, mistaking its rhythmic wheezing and coughing for an outdoor music festival. Suddenly, one of them jerked up with a start from his nodding reverie.
"Aw, man.", he exclaimed. "Isn't this the Phish concert?"
"No, man.", said the second one. "I thought it was a Grateful Dead concert."
The first one slowly got up, gathering his satchel and blanket. Shaking his head, and teary-eyed, he sighed, "Jerry Berry's dead, man. He's dead."
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
One afternoon, I was enjoying a brunch on the patio of a bistro that I frequent. My repast was suddenly interrupted by the sight of an outstretched hand near the bistro's fence. A shaggy, filthy, ragged beggar was on the other side of the fence. He spoke in a cracked, tremulous voice.
"Listen, guy. I ain't gonna lie to you. I'm a homeless alcoholic. I swear if you give me some change, I'll spend it only on cheap booze, not drugs. I may be a bum, but I ain't no hippie bum!"
Moved by his forthrightness, I responded the only way possible.
"No.", I smiled. "No. Go away." Then I returned to my lobster salad.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Have you seen the title of that leftist hippie Noam Chomsky's latest book? It's entitled, "Everyone's Looking At Me Funny."
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
During the recent WTO demonstration, a hirsute protester was seen attempting to stick a flower down the barrel of the shotgun of one of the dedicated police officers assigned to provide riot control. The protester's poignant gesture, however, was for naught, as the officer's gun 'accidentally' discharged, blowing the naive young man's head open like a ripe casaba melon! His blood, bone, and brain fragments spattered the surprised hippie crowd!
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
While passing through the airport, a travelling hippie caught the eye of a tax-paying man with his family. The man chuckled, then said to his wife, "Haw,haw! I can't tell if it's a boy or a girl!" Infuriated, the hippie turned to the man and exclaimed, "Hey, man! Why don't you suck my dick and find out-". Just then, the alert airport security police mistook the hippie for a member of Al-Queda, battered him to unconsciousness, and the hippie was sent to Guantanamo Bay for 'interrogation', where his 'smart-ass' remarks were not considered particularly amusing by the brave U.S. Marines who safeguard our freedoms.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(postscript: I'm sorry. I cannot keep up this facade. Steve LeCoulliard is a kind, generous-hearted man who had nothing whatsoever to do with this slanderous post. He is in fact, a considerate and compassionate human being who's depth of spirit extends to all mankind, even hippies. I, on the other hand, am a horrible, horrible creature who, if there was any justice in our world, would be stuck in a bamboo cage and exhibited to people, if they wished to pay a token fee of a nickel, who could poke me with a stick. Once again, I am truly sorry...)
(but I hate hippies.)
Wednesday, February 7, 2007
My Gums Are Bleeding...
Crank (D+) There's a recent subgenre of action film that's emerged; the Red Bull-ADD cinema. It's founder is Tony Scott; the brother of Ridley. When given a good script like, say, True Romance, we get a fairly enjoyable 90 minutes of distraction. Most of the time, (Domino, Top Gun), we get a headache from his work.
His offspring, as it were, make films like the Fast and Furious franchise, XXX, Charlie's Angels, and stuff like this. How appropriate that it is called 'Crank', as that is the illicit narcotic agent that everyone involved in this, from co-directors/writers Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor, to the lowliest p.a. ('Paco' Jimenez, who's job it was to fetch everyone Red Bull and 'X-treme' brand corn chips) were on. This type of film has, along with its trademark hyper-quick cuts of people running and fighting everywhere, over-saturated film stock, non-sequitor shots of old Asian women staring blankly at the proceedings, and a jittery, over-cranked film speed. In the director's commentary, or promos for the film, the principals involved will, inevitably, sheepishly defend their offering with a shrug and a 'yeah-it's-pop-trash-lowest-denominator-cheap-entertainment-but-we-gots-PAID,NIGGA!' tone. Just to show us that, yeah, it's crap, they know they're turning out crap, but they're really swell, fun-loving 'duuude's' at heart, and if I was to smoke a bowl with 'em, we would have a laugh and play 'Gears of War' on the X-box 360 together.
So lemme just fire up a hit of crystal methamphetamine here, (or "Kat", as the young people call it.) and describe it to you...
*FLICK*HOOOOOT*INHALE********PHWAAAAAAAAA*****
Okay, so there's this hitman named Chev Chelios(Jason Statham) who wakes up in his sweet crib and finds a DVD with the words, 'fuck you' written on it, so he plays it and it turns out this rival hitman named Verona (Jose Pablo Cantillo, playing tough guy hitman like a junior high school student would) injected some 'Chinese shit' into him which will kill him if Chev's heart rate slows down. Sorta like 'speed' only Chelios is the bus. Got it? So Chelios spends the next 90 minutes running all over Los Angles tracking down Verona while trying to keep up his heart rate by snorting cocaine, fightin' gangsta's, wrecking his car, drinkin' Red Bull (did they pay for product placement-mmm. Red Bull. Now I'm thirsty. *GLUG*GLUG*GLUG*GLUG* Ahhhh.)takin' cabs-and what better way to pump up your heart rate than to take a cab in Los Angeles? Oh, and he fucks his girlfriend (Amy Stuart) in the middle of Chinatown while Asian women look on po-faced. Did I call it or what? Then he chops off Verona's brother's hand while he's talking to a gay guy who's tracking down Verona for him, and he throws the severed hand at the gay guy, and he says, (are you ready? Get this...) "Need a hand?" AHHAHAHAHAHAHA! Oh, man, I did not see that line coming, I tell you what! Okay, I'm gonna take apart and put back together this bicycle I 'found' here...Ok, where were we? Right, so Chelios finds Verona in this hotel penthouse where hot chicks in bikinis lie around in plastic spheres and turns out Chelios' and Verona's boss put the hit on Chelios 'cuz Chelios put the hit on this little old Chinese guy only Chelios didn't kill him cuz Chelios was trying to get out of the hitman life on account of his dumb girlfriend, whom he told to that his job was video game programmer. Hello? I never met a video game programmer who was as cool as Chelios. She coulda seen something was amiss. Boy, is she stupid. I wish my girlfriend would fuck me in public. Anyway, the Chinese guy brings a bunch of his hitmen over and there's a big shoot out on the roof of the penthouse, and Verona gets a coupla fingers shot off. (Chelios should said, "I FINGER you had it coming!" or something like that.) Then a helicopter comes and tries to take the kingpin guy off, but Verona shoots him and tosses him out, and just as the chopper takes off Chelios grabs Verona and they're all of a sudden five miles in the air and Chelios pulls Verona out of the chopper and rips his throat out and oh yeah, Verona shot up Chelios with the 'Chinese shit' again before that, you know, the stuff that didn't kill him earlier, and Dwight Yoakam plays Chelios' doctor, who tells him that he's, you know, fucked, cuz the 'Chinese shit' bonds with your blood or something. My skin itches. And then, Chelios is falling out of the chopper, but he has time to call his girlfriend, wait for her answering machine, and leave a message of heartfelt love for her, even though she's got the I.Q. of a radish, and it takes about five minutes for him to hit the pavement,(well, he bounces off a car, then hits the pavement) so was the chopper, like, orbiting the earth or something? My butt hurts. Chelios dies, the credits roll, and then we get an 'easter egg' shot of the movie played out like a arcade game, and it says 'game over' at the end. Hey, why is my nose bleeding?...
His offspring, as it were, make films like the Fast and Furious franchise, XXX, Charlie's Angels, and stuff like this. How appropriate that it is called 'Crank', as that is the illicit narcotic agent that everyone involved in this, from co-directors/writers Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor, to the lowliest p.a. ('Paco' Jimenez, who's job it was to fetch everyone Red Bull and 'X-treme' brand corn chips) were on. This type of film has, along with its trademark hyper-quick cuts of people running and fighting everywhere, over-saturated film stock, non-sequitor shots of old Asian women staring blankly at the proceedings, and a jittery, over-cranked film speed. In the director's commentary, or promos for the film, the principals involved will, inevitably, sheepishly defend their offering with a shrug and a 'yeah-it's-pop-trash-lowest-denominator-cheap-entertainment-but-we-gots-PAID,NIGGA!' tone. Just to show us that, yeah, it's crap, they know they're turning out crap, but they're really swell, fun-loving 'duuude's' at heart, and if I was to smoke a bowl with 'em, we would have a laugh and play 'Gears of War' on the X-box 360 together.
So lemme just fire up a hit of crystal methamphetamine here, (or "Kat", as the young people call it.) and describe it to you...
*FLICK*HOOOOOT*INHALE********PHWAAAAAAAAA*****
Okay, so there's this hitman named Chev Chelios(Jason Statham) who wakes up in his sweet crib and finds a DVD with the words, 'fuck you' written on it, so he plays it and it turns out this rival hitman named Verona (Jose Pablo Cantillo, playing tough guy hitman like a junior high school student would) injected some 'Chinese shit' into him which will kill him if Chev's heart rate slows down. Sorta like 'speed' only Chelios is the bus. Got it? So Chelios spends the next 90 minutes running all over Los Angles tracking down Verona while trying to keep up his heart rate by snorting cocaine, fightin' gangsta's, wrecking his car, drinkin' Red Bull (did they pay for product placement-mmm. Red Bull. Now I'm thirsty. *GLUG*GLUG*GLUG*GLUG* Ahhhh.)takin' cabs-and what better way to pump up your heart rate than to take a cab in Los Angeles? Oh, and he fucks his girlfriend (Amy Stuart) in the middle of Chinatown while Asian women look on po-faced. Did I call it or what? Then he chops off Verona's brother's hand while he's talking to a gay guy who's tracking down Verona for him, and he throws the severed hand at the gay guy, and he says, (are you ready? Get this...) "Need a hand?" AHHAHAHAHAHAHA! Oh, man, I did not see that line coming, I tell you what! Okay, I'm gonna take apart and put back together this bicycle I 'found' here...Ok, where were we? Right, so Chelios finds Verona in this hotel penthouse where hot chicks in bikinis lie around in plastic spheres and turns out Chelios' and Verona's boss put the hit on Chelios 'cuz Chelios put the hit on this little old Chinese guy only Chelios didn't kill him cuz Chelios was trying to get out of the hitman life on account of his dumb girlfriend, whom he told to that his job was video game programmer. Hello? I never met a video game programmer who was as cool as Chelios. She coulda seen something was amiss. Boy, is she stupid. I wish my girlfriend would fuck me in public. Anyway, the Chinese guy brings a bunch of his hitmen over and there's a big shoot out on the roof of the penthouse, and Verona gets a coupla fingers shot off. (Chelios should said, "I FINGER you had it coming!" or something like that.) Then a helicopter comes and tries to take the kingpin guy off, but Verona shoots him and tosses him out, and just as the chopper takes off Chelios grabs Verona and they're all of a sudden five miles in the air and Chelios pulls Verona out of the chopper and rips his throat out and oh yeah, Verona shot up Chelios with the 'Chinese shit' again before that, you know, the stuff that didn't kill him earlier, and Dwight Yoakam plays Chelios' doctor, who tells him that he's, you know, fucked, cuz the 'Chinese shit' bonds with your blood or something. My skin itches. And then, Chelios is falling out of the chopper, but he has time to call his girlfriend, wait for her answering machine, and leave a message of heartfelt love for her, even though she's got the I.Q. of a radish, and it takes about five minutes for him to hit the pavement,(well, he bounces off a car, then hits the pavement) so was the chopper, like, orbiting the earth or something? My butt hurts. Chelios dies, the credits roll, and then we get an 'easter egg' shot of the movie played out like a arcade game, and it says 'game over' at the end. Hey, why is my nose bleeding?...
Monday, February 5, 2007
#5 on my Top Ten Film list
While coming up with the first five was a snap, (to recap: Seven Samurai, Dr. Strangelove, Silence of the Lambs, Pulp Fiction, and this 'un below, The Producers) I've got a list on my hard drive of about, no joke, twenty other movies duking it out for the next five. I've spent the past few months going over them in my head trying to narrow down the criteria I'd let a film onto my list. So far, my personal judgement for these films is: "I can sit down and watch it any time and it'll still hold my attention" and "I get something new out of it every time I watch it" as well as "It's entertaining" and "It's well written" and even "It's beautifully shot". Later, I should make a list of some of the also-rans; the films that I like but aren't going to make the list for whatever reason.
For instance, all the films of Jean Renoir ("WRENWAAAIR!")that I've seen are damn fine, but I'm gonna have to see Rules of The Game again pretty soon to decide. Also, I've noticed that as I get older, my tastes change. (Wow! You too? Do you like pizza, also?) Like, sci-fi action films like "The Matrix" and "Aliens" may have made the list before, but now I'd put 'em on the 'also-ran' category. And that's a topic for further discussion. So, here we go...
5)The Producers- This is, by far, the funniest comedy I've ever seen. It's funny because the premise is so good; a down-on-his-luck Broadway producer and a schulb accountant team up to produce a musical so deliberately awful that it closes on opening night. The rationale for this is that if the producer can oversell the shares in the play and make money on the front end, a flop will entitle him to not pay off his backers. My understanding is that writer/director Mel Brooks actually worked with a producer who did this, albeit on a smaller scale. On a personal note, I myself was involved in a company which kept sucking money from investors for years, and never put anything out while I was there. My pet name for it was "Bialystock and Bloom, Video Game Producers". So it's not as far-fetched a premise as you'd think.
Zero Mostel plays the washed-up producer, Max Bialystock and Gene Wilder plays Leo Bloom, the mousy accountant. While Mostel mugs up his role a bit, (Hell, it's Zero Mostel, when does he NOT mug?) they're both perfectly cast. It's because they're both so fundamentally good-hearted that it's a pleasure seeing Bialystock play Memphisto to poor Leo's Faust. Note how they both disgustedly spit in the trash can after throwing the Nazi armbands the deranged playwright Franz Leibkind (Kenneth Mars-where'd HE go?) makes them wear after they
get his approval to sign his play.
Actually, Leo and Max, for all their flaws, are the most stable people in the cast. You've got the psycho Nazi playwright Franz; was there any doubt he'd come after Leo and Max with murder in his heart after seeing what they did to his play? ("Vas ist dis 'baby'! Hitler neffer zaid, 'baby'!). Then you've got the so-flaming-he's-plasma-gay director, Roger Du Bris (Christopher Hewitt). Though it was filmed at a time where you'd take gross homosexual stereotypes like this as a matter of course, Brooks' take on it isn't mean-spirited:
Max Bialystock: Roger, did you have a chance to read "Springtime for Hitler?"
Roger De Bris: [emerges from behind a partition wearing a dress] Remarkable, remarkable! A stunning piece of work.
Leo Bloom: [under his breath] Max... he's wearing a dress.
Max Bialystock: No kidding.
Roger De Bris: Did you know, I never knew that the Third Reich meant Germany. I mean it's just drenched with historical goodies like that... Oh dear, you're staring at my dress. I should explain. We are going to the choreographer's ball tonight and there's a prize for the best costume.
Carmen Giya: And we always win!
Roger De Bris: I don't know about tonight. I'm supposed to be the Grand Duchess Anastasia, but I think I look more like Tugboat Annie. What do you think, Mr. Bloom?
Leo Bloom: ...Where do you keep your wallet?
Oh, let's not forget the drugged-out, over-the-hill hippy, L.S.D. (Dick Shawn- and where'd HE go?) Though, to
be honest, Brooks and Shawn's take on 'hippies' isn't as on the nose as say, Broadway producers. It's more like 'Laugh-in's' take on hippies. Still, he steals the show (in more ways than one) starting with his silly song for his audition:
Lorenzo St. DuBois: [singing] And I give a flower to the big fat cop / He takes his club and he beats me up / I give a flower to the garbage man / He stuffs my girl in the garbage can / And I give it to the landlord when the rent comes 'round / He throws it in the toilet and he flush it down / It goes into the sewer / With the yuck runnin' through 'er / And it runs into the river that we drink / Hey, world, YOU STINK!
Groove-ey, maaa-aan.
Anyway, what happens is that in Max and Leo's quest to produce the worst play ever, they inadvertently create a smash comedy that is destined to run on Broadway for a long time, or at least until the various legal teams involved shut it down. ("Where did we go right?" asks a forlorn Max) After an aborted attempt to blow up the theater running the play, ("Don't shoot the dynamite!" exclaims Max. "It might get mad and blow up at us!") our heros end the film in prison, selling 1000% of the shares to their new production, "Prisoners of Love".
While I'm here, I may as well comment on the film version of the musical, starring Nathan Lane as Max and Matthew Broderick as Leo. Not bad, not outstanding. It does clear up some of the inconsistencies of the original. For instance, people who walked out of "Springtime for Hitler" in the first half wouldn't come back for the second part. Getting rid of the 'L.S.D.' character was probably a good idea too, in retrospect. (He does date the first film.) My only real complaint is that like most musicals, they stop the story to perform the musical number, than start up the story again without adding onto it. Also, this is just me, but Uma Thruman's getting a little long in the tooth to play ingenues...
For instance, all the films of Jean Renoir ("WRENWAAAIR!")that I've seen are damn fine, but I'm gonna have to see Rules of The Game again pretty soon to decide. Also, I've noticed that as I get older, my tastes change. (Wow! You too? Do you like pizza, also?) Like, sci-fi action films like "The Matrix" and "Aliens" may have made the list before, but now I'd put 'em on the 'also-ran' category. And that's a topic for further discussion. So, here we go...
5)The Producers- This is, by far, the funniest comedy I've ever seen. It's funny because the premise is so good; a down-on-his-luck Broadway producer and a schulb accountant team up to produce a musical so deliberately awful that it closes on opening night. The rationale for this is that if the producer can oversell the shares in the play and make money on the front end, a flop will entitle him to not pay off his backers. My understanding is that writer/director Mel Brooks actually worked with a producer who did this, albeit on a smaller scale. On a personal note, I myself was involved in a company which kept sucking money from investors for years, and never put anything out while I was there. My pet name for it was "Bialystock and Bloom, Video Game Producers". So it's not as far-fetched a premise as you'd think.
Zero Mostel plays the washed-up producer, Max Bialystock and Gene Wilder plays Leo Bloom, the mousy accountant. While Mostel mugs up his role a bit, (Hell, it's Zero Mostel, when does he NOT mug?) they're both perfectly cast. It's because they're both so fundamentally good-hearted that it's a pleasure seeing Bialystock play Memphisto to poor Leo's Faust. Note how they both disgustedly spit in the trash can after throwing the Nazi armbands the deranged playwright Franz Leibkind (Kenneth Mars-where'd HE go?) makes them wear after they
get his approval to sign his play.
Actually, Leo and Max, for all their flaws, are the most stable people in the cast. You've got the psycho Nazi playwright Franz; was there any doubt he'd come after Leo and Max with murder in his heart after seeing what they did to his play? ("Vas ist dis 'baby'! Hitler neffer zaid, 'baby'!). Then you've got the so-flaming-he's-plasma-gay director, Roger Du Bris (Christopher Hewitt). Though it was filmed at a time where you'd take gross homosexual stereotypes like this as a matter of course, Brooks' take on it isn't mean-spirited:
Max Bialystock: Roger, did you have a chance to read "Springtime for Hitler?"
Roger De Bris: [emerges from behind a partition wearing a dress] Remarkable, remarkable! A stunning piece of work.
Leo Bloom: [under his breath] Max... he's wearing a dress.
Max Bialystock: No kidding.
Roger De Bris: Did you know, I never knew that the Third Reich meant Germany. I mean it's just drenched with historical goodies like that... Oh dear, you're staring at my dress. I should explain. We are going to the choreographer's ball tonight and there's a prize for the best costume.
Carmen Giya: And we always win!
Roger De Bris: I don't know about tonight. I'm supposed to be the Grand Duchess Anastasia, but I think I look more like Tugboat Annie. What do you think, Mr. Bloom?
Leo Bloom: ...Where do you keep your wallet?
Oh, let's not forget the drugged-out, over-the-hill hippy, L.S.D. (Dick Shawn- and where'd HE go?) Though, to
be honest, Brooks and Shawn's take on 'hippies' isn't as on the nose as say, Broadway producers. It's more like 'Laugh-in's' take on hippies. Still, he steals the show (in more ways than one) starting with his silly song for his audition:
Lorenzo St. DuBois: [singing] And I give a flower to the big fat cop / He takes his club and he beats me up / I give a flower to the garbage man / He stuffs my girl in the garbage can / And I give it to the landlord when the rent comes 'round / He throws it in the toilet and he flush it down / It goes into the sewer / With the yuck runnin' through 'er / And it runs into the river that we drink / Hey, world, YOU STINK!
Groove-ey, maaa-aan.
Anyway, what happens is that in Max and Leo's quest to produce the worst play ever, they inadvertently create a smash comedy that is destined to run on Broadway for a long time, or at least until the various legal teams involved shut it down. ("Where did we go right?" asks a forlorn Max) After an aborted attempt to blow up the theater running the play, ("Don't shoot the dynamite!" exclaims Max. "It might get mad and blow up at us!") our heros end the film in prison, selling 1000% of the shares to their new production, "Prisoners of Love".
While I'm here, I may as well comment on the film version of the musical, starring Nathan Lane as Max and Matthew Broderick as Leo. Not bad, not outstanding. It does clear up some of the inconsistencies of the original. For instance, people who walked out of "Springtime for Hitler" in the first half wouldn't come back for the second part. Getting rid of the 'L.S.D.' character was probably a good idea too, in retrospect. (He does date the first film.) My only real complaint is that like most musicals, they stop the story to perform the musical number, than start up the story again without adding onto it. Also, this is just me, but Uma Thruman's getting a little long in the tooth to play ingenues...
Sunday, February 4, 2007
Two Winners so far this Year...
Before I begin my next two reviews, I'd like to bring to your attention the grading system that I'm implementing. (Based on the Onion's A.V. club school grade thingy) I didn't want to put a five-star or four popcorn boxes type thing at the beginning of my blog, but I've noticed that my reviews come across as more ambiguous than I'd prefer, owing to my lack of experience as a writer. This gives me a little more leeway in my reviews so smarter people than me don't go away thinking that I unequivally prefer exploitation trash like "Hostel" over, say, "Silence of the Lambs". I enjoy 'em both, but they occupy different parts in the taste part of my brain.
Pan's Labyrinth-(A) Sugar-free fantasy from Guellermo Del Toro. (Warning: This review has spoilers.) The reason I tend to shy away from most movies in the fantasy genre is because they come across as too sentimental. Look, for instance at The Dark Crystal, Harry Potter, Narnia- you get the idea. We forget that in the original Red Riding Hood, the big bad wolf killed and ate Red Riding Hood. I wonder if it isn't a purely English-speaking convention that our fantasy genre tends to be sugary-sweet with a soft centre? The only creator working in fantasy who even hints at the darker underpinnings of that other world I can think of is Neil Gaiman, and even he isn't immune to bouts of twee. (Yeah, there's Clive Barker, but he seems to have devolved into a Gaiman-lite fantasist...)
Not so with Del Toro. He has an eye for the grotesque and an understanding that living in an inner world carries its own cost. (I want to compare him to Goya, but that comparison's a little forced...) It's set in 1944 Spain, near the end of the Spanish Civil War. A brutal captain in Franco's army has taken his old tailor's widow as his wife. The woman's daughter, Ofelia, is a bright ten year old who retreats into her own personal fantasy world to deal with these abrupt changes in her life. Ultimately, her fantasy life takes over her real life with tragic consequences.
In the context of the movie, I can't say that I blame her. (A while back, I read up a shitload on the Spanish Civil War, curious why there wasn't a lot of fiction about it-besides Hemingway, that is. Turns out it was a fucking depressing pointless bloodbath, historically speaking.) The rebels fighting the army in the nearby woods seem to be hopelessly outnumbered and out-gunned. The captain reveals himself as a brutal, amoral monster. (He's only interested in his pregnant new wife's child, not her or Ofelia.) For a girl like Ofelia, this is a perfect metaphor for a classic fairy tale, which she proceeds to write herself into. A fairy princess, trapped in the world above ground, is tasked by a faun to perform three feats to test her courage. If she passes, she gets to return to her place at the side of her true parents.
Here's where Del Toro really shines. His fantasy setting is both visually rich (almost claustrophobic) and unsettling. He understands how much to show and how much to just suggest an inner world, and stimulate the viewer's imagination. It's a rare case where tragedy (Ofelia's death) brings about a happy ending. (Ofelia's dying thoughts are of the princess reunited with the King and Queen of the fairy underworld.)
Children of Men-(A+) So is there something in Mexico that gives their filmmakers that much of a push to turn out such great films? I mean, the month isn't over yet and already the bar's been set pretty high in terms of high quality film making. Looking at Del Toro's Pan's Labyrinth and Curanon's Children of Men, you'd be inclined to think so, wouldn't you? Consider the spin one can take on Children of Men: "In a world with no children for 18 years... One woman creates life... And only one man can save us all..." Put in the hands of a hack like Joel Schumacher, you can already see the three-legged dog named Lucky and the teary-eyed closeups of the principal cast members, all calculated to move us to tears.
Fortunately, in the more than capable hands of Alfredo Curanon, this sci-fi thriller defies expectations. He crams it with so much detail the first thing I thought upon leaving the theater was, "Damn. Now I gotta get the DVD!" There's a clever subtext in here alluding to totalitarianism not just in the presentation of the prison camp in Bexhill (Notice how the bus we're in shows the midwife being hooded, to a row of dead bodies. I'm not sure, but I think I caught a visual reference to that famous photo of the hooded guy in Abu Ghraib in there as well) but in the dingy London streets in the beginning. Is England truly the last bastion of civilization in this world? I somehow don't think it is... Notice the reference to the death of "Baby Diego", the youngest person in the country, stabbed to death at a take-out, and its comparison to the public grieving of Lady Diana.
Clive Owen (great here) looks appropriatly worn as the activist turned bureaucrat dragged into protecting the young prostitute-turned Madonna. There's a lot of gunfire in this movie, but he doesn't fire off any rounds himself, does he? The danger here is not only from the government forces, but from the rebels wanting to use the mother for their own ends. Owen is in the dark as much as we are, running purely on instinct. In keeping his characters from becoming icons (Owen is as frightened and confused as Kay the reluctant mommy) and keeping the action at documentary level, (the car chase near the beginning is among the best I've seen, as the nine-minute take where we hurry through a combat zone) Curanon's movie hits its mark. Best line:(said during a firefight)
Theo (Owen) "How's the baby?" Kay "ANNOYED!!"
Out of curiosity, who here thought the movie was exactly one minute too long?
Pan's Labyrinth-(A) Sugar-free fantasy from Guellermo Del Toro. (Warning: This review has spoilers.) The reason I tend to shy away from most movies in the fantasy genre is because they come across as too sentimental. Look, for instance at The Dark Crystal, Harry Potter, Narnia- you get the idea. We forget that in the original Red Riding Hood, the big bad wolf killed and ate Red Riding Hood. I wonder if it isn't a purely English-speaking convention that our fantasy genre tends to be sugary-sweet with a soft centre? The only creator working in fantasy who even hints at the darker underpinnings of that other world I can think of is Neil Gaiman, and even he isn't immune to bouts of twee. (Yeah, there's Clive Barker, but he seems to have devolved into a Gaiman-lite fantasist...)
Not so with Del Toro. He has an eye for the grotesque and an understanding that living in an inner world carries its own cost. (I want to compare him to Goya, but that comparison's a little forced...) It's set in 1944 Spain, near the end of the Spanish Civil War. A brutal captain in Franco's army has taken his old tailor's widow as his wife. The woman's daughter, Ofelia, is a bright ten year old who retreats into her own personal fantasy world to deal with these abrupt changes in her life. Ultimately, her fantasy life takes over her real life with tragic consequences.
In the context of the movie, I can't say that I blame her. (A while back, I read up a shitload on the Spanish Civil War, curious why there wasn't a lot of fiction about it-besides Hemingway, that is. Turns out it was a fucking depressing pointless bloodbath, historically speaking.) The rebels fighting the army in the nearby woods seem to be hopelessly outnumbered and out-gunned. The captain reveals himself as a brutal, amoral monster. (He's only interested in his pregnant new wife's child, not her or Ofelia.) For a girl like Ofelia, this is a perfect metaphor for a classic fairy tale, which she proceeds to write herself into. A fairy princess, trapped in the world above ground, is tasked by a faun to perform three feats to test her courage. If she passes, she gets to return to her place at the side of her true parents.
Here's where Del Toro really shines. His fantasy setting is both visually rich (almost claustrophobic) and unsettling. He understands how much to show and how much to just suggest an inner world, and stimulate the viewer's imagination. It's a rare case where tragedy (Ofelia's death) brings about a happy ending. (Ofelia's dying thoughts are of the princess reunited with the King and Queen of the fairy underworld.)
Children of Men-(A+) So is there something in Mexico that gives their filmmakers that much of a push to turn out such great films? I mean, the month isn't over yet and already the bar's been set pretty high in terms of high quality film making. Looking at Del Toro's Pan's Labyrinth and Curanon's Children of Men, you'd be inclined to think so, wouldn't you? Consider the spin one can take on Children of Men: "In a world with no children for 18 years... One woman creates life... And only one man can save us all..." Put in the hands of a hack like Joel Schumacher, you can already see the three-legged dog named Lucky and the teary-eyed closeups of the principal cast members, all calculated to move us to tears.
Fortunately, in the more than capable hands of Alfredo Curanon, this sci-fi thriller defies expectations. He crams it with so much detail the first thing I thought upon leaving the theater was, "Damn. Now I gotta get the DVD!" There's a clever subtext in here alluding to totalitarianism not just in the presentation of the prison camp in Bexhill (Notice how the bus we're in shows the midwife being hooded, to a row of dead bodies. I'm not sure, but I think I caught a visual reference to that famous photo of the hooded guy in Abu Ghraib in there as well) but in the dingy London streets in the beginning. Is England truly the last bastion of civilization in this world? I somehow don't think it is... Notice the reference to the death of "Baby Diego", the youngest person in the country, stabbed to death at a take-out, and its comparison to the public grieving of Lady Diana.
Clive Owen (great here) looks appropriatly worn as the activist turned bureaucrat dragged into protecting the young prostitute-turned Madonna. There's a lot of gunfire in this movie, but he doesn't fire off any rounds himself, does he? The danger here is not only from the government forces, but from the rebels wanting to use the mother for their own ends. Owen is in the dark as much as we are, running purely on instinct. In keeping his characters from becoming icons (Owen is as frightened and confused as Kay the reluctant mommy) and keeping the action at documentary level, (the car chase near the beginning is among the best I've seen, as the nine-minute take where we hurry through a combat zone) Curanon's movie hits its mark. Best line:(said during a firefight)
Theo (Owen) "How's the baby?" Kay "ANNOYED!!"
Out of curiosity, who here thought the movie was exactly one minute too long?
Thursday, February 1, 2007
Today's Entry: Being an Objective, Non-judgemental Look at a Specific Sub-Culture Spawned over the Internet...
Being that the internet encourages a certain amount of anonymity in a person, various sub-cultures have come out of it over the years which encourage behavior, well, "off the beaten path", so to speak. I'd like to take this moment to share with you an overview of one of these sub-cultures, namely the 'furry' phenomenon. So what are 'furries', you ask? Good question! From what I gather, they appear to be a section of the internet population singularly obsessed with the anthropomorphication of animals. More specifically, they wish to attach their personalities to, if not outright, BE animals, with the attendant qualities we attach to specific animal types. (Dogs are loyal, cats are sly, bunnies are cute, etc.) Here then, is a collection of jokes, anecdotes and IRC chat logs that I've collected over time intended to illuminate the 'furry' world-view. Enjoy!
So these two furries are attending a 'furcon', that is, a convention catering to the 'furry' crowd. One is an old hand at this sort of thing, and is acting as a sort of 'mentor' for his friend, who is attending his first 'furcon'. In their travels, they come across a door marked, "Erotic fur-fiction room! 18+ only!" The neophyte insists they check it out, much to the bemusement of his more experienced companion. Upon entering, they see the room is filled with fellow furs in various states of costuming, some wearing simple fake ear and tail ensembles, others encased in full body suits, resembling obscure sports mascots. At one end of the room, a doughy, obese man with no shirt and a pair of felt fox ears is unfolding a piece of paper while in front of a microphone. He coughs to ensure his voice is heard above the crowd. Reading from the paper, he recites a series of numbers in a nasal voice... "19, 36, 118, 92, 207, 6, 313!" The crowd sighs and stains its collective groin in sexual release. Confused, the novice asks his friend what just happened. Adjusting his greasy eyeglasses, the 'mentor' explains...
"See, we've been all been swapping erotic fan-fiction stories for so long, that we've developed a coded system to facilitate our story telling. For instance, 19 means that the story is set in the new Battlestar Galactica universe where the Cylons are all robotic panthers and the Colonials are wolves. 36 means that President Rosalyn and Commander Adama are having sex in the main flight bay. 118 means Starbuck and Apollo catch them in mid-coitus. 92 means that they all decide to have a foursome. 207 means Starbuck goes down on the President. 6 means that at the same time, Apollo and Adama are having a 'swordfight' in Rosalyn's mouth. And finally, 313 means that the president 'snowballs' Adama's 'baby-batter' into Apollo's mouth!"
"Wow! That's hot! I gotta try that!" exclaims the novice con-goer, then without warning, rushes to the microphone to try his hand at erotic fan-fiction.
"9...21...224...13...86...91...299!"
Except for a few bursts of flatulence, the crowd is silent. Dejected, the neophyte returns to his friend.
"Aw, what happened?" he whines. "No one reacted to my story?"
"Well, kid," sighed the wiser of the two, "Some people got the gift of gab... and some don't!"
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Our Furry dictionary defines true friendship as: Getting a reacharound from your roommate after you help him into his "Dr. Franknfurter-from-the-rocky-horror-picture-show-as-a-bunny-rabbit" fur suit.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------The pale, scrawny, acne-scarred teen rolled the polygonal dice in his hand nervously. "Yeah, I may be a nerd who plays D & D in the high school cafeteria," he muttered. "But at least I'm not a furry!"
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dear Mr. Joss Whedon:
Greetings! I am a longtime fan of your work, and I would like to get your feedback. I am an aspiring comic book artist/writer and I have taken it upon myself to render a 'fandom' version of one of your more popular tv series. I write of course, of "firefly", the tragically cancelled before its time show that has brought so much joy to so many people! In my version (see enclosed pages) I have done a 'fan' version of the show where the noble crew of the valiant spaceship, "serenity" have got caught up in a "Hatfield/McCoy" feud between two ranching families on an outerworld planet. There is a subplot also where the spunky mechanic, Kaylee, develops a crush on the son of one of the heads of the ranches. Also, you will note, I have made the noble Captain Reynolds an anthropomorphic fox, the stalwart Zoe a squirrel, her dry-witted husband Wash a hedgehog, the brutish Jayne a bear, the sensuous Inara a panther, the callow Dr. Tam and his other-worldly sister River are both gazelles, and the aforementioned Kaylee a chipmunk. Also, you will notice that they are all wearing diapers. In my version, everyone is a diaper fetishist, like me! In particular, let me draw your attention to...
NOTED T.V. PRODUCER/WRITER'S DEATH A SUICIDE
(Los Angeles-A.P.) The LAPD coroner's office has reported that prominent producer/writer Joss Whedon's gruesome death was, in fact, a suicide. "Considering the brutality and thoroughness of his end, our initial reports that Mr. Whedon was the victim of a psychopath are false." said LAPD coroner Ronald Weiss. "Mr. Whedon's wounds were self-inflicted, as incredible as it seems. In all my years in this capacity, I've never seen a human being as determined to end his own life as the late Mr. Whedon. If the gallon of bleach he had ingested hadn't killed him, the deep cuts to both his jugular and femoral arteries surely would have. Not to mention the fact that the fellow had managed to feed both his arms down his kitchen garburator."
Mr. Whedon's reason for suicide remains a mystery. He had a highly anticipated remake of "Wonder Woman" due to be released this summer, and by earlier accounts from friends and family, seemed "in high spirits". Sarah Michelle Gellar, the star of his hit series "Buffy: the Vampire Slayer", released this statement:
"I'm deeply shocked to learn this news. I considered Joss a dear friend as well as a joy to work with. I can't begin to imagine what could've drove him to this level of despair. He must have been, from a mental sense, standing on the mouth of Hell."...
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The sullen, heavy-set young man in the Insane Clown Posse t-shirt resembled a breeder hog forced to stand upright as he regarded me with a hostile stare. His eyes were dead, surrounded by flab and acne. "Yeah, I'm a Juggalo!" he snarled. "But I ain't no damned furry!!" Then he spat tobacco juice into a empty beer can.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Q: Why did the furry cross the road?
A: His disability claim for a motorized wheelchair was approved! Now he didn't have exert himself so much to waddle all that way to the 7-Eleven to get his Super Big Gulp refilled! Whee!
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dear Mr.(Name Withheld):
We thank you for your interest in pursuing a career in animation here at Disney Studios. However, we feel firstly, your portfolio work is not up to the standard we have here. Secondly, Disney studios will not now, nor ever, be producing animated hard-core pornography.
Good luck, and thank you for your interest in Disney!
Sincerely, Dennis Bates, HR Resources, Disney Studios.
P.S. What the Hell is wrong with you?
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Three furries were sitting in front of their T.V. watching "The Fox and the Hound" and masturbating. The first furry asked his friends, "Hey, guys? If you could have sex with anyone in the world, who would you have sex with? I, myself, would totally bang Babs Bunny from Space Jam!" The other two began masturbating at a faster pace.
The second one said, "Aw, man! I'd, like, fuck Dot from Animaniacs in the ass while Gadget from "Chip n Dales' Rescue Rangers was 'tossin' my salad!" The other two began 'pumpin' it' faster.
The third one piped in, "Ohh, boy! I'd fuck Marge Simpson!" At this, the other two stopped in mid-beat and looked at him.
"Dude! That's gross! What the hell is wrong with you?"
"I-I mean if she was a chipmunk! C'mon, guys!", stammered the third one.
"OHHHHH!" responded the first two, the mental image spurring them all to orgasm.
On the t.v. the animated hound exclaimed, "Ahm a hound-dawg!", as arcs of semen coated the picture tube.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The chubby, bespectacled man stuffed another handful of Cheetos into his mouth. Flecks of orange detritus spattered from his mouth as he spoke.
"Yeah, I may be a thirty-five year old man who lives in his mom's basement and has every episode of all the Star Trek series on my hard drive..." He paused to cram another handful of Cheetos into his gaping maw. "But at least I'm not a furry!"
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"A Furry's Lament"
Listen, o wanderers, to the tale I weave.
Let my sad song to your hearts do cleave.
About my story 'bout a noble otter named Jake.
And his love for a panther girl which she did forsake.
Our hero spent many an hour on IRC,
wooing this girl with vigor and glee.
Jake spent over a couple hundred bucks for her on hentai porn.
But the panther girl his love did scorn.
And later on Jake discovered whilst he did grieve,
That his true love was this fat guy named Steve.
Also, I'm a little short on my rent this month so if anyone out there could donate some cash to my PayPal account at lonelyotter567@gmail.net, I'd really appreciate it! Yiff!
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From the Internet Acronym Dictionary:
RTFM: Read The (Fricking) Manual
LOL: Laughing Out Loud
IJTTHSWARLDAHBMSIHTSO: I Just Tried To Have Sex With A Real Live Dog And He Bit Me So I Have To Sign Off Now
IIDFASPITNFMIWHMFMDLTGIINXSHAS:If I Don't Find A Sex Partner In The Next Fifteen Minutes, I Will Hang Myself From My Doorknob Like That Guy In INXS. Huggles And Skritches!
ROTFL: Rolling On The Floor Laughing
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Being that the internet encourages a certain amount of anonymity in a person, various sub-cultures have come out of it over the years which encourage behavior, well, "off the beaten path", so to speak. I'd like to take this moment to share with you an overview of one of these sub-cultures, namely the 'furry' phenomenon. So what are 'furries', you ask? Good question! From what I gather, they appear to be a section of the internet population singularly obsessed with the anthropomorphication of animals. More specifically, they wish to attach their personalities to, if not outright, BE animals, with the attendant qualities we attach to specific animal types. (Dogs are loyal, cats are sly, bunnies are cute, etc.) Here then, is a collection of jokes, anecdotes and IRC chat logs that I've collected over time intended to illuminate the 'furry' world-view. Enjoy!
So these two furries are attending a 'furcon', that is, a convention catering to the 'furry' crowd. One is an old hand at this sort of thing, and is acting as a sort of 'mentor' for his friend, who is attending his first 'furcon'. In their travels, they come across a door marked, "Erotic fur-fiction room! 18+ only!" The neophyte insists they check it out, much to the bemusement of his more experienced companion. Upon entering, they see the room is filled with fellow furs in various states of costuming, some wearing simple fake ear and tail ensembles, others encased in full body suits, resembling obscure sports mascots. At one end of the room, a doughy, obese man with no shirt and a pair of felt fox ears is unfolding a piece of paper while in front of a microphone. He coughs to ensure his voice is heard above the crowd. Reading from the paper, he recites a series of numbers in a nasal voice... "19, 36, 118, 92, 207, 6, 313!" The crowd sighs and stains its collective groin in sexual release. Confused, the novice asks his friend what just happened. Adjusting his greasy eyeglasses, the 'mentor' explains...
"See, we've been all been swapping erotic fan-fiction stories for so long, that we've developed a coded system to facilitate our story telling. For instance, 19 means that the story is set in the new Battlestar Galactica universe where the Cylons are all robotic panthers and the Colonials are wolves. 36 means that President Rosalyn and Commander Adama are having sex in the main flight bay. 118 means Starbuck and Apollo catch them in mid-coitus. 92 means that they all decide to have a foursome. 207 means Starbuck goes down on the President. 6 means that at the same time, Apollo and Adama are having a 'swordfight' in Rosalyn's mouth. And finally, 313 means that the president 'snowballs' Adama's 'baby-batter' into Apollo's mouth!"
"Wow! That's hot! I gotta try that!" exclaims the novice con-goer, then without warning, rushes to the microphone to try his hand at erotic fan-fiction.
"9...21...224...13...86...91...299!"
Except for a few bursts of flatulence, the crowd is silent. Dejected, the neophyte returns to his friend.
"Aw, what happened?" he whines. "No one reacted to my story?"
"Well, kid," sighed the wiser of the two, "Some people got the gift of gab... and some don't!"
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Our Furry dictionary defines true friendship as: Getting a reacharound from your roommate after you help him into his "Dr. Franknfurter-from-the-rocky-horror-picture-show-as-a-bunny-rabbit" fur suit.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------The pale, scrawny, acne-scarred teen rolled the polygonal dice in his hand nervously. "Yeah, I may be a nerd who plays D & D in the high school cafeteria," he muttered. "But at least I'm not a furry!"
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dear Mr. Joss Whedon:
Greetings! I am a longtime fan of your work, and I would like to get your feedback. I am an aspiring comic book artist/writer and I have taken it upon myself to render a 'fandom' version of one of your more popular tv series. I write of course, of "firefly", the tragically cancelled before its time show that has brought so much joy to so many people! In my version (see enclosed pages) I have done a 'fan' version of the show where the noble crew of the valiant spaceship, "serenity" have got caught up in a "Hatfield/McCoy" feud between two ranching families on an outerworld planet. There is a subplot also where the spunky mechanic, Kaylee, develops a crush on the son of one of the heads of the ranches. Also, you will note, I have made the noble Captain Reynolds an anthropomorphic fox, the stalwart Zoe a squirrel, her dry-witted husband Wash a hedgehog, the brutish Jayne a bear, the sensuous Inara a panther, the callow Dr. Tam and his other-worldly sister River are both gazelles, and the aforementioned Kaylee a chipmunk. Also, you will notice that they are all wearing diapers. In my version, everyone is a diaper fetishist, like me! In particular, let me draw your attention to...
NOTED T.V. PRODUCER/WRITER'S DEATH A SUICIDE
(Los Angeles-A.P.) The LAPD coroner's office has reported that prominent producer/writer Joss Whedon's gruesome death was, in fact, a suicide. "Considering the brutality and thoroughness of his end, our initial reports that Mr. Whedon was the victim of a psychopath are false." said LAPD coroner Ronald Weiss. "Mr. Whedon's wounds were self-inflicted, as incredible as it seems. In all my years in this capacity, I've never seen a human being as determined to end his own life as the late Mr. Whedon. If the gallon of bleach he had ingested hadn't killed him, the deep cuts to both his jugular and femoral arteries surely would have. Not to mention the fact that the fellow had managed to feed both his arms down his kitchen garburator."
Mr. Whedon's reason for suicide remains a mystery. He had a highly anticipated remake of "Wonder Woman" due to be released this summer, and by earlier accounts from friends and family, seemed "in high spirits". Sarah Michelle Gellar, the star of his hit series "Buffy: the Vampire Slayer", released this statement:
"I'm deeply shocked to learn this news. I considered Joss a dear friend as well as a joy to work with. I can't begin to imagine what could've drove him to this level of despair. He must have been, from a mental sense, standing on the mouth of Hell."...
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The sullen, heavy-set young man in the Insane Clown Posse t-shirt resembled a breeder hog forced to stand upright as he regarded me with a hostile stare. His eyes were dead, surrounded by flab and acne. "Yeah, I'm a Juggalo!" he snarled. "But I ain't no damned furry!!" Then he spat tobacco juice into a empty beer can.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Q: Why did the furry cross the road?
A: His disability claim for a motorized wheelchair was approved! Now he didn't have exert himself so much to waddle all that way to the 7-Eleven to get his Super Big Gulp refilled! Whee!
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dear Mr.(Name Withheld):
We thank you for your interest in pursuing a career in animation here at Disney Studios. However, we feel firstly, your portfolio work is not up to the standard we have here. Secondly, Disney studios will not now, nor ever, be producing animated hard-core pornography.
Good luck, and thank you for your interest in Disney!
Sincerely, Dennis Bates, HR Resources, Disney Studios.
P.S. What the Hell is wrong with you?
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Three furries were sitting in front of their T.V. watching "The Fox and the Hound" and masturbating. The first furry asked his friends, "Hey, guys? If you could have sex with anyone in the world, who would you have sex with? I, myself, would totally bang Babs Bunny from Space Jam!" The other two began masturbating at a faster pace.
The second one said, "Aw, man! I'd, like, fuck Dot from Animaniacs in the ass while Gadget from "Chip n Dales' Rescue Rangers was 'tossin' my salad!" The other two began 'pumpin' it' faster.
The third one piped in, "Ohh, boy! I'd fuck Marge Simpson!" At this, the other two stopped in mid-beat and looked at him.
"Dude! That's gross! What the hell is wrong with you?"
"I-I mean if she was a chipmunk! C'mon, guys!", stammered the third one.
"OHHHHH!" responded the first two, the mental image spurring them all to orgasm.
On the t.v. the animated hound exclaimed, "Ahm a hound-dawg!", as arcs of semen coated the picture tube.
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The chubby, bespectacled man stuffed another handful of Cheetos into his mouth. Flecks of orange detritus spattered from his mouth as he spoke.
"Yeah, I may be a thirty-five year old man who lives in his mom's basement and has every episode of all the Star Trek series on my hard drive..." He paused to cram another handful of Cheetos into his gaping maw. "But at least I'm not a furry!"
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"A Furry's Lament"
Listen, o wanderers, to the tale I weave.
Let my sad song to your hearts do cleave.
About my story 'bout a noble otter named Jake.
And his love for a panther girl which she did forsake.
Our hero spent many an hour on IRC,
wooing this girl with vigor and glee.
Jake spent over a couple hundred bucks for her on hentai porn.
But the panther girl his love did scorn.
And later on Jake discovered whilst he did grieve,
That his true love was this fat guy named Steve.
Also, I'm a little short on my rent this month so if anyone out there could donate some cash to my PayPal account at lonelyotter567@gmail.net, I'd really appreciate it! Yiff!
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From the Internet Acronym Dictionary:
RTFM: Read The (Fricking) Manual
LOL: Laughing Out Loud
IJTTHSWARLDAHBMSIHTSO: I Just Tried To Have Sex With A Real Live Dog And He Bit Me So I Have To Sign Off Now
IIDFASPITNFMIWHMFMDLTGIINXSHAS:If I Don't Find A Sex Partner In The Next Fifteen Minutes, I Will Hang Myself From My Doorknob Like That Guy In INXS. Huggles And Skritches!
ROTFL: Rolling On The Floor Laughing
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