More Sitcom crap...

Dialogue from sitcoms that you can stop watching after the first minute...

"Well, here I am at the lovely Healing Springs Spa! I still can't believe that I won the runner-up prize of two full days here that the publishing company I work for had that contest for! I wonder... who won the grand prize of a full week?"

"Hello, Shelley..."

"Oh, hello, Prudence, my office rival! Don't tell me you're the winner of the full week spa vacation!"

"Yes, Shelly...(tosses hair disdainfully) Once again, we see, even in a contest, you always come second! Ta-ta!"

"Ooh, that-that Prudence! I hope we don't get locked into the sauna room, where after a period of snide insults and witty comebacks, she tearfully reveals that the reason for her condescending treatment of me is because she secretly admires my youth, intelligence and talent, and is too emotionally closed off to open herself up to pursuing a friendship with me! After which, I hold her in my lap and comfort her and hold out a hand of friendship to her. Of course, once we are rescued, Prudence's bitchy persona will come to the fore and afterwards, it will be like our shared moment in the sauna will have never happened!"

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"Great news, Chester!"

"Whatever could that be, Carlton, my over-sexed friend? You've found an Internet site offering 25% off Viagra?"

"Ha, ha, Chester. No, I've finally scored a date this Friday with Gretchen Olgorf, the Swedish exchange student!"

"But, Carlton... You've already got a study date this Friday with Clara Dumpty, the kind-hearted, studious girl who would be quite attractive if she didn't have her hair in a bun, and didn't wear chunky glasses, and who secretly has a crush on you!"

"Oops! And since her father is the professor of the class I need to pass this year, breaking off this study date with her will not be an option!"

"You've gotten yourself into quite a pickle, my horny friend!"

"Indeed. Say, I have an idea! If I convince Gretchen to head to the college library for a make-out session, I can juggle both dates at the same time!"

"Ooooo...And the winner for Stupidest Idea of the Year Award goes to...Carlton!"

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"Mommy, look! I made a new friend! Can we keep her?"

"Oh dear, my precocious son! Bringing a dog into the house will have to be a family discussion. We'll wait until your father comes home!"

"But mommy, where will the dog stay until then?"

"Well, you'll just have to keep her in your room until after dinner, when your father will be having his boss over. Daddy's boss is allergic to dogs! Not only that, but the sight of a starving mongrel dog eating the roast turkey I'm cooking for dinner whilst giving birth to slimy, blood and mucus covered puppies will certainly reflect poorly on your father's boss while he considers giving daddy a promotion!"

"Aw, okay. C'mon, Barfy! Let's put you in my room with the broken door knob!"

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"Hoo Dogies! Come see my latest money-makin' ider, brother Caleb!"

"Taters with gravy, brother Jethro! Yer always comin' up with money makin' iders to lift us up from our rural squalor, and we always wind up worse n' before! What hair-brained ider are you-all wastin' valuable time thet y' could be spendin' on tryin' to reapply fer welfare?"

"This-un's a winner, brother Caleb! I gots me some chemicals and a recipe I done downloaded from the intra-net-"

"The Intra-net? thet thang on the com-put-termafication device in our shared trailer?"

"Ke-rect! Anyways, I's gonna make us up a batch of what they calls, 'Crystal Meth'J! Then we's gonna sells it ter the city folks! It's a goldmine, Jethro! A goldmine!"

"Oooh... I hopes nothing bad is gonna happen from this here business venture of yourn! Like, I become hopelessly hooked on the product, smoke up the whole batch right before you gots a big deal to sell it to city folk who have made it explicitly clear that not delivering the meth when promised will result in your genitals being chopped off and fed to their Rottweiler, so you desperately try whipping up a batch of fake meth which gets our trailer blowed up, we each get extensive skin burns over 70% of our bodies, and our failure to deliver the meth to the city folks has us workin' for them as eunuchs in their crack-whore brothel..."

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"I'm home, Improbably attractive wife to whom I, a dumpy blue collar worker, am unreasonably married to!"

"Hello, my overweight, balding husband with muttonchops who wears the same flannel shirt over a white t-shirt day in and day out! My, you're home early!"

"Yes, well...I was fired from the bottle making factory that I work at!"

"Oh, goodness! Well, we have your unemployment insurance to fall back on, at least!"

"No, my wife, we do not. For you see, my sarcastic and overbearing tone which I use to great comic effect in the day-to-days of our marriage does not go over so well with the state unemployment workers, who have refused my claim!"

"Well, that's just great! Now I will spend the next twenty minutes worrying about keeping a roof over our heads and screech vile insults at you until you stomp off and hang out with your equally unattractive if slightly stupider friends in the local bar!"

"And I will counter your abuse with witty put-downs and comebacks of my own until I lose my patience and head off to the local bar, during which I will commiserate with my friends, who will remind me how precious my marriage truly is. I will then head back here to make amends, you will inexplicably fall for my overwrought hokum, we will make up, and my old boss will stop by and offer me a new job at a new bottle plant!"

"Oh, honey! I love you!"

"I love you too, darling. Now get your ass in the kitchen and fetch me a beer!"

"Worst (insert title) Ever"

Mainstream comics, that is, ones with superheros in them, are in a real quandary these days. With all the movies based on superheros coming out in theaters, you'd think we'd be seeing a upswing in comic book sales these days. I'm being generous here when I estimate the total regular audience for that sort of thing to be around a quarter of a million. While in and of itself, it's not a bad number, I suspect the average comic publisher is inclined to buy ice cream for every one in the office if sales on one of their comics tops 10,000 in a good month. Bear in mind, in those heady days of 'Bang-pow-zoom-comics-ain't-just-for-kids' in the late 80's, an acceptable title was one that sold at least 50,000, and sales of only 10,000 would've got the title in question cancelled.

The reason for this, of course, is the explosion of Manga titles in North America, and the audience that it captures. Manga's big success is that it's captured that Holy Grail of comic publishers here, namely female comic buyers. It's also created a type of comic buyer that's willing to go to such lengths as to teach itself to read the comic backwards. This is an astonishing feat in our fast-food pop culture. The big thing is, though, readers of translated manga are highly unlikely to buy domestic comics, and in fact, tend to view superhero comics in the same way that people with no interest in comic books at all view superhero comics.

As a result, superhero comic publishers are less likely to try different ideas for comics in terms of stories, and more likely to stick with the tried and true comics like Superman and Batman in an attempt to keep what little market share they have. What this means in practical terms is that if say, Brian Michael Bendis does a bang-up job on Daredevil, and Bendis' run pumps up sales of Daredevil a tad, then it makes perfect sense to get Bendis to start writing for Batman, and maybe Superman as well. The result of this is, if Bendis wants to do an original series for DC, he can put it in the closet for the foreseeable future, as his professional time will be taken up doing more fieldwork for DC. Also, it means that another writer with a less successful run ain't gonna be getting his big break writing for Batman, at least, not any time soon.

(Here's a tangent: Imagine a T.V. writer now who's been working for, say, 'Bionic Woman'. With the recent strike in place, his income flow has dropped to nothing. Manfully throwing back his shoulders, he gathers up his briefcase full of comic-book scripts and demeans himself to the professional step-down of auditioning for a shot at writing a 'Jonah Hex' mini-series. And there, in the DC reception area, are Joss Whedon and Ronald D. Moore, also trying out for the coveted 'Jonah Hex' spot...)

What you're finding now is writers like Warren Ellis, Grant Morrison, and Garth Ennis who've made their mark with original series like, 'Transmetropolitan', 'The Invisibles', and 'Preacher' now writing 'X-Men', 'Nick Fury', and 'Planetary'. At this point, writing only non-superhero comics alone is something they can't afford to do. The goal for writers in their position is to jump from being big fish in the small pond of comics, to being plankton in the ocean of T.V. and film. The advantage of this move, of course, is that while they have to put up with the same petty ego battles and money grubbing overlords that they endured as comic writers, at least the money's worth it.

Which brings me to Garth Ennis' latest, The Boys (B) The premise being that in a world with corporate-sponsored superhero teams allowed carte blanche in dealing with supervillans, the U.S. government takes it on itself to hire a team of specialists to ensure that the superheroes are kept in line. Think of it as Ennis' version of Nathaniel West's "Day of the Locust". Personally, I'm more on the side of 'non-comic book person' when it comes to superhero comics, so I'm closest to an ideal audience.

It's not his best work, nowhere near the ribald fun of 'Dicks' or the epic scope of 'Preacher', but the twists and turns Ennis takes with the story are enough to keep me on board for now. I like to imagine him on his computer, late at night, typing away and screaming, "How d' ye like tha', Batman? Ah made yeh a watermelon-humpin' pervert, I did!" Extra points for using Simon Pegg of 'Shawn of the Dead' and 'Hot Fuzz' as a model for Wee Hughie, the P.O.V. character.

The problem with the comic, however, ties in to what I said earlier about trying to expand the mainstream comic-buying readership. This market that's in question wants to see Alan Moore's "Watchmen II: Electric Boogaloo" as opposed to Alan Moore's "A Small Killing". In other words, the audience wants to see the lives and loves of demi-gods in leotards, drawn as photo-realistically as an artist can, and told in the most earnest manner possible. To them, this comic is a frat-boy's wedgie. Put it this way: Years ago, Harvey Kurtzman pointed out the absurdity of Wonder Woman being able to deflect bullets via her bracelets without getting her wrists broken or being knocked over, and those general idioms still hold sway in the business. Ennis shows us a world where Wonder Woman is a bitter, drunken asshole. 'The Boys' has been already cancelled by Wildstorm, and I have a feeling it won't last too much longer in its current place at Dynamite.

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As long as I'm geeking out over here, some quick thoughts on 'South Park'...

-The three-parter 'Imaginationland' starts out strong in the first part, carries through quite nicely in the second, and just kinda ends on a 'blah' in the third. I'm a little disappointed, mainly because having the infamous 'Christmas Critters' make a comeback had me hoping they'd be more integral to the story...

-Best Part: Cartman's obliviousness to the end of humanity's shared imaginative consciousness, just so he can humiliate Kyle in the most vile manner possible.

-Butter's last line. "Aw, shit!"

-"Guitar Queer-o" works for me as 1) I'm a huge 'Guitar Hero' nut myself, and eagerly anticipate 'Rock Band'. and 2) I've always hated that particular movie sub-genre the episode rips on, namely, the umpteenth million variation of 'A Star Is Born'. Needs more Cartman being a shitbag, though.

More Movie Ideas!

Untitled Michael Bay Project. - (aka The Greatest Fucking Movie that has ever or will ever be made!) -There's explosions. In space. Then we cut to Los Angeles. And there's more explosions. And a quick-witted, jive-talking black guy says, "Woo-wee! Hope all-ya-all white folks gots Explosion insurance!" Then we're in the President's office. And the president is an older, wiser man. And he's talking to his two advisers. One's arrogant and British. The British man says, "Mr. President, the explosions in Los Angeles... came from space." Then the president sighs and removes his glasses and rubs the bridge of his nose and says, "Is there anyone in the world who can stop these explosions?" Then his other advisor, a sanguine man with a southern accent chimes in, "Sir, there's only one man who can stop these explosions..."

And we cut to Colin Farrell, working as an expert in his office doing his job. Only he's not doing his job, the scene's been edited to make the audience think he's doing his job, only he's goofing off. Then his hot model-secretary says over the intercom, "Sir, the government's here to see you!" and Colin Farrell laughs in an ingratiating manner, and tells his secretary to tell the government that he's not in the office, but it's too late. The two advisers are already in his office, with some FBI guys with guns. They tell Colin Farrell that the government needs his help to stop the explosions in Los Angeles, only by now the explosions are spreading out to San Fransisco and Sacramento. "Call me after the explosions stop in Seattle." quips Colin Farrell. "Why?" asks the advisers. "Because...", smiles Colin Farrell, roguishly. "My ex-wife, Angelina Jolie, lives in Seattle, and maybe the explosions will blow her up, and her new husband-"

And we cut to Brad Pitt being all Brad Pitt in Seattle, and he's a professional UFC fighter, and he's doing UFC stuff to an appreciative crowd, and just before he does something Cool, he cockily turns to one of his clients, and says, "Hey... I don't get outa bed for less than a million dollars, ya dig?". Then the client smiles nervously, and hands him a check for a millon dollars. Brad smiles charmingly, then does something like, I don't know, a wicked sweet Brazilian Ju-jitsu move that takes down this Russian dude to the crowd, and they go nuts, like the Second Coming or something. Then, in the locker room, Brad Pitt endorses the check to an orphanage, cause he's really a nice guy. His phone rings. It's his new wife, Angelina Jolie. They make sexy talk. We cut to her. She is in a business suit in an office and is obviously the boss of where she works. She is also pregnant. She coos her goodbyes to Brad, then just as she hangs up, some FBI guys show up at her office. They explain the situation with the explosions in Los Angeles, and ask for her help. She's the back-up in case Colin Farrell won't help them, and according to him, she's the #2 expert in these matters. Angie fumes. "He didn't teach me everything he knows, I taught him everything I know!" So Angelina Jolie goes to Washington to help the president, and to spite her ex-husband, Colin Farrell.

As Angelina's going to Washington, some explosions happen in Portland, Oregon. They're really cool, with the camera at an angle, and exciting Hans Zimmer music, and a tanker full of gas slides sideways, crunches a bunch of cars in its path, and goes caroming off the elevated freeway that it's on into an old gas station, where a crotchety old man is sitting on a rocking chair, scowling at passersby and whittling. Then the tanker explodes, throwing the old man into a tree, where he looks around in bewilderment. "Well, I'll be jiggered", he exclaims, covered in soot.

The result of these new explosions in Portland means that the problem is bigger than just Angelina Jolie can handle on her own. So she does some soul-searching, which means Angelina stares contemplating out a window while nibbling her massive lower lip. She rubs her swollen belly while violins on the soundtrack swell. Finally, she sighs and dials a number on her phone...

...that rings the number in Colin Farrell's office. He doesn't hear it at first, as he's nursing a bottle of scotch, and rubbing his finger thoughtfully on an old framed photo of Angelina Jolie that he keeps in his desk. After some back-and-forth snarking, Farrell reluctantly agrees to help Angelina track down the explosions. One more thing, Angelina says, reluctantly. Brad Pitt, her new husband, will be working with them. Farrell blanches on his end, then sighs, hangs up, and downs the rest of his scotch.

Anyways, to make a long story short, there's more explosions, Brad Pitt goes flying upside down through a window while firing two handguns at some bad guys, Steve Buschimi and Michael Duncan Clark show up as comedy relief, a helicopter crashes into the Griffin Observatory, Yadda yadda yah. Oh, and it turns out Colin Farrell was in fact, the father of Angelina Jolie's child. He blows up at the end, leaving a bittersweet montage as the credits roll of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie cooing over some little brat in a park somewheres. The End.

"Saw X: No More Mr. Nice Guy" - Hoo, boy, are you all in for it now! See, Jigsaw's warped legacy lives on! His cunning modus operandi has warped the mind of an impressionable young man (played by Shia LaBoeuf) into continuing Jigsaw's sadism-disguised-as-moral-righteousness mayhem! One victim kept their DVD rentals a day late? They have to eat their own tongue and eyes! One guy used Bittorrent? He's gotta kill, rape, and eat his daughter! Took up two parking spaces? Drano enema. Didn't replace the empty toilet paper roll? Sledgehammer. Testicles. You can't begin to imagine the crazy shit this new guy (dubbed "Brain Buster") has got in store...

"Boo!" - Get out those plans for a villa in Tuscany, Sholmo! This'un's here a licence to print money, practically! A young married couple starts their new life together in a little country house the grizzled locals claim is haunted! Complicating matters is that the wife miscarried their first child last month, making her a tad moody. Are the creepy little dwarfs the couple see glimpses of in the house just manifestations of their grief, or is there something more at stake here? The gimmick: During the movie, in random intervals, a grotesque undead monster suddenly pops in front of the camera and screams at the audience, scaring the shit out of them!

"Fred Basset: the movie" - keeping with the recent trend of strip-mining comics for film ideas, I give you this. We make Fred Basset CGI, with the voice of Sir Ian Mckellan. And the story is- oh, hell, I don't know, maybe Fred and his chum Yorkie (voiced by Stephen Fry) go looking for his lost collar or something. And maybe Sir Ben Kingsley can reprise his role as Don Logan from 'Sexy Beast' or something. No swearing though, it's a kid's movie. Look, I'm trying, okay? Tell you what, if this movie does happen, for reals? We can all go ahead and just declare Art legally dead...

"Pong: the movie" - Look, I said I was trying, alright?

"Die, Foreigner, Die!" - Hahh. Okay, so we go retro here. You got this rogue government agent who just decides to go apeshit and wipe out every non-American he sees from Albanian to Zulu. Guns, bombs, piano wire, the whole nine yards. Heavy on the red gravy, you dig? And we put Megan Fox (you know, the hot girl from Transformers?) in, and she's always reaching up to get something off a shelf, and she's got a tank top on and low-slung jeans so we're always getting shots of her bare stomach. Okay, that'll work...

"Ninjas and Kittens" - There ya go. Writes itself, really.

Wars Beyond The Stars... - Space opera set in a long-ago time, in a far-away galaxy... A young man who lives on a remote planet with a couple of robots encounters an old man who recruits him to help rescue a captured princess aboard- What? No, you're thinking of 'Star Wars', the 1977 blockbuster by George Lucas. My idea's totally different. Anyways, the princess is aboard this giant space station, and the head bad guy dresses in black and has his face covered- No, not like 'Darth Vader'! My bad guy's totally different! Look, read my idea first, okay? Alright, so the young man and the old guy and the robots hire this cynical spaceship pilot with a dog-like co-pilot- Hey! HEY! Can you even read English? My idea is nothing like that 'Star Wars' movie! Hello? I'm doing a 'homage' to Akira Kurosawa's 'The Hidden Fortress', only it's set in outer space! Can I continue? Thank you!

So the pilot takes them in his ship to the planet the princess is on, only it's been destroyed! Then they see the massive space station, only get this- they think it's a small moon, so they don't know how the planet was destroyed! It turns out the bad guy's space station blew up the planet- Huh? *sigh* NO. FOR. THE. LAST. FREAKING. TIME. IT. IS. NOT. LIKE. 'STAR WARS'! Yes, I know about the 'Death Star', I did not say, 'Death Star' anywhere in my pitch, did I? Well? Go back and read it. Go on, I can wait... No 'Death Star' anywhere, is there! Now, then, if I may finish my pitch...

The space station captures the ship in a 'Gravity Ray' (not 'Tractor Beam') and pulls it into a docking port on the station. Our heroes hide from the evil soldiers who search the ship, then the pilot and the young man slip from their hiding place on the ship to knock out a couple of evil soldiers and don their uniforms so they can sneak around the station and find the princess- What. No, you rolled your eyes at me. No, you rolled your fucking eyes at me like I'm telling you the plot to 'Star Wars'.

Okay, you know what? Fuck you. I can't believe you people. All you do is bitch and moan about how Hollywood hasn't made an original movie in years, that it's all comic-book adaptations and remakes... And then a visonary like me gives you a fresh, unadulterated original piece of quality entertainment that will be enjoyed for years, no, scratch that, DECADES to come...

And you piss all over it. Well, don't come crying to me to entertain you when you go to the theaters and all that's playing is, "Fart: the movie!", and "Fart: the Movie II", and "Saw 500: Jigsaw's Legacy's Legacy" and "Boring Romantic Drama where an Independent Woman Confronts her Terrible Past. (Her Daddy Molested Her)...I tried.

Lord knows, I tried...

Just look for the Union Label...

As of midnight, last Monday, as of 12:01 am, the Writer's Guild of America voted to go on strike, effectively crippling the nation's talk-shows and reality t.v. programming. Here, as far as I can understand, is their specific beef:

The Internet's become a pervasive aspect of our culture, and movie and TV studios are increasingly turning to the Internet as a distributor of not just promotional content, but actual content, in and of itself. The Writer's guild is concerned that any revenue gained of the aforementioned content to the studios is not going to trickle its way down to them in the form of residuals. It's another version of the Writer's strike in '88, when writers got shafted on residuals owing to video-tape sales and rentals. In essence, the issue of non-payouts for DVD sales sort of punishes writers for doing work that turns out to be popular.

In practical terms, since George Meyer wrote for 'The Simpsons', and since the Simpson's DVD boxed sets have turned out to be major sellers, Meyer doesn't see a penny off the DVD sales. (Well, in his particular case, since he's also a producer, he might-I'm not sure- but you get what I'm saying.) Hence, the hypothetical writer is stuck trying to get more work so's they can put foccacia on the table. And they can't spend as much time as they'd like working on their scripts, as their deadlines pile up.

In terms of the Internet, well, if NBC wants to broadcast episodes of '30 Rock' over their website, any money they get from ad revenue on NBC's site isn't going to the writers. While any money that the writers receive from such an agreement wouldn't be all that much, it'd sure be better than no money at all, if you see what I mean.

Here's my solution: Let ME come up with new shows and movie ideas for you, Hollywood Producers! Since I'm not a member of
the Writer's Guild, I won't come pestering you-all for any money! All I ask is a simple 'tip o' the hat' to my genius-ness! Gentlemen: start your Blackberrys...

T.V. Shows:

The Businesswoman...And the Fag! - She's a successful high-powered attorney who's sharing her condo in Manhattan with a gay guy! Get this... He's not just any 'gay guy'! Nope, this'uns a five-alarm-queer-as-a-three-dollar-bill FAG! (in pink, bold-face lettering with flashing gold filigree!) A gay man so gay he makes Chris Crocker look like Sly Stallone! He shrieks, flaps his hands excitedly, jumps up and down on the furniture, steals money from the businesswoman's purse to buy meth, and blows Latinos right there in their living room while she's throwing a baby shower. She reacts by throwing down her briefcase, putting her fists on her hips, and silently fuming!

The Chimpanzee...and the Kitten! - Twenty-two minutes of a chimp in a cage with a kitten! How fucking cute is that, I ask you? Go ahead, try and out-cute it, I dare you! Go ahead, I'm waiting... Well? You can't, can you? Coo and marvel at the chimp's almost human-behavior as it picks up and pets the kitty! Aww! (Course, the chimp being a chimp, it may just as soon fuck the kitten and bite it's head off as cuddle it, but that's show business, innit?)

Attractive Women in Skimpy Bikinis With Perhaps a Sheen of Baby Oil Upon Their Bodies Suggestively Leaning Against Expensive Sports Cars. - Exactly what the title implies. The only question is, will it be a full hour, or just a half-hour?

Redneck White Trash Teens Do Stupid, Self-destructive Stuff.- Teenagers from 'Underprivileged' environments spit, cuss like sailors (bleeped for television), smack each other in the head with blunt objects, ride abandoned shopping carts off cliffs, set themselves aflame, devour cleaning products like they were Beluga Caviar, scream, punch their girl/boyfriends, drink cheap beer, vomit, and get pregnant. Gives the viewer a sense of moral superiority, or if the viewer themselves is a dimwitted redneck, some good hobby ideas to get them out of the house.

Who's My Daddy? - An adorable little child goes door-to-door trying to find his biological father. It's a comedy with a heart!

Scream, and Scream some More! - Kid's game show where the contestants try to out-shriek one another. Whomever screams the loudest and longest wins a prize! Kids at home can play along!

Ain't This Some Life? - Blue collar home-based sitcom where a moderately successful stand-up comic plays an average working joe we can all relate to married to an improbably attractive woman. They spend the first twenty minutes screeching cruel insults at each other in a tone of such vehemence and volume that a sane person would leave the room in tears. Occasionally, an aged relative or their children enter the set, and everybody begins berating and insulting one another. The twist is, in the final two minutes, sentimental music plays in the background and everyone tells everyone else that in spite of it all, they do truly care for one another!

What A Ride! - A ruggedly handsome fellow with a devil-may-care attitude and his goofy sidekick travel the highways and byways of this nation looking for adventures, lending a hand to folks along the way, and teaching their new friends (and learning!) some valuable life lessons. They're also both sexual deviants with a penchant for brutal anal rape.

Two Minute Hate - for the Fox network. Screen is just a picture of Osama Bin Laden with some dubbed dialogue overlaid. Viewers get to scream at their T.V. for the next two minutes. And next week, Hillary Clinton!

Army Man - Made in conjunction with the U.S. Armed Forces. Hour long infomercial exploring your career options in today's armed forces! Learn a valuable trade! Travel the world! Make new friends! Learn what it's like getting half your head blown away by a I.W.D.! Marvel at the technical skill of the surgeons at Walter Reed Hospital as they perform extensive surgery on your mangled features so your hideousness makes your loved ones only recoil and cry in horror instead of vomit! Rehabilitate yourself after months of hard work so you can grasp a fork, work a t.v. remote, drool discreetly, and sign your name legibly enough to the form that denies your disability claim!

Tomorrow... my free-of-charge movie ideas! (or 'springboards', as the Hollywood insider jargon puts it...)

"Rosebud was his SLED!!!"

One thing that gets bandied about in the discussion of films is the preponderance of bloopers within. That is, errors in a film that certain eagle-eyed viewers catch that they are all too eager to share with the rest of us. Oddly enough, for my own part, I'm not such a continuity freak that such things really bother me. And really, pointing out a show's bloopers reminds me of this classic exchange from the Simpsons:

Doug: [wearing a T-shirt that says "Genius at Work"] Hi. A question for Miss Bellamy. In episode 2F09 when Itchy plays Scratchy's skeleton like a xylophone, he strikes the same rib twice in succession, yet he produces two clearly different tones. I mean, what are we to believe, that this is some sort of a magic xylophone or something? Boy, I really hope somebody got fired for that blunder.

June Bellamy: Uh, well...

Homer: I'll field this one.

Homer: [to Doug] Let me ask you a question. Why would a man whose shirt says "Genius at Work" spend all of his time watching a children's cartoon show?

[pause]

Doug: I withdraw my question. [takes a bite from a bar of chocolate]

Ultimately, in a good movie, any bloopers within aren't going to detract from your enjoyment of it. For instance, in the classic 'Citizen Kane', since no one is close enough to Charles Foster Kane to hear his final word gasped out, "Rosebud", how does the reporter know how to uncover its cryptic meaning? Unless you were to really think about it, you wouldn't notice that error itself. And on the other hand, in a Uwe Boll crap fest, f'r instance, someone ensuring that a SWAT team's uniforms and equipment are accurate isn't really going to obscure the simple fact that the movie is a celluloid turd.

Also, there is a point where verisimilitude in a movie detracts from the audience's pleasure in seeing the movie. Here's a hypothetical: Say you're seeing a drama about the intertwining lives of some residents of New Orleans, post-Katrina. One of the stars in the ensemble is an up-and-coming young actor, 'X'. 'X's role in the drama is of a young trumpet player who's developed an enthusiasm for Dixieland jazz. In the course of the film, the young musician serenades the other characters with an elegiac rendition of 'St. James Infirmary' in a scene that is meant to symbolize the destruction of not just a great American city, but an invaluable link to America's culture. Here's the problem: The scene is shot so we, the audience, can clearly see that the actor, 'X', is in fact really playing the trumpet, and not cut to a close-up of a session musician's hands on a trumpet. The audience, has in fact, been made into a jury, judging 'X's trumpet-playing, as opposed to an audience wanting to see a story unfold. And the mood is broken. The audience leaves the theater thinking, Gee, I had no idea 'X' was such a good horn player as opposed to, My, what a sad scene where Joey, the earnest young musician mourns his city in the most eloquent way he can.

That having been said, here's some bloopers from some famous (and not-so-famous) films that I've spotted. Next time you rent these ones, keep an eye out!

Dumbo (1941)- Elephants can't fucking fly! Even if the fucking elephant's ears were each the size of fucking football fields, the fucking elephant couldn't get off the fucking ground! Fuck!

Star Wars (1976)- How many physics lessons does Hollywood have to ignore? There. Are. No. Explosions. In. Space. It's a vacuum! Sound doesn't travel in a vacuum! Arrgh!

The Sting (1973)- Robert Redford and Paul Newman weren't adults in the thirties! They were toddlers! Are we to believe that toddlers are capable of being con-artists?

It's a Wonderful Life (1946)- Jimmy Stewart's character enjoys some colorful flowers. Trouble is, the movie's shot in black-and-white! Hello?

Say, What's the Big Idea? (1936)- Wop Dabney's character vomits a bathtub full of stomach contents on Lady Huffington's toy terrier, Flopsy, then in the next scene, Flopsy's totally clean! As if!

1941 (1976)- It wasn't made in 1941, it was made in 1976!

Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy (2001-2003) Ian Mckellan isn't really a wizard named Gandalf; he's a renowned Shakespearean actor from Britain. I bet he couldn't even cast a fireball in real life! Haw!

Schindler's List (1993)- Everyone knows the 'holocaust' was made up by the Jews so they could guilt-trip everyone else into selling 'em gabardine at cost. Jeez.

Amistad (1997)- Same goes for black people being 'enslaved'. Double jeez.

A Clockwork Orange (1971)- Malcolm McDowell has white hair; why'd Kubrick cast a senior citizen in the part of a sociopathic teenager? Couldn't he cast, you know, an actual teenager? Hey, Stanley, here's a tip: For your next movie, cast a teenager in the part you think a real teenager would be good for.

The Song of The Donkey-Raper (1983)- Muad J'abdoad is speaking Farsi when the locale is clearly Northern Iran.

United 93 (2006)- So if the towelheads delayed everyone's flight, why didn't people just book other travel arrangements? Dur!

Roadhouse (1989) Okay, so if this movie's set in 1989, how come some of the Jim Beam bottle labels in the bar are from the Jim Beam's 'new, improved' labelling implemented in 1990? Kinda makes you think...

Independence Day (1996) Bill Pullman was never elected to the office of President of the United States; he's a movie actor! Also, his name's 'Bill Pullman', not 'Thomas J. Whitmore'.

Donnie Darko (2001)- 'Cellar Door' are not the most beautiful words in the English language; the most beautiful words in the English language, are, in fact, 'Nickel Slots'.

Blade Runner (1983)-When Deckard arrives home, Rachel is already waiting for him in the elevator. However, a) Rachel has no way of knowing where Deckard lives, as information regarding a policeman's address is not given out to the public, least of all a replicant, and b) Rachel could not have followed him because Deckard was first taken by Gaff to Leon's apartment via police spinner, then Deckard drove home using his own sedan; and even after driving home, Rachel was already waiting for him. Also, I cry a lot for no reason whatsoever.

Rambo III (1988)- So, that one scene, where Rambo guts the Russian officer, and plays the officer's exposed ribcage like a xylophone? We hear two distinct tones when Rambo hits the same rib twice. Are we to believe that the officer has a magic rib cage? That is capable of making two distinct notes when hit in succession? Boy, I hope someone lost their job over that blunder...

"So who does watch the Watchmen, anyways?"

Let me just strap on my neckbeard, here...

Ah. There we go. Now, then.

Given the caliber of the people involved in the forthcoming 'Watchmen' movie, I don't see any nuanced, articulate meta-commentary of the superhero genre being part of it. It'll probably be that 'okay action-mystery-sci-fi' movie that eventually makes it's production costs back from DVD sales/rentals. (kinda like 'V for Vendetta')

What itches my neckbeard in this case, however, is that the original creator Alan Moore is stuck in a lose/lose proposition. His (and artist Dave Gibbons') original deal with DC/Warner stipulated that all rights to Watchmen reverted to them once it had gone out of print for a time. (In which case, as Mr. Moore had pointed out, he and Mr. Gibbons were free to make all the money they could from the slurpee-cup licensing.) Well, twenty-some odd years later, with the Watchmen graphic novel still in print, we can all see how well that deal turned out for them...

And let's face it, the reviews are going to nail him to the wall if it tanks ('Alan Moore's seminal 'Watchman' graphic novel flops on the big screen...') and in the unlikely event it's a success, ('Zack Snyder's take on DC/Warner's 'Watchmen' is boffo at the box office!'), he's not going to benefit in any practical way. Any money coming from DC/Warner on this is going entirely to Dave Gibbons, since Moore's previous comic-to-movie adaptations were such disasters, Moore wanted to disavow himself from them. (He eschewed any compensation from the studios after the train wreck that was League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.)

Well, you may ask, you little rascal, you: "So why doesn't Alan Moore either A) demand more hands-on involvement like Frank Miller with Sin City or B) shut up and just take the Hollywood money like Dashell Hammett did? (As Hammett pointed out when asked if he was concerned that the studios would ruin his work, "Look, my books are still there on the bookshelf, they're fine.")

In regards to A),Watchmen isn't Moore and Gibbons' property like Sin City is Miller's, it's DC/Warner's. And Warner's is more likely to treat Moore like Disney treated Dave Stevens on the set of 'The Rocketeer'. That is, throw him off the set and dangle lawsuits over him to shut him up. And in the case of B), Moore has this pesky vestigial quirk perhaps unfamiliar to movie executives called a set of principles. These principles were what made him not do any more work for DC after he felt that he and many other talents were treated by the company as hired hands in a field. If he took any money from them after the fact, he'd look like a hypocrite. (Then, when DC bought out Wildstorm from under Jim Lee, Moore was still accused of being a sellout, since he was still doing work for Wildstorm.)

The point of all this nerdy indignation, I suppose, is that comics are not a stepping-stone to the wealth, glamour, and big titties that is Hollywood as some people might suppose. And secondly, work like 'Watchmen' doesn't lend itself easily to other mediums. It was specifically designed to work as a comic, and ideally, a comic it should remain. Put it this way: Could any of cartoonist Chris Ware's work be 'adapted' for film or T.V.? Nope. All the movie of 'Watchmen' is going to be is another trip to the money well by DC/Warner while Alan Moore, who raised up the medium more than a few notches in quality, and practically built the ground floor for DC's Vertigo line of 'mature comics', (Remember all those 'Bang! Pow! Zoom! Comics aren't for kids these days!' articles in mainstream magazines in the 90's?) gets roughly the same deal the 'Superman' creators got.

The other message to take away from this, is that if one wants to work in a medium where one wants to do thoughtful, more meaningful work, the comic book field is not the way to go. Let's face it, there's been quite a resurgence in good television in the past few years. The Wire, Deadwood, The Sopranos, Mad Men (off the top of my head) are all examples of this. Hell, even a lot of what you'd consider more mainstream T.V. fare is looking pretty good. (like 'House, M.D', 'Heroes' and 'Battlestar Galactica', to name a few. I imagine you'd still have to endure the same level of petty bureaucracies and corporate bullshit working in television that one does in a comic-book publishing house, but at least you'd be paid well enough to put up with it.

And hey, there'd be not a neckbeard in sight...

"...Run it up the flagpole, J.B...."

Mad Men (B+) My God, these long fingernails, this white beard... Last thing I remember, I was playing lawn bowling with these gnomes...

So how ya doin'? Good, good. Been busy myself... So, let's get to it. AMC's 'Mad Men' is a coldly nostalgic look back at the start of the '60's, and particularly, the rise of the ad executive as a force in American society. Unlike, for instance, "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying", it's not looking down on its characters from a very tall height. Actually, let's discuss what it's also not. It's not a bitter screed against advertising as a negative influence in the culture. It's not a Douglas Sirk type melodrama, though the colouring and settings seem right for that sort of thing.

What you've got here is creator Matthew Wiener's (Soprano's scribe) take on a period in America where we were right on the cusp of Utopia. The Cold War, if not outright won by capitalism and Democracy, had wound up beating the Reds into a corner. As a result, it seemed prosperity for every American was a god-given, hard-won right for every American; that they were reaping the benefits of suffering through the second world war and the Korean war. The only question was: How far can our dreams go? And here's where the Madison Avenue advertising executive comes in...

During this time, Radio, movies, printed media, and that new-ish one, television were doing their best to shoehorn Americans into a cultural square peg. It would be easier to shave off all the idiosyncrasies out of all those children of Irish, German, and English serfs than to cater to their odd customs. (While the Jews were as much a part of America as the other serfs, they brought with them the baggage of being outsiders from the Old Country. Even though their money was as just as green as everyone else's, Post-war America didn't really want to let them in the club. As for blacks in America, well, best that those people were seen but not heard. Not until Birmingham, five years later, anyway...)

Mad Men (the title's from a sobriquet they made for themselves; MADison avenue MEN, geddit?) revolves around one particular ad exec, Don Draper, as American a name as ever lived. Well, it's the name he switched with a dead Army officer so the former white-trash Dick Whitman could reinvent himself as the squarest peg that ever fit into a square hole. He's got a former model-turned housewife, two adorable little kids, and a place in the suburbs. On the outside, his life seems as perfect as one of those advertisements he's so good at creating. The catch is, having everything he's ever wanted, he's still painfully unhappy. (He makes impulsive plans to his subsequent mistresses to bolt off to Paris and Los Angeles.) In fact, one of the main themes of the show is how everyone in this place of privilege is so unhappy. It's made worse by the fact that they know they can't really complain about their lot in their life of privilege, and it would be small comfort if they knew their friends and co-workers were in the same boat as them.

What is really impressive about this show is how worked out it is. Not just in the minor details, like the costumes, props,and historical accuracy, but also in how each character's story resonates with each other's. Note how Don's cool demeanor plays off against frustrated junior exec Pete Campbell, in the scene where Campbell discovers Don's real past as Whitman. Campbell tries to blackmail Don into a promotion, and Don coolly calls his bluff and goes to Bert Cooper, the agency head's, office. When Campbell sputteringly reveals Don's deception, Cooper shrugs and says, "Who cares?"

I guess if I had any problems with the show, it's cleverness gets a tad oppressive. Some of the references are a bit too on the nose; the constant drinking and smoking, the Leon Uris novel, 'Exodus' and Ayn Rand's 'Atlas Shrugged', fr' instance. Also, since there's so much story, some threads just get dropped off- the single mother-turned neighbourhood-pariah narrative just evaporates. And finally, the final twist of having Peggy give birth without her knowing she was even pregnant stretches credulity. (I'm hoping next season has her acknowledge her condition in some way- I mean, come on...)

I'm looking forward to season two, out in June 2008.