Month: November 2005

Jesus is Magic

Tomorrow I have to go into New York for two days; it will be my mission there to go see this Sarah Silverman concert film. partly for an ulterior motive–I am a sucker for sexy semites with a slight overbite. but also because of all the raves I’ve heard from all of you concerning her part in The Aristocrats, and because I just heard a good interview with her on NPR. of course I will also feel like a fool paying $10.50 for a 75 minutes film of a stage show. but the chances of ever having an opportunity to see it here in the lehigh valley are about as good as pennsylvanians giving up scrapple and deep fried pork bits. i’m not saying pennsylvanians are fat….but when they sit around the movie house…

by the way, i believe john and mike might have been in the car with me and Pete (in Pete’s old volvo), on our way to the “good luck” bar, when a woman who I believe was Sarah Silverman pulled up beside us to tell us that she too was from Nashua NH (she saw it on the license plate)…even though I recognized her, I stared blankly and missed my opportunity to invite her along, knowing that probably in her secret heart she wished to spend the night with a bunch of English graduate students from USC. instead, i believe the evening ended with the “little New Yorker” at Cantor’s , served by a matronly Helga in white shoes, and then a morning of nightmare-ravaged sleep. ah, the days when we towered over the LA entertainment scene and made or broke careers with a mere glance….or at least the days when we had a regular table at Musso and Frank’s and every agent in town solicited our opinions…or at least when we dominated the Taco Bell on Figueroa and the homeless begged us for nickels and dimes….or maybe it was Norm’s and just that one guy who smelled….

The League of Gentlemen’s Apocalypse

I watched The League of Gentlemen’s Apocalypse tonight. The plot isn’t terribly original, but it is cleverly handled: the characters of Royston Vasey invade the “real” world in search of their creators who have grown bored with them. The film essentially begins when Reverend Bernice reveals that she has discovered, underneath her church, a series of catacombs whose walls depict the apocalypse—specifically, the end of Royston Vasey. Scenes from the first ten minutes of the film have “already been written,” as it were (such as the scene in which Dr. Matthew Chinnery inserts a rectal probe into a giraffe). The only way to save Royston Vasey is to unlock a secret door (this provides occasion for a nice prop gag) and pass through into the real world, find Gatis, Pemberton, and Shearsmith, and force them to write more episodes. Naturally, the writers don’t want to. They’re working on an entirely new project: a film entitled The King’s Evil, which takes place in England, 1690. Continue reading The League of Gentlemen’s Apocalypse

catwoman

there was some discussion of this film in the “oscar bait” comments, but i believe it deserves a topic of its own. thanks to hbo ondemand i was able to watch this without having to endure the sneers of the terminally hip check-out kids at netflix (okay, vidiots, santa monica flashback). it is, as chris, commenter joshua, and every critic who reviewed it have noted, an extremely crappy movie. and from what i can tell, a very expensive piece of crap. so, is it worth talking about? perhaps if we’re bored we could try to tease out the bizarre narrative of female empowerment that runs through it–and which might be symptomatic of what has become of feminism in the american mainstream: through your crap shall we know ye.

anyone? chris?

the return of beavis and butthead

the “mike judge collection” looks good. 40 of his favorite episodes, with the narrative bits separated from the music-video bits (which makes sense to me). and apparently, we’re not being set up for a scam wherein we buy this collection and then get hit with the complete seasons one by one. judge has said that only non-overlapping collections of his favorite episodes will be released. if i hadn’t caught a lot of the comedy central marathon from last week i don’t know if i would have wanted to buy it, but having done so, i must (damn you, evil marketing geniuses!). plus “the great cornholio” is in this set. unfortunately, i don’t think the great i.n.s episode in which cornholio is deported is on here–i remember watching this at a super bowl party at ned’s (it was mtv’s half-time counter-programming); probably will be in a later collection. i hadn’t really paid a lot of attention to the show till i saw that episode (i think sean portnoy forced us to watch)–it was when i realized that i’d been missing something really, really smart.

i know michael’s a fan–anybody else?

Warriors come out to play

Spike TV is showing ‘Warriors’ at the moment. Presumably in the build up to the re-make of ‘Warriors.’ I watch this again, though for the first time in almost a decade, and I can’t figure out exactly why this movie has the appeal that it does. It seems so cheesy, but there is a certain charisma around the central gang members that transcends the cheesiness. Or maybe it just reminds me of an earlier, simpler era.

Riffs, yeah!

Arrested Development cancelled

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/local/13144665.htm

I’m not terribly surprised, but I’m also not terribly disappointed. As much as I think this is the best comedy on, it would have probably gotten stale if it kept going.

What I wish for (and I don’t think FOX will allow this to happen), is that the rest of the season could have played out knowing it was coming to an end, as The Office did so well; heightening the tensions and relationships up to the finale.

Last week’s episode, where it’s revealed that Charlize Theron’s character is retarded, cracked me up.
It frankly had a really good run, won some emmys, and will do well on DVD – and thank god, it put Jason Bateman back on the map. Perhaps now they could revive his old Silver Spoons spin-off “It’s Your Move.”

Michael Caine, moralist.

Nothing important: just saw a wonderful snippet of an interview with Michael Caine from 1967: Peter Whitehead’s Tonite Let’s All Make Love in London. Michael: “You see, we don’t want to get drunk, or go out–what is properly known as–womanizing until 2:00 in the morning, what we want is the freedom to do so should we wish. We don’t want a lot of rules and regulations. To me, the pubs closing at 11:00 pm and more expensive clubs keeping open later is the most condescending piece of class consciousness I’ve ever heard. It’s to keep the workers out of the pub so they’re not drunk and up late for work in the morning–this was the original idea of it for the munitions factories of the first World War.” He then objects to mini skirts and such, while Whitehead gives us footage of him primping for the cameras. Great stuff.

the high wanking men of wome

did we have a discussion already of hbo’s “rome”? well, it’s crap anyway, and the fact that i’ve watched all the episodes to date speaks only to the utter tedium that is my life. and now i’m posting about it. somebody help me. it is badly written, the performances are overly serious, and it has the worst opening credits sequence of all time. so, why do i watch? i mentioned the utter tedium thing; plus it is on hbo ondemand and watching it helps justify the price i pay for digital cable; and i’m a sucker for finding out how stories end (and damn you, whoever it was that got me into watching stupid “lost” as well!). i wait for jeff to tell me why i should like this more. and for notlaughing schmucko and angryrabbit to mock me–ach, i remember the halcyon days of this blog when we had commenters with real names (like lesbian anime girl).