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Poor Halloween. You used to be the cool holiday. Even though you didn’t get a day off you still managed to be the second biggest reason But things have changed. I was in Michael’s (with my WIFE!) and I noticed that the Halloween display was being quickly devoured by the Christmas wreathes. This made me ever so sad. Christmas is a sucky holiday compared to Halloween for the obvious reason that one is about peace on earth whereas the other is about scaring the hell out of people. I understand the importance of Christmas and I like giving presents to the kids. But last Halloween I dressed the boy up as Hellboy and there’s nothing he could get in a stocking that could be more cool than that experience. I have a tradition on Halloween that has gone on since the first year I ruined the rest of my wife’s life. I get together as many of the best scary movies as I can find and try to watch them until the sun comes up. Unlike the Christmas movie festival, which requires a viewing of The Ref and Bad Santa, there are no set DVD’s that must be watched every Halloween. Instead I try to pick ones that seem cool at the time. As I try to compile the list for this year I would like to invite my millions and millions of readers to throw out some ideas. Everything will get added to the list and at the end we shall see just how clever we really are. 1. Sleepy Hollow: I know it isn’t that great but it is certainly fun to look at. Plus they cut off countless heads and Christopher Walken has those awesome sharp teeth! Now, lest you think I am an amateur in the scary film realm, I will have you know that last year we screened “Don’t Look Now”. Which is a totally mature movie for real deal grownups. So there! Now, you got better ideas? Let me hear it!  Khaaaaan you believe the summer is over? Even as I write this I don’t have time to write this. Tomorrow is another big day at Disneyland with the kids. Tonight is Buffy The Vampire Slayer: Season Three. About that, we all know Angel returns but did they have to include him in the credits? Let’s at least attempt a little suspense. I have been trying to work on three different scripts. Anytime someone asks me how they are coming along I have to use platitudes reserved for referring to adult kids making a third pass through rehab. “Everything is going…you know, good. Really! Good. Making lots of progress…” It dawned on me today that I had been neglecting my blogging responsibilities this entire summer. And there have been so many things to complain about it just seems like I ‘ll never be able to tackle it all. But this is not the time for quitters, this is the time for complainers! So, here is the summer in under a minute. Wolverine: Didn’t see it. You couldn’t fool me! Terminator Salvation: Saw it. Turns out you could fool me! Land of the Lost: The world finally outgrows Will Ferrel. True Blood: Each episode is better than any blockbuster that came out this summer. Hannah Montana The Movie: The best movie ever. Seriously. The best. Star Trek: Didn’t see it but I have nothing against those who did. Some of us just have a little more loyalty to the real Kirk than some of you fair-weather Trekkies. Angels and Demons: Fresh off of outgrowing Ferrel the world decides to get over Tom Hanks. Why make followup to this Hanks flick when there was so much to explore with a Money Pit sequel? Up: Although I wanted to see this movie about a house flown by a man in diapers (seriously I did) but the reviews spoke of some serious tears in the beginning. Although I will one day have to explain old age and death to my little kids, I don’t think I want to do it behind goofy 3d glasses. Year One: Harold Ramis, I love you and I have no desire to hurt you. But this is your 4th movie in a row by my count that totally sucked. What the hell is going on here? You made Caddyshack! You were Egon. You know comedy like Dan Aykroyd knows bad comedy…and eating before bedtime. What happened? Transformers 2: No joke here. No lighthearted whimsy. If you paid to see this you are the embodiment of suck! Public Enemies: How many people Googled this and accidentally got unwanted results for public enemas? And, what was the big idea releasing a real movie in the brain dead summer? Harry Potter and the…?: Which one is this again? I don’t watch these any more but I’m told (by my mother) that it wasn’t very good. Just a time killer for the big finale. G.I. Joe: No Shipwreck, no dice! The general consensus is that this was the better movie based on a Hasbro toy that the movie based on the other Hasbro toy. Robot Chicken Episode II: Get this on Netflix and prepare to laugh your ass off. Seth Green makes terrible movies then uses the money to fund his awesome television show. Billy Dee Williams gets all the best lines this time around. District 9: Nobody get mad, I haven’t seen this yet. Inglorious Basterds: Remember how I didn’t see District 9? I was too busy doing that to see Inglorious Basterds. Coraline on DVD: Loved it in the theater and love it on TV even with the cardboard glasses. There! That’s the whole summer in list form. This blog is now up to date. Because I have been in the business of geeks for a few years there have been plenty of chances to attend all sorts of conventions attended by all kinds of wackadoos. Here is my perspective when it comes to conventions. You go to check out, maybe even buy, some cool stuff or you go to people watch. Both are equally valid reasons for attending. Conventions are magical lands where very overweight people dress up like cartoon characters content in the knowledge that no bullies will be allowed inside. There are the occasional attractive girls and their less attractive four eyed friends always ready with a downer comment like a real life Daria from Beavis and Butthead. Then there are the children. Little kids dressed up like superheroes having the time of their lives blissfully unaware that these awesome grownups are not the coolest people in the world. If you’ve never experienced a genuine convention then you are wasting the use of your eyes. But there is also this strong bond that you can feel when you are there. If you are at the Sci Fi Literature convention, man, you are really into Sci Fi books. And so are all the other eggheads dressed like Gandalf (not the movie one, the one from the book!). When I lived in Oklahoma I had the chance to attend the big deal Star Trek convention. That is easily one of the funnest days of my life. I met so many Klingons! That movie Trekkies is incredibly accurate at capturing just how sincere these people are in their goofiness. The big news last week was the San Diego Comic Con. I went to the 2007 convention and I gotta tell you, what an overrated affair. We’re not talking about a convention so much as a commercial. All the news channels ran their 10 minute thing with their space cadet reporter asking people if they were having a good time. All the internet sites posted news from the panels. Let’s stop right there. When my daughter was three she loved Supergirl. She even loved the terrible movie. We went to a small convention and she stood there in line for twenty minutes, in her Supergirl costume, so she could meet Helen Slater who played Supergirl in the terrible movie. Mrs. Slater was very nice and she she asked my daughter is she had any questions for her, she thought about it and asked “What’s your middle name?” THE END! The single best question and answer session at any convention ever. An answerable question! I give you the question and you give me the answer and we go on with our lives. While my girl was making history on one end of the room, the other end saw morons asking Stan Winston a million “What was it like…” questions, each one more pointless than the last. You know what it was like? It was fine. Let’s get this whole thing over with, to all you queries: IT WAS FINE! And then there are the people who ask celebrities for advice. What do they know? Here’s what Keanu is go to advise you to do: Be an okay actor and somehow luck into the only industry that gives you millions to play with toy guns. Oh, and be true to yourself. Back to the Comic Con. The big deal on the geek websites was all about the previews and clips that different studios debuted. What does that sound like to you? Does that sound like a gathering of like minded people or a big budget promotional event? What good is a preview to me? If a movie looks cool I’ll see it when it comes out. Here’s what it looks like at the Convention. One side of the big room is full giant displays focusing on the big movies and cartoons being promoted. In 2007 they had a giant replica of the Black Pearl and a huge spiraling display of the different incarnations of the Star Wars franchise, along with a bunch of other stuff. This is where all the action is. This is where you push yourself through the crowds and fight to get your hands on the exclusive Cracker Jack quality trinkets before they disappear. The other side is the loser side. The comic book side. Yup. The Comic Con doesn’t have a lot of love for the comic book. This side of the show looks like any old convention only vendor spots are incredibly expensive and hardly anyone is buying anything because they already drop a bunch to get in. Ironically these two groups will be doing business in upcoming months at much smaller conventions. I’m sure there are geeks that love the hell out of the San Diego Comic Con and that’s fine. Big commercial events are what some people are into. But I don’t need all that flash and pizazz. All I need are my fat people in too–tight costumes. Correct me if I’m delusional but don’t the movies this year suck? And the music, too? Last summer there was just one great movie after another. Even the ones that disappointed seemed to reflect some sort of sincere effort on the part of the filmmakers. Wait, did Eddie Murphy do one last year? Okay, everything that This year is just a bunch of lame retreads put together without inspiration or even a story to tell. This is just the year of the easy paycheck in Hollywood. Here’s the formula: Take a movie everyone loves then make a sequel or a reboot (which IS STILL a sequel just like a prequel is a sequel) print a bunch of posters and make a ton of money. What’s it going to be about? Who cares! What is the script like? Like the last one only with less words! Is a rehash the best we can offer the audience? The audience is a bunch of obese zombies who drool over Megan Fox because we’ve convinced them she’s hot! And this is why the biggest movie of the year is about cars that turn into robots that look like totalled cars. Here is the part that offends me most. I recently saw “Killshot” on DVD because it didn’t get a theatrical release. For those who only watch on TV what they first watch on the big screen, “Killshot” is the story of a hitman (Mickey Rourke) But movies are tricky projects to pull off and sometimes things just fail to come together. It’s a bummer but that’s how it goes. What pisses me off is when a movie intends to suck. How does a sequel to a movie about cars turning into robots not intend to suck? It’s based on a cartoon based on a toy! Incidentally, the animated movie about the show based on the toy is a hundred times better than the Michael Bay ones that everyone keeps paying to I would complain about the new Terminator abortion but what’s the point? Should we discuss the TV movie quality Wolverine thing? They seem so frivolous that complaining about them or defending them just seems like a waste of more energy than any of the filmmakers bothered to put it. Go ahead, mention the Star Trek SEQUEL. I don’t understand it but a lot of people seemed to like it. Frankly I think a lot of people were just dying for anything that didn’t punish them for buying a ticket. I can’t get behind it because, frankly, I was never so much a Trek fan as I was a Shatner fan. You can have your new cast. I’m having just as much fun watching Priceline Commercials. I guess “Up” is really good but that doesn’t fit the Hollywood formula. They like to include Pixar’s movies when they talk about what a great year they’ve had, but Pixar is a bunch of geeks in a magical dungeon insisting on perfection and completely unaware of the current audience trends. They just make these great little movies that get released in theaters right alongside whatever the hell Sandra Bullock has thrown up on the screen. I’ve heard some very positive things about “500 Days of Summer” which is a smaller movie about people interacting, which is nice. Plus read somewhere that they took out the entire subplot about robots from the future that transform into wave-runners and I think that was a smart decision. My wife and I were raised on different planets. In her world there were beaches and roller skates, friends and parties. In my world there was television and cable television. As a result, our lives are full of moments were I quote a character or a refer a scene only to get the same lost smile I see On the other hand, I have the opportunity to introduce my bride to all of the great shows she missed when she was wasting her life on living. Which brings us to “Picket Fences” finally coming out on DVD. David E. Kelly has made a bunch of shows I cannot stand that have been huge successes. Let’s review. “Ally McBeal” sucked. “The Practice” sucked. “Boston Legal”? Okay, fine, it didn’t totally suck. But it did get a lot more traction out of Shatner’s Denny Crane than it deserved. But his best show, one of television’s best shows, was his first. Tom Skerritt kicked ass. Don Cheadle was great but always is. Fyvush Finkle was the original Denny Crane with his “Douglas Wambaugh for the defense!” I could go on but correctly spelled Fyvush Finkle without looking it up so I think it’s time to quit while ahead. In the end this type of high quality stuff just ends up bumming me out. Every episode only serves to remind me that there was a time before Reality Shows, and that my kids may never see a time like that. There was a time when writers were just gifted. Of course, “Picket Fences” tanked in the ratings. As with “Twin Peaks”, “Max Headroom” and “Quantum Leap” they were never able to catch the attention of enough viewers. So, that’s probably the lesson. There was a time when shows were great and nobody cared. There are still great shows that come and go because not enough people want quality. They want to watch what their friends are watching. That’s why we get crappy reality shows about finding love amongst shallow fools and terrible parents of gaggles of kids. The masses have spoken…and I believe they said “Duh…” Man, but “Picket Fences” was good! And now DOUGLAS WAMBAUGH FOR THE DEFENSE!!!! My kids got me the perfect gifts for the ridiculous holiday they call “Father’s Day”. A bunch of Hellboy junk! Hellboy, as we all know, is the most interesting comic book hero. And, unlike almost every other comic book character that gets his own movie, the guy who plays Hellboy is absolutely perfect. Ron Perlman already half looks like Hellboy before they put on the makeup. He looks damn near prehistoric. I love how the Hellboy movies don’t attempt to appeal to the masses. They go full geek-tard and still manage to bring in a load of money. Now, consider The Dark Knight. The first comic book movie to go legit. The goal was to take a cartoon hero and villain and try to convince the audience that this could actually happen. As much as I like the movie I still can’t ignore that it abandons the otherworldly city Gotham for the totally our-worldly city of New York. This poses a challenge to the viewer. Batman’s insane code of not killing no matter what the outcome is better kept in his world. When you bring that logic to our world there are plenty of times when killing to save the innocent is not only okay, but moral. Who want’s to think about these contradictions when watching a man in a rubber batsuit? Hellboy, on the other hand, just tells these off the wall stories totally straight and without compromising on the goofy Then there are the cartoons! If you haven’t seen the straight to DVD animated movies you are missing out. Anyway, my kids are Hellboy fans, too. In fact, the three year old was Hellboy last Halloween. The conversations at the church party went as follows: Geezer: How adorable, and who are you supposed to be? The Boy: I’m Hellboy! Geezer: (Confused at hearing such a terrible word) Umm…a Cowboy? The Boy: HELLBOY! Good times. Anyway, Mezco has these little Hellboy figures after the fashion of the Star Wars Galactic Heroes (which are awesome) but because they are Hellboy they are doubly awesome.
Father’s Day may be stupid but I’m not going to complain out loud if the gifts are this cool every year.
I know, you can hardly read because of the rage and jealousy that now grips your soul. But that’s just the way the Cookie Monster crumbles under cross examination. Is it ironic for a man who mocks the cult of global warming, such as I, to love a movie that uses the excuse of global warming to explain a world of water? Who cares.
Waterworld opens with plot hole so huge it shouldn’t be able to survive it and then it ends on a plot hole so huge it makes the first one seem logical. Plot hole #1: The polar icecaps melt and sink the world even though the polar icecaps do not contain any where near enough water to do that. Not a small hole but who cares because the one at the end is even better. Plot Hole #2: Costner jumps from a hot air balloon with a rope tied to his leg to rescue the little girl in the water. He grabs her and bungees to safety as the bad guys crash their jet skis into each other and explode. I ask you, where is the plot hole? Is it that the rope was a rope when he jumps and a bungee cord when he grabbed her? Is it that a centuries old bungee cord probably wouldn’t work even if it was what he tied to his leg when he jumped, which it wasn’t? Nope. The correct answer is that the only man on earth with gills and webbed feet chooses to jump to the water and then bounce away rather than jump in the water and swim away. Still, I don’t mind the first plot hole and I usually turn off the movie right after the tanker explodes. If you watch it that way it’s the perfect movie. And that’s not even the point. The point is that I won the trimaran. This isn’t the best scene of the trimaran but it is the best scene in the movie. Whoa! Be careful with that stuff, a little goes a long way. You overdose on too much horrible Shrek musical numbers and you’re brain doesn’t recover. You turn into a Broadway burnout, a gay Tommy Chong. Don’t even think about watching this unless you’re really sure you can take it. Now, on a serious note. Someone did the makeup for this show. Someone arranged the lights. Someone hired the cast and someone else hired the musicians. Someone hired the caterers to feed the cast and crew. Someone built the sets. Someone, partially blind I fear, made Donkey’s costume. Someone sold the tickets and someone tore the tickets. With all these someones coming into contact with this show, how is it that no one had the presence of mind to burn the theater to the ground and bury the ashes a mile under the earth in a sacred place where the devil could not enter to reclaim his child? How does something like that not get done?
Dollar stores are for suckers and early adopters who pay full price to be “the first” should be tested for retardation. This is how I go shopping. I breeze through every aisle with out even glancing at the items. I don’t stop until I find myself surrounded by a sea of red tags. Overstocks. Poorly advertised treasures that deserved a better chance. Stores going out of business, those are my favorites. Sometimes I poke my head in a store and look around at their overpriced stuff. They ask if they can help me and I say “No thanks, I’ll come back…(whisper) when you go belly up. HAHAHAHAHA!) Then there’s the stuff that was hip and now isn’t because “hip” is fleeting and pictures of you in parachute pants are forever. That stuff I usually buy for other people. Here’s your “Jonas Brother’s” backpack, Grandpa. I’m kidding, my grandparents are dead. Any way, here’s a pick from Office Max. I think I’ll go back when they drop this another penny or two.
There are few ways to die as totally awesome as the way David Carradine chose to punch out. Naked. Hanging in his hotel closet. A victim of his own masturbation. I have always loved Carradine. As a kung fu master. As the infamous Bill. And as a totally crazy human being who was out of control on movie sets much to the detriment of his career. Oh, and he was cool as the host of Wild West Tech. What if he had overdosed or had a stupid heart attack? Everyone does that! You want to be remembered, you go out in a way that is impossible to handle gracefully at next years “In Memoriam” portion of the Oscars. Who will they cut to when Carradine’s picture is shown? Who will have the honor of making a thoughtful face when honoring a man who passed on jacking off? I vote for Sean Penn. He’s a tool. It stands to reason. Bill killed himself with the Five Point Palm Exploding Heart technique. Get it? Five fingered…too cool.
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