Archive for September, 2008

james woods tried to save 9/11

According to Snopes, and other reputable sources James Woods was on a flight with some of the 9/11 terrorists while they were taking a trial run:

One of the practice flights may have occurred in August. Actor James Woods was so shaken by a flight he took from Boston to Los Angeles about a month before the attacks that he told an attendant and authorities of his suspicions when he landed. Woods was in first-class and the only other passengers in the section were four men who appeared to be Middle Eastern in origin.

During the entire six-hour flight, Woods noticed the men neither ate nor drank. They talked to each other in whispers and did not read or sleep. On Sept. 12, Woods called the FBI to tell investigators about his experience. He was interviewed by agents on Sept. 13. Woods’s spokesman told Reuters the actor thought it ”prudent not to comment on this and let the FBI continue to do their job, which they seem to be doing superbly right now.”

from: http://www.snopes.com/rumors/woods.asp

Honestly, I think we should get James Wood’s opinion on this whole bailout.

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September 30, 2008 · Filed under Interesting

an open letter to Spiderman 3

Dear Spiderman 3,

Oh, how you suck. I mean you truly suck.

Normally, I don’t correspond with movies but on this occasion I really must get this off my chest. You really suck, and I mean it. Rather than just a drive by shouting, I think it may help us both move forward for me to explain just a few of the ways that you suck. So, here it goes.

First, I’m going to start with an easy one: Aunt B. She may be the worst old person character since Cocoon. What is she, just a platitude machine? Do you pull a string and she says crap like “The hardest thing to do is forgive yourself?” I haven’t seen this much emotional depth since the checker at Wal Mart asked me how my day was going.

And speaking of emotional depth, that is really all you have in this movie isn’t it? There is no good vs. evil it really just amounts to Spiderman vs. his wuss feelings. I hate to use other superhero movies to bring you down but when you’ve been exposed to the soul-searing evil of Heath Ledger’s Joker in the new Batman your bad guys seem about as evil as an Amway saleslady. OK, one guy is mad at you because you exposed his lies and fraud to your mutual employer and the other guy is mad because…. ummmm….. I don’t think you ever really went into that. (bad idea)

See your Spiderman will never give me real emotions, because you never allow him to exist in a real space where he has to make a hard choice (beyond whether or not to console Mary Jane when a freaking building is falling down). Your Spiderman just deals with emotions like he’s in a Lifetime movie starring Meredith Baxter-Berney.

See you wanted me to be repulsed by the “evil” choices that “Black Spiderman” took. (by the way that seems really racist when I think about it…) The problem is that I ended up pretty much liking Black Spiderman about 1000x better than normal Spiderman. Let’s review the major “evil” choices that “evil” Spiderman took:

  1. He was mean to his landlord. This seems like fair play to me, that dude was always yelling at him. And while we’re on the topic, why does Spiderman have rent concerns? Doesn’t his inability to make even a small financial arrangement with the New York for his living conditions hinder his ability to fight crime effectively? Isn’t Spiderman just hurting New York due to his love of personal poverty?
  2. He jazz danced down Broadway. Don’t even get me started with that damn scene.
  3. He ate too many cookies from the landlord’s daughter. Was never quite sure while this was “evil”, she seemed to enjoy the whole thing.
  4. He exposed a fraud whose lies endangered their mutual employer. The movie never even touches that it is a just thing to right a wrong, it only deals with emotions. “Oh, you hurt my feelings because you exposed me for the fraud that I am.” Batman wouldn’t deal with that crap.
  5. He told whiny Harry the truth about his a-hole dad. Seemed like fair-play to me, the kid needed to know the truth. Especially since enabling his lie made him your mortal enemy and endangered your crime-fighting operation.
  6. He was mean to Mary Jane by jazz dancing (again?!?) at her jazz club. This is the Mary Jane who brutally broke his heart by acting like she had an affair with his best friend. Seemed necessarily cathartic to me. She is a selfish girl who can’t sing well. She ain’t the Queen of Sheeba.

Finally, and maybe most egregiously – your superhero physics are all askew. So it seems that Spiderman can beat up regular men but is practically helpless agaist other superheroes. That just makes him the strongest human then, not a super-human. And the stupid sandman character, he can only be defeated by saying “I forgive you.” Then that just about makes him the best supervillan of all time. And he’s played by the guy from Wings which was an underrated show. Why didn’t they just make a movie about him?

So in conclusion, I hate you. I hate your stupid characters. I hate your lack of moral clarity. I hate your vendetta against the art of jazz dancing. And, I hate that you will make Spiderman 4 and even more bags of money.

Sincerely,
Bevan Houston

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September 27, 2008 · Filed under rant

prescient

From The Education of Henry Adams (first published privately in 1907), regarding the economic development of the United States (emphasis mine):

As yet, no portion of the world except a few narrow stretches of western Europe have ever been tolerably provided with the essentials of comfort and convenience; to fit out an entire continent with roads and the decencies of life would exhaust the credit of the entire planet.

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September 26, 2008 · Filed under History

sometimes I wish that I had a job in advertising

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September 26, 2008 · Filed under Funny

good afternoon

I was asked to do a guest post today on a friend’s blog. Please feel free to follow this link, if you choose.

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September 25, 2008 · Filed under guestpost

please Riley, don't hurt 'em

Tuesday, August 26, 2008 will go down in the annals of corporate finance as a the beginning of the end for a once mighty global company. Mr. Riley Hall, who incidentally is an old friend – irrelevant to our purposes here, killed News Corp with one blog post. Well, perhaps that is dipping too much into hyperbole, but you will see that he did strike a mortal wound. Mr. Hall made this post on his blog:

Just a quick review of what’s happened since this post. News Corp (NYSE: NWS) took a major financial hit, perhaps shaking the foundations of our entire American economy (I’m not smart enough to understand all the ins and outs). My Space is one of the major holdings of News Corp (they also have some newspapers and maybe a kangaroo ranch or something)

All I know is that since Riley made this post NWS lost a value of $0.39 per share. That may not sound like much, but at NWS’s market cap of over $38 billion that amounts to a Riley-caused destruction of $9,750,000,000 of share holder value. Ouch.

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September 21, 2008 · Filed under Funny

obama v. mccain

This is a pretty fun little quiz on ABC.com:

I leaned 53% towards McCain (who I’m planning on voting for). On a side note, last election all of these little tests said that I should vote for Kerry and I never even considered doing that.

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September 20, 2008 · Filed under Politics

perfect for my recovery

I plan on asking my doctor for approval to wear these shoes for my surgery follow-up on Monday. I can’t think of a better way to strengthen a freshly repaired ACL than to walk on wheels.

Just seems like Bad Idea Jeans to me.

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September 19, 2008 · Filed under Funny

summer movie reviews round-up (post-op edition, part 1)

Ed. Note: This will be the first of most likely multiple review round-ups. I am recovering from ACL surgery, and about the only thing I can do is sit in a chair and watch a movie…

Redbelt

Redbelt is David Mamet’s new movie which intertwines his usual world of con men with the world of Mixed Martial Arts. I didn’t love this movie like I thought I would. I didn’t even love it as much as I did about half way through.

I Looked at Evie at the 100 minute mark and remarked that he’s made himself a pretty compelling picture. I said that he’d have to really mess up from this point. Unfortunately, they pretty much did.

Still a bad David Mamet movie is more compelling than almost anybody else’s movie. He has this weird ability to make everyone in a movie sound alike, even if they’re Steve Martin (in The Spanish Prisoner). It’s kind of like how every woman in a Woody Allen movie sounds like Diane Keaton.

Evie and I talked Mamet for the rest of the evening. Talking Mamet is a lot of double talk and speaking over the end of the last person’s response with your original question. Everything has to drip with passive (or outright) aggression and seem to not believe even the most simple statement from the other person.

Here’s my stab at some dialogue like a Mamet movie:

G: Did you go to the cleaners?

B: I was going to, but then a deer hit my car -

G: DID YOU GO TO THE CLEANERS.

B: I was going to but -

G: DID YOU GO TO THE CLEANERS.

B: No, a deer -

G: A Deer?

B: A Deer hit my car.

G: A Deer hit your car, that’s why you didn’t go to the cleaners.

Maybe you can get it from that, probably not. You’ll just need to see a Mamet movie.

Top Five David Mamet Movies:

1. House of Games

2. Glengarry Glen Ross

3. The Spanish Prisoner

4. Things Change

5. I can’t think of a 5th one because Redbelt and State and Main don’t belong on any Top 5 list that isn’t a Top 5 Movies that missed the mark.

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The Hammer

This was a really unexpected movie. Highly enjoyable. I will bet that most of the potential audience for this movie would associate Adam Carolla with Lovelines or The Man Show.

This is a really simple, uncomplicated romatic sports comedy. It has good boxing, good romance chemistry and good yucks.

Probably the best thing I can say is that girls will enjoy as much as men do. That is really saying something for a movie that has a respectable boxing story built in.

This was a Netflix rental, but became a DVD purchase on Amazon.com.

Team America: World Police

I just love that all of this care and attention went to a puppet movie. It’s so incredibly stupid.

The pupeteering in the movie is so good that at times they purposefully show the puppets with really forced walking or run into stuff.

The movie has an incredibly foul mouth. I have a high tolerance for language, and it almost pushed me. It also has a puppet sex scene that would be NC-17 if was cartoon, or even more if it were live. All of that said, I pretty much giggled the entire movie.

I enjoyed it, but wouldn’t recommend it for anybody.

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Baby Mama

OK – I do love Tina Fey – I could watch her in most anything. This was a decent movie, totally worth a rental. Can you feel the tepidity of my thoughts. It was fine, not great.

The best part of the movie was Dax Shephard. I thought he stole the show. Is that sexist to say the best character in a female powered comedy was a dude?

The Bank Job

This was an enjoyable movie with a real style that they usually don’t bother with in an action movie.

Jason Stratham is the best action movie star working today – loved him in most everything I’ve seen him in since Snatch. This is totally an A+ rental. Not a DVD purchase, but a good rental you tell your friends about the next day.

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The General

I really loved this – totally didn’t expect to – I normally hate silent movies. I’m trying to work my way through the AFI Top 100 American Movies List. I only have 21 movies left and I’ve slogged through three Charlie Chaplin silent comedies. I just assumed there was nothing enjoyable in a silent movie.

This movie really changed that opinion. It holds your attention from the beginning to the end. The most amazing thing to me was that I could show it to my three year old son, he would totally enjoy it and sit through the entire thing. Maybe that just means that I have an attention span of a three year old boy. In today’s society that makes me advanced.

The Gold Rush

I really dislike Charlie Chaplin.

It bothers me that he’s much more famous than Buster Keaton who’s a much, much more talented comedian. All of his stupid mugging from the camera reminds me of Jerry Lewis who I also despise. I would rather wach a Sex and the City box set than sit through another Chaplin movie. Three was enough for me.

I watched the last 30 minutes of this movie in Fast Forward, which actually works well for a silent movie.

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Terms of Endearment

Surpirsed it took me so long to see this movie. I have had a massive crush on Debra Winger since I watched Legal Eagles back in Jr. High. I love Nicholson (like everyone). I love James Brooks movies. As Good As It Gets is on my all-time list. And Shirley McClain is one of my all-time favorite actresses, I LOVED her in The Apartment (also on my all-time list). (I see why all of the rat pack tried to date her back then.)

But, I didn’t love this movie. it never hit me in the right place. Evie practically wept at the end, its a real tear jerker.

Jeff Daniels’ character is the most appropriately named character : Flap. I will probably keep calling people Flap-like or say that is a Flap-level decision.

Jack Nicholson has a very good part – it’s always good when he shows his charming facade with an empty / lonely person underneath. James Brooks gets the most mileage out of him than any director – from this to As Good as it Gets.

James Brooks has made five movies (apart from producing The Simpsons and other stuff):

  1. Spanglish
  2. As Good As It Gets
  3. I’ll Do Anything
  4. Broadcast News
  5. Terms of Endearment

I can say that I truly love 3 of the 5 movies on that list (Spanglish, As Good As It Gets and Broadcast News). How many directors have that kind of batting average? Scorsese is the only one I can think of.

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September 18, 2008 · Filed under Film

seinfeld movies

Thankfully we’re not talking about a Seinfeld feature film, Jerry was pretty brilliant to go out on top and not suffer the indignity of pop culture passing you by (see new X-Files movie). Instead we get this nearly perfect show forever crystallized in the amber of easy syndication or DVD access. I’ve been watching a lot of Seinfeld recently since I tore up my knee again (it’s either that or Family Guy in syndication these days).

My buddy Robert and I had a conversation while we were on vacation last month about movies in Seinfeld (one of many Seinfeld discussions). There was an entire ecosystem of fake movies that came up in the show – in fact the only real movie I remember being discussed were Schindler’s List and The English Patient. Both of these movies were really ignored – Jerry made out during Schindler’s List and Elaine got too bored in The English Patient and sneaked into Sack Lunch instead.

As with many things in life, you can rely on Wikipedia to give you a comprehensive listing of pointless things (truly ironic detail for a show reputably about nothing). Some of the movies that really stuck out to me were:

  • Rochelle, Rochelle – This is the Citizen Kane of fake Seinfled movies. It has multiple references in lots of episodes and is even turned into a musical starring Bette Midler. I wonder if they’ve wrapped up the rights to the title and theme because surely someone would have released a Cinemax version by now starring Eric Roberts.
  • Firestorm – The Harrison Ford action movie
  • Blimp: The Hindenburg Story – goes down as the best title of any of the movies
  • CheckMate: This was a movie that everyone was going to see, but they all wound up in Rochelle, Rochelle instead.
  • Sack Lunch: For me this is the second best movie. Very special points for mentioning that the movie stars Dabney Coleman. I loved Elaine’s interest in the sack on the movie poster: “How did they get in the sack? Don’t you want to find out?”

OK, here’s a poll – you tell me which fictional Seinfeld film you would like to see:

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September 6, 2008 · Filed under TV

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