Pockets of Sanity

I Guess Those Body Spray Commercials Are True

So I was wandering around Best Buy this past weekend...

Weekends are pretty busy at this store, what with all the Gen-Xers running about with their flannel and their mop tops and their Chuck Taylors.  And as I walked through the store I noticed there was an usually high number of hot chicks shopping for gadgets.  Not that I mind.  If I ran an electronics store I'd pay hot chicks to hang out there.

Anyway, as I walked from the DVD section to the music section, two from the gaggle of hot chicks walked toward me.  And as I passed them, one of them quickly yet blatantly grabbed my ass.

Aside from mentally shouting "WTF?!?" I gave them no reaction whatsoever.  In a split second I determined that a reaction was clearly what they were going for and I was not going to give these hottie punks the satisfaction.  So I acted as if nothing had happened.  Despite my ravishing good looks and chiseled physique, clearly this ass grab was not a sign of affection. 

The most likely explanation was that there was some dude planted somewhere in the store with a camera, and these girls were doing this to several other people as well to get all kinds of comical reactions, which will then later be uploaded to YouTube.  A lesser possibility is that these girls were on some sort of scavenger hunt, and there were 10 points offered for grabbing fatty's ass.

Or maybe they were just insane.  Who knows.

Music with a Greek Flavor

Alan Arkin, FTW!

Congrats again to my hands down favorite living actor, Alan Arkin, for *finally* winning an Academy Award.  He picked up his gold trophy (and promptly sat it on the ground) for his supporting role in the indie favorite Little Miss Sunshine.

This was Arkin's third nomination.  Previously he was nominated for his starring debut in The Russians are Coming, The Russians are Coming in 1966 and again for his third film The Heart is a Lonely Hunter in 1968.  He is one of only six actors to be nominated for Best Actor for their first film.

Perhaps now, Arkin's movie Raising Flagg, the sequel to his 1984 film A Matter of Principle can see the light of day.  It has been sitting on the proverbial shelf for seemingly over a year now.

Friday Words of Wisdom

Just remember, the average person does not consume 400 pounds of chicken in a year.  That's an absurd figure and don't let anyone tell you otherwise.

You wanna see something really scary?

This is, um, gold medal Olympian Carl Lewis and, um... he's got a lot of make up on and there's an old woman in a sauna and, well... just watch.  Then cry.

The Movies Suck Again

Watched more movies recently and sure, my choices weren't that great.  But sometimes you're supposed to find diamonds in the rough.  These were just rough.

Urban Legends: Final Cut is the sequel to Urban Legend, a movie that I felt had potential but did nothing with it.  Part 2 here doesn't even show potential.  It's fairly ridiculous from start to finish, with scenes inserted here and there that don't even seem to serve the plot and instead just recreate some urban legend in order to satisfy the title.  And somehow Hart Bochner from Die Hard looks younger here than he did 10 years ago.  Laughable in places, but not enough to make it "so bad it's good".  Rating: 1.5 out of 5.0.

As the glutton for punishment that I am, I went ahead and watched Urban Legends: Bloody Mary.  At first this film feels like it was just called Bloody Mary and then at some point the studio slapped the Urban Legends brand on it, but about midway through they actually recreate some of the urban legends that were discussed in part two.  There's a special effects sequence involving spiders that's borderline ridiculous.  Not much else to say about this one, except that it felt like a rip off of one of the movies in the Prom Night series (Prom Night II: Hello Mary Lou maybe?).  The lead actress (Kate Mara) seems to be popping up in everything I see lately.  Rating: 1.0 out of 5.0.

First Daughter was something I watched solely because I knew that Michael Keaton had a supporting role in it as the President of the United States (!).  Then I noticed that the movie's story was conceived by actor Jerry O'Connell (Stand By Me, Sliders) and was directed by Forest Whitaker.  How bizarre.  Anyway, Keaton's fine (and deserves better... but that's a rant for another day) and the movie itself defies almost all normal teen rom-com conventions, but it's still something I'd never watch again.  That's not the mark of a good movie.  And Katie Holmes looks weird in some scenes, as if she wasn't shot from the right angles or something.  I couldn't quite place the problem, but then again I didn't try all that hard since I don't spend much time worrying about how crazy women look.  Rating: 2.0 out of 5.0.

Finally there was The Ringer, which stars Johnny Knoxville as an average joe who gets suckered into "fixing" the Special Olympics.  The film teeters back and forth between uncomfortable and sentimental and can never decide which tone to take.  Ultimately the film just becomes one of those "two people fall in love but one has a big secret which when revealed ruins everything but a few months later it'll all be fine" deals.  South Park did the same material much better.  Rating: 1.5 out of 5.0.

Shatner Eats Pudding

This video will either haunt your dreams or make your day.  I love it, quite frankly.

Presidents Day

I just wasn't feeling it this morning, and so I searched for "presidents day" on YouTube and this was the best I could find.  Enjoy, or not.  I need to go back to bed.

Hajulellah

LDC once mentioned her love of Leonard Cohen's song "Hallelujah".  While I'm not a fan of Cohen's style of singing, the song itself is great and I've certainly enjoyed other performances of it.  My preferred version is by John Cale, which appeared in the first season of Scrubs and is included on the show's soundtrack album.

What follows is, well... not the best version of the song ever recorded.

Gremlins, Gremlins, Gremlins

Rumor has it that Warner Premiere, the direct to DVD division of Warner Bros., is ramping up to start production on a slew of direct to DVD sequels to films you probably love.  Titles making the rounds include: Scooby Doo 3, The Goonies 2, New Jack City 2, The Lost Boys 2, and (shudder) Gremlins 3.

If this news is true and production does indeed commence on Gremlins 3, expect it to be all CGI craptastic effects, and don't expect the involvement of director Joe Dante.  I'm already disappointed by this news.

Later I was browsing through Wikipedia and came across the entry for the original Gremlins.  Standard stuff, some tidbits of things I didn't know, blah blah blah... and then I see a subsection titled "Charges of Racism".  Wondering just what exactly could have been considered racist, I would up reading what might be the most ridiculous opinions ever:

Despite its critical acclaim and popular success, Gremlins has been criticized as racist and culturally insensitive. Some observers have commented that the film presents gremlins as African Americans in a bar scene, and in an unflattering manner. The creatures exhibit some of the worst stereotypical behavior attributed to blacks. They are wild, drunken, carousing, violent, murderous, seductive, lascivious, sometimes simple-minded, crude and rowdy. The females are depicted with big, red lips and wearing ugly, blonde wigs. The males swagger, wear sunglasses at night and big-apple slouch hats, a fashion popular in urban African American communities in the 1970s and 1980s; and in one scene a gremlin spins on the floor, breakdancing.

In her book Ceramic Uncles & Celluloid Mammies, Patricia Turner examines the issue of the movie's depiction of the "African-American gremlins" as racist caricatures.

Nowhere are the negative ethnic messages clearer than in the actual depiction of the unearthly beings....

These malevolent miniature Mogwi are the most destructive and reflect negative African-American stereotypes. Soon after their unexpected birth, the pesky gremlins are devouring fried chicken with their hands. Their first target is Billy's kind, overburdened mother, and they are soon pursuing the hero's girlfriend at Dorry's Tavern. In some unexplained way, several of them have managed to acquire shades and caps that cover their eyes. Cigarettes droop from the corners of their mouths. They make haste to a tavern where they cannot get enough to drink. Here we see their love of music and their ability to break-dance.

I just can't believe that there are people so colossally stupid on this planet.  It's GREMLINS.  There's not a hint of race or racism in the entire film.  Not one bit.  None.  How do you sit around and dream this stuff up?