October | 2011 | monkeyBLOG monkeyDO

Coinkydink Or Coinkydonk? Movie Preview Circle Jerk

Posted on October 11, 2011 by sgottahurt

I just wish I could find the inspiration for this post online. Believe it or not, I saw a trailer on TV for Clint Eastwood’s J. Edgar that ripped off the Inception sound. (I recorded it off TV – unfortunately it’s not as clear as I hoped. Click here to hear.) If you don’t know the infamous BRMMMM, click here.

It’s already been ripped off in this past summer’s Transformers: Dark of the Moon and next summer’s The Avengers:

This has happened once before with the remake of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre using the flash bulb sound from the original trailer, and then it popped up everywhere (I just can’t remember where, for the life of me):

Previews are so terrible today, a woman is suing the advertisers of Ryan Gosling’s Drive for being misleading. I was under the impression it was a cool, 80’s throwback movie based upon its neon logo, until I saw this TV spot:

Unbeatable? Unstoppable? Unkillable?

I started thinking he could be some supernatural driver out of the 50’s! (The lawsuit states the woman thought it was going to be like The Fast and the Furious… my version is better.)

And how about this preview for James McTeigue’s follow-up to V for Vendetta…The RaVen (the capital V is in the preview just to remind you):

Anyone else think the inspector is the murderer?

A Handful Of… Non-Halloween Halloween Songs

Posted on October 10, 2011 by sgottahurt

Halloween is quickly approaching. So there’s no time like the present to plan out the perfect holiday mix that feels less Halloweenie and more Halloweenus.

Here are A Handful Of Non-Halloween Halloween Songs:

Tegan and Sara – Walking with a Ghost

Skillet – Monster

Warren Zevon – Werewolves of London

The Cranberries – Zombie

Bloc Party – Hunting for Witches

Vampire Weekend – Holiday (anything by them would do…)

(SIDENOTE: The Toadies almost made it with Possum Kingdom because the infamous they say it’s about vampires, but based on the title alone, it seems to be about possums. Possums can be scary, though…)

Musical Musings… What The Eff Is This Sh–?

Posted on October 9, 2011 by sgottahurt

The real answer is Cat Daddy by The Rej3ctz (featuring Chris Brown).

The right answer is a pop culture shirt-hawking, leetspeak-laden, wheelchair-dancing hullabaloo:

It’s sort of mesmerizing… in a bitch I go to work sort of way…

JusWondering… Am I The Show Killer?

Posted on October 8, 2011 by sgottahurt

One won; one lost.

Every season on network television, new shows come and new shows go. That’s why I made a vow long ago to wait until the second season before I get involved in anything shiny.

This worked with LOST. Although I wish that I waited until it was all over to ask if it was planned out like I had hoped, or completely made up as it went along, like so many accused it of doing. (It was fucking made up, by the way.)

This hasn’t worked with Fringe, though. I am currently so far behind, I’m willing to let it end and have someone tell me if it was worth it or not. I’m not going through another LOST scenario, if I can help it.

Here are some other shows I skipped in its first run, which were inevitably cancelled:

Firefly
Invasion
FlashForward
V (this did make it to two season, technically, but it only ran for a total of 22 episodes)
Jericho

Here’s one show I broke my rule on and should have skipped in its first run:

Heroes

What’s ~~not really that~~ interesting to note is these are all sci-fi shows. Not a drama or comedy in the bunch. To be fair, I really don’t watch dramas, and the comedies I watch are weird, so I don’t expect them to be on more than a year (with the exception of Undeclared… that should have had a longer run).

So this year, I tacked on a few new shows: Up All Night, Free Agents, and The Playboy Club. I felt lucky after adding one new network show last year (Raising Hope). Two of the three are already gone (Up All Night has thus far evaded the axe).

I thought Free Agents was a smart relationship comedy with solid talents attached; The Playboy Club was stylish and sort of interesting, with plenty of cheese to spare. (Okay, I only watched it because of Amber Heard.) In both of these shows defense, they were trying something different… unlike the horrible Whitney and even worse 2 Broke Girls. I would try to watch these to get them cancelled, but it’s already too late to end them early…

Perhaps I can prevent a second year… (Who am I kidding!? They’re both too terrible to watch!)

I've seen funnier billboards than this billboard AND show.

monkeyFLASHmonkeyBACK… What Kind Of Class Song Is This?

Posted on October 7, 2011 by sgottahurt

Here’s what I ~~would have~~ might have written if I had a blog in 1993. It’s what I still think today.

Abandoned Slogan: "Good thing she drives him crazy."

When I graduated grade school four years ago, the song She Drives Me Crazy by Fine Young Cannibals was selected as our class song, and I was completely against it. The only problem? I had no other suggestions. What does She Drives Me Crazy have anything to do with leaving the eighth grade anyway? Is it a critique of our teacher? Even FYC’s Good Thing would have made a tad more sense, as in:

Good thing we’re graduating.

So as my high school graduation approached, talk of a class song came up. I wasn’t going to get super involved, of course, but I knew one of the girls that was. So I decided to throw a song idea her way.

She stated the group was considering Billy Joel’s This is the Time, which I agreed with, but it was already seven years old. Plus, it trudged up memories of grade school… why didn’t I think to suggest that song?

She continued to add that Peabo Bryson and Regina Belle’s A Whole New World was another option. Again, I wasn’t against it; my standards were pretty low. But I still had my suggestion to float.

Then she brought up Amy Grant’s I Will Remember You. I’ll admit it – I had a crush on the Christian-rocker-turned-pop-star, so I almost didn’t share my idea. I said almost.

It wasn’t even my idea, anyway. My buddy’s graduating class chose Van Halen’s Right Now, so I thought it would make a great statement to our teachers. A rockin’ anthem of moving on; a slamming slight against our private school establishment.

Just like She Drives Me Crazy. (Lesson learned.)

Well, even though Right Now was good enough for Crystal Pepsi, it wasn’t good enough for us.

In fact, none of those songs made the cut. Our class song ended up being Alphaville’s Forever Young. I’ve never even heard of that song! They didn’t play it at graduation, so where else am I supposed to hear this stupid song?! It’s not like I can command the radio to play whatever song I summon…

MODERN SIDENOTE: It would take many, many years for me to eventually hear Forever Young. Man, does it suck or what? Even the cover version sucks. Also, want to know why I never heard of it? The German synthpop song was already nine years old in 1993.

In My Brain While Awake… This Kid’s A Nightmare!

Posted on October 6, 2011 by sgottahurt

Yeah, this one has nothing to do with a dream (thankfully, you might be thinking). It’s just that the kid in this commercial is such a fucking spastic terror, I may have nightmares:

Awesome Battle… Good Will Hunting Vs. Swinging Mike Peters

Posted on October 5, 2011 by sgottahurt

It's like Matt and Ben are the hood of the car.

Swingers and Good Will Hunting hold a sort of distinction in film history as being the “ones that dun it“… meaning, despite their best previous efforts, until the comedy and drama became success stories, nobody knew:

Jon Favreau
Vince Vaughn
Matt Damon
Ben Affleck

But which film is the better ~~Bar Mitzvah~~ ~~Quinceañera~~ ~~Sweet Sixteen~~ coming out party? Let’s wage an Awesome Battle!

BOX OFFICE

Swingers was put together for $200,000, and it went on to make $4.5 million. Good Will Hunting was produced for $10 million and it netted almost $226 million. That’s pretty close ratios, so let’s get specific:

$4,555,020 gross / $200,000 investment = 22.7751 (Swingers)

$225,933,435 gross / $10,000,000 investment = 22.5933435 (Good Will Hunting)

So Swingers earned just over 2277% of its budget, whereas Good Will Hunting earned just over 2259% of its budget.

WINNER: Swingers
APPROPRIATE QUOTE: “You’re so money and you don’t even know it!”

CRITICAL ACCLAIM

We can take two aspects into consideration here: reviews and awards.

Swingers received 87% Fresh from critics (45 positive reviews and 7 negative)

Good Will Hunting received 97% Fresh from critics (68 positive reviews and 2 negative)

89% of the audience liked Swingers; 92% liked Good Will Hunting.

As for awards, Good Will Hunting won Best Supporting Actor for Robin Williams and Oscars for Best Original Screenplay went to Damon and Affleck. So that’s three for the drama; zero for the comedy.

WINNER: Good Will Hunting
APPROPRIATE QUOTE: “How do ya like them ~~tomatoes~~ apples?”

INCREASE IN STAR POWER

So let’s take a quick rundown of everyone’s successes following these films?

Jon Favreau has directed these films which together grossed about $1.6 billion:

Elf
Iron Man
Iron Man 2
Cowboys & Aliens

Vince Vaughn has starred in these films which together grossed about $744 million:

Old School
Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story
Wedding Crashers
The Break-Up

Matt Damon has starred in these two trilogies which together grossed about $2.1 billion:

Ocean’s Eleven, Ocean’s Twelve, Ocean’s Thirteen
The Bourne Identity, The Bourne Supremacy, The Bourne Ultimatum

Ben Affleck has starred in and/or written/directed these critically acclaimed films which together grossed about $477 million + Michael Bay’s Pearl Harbor which made another $449 million:

Shakespeare in Love
Gone Baby Gone
The Town

(Plus Ben Affleck was getting plenty of J. Lo when the getting was good.)

WINNER: Their agents
APPROPRIATE QUOTE: “You move, you die.” – Jason Bourne, in The Bourne Identity, which was directed by Swingers’ director, Doug Liman (full circle)

SO THE OVERALL WINNER IS…

Us… I guess? Nope, nope. It’s their agents.