Month: January 2012

JusWondering… Might I Drive To Ohio For This?

Posted on by sgottahurt

I’ve dreamed of this day.  I mean it, I’ve literally dreamed of this day.  And did I call when it would roll out or what?  I’m going all caps (and bold and underline and centered) for this.

TACO BELL 

WILL BE SERVING BREAKFAST

IN 800 LOCATIONS!

Does that come in a Big Box or as a Meal Deal, please?

I can’t believe the day is just about here…

The only problem I see is that it’s not happening here… in Michigan.

I can’t say that I won’t be driving to Toledo as soon as I find out if they’re already serving it there.

I’ve already contemplated driving back to Kentucky for some chili cheese burritos…

Welcome to First Meal

monkeyFLASHmonkeyBACK… Lethal Oversight

Posted on by sgottahurt

Remember the Lethal Weapon films?  There were four of them, all released in the theater.  I didn’t see the original at the show, but I watched it plenty on VHS.  Especially the beginning.  But not too much of the beginning, because it gets depressing.

Anyboobs, the point of the monkeyFLASHmonkeyBACK is to pretend what I might have written about in a blog before I had a blog (or as in this case, pre-blog, pre-TripleDoubleU).  I just realized what I’m about to share after watching Lethal Weapon 5 for the second time.  What’s Lethal Weapon 5, you might ask?  It was a video the gang made on an episode of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, and like I said… I watched this episode twice and just noticed this… but I’m pretending I did it back when Part 4 was released in 1998.

The Lethal Weapon series was always a fun one.  It was also a series based on opposing forces.

They were too young for this shit.

You had Roger Murtaugh:

  • a stable family man
  • a bit up in his years
  • had a nice home
  • a good cop that followed the rules
  • happened to be black

Then you had Martin Riggs:

  • an unstable man (suicidal) that lost his family (his wife)
  • in the prime of his life
  • lived in a trailer on the beach
  • a good cop that didn’t follow the rules
  • happened to be white

As the series progressed from the first, both men grew, and their stories paralleled each other, culminating in the dual pregnancies of the fourth film (Murtaugh’s gonna be a grandpa; Riggs a first-time dad).

I always considered myself a huge fan of the series.  In fact, when I saw part three at the theater, I convinced myself that if I had to leave after the first fifteen minutes, I was thoroughly entertained enough to justify the price of my admission.  (Which would have been a “cat”-astrophe.)

But having just noticed such a simple writer’s slight-of-hand, I’ve embarrassed myself.  In creating these two iconic characters, screenwriter Shane Black picked every mismatch possible, as I listed above.  How did I miss this?

Their initials.

Musical Musings… Imagined Re-Imaginings Of Other Songs

Posted on by sgottahurt

We live in a world that’s becoming more and more full of remakes, reboots, and re-imaginings.  What if some songs we know and maybe love are in reality re-imaginings of older songs?

What if DJ Jazzy Jeff and The Fresh Prince’s You Saw My Blinker (Bitch)…

…was really re-imagined as Ludacris’ Move Bitch?

What if Huey Lewis and The News’ I Want a New Drug…

…was really re-imagined as Nine Inch Nails’ The Perfect Drug?

What if Christopher Cross’ Sailing…

…was really re-imagined as AWOLNATION’s Sail?

What if The Whispers’ Rock Steady…

…was really re-imagined as LMFAO’s Party Rock Anthem?

What if Sir Mix-A-Lot’s Baby Got Back…

was really re-imagined as Big Sean and Nicki Minaj’s Ass?

(SIDENOTE: I always love making this song the butt of my joke…)

Awesome Battle… TV Shows That Tried To Find New Life In Film

Posted on by sgottahurt

I could have started this post about the new Tim and Eric movie, but…

...nobody knows anything about this except for five people I know.

So instead, I’ll focus on other TV shows that made the leap to the big screen with the original cast (or at least most of it) in tact.  This is not about the remakes.  Here are some TV Shows That Tried To Find New Life In Film.  Some did; some didn’t.  Awesome Battle, begin!

WE’RE GONNA STICK WITH THIS MOVIE THING FOR AWHILE

These were the TV shows that had either finished their run (Star Trek: The Original Series), were about to finish their run (The Muppets Show, Star Trek: The Next Generation), or barely had a run at all (the short-lived Naked Gun), but went on to produce more motion pictures than thought possible.  These are the successes.  These are the ones that the cinema kept alive… even up to now.

The Muppet Show - Star Trek: TOS & TNG - Naked Gun

WE’RE GONNA GO BACK TO TV A LITTLE WHILE LONGER

It’s weird that this group mostly consists of cartoons.  These are the TV shows that decided to release a movie to capitalize on the boob tube success, and in many ways, they did.

  • Transformers: The Movie was released in 1986 to reboot the toy line and cartoon series, and how did it do that?  It killed most of the original cast.  It’s officially time to throw out Optimus Prime to buy Rodimus Prime.
  • Beavis and Butt-Head Do America extended the show one more season, but it must have also entered it into the nostalgia lexicon.  It returned to MTV with a new season late last year.
  • South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut came out somewhere around season 3 or 4.  The show just finished its fifteenth season.  Oh, my god!  They didn’t kill this show!
  • Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theaters should have killed ATHF, but it didn’t.  I saw this at the show.  It was horrible!  This happened in 2007.  The show is still on the air.
  • The X-Files: Fight the Future got me to watch the season before the film was to be released.  I wasn’t a fan of the show prior to that, but I knew a fair amount of its mythology.  (I’d only watch it here and there for the random, spooky episodes.)  The show went on for four more years.  Somehow.  The revelations in the movie were boring.  And I think they changed all the mysteries anyway.  Long story short, I stopped watching the show; others didn’t.

Transformers - Beavis and Butt-Head - South Park - The X-Files - Aqua Teen Hunger Force

WE’RE JUST LUCKY TO HAVE ONE MOVIE

These shows probably shouldn’t have had movies, but because of the fans, they did.

Kids in the Hall begat Brain Candy; Twin Peaks begat Fire Walk With Me; Firefly begat Serenity; Strangers with Candy begat Strangers with Candy; and for some reason… when no one was asking, The X-Files begat I Want to Believe.  They were trying to pull an ol’ Star Trek: TOS on us.  You’ll have to do better than pedo-priest and severed heads, Chris Carter.  Mulder needs his Khan.

Kids in the Hall - Twin Peaks - Firefly - Strangers with Candy - The X-Files

WE’RE NOT GOING TO COUNT THESE

Any film based on Saturday Night Live skits is not up for discussion at this time.

And I didn’t include Monty Python because they’re British.

Now, I know that Kids in the Hall are Canadian, and I added them up above.  And they, too, were produced by SNL’s Lorne Michaels.  But they’re already in the Photoshopped image, so nyah.

In My Brain While Sleeping… The All-New Goldfish Cracker Mascot

Posted on by sgottahurt

Pepperidge Farm has been making Goldfish Crackers since the founder got the idea from Switzerland in 1962.  These days, just being a cheesy cracker isn’t enough.  You gotta have flavors, as well as flava:

These are just the tip of the fishbowl.

As you can see, the latest incarnation of the mascot is fond of sunglasses.  He’s also fond of having a name: Finn.  In fact, there are many characters in the commercials, which is weird, since it’s mostly geared at kids (I presume), and the kids eat them.  Hrm.

What’s weird is I don’t eat Goldfish Crackers of any variety.  And I’ve never seen any commercials.  But last night I had a dream in which Finn changed his look to this:

(Fairly Accurate) Artistic Representation

DREAM INGREDIENTS: Five tall Coors Light drafts, one turkey and cheese Lunchable (can Lunchables be singular?), and a peanut butter-covered bagel.

The Sh– To Just Sh–ty… Crappy Commercials

Posted on by sgottahurt

How bad would it feel to go from having a great guest spot as rapper Lil’ Kev on a popular TV show like It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia:

To having your voice over dubbed (or playing a voice actor’s body) in this TurboTax commercial:

Just Shitty, I’d imagine.  But compared to these other shittier commercials, this one is The Shit.

DUMB AS SHIT

Airborne Effervescent Tablets not only rip-off an old special effect from a 1992 movie, it contains one of the dumbest looking and sounding animated spokescharacters I’ve ever seen.  Mix that with the lawsuit Airborne faced a couple years ago regarding misleading advertising, and it wins being Dumb as Shit.  (I was going to make an inappropriate comment about the tablets not giving the woman her boobs back, but I opted not to.)

ANNOYING AS SHIT

I like the J. Geils Band, and I’m sure that Energizer Lithium Batteries work great, but the version of the music used in this ad drives me up the wall.  It butchers the hook, and keeps going and going and going…

CRAPPY AS SHIT

Happy’s Pizza is a local pizzeria (natch), and this is the commercial they ran around Halloween last year.  I’ve written about how poor their ad department is before, but this one takes the cake pizza pie.

The Silver Lining… The Heart Hand Gesture

Posted on by sgottahurt

The HeartMark™ is trademarked?!

Trends.

They’re always stupid.  Pet rocks, sequenced gloves, pogs… and now this.  The inescapable heart hand gesture.  It’s everywhere.

Aeroswift™

But would you believe some lady “claims” to have the trademark on it?

This lady looks like she makes many "claims"...

She even licenses it out allegedly (although it just looks like she just made a list of places she’s seen it used and retroactively authorized it).

(SIDENOTE: Did she donate the gesture to Show Your Hearts?  It could be a tax write-off.)

My hope is that it actually is trademarked, and that she’s making bank on its pervasiveness.

I mean, what she claims is not impossible.  She could figured it out during a round of This is the church and this is the steeple gone bad.  I haven’t seen it in use until recent years, and it seems like a simple gesture to devise.

But was she the one who told Taylor Swift about it?  Because Swift claims she invented it, and her fans claim that Lady Gaga, Justin Bieber, et. al. stole it from her.

All that matters is did this woman really trademark what she calls The HeartMark™?  Because I have an idea of my own:

My trademark... Deez Nuts™.

Hibbidy-Wah?! Are You Effing Kidding Me?

Posted on by sgottahurt

No.

Seriously.

You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.

Click this picture to read the Amazon reviews.

I’m not about to jump on the bandwagon of slamming some misguided, self-righteous kid, but boy… do I want to.  This is one of those situations best illustrated by illustrations I made to defend Justin Bieber:

By hating on McKay Hatch and his No Cussing Club, you only make his message stronger.  But then he goes and makes videos like this, and it takes you somewhere completely different:

The only reason I know about him and his fruitless endeavor is because he came out against an episode of Modern Family in which the toddler Lily says:

Fudge.

That’s really what she said in real life.  Fudge.  They just bleeped it out like Jimmy Kimmel does in his Unnecessary Censorship:

And he wonders why he’s “the most cyberbullied kid in the world”?

Here are rational reasons why; here’s the irrational; and here’s one more.

Unofficial Trilogy… Sucked From Time Edition

Posted on by sgottahurt

Flashing Lights, Grids, and Guns = Science Fiction

Millennium (1989)

This is the first of the films in which characters about to die are sucked from their impending doom and thrust into a surreal reality, or surreality™.  As you can see from the poster above, this one involves a plane.  Well, two planes.  And they’re about to crash into each other.  But all the passengers are already dead.  Because they were see the first sentence. It’s not the greatest film in the world, but if you enjoy Cheryl Ladd and Kris Kristofferson looking like this…

...then this pic's for you. Well, not this picture. I mean the motion picture. But I guess you could have this pic, too.

Freejack (1992)

The second film featuring a surreality™ doesn’t give away as much in the poster, other than its odd cast.  You might think the flick has to do something with virtual reality, which is strictly The Lawnmower Man’s territory (no it’s not), when in fact it deals with a man (Emilio Estevez) being pulled into the future before his race car crashes.  The reason why?  Sir Anthony Hopkins wants his body.  Seriously.  Estevez escapes and becomes a Freejack (aha!), and is chased by Mick Jagger looking like this:

He's got the goons like Jagger.

Gantz (2011)

If you enjoy subtitles and odd sci-fi action spread out over two movies, then these Japanese films are for you.  I haven’t seen the sequel yet (Gantz: Perfect Answer), so I don’t have any answers, perfect or otherwise, as to what the Gantz is.  Well, it’s a dude inside a giant black ball that pulls the almost deceased into a surreality™ where they dress up in rubber power suits and set out to kill a vast array of strange aliens.  Here’s a taste:

Natsuna Watanabe is easy on the Gantz.