TV

InASense, Lost… Zack Morris And I Used To Be Friends… Were To!

Posted on by sgottahurt

I had several idols growing up…

  • From the Detroit Tigers, there were Champ Summers and Lance Parrish
  • From the movies, there were Luke Skywalker and Han Solo Indiana Jones
  • And from TV, there were Alex P. Keaton, Mike Seaver, and Zack Morris

Because of my heroes from the Tigers, I’ve always felt at home in the outfield or behind home plate.  Because of Luke and Indy, I learned to stand up for what’s right, and still do, whether if it’s my friends (and the galaxy far, far away) that are in trouble or if there’s an artifact that belongs in a museum. 

But with TV – that glorious, nuturing glass nipple – I’m not sure if everything’s the same. 

I was a Conservative Republican in my youth because of Marty McFly Alex P. Keaton.  Not only was President Reagan keeping us “safe” from global nuclear disaster, Michael J. Fox’s character on Family Ties knew a thing or two about money… and what kid doesn’t like money?  Since then, I’ve become more of a political moderate, and money is not the end all I thought it once was (I can get candy and toys whenever I want, you see).

Not a mug shot... Although he's in court...

Not a mug shot... Although he's in court...

While I looked up to Mike Seaver, I never got into The Boss or harassed either of my sisters into anorexia like he did.  I’m not sure what I admired him for except for his confidence (and his MILF… and his WILF), but it sure as hell wasn’t his beliefs…

When it comes to Zack Morris, it’s a little bit different, though.  We were both in high school at the same time.  He was a likable kid that couldn’t quite get the cool and pretty Kelly Kapowski.  I was going through the same thing in my mind life with a girl I had a crush on. 

But how is he different from Ferris Bueller or Parker Lewis, one might ask?  My response: he was believable.  Zack Morris, even with his time-outs and asides, seemed like a kid you could know, and the credit for that goes to Mark-Paul Gosselaar.  That’s why whenever he gets more chances to move on in his career, I applaud him, like when he was in NYPD Blue or in Raising the Bar, or last night on…

Vodpod videos no longer available.

 

 

Never mind.

Simply Kaelin Some Time… (Keyboard Kato Style)

Posted on by sgottahurt

I apologize for posting another video (as if I don’t post beaucoup de vidz anyway), but the post I was working on started changing and growing from what I initially imagined (don’t worry – it will still be less than superb).  I need to be somewhere else soon, plus I want to allow the other idea to ferment a little longer, so here’s my gift to you (via Tosh.0):

Awful Battle… And The Academy Award For Overacting Goes To–

Posted on by sgottahurt

In real life, most of us have been fortunate enough to avoid problems such as

  • finding out from a letter that your spouse has cheated on you with somebody else’s spouse, but somebody killed them both
  • discovering somebody was getting killed while you were fumbling with music
  • or realizing that goblins* are going to eat you after they finish eating someone else?

So the bulk of us can understand how difficult it would be to try to act out one of those very same scenarios, with so little personal experience to build on. 

Where do you go inside yourself to uncover the characters’ motivation?  Do they teach workshops at the local community college?  Are there clips on YouTube that demonstrate what it takes?

Awful battle… GO!

*the film was called Troll 2, but it was about goblins.

The Alternative To Bruno’s Ass In Eminem’s Face

Posted on by sgottahurt

All right.  All right!  We get it!

Isn’t Bruno irreverent?

Isn’t Eminem so angry?

Personally, I prefer Andy Samberg and “Neil Diamond” singing about guys walking away from explosions like they just don’t care.  Kind of like I did from the hot mess that was the MTV Movie Awards.

Vodpod videos no longer available.

more about “If“, posted with vodpod

 

BONUS: 10 seconds worth of 5 Second Films.

InASense, Lost… Furries (The If’s, And’s, & Yiff’s)

Posted on by sgottahurt

(UPDATE: Check out pic at the end.)

When I begin to investigate the nature of something which I do not initially understand, I take a deep breath, and prepare myself for the unexpected.  As is the case with the concept of furries, I took a deeper breath, and held onto it for dear life.  Who knew what I’d find.

To begin, allow me to share what prompted this study (via AOTS):

Whenever someone goes to painstaking lengths (I say painstaking because I’m lazy, you see) to create, um, a recreation of this calibre for no real reason, my curiosity is peaked.  Why would anybody make their own version of Dick in a Box for one?  For two – why as anthropomorphic animals?

Immediately, I went to the best source of all truth and accuracy on the web – Mr. Wikipedia himself.  And right off the bat, I was amazed to discover what I understood about furries was completely off.  I’ll get to that in a second.

My opinions had changed because my perception had been changed:

Originally, I had believed that all furries were sexual in nature and creepy in general, and my reaction to the above videos was not cast in a favorable light.  But according to Ms. Wikipedia (I changed my mind about the site’s gender as well, because she’s always right), I learned this:

Many members of the furry community feel that the overly sexual component gives the rest of them a bad name, and may use the derogatory term “furvert” to describe such people…

The term “yiff” is most commonly used to indicate sexual activity or sexual material within the fandom—this applies to sexual activity and interaction within the subculture whether online (in the form of cybersex) or offline…

Most furry fans claim that these media portrayals are misconceptions, while the recent coverage focuses on debunking myths and stereotypes that have come to be associated with the furry fandom…

So as it turns out, those videos aren’t sexual in nature.  They’re just creepy in general. 

(I’m kidding, of course, because who am I to judge.  Do you realize how difficult it is to type with paws?)

He should have been an Ewok.

He should have been an Ewok.

JusWondering… Do We Need 9, Nine, And District 9 When We Already Had The Nines?

Posted on by sgottahurt

I’m well aware that there’s been much ballyhoo about the fact that we’ll see a few movies this year that all have to deal with the Roman Numeral IX.  There’s three – count ’em, three – similarly named, though completely different, films:

And for the record, we already had a Ryan Reynolds flick (as if he’s a genre) two years ago that was called The Nines. 

What is it about understated titles that these filmmakers and producers find so appealing?  Does it save on toner?  Why couldn’t they have used different numbers, or even letters for that matter?  There are a lot of numbers and letters ripe for the plucking.

In the spirit of beating a dead horse, why don’t we take a look at a gallery of movie posters that kept the titles simple for the hearts and minds and marquee changers of America:

(IN CASE YOU DIDN’T NOTICE: Steven Spielberg has directed three of the above.)

(My Boss) Paul’s Top Five List… Foreign Language Top 40 Hits

Posted on by sgottahurt

 

I'm sad because I can't spell, and I don't know if there was ever a sequel.

I'm sad because I can't spell, and I don't know if there was ever a sequel.

When “my boss” Paul was just “my friend” in our youth, he was a music fanatic.  He followed trends and made his own version of Billboard magazine.  That all stopped around 1996.  You can tell by the CD case he keeps in his car. 

 

Top 5 Foreign Language Top 40 Hits (Top That!)

5. Macarena – Los Del Rio 
Per Paul: “C’mon, you know you danced to it when it came out in the mid 90’s.  It’s hard to find five good songs, so here it sits.”

4. La Bamba – Los Lobos
Per Paul: “Slightly hipper version of the 50’s classic from an awesome movie.  Not my Richie, Bob.  Not Richie.”
Per me: Can you say a movie about a plane crash is awesome?  But then again, I’d say LOST is awesome, so there.

3. Rock Me Amadeus – Falco
Per Paul: “Sad that Falco dies in a car crash awhile back.  I actually like the remixed radio version better than the original, but it’s hard to find.  Probably THE best song in history about a dead music composer.”

2. 99 Luftballons – Nena
Per Paul: “Pretty good song in English, also.  I like Goldfinger’s remake better than the original.”
Per me: He really likes this song.

1. Sadeness Part 1 – Enigma
Per Paul: “Gregorian chants and a sexy female background vocal make this my number one.  [Natch – Ed.]  Also, it was featured later on in a nude scene from Boxing Helena featuring the hot store clerk from Christmas Vacation – Nicolette Scorsese.”
Per me: I was going to apologize for putting the graphic at the top which gave this entry away, but I instead I’ll say this: I need to see Boxing Helena.

Awful Battle… Music Plus Still Pics? YouTube The Man, Er, Woman, Er, Egg Now, Dog!

Posted on by sgottahurt

I spend a lot of time on the TripleDoubleU.  Well, a lot probably is an understatement of the amount of minutes I’ve allotted to pure waste.  All I know, is it could be worse.  Like, I could have burned the entire Memorial Day weekend away in front of my laptop, and that, um, didn’t happen.

My cousin, Steve, on the other hand, is what I would call a web dabbler.  He dives into the stream of the information superhighway every now and again, and he phishes out some strange finds.  Such as these two videos below. 

Both feature interesting music choices and eclectic slide shows. 

Both took a lot of time to make… but hopefully not an entire Memorial Day weekend.

(BONUS BOTH: May both get stuck in your head!)

Awful Battle, GO!

(Click here for Egg Movie 2… and oh wait, yes!  There is more Linda Gray lovefesting here.  My personal fave?  You can never go wrong with Cascada and staring in the credits.)

Musical Musings… Maybe It’s Regina Spektor (Sing It Like The Maybelline Jingle)

Posted on by sgottahurt

To start off… I know, I know, the last two posts have been kind of lady-centric (which literally meant something way different back in the Old West… say it slowly), so why stop now on this Memorial Day.  In addition to the current state of this blog, my last Musical Musings was about songs sounding the same that may or may not have sounded the same.  Don’t hold that one against my credibility.  Heck, don’t even believe that I have any credibility.  But this time – I think I’m onto something.

Listen to the background music in this Maybelline commercial featuring Adriana Lima (hey guys, at least it’s featuring a Victoria’s Secret model… and a golf ball for some reason):

Now take a listen to Regina Spektor’s On the Radio:

(For the record I was at that Lollapalooza concert performance.  I think you can see me in the crowd at the end. I’m the guy in a striped shirt, clapping. My face was a little blurry that day, so I kind of blend in.)

Now I dare you to go back and listen to the Maybelline commercial and see how they ripped her song off.  (Maybe I should have put them on this page in the opposite order… oh well, deal with it.)

The song is definitely not the original, and amazingly, it’s coincidentally similar.  Kind of like these posters:

OneSheet (Page 1)

sweet_home_alabama

Okay, it’s even closer than these two posters… but still.

Drunken Recollection… There Just Aren’t Enough Figure Skating Movies

Posted on by sgottahurt

Yesterday was a bittersweet sports night in Detroit.  On one hand, the Tigers won their seventh straight game (barely… thanks, Zumaya).  On the other, the Red Wings lost in overtime to the Chicago Blackhawks. 

Somehow, through the course of starting the night at Comerica Park and stopping at the bar to watch the second half of the playoff game, the conversation veered to figure skating movies.  Well, it started with the mere mention of figure skating; I steered it toward chatting about film.

The topic: What’s the best movie about figure skating?

The answer: The Cutting Edge (natch).

When I finish this post, I just might watch it again. That is, if I owned the DVD. Who am I kidding? I own it...
When I finish this post, I just might watch it again. That is, if I owned the DVD. Who am I kidding? I own it…

I mean, it could be argued that since Ice Castles was the first, it’s the best by some (I’ve never seen it, but after watching this video featuring its theme song, I feel like I have to).

Some tidbit facts about Ice Castles:

  • There’s a remake coming out next year to coincide with the 2010 Winter Olympics.
  • Star Lynn-Holly Johnson went on to be a Bond Girl to Roger Moore in For Your Eyes Only.
  • Co-star Robby Benson almost won the role of Luke Skywalker in some movie I don’t recall, but he did voice The Beast in Disney’s Beauty and the Beast.  He also directed episodes of Friends, apropos of nothing.
  • It’s also a song by Ween.

Arguments for The Cutting Edge:

  • It was awesome.
  • It was funny.
  • It was heartwarming.
  • It spawned a trilogy.
There really need to be five movies to tell the full story.

There really need to be five movies to tell the full story.

According to Wikipedia, there have been only 7 films about figure skating, while

  • skiing gets 9
  • surfing gets 11
  • wrestling and ice hockey get 14
  • (and oh yeah – cheerleading, skateboarding, and rodeo also get 7)

Forget the major leagues and any kind of racing, and you realize Hollywood hasn’t explored other sports all that much.  Especially when you consider that the 14 ice hockey movies include the Mighty Ducks trilogy, a second Slap Shot film, MVP: Most Valuable Primate, and The Guru – heaven help all ice-skating related works.