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Idiots of Ants | WEEK LONG EVENT!

Grant Tingley — Sat, 29 May 2010 06:01:50 +0000

DAY 7 | Mario Brothers

What you always knew about Mario and Luigi… and more!

Click here to view the embedded video.

DAY 6 | Women

I like this one because they embrace the fact that it is guys impersonating women, and they are doing their best to shove the ridiculousness of women in their face! Even though this one isn’t one of my favorite sketches… it still has a bunch of good moments.

Click here to view the embedded video.

DAY 5 | Meat

Everyone knows how hard it is to impress at a dinner party, but sometimes all you need is the right cut of meet to serve and everything else will just fall into place…

Click here to view the embedded video.

DAY 4 | Dads

What does every dad have in common… odd clothes, and shit jokes… it is almost as if there is an organization out there that forces every dad to go from cool to lame nearing the pending birth of their child… wow…

DAY 3 | Nicknames

In this sketch the boys get their new office nicknames… What is your nickname? Mine is “Awesome Guy With a Fantastic Knob^[1] and Everyone Always Says is a Great Shag!” And yes the exclamation mark is a part of the nickname… don’t be jealous…

Click here to view the embedded video.

DAY 2 | Plastic Surgery

This is the second video I am featuring, essentially it is something i’ve always thought about in regard to plastic surgery when I watch them mark up people on tv shows!

Click here to view the embedded video.

For those of you that have no idea who the Idiots of Ants are well I wrote a piece about them in March of last year, which you can find here and since then I have only grown to love them more. I had the joyous opportunity to see them live at the Edinburgh International Fringe Festival in Scotland and my love and admiration for them only grew more and more. Anyways, since there is a quest here all the time for new LOOT I randomly hit upon an Idiots of Ants video, and I thought “there are so many! I can’t just justify posting them every day for a week!” and then I figured out a way to justify it by making it a WEEK LONG CELEBRATION!

So please come back every day, and check out here in this post, where all the videos will reside, OR just pop by and see the loot every day for a new vid… this is going to be a great week! So let’s kick it off with some LOVE!

DAY 1 | Love Song

Click here to view the embedded video.

Footnotes

since they are from the UK I figured I should talk like them!

Idiots Of Ants

Women | Idiots of Ants

Meat | Idiots of Ants

Kind Hearts and Coronets

Grant Tingley — Fri, 28 May 2010 18:01:39 +0000

Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949)

View Trailer
Dir: Robert Hamer

Rating: Go rent, at your liesure, but I am sure you will enjoy it…
IMDB RANK: #142 on TOP 250

On to the Brief Review…
This is an old film… and by old I mean 1949. It is a great film noir film, and you know you can’t go wrong when you have Alec Guinness playing 8 roles. The plot of this film is good and simple revenge, and its great. A distant distant relative to a dukedom wants to take over the title but there happen to be 8 people between him and the thrown (see the correlation between that number and the number of people Alec plays?)

Now the great thing about watching movies from the olden days is that they are soooo weird. They are still using theatre trained actors, and the directors still kinda have no fucking clue what is going on. So i feel that there is this nervous excited energy in early films, which i love. Its almost an innocence that films today rarely posses. Only occasional when something is truly groundbreaking do you feel this (‘A New Hope‘, ‘Waking Life‘, and ‘This Is Spinal Tap‘) Ok i find it really hard to write in depth reviews about really old films, so this is going to be the end of my review. This is a great film, and i find it really funny, you can drink all way to a stuper or absolutely none at all to enjoy this film. Just don’t watch it with idiots, cause no one needs to hear every ten minutes “is that the same actor again?” or “that’s stupid, it doesn’t look real” or even the good ole stand by “WHAT’S GOING ON!?!?”. But honestly it rocks so go check it out.

Introduction | Project Hitchcock

Funny People

Up

LOST | Unanswered Questions | College Humor

Grant Tingley — Wed, 26 May 2010 00:35:19 +0000

LOST’s Unanswered Questions!

This is something that I would toss into LOOT normally…
BUT since this is the middle of IDIOTS OF ANTS WEEK… I can’t.
AND also… if I put it in LOOT I wouldn’t be able to respond.
NOW watch…

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

Anyways… this has a lotof the unanswered questions from lost… though I think a lot of the Walt questions would’ve been answered if they were able to keep him around the show longer^[1], though from what I have heard we might be getting a lot of Walt explained with future story additions such as novels, comics, and extras on the Blu-Ray. Now with the psychic and Aaron… apparently the psychic was discredited in regards to actually having any ability and thus what he was saying about Claire and Aaron is wrong^[2] but it still strikes me as strange that he was SOOOOOO adamant about Aaron being raised by Claire^[3]. Danny does say Jack wasn’t on Jacob’s list… but then again maybe that is more evidence that the person who was really on Jacob’s list was Christian? But then again… Jacob himself says “It is just chalk”… so to me the list on the cave was practically a large scratch pad and nothing that was ever set in stone.^[4]. Now the supply drop menu being hidden behind the game of computer chess, to me, just feeds into the fact that a lot of what the Dharma Initiative did was also study the behavior of the people that were in the various stations, so making someone play computer chess to get their supplies… well that doesn’t surprise me one bit. Now I could be crazy but Miles stayed on the island to get money out of Ben… right? did that happen in the right chronological order? who knows… but either way he could’ve been feeling, subconsciously, the presence of his dead father on the island and have a desire to stay. The temple wasn’t an ANTI SMOKE MONSTER FORTRESS… they used the ash to prevent the smoke monster from entering. I thought that was obvious? Right? Also this video says “How did the producers of Expose come to terms with the death of their two lead actors?” WHAT? She was only doing a guest spot on the show, and she was then killed off Expose, and the guy was never IN THE SHOW… he was the creator/director of Expose’s personal chef. NOW THAT WAS OBVIOUS!

Now as for the rest of the stuff… yeah there are some good questions in there, and there are some pointless ones. I like that there are thousands of unanswered questions, and now that the show is over^[5] I am looking forward to a million well informed discussions about the show… bring it on!

DID I MISS SOMETHING?! Or did I say anything that didn’t make sense!? OR was I plan ass wrong?! let me know below…

Footnotes

they had to essentially ‘kill off’ his character because the actor was maturing faster and couldn’t play a 8-10 year old boy anymore
At least according to the producers
and that is why I think the producers are trying to brush it under the carpet
just on stone
I did my best to avoid LOST conversations whilst it was still “in process”

LOST | Truths

Frequently Asked Questions About Time Travel

Lost Abbey 10 Commandments

LOST | Truths

Grant Tingley — Tue, 25 May 2010 03:26:38 +0000

Luckily there was less amount of my life invested to LOST than many others, I joined the bandwagon this year, and I somehow crammed all 5 previous seasons into just a couple of weeks…^[1] So I have only been a part of the LOST world for about 5 months, where as others have been on the train since day one, and day one was a fucking long time ago. Anyways this is going to have to be updated as more TRUTHS are remembered by me, but here are the bullet points of truth.

And if you clicked on this and didn’t expect spoilers, you are retarded, so no SPOILER ALERT for you…

The Polar Bear – put there by the Dharma initiative for experimentation^[2]

Aaron – Isn’t special the psychic was discredited so why believe him?

Christian Shepard – Yes that is the most on the nose obvious name in history^[3]

Smoke Monster – Not explained what it is, but I like Terry O’Quinn’s explanation, it is The Man In Black’s soul

Where’s Walt – the actor matured to quickly to continue to play an 8 year old… so they had to just leave that story line alone

What Is The Light – no god damn clue… that would’ve nice to get explained

What Is The Island – still not fucking sure, some sort of magical island though… but guess what? It was the reality of the show… it happened… NO THEY WEREN’T DEAD FROM THE CRASH IN THE PILOT

Flash Sideways – purgatory, after each character died they went into a holding pattern where time didn’t exist, hence why they could die at different times but yet appear to be existing at the same times in their personal purgatory

Jacob – immortal, but can be killed by anyone… aside from his brother, The Man In Black^[4], because their “MOM” made an arrangement that made that impossible… ANYWAYS… is Jacob magical? Sure… what kinda magic? who the fuck knows… but apparently he has limits to what he can do, though he was able to make Alpert an immortal as well

Alpert – was immortal… not anymore… he went to the mainland and had a long and healthy remainder of his life

Airplane In Finale – NO IT DIDN’T CRASH!

Who Built The Statue – your mom

Hydrogen Bomb – why wasn’t everyone killed with the hydrogen bomb blew up? No fucking clue, they should’ve died, but maybe it was the fact that they were being protected by Jacob… who the fuck knows

Electromagnetic Energy – not sure why it is there, but it seems to be connected to the water, and the mystical drain plug in the lighted spring

The Button – I think it was one part pressure relief from a possible attempt from Dharma to harness the electromagnetic energy and one part psychological study on the effects of this task on the people residing in the hatch…

Essentially all the things not explained… just explain them away with “It was what the island wanted” or “It was Jacob’s doing”… It will become the catch all answer just like the force is in Star Wars…

Something that I agree with is what Jimmy Kimmel said on the “Aloha to Lost” special he aired after the show, and that was this…

My theory is the whole show, beginning to end, was Jack’s test. … Jack passed his test. Maybe each character has their own story and their own test, but the show was Jack’s test.

His theory has to do with that some people and some religions see “LIFE” as merely a test to where you should spend eternity in the after life. The other characters could have been going through tests as well, but for the most part this story was a focus on Jack’s test. Matthew Fox also added his own theory that that explains the Flash Sideways^[5] in, I think, a very fantastic way.

There are also religions that believe when you die, you go a place … where you have to remember your own death, and all the people who loved you the most and helped you the most and were most important to you. You have to remember all of them leading up to the moment you died in order to move on.

And I really feel that both of these explanations are great, and fall in line with what I had already felt about the show. Despite being an incredible Ensemble show, it was truly the story of Jack, and you can tell that that is the case with the image that ended the 6 year run… Jack dying, and a tight shot of his eye closing. This final image was what the producers of the show had been steering towards since the beginning, and to me that is more evidence that the whole time they were attempting to tell the story of Jack.

Now a quick note on how it ended…
It was a well put together finale, I liked it for the most part, but as a rule I just don’t like overly religious things… that wasn’t the case here, because they were able to keep it mostly just spiritual not religious, which was a relief for me. People can draw from their own spiritual backgrounds to find a correlation to the show… cool^[6]. Would I have preferred them to not go a spiritual way? Yes… but I knew it was inevitable. Also I wish they would’ve just kept it out of a church… no reason to be there. Another thing I was dissapointed with was the image of the door and the overpowering light behind it. Right when I saw the inside of the church the first thing I said to myself was “Please don’t do the overpowering light behind the door routine” and of course… they did.

There are a lot of unanswered questions about this show, and that’s the point of what they have been saying these 6 years… It is about the journey, it is about who you are with and the people you love, it is about the path from here to there… it isn’t about finding answers. Allow things to be and live your life and strive towards whatever self created destiny you have settled upon because after all “You can’t let other people tell you who you are. You have to decide that for yourself.”

Please add more truths in the comments section, or just tell me I’m retarded… thanks for being constructive fuck faces…

Footnotes

I am popular AND I have friends!
or what would be more fun is it got “Flashed” from the ice age to the island!
and thanks for acknowledging that with Kate’s dialog
aka Smokey
aka purgatory
unless you are an atheist

LOST | Unanswered Questions | College Humor

One More Theory | Comic

Economics According to Jack Bauer

Chris Colfer – Glee’s Underused Weapon

Kyle Marshall — Sat, 22 May 2010 13:20:57 +0000

Glee’s popularity appears to be on the rise. At the very least, the kerfuffle last week which pitted the show’s creator Ryan Murphy and occasional guest-star Kristen Chenoweth against the slowly dying Newsweek regarding gay actors playing straight characters has thrust the show back into water-cooler talk. Many have weighed in already about this stunning display of editorial oversight. A more interesting study, I believe, are gays playing gay. Much of the talk about Glee surrounds Jane Lynch’s witty bitchiness or stars Cory Monteith and Lea Michele’s will-they-or-won’t-they repartee. Subtly, the true centre of the show has become Chris Colfer’s portrayal of Kurt Hummel.

To fans of the show, Colfer’s involvement in Glee has been gone over ad nauseum, but I think it bears repeating for those who may not describe themselves as Gleeks. Auditioning originally for the role of Artie, the show’s producers simply enjoyed his audition so much that they wrote a part specifically for him. Thus, the only actor to actually be a teenager landed a role on what would prove to be a big hit. He seems not only to be enjoying himself, but in some cases showing up the more experienced players in the show.

To be fair Colfer, to my knowledge, has never explicitly said he is gay, but has alluded to the fact pretty strongly. His performance of the school’s fashionista would in less capable hands degrade into mere showy camp. (At least more showy camp than what Glee already is). In a recent episode he ripped into a marvelous rendition of “Rose’s Turn”, before having it out with his dad because of jealousy. This is pretty normal for his character’s arc this first season. Story-lines that involve his character always highlight being an outcast in high school and the struggles to be “normal.” As any fan of musical theatre will tell you, it is not just about the singing and dancing. Very serious issues can and are dealt with all the time in Broadway shows. To answer the critics, yes it can sometimes just be cats prancing on a stage. Yet, it can also be about heading into the unknown and facing your demons. It can involve murder and betrayal. It can be about experiencing moments, even bad ones, so that you know what it means to live. I am surprised that a Fox sitcom chose to go the latter route. I am also very glad that they did.

I want to focus on the two most Kurt-centric episodes of this first season. Episode Five was entitled “Preggers” and saw Kurt join the football team in an attempt to make his dad proud of him. Not only is this one of the funniest episodes because the plot has a non-macho teenager “auditioning” for a sports team, but it was also one of the first shows to spoof Beyonce’s “Single Ladies” music video before that became something everybody did. The episode comes to a head when Kurt confesses to his dad that he is gay. This scene is incredibly moving because Colfer is able to let the audience feel his vulnerability. In most scenes up to this point in the series, Kurt had carried himself as if he did not care what others thought about him. It appeared as though he though himself better than everyone else. However, in the span of a few moments Colfer lets us in to Kurt’s real feelings. He is a teenager who is scared and unsure of himself, just like everyone else in high school. His image matters to him. What is incredible is that his father, who enjoys John Mellancamp and runs an auto repair shop, is instantly accepting, saying: “I knew since you were three. All you wanted for your birthday was a pair of sensible heels.” The statement is funny, but also incredibly touching. Finally, the supposed secret that has been hanging over them has finally been revealed and they can continue on with their lives. The way that Colfer acts glad, nervous and sad all at once is completely engaging.

Episode Eighteen is entitled “Laryngitis.” This is the aforementioned installment that had Kurt sing “Rose’s Turn.” The main theme of the episode has Kurt, once again, feeling the need to get his father to accept him. Kurt’s plan to spend more time with Finn has backfired. Kurt’s dad and Finn have really hit it off and are spending more and more time together to the Kurt’s chagrin. Kurt decides to dress in flannel and trucker hats to make his dad want to spend time with him. He even tries making out with a girl to disastrous results. What makes this episode stand out is after all of his attempts his father still chooses to spend more time with Finn which makes Kurt go off the deep end. In a fitting bookend to “Preggers” Kurt asks why his father is ashamed of him. His father lashes back, letting Kurt know that he does not care who his son chooses to be, or who he chooses to love, that he will stand by him as a father should. In less capable hands this could have turned into a Hallmark movie. The way that Colfer fights back his tears and the way he wears his hurt on his sleeve is so affecting you forget you are watching a fictional show for a moment and are simply swept up in the moment.

Certain episodes seem not to feature Kurt all that much. This is an ensemble show so it makes sense, however at times not having Kurt there is to the show’s detriment. Kurt is the emotional centre of the show and underscores more than any other character what it feels like to be a teenager in high school. He demonstrates the hardships, the successes, and the seeming hopelessness of trying to figure out who you want to be. Chris Colfer, a complete unknown before the show began, has more than risen to the challenge such a character takes. I see great things for the young actor’s future.

Glee | Preview

“Dr. Vitus Werdegast” by 20 Minute Loop

Operation Broke As Shit: Day 11 + Day 12

MacGruber (2010)

Grant Tingley — Fri, 21 May 2010 21:44:38 +0000

MacGruber

View Trailer View Trailer
Director: Jorma Taccone
Writers: Will Forte, John Solomon & Jorma Taccone

The thing about this movie is that I have grown to be oddly attracted to it since it was announced. I was a huge fan of MacGyver ^[1] and the SNL series of sketches were always awesome, but could it be a 90 minute long flick? COULD YOU SUSTAIN THAT FOR 90 MINUTES!? That seemed like a tall order, and my initial gut reaction to the announcement was “No, there is no way in hell… uh huh”^[2] but then it grew on me… It was like a romantic comedy where the two characters start out the film by hating the idea that the other person exists, and ends with them… well lets see where it ends, but I went into the movie thinking “Hey… I could be attracted to this movie that I previously wished would die.”

What’s Good About It

Not sure why I am going to quote another reviewer here^[3] but here goes… They said “This movie is funny because they try just so damn hard.” I agree… The conviction in which the actors do what they do is what drives the movie. They act as if this was a straight up realistic action/drama, and the reality in which they play their characters feeds the hilarious^[4] moments that are fueled by the absurdity of the situation or choices the characters make. Their performances aren’t reaching for laughs, and that was a strong choice. By avoiding the bull shit winks at the audience going “Uhhheh? UHHEH? funny right? RIGHT?”^[5] they were able to maximize the funny^[6]. So the acting was great, and the casting choices were rather fantastic.

Every choice was justified… the characters actions were believable despite how ridiculous they were, and that again shows the quality of the acting. At one point SPOILER ALERT there is a veggie shoved up an ass… for some reason it just seemed like that was the best choice they had at the time, and they had to run with it. Frankly I am amazed that anyone could possibly make a celery stalk up their ass look like a reasonable choice, but again, the actors made it work.

What else was good? um…

It was very strange that there was not much of the sketch in the movie… Essentially it was transposing the character into a new environment. That isn’t a bad thing or a good thing just an interesting thing. The fact they took the risk to not focus on what they would assume would be what the audience wants^[7] and steer away from the bread and butter of the sketch was cool, and that RISK is a good thing.

What Was Bad About It?

NUMBER 1… underused Val Kilmer… COME ON! Do not get Kilmer in the movie and don’t use him to his full capacity! Was Val bad? No, he was fantastic with what he was given, but he just wasn’t given what he needed to truly shine. This is something that I think I can fully blame the director Jorma Taccone for. He doesn’t have the experience to fully handle a feature, and it shows because the characters seem to be muddling about in a plot going from seen to seen. The only thing that salvaged the characters were the brilliant actors that were able to overcome the stripping down that Jorma performed. Now he will, hopefully, gain the knowledge as he does more flicks^[8] and learn how to create an environment to allow characters to flourish and to allow the plot to grow organically.

The plot was a disaster… was it written that way? well no, it was OK on the page from what I could tell… but without a director to sculpt the weak strung together plot the connections just fell apart. It seemed like every time they found a plot hole they simply tossed in some dialog to cover it up, and moved on. This, sort of, verbal plot patch work might work once or twice, but shouldn’t be the basis for a films driving force.

Another mistake was having a weak voice of reason… and this is outside the Main 3 cast members. Whenever someone was pointing out the absurdity or how MacGruber misplayed a situation it almost seemed in passing. This would’ve worked out better by either not having a voice of reason, ie everyone just fully trusted MacGruber at all times because HE IS MACGRUBER, or have a STRONG voice of reason that is fighting Mac the whole time knowing that Mac is barely lucking his way through life. Whenever you make a choice in art you need to go strong with that choice, that’s how the actors in the flick won me over by using strong strong choices and conviction when portraying their ridiculous characters.

Here is the biggest mistake of all… NO RICHARD DEAN ANDERSON CAMEO?! ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?! Whenever you do a flick like this, not having this cameo is a crime. The audience wanted this… NEEDED this… It is the spoof equivalent to the guest on a talk show saying “My parents just celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary” and knowing he/she will get a massive round of applause… Give the people what they want, I mean how hard could it have possibly been to toss 10 seconds of RDA in the flick?

Epilogue

Go have a beverage or two with some of your closest friends, and go have a good time with this movie. The laughs are there if you want to see them, and they are close enough together that you won’t be THAT bored in the down time. If anything the acting of Forte and Wiig will keep you enjoying the flick… So if you like parody flicks, check this out eventually.

Also the more the Kristen Wiig does stuff outside of SNL the more we see how epically talented and versatile she is, she seems like a one note wonder on SNL sometimes, but that is apparently not true in the slightest.

And finally… it is important to note that thanks to MacGruber, we are signifigantly closer to a MacGyver feature film franchise… and for that… I thank you MacGruber…

Notables:
Will Forte, Kristen Wiig, Ryan Phillippe, Val Kilmer, Powers Boothe & Maya Rudolph

What are your thoughts about MacGruber? huh?! I mean that is the comments section is for… Also did you ever watch MacGyver?! Did you love it as much as I did?

Footnotes

yes I own the whole series on dvd, and yes I have the two made for TV movies… that… I didn’t get illegally and burn to dvd… I DIDN’T
childlike shakes head back and forth
another reviewer who’s name I don’t remember… really who knows if I actually heard this said
at times
see Scary Movies
well the funny that they had
not true they gave you a taste… and it was a good taste “20 seconds MACGRUBER!”
this was his first feature

For The Week of May 21, 2010

Iron Man 2 (2010)

For The Weekend Of March 26, 2010

Iron Man 2 (2010)

Grant Tingley — Wed, 12 May 2010 18:27:30 +0000

Iron Man 2

View Trailer
Dir: Jon Favreau

To be honest this was my single most anticipated movie of 2010, so to say that I had high expectations for this film would be an understatement. They replaced the perfect Rhodes with a much better actor, but a lesser Rhodes in Don Cheadle, will this be something that will effect the final product? Probably not… but lets see…

What’s Good About It?

The number one thing that this series has going for it is the INCREDIBLE casting of the lead character. Robert Downey Jr. couldn’t be more perfect for this role unless he was in fact playing himself… and to be honest I think he is a better Tony Stark than a RDJ… He is able to bring every layer to the roll that is necessary to create, and do justice to, the dynamically complicated Stark. Not only is RDJ amazing but the characters in this franchise lend themselves to become more than just genre characters. Stark is the most complicated super hero out there, he isn’t just a one layer hero like Superman, or a 2 layer hero like Batman… He is driven by thousands of things, one of which is incredible narcissism and a “who gives a fuck” attitude. He does what he wants with his power, and still finds time to keep everyone safe… eventually though his demons will start making it so that he can’t take care of the more important responsibilities of saving the world, and that will be a story line that I hope they are able to get to through a VERY long series of movies. This is the only Super Hero franchise that could make a movie without any super villains and still be great, that is all thanks to the great character of Tony Stark.^[1]

Every single other actor in the movie NAILED IT… Sam Rockwell was the best choice for Hammer. He is slick and slimy but yet incredibly charming and hilarious, you root for him to succeed just enough to stay involved in the story long enough to be foiled at the end, you want him around. Mickey Rourke, yeah, he is making a case that the “Greatest Actor of his generation” title from back in the 80′s wasn’t frivolous. His creation of a revenge driven intellectual equal to Tony Stark was a perfect foil and balance to the Iron Man universe… and dare I say that Whiplash is a much better villain than Iron Monger was in the original.^[2] Don Cheadle brought his great acting skills to the role of James Rhodes, and it was a definite addition to the film. The remainder of the cast was great, and each one took ownership of each character creating an amazing Ensemble; Jon Favreau, Gwyneth Paltrow, Scarlett Johansson, and Samuel L. Jackson.

One of the things that I thought was brilliant is Whiplash’s, Mickey Rourke, obsession with his Bird! WHY IS THIS TOUGH MAN OBSESSED WITH THIS TINY ANIMAL!? Wait a second… is art imitating life?! Mickey is obsessed with his small dog? I won’t get into insulting his dog, or his love for small dogs, because i hear that he tries to kill people that do that, and you don’t… DON’T… fuck with Mickey Rourke… just ask all the drugs and alcohol that fucked with him in the late 80′s early 90′s… he totally destroyed all of em…

The action sequences were directed fantastically! Jon has a great eye for creating great action visuals, as well as using visuals to improve the comedic impact of a joke. He is a very well balanced director, and his strengths are all over the place, but in a good way. The thing that I like most about his Direction is that he doesn’t have an overpowering directorial voice, he directs in a very passive style that allows you to take in the whole flick…

What’s Bad About It?

Everything that has to do with the Avenger Initiative brings the story to a screeching halt and screws up the entire pacing and beats of the film. These plot points were shoe-horned into the movie and they add NOTHING to the plot of THIS movie, if this was a stand alone movie these would have been deleted scenes that would be on the DVD… I understand that they need to set up stuff for the Avengers movie coming out in a few years, but seriously, I think almost all of the crap they had in this movie was unnecessary… they could’ve gotten away with about 1/10 of the Samuel L Jackson stuff… but what can ya do.

I miss Terrance Howard… yes Cheadle may be the better actor over all, but Howard was the best casting choice. He actually looks the part of a WAR MACHINE, whereas Don looks more like a military strategist. This is only a “Bad Thing” because I have Howard to compare it too, if Don was Rhodes from day one this wouldn’t be an issue at all, it would just be a different take on the character than I would’ve expected and I know I would’ve loved it without giving it a second thought.

The color pallet of the movie at times gets really dark… its just various shades of grey on more shades of grey… and then there is a grey hero running around fighting grey villains? Come on, we can brighten up the whole last 1/4 of the movie and everyone would’ve been much happier, and by everyone I mean me.

Epilogue

See this movie… please… this movie is great, yeah it isn’t getting the same reviews as Iron Man 1, but that is like people comparing one of Picasso’s lesser known pieces to the “Weeping Woman”, just because it isn’t THE Masterpiece, doesn’t mean it isn’t A Masterpiece… so just freaking relax and enjoy the ride… and ladies… if you don’t get all antsy seeing RDJ running around on screen, you are just lying to yourself.

Footnotes

Just think American Beauty with Iron Man in the lead roll instead of Lester Burnham?
Iron Man 1 would’ve been even MORE epic if Rourke was Whiplash in that movie, and we saved Iron Monger for later

For The Week of May 7th, 2010

TWH Oscar Bowl 2009: Part 6

MacGruber (2010)

The Adventures of Ass Kick

Robby Stevens — Tue, 04 May 2010 15:42:33 +0000

The Story

There is a nerd and he is the typical teenager being played by an adult. He doesn’t really particularly like anything, but he is sick of people taking advantage of the weak and no one doing anything about it. So he orders himself a wet suit and starts out on the road to vigilante justice. After a cell phone video of him fighting off some thugs goes viral, he gets famous, builds some confidence, and things turn out just about the way we would expect them too. Soon a wave of other superhero wannabes start popping up and meets a few along the way, leaving him with the option of staying a single minded innocent teenager or someone who really fights for what he believes in. I guess you’ll have to see the movie to find out how all of that finally shakes down.

My Take

I really liked this film. I think the reason for this is the combination of directing by Matthew Vaughn and the performance of the main actors. Vaughn does a great job of reminding us that though we are watching a film, we’re also seeing what was originally a comic book. I have always thought that Mark Millar was a bit overhyped as a comic writer so I can only tell you that if the comic is anything like the movie, I’ve been very wrong about Millar.

Aaron Johnson made a good Kick Ass. He somehow pulled off a teenage squeaky voice, but he did a good job making you think that he is a kind hearted, hormone raging kid with good intentions who wants to help, but isn’t really capable of doing so effectively. Sometimes just being an inspiration is enough I guess.

So Aaron did his job and Mark Strong was great as the bad guy. Christopher Mintz-Plasse was certainly adequate in his role, but he didn’t do anything overly great to stick out. He seemed to have an immense amount of makeup on his face. I guess that stuck out.

What really made this movie enjoyable was the performances of one Nicholas Cage and Chloe Moretz. Cage was all over the place with over the top dialog, forcing himself to be a happy dad for his kid, and a very angry man obsessed with revenge. I really haven’t been as happy to see him in a movie since Raising Arizona. Chloe Moretz was brilliant. She stole the film from everyone else. There were points where I was wishing I was seeing more of her in the movie and it wasn’t a sexual thing. Good gravy this girl is only 13. She was really just that good.

Moretz played the role of Hit Girl who is the daughter of Big Daddy. She delivered the best lines, had the best look, and really seemed to enjoy playing the role. More than that though, there was a sweetness to her that surprised me. One scene in the movie is enough to bring a tear to your eye and she handles it perfectly. Between Moretz and Cage the film could have done well enough, but the actors in small roles did a good enough job to make the film that much better.

Kicking Ass

Fight scenes. I like fight scenes. Vaughn didn’t do an exceptional job, but he was also working with having to create shots using a stunt person for a 13 year old girl. That being said, Hit Girl was the action in this movie.

The movie started a bit slow and the “fight” scenes with Kick Ass were mostly him getting beat down. No strong choreography. At least, not until Hit Girl entered the action. Slicing and dicing is the best way to put it. She certainly delivers. The movie slows down a bit in the middle, but once the plot starts to thicken it is a mixture of good fighting and modern weapons.

In Conclusion

As far as most movies coming out today, the fighting was above par and I’m now waiting to get this one on Blue Ray. A good mix of comedy, violence, and drama, but mostly violence. Don’t take the kiddos to see it, but if you’re at the age where you won’t wet yourself…and that includes the older generation, then check it out.

One Liners

I love a good line that sticks with me…this one had a few..

Spoken by Kick Ass:

“With no power comes no responsibility”

Hit Girl

“You just contact the Mayor’s office, he has a special signal he shines in the sky. It’s in the shape of a giant cock.”

The Ring | Project Hitchcock

Blackmail | Project Hitchcock

Champagne | Project Hitchcock

Clash of the Generations

Blake Kunisch — Fri, 02 Apr 2010 15:49:22 +0000

Back in 1981, when special effects were nowhere near the level of technological wizardry we have in current movies, there was always something better to get audiences to the movie – a good story line. Well, that, and some serious star power. When Clash of the Titans was originally released, people had a reason to go – Laurence Olivier, Ursula Andress, Maggie Smith, and Harry Hamlin just to name a few – they were also drawn to the epic story line – a demigod, left to die at sea, rises up with the help of his father, Zeus, and embarks on an epic journey in order to save his one, true love. The story was larger-than-life; it featured heroic battles of skill, intellect, and wit. There were protagonists, antagonists, traitors, allies – everything an epic story line requires. And while the original 1981 Clash did feature some special effects, they were not the star of the movie – the stars were, the story was, the grand scale of it all came together to form one incredible blockbuster of a movie.

Now we fast-forward to 2010, where some lackey sitting in a little cubicle somewhere gets the bright idea, “Hey! Let’s remake Clash of the Titans! We can make it bigger, better, and even 3D!” Of course, the studio head, knowing he has nothing original in the pipeline, gives it the green light. I mean, how better to draw people to your movie than to piggyback on the reputation of a movie classic? It’s worked in the past – Willy Wonka, Alice in Wonderland – so why not just try it again? Did I mention it’s in 3D? Yeah, a pointless gimmick for this film that is solely being tacked on in post editing in order to jack ticket prices up anywhere from $2.50-$5.00.

So there I sat, at a 10:40 showing of Clash of the Titans (2010) after having just watched the original the night before. If you’re not familiar with the original, it goes something like this…

Perseus and his mother are left to die at sea, but not all goes as planned, and with the help of his father, Zeus, Perseus learns of his destiny and is provided with help from the gods in the form of a shield, sword, and helmet. He is told his shield will one day save his life and his helmet allows him to become invisible. While in Argos, he discovers the lovely Andromeda and how all suitors must answer a riddle or die at the stake when they attempt to court her. Additionally, Andromeda’s previous destined suitor, Calibos, is cursed by Zeus after he hunted and destroyed all living things surrounding the Wells of the Moon. Forced to live the life of an outcast, Calibos is only able to commune with Andromeda’s spirit which is transported to his lair each night so Andromeda can learn the new riddle. Perseus, armed with his helmet and his captured steed, Pegasus, eavesdrops on the riddle and earns the right to Andromeda’s hand.

At their wedding, Queen Cassiopeia compares Andromeda’s beauty to that of the gods, angering them, and calling down their wrath. The goddess Thetis declares that all of Argos will be destroyed unless Andromeda is offered up as a sacrifice to the kraken. So off sets Perseus on his epic journey to defeat the kraken – leading him to the Stygian Witches, Dioskilos (a two-headed dog), and, eventually, Medusa. In a dark and ominous fight, Perseus manages to best Medusa, travels back to Argos atop Pegasus, and turns the kraken to stone. And everyone lives happily ever after.

As I said before, it’s an epic story, clocking in at just shy of two hours. But apparently, the people who dreamed up the new Clash decided that two hours was just too much time, so we’ll shorten it, dumb it down, add some cool special effects, and throw the story line to the wind. We’ll leave in the cool fights – with Calibos (though in a completely different setting), the scorpions (which now spawn from Calibos’ blood instead of Medusa’s), and Medusa’s fight itself. We’ll throw in some cool, albeit completely pointless fly-bys so the 3D audience is amused, and then we’ll show you all the cool parts in the trailer and completely ruin most of the movie for you. And then we’ll expect you to pay $10 for this steaming pile of dung. Yup, there it is – my not-so-professional opinion of the remake of Clash of the Titans – a steaming pile of dung. It’s boring, over-acted, and the epic story line is completely trashed. Rather than being a love story – Perseus out to save his love, Andromeda, from sacrifice to the kraken – now it’s a “defy authority” story. Perseus now denounces the gods and is out to prove that he needs help from no one – that man is able to control his own destiny – authority be damned.

Even one of the best parts of the old film has gone missing. If you’ve ever seen the original or caught bits and pieces during television reruns, you know Bebo, the mechanical owl. While he makes a quick cameo in the new film, he is just tossed aside, like everything else that made the original great. Made for $122 million, I have low expectations for this film. The showing I attended tonight was maybe 1/4 full. I think the film could get some help from Easter weekend, but I would be surprised if it broke $40 million. Hopefully it drops off quickly after that. The original, on the other hand, was made for just $15 million and brought in close to $45 million domestically. There is absolutely no way that this film will be able to triple its budget. But it probably doesn’t matter. The lackey that came up with the idea and the studio chief that gave it the green light will probably be happy with $100 million domestically and make up the rest overseas. It’ll probably get there, but I hope audiences these days wise up to the same old formulaic movie studios keep trying to shove down our throat. Special effects and 3D can add to a movie, but remaking a classic just to show off some new CGI while at the same time dropping the story line we came to love should not be rewarded.

Skip this film!

Drag Me to Hell

The Adventures of Ass Kick

The Lodger | Project Hitchcock

Comedy and Sequels Don’t Mix

Grant Tingley — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 22:58:20 +0000

As I lay in bed and tweet^[1] I came to an interesting thought whilst reading and discussing the upcoming “Hangover”^[2] sequel. How many Comedic Sequels are actually good?

The best comedies nowadays are generally cool characters meet extraordinary circumstances, and thus LIGHTNING strikes! And it is difficult to create this once, let alone, come back to it a second time. Yes some of the same ingredients are used, but those “same ingredients” are generally what make comedic sequels not work. People don’t want to go in and know what is coming or how a character will react, they want to be surprised… especially in this day in age where comedy comes from less and less what they say and more and more what they do and how they respond to the OUTRAGEOUS circumstances that they are tossed into. Back in the day George Burns and Gracie Allen were able to churn out amazing comedy week in and week out because the main ingredient was incredible spot on wit whilst participating in normal every day circumstances. Yes, admittedly, they occasionally flew passed “every day” and into the “absurd” but that was a rare occurrence.

So let me just quickly go through a few things of what I think are ingredients used to make great comedies in this age of film making:

1. Cool Characters – The film stars people that you would want to be friends with, and generally someone that you can identify yourself with, even if it is a slightly delusional thought. Now this is something that is difficult to recreate in a sequel because everyone already knows the characters, and part of the fun is discovering their personality and what makes them tick. Also I notice people end up taking ownership of some of the iconic characters and get disappointed when that character doesn’t live up to the standards^[3] they created between films.

2. Outrageous Circumstances – Even though they are OUTRAGEOUS there is generally a smidgen of reality within it. Every single person I know has had a crazy night somewhere^[4] that results in 1 person getting lost,^[5] or someone getting injured^[6], or someone starting a gang war with some group of people. (ok… well maybe I should delve a bit outside of the Hangover) People can relate to a bad road trip^[7], a mixture of High Class and Low Class^[8], or getting your heart broken^[9]… but in the sequel you have to ONE UP the last movie, and sometimes you lose that nugget of truth, and people can’t relate anymore.

3. Great Writing – That pretty goes without saying, so I sill skip to what might be screwed up in the second film. For some reason they feel the need to up the budgets on comedies for the sequel, and in doing so the studios get more involved, and more involvement means more chefs in the kitchen. From what I have learned from reading interviews and listening to commentaries is… the studios don’t know SHIT and their notes are horrible. Even though their ideas are horrible they come from the money and have to be used. Also some of the writers tend to use “Hand-Me-Down” material that was cut from the first movie, and since they are so in love with a bit they shoe horn it into the script to the detriment of the flow.

I think great comedies should remain just a great stand alone movie. There is no reason to really go back and revisit the characters, and if the team wants to get together for another movie, why not just create a whole new flick?!? Just look at The track record of sequels to comedies; bad movies like Austin Powers 2 & 3, Scary Movies, Countless Disney sequels, Ghostbusters 2, Caddyshack 2, and many more should have never been made but they did and they tarnished the legacy of the first flick^[10].

Though I will concede that if they had a 2 or 3 movie arch already thought up before they shot the first one^[11] fine… lets see what you can do, but most comedic quality tends to not make it past part one, so why force it?

I took a few days to compile a list of GOOD comedic sequels this is all i have, please comment below and add some if you think of anymore… and don’t hesitate to leave comments about bad ones either!^[12]

THE SHORT LIST Wayne’s World 2
Adam’s Family Values
Fletch Lives
Toy Story 2
Christmas Vacation
Airplane 2
Hot Shots Part Deux
Jewel Of The Nile^[13]
Footnotes
as is my after work tradition
why do I have Ghostbusters picture? when talking about hangover?
unfairly or not
sometimes in Vegas
me one time
my friend Kunkle shatters his ankle drunk on a trampoline
National Lampoon’s Vacation or Road Trip
CaddyShack or Trading Places
Forgetting Sarah Marshall
Scary Movie 1 wasn’t good, but you catch my drift
which is what I have heard about Hangover
if someone lists any movie in the askewniverse as being a sequel other than Clerks 2, which wasn’t amazing, you will get a swift comment from me about how none of them are sequels, and I might toss in a “GO TO HELL”
which I am taking Carlene’s word on

Two Word Heap » See

Idiots of Ants | WEEK LONG EVENT!

DAY 7 | Mario Brothers

DAY 6 | Women

DAY 5 | Meat

DAY 4 | Dads

DAY 3 | Nicknames

DAY 2 | Plastic Surgery

DAY 1 | Love Song

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