June 11, 2013 Tuesday 10: Bruce Willis Movies
Make a list, we’ll have a few laughs…
This is a hard list! Bruce Willis has made a lot of movies I like. This list is inspired by the fact that I got the latest Die Hard movie on Blu-Ray for only $12, and even though it’s the least-good Die Hard, I still liked it. They should rename the series “The Increasingly Outlandish Tales of John McClane” and then nobody would have any more problems with them. “Oh!” they’d say, “It’s supposed to be crazy! I get it!”
10. Hudson Hawk (1991) – I know I’m supposed to hate this movie, but it’s just so much goofy fun.
9. Looper (2012) – Sure, time travel movies don’t hold up to scrutiny well, but this movie did such a great job of using Bruce’s age in the story while still making him kick 14 kinds of butt. (You might notice that I gravitate towards movies where older guys still are awesome – I suspect that’s a function of my being 41.)
8. Moonrise Kingdom (2012) – I honestly don’t remember many details about Bruce’s character in this one, but I liked the movie as a whole. This is more of a Wes Anderson Movie than a Bruce Willis Movie, but I’m keeping it.
7. Twelve Monkeys (1995) – More time travel! I can’t remember the last time I saw this one, so it’s due for a rewatch.
6. The Sixth Sense (1999) – This movie would be higher on the list several years ago. Remember your first time seeing it? That was pretty cool.
5. Lucky Number Slevin (2006) – This is probably the one movie on this list most of you haven’t seen. I’m guessing the weird title threw people off, but it shouldn’t. Great little film.
4. Red (2010) – More old people kicking butt! This movie was all kinds of fun, and the cast is most of the reason why: Willis, John Malkovich, Morgan Freeman, Helen Mirren, Mary-Louise Parker, Karl Urban, Ernest Borgnine… man. I don’t know how they pull casts like that together, but that’s just some great stuff there.
3. Unbreakable (2000) – My favorite M. Night Shyamalan movie by a long shot. I just loved this take on the superhero tale, and Bruce Willis and Samuel L. Jackson should be in ten more movies together.
2. Pulp Fiction (1994) – This is more of a Tarantino Movie than a Bruce Willis Movie, but it, too, is staying. By most measures, this doesn’t look like a movie I’d like, but I somehow not only do, but do a lot. The characters and the storytelling are the biggest reasons why.
1. Die Hard (1988)/Die Hard 2 (1990)/Die Hard: With a Vengeance (1995)/Live Free or Die Hard (2007)/A Good Day to Die Hard (2013) – There is nothing I can say about these movies that hasn’t already been said. The first one was a revelation and it changed action movies forever, and the third one had Jeremy Irons in a mesh shirt. I’m not sure what else you want, folks.
Honorable Mentions
- G.I. Joe: Retaliation (2013) – We’ve already talked about this one. Bruce and The Rock should make a bunch of movies together, too. Heck, let’s get Bruce, The Rock, and Samuel L. together in a movie, how about?
- The Expendables (2010)/The Expendables 2 (2012) – Again, they’re not really Bruce’s movies, but it’s old dudes kicking butt!
- Sin City (2005) – I felt like I needed a good scrub after this movie, but Bruce as an honest old cop trying to protect the girl is a classic.
- The Fifth Element (1997) – I disliked this movie the first time I saw it, but as time has worn on, it has grown on me.
- North (1994) – Roger Ebert famously hated this movie, but I remember liking it well enough. Not the only thing Roger Ebert and I ever disagreed on.
- Striking Distance (1993) – Even just typing the name of this movie out puts the song Little Red Riding Hood in my head. *shudder* And did you remember that Sarah Jessica Parker was in this?
- Death Becomes Her (1992) – Meryl Streep and Goldie Hawn at their goofy best.
Tags: Bruce Willis, Tuesday10
- 9 comments
- Posted under Movies
June 10, 2013 Better Off Ted S02E03 – Battle of the Bulbs
In this week’s episode we find that the source of Veronica’s power is her confidence and Ted’s biggest weakness is his desire for the company to love him. Meanwhile, Linda learns a thing or two about herself and Lem has a pretty rough episode overall, though it ends nicely.
I continue to be amazed by Veronica. I mean, seriously, you would not want this woman to be your boss, nor would you want to be around her in real life! Phil and Lem’s fear of her seems to be the most rational response. And yet, you can’t help but love her character in the show, even root for her. Is that the mark of great writing or our desire for our comedic characters to be hilarious? Luckily for us, both of those come into play in her character. At the same time, though, Veronica’s teaching Linda about the power of confidence reveals a weakness. For the most part, up to this point we’ve taken Veronica’s strength and decision-making at face value – she knows what she’s doing and she’s rarely wrong. Here, though, we see that some of her decision making is pure bluff. Sure, she gets by because her confidence gets her through, but it lessens the character a tad for me.
We’ve seen before how much the company loves Ted, and we’ve seen plenty of reasons for the the company to love Ted. Why wouldn’t they love Ted? He does great work and everyone loves him, he’s just the sort you want for a manager. However, this is Veridian, and we’ve seen how quickly they forget or change their minds. Ted’s experienced it firsthand and though that time it was frustrating, it also seems to have put him in a permanently nervous state about that one aspect of his life. I’m sure there’s a lot of “Ted seeks the approval from Veridian that he never got from his father” going on here, and there’s probably a pretty good doctoral thesis in there somewhere about how people replace family with work and what that can mean, but we’ll just leave that for someone else. Besides, Ted’s a great dad to Rose (who doesn’t get near enough screen time in this episode), so he’s not completely over the line. If I were Linda, I might take pause at the fact that Ted was doing his best to sabotage my project, but I’d probably be back to liking him when he realizes he shouldn’t have been doing that. As usual, Ted ends up okay.
Linda finds out again that she’s good where she is. She has dreams of being more, whether it’s a children’s book author or a project manager, but she keeps finding out that she’s best suited for where she’s at right now. I don’t necessarily think the two situations are equal – the beer-drinking lemur wasn’t her fault – but they’re both steps on Linda’s way to figuring herself out. Narratively, of course, we need Linda to be where she is. When Ted says “who’s going to judge us when you’re gone?” in last week’s episode he’s chiding her, but there’s the underlying sense of “Linda’s the sole light of hope” that’s been talked about in a few episodes. We don’t want Linda to leave because her character works well with all the other characters, but we’d still like to see her in a place she loves to be. For now she knows Veridian is the right place because she has good friends there, and in this episode she learns that her position at the company is the best one for her, too. Besides, Veronica likes her a little more at the end of this episode because now she knows Linda is no longer a threat.
Then there’s poor Lem. He’s felt his whole life that he’s disappointed his mother, so the idea of her working at Veridian causes him much distress… but not as much distress as Bhamba being his mom’s current boytoy. I mean, come on – at some point we’ve all felt like we’ve let our mothers down, right? But is there anyone you’d want your mom … let’s say “dating” less than Bhamba? Bhamba is a particular mix of crazy and creepy that you don’t want anywhere near your mom, especially if your mom is Khandi Alexander, even is you have felt your whole life that you’ve disappointed her. And honestly, can you blame Stella? Veridian does invent some pretty far-out (and often dangerous) things. She wants the best for her son, even if she hasn’t always gone about encouraging him towards it in the right way. It’s a nice moment at the end when Stella and Lem patch things up. I would’ve liked to have seen what they would have done with that in future seasons.
Phil doesn’t get to do much in this episode, but that dinner with Ted and Stella more than makes up for it. One of the best Phil scenes in the whole series, I think.
Bits and pieces:
- “You should jump on that, Ted. Before the crazy outweighs the hot.” – Veronica
- “Remember Bob Hitler?” – Ted
- “Veridian will change its name to Ted’s Awesome Lightbulb Company” – Ted
- Veronica showing Linda that she cares too much what people think is a great scene – Linda’s repeated downcast “Oh” is part of a wonderful rollercoaster there
- “I am never calling you daddy! Never, never!” – Lem
- Veronica put testosterone in her sister’s orange juice, so she became hairy, unlovable, and was kicked off the gymnastics team for doping. Seriously, you would not want to be around a real-life Veronica, folks!
- “Hey, it’s Stella Clifton’s son! We expect great things from you!” – Chet
“I’ve been working here for eleven years.” – Lem
“Oh, I doubt that!” – Chet - The way Lem and Phil smell the lightbulb is great. Go back and look at the look on Phil’s face in particular!
- Chet smacks Ted on the rear, and that is a very weird moment
- “Linda was just doing a funny character she’s been working on. It’s a product tester whose lack of confidence traps her in a sad cubicle where she dies old and alone without ever owning a decent purse.” – Veronica
- “And bring me a chicken!” – Linda, expressing confidence
- Dr. Bhamba’s mom is in a coma
- “Oh, no! What do I do with that World’s Greatest Stepdad coffee mug I got for you? I guess I have to take it back to the sarcasm store.” – Lem
- “Your breakthroughs in weapons technology have made warfare exponentially more horrifying.” – Lem
“Well, I don’t know know about that. It takes a village to kill a village.” – Bhamba, self-deprecating - “So ‘sucks’ is okay to say now? Because I have some thoughts about the lunch you packed for me today.” – Rose
- “Those are just facts, and facts are just opinions and opinions can be wrong.” – Veronica
- “Now get in there and run that meeting like a shark driving an assault vehicle through a herd of seals wearing chum pants.” – Veronica
- (whispers) “Finish him.” – Veronica
- “And, yes, I wish I had a third yes. And, yes, I don’t.” – Phil
- Any scientists in the crowd know what that Clifton Equation is all about? Or is it just a random bunch of nonsense?
- “Oh! I was having a dream. The only thing I can remember is a curious lack of crocodiles, and so I began to call out for them.” – Bhamba
Commercial:
No commercial this week. I’m always sad when this is the case.
Ideas/Inventions mentioned in this episode:
- Super Long-lasting lightbulbs
- Scented lightbulbs
- Helmet that feeds people cheeseburgers (Stella Clifton Idea, but was an actual project that got pulled after it fed one of the test subjects to death)
- Remote control for underpants (Stella Clifton Idea)
- Toaster that can handle a pizza bagel
- Popcorn that pops from the heat in your mouth, which I think would kill more people than a helmet that feeds you?
Coworkers named/seen:
- Dr. Bhamba
- Chet!
Next week: S02E04 – It’s Nothing Business, It’s Just Personal
Tags: Better Off Ted, LWST
June 8, 2013 Ranking “Weird Al” Yankovic in 3-D
This is the second in a series of transplanted articles from my other blog. The transplants will run on Saturdays until they’re all over here. They are copied and pasted, but might get slight edits here and there.
Al’s second album, released in 1984, which was still earlier than I first heard him. This is the big one, the one that put Al on the map.
11. Mr. Popeil – This album starts a series of Al albums where I don’t dislike a single song. Sure, I like some songs better than others (otherwise how would I do a ranking series?), but unless I tell you flat out that I don’t like a song, I still like it. This one’s a fun riff on all those “As Seen on TV” products. Ron Popeil was the Billy Mays of his day, if Billy Mays was part Thomas Edison. “Now how much would you pay?” is the repeated punchline on this one.
10. That Boy Could Dance – An original that makes you think Al probably could have gone a less silly route into music and still have been okay. It’s the story of a kid who was a dweeby loser in school but grew up to be a great dancer and the coolest guy everyone wants to know.
9. King of Suede – A parody of a Sting song, which should immediately tell you this one’s not nearly as weird as the original. It’s all about a guy who sells suede … well, everything. Suits, shoes, all of it. And there’s a 30% sale!
8. Nature Trail to Hell – A spoof of horror movies, of all things. Not an every time listen, but enjoyable if you’re familiar with horror movie clichés at all. Poor Cub Scouts :(
7. Buy Me a Condo – A reggae song about a guy movie to America from Jamaica and looking forward to all of the mid-America joys the country has to offer. Cuisinarts, jacuzzis, wall-to-wall carpeting – this guy is pretty psyched.
6. The Brady Bunch – Al (as you will see) loves him some TV. This is a parody of The Safety Dance, so it’s catchy as all get out.
5. Theme from Rocky XIII (The Rye or the Kaiser) – I didn’t hear this song until well after I saw Rocky III the first time (and became a life-long Sylvester Stallone fan because of it), so the spoof of that movie’s theme song showing what Rocky’s life would be several years after he retired was pretty humorous to me. In this song, Rocky owns a deli, and he’s constantly suggesting that people try “the rye or the kaiser,” rather than having the Eye of the Tiger. Love. It. It’s particularly humorous to me that in the final Rocky movie, Rock is retired and owns… a restaurant. I’ll always wonder if that’s a nod to Al’s song.
4. I Lost on Jeopardy – This was the first Al video I ever saw. I think we were waiting for Star Trek to start and Entertainment Tonight played it over their credits as it ended right before. I didn’t really know what was going on, but I knew Al amused me.
3. Midnight Star – “They’re keeping Hitler’s brain alive inside a jar!” Al’s take on tabloid papers, as seen while waiting in the checkout lane.
2. Polkas on 45 – Ah, the beginning of the polkas. When Al was a kid, the story goes, a door-to-door salesman came around to the Yankovic household selling music lessons for either violin or accordion. Al’s mom chose the accordion, and the rest is history. Though Al is not related to the famous Frankie Yankovic, you can’t help but know polka if you can play the accordion. Al’s polkas are mashups of several pop songs all together in a polka format, and they’re fantastic fun. I don’t know that I could list a favorite one of all his polkas, but you’re sure to see each one rank pretty high in this series.
1. Eat It – This is the song that made Weird Al a household name. Nobody was a bigger star than Michael Jackson, and there have hardly ever been bigger songs than Beat It. It’s amazing to think that a) Al asked Michael if he could parody it, and b) that Michael said yes. Al has said many times over that he owes his career to MJ, and he’s probably not kidding. The video for this one is also a great parody of the Beat It video, with a little bit of Thriller thrown in.
When I type these up, I get some info on dates and track listings from Wikipedia, but any lyrics quoted are straight outta my head, because I still know pretty much every one of them. I may not remember your name 5 minutes after meeting you, but ask me about some Weird Al lyrics and I’ve got you covered.
Tags: Weird Al
- Leave a comment
- Posted under Music
June 7, 2013 Pan & Scan
Few things rankle me as much as movies being panned and scanned. I don’t remember when it was that I came to understand what exactly it was , but I do know I signed up immediately for the “Widescreen is the way it was meant to be seen!” camp and haven’t ever left.
This video (found over at 22 Words) explains it in just about the best way I’ve ever seen, so if you’ve still got someone in your life who is wrong about this topic, show them this:
Even when I knew that widescreen was the best way to watch a movie, I didn’t really understand the “pan & scan” nature of a film cut down for TV screens. I mean, sure, I knew they were cutting stuff, but it never occurred to me that the cutting process created artificial camera movements the director never intended. Makes sense now (especially after seeing this video) but I didn’t know enough back then, I guess.
Oddly enough, it was seeing Ghostbusters for the first time in widescreen that helped me see the importance of widescreen, and it was just in two little scenes that didn’t even make that much difference. The first scene was after the boys bust the hotel ghost (Onionhead, but you know him as “Slimer”) and are talking to the hotel guy. Venkman is telling him the costs of their services and the joke is that the hotel guy won’t pay it because it’s too much so the guys are going to release the ghost back into the ballroom, which of course makes the hotel guy willing to pay. In the pan & scan version of this scene, you see hotel guy, Venkman, and Stantz, and it works pretty well as described. However, in the actual version of the screen, you also see Spengler, and as Venkman is talking, he glances over at Spengler who is holding up fingers to indicate costs which Venkman then works into his spiel. It adds a whole ‘nother dimension (no pun intended) to the scene, as it continues the “making it up as they go along” nature of this new business the guys are starting. Plus, it’s just funnier.
The second scene is a two-second thing that is even less of a deal than the first one. Dana has shown up at the Ghostbusters office not knowing where else to turn. She’s talking to Janine when (in the pan & scan version) you hear someone running and all of a sudden Venkman is vaulting over a gate to come talk to her. Right before that, though, in the actual version, way off in the background of Janine and Dana’s conversation you see Venkman pop his head up like a prairie dog, ever so briefly. It’s as if his Pretty Lady Radar has gone ff, and the prairie dogging confirmation sets his feet to running. As I said, it’s this tiny little detail that wouldn’t mean much to anyone, but seeing it for the first time after having seen Ghostbusters so many times on the pan & scan VHS just tickled me.
So I hope this video has turned you from someone who didn’t care or give it much thought before into someone who won’t be able to stand watching a pan & scan version ever again. If that has happened, this site will have not been for naught.
- 4 comments
- Posted under Movies
June 6, 2013 Wonderfalls S01E11: Cocktail Bunny
SUMMARY
After reuniting Eric with Heidi, Jaye is on edge. She attempts to cause harm to and get rid of the muses in Wonderfalls, which culminates in her smashing several Wax Lions with the Brass Monkey. Jaye ends up back in Dr. Ron’s office, where she sort of tells him about the muses. Someone with a gloved hand is watching the security tapes from another room.
Jaye’s parents are trying to talk to her at the Barrel, when she spots Eric and Heidi and ducks into the back room, where she runs into Mahandra, who tries to comfort her as she cries. Heidi comes in to tell her that she won Eric. The Cocktail Bunny on a box behind Heidi tells Jaye to “save him from her”. The Wax Lion tells Jaye to ask the monkey about it, so she sneaks back into Dr. Ron’s office. After he catches her, the monkey admits that “she’s going to kill him”.
Jaye is distressed, and attempts to stop Heidi from poisoning Eric, after she sees her purchasing some pills. She is held by a police officer in the office at Wonderfalls, but manages to climb out the window and go to Eric and Heidi’s hotel room. Heidi admits that she slipped Eric a pill, but it was a male potency drug to trick him into being intimate with her.
Jaye returns to Dr. Ron’s office to have words with the monkey, and it promises to tell her why they talk to her if she licks the light switch. This causes a power surge and the power in the building is shut down, preventing Angie Olsen from following through on her plan to “torch” Dr. Ron and frame Jaye for it. Dr. Ron decides to give Jaye the monkey. When Jaye goes to the Barrel to apologize to Eric, he tells her that he is moving back to Jersey with Heidi.
There is a lot of stuff going on it this episode, and a lot of it is due to misdirection. Misdirection is really hard to pull off correctly. In order for it to be really effective, it needs to manipulate the viewer into thinking that situation A is happening, although it’s really situation B, but all the actions committed by the characters need to be completely in line with knowing that it’s situation B all along. In other words, misdirection can often fall apart on rewatch. Unfortunately, that’s the case here. The first time that I watched this episode, I was totally on for the ride. Heidi seemed incredibly guilty. Sure, the gloved hand thing was strange, but I’d completely forgotten the couple of throw-away lines earlier in the season where the characters mention Angie Olsen as “that Olsen girl” and how she stabbed herself in Dr. Ron’s office. Knowing that it’s not Heidi, everything feels really forced and weird. Heidi looks incredibly evil, even though she’s just jealous.
The second half of the episode, once the Angie Olsen reveal is made, is well-paced and brilliantly acted. The thunder and lightning really sets the mood, which is an homage to different films in the horror genre, including Panic Room. Karen’s role in this episode is also fantastic, as she basically talks down a murderer. Her vulnerability is very touching, as she is genuinely hurt that her daughter is going through something and doesn’t feel like she can talk to her about it.
During the commentary, the creators say that this was the second episode that was conceived, but eventually postponed to avoid alienating viewers. On the contrary, if the first half of the series had been this good, maybe it wouldn’t have been cancelled. I’ll admit, you care a bit more about Jaye and her problems after 10 episodes, but the pacing and editing and dialogue of this episode is much superior to that of, say, Karma Chameleon. The Client formula has also been somewhat phased out by now. It is still present, but the delivery is much more subtle and intertwined with the rest of the plot. It’s no longer a thinly veiled metaphor for character development.
It’s kind of a throw-away line near the end of this episode that Dr. Ron tells Jaye that she needs “more help than I can give you,” and then it cuts to Karen and Angie, implying that Dr. Ron said the same thing to Angie, which caused her violent outrage. I was really expecting Karen to fire Dr. Ron as her therapist after this because it is completely unprofessional to say that, especially to emotionally fragile people. Of course, Jaye has extenuating circumstances that cause her crazy, but Angie is obviously troubled. Bad, Dr. Ron! Bad!
“Is this going to turn out badly for me somehow?”
There is lots of muse activity in this episode, starting with a pride of Wax Lions taunting Jaye that “you’ll never get rid of all of us”. We get several lines from the Brass Monkey, including “tell him nothing,” in reference to Dr. Ron. The namesake of the episode, the Cocktail Bunny, repeats “save him from her” several times. The Wax Lion tells Jaye to ask the monkey about this whole thing, who tells her about the murder plot. At Wonderfalls, the Wax Lion tells Jaye that “She’s going to kill him, don’t let her leave”, which proves to be a big mix up as she tackles Heidi instead of Angie Olsen.
In the climax of the episode, the Brass Monkey has a conversation with Jaye, which is somewhat different from prior episodes, where only directives are given. Usually, the muses choose not to respond to Jaye, but here several times the muses do. We also get the big answer of why the muses have chosen to talk to Jaye in the first place. “Because, you listen.” So simple.
TRIVIA & REFERENCES:
- The scene where Jaye melts the Wax Lion in the coffee pot was really tricky. They had to experiment with lions made of different materials, and used wires to prevent the lion from falling over.
- Dr. Ron’s name is an homage to Dr. Rons in other TV shows, including Star Trek. His office is also drastically different in every episode it appears in, since it needed to be reworked for the blocking requirements of each episode. It’s actually a room in the Tyler house.
- There was a scene after Eric confronts Jaye for stalking them at the Barrel where she swipes his wallet to get his hotel room key, but the scene was cut.
- The police officer, Mike Sloan, is the same officer that questioned Sharon in Crime Dog.
- During the confrontation between Jaye, Heidi, and Eric in the hotel room, the writers wanted to use the drug name Viagra, but they were not allowed to use it because they mentioned some of the undesirable side effects of the medication.
- Angie sings the theme song to The Facts of Life during the torching fantasy montage. The creators originally wanted the Laverne & Shirley theme but the rights wouldn’t clear. Coincidentally, The Facts of Life is the first television job that Scotch Ellis Loring (Dr. Ron) ever had.
- One of the prop guys cleaned the light switch with vinegar before Jaye had to lick it.
- This episode sets up major story arcs for forthcoming seasons. Dr. Ron was going to ingratiate himself to Karen by co-authoring a book about emotions in Niagara to get close to Jaye. She would be institutionalized in the aftermath of his publication of a book on her Christ complex. Aaron would also be looking at Jaye as a spiritual leader.
- Leave a comment
- Posted under TV