The Public Option

The public option has died and come back to life more than Daniel Jackson (of Stargate SG-1 fame), and now Majority Leader Harry Reid has promised 60 votes in the senate to pass a “state opt-out” plan. State opt-out means that a national plan would be developed, either one directly controlled by the government, or one that starts out with heavy government loans, subsidies, and oversight, before eventually being spun off as a private company (much like the now notorious FannieMae and FreddieMac for home loans). Each state has the option of opting out of this national plan, based on what it feels its needs are, as some states have heavy competition for healthcare, while others have only one or two providers that gouge their buyers.

The other popular option is the public option “with a trigger”, this is similarly a national plan, but rather than states having to choose to stay in, it offers a series of rules that deem the insurance market in the state “competitive”, and gives private insurers time to reach those goals. This is a liberal-conservative/conservative-liberal choice that gives insurers a way of avoiding the threat of a government not-for-profit to compete with. President Obama, who was for a national public option through the campaign, has recently become quiet on the matter, and has recently been rumored to have changed his preference to the “trigger” option.

While the debate rages, it is likely that the public option will appear in some form in the healthcare reform bill. The question remains though, and more and more unasked, is it a great idea to have government in charge of this program? After all the inherent instabilities of their previous ventures into healthcare (medicare, medicaid, not to mention the poor design of social security)? Can such a program even run properly, efficiently, and without corruption? Paul Krugman, Nobel Prize winning economist, questioned the very premise of the public option altogether. He posited that in an industry where risk-hedging is far more important to getting profits than increasing buyers, the idea of increasing market competition has no value. Put simply, it makes more money to have 100 “healthy” people paying premiums, and only 1 gets seriously sick a year, than have 1000 “average American” people paying premiums, and 400 get seriously sick a year, thus the public option will have no real effect on competition amongst private insurers. Still, a public option would get everyone covered, and hell, it just might work.

This Counts.

Been pretty busy this weekend, so let’s pretend I wrote something here that was slightly funny and barely insightful but mostly a rehash of funnier more insightful people, you were slightly interested but mostly proud of yourself for being a good enough friend to read the stuff I write here, so everyone can be happy and we can move on. Thanks. See you next week, hopefully.

Cool Shows for the New Season

It’s been a while, so i figure i’ll slowly work my way back into blogging with a list of new shows this season that are worth watching. Some people seem to think my opinion is valid here, so here it is, and if you don’t, shut the fuck up, nobody likes you anyway.

Glee

Passable, some of the songs are decent, Sweet Caroline was solid in this weeks episode, though the mash-ups are touch and go, but killing Queen classics is hard to come back from. The acting is all over the place, mostly held together by the fantastic Jane Lynch, the others have their moments. The lip sync sometimes goes over the top and the random cut to music bits take you out of it completely rather than plug you deeper in. It’d be nice to see a bit more character development for the students, especially the token football players/cheerleaders, and by character development, I mean give them a line.

Parks & Rec

I know this show started last season, but its finally hitting its stride and it’s worth a mention, and a second look from some of you. There are still some bits that need fixing, the underuse of Nick Offerman and Aziz Ansari borders on criminal, but Rashida Jones, and Amy Poehler hold their own, some good stuff from Aubrey Plaza too. I’d like to see something happen with Chris Pratt’s character, anything, or have him leave the show, his shtick for the whole season was only funny for an episode at most.

Community

Can’t say anything bad about this show, Don Glover and Joel McHale were primed for comedy gold, and the rest of the cast holds up pretty well, especially Danny Pudi and Chevy Chase, good guest spots by Ken Jeong and John Oliver keep the tempo up too. The rest of the cast is pretty strong too, would like to see more Don Glover and Alison Brie in future episodes. This show more or less hits the mark on how it is to go to a community college, but theirs is far nicer than any i’ve ever seen. Strong numbers and a back 9 pickup means this show will be on for the forseeable future.

Cougar Town

Classic Bill Lawrence, not awful, not particularly great, I don’t have a lot in common with a 40 year old divorcee, so maybe its that. It’s got its moments, its undeniable. Courtney Cox is strong.

Modern Family

Best new show of the season easily, its funny beyond belief, smart, and cleverly diffuses stereotypes for its own genre. Ty Burrell is best in cast, the look on his face when he realizes he has 3 bikes is too funny for words. Well written, clever setups and payoffs, this shows that the single camera sitcom has a future after the office and arrested development.

Flash Forward

Supposedly the future of serial dramas, this Lost-esque sci-fier is good, but struggles from the same problems as Heroes, and the first few seasons of Lost, too many questions too quickly, and too slowly answered. Strong acting, and unique characters keep the show alive, a early season end and promises from the producers on some answers at the end of the season make it worth a look. Sci-fi elements are underused and the last few episodes have been a bit too 24 and not in the good way, this show needs to wander a bit farther away from its predecessors. Still, strong premise, and work on the end of David Goyer and Brannon Braga and co. in terms of story and decent acting, particularly John Cho, Joseph Fiennes, and Zach Knighton, would like to see a bit more from other characters or have them gone altogether.

Stargate Universe

Stargate’s take on Battlestar Galactica, after a weak at best 3 part pilot, things have begun to pick up. Though the show throws away most of its Stargate-ness, strong turns by Robert Carlyle, Louis Ferreira,  and Jamil Walker Smith, and sheer potential make it worth watching. Stargate fans should beware of the lack of lightness, aliens, and guns, though Battlestar fans will find something to watch till Caprica premieres.

Bored To Death

After a slow start, a fantastic overall cast and a sense of intellectualism keeps this show afloat. Slow-played comedy and the Jonathan Ames-y-ness makes this a decent half hour to watch. Everyone should keep in mind that Jason Schwartzman is in fact Jason Schwartzman, and this is the type of stuff he usually does. Fun, light hearted comedy detective in the TV atmosphere of CSI is a welcome change. HBO usually sticks to its guns on stuff like this, expect it to stay on.

That’s about it, if you have any suggestions for me, feel free to to tell me and i’ll check them out.

I’ll probably work on a list of underrated shows for this season a bit later.

Drinking makes you cool

Making a great ad takes magic. Most ads, for all the money they cost to make, suck. That’s just a fact of anything creative. So every once in a while, something cool or clever comes around, it feels oddly fulfilling when the ad tries to trick you into buying their shit.

Heineken did it here:

 

 

And Dos Equis did it with their most interesting man in the world campaign:

 

 

and I think Ketel One did it here:

 

 

Some people don’t like this ad because it’s a pretty big change from Ketel One’s long running “Dear Ketel One Drinker” campaign, which frankly, I thought was cute, cute like a baby, like seen in passing makes me go “ah, cute” but I wouldn’t want to go buy a baby. This campaign just exudes cool, which for some reason stopped being the cool way to sell shit. Now it’s all about celebrities and viral marketing and product integration and cars drawing shit with their tires, no. It’s hard to think that we’re going back to a simpler time when my TV just told me “Buy this, I know it’s expensive but it will make everyone think you are cool and maybe that one chick at reception will bang you now.” You got cool music, cool guys playing a cool game of cool poker being cool, cooling it up as cool as cool can cool.

Everyone’s tastes are different. A lot of people probably change the channel when they hear the bass drop and that door opens, and that’s fine. All I know is, I want to put on a suit and find these guys so we can drink some Ketel One. And ultimately, isn’t that what a good ad is supposed to do?

The death of the classic

Transformers 2 was just the balls of movies. As in, if we all lived in a village, and we got a boar and had a feast, the viewing of Transformers 2 would be the equivalent of getting two boar balls on your plate. You come out of the theatre as others exit Star Trek (the loin) or Terminator Salvation (the hock) or Up (the side), everyone understands which part they got, some are happy, others aren’t but when you see what was on their plate, then the balls that forced down your throat after paying 10 leaves (the whole village/boar analogy is breaking up here, but I’m really trying…leaves could be money right?)

I’m not going to get into why it sucked, it did on…so many levels…for…so many reasons. But it brings light to a trend not just in Hollywood, but everywhere: Maximizing monetization. Transformers was a toy and cartoon franchise that beginning in the 80s gained a devout following in its home in Japan and in America as well as throughout the world. We cheered when Optimus busted out his laser axe, “Science be damned! ” we said. For this was badass. We loved it and then, somehow it ended, we were sad, but still happy, we moved on.

20 years later, every guy (and some girls) that grew up during that time could walk into any room of strangers, confident that the ability to list the constructacons would impress SOMEONE.

It’s not about that anymore. It’s always been about money, but now it’s about laziness too. When Ghostbusters came out, it was the idea of who were then, the cutting edge of young comedians, who took risks to make an instant classic. When Spielberg and Lucas, and Lawrence Kasdan got down to coming up with Indiana Jones, it was three guys who worked out an idea, and through risk and blood and spit and toil, came out with 2.5 great films, ones that parents made their children watch.

Movies used to be about the chase, about how good a movie could be, about pushing barriers and creating something from nothing. Sure, there was a deep want to make money, there always is, and nobody remembers the crap movies that were made like this that made no money, but compared to what’s going on today, the Stallone classic Cobra looks like Citizen Kane.

The idea now is, just to take good ideas that were had….ever…anywhere, at whatever time, repackage it with minimum risk, and throw it out onto the market. No need for artistry or style, just packaged. It doesn’t need to be packaged to move, because the people’s love for the franchise will force them to buy it. I walked into Revenge of the Fallen saddened by the fact that I knew it wouldn’t be good. I didn’t prejudge it, I hoped it would be good, but I expected the worst.

Good will can be monetized in certain situations, accountants are trained to do it, for example, Shirt Co. can write into their books “Good will – 100,000” when it gives away 100,000 dollars worth of shirts. Now the studios that are bringing us Spiderman 4, Transformers 2, Ghostbusters 3, are essentially calling on that 100,000 dollars, some of us with the knowledge that it will suck. At some point, the good will will run dry, and that franchise (at least for the time being) will be at “maximum monetization.” The efficency of it is ironic, that an idea can be used until it can be used no more. We can waste gas and pollute our atmosphere and whatever else tree-huggers whine about BUT GODDAMNIT, WE DON’T WASTE OUR MOVIE IDEAS!  I’d like to blame Hollywood for this, I really would, but I can’t. It’s our fault. Nope, I’m just going to go ahead and blame Hollywood. What worries me is, if we stop trying to make movies that we will tell our kids are classics, and we start wasting the classics that we have (Roman Holiday 2: Goin’ Greek), all that’s going to be left to be called a classic, is Stallone’s Cobra.

The End of Original Thought.

I come here today on the heels of reading two things: the first is musings on John August’s blog about Post-post modernism, and one specific response to it by one of his readers.

“If everything is a reference to a reference to a reference, as so much creative work is currently, then audiences are forced to either “get” everything, or else be alienated by everything. It may work in the short term for a target audience, but the work won’t hold up for long. Once the references become irrelevant, the work built on references becomes, likewise, irrelevant.”

Full post here: http://johnaugust.com/archives/2009/postmodernism-will-eat-itself

This quote was in response to John’s post about how one particular Charlie Brown video signaled to him how we have reached the end of post modernism and are officially in post post modernism. (my personal favorite is another example with Bert and Ernie mash up with the classic MOP song Ante Up)

http://johnaugust.com/archives/2008/charlie-brown-postmodern

The second is my recent foray into the works of Lawrence Lessig (turns out they got words in those bound paper things at the library), specifically Remix: Making Art and Commerce Thrive In the Hybrid Economy. The book is about how works involving sampling other artists should in fact be unhindered by copyright law to forward this new form of artistry. The biggest examples being Danger Mouse’s Grey Album and more recently Girl Talk’s Feed the Animals (more on revolutionizing music sales in a later post).

While I find Lawrence’s ideas very interesting, and I do agree with him generally on this point, a mix of the response on August’s blog and the mere idea of freeing “remix rights” is a scary.

There is some shit that I cant WAIT to get off the radio. I don’t want AT ALL , for example, want to hear about how Katy Perry kissed a girl (turns out she liked it, she hopes her boyfriend don’t mind it, she just did it to try it), I’m FUCKING DONE with that crap, and there are numerous other songs that, while good at the time, I have no intention of listening to at all in the future. The thought that these songs will live on in NEW songs scares the crap out of me.

But that’s completely beside the point. What I’m truly worried about is the end of original thought. This could potentially spread to other mediums (I always wanted to make a movie where Batman fights Spiderman while dealing with being a vet that came home, and is also a serial killer (or is he?)) let’s stick for the time being to music. Now it would be stupid to say that if this kind of legislation was put through, that all musicians would immediately stop making new material, but all the same, popular culture can only fit so much. Anyone who lived through the early part of this decade can attest to the power of rap music over the entire music industry, just as the 80s did with metal and the 90s did with grunge and alternative rock. If sampling (or remixing, whatever) comes to pass, many creative, talented people in this generation and the next will no doubt focus on this new field of music, where “shit is going down” instead of practicing on the piano or taking vocal lessons. Again, I’m trying to be careful here and again mention that I’m not at all saying no more original music would exist.

The whole medium of music would be changed, and I’m sure we could move beyond it, and Capitol Records can figure some way to still make millions of dollars a year, but what really worries me is that there will be an entire generation growing up on sampled music, sampled movies and all sorts of other crap (last time I tried to sample a goddamn book I got a F for shit called plagiarism). Is that going to send the right message? Don’t get me wrong, remixing is hard work, and involves tons of creativity, but do we want our kids to be thinking “what pieces of this will I need to make that?” rather than simply “how do I make that?” Just like I’m impressed when Macgyver makes a flamethrower out of a tree and a canister of hydrochloric acid (don’t bother thinking about it, I just threw two things together) I’m impressed with the Grey Album, but all the same, I’d prefer a REAL flamethrower (have it on layaway)

Back to the blog comment from earlier and how it relates. This really means that, whenever this eventually happens, we will all need to GET every REFERENCE in order to understand something. It’ll be like the entire world is one never ending episode of Arrested Development, you need to have watched every episode preceeding that episode, as well as have knowledge of what happened to all the other characters to really get all the jokes. That was the show’s biggest problem, viewers didn’t get everything. This is compounded with the fact that in this scenario, you ARE a character, and the characters RARELY ever got any of the jokes.

There is a scene in Pineapple Express where James Franco is forced into an underground bunker, as they push him in, he says “what, is there a rancor or something down there?” in a panic. Me and one of my friends were the ONLY ones in a theatre of two hundred to laugh at this Star Wars reference (to be fair, it made it all the funnier). This means that there was a fraction of this multimillion dollar movie budget that went into this one line. Then, 198 people came into this movie and didn’t get this joke at all, they literally didn’t get as much out of this movie as me and my friend did. Now I don’t think any of those people care at all that they didn’t get that joke, but now imagine a movie where the whole thing was built on references (the Scary Movie franchise is built on this kind of thinking, along with a slew of others like Disaster Movie, Dance Flick, Epic Movie etc etc). VH1’s I Love… series is built on explaining these references to people, kids can watch and find out what the fuck a Chia Pet is (It’s pottery that grows!)

That’s a fuckload of work to do to understand a joke in a movie if now I’m forced to watch an (albeit funny) show just to get the jokes. Even 10 years from now, when on a flashback Friday the Pork and Beans video comes on MTV8 (probably 8, 9 will probably keep to folk-techno and reality TV) my kids will look at me thinking “who the fuck is this guy that needs to step away from his mic to breathe” as I laugh my ass off thinking about “the good ol days”. Watching a single episode of Family guy, or Robot Chicken requires a relatively deep understanding of popular culture in general spanning the last 15-20 years. This is one of the main reasons these shows find a hardcore fan base that loves it, and everyone else just doesn’t get it.

This really begs the question, how NEW is a remix? What if ten years from now, people are remixing remixes we make now? That means we’re recycling music that itself was recycled. Are their shades in quality of “new”ness? Will it be like the B-movie industry or like porn? Now it’s a hot debate topic so it’s cool and interesting, much like Deepthroat was back in the day, but we don’t really hold porn at that same standard any more do we? How will this affect our culture as a whole? My friends and I (I really want to type “me and my friends” here) talk in videogame and movie references all the time, it makes it fun, you feel part of the in crowd, but what if that was required for work: “Matheson, get me a TPS report before I throw you in the Sarlacc Pit” this itself has 2 references, and what if you didn’t watch Office Space and Star Wars (shame on you!), what the fuck do you do at this point?

I know this is an eventuality, that at some point we’re going to allow sampling and copyright law will be changed to some extent somehow to allow it, and I also know we’re not going to go overboard and talk ONLY in references or stop making original movies or writing blogs purely out of Shakespeare quotes. Still, it is a bit worrisome… after all, all that worry about how computers could take over the world is a large reason to why it’ll never happened, just like how we’re careful not to give money the son of the deposed king of Nigeria on that new finangled thing called the internet (catch that Office reference?), hence the overly dramatic title of this post.

Hell, to even get what I’m talking about requires you to have read, heard, or seen atleast 2 dozen different things i make reference to but don’t explain. Even the name of this site itself is a reference to an episode of 30 Rock, so maybe it’s already too late, then again…the first time this problem surfaced Run DMC rocked Walk This Way pretty damn hard…so what the fuck do I know.

 

This is a documentary film that definitely hits some of the points the culture/copyright subject from the previous post better.

http://www.goodcopybadcopy.net/

It’s streaming on the site and allows for torrent download (for fear of being called a bunch of hypocrites?)

 

 

Thoughts?

 

Facebook: how it makes you feel terrible about yourself.

I won’t deny, people do use Facebook to keep in contact with old friends and whatnot, and the news after the Virginia Tech shootings made it clear that Facebook and other social networking sites were a large part of the reason that news of the situation quickly spread across campus, potentially saving many lives. So I’m not going to take the stance that it has no good properties, it is the current logical step of the small world theory.

That being said, Facebook fucking sucks.  As I said before, most people do use Facebook to talk to friends and keep contact with people you normally would have long since forgotten. Still, a far larger amount of time is spent looking up how people are doing and gauging how successful you are in comparison to them. “Did John Smith just buy a boat?! Fuck! I can barely afford tickets to go to Catalina!” (for full effect, John Smith was a douchebag in high school, he peed in your gym locker). This is the fucking depressing ass news that normally would be saved for high school reunions, and you could avoid them if u weren’t doing to well. You can’t do that anymore, the goddamn site itself inundates you with information about how “Mike just got promoted!” and “Mary is getting married!!!!” a simple click on their Facebook leads to pictures of Mike and his girlfriend (she’s hotter than your girlfriend) or of Mary and her husband in front of their Xanadu sized mansion. This totally rains on your parade of “YES! Still one hot pocket left in the fridge! I get dinner tonight!” or “that girl NEXT to the hot girl at that bar I went to gave me her number!”

That’s just ONE aspect of how Facebook makes  you feel like crap, and the most innocent, there is no perpetrator/victim scenario, they just happened to try to tell their friends what’s going on (let’s assume here that they aren’t showing off, even though they most definitely are, it’s passive) and you just happened to stumble upon it. It gets worst when some fucking guy starts baiting you, some guy you knew in high school, he wasn’t really your friend back then, but he’ll act like he wants to catch up, but he’ll kind of tell you all the good shit that’s been happening to him and how you can see it in his pictures, leading you to the rest of that crap.

Facebook would make sense if it kind of showed an accurate portrayal of you (I don’t know how it could, private investigators?) and have pictures of you depressed after finding out your boyfriend cheated on you mixed in with pictures of you “partying it up at hyde!” This way people won’t think you’re always having fun. Like in the earlier example of John Smith’s boat, I don’t think you’d feel John is a douchebag if, mixed in with the photos of him enjoying his new boat, there were pictures of him begging the repo men to let him keep it as they hauled it away, along with a bunch of his other overindulgent crap due to his inability to pay his credit cards off.

The WORST thing that can happen with Facebook though, is when you go to someone’s page looking for a pick-me-up, that guy that ate glue in elementary school, or the kid that went to rehab in 11^th grade. Your probably thinking here is where I say “but even THAT guy is doing better than you” but I won’t, that isn’t as bad as what I’m going to say…not even close. You’ll go to that guys page to find he does sporadic entries,  he’ll not do anything for months at a time because he can’t afford to pay his internet bills in consecutive months or something. You’ll go on his page and instead of feeling “hey, atleast I can pay my internet bill every month, maybe my life isn’t so bad” you’ll start thinking “fuck, I’ve come to the point of comparing myself to Glue-eating Gus…” and upon further inspection, you’ll realize that he too shares your love of the Foo Fighters, shit, the similarities are ENDLESS, you were once working at an Starbucks between 2004-2006? SHIT SO WAS HE! Then your mind starts fucking RACING, “oh my fucking goodness, while I’m looking at Glue-eating Gus’s page, SOME GUY IS LOOKING AT MY PAGE TO FEEL BETTER ABOUT HIMSELF!” you are now in the Glue-eating Gus league. This is like  thinking you’re a 2^nd string player for the Giants that had an off game who decided to watch a college game to make yourself feel a bit better, only to realize that “hey, these college kids are almost as good as me, fuck, maybe even better” and then you find out you’re not on the fucking Giants, you’re that crazy hobo that everyone looks at weirdly as they go to a Giants game because you’re outside Giants Stadium with a sign that says “will dance for money”. Depressed now? It gets worst.

The WORST thing that could happen on Facebook is you’re on someone’s page you don’t particularly like (she’s a bitch) and you’re going through to discover that THEIR favorite quote is a quote you like too, in fact you told it to your friends. You’ve always considered this person as a “hipster douche” and you’re reading of their favorite musicians confirms it. But wait a minute, you like Fleet Foxes too…TV on the Radio…yea you found them listenable…and who doesn’t like Vampire Weekend right? Two things happen here simultaneously, 1. You’re worst fear has happened, it turns out Freud was right and you hate yourself, turns out you hipster douche with the best of them, and 2. You realize how much of a dick you must have sounded like to all of your friends when you proclaimed Fleet Foxes was the best album of the year, and when you quoted that line from Gladiator that you thought only you heard. Fuck.

Thanks Facebook. But atleast its easy to gauge what to do next, start 2 groups, “(your name here) should kill himself” and “(your name here) should not kill himself” wait a month, and do whatever group has more members tells you to do. If it’s the former, start a note, “how should I off myself” and your friends will tell you which is the easiest, fastest, least painful, etc.

That’s until the “Kill Me” app becomes available. 

Really, Facebook is there to make things easier after all.

Now I painted “you” as a person in pretty poor shape in the world, used to work at starbucks, no boat, etc, but this is totally true even if you are doing well, your 50 foot skiff looks like CRAP in comparison to John’s 60 foot, you might as well burn your boat to the ground based on how bad you feel about it, you might be making a cool 100k a year, but just when you see Dr. James McDouche standing next to his Mercedes AMG, you KNOW he makes more than you and you feel you might as well be making minimum wage at Starbucks.

Essentially Facebook is like an airbrushed photo of everyones’ lives. Just like women feel like crap in comparison to “that photo” of Jessica Alba. They all know she, while beautiful, isn’t quite that attractive in real life, and even still…

Thoughts?

Is Rahm Emanuel the best choice for White House Chief of Staff? (if our answer was yes, this would be a short essay)

Rahm is a pretty kick ass guy, he’s the one that, after Clinton’s election, waved a knife around shouting out the new presidents enemies names followed by “DEAD!”, stabbing the knife into tables and stuff. Clearly this is the guy that Obama will look to to “take care” of “situations” and “silence” people. If there was an attack on the white house, Rahm’s the guy that will grab his twelve gauge (he’s probably got it stowed under his table) and a box of shells and set up camp in front of the oval office, forget those Secret Service guys, Rahm would be running the show. If god forbid something happened to the president, Rahm would grab a bat, wrap it with razor wire, and fucking find whoever did it and Jack Bauer that guy’s ass, not for information, just to watch the guy die slowly. Pretty much every unsolved mystery can be characterized this way: the dead guy was someone Rahm didn’t like, and somehow Rahm took care of him….it was for the good of the country.

 

Kissing his fists of fury after knocking some dude out (read:dead), hence the commotion in the background

 

 

Oh, he’s got political experience too (whatever).

But is he the best choice? I mean he’s fine, but the BEST? I don’t think so.

Now, there are plenty of people that spring to mind, plenty of veteran democrats, ones that compliment obama’s relaxed attitude with passion, ones with an old school view of politics, whatever, I don’t really care about that, I’m talking about Rahm’s ass kickery factor, and really there is only one choice:

 

This doesn't need a caption...it speaks for itself ("kick ass" is what it's saying...if you can't hear it)

Clint MOTHAFUCKIN Eastwood.

I think the picture itself explains everything. We’re looking for a guy with more experience than Rahm (in asskickery, which Clint’s got in spades…dude’s like 10000 years old) and still kicks more ass currently (refer back to the picture here). He’s got the gun, and the car, pretty much telling you “don’t fuck with the president”, usually being an old man means your telling everyone “I am weak and old”, Clint pretty much clearly defines here that, he may not be able to punch like he could before (originally cast in Mr. T’s role in Rocky III, he knocked out Stallone in the first take, and stopped production for a month, they didn’t fire him, he quit…got bored waiting) but he’s got a badass gun, so that’s all good, and he might not be able to run as fast as he used to (for a long time he was the odds on favorite to play the  roadrunner in a live adaptation of  Wile E. Coyote and the Roadrunner) but he’s got a badass car to make up for it. He’s like the Blade of old people, all of the strengths of an old person, with none of the weaknesses.

Your probably thinking, “he has no political experience” but seriously, does the White House NEED any more political people in it? It’s got like 100000 already… But how many badasses does it have? ZERO.

Lets say some jive Republican senator walks in and steal’s the president’s hat:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9InQvrRVr8

now your probably saying “but Lee Van Cleef is badass too, what about him?” well he’s dead….so yea…there’s that.

Terrorists on the south lawn (or any lawn really)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z7X2_V60YK8

and the revenge sequence?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SO5VO2ixWY

 CASE FUCKING CLOSED.

I’d ask for thoughts but all i expect is agreement.

Are you over 40 and funny (read: geeky)? Congrats, you meet all the requirements to find your soulmate…who is a super hot chick in her twenties! (in the movies atleast)

This is a trend that started only a little while ago, mainly because the comedians that we depended on in the 80s and 90s weren’t replaced this decade (we instead went for can’t act heartthrobs or indie kids) so now the goofball Adam Sandler, who, in his twenties, told us how funny Hanukah was (it turns out very) and how many famous people are Jewish (it turns out a lot), is now in his early 40s, but that’s not stopping him. Disney’s new (expected PG smash hit) Bedtime Stories pairs him, not with Courtney Cox (who is pretty much his age, and still attractive) but with Keri Russell, who is at least 10 years younger than him (exactly 10 actually, I looked it up…thanks wikipedia) and plays the sexy (or whatever Disney-fied sexy is) school teacher of his neice and nephew. Courtney Cox plays the sister, so yea, that was out of the question (although a Disney movie with an incest theme is oddly interesting….just to see how they would play it…they kinda went there with Lion King after all, I mean, Simba and Nala were part of the same pride….wasn’t Mufasa their father?). Now this is a PG Disney movie, so Adam won’t get a chance to have sex (bang, fuck, or tap as the kids say) with Keri…but still..

Now its not just this flick, Yes Man just came out, where Jim Carrey, who is like…he’s gotta be like almost 50 (wikipedia says 46) gets with Zooey Deschanel, who is in her late 20s…come on…the day a 46 year old loan officer can bag a 28 year old fox like Zooey Deschanel, who in the movie is a local celebrity rock star, is the day that I can shake the Earth by walking. Now the message of the movie is that if you say Yes, good stuff can happen, so I guess I can let it slide here…but come on…seriously? As an added bonus

My favorite though has to be Get Smart, where Steve Carell, again almost 50 (wiki says 46) bags Anne Hathaway…who, again in her late 20s, again, hot. But why I like this one is because they used a trick here, the Anne Hathaway character (Agent 99) had cosmetic surgery to make her appear so young, when in fact she is much closer in age to Max (Steve Carell’s character)…

This is really because, for some reason, firstly, there aren’t many funny women that can take a lead in a movie and sell it, and even fewer in the comedy genre…and even fewer in the romantic comedy genre. The only one that really comes to mind is Tina Fey, who only recently came to prominence after Mean Girls and 30Rock gave her a knock out blow…after like 8 years on SNL. So it’s definitely hard for women in comedy…but also, viewers can accept older men as likeable, as long as they are funny, or cool (Robert De Niro, Morgan Freeman, Clint Freakin Eastwood, and the aforementioned funnymen) . But women, the name of the game is hot, acting talent comes second, sometimes a far second…(this is the principle that forwards entire careers) now, the girls mentioned: Keri Russell, Zooey Deschanel, and  Anne Hathaway are very talented actresses, but is it wrong to think that a 40 year old man would find a 40 year old woman? Apparently not in movies. Even Tina Fey certainly sexed it up since her early days in comedy:

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(WE ALL LOVE HER FOR HER PERSONALITY THO…RIGHT?….)

Now 40 year old virgin got it right, with Catherine Keener with Steve Carell, believable, but still, we had that whole thing with Elizabeth Banks, who is considerably younger than Steve.

This basically says that hot girls in their late 20s can’t find men their age (they are all douchebags) and older men can’t find women in their age group (they’re all cougars?) or they are bitches and broke the guys heart (ie. All women that age are bad now for some reason..)

Bottom Line:

We’re running out of young comedic actors (until the Apatow crew completely take over comedy) and we never seem to have….more mature (read: like late 30s) women in comedies ever.

I get completely from a business standpoint, why to put young hot good actresses, seasoned comedic actors in movies, it’s a win win, especially when the women in question are good actresses in their own right, it’s just that it’s very very unrealistic, and takes the already hyper-realistic-ness (totally not a word) of romantic comedies just a bit too far…come on studios, Amy Poehler is good to go (that’s what she said), and there are plenty of mainly dramatic actresses that would do fine in comedy as Cathrine Keener proved-

 

Actually no, I take it all back… young and hot girls only please.

 

Thoughts?

Why Rocky 4 is the greatest American film of all time. (and how it can help us win the war on terror!)

 

EAT THAT SOVIET UNION!

 

 

 

Your probably thinking, damn, this movie sucks, how is it the greatest movie of all time? Well, I never said it was, I said it as the greatest AMERICAN movie of all time (film actually, but you’ll let that slide), and here is why: the whole movie shows a tough little American guy stand toe to toe with a huge, steroid using (WE SAW YOU IVAN!) blond, blue eyed, evil (they all are) Soviet (so, double evil). Not only that, but he kicked the crap out of the guy, literally, the whole fight scene has rocky going out there, and after a rocky (get it?! The movie is named rocky, and I used rocky as in not so easy, HAH…I crack myself up sometimes) start, he totally demoralizes Drago, every time he comes back into his corner, Drago says something along the lines of “he’s made out of iron”. The movie continues to the point that Drago manhandles the Soviet Premier (for a communist regime, they had really lax security) and then gets knocked the fuck out by our man Rocky. That’s all well and good right? The underdog wins, huzzah, but that’s not all, through the whole fight, Rocky slowly wins over the Russian crowd. This is something like the Lakers going over to Boston and slowly winning over the Celtic crowd, who by the end are chanting “KOBE! KOBE!” at the top of their lungs, shedding their Celtic gear. Rocky wasn’t even done, apparently he prepared a speech (Stallone probably figured he wasn’t going to get to do one at the oscars) and apparently memorized it (a part of the training montage that was lost in editing) that went on about how “if I can change, and you can change, then we can all change”, I don’t get how HE changed, if anything, to not have fought Drago would have been the change, its his lack of changing that was so admirable here…so I don’t know what he was talking about, but yea, the Russians changed (nothing makes you change your mind after 30 years of crushing Communist rule like a small American embarrassing your country’s hero), and so I guess we can all change (WHAT?!)

 

But yea, the whole thing was that America rocks (making it THE great American film) and that all of our enemies suck, and that we can totally kick the crap out of them. This movie was followed by the fall of the Soviet Union (coincidence? I think not). So what’s my plan for winning this war on terror? Release Rocky Balboa II (2011), Rocky’s son…I forget his name, lets call him Pebble-y, so Lt. Pebbley Balboa goes to Iraq with the Army and gets captured by some exchangeable named (Muhammad something) but terrifying terrorist (he’ll look a lot like Osama Bin Laden in the movie). Rocky finds out, but the government wont help…it’s time for rocky to take matters into his own hands. Back to Pebbley, the terrorists are forcing him into fighting in an underground boxing competition (this is where latter Rocky movies throw reality/plot right out the window anyway) and he’s gonna have to remember the old tricks his dad taught him (is it too early for a training montage? Maybe a memory sequence?) to stay alive, that is until he has to face (insert scary sounding middle eastern name, this guy will be played by Dalip Singh, the Indian wrestler on WWE).

 

This him waving to his kids

Back to Rocky, he’s gotten to Iraq…somehow… (swimming?) with Duke and Paulie. Paulie goes out on the streets (we’ll stick some racism in here, but you can still love Paulie, he’s just simple and ignorant) and finds out about these bareknuckle boxing matches set up by the terrorists (a flyer on the side of a blown out building?) and comes back to tell Rocky. Rocky goes to one of these fights (cameo some mma fighter here) and see’s his kid, but the terrorist spot him, he and Duke are captured, but Paulie escapes and heads for the American army base. It’s time to bring Survivor back together because they need to make up a new song to go here, along with Rocky’s training montage. The terrorist boss finds out who Rocky is, and wants him to fight his champion guy. Epic fight time, 5 rounds of brutal bare knuckle boxing (we’ll have color commentators on the side for the blow by blows, but wont explain why…maybe they were captured…somehow…I don’t know) Rocky will beat the terrorist guy, but also win over the terrorist crowd, and as Rocky is telling them there is more to life than killing infidels and virgins in heaven (60, no more, no less) Paulie brings in the cavalry, 1000000 soldiers storm the facility and capture the terrorist leader, and the other terrorist guys go peacefully, they understand now the wrongness of violence (from seeing two guys beat the crap out of each other). Cut to a year later, Pebbley is back in Philly and once again, he and pop are running up the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Rocky will make some crack about “being too old for this stuff” and then Pebbley will tell his dad he wants to show him a magic trick, he pulls a Medal of Honor out of his dad’s ear, “I want you to have this”, Rocky says no, but finally accepts it. FADE TO BLACK (inspirational song)

I’m telling you now, 6 years-ish after this flick comes out, Osama will turn himself in (or die or something), terrorists (all of them) will apologize for everything, and jail themselves, and there will be peace in the middle east….ALL BECAUSE OF THIS MOVIE.

 

Thoughts?