FRED Entertainment

December 4, 2006

Quick Stop Thingamabobs: 12/4/2006

Filed under: Columns,Thingamabobs — UncaScroogeMcD @ 12:49 am

The web. It’s a big place, full of plenty of distractions ““ some funny, some informative, some ludicrous, some disturbing, some inane, some profound. Each and every weekday, we present links to a few of our favorite finds”¦

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Where has this Letterman been for the past 15 years? (Thingamabob)

Classic commercials ahoy! (Thingamabob)

The final minutes of the legendary Otto Preminger theatrical disaster, Skidoo, featuring tunes by the equally legendary (but in a good way) Harry Nilsson… (Thingamabob)

Meet the merry Marvel Comics staff of the 1960’s… (Thingamabob)

Vic Reeves & The Wonderstuff – “Dizzy”… (Thingamabob)

Have a THINGAMABOB? Send it in!

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December 2, 2006

Game On! 12-2-2006: My God That’s A Lot of Games! Part I

Filed under: Game On! — admin @ 2:22 am

Wow. There have been SO many games released in the past few weeks that I, honestly, have been a little bit overwhelmed. So much to play, such little time to play them. Still, work is work, and I bring you the reviews in hopes you can make some educated choices for titles in this overpopulated gaming season. In addition to our regular reviews this week, we’re going to have a few comparison reviews as well; reviews of two similar games to showcase which is the better buy. This is a lot of gaming goodness for one week, folks. Settle in”¦

HEED THE CALL

Who’s tired of WWII shooters yet? Obviously not Activision. They have good reason not to be, however, as their CALL OF DUTY series is the most popular and best selling series in the genre. So, it’s no surprise that once again they visit familiar ground with CALL OF DUTY 3, out now for PS2, PS3, Xbox, Xbox 360 (reviewed) and the Nintendo Wii. What is surprising is that PC developer Infinity Ward has stepped aside and allowed Treyarch to take the reins. What we’re left with is a mix of the best elements of the series past, with a few new tricks added to the mix, but an overall feeling of sameness.

Focusing primarily on the Normandy Breakout leading up to Paris’ liberation, players join the ranks as soldiers from America, Britain, Canada and Poland in 14 structured story missions. In much the same way as game past, the battles are intense and frenetic, and each storyline moves the game along well with expert voice acting and detailed cut scenes. Control is generally no different than past titles, but new to the title is the game’s direct action melee sequences. During surprise attacks, some German soldiers will get right up into your face and you’ll have to grapple with them over your rifle by alternating button presses on the trigger buttons, and finally defeat them with a on-screen prompt for a finishing move. The PS3 and Wii versions of the game incorporate those systems’ motion sensitive controllers for these sequences. It’s an added sense of tension for the series, but honestly, it’s not really used all that much, and can’t be done in multiplayer, which would have spiced up online matches a bit.

Also new is a heavy focus on the more detailed setting of bombs and mines. Rather than just plainly pressing and holding a button on a specific spot, you now rotate the analog sticks to twists the wires, set the detonators, etc. There’s also a great deal more usage of vehicles in the game, which thankfully spills over into the multiplayer modes. Tanks, jeeps, and motorcycles (with sidecars) all add to the rush of combat.

The game has some strong voice work, but a lot of the opposing forces (you know, the Germans) sound like they were just lifted and recycled from the last game. Also, while the graphics are really top notch in most places, they seem to oddly falter in others. While playing a deathmatch online, I remarked at how detailed and unique the castle we were running around in looked, with it’s elaborate tapestries and suits of armor lining the halls. It was an odd feeling then to look down at my hand holding my rifle to see a mangled lump of clay. My hand looked like a foot; obviously I had been crippled in some form at birth, and I’m surprised they let me into the army at all. To say that the graphics aren’t uniform through out the game is an understatement. In some parts, you’ll be blown away by the smoke effects and realistic weaponry, in others you’ll wonder just how you managed that headshot, or why there’s now a levitating dead body on a staircase.

The multiplayer aspect has been greatly improved over the last game, which was the biggest concern for fans. The lobby system is great from the start, allowing to choose between game modes (something that was severely lacking from COD2 until a patch almost six months after release) such as deathmatch, team deathmatch, capture the flag, headquarters and the new War mode. In War, two teams have one section of a map to capture and defend for as long as possible. There are also variable classes for players to choose from, such as medics and scouts, each with special abilities. As a player gets more kills in an online session, his character class ranks up and his abilities grow. It’s a neat little system that will get COD3 to quickly many shooters online.

With a strong online presence, a decent if not shorter story mode and great graphics (for the most part) CALL OF DUTY 3 has a lot going for it. The WWII theme may be getting a little stale for some, however, and if you’re tired of taking down “Zee Germans” time and time again, this is still a good “last look”.

One Gamer’s Opinion:

THUG LIFE VOL. 1

THE SOPRANOS: ROAD TO RESPECT vs SCARFACE: THE WORLD IS YOURS

Ah, drugs and guns, thugs and hooligans. Is there any more popular subject for gaming (well, obviously other than WWII)? As subject for our first face-off, we take two games with similar themes and compare them”¦and in this case we find they’re not as similar as we had first thought.

Firstly, THE SOPRANOS, out for PS2, takes place between the HBO series 5th and 6th seasons and puts the player in the shoes of Joey LaRocca, son of the late rat, Sal “Big Pussy” Bonpensiero. Joey’s you’re typical mook out for a buck by snatching purses, but Tony Soprano puts a stop to that in his neighborhood but quick, and decides to take the kid on in more “legitimate” business exploits.

What this means is that you essentially take missions from Paulie and Christopher until you get enough respect to be invited to sit with Tony and the rest as a member of the family. And what do these outrageous missions entail? Beating the crap out of people. Endlessly. And”¦ that’s it.

Yeah, from a stint as one of the top rated, best written shows on television to a one note beat “˜em up, the road to respect is apparently paved with one two punches. Sure, the story is kind of diverse, with Joey moving not just from pounding mooks, but also saving a high school sweetheart from the porn industry, uncovering a plot from a rival Don to mash in on Tony’s turf, to even saving AJ from rival businessmen. Still, despite the story, it’s all “walk over here, talk to this guy, beat up wave after wave of guys”. Lather, rinse, repeat. And while the combat offers a decent variety of moves, including environmental hot spots, it feels loose and clunky, and the targeting is way out of “whack”, to put it loosely.

So we move to a different kind of gangster. This time, to the king of them all, Tony Montana. Acting a sequel to the movie (more like a “What If”) SCARFACE: THE WORLD IN YOURS, out for PS2 and Xbox, gives players the option of fighting through that final fateful battle of the film and living on as Tony as he rebuilds his empire and tries to take the streets back from his rival Sosa.

What at first looked like a cheap GTA knock off (which, in all accounts, is a rip off of the movie SCARFACE, especially VICE CITY) is actually more of a shooter in an open world environment. There are cars and weapons, buildings to enter and enact with, but the main story is very structured, and there’s more combat than anything else. Tony has a decent lock-on system, which you can finely tune to concentrate on specific body parts to shoot. The more serious wound you inflict, the more “Balls” you have. You can even taunt foes as they die, giving you more “Balls” for your meter. Max this meter out, and you’re filled with Tony’s “Blind Rage”, which enters the player into first person mode with all foes automatically targeted, and lets you blow them all away, increasing your health. It’s a good way to save your ass in deep fire fights, and you’ll actually end up using it pretty often.

While both games feature fantastic voice casts (the SOPRANOS including everyone from the show’s main cast) SCARFACE has the larger of the two, including such Hollywood luminaries as Michael York, James Woods, Cheech Marin, Robert Loggia, Robert Davi, and even View Askew vets Jason Mewes and Michael Rooker. The visuals also are a stand out and while Tony isn’t actually voiced by Al Pacino, his likeness is immediately recognizable, and the voice actor (AndrÃ© Sogliuzzo) was hand picked by Pacino, and does a fantastic job.

And while the combat is decent, the driving does have its faults. The missions are set up in a very GTA similar style, and locations on the map are marked with an X. As you drive, directional arrows appear on screen to tell you when to turn. However, the system doesn’t work as well as hoped. Most of the time you’ll end up circling where ever the destination is, either by being on the freeway ABOVE the actual location, or just poor directions not appearing in some cases, like when to pull into a driveway if you’re not paying close enough attention. Also, most of the cars seem to handle the same. An exotic car and an armored truck should move the same, but they do here.

As Tony rebuilds his empire, he can buy fronts to keep the Vice off his tail and his business, and you can outfit those fronts with thugs to protect your cash and goods from rival gangs. This adds a weird little micro-management angle with is refreshing, though not all to well executed here. Also, you can take all your ill-gotten gains, registered as “dirty money” to your friend at the bank to have it “cleaned”. Using a timed button press meter, you can “negotiate” how much percentage the bank takes off the top to launder your funds.

In much the same way, Tony can sell his drugs to street pushers. Time the button press when the meter fills, and you’ll convince them to join your team and sell your yayo. Most of the time, though, the mini game aspect of this feature doesn’t really deliver as well as it should. Still, it’s a nice diversion from driving and killing”¦sort of.

Between the two, SCARFACE seems to be the better choice. It has an open world environment, plenty to see and do, where as SOPRANOS has the “Bada Bing” hub, and transports you to the different locales automatically. The fisticuffs get a little stale after the first 2 hours of play in SOPRANOS, but there’s only two more hours left of gameplay after that, where as SCARFACE lasts a good 25 to 30. It’s surprising to note that I had higher expectations for the SOPRANOS game than I did SCARFACE. Where with one I was expecting a GTA rip off, I found a deeper centralization on combat with a decent amount of freedom and a large environment, and with the other while I expected more freedom, I found ONLY combat”¦and bad combat at that.

SCARFACE: THE WORLD IS YOURS:

THE SORPRANOS: ROAD TO RESPECT:

SUPERHERO SMACKDOWN VOL. 1

MARVEL ULTIMATE ALLIANCE vs JUSTICE LEAGUE HEROES

Those who read my column often know what a geek I am for comic games. When these two titles were announced, and were released within weeks of each other, I knew I had a smackdown lined up already. And while the games share a lot in common, there’s one clear victor. Between them, MARVEL ULTIMATE ALLIANCE (PC, PS2, PS3, Xbox, Xbox 360, PSP and GBA) and JUSTICE LEAGUE HEROES (PS2, Xbox, DS now, PSP next month) feature over 160 comic book characters”¦though the majority of those are in Marvel’s game.

After a great deal of success with the X-MEN LEGENDS series, developer Raven Software turned it’s sights towards the entire Marvel Universe with a daunting idea: what if ALL the villains teamed up? Players take on the familiar four hero teams and beat down all that oppose them in the typical dungeon crawler fashion made popular in those X-MEN past games. Here, however, there’s more emphasis on team play, as well as team dynamics. Include heroes from already existing teams (such as the Fantastic Four or the New Avengers) and you’ll be given bonuses in health or other stat attributes.

The same multiplayer format is here too, allowing four players to play at the same time, with drop-in/drop-out on the fly, as well as online play. The next gen versions of the game look the best and receive some extras, five extra “˜comic” missions and two exclusive playable characters, Colossus and Moon Knight. The PSP version includes a few exclusives as well, such as Black Widow, Ronin, Hawkeye and Captain Marvel, and three exclusive difficulty modes. Uber Hero has you choosing ONE lone hero with which to take on the villains (though your levels automatically boost to 99 to even things out). Hardcore has the limitation of death (where if one hero is offed, he’s gone for the entire game) and Hardcore Squad, where you have but one four man team to compete with”¦again, with death bringing no more help. These modes are only selectable after the game has been beaten however.

Once again, alternate costumes make an appearance, but this time, they offer more than aesthetic pleasure or a chance to see your favorite hero in your favorite outfit from comic’s past. Each suit has different attributes, which boost various levels such as health regeneration, different powers and more. The best suits for each hero are only unlocked after beating their “very difficult” comic missions, which you must locate throughout the game by picking up special discs hidden in the levels.

While this formula sounds familiar, it’s still works very well in the Marvel Universe, and with a selectable roster of over 25 heroes, with more than 140 Marvel characters making an appearance throughout the game (either as NPC or villains) this is the largest slugfest around for Marvel fans”¦who’d ever thought they’d see Fin Fang Foom and Tigershark in a game, and actually ENJOY fighting them?

Sadly, the same can’t fully be said for DC’s JUSTICE LEAGUE HEROES. While it too apes the dungeon crawling button mashing style of X-MEN LEGENDS, it’s pedigree is closer to the D&D side of things, as developer Snowblind Studios has it’s heritage with the BALDUR’S GATE series. In JLH, you can choose only TWO heroes to battle through the stages with, and in some cases, the choices aren’t even yours, the game makes them for you.

Still, limited as it may be, the roster is impressive. Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern (the John Stewart version), Martian Manhunter, Flash and Zatanna (wha?) all make an appearance, with Green Arrow, Aquaman and Huntress as unlockables. The powers the heroes employ also feature the similar “level up” style of MARVEL, but the various costumes don’t offer anything but different duds for you to trot around in.

The graphics here are decent, and offer a few better angles of the action than MARVEL’S game, but the villains you bash run into the repetitive. How many gorillas do I have to pound before PeTA arrests my Kryptonian butt? Thankfully, you can join in with a friend to battle the baddies, but only one, and no online features.

DC’s game seems to emulate MOST of the cool features MARVEL’S got a handle on, but doesn’t include the best ones, selection and online. Still, it’s an admirable mark, and one of the better DC licensed games (and definitely the best JUSTICE LEAGUE game). Still, ULTIMATE ALLIANCE is the best of the best, giving you more nerdgasms per mile. Now if each of these games had featured the words “Infinite”, “Civil”, “Crisis” or “War” in any combination”¦well, we might have a different story here.

MARVEL ULTIMATE ALLIANCE:

JUSTICE LEAGUE HEROES:

PLATFORMER’S PARADISE

LEGEND OF SPYRO: A NEW BEGINNING vs DEATH JR. II: ROOT OF EVIL

While platformers tend to be my favorite style of gameplay, the genre doesn’t have many great contenders these days, with Mario usually taking on sports games nowadays rather than hoping through the Mushroom Kingdom. Still, some series survive on and take their brand of jumping and combat to new systems, and even try to re-invent themselves. While our two opposing games here have little in common, the one thing they do share (other than being platformers) is their fantastic production values. Is it enough to make them worth playing?

For the little purple dragon that could, his new game is all about how his story began. As a reboot for the series, Sierra has released THE LEGEND OF SPYRO: A NEW BEGINNING on PS2, Gamecube, Xbox, GBA and DS. Here, Spyro’s story is completely redone. After being rescued by Ingnitius, an elder dragon, he is left to wash away in the river, in the hopes of finding a safe place after Cinder lays waste to the dragon homeland. And he does, being raised by a family of fireflies, with his best bud and “brother” Sparx. One day, his dragon powers start to kick in, and so does his life’s destiny: of being the chosen purple dragon of legend to save the dragon’s once again.

The story is told quite well with newly rendered cut scenes and a surprising Hollywood cast. Elijah “Frodo” Wood provides the voice for our young hero and David Spade (SNL, “Just Shoot Me”) voices Sparx. Most surprising however is Gary Oldman as “Inignitus”, the wise old dragon who aids Spyro on his quest.

The graphics on the console version are bright and vibrant and really standout as one of the best parts of the game. The gameplay, however, is your typical SPYRO adventure. You bash them with your head, breath fire on them, and repeat until defeated. The game does offer up some variety by way of combos, and you get bonuses for varying your fighting styles with juggles and the like. Spyro’s fire breath is also upgradable, which helps out as you collect orbs to fill out your stats with.

And while the stage design is basic but fun, with puzzles located throughout to slow down the “beat “˜em up” pace, some are best left forgotten. The flying levels in particular are rather horrendous. You glide on rails and attempt to shoot down foes being flung or flying at you with barely any sense of a real targeting reticule, which causes many restarts and much swearing. Still, there’s aren’t as many of these, so it’s not a huge problem.

The main trouble I had with SPYRO is that it all feels so”¦same-y. While it may be a reboot of the series, I’ve done it all before. Sure, there’s a bit less emphasis on collecting gems (thank god) so it’s not nearly as much of a fetch quest as past games, but there’s still the same repetitive style of the gameplay we’ve seen before. Thankfully, the boss battles mix things up a bit and the variety of foes is diverse enough that you won’t get too bored with things.

As with DEATH JR II on the PSP, the production value is also high. The cut scenes, while not featuring as recognizable a voice cast, still tell the story quite well, and are some of the best looking scenes I’ve seen for a handheld game. While on a trip in the woods to hunt down a cocoon for a science project, DJ and Pandora accidentally unleash a hellish wood nymph on the land, which ends up capturing DJ’s father”¦Death. It’s up the kids to save pops”¦and everybody else on the planet, naturally.

Here, players can choose either DJ or Pandora to battle the baddies, and each have their own unique melee and ranged attacks. DJ has his scythe and Pandora has a bone chain, a whip like lathe that can cause some serious damage. There’s also the series trademark of wacky weapons, such as the C4 hamsters (now more lethal), a flaming toilet paper gun and more.

The level design is once again riding that ragged edge of the weird, looking like a cross between Tim Burton and Tim Schafer. From a graveyard for dead toys to”¦well a Waffle House, weird is the order of the day. The Camera controls have been slightly improved here, though lock-on is a bit twitchy at times with the ranged weapons. The melee attacks will serve you the best, and DJ’s platforming skills have improved overall, with the scythe getting you just about every place you need to go.

While neither of these titles offer a whole lot that’s new, they still try a few tricks that should keep series fans interested. As platformers go, they’re fairly basic, but that’s not always a bad thing at all.

LEGEND OF SPYRO:

DEATH JR II:

ANIME SMACKDOWN

NARUTO UZIMAKI CHRONICLES vs DRAGON BALL Z BUDOKAI TENKAICHI 2

In the ongoing battle to see which Anime series has the most games made for it in a year, we have our two top contenders once again vying for the peak position. And while NARUTO and DRAGON BALL Z both feature their fair share of the karate and ninjitsu fisticuffs, both games actually have some fairly deep gameplay modes…albeit familiar ones.

Naruto wants to be the best ninja in the world. His first step should be a different outfit (orange? Yeah, that’s stealthy). But in his NARUTO UZIMAKI CHRONICLES on PS2, the young plucky ninja-to-be has quite the set of moves. Combat is flavorful and inventive, with plenty of earmarks and nods to the series, while keeping the style fresh and fun for those bored on the same old fighting games in the genre.

Rather than a simple one on one game, CHRONICLES has our boy battling it out in a semi-open environment. He’s given tasks by local merchants and villagers, and must complete them to progress. Granted, most of these aren’t hard by any stretch of the imagination, and some are downright repetitive (how many times must you guard someone’s cart?) but it’s a nice pace for an anime game to NOT feature one on one fighting.

The variety of moves is great, and you’ll be pulling off combos and fantastic finishers in no time. Sadly, the enemy AI doesn’t put up much of a fight for you to flex over. Most will barely block any attacks or even retaliate on their own, and when multiple foes appear, most just wait their turn to be wailed on rather than attacking you in force. A little Ai goes a long way”¦and this doesn’t even have a LITTLE. Still, what’s there makes for some fun, albeit monotonous fun.

On the DRAGON BALL Z side of things, however, the same format as before works just as well, and BUDOKAI TENKAICHI 2 (on PS2 and Wii) is the largest game yet in the series. Featuring over 100 fighters from the TV show’s three different series (Dragon Ball, Z and GT) and a storyline that spans the entire 160+ episode run of the Z series, this is definitely a lot of bang for your buck. There’s over 60 hours of gameplay in the main story!

Fighting has been honed and refined over the series, and counters play an integral part. Combos are in abundance as well, but now power-ups such as Super Sayian mode and Fusions are now incorporated directly into your move sets. The graphics are a real knockout here as well, with huge Earth shattering battles and environmental damage throughout. Fans will definitely find delight here.

For anime fans, which game to choose depends on which series is your favorite. While they certainly churn out enough DBZ games per year, I don’t see how they can possibly top the size and scope if this one. As for Naruto, his series may have been out for a while in Japan, but American audiences are just only starting to get a taste of the Nine Tailed Fox. Goku has a serious contender on his case if Naruto’s games improve like this one. Believe it!

NARUTO UZIMAKI CHRONICLES:

DRAGON BALL Z BUDOKAI TENKAICHI 2:

THUG LIFE VOL. 2

GRAND THEFT AUTO: VICE CITY STORIES vs SCARFACE: MONEY. POWER. RESPECT.

Our next group of thuggish ruggish games takes place on the handheld PSP. And while the big brother versions of these titles owe a lot to each other for their success, their handheld counterparts don’t quite live up to big poppa’s dreams.

For GRAND THEFT AUTO: VICE CITY STORIES, the fault lies with the series itself. After 9 games of gangsters doing gangster shit, it’s starting to become stale. Still, this story has some legs to begin with. Vince Vance (brother of Lance Vance from the original VICE CITY) has been dishonorably discharged from the military after being caught with his superior officers’ contraband. Back on the streets of Vice City (two years before Tommy Vercetti’s tale) Vince is trying to stay on the straight and narrow”¦but it doesn’t quite work out that way for the big lug. After dealing with a drunken gunrunner and bootlegger, Lance hooks up with his brother and the local drug cartels, and Lance isn’t quite the cool cat yet we’ve come to know. Backstory shapes the characters we’ve been familiar with and every plays out in that familiar GTA style.

What stops this title from being great is just that: familiarity. How many thug things can we do before we grow tired of it? Plus, with VICE CITY being most fans’ favorite in the series, rising above the bar set by that and SAN ANDREAS is a tough mark to beat. Still, VCS does fairly well, especially considering the restraints of the PSP. Draw distance is typically a problem, but control is hurt most, once again by the series same old targeting system.

Though, as far as familiarity goes, that’s not always a bad thing. While the story may have a more serious tone thanks to its “hero”, the series’ traditional humor can still be found throughout. Plus, the voice cast is top notch once again, forgoing the fact that it’s on the PSP, much of the Hollywood voices from the first VICE CITY return as their familiar characters, including Luis Guzman, Danny Trejo and Phillip Michael Thomas as Lance.

SCARFACE, however, is a totally different beast altogether. While it’s console version takes place after the film and incorporates a similar GTA style, the PSP version actually takes place DURING the film, but it’s execution is a bizarre one. After viewing some lengthy movie scenes directly from the feature, you’re dropped inexplicably into a TURN BASED STRATEGY GAME. Yes. I’ll repeat that. SCARFACE on PSP is a TURN BASED STRATEGY GAME.

As Tony, you buy thugs, pushers, drug labs and storehouses for your territories, then battle it out against rival gangs and turfs to see who comes out with the most money and acreage of Miami. The game moves in rounds, with a series of goals for each “mission” to be completed over these rounds. Complete the main objective and the mission ends.

The problem with this is that you’ll end up doing the same thing over and over again each round. But some thugs to protect your fronts. Buy some labs to make the product. Buy some drugs to sell. Buy power moves to execute during buying process or battles. Protect or attack turfs. Repeat ad nauseum. And the whole attack scenarios are done in such a way that is supposed to incorporate real time integration, such as telling which opposing thugs to attack, or specific foes to target, but it all moves along so fast that you don’t even realize that once you press one button, the rest becomes automated.

What is seriously lacking in newness in one, is only more lacking variety in the other. It would have been nice for Sierra to port over even a scaled down version of the console game for SCARFACE on PSP, but this just doesn’t make sense. GTA: VCS acts as the series last grasp at the same mold before they offer (hopefully) something brand new and exciting with the next gen GTA IV. All in all, it is what it is”¦GTA. Again.

GRAND THEFT AUTO: VICE CITY STORIES:

SCARFACE: MONEY. POWER. RESPECT.:

Alright. That’s it for this week. My hands are tired from typing and I don’t think my back can stand sitting at this computer anymore. More reviews and comparisons next week, and I think I may even have time to include my thoughts on the new Nintendo Wii, and it’s flagship title THE LEGEND OF ZELDA: TWILIGHT PRINCESS. See you in seven.

THE GAME ON! RATING SYSTEM

Kick-Ass, Right On, Okay, Eh, and Stinker (or Craptacular)

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December 1, 2006

Lost Tales of the View Askewniverse #1 – “Final Meeting”

Filed under: Holiday Havoc,Lost Tales of the View Askewniverse — UncaScroogeMcD @ 10:00 pm

Even when you think you’ve seen it all, there are plenty of stories that fall through the cracks.

Well, consider this a means of plucking those anecdotes from out of the void and presenting them to you, our loyal audience of Kevin Smith aficionados, via a little feature we like to call “Lost Tales of the View Askewniverse.”

You’ll find Chop Shop Entertainment‘s feature length, in-depth documentary on the development and making of Clerks 2, Back to the Well, on the second disc of your 2-disc Clerks 2 DVD set, but Zak & Joey shot hours more footage than could ever fit in the doc… And believe you me, there’s plenty of cool shit that they were forced to excise due to constraints of time and narrative flow.

LOST TALES #1: “Final Meeting” ““
Here’s our first formerly lost tale, detailing the last production meeting before the beginning of principal photography on Clerks 2, wherein the director, producers, and crew meet to go over the film and discuss all neccesary production matters before shooting commences “¦

Download Lost Tales #1 – “Final Meeting”:

Large (560 x 420 – QuickTime – 41.30 MB)

Small (320 x 240 – QuickTime – 18.37 MB)

[display_podcast]

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Scrubs Blog: My Guy Love

Filed under: Production Blogs,Quickcasts,Scrubs Blog,Video — UncaScroogeMcD @ 6:48 pm

VIDEO BLOG #68: “My Guy Love” ““
Scrubs is back on the air, Thursday nights at 9pm on NBC, and the countdown begins to the big musical episode – so watch as J.D. & Turk get their tune on with an ode to “Guy Love”…

Download Scrubs Video Blog #68:

Large (560 x 420 – QuickTime – 21.94 MB)
Small (320 x 240 – QuickTime – 9.45 MB)
YouTube

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Comics in Context #156: Canon Fodder

Filed under: Columns,Comics in Context — admin @ 6:46 pm

Sometimes when I spend weeks working on a certain topic for this column, there are moments of serendipity.

For example, currently on Saturday mornings, Turner Classic Movies has been running the 1950 Columbia serial Atom Man vs. Superman, in the course of which Superman is projected into an extradimensional void called “the Empty Void.” Superman thereupon appears in ghostly form on Earth, unseen by the people there. Did this serial, I wondered, inspire the later creation of the Phantom Zone in the comics?

But the serendipity occurred after last Saturday’s (Nov. 25) last episode of the serial concluded. Next TCM showed one of its “One Reel Wonders,” an episode of the MGM short subject series called The Passing Parade. This installment was titled People on Paper, and turned out to be about leading comic strip artists of the mid-20th century. So there, captured on film, were several of the men honored as “Masters of American Comics” by the museum exhibition of the same name: Milton Caniff (Terry and the Pirates), Chester Gould (Dick Tracy), and Frank King (Gasoline Alley), as they looked in their prime. There too on film were Dick Calkins (Buck Rogers), Al Capp (Li’l Abner), Hal Foster (Prince Valiant), Harold Gray (Little Orphan Annie), and Chic Young (Blondie). Had I not been taken by surprise, I would have taped this short. I had never before known this short subject existed, and I suspect neither do most comics historians.

On the day before (Friday, Nov. 24), one of The New York Times‘s art critics, Holland Cotter reviewed the new exhibition “Africa Comics” at the Studio Museum in Harlem and remarked that “I guess there are people who still can’t fit the idea of “˜art’ and “˜comics’ into the same frame. But why? If handmade, graphically inventive, conceptually imaginative images – which describes practically everything in this show – aren’t art, what is?” Cotter refers to these “people” as if they are a handful of artistic reactionaries who have fallen behind the times and are out of step with contemporary thinking. Yet when I started “Comics in Context,” a little over three years ago, the Times neither reviewed nor reported on nor ran comics regularly. The Times ran an obituary for comics artist Dave Cockrum, the co-creator of The X-Men‘s Colossus, Nightcrawler and Storm, on Wednesday, Nov. 28, only two days after his death. Twelve years ago it took the Times several weeks before it noticed the passing of Jack Kirby. The cultural shift regarding comics has happened very quickly, though I suspect it is not as widespread as Cotter assumes.

By the way, I heartily recommend Peter Gillis’s beautifully written tribute to Dave Cockrum. Here are the key lines: “In a better world, Dave, once he was in the place where the universe had intended he should be, should have just continued to do whatever he wanted, because whatever he wanted was just so right. But that’s not the way the Comics Industry works.”

Cotter continues, “In any event, Pop Art and all that followed it long ago wiped out the notion that comics are one-liner sight gags good only for the “˜funny pages.'” As I’ve pointed out before, the conventional wisdom about Pop Art was that artists like Roy Lichtenstein and Andy Warhol had transformed supposedly trashy, banal imagery from the comics into true art. The 1960s Batman TV show remains Exhibit #1 in the case of mainstream culture’s attitude towards comics in the era of Pop Art. Now I am beginning to wonder if the growing artistic respectability of comics will lead to revisionist art history, with people contending that art critics and scholars have been taking comics seriously for decades.

In passing Cotter comments that “”˜Masters of American Comics,’ the ambitious historical survey split between the Jewish Museum in Manhattan and the Newark Museum, is truly a masterpiece show.” Indeed it is, and it’s noteworthy that now two Times critics have highly praised the show. (The first was senior art critic Michael Kimmelman )

It was through another serendipitous event that I found the key for writing about the last lap of the “Masters” show. On Monday, Nov. 20 cartoonist and comics theorist Scott McCloud, author of Understanding Comics and Reinventing Comics, gave a lecture at New York University as part of his year-long “50 State Making Comics Tour“ to promote his latest book, Making Comics (HarperCollins, $22.95).

During his presentation McCloud expounded on one of the major ideas from his new book, that there are what he calls four basic “tribes” of comics artists. (See “Understanding Comics Culture” in Making Comics, pages 229-239).

First there are the Classicists, whom he characterizes by “the devotion to beauty, craftsmanship and a tradition of excellence and mastery,” showing panels by Hal Foster, Colleen Doran, and P. Craig Russell in his book as examples.

Next are the Animists, who are characterized by “the devotion to the content of a work, putting craft entirely in the service of its subject,” so that “the teller of the story all but vanishes in the telling.” In the book he presents as examples panels by Jack Kirby (from Fantastic Four), Lynn Johnston (from her comic strip For Better or for Worse) and Dan DeCarlo (of Betty and Veronica).

Then there are the Formalists, who have a “devotion to comics itself, to figuring out what the form of comics is capable of,” and who experiment with that form. In this category McCloud includes Will Eisner (in his NYU presentation), Art Spiegelman (in the book), and himself.

Finally, there are the Iconoclasts, who aim above all for “honesty, authenticity, and a connection to real life”; McCloud points to Robert Crumb’s and Harvey Kurtzman’s work as examples. That seems to describe the Iconoclasts’ philosophies more than their visual style. My take on what McCloud is getting at is this: the Iconoclasts are less concerned with conventional notions of beauty and craft, nor with formal innovation nor with working within conventional story genres. Hence their visual style may look rough or primitive, because they “see art primarily through life’s lens” in McCloud’s phrase: art becomes the means to their end of conveying their ideas about life.

McCloud states that his “four tribes correspond roughly” to psychologist Carl Jung’s “four proposed functions of human thought.” Hence McCloud links Classicists to Sensation, Animists to Intuition, Formalists to Thinking, and Iconoclasts to Feeling.

McCloud writes that “most comics creators” would like to achieve “goals from all four of these groups.” He also observes that a comics artist can display “a strong attraction to two of these ideals”: in the book he classifies Caniff as both an Animist (since he makes storytelling primary) and a Classicist (due to his “impeccable compositions”).

With regard to these four sets of values, McCloud states that “usually, you can tell which one burns brightest for a given creator, and there’s almost always one of the four that burns rarely or not at all for them.”

To McCloud’s great credit, he does not contend that one of the four “tribes” is superior to the others. After all, there are many supporters of Iconoclast and Formalist comics who take a condescending attitude towards the genre comics favored by Animists and Classicists, as any issue of The Comics Journal will demonstrate.

McCloud’s theory of “tribes” should also serve to remind critics to be humble. If no “tribe’s” artistic philosophy is superior to the others, then no “tribe’s” point of view contains the whole truth about comics. To state that “one of the four. . .burns rarely or not at all” for someone suggests that he or she may have a blind spot. There are some comics that he or she does not “get,” but that may be true for everyone.

But how does McCloud’s theory of tribes apply to people other than comics artists? For example, what about museum curators who delve into comics?

The “Masters of American Comics” museum exhibition and its catalogue from Yale University Press are primarily Formalist. That explains why Hal Foster and Alex Raymond (Flash Gordon), both considered such titans of the artform, were not included in the show: they are first class Classicists. When co-curator Brian Walker stated that “storytellers” such as Carl Barks and Walt Kelly, who were not considered graphic innovators, were excluded, he was saying that they were primarily Animists. Nonetheless, some Animists made it in. Co-curator John Carlin confessed that E. C. Segar (Popeye) was not an innovator but was included because of his mastery of conveying character and comedy. In the catalogue, while Carlin describes “formal” aspects of Caniff’s work, his text primarily praises Caniff as a storyteller. But if Carlin is attracted to two of McCloud’s “ideals,” then they would be Formalism and Iconoclasm, which accounts for the inclusion of the last four Masters in the show: Robert Crumb, Art Spiegelman, Gary Panter, and Chris Ware. (Spiegelman dropped out of the exhibit’s New York engagement, so I won’t discuss him this week, but I have previously written about his work in “Comics in Context” #59, 60, 61 and 64.)

I don’t entirely agree with McCloud’s classification of Eisner as a Formalist. True, in his role as comics theorist and teacher, Eisner pursued the formalist concern of studying the visual language of comics. In emphasizing Eisner’s innovative splash pages for The Spirit, the “Masters” show portrays him as a Formalist. But I recall hearing Eisner say, “I don’t want to be in the graphic novel section” of a bookstore (see “Comics in Context” #6). He wanted his books shelved alongside prose novels; this suggests that the story content was more important to Eisner than the visuals. Apart from Eisner’s experiments with splash pages and such, isn’t The Spirit really an Animist work, in which the dynamic visuals primarily serve to convey the story? Is the reason why Eisner’s graphic novels were mostly excluded from the show that they are so Animist?

McCloud correctly classifies Kirby as an Animist, but the “Masters” show brings out other aspects of his work. In focusing on Kirby’s experimentation with “patterning,” the “Masters” show reveals his Formalist side. In writing about the sculptural, monumental look of the figures of Galactus, the Silver Surfer, and the Thing on display, I was viewing Kirby as, in part, a Classicist.

How does McCloud’s theory of tribes apply to a critic like myself? Considering that I taught a course at NYU called “Comics as Literature” and that I argued a few weeks ago that the essence of comics is storytelling, it’s clear that I am primarily an Animist in my approach to the visual dimension of comics: the art serves the story. As someone who spends part of most Saturdays visiting art museums, I’m also a Classicist, who appreciates sheer beauty and craftsmanship. (My original title for “Comics in Context” #132, about the Dahesh Museum’s show of classic American illustration, was “Gallery of Glory.”) My training in the comics business is also Classicist. When I interviewed artists John Romita, Sr. and John Romita, Jr., both Marvel mainstays, at the recent Big Apple Con, they both emphasized storytelling above all. Looking at the formal aspects of comics artwork does not come automatically to me, but I can do it, I find it interesting, and I appreciate the Masters book for providing guidance to me in this approach. The flame that “burns rarely or not at all” for me is that of the Iconoclasts. There are major exceptions. I enjoy Harvey Pekar’s American Splendor, which tends to use Iconoclast artists (see “Comics in Context” #64, 73). I admire Crumb’s work, though I simply do not become as enthusiastic about it as I do about the work of most of the earlier Masters. But I am left cold by many alternative cartoonists who take an Iconoclastic approach, as with the work in the “Speak: Nine Cartoonists” gallery show earlier this year (see “Comics in Context” #122, which I originally, pointedly titled “Gallery of Gloom” before IGN changed it). When I visited the “Masters” show with Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art president Ken Wong, I surprised him by telling him I didn’t “get” Panter’s work. Now I know that it’s outside my tribe: I’m an Animist/Classicist.

This is how I react to the visual side of comics, but how does McCloud’s theory of tribes apply to the writing side of the medium? McCloud says that Animists are intuitive. That applies to my first reading of a comic, when I’m just looking for its entertainment value. But as any reader of “Comics in Context” knows, I take a highly analytical approach to evaluating the writing of comics, delving into the mythic and literary archetypes underlying characters and plots. This makes me a Formalist, which McCloud associates with “thinking” in Jung’s “functions of human thought.” It’s clear that I’m also a Classicist, since I value the traditional genres in comics and cartoon art. So with regard to the writing side of comics, I’m a Classicist/Formalist.

With regard to writing, too, the flame that “burns rarely” for me is that of Iconoclasm, but not because I’m averse to “honesty, authenticity, and a connection to real life,” as McCloud puts it. For one thing, I think that fantasy can comment honestly and seriously on real life; one of comics’ strengths is its ability to create and utilize metaphors for reality. My real aversion to much of Iconoclast comics is due to the attitude that many Iconoclast comics writers take towards reality. As I stated in my review of the “Speak” show, Crumb’s work stood out from the rest in the “Gallery of Gloom” because he leavened his observations with comedy rather than miring himself in depression and despair like the others. McCloud writes that the Iconoclasts look at life “warts and all”: in too many cases, I contend, they fixate on only the warts.

So, as I moved through the “Masters” show, once I exited the Eisner and Kirby room, I was entering increasingly alien territory.

Next came Harvey Kurtzman (1924-1993), the creator and original editor and writer of MAD, and the only one of the Masters whom I have not previously written about. This section had the most appalling case of mislabeling in the entire show: here was the cover to MAD #12, featuring a characteristically grotesque female face drawn by Basil Wolverton, that was even signed by Wolverton, and yet the accompanying label attributed it entirely to Kurtzman! A nearby vitrine held various stages in the creation of “Little Annie Fanny in Greenwich Village” for the September 1963 issue of Playboy, credited on the label to Kurtzman, Will Elder, and Russ Heath: there are pages drawn in pen and ink, then a version in colored pencils and watercolor, and finally the printed pages. But the labels don’t explain what the specific roles of each of the three artists were in crafting this strip. The Masters book makes the matter clearer (pgs. 116-118), but still does not sufficiently explain the collaborative process for the benefit of those who don’t know who did what. Another annoyance is the labeling for pages from the story “3-Dimensions!” from MAD #12 (June 1954). Both the show’s labeling and the book (p. 114) credit the pages to Kurtzman and Wally Wood, but again without explaining the nature of the collaboration. (Did Wood draw over Kurtzman’s layouts?) Considering that Wood is a major figure in comics history who could himself have been included as one of the Masters, it seems unjust that the show and book treat him as an unexplained footnote to Kurtzman’s saga.

For me the highlight of the Kurtzman section were examples from his EC war comics. The “online slide show” accompanying Kimmelman’s Times review of “Masters” includes the opening page of “Air Burst!”, illustrated by Kurtzman, from Frontline Combat #4 (February 1952). (See here, or Masters pgs. 113 and 271.) In his essay in the Masters catalogue, Village Voice film critic J. Hoberman points out that “Kurtzman’s war comic books showcased his boldest, most abstract drawing. The thick line and copious use of black suggest gouged-out woodcuts. . .” (p. 272). These thick, dark outlines of the figures contribute to this “abstract” element by emphasizing them as simple shapes: the fleeing North Korean soldiers in the first panel are basically ovals with smaller ovals as heads. The emphatic outlines also focus the readers’ attention on the figures’ overall body language and movement. Those two soldiers in the top panel aren’t standing up straight: their backs curve forward, as if they are crouching while at the same time they run forward, as if trying to hide from the bombs bursting overhead.

The “Masters” show and the book (pgs. 110-111) include the entire war story “Corpse on the Imjin!”, illustrated by Kurtzman, from Two-Fisted Tales #25 (February 1952), which Carlin analyzes in detail in the catalogue (p. 112). I was particularly impressed by the way in which an American soldier and a North Korean soldier, battling each other, combine into what becomes a single, united, heavily outlined shape, which could be regarded as semi-abstract, as the American forces his foe under the surface of the river to drown. The Korean’s blood escapes into the water, turning it not red but in Kurtzman’s rendition, black: it is as if the American were plunging his adversary into a black void. Kimmelman declared this combat sequence “turns hand-to-hand combat into pure visual poetry. It’s a model of economy and dark human truth and, above all, of how the best comic artists organize and pace drama and text across a page.” Despite stating elsewhere in his review that the essence of comics was abstraction, Kimmelman recognizes that comics is visual storytelling, too. McCloud may class Kurtzman as an Iconoclast, and he is the progenitor of that school, but Carlin, Hoberman, and Kimmelman perceive his Formalist aspect and salute him as a master visual storyteller as well. So I still felt at home looking over his war comics pages.

Carlin writes that “One of Kurtzman’s most enduring attributes was his development of the self-reflexive, ironic aspect of modern comics. . . .” (p. 114). By this Carlin doesn’t just mean Kurtzman’s parodies of other comics in MAD, or even inserting characters representing the writer and artist into MAD stories, but also his satirical use of the conventions of the comics medium itself. Hence, the aforementioned “3-Dimensions” story ends with the characters toppling out of a panel into blank space on the page; the final page of the story is entirely blank. I am reminded of similar postmodernist stunts in Tex Avery’s animated cartoons (e. g., the Wolf running seemingly right off the frame of the film into a white void). At another point in “3-Dimensions!”, a “hole” is drawn onto a page, enabling characters to see and step through to a following page; whether he was aware Kurtzman had done it or not, John Byrne used a similar gag decades later in The Sensational She-Hulk.

The next Master is Robert Crumb (born in 1943, and the first Master who is still alive), about whom Carlin asserts, “no one before Crumb made comics that were so directly about themselves and their own mental state” (p. 125); this made his work revolutionary, pioneering underground comix and spawning the alternative comics movement.

A particularly interesting selection in the book is “The Many Faces of R. Crumb” from XYZ Comics in 1972 (pgs. 124-125), in which Crumb draws himself in many different guises, each representing a different side of his personality. Carlin writes that this illustrates Crumb’s “fractured sense of self” (p. 126). To me it also suggests, consciously or not, that the many different characters in Crumb’s work might all be based on aspects of himself, and that this by extension may be true for all writers.

I was quite surprised upon seeing a Crumb sketchbook on display. Alternating with drawings of Fritz the Cat were pencil studies of women, which, unfortunately, are not reproduced in the catalogue. Though Crumb is well known for drawing large, massive, formidable females, who seem to simultaneously embody male lusts for and fears of the opposite sex, these sketchbook drawings, softly modulated in pencil, were surprisingly, appealingly beautiful. Here, unexpectedly, was Crumb the Classicist. But as Francoise Mouly points out in her essay in the catalogue, Crumb is a man of seeming contradictions.

Next I advanced into the Gary Panter (born in 1950) section and found myself amidst nearly pure Iconoclasm. All of the Masters from McCay through Kurtzman were creating their work for a general audience, even if, in the cases of Kirby and Kurtzman (at EC), that audience was then considered to consist of children. With Crumb this began to change: originally his underground work was sold through head shops to a niche audience. Spiegelman and the alternative school that followed in his wake aimed at an even more elite audience. As Carlin puts it, “It was not until the contemporary era. notably in [Spiegelman’s] RAW magazine and the artists it helped to promote and nurture, that the graphic character of the comics overtly became as important as story and character. Comics became “˜art’ in a deliberate manner rather than sneaking in through the backdoor of popular culture.” (p. 140). Through its selection of Masters, the show seems to imply that this is the Formalist/Iconoclastic route that comics with claims to be museum-caliber art took after the 1960s. But as McCloud would surely argue, Formalism and Iconoclasm are merely two of the four value sets of comics. To dismiss post-1960s Classicist and Animist comics is a mistake.

With Panter the Classicist ideal of beauty and mastery of traditional craft is abandoned. Carlin refers to Panter’s “scratchy line work” and writes about Panter’s Jimbo Meets Rat-Boy (1979) that “The lettering and line work are deliberately crude and filled with scribbles and seeming mistakes that take on an artful pattern in spite of themselves” (p. 140). You can see for yourself in a page from a later work, Jimbo Is Stepping Off the Edge of a Cliff! from Jimbo circa 1988 (Here, or Masters p. 149). Carlin contends that “The new jagged approach he pioneered created a sense of psychological expression in comics. . . “ (p. 140), and that Panter “expresses himself through the character of his line” (p. 158). It’s like the distortions of expressionism taken to the extreme limit, and the emotions being expressed range from angst into sheer horror.

My Classicist sensibility finds no ground to stand within this ultimate Iconoclasm. But it’s not just the look of Panter’s comics that dissatisfy me, but also the worldview of his writing. Describing the “postapocalyptic world” of Panter’s tales, Carlin writes that “Panter took his stories out of this world into a future that is actually closer to the way we live now than we are willing to express. Jimbo wanders a wrecked zone where nuclear explosion is a metaphor for modern America” (p. 146). I’m not “willing to express” it because I don’t believe it. I simply do not share this utterly negative and nihilistic vision of modern America or contemporary life.

Ironically, I very much like Panter’s work as art director for the 1980s television series Pee-Wee’s Playhouse. In part it’s because his work there on three-dimensional objects has solidity rather than this “scratchy” quality Carlin describes. It’s also because the Playhouse work is in the service of comedy, rather than the over the top apocalyptic despair of his comics work.

The last of the Masters, Chris Ware, was born in 1967, making him a post-Boomer, the only Master younger than myself. With his elaborately, intricately designed division of his comics pages into panels, Ware is very much a Formalist. But in his catalogue essay, novelist Dave Eggers argues that Ware is, in effect, a Classicist as well: “I think it’s beautiful in the way that [novelist Vladimir] Nabokov’s work is beautiful. In both cases it’s clear that the creator believes in beauty for its own sake, and, more crucially, is capable of creating beauty anywhere and always” (p. 312). Moreover, Eggers believes that “Ware looks fondly back to a time before modernism crushed almost all of art’s flourishes, eccentricities, and organic forms. But instead of simply reappropriating old forms, he channels the past by sublimating it, creating a style that, in the end, is sui generis. . . . “ (p. 316).

Carlin, however, emphasizes Ware’s Formalism. Animism has been left behind: Carlin maintains that Ware addresses his audience “in an ironic way that never lets us forget we are reading comics. We don’t get lost in the story the way we do in Spiegelman’s Maus or Crumb’s comics.” (p.158) I’d say that Ware achieves this Brechtian effect through his unusual methods of designing the page, leading the reader’s eye through the narrative by an unconventional route., forcing him to pay attention to the Formal aspects of the art.

Carlin asserts that “Ware’s comics express emotional content through form and design more than just story and dialogue” (p. 154). He quotes Ware as explaining that King’s “Gasoline Alley changed a lot of my thinking about comics. It made me realize that the mood of a comic strip did not need to come from the drawing or the words. . . .The emotion came from the way the story itself was structured” (p. 158). Referring to Ware’s character Jimmy Corrigan, Carlin helpfully observes that “Ware and Jimmy were both abandoned by their fathers when they were very young and then met them briefly in later life without resolving anything before their fathers died. The sadness behind this disconnect is played out as much in the way that the form of the story breaks down time into discrete elements as in the psychology of the characters” (p. 158)

But Carlin goes further and contends that “Ware uses form and design. . .to find new ways to tell stories and reveal human emotions that are appropriate to his generation. In other words, Ware’s abstractions, combinations of apparently ephemeral elements, and lapses in logical continuity are all part of how people now experience the world around them.” I don’t: I’m a believer in logic and tradition, and Ware seems not only to value tradition (as in his respect for King’s work) but also to prize order and structure, perhaps more than any of the other Masters. Eggers writes that “Ware’s work is the most elaborate and the most controlled example of the comics medium yet produced. . . “ (p. 312). As a Classicist I look for constants in the realm of literature and art: qualities which enable classic works to remain vital and relevant through time. The “Masters” show demonstrates that we can relate to the works and ideas of writer/artists from forty, fifty, or even a hundred years ago. I have my doubts that the Younger Generation is this mysterious mutant race that sees life entirely differently than their forebears, or that, even with the omnipresence of mass media that Carlin cites, that life has somehow radically changed in its essentials. Ware may have a new and unusual perspective on the world, but that doesn’t mean that everyone of his generation thinks the way he does. Just look at the rest of contemporary mass culture.

Kimmelman writes that Ware has “a singular, melancholy vision.” Referring to King’s influence on Ware in his Rusty Brown strip, Carlin writes that “Ware brings out the sadness and emptiness of contemporary experience in a way that never came to the surface in King’s work” (p. 162). Here too I disagree. Why is “contemporary experience” characterized by “sadness and emptiness”? Most of King’s strips in the show date from the 1930s, the period of the Great Depression, when the world was moving towards war. That seems to me to be a sadder and emptier time for America than the early 21st century. There are always people who lead sad and empty lives, and always people who lead happy and fulfilling ones. My problem in relating to Ware’s work is that it seems mired in depression and despair. As Carlin says, Ware borrows formal devices from King’s work, but not King’s humor or optimism. Carlin points out that Jimmy Corrigan seems modeled on Charlie Brown, but that Schulz’s character is “caught between wonder and worry” (p. 158). Jimmy is left only with the worry, but that leaves out the other half of life.

Eggers observes about Ware that “no amount of success or acclaim seems to diminish the self-flagellating with which he punishes himself” (p. 315). One of Ware’s pieces at the Jewish Museum ironically advised readers how to “Ruin Your Life: Draw Cartoons,” thereby dooming yourself to “decades of grinding isolation.” In this piece Ware broke the cartoonist’s career into four steps: “1. Get to work. 2. Realize Your Mistake. 3. Envy the Other Arts. 4. You Will Not Be Compensated.” Looking this over, I thought to myself: this guy’s work is hanging in a museum. Just how bad can his career be?

In the Times‘ online slideshow, Ware is represented by “Superman Suicide,” two panels from Jimmy Corrigan, the Smartest Kid on Earth (2002) in which a man costumed as a superhero, rather than flying, falls between two panels to his death on the street (p. 162). In two later panels (not in the slide show but on p. 163), Jimmy looks, perhaps disconsolately, at the spot on the street where the corpse had lain. Carlin calls the superhero in Corrigan a “signifier of lost illusions” (p. 162). The costumed man’s death is an iconic image of defeat, of humankind’s failure to rise above the “sadness and emptiness” of the world.

But you may recall that a superhero falling from a great height to his death on a street below is how Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons started Watchmen, and then they went on from there, to depict a world in which disillusion and despair coexist with spiritual renewal and even the miraculous. Theirs is a more complex and rounded vision of “contemporary existence” than Ware’s.

If you read the Masters of American Art book, don’t skip over the footnotes section. Both there and in the main text, Carlin discusses many cartoonists besides the fifteen Masters, including Alex Raymond, Carl Barks, Walt Kelly, Al Capp, Carmine Infantino, Steve Ditko, Daniel Clowes, Frank Miller, and more. It’s as if they were receiving honorary mentions. According to the “Masters” panel at the San Diego Con, Art Spiegelman has already suggested doing “Masters of American Comics II.” I hope that they will, and feature other important comics artists. Or perhaps the “Masters” show will inspire other museums to organize exhibits honoring other comics artists. With luck, this is only the beginning of comics in American museums.

ADVERTISEMENTS FOR MYSELF
If you want to read more about Scott McCloud’s talk at NYU, you can read my online report for the Nov. 28, 2006 edition of Publishers Weekly’s Comics Week. For the Nov. 14 Comics Week, I wrote about the Jewish Museum’s panel on the Golden Age of Comics, featuring Golden Age cartoonists Jules Feiffer, Irwin Hasen, and Jerry Robinson.

I’ve written another, entirely different article about the late Mark Gruenwald in Michael Eury’s Back Issue #19, now on sale from TwoMorrows Publishing.

My first lecture on Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ Watchmen for “1986: The Year That Changed Comics” at the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art in New York City was the best attended of the series. (You can read about it here) I will conclude my analysis of Watchmen with another lecture at MoCCA on Monday, December 4 at 6:30 PM.

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Trailer Park: Nerds! Nerds! Nerds!

Filed under: Columns,Trailer Park — admin @ 2:11 am

By Christopher Stipp

Archives? Right Here…

Timely couldn’t be a better word to describe the events of these past couple of weeks.

First of all, 10 Quick Questions. What started out as being this big goof on the wall of silence that was erected around anyone who communicates by the written word has stared to take on a life all on its own. Corri English was nice enough to be, ostensibly, our first victim to see how an interview would work if it would be done in a style much like Entertainment Weekly’s Stupid Questions but with a little more weight. The people and things you’re going to see in the coming weeks will have a lot to with television, movie spokespersons, The Amazing Race, charitable organizations and the fashion industry. I promise, it will all make sense soon. I know it may take me away from trailer reviewing every once in a while but please, people, understand that I love you just as much as I do my fresh stack of comic books that I get every Friday afternoon so fear not. This column will be just as low-profile and non-noteworthy as ever but Stipp just needs to spread his wings a touch, ya dig? Thanks for understanding.

Secondly, I was in Tucson over the weekend. Now, some of you know that I don’t care that much for organized sports, Chicago Cubs excluded as that’s something that exists in my DNA for being 1) born in Illinois and 2) having a predilection for consistently being last in everything.

Now, I was part of a 4-person trek for a 2-hour drive southward to Tucson in order to be witness for the traditional post-Thanksgiving match-up of ASU and UofA. I could go on and on about rivalries but this one’s pretty deep around these parts, I could honestly give a fuck, and it’s all about football and heavy drinking. I was in for the latter, really, but there was something else I was on the hunt for that I heard existed. I don’t get much opportunity to come close to Hollywood history living in this state that seems to be more occupied with building 20 story fencing across our southern border with Mexico than it is with being concerned for those living within it but I heard about a house that exists in Tucson, Arizona that was of great interest to me.

It was the Alpha Beta house.

Yes, the REVENGE OF THE NERDS production used the University of Arizona campus for its exteriors in 1984 and one of the people I was heading down to Tucson with mentioned that he could take me to the house. He swore that the fraternity that currently has possession of the home have decided to treat it like an undergraduate co-ed who has pounded one too many Pabst Blue Ribbons on a Friday night and has mentioned to her Cro-Magnon date that she’s feeling randy.

I didn’t think it could have been all that bad. I mean, if the school is allowing them to be on the campus isn’t there a HOA that establishes how well the property needs to be maintained?

No, there’s not.

On Sunday morning, after reeling from the many beers I chugged with the young’uns of the school’s student body, trying to convince myself that I can still roll with those who weren’t born until 1988, I can’t, I sauntered over to the house that stood to mean so much misery to Louis and Gilbert as they pulled a heavy trunk across the school grounds. After asking my guide twice if he was sure this was the right house, I had little idea of what the house REALLY looked like pre-Fireball in the movie, I stood on the sidewalk in front of the place that has been a watershed for so many of my comedic moments growing up as a young man. It depressed me to see the home was in a sad state of disrepair. The paint was splotchy, the landscape was just a slap-dash of grass that looked like it was on the verge of death, bushes that don’t look like they’ve been trimmed with anything more than a cigarette lighter by various drunken frat boys “for a laugh” and an overall aesthetic that this was a place where all should abandon hope ye who enter there.

I took a picture of it and briefly pondered what this really meant to have such a cultural touchstone like the AB fraternity house just disrespected. It should be more than just a place where male students start their journey of pillaging and conniving with their other guy friends, thinly disguising their homosexuality by participating in acts like paddle spanking and elephant walking. I don’t know if I was just being sensitive, overly sensitive, because REVENGE OF THE NERDS was that first comedy which spoke to me on a level that went beyond naked chicks and Dudley Dawson. Shouldn’t there be more awareness of places that should at least be paid some sort of attention and care if for no other reason than to preserve a moment that has meant a lot to so many?

I would have to say no. There really is no reason why the house should be any better maintained than any other fraternity house. It makes me sad, true, to see it but I can’t complain. I almost take some kind of delight in the recent news last week that the entire production of the new REVENGE OF THE NERDS has been indefinately shelved for the time being.

I know there were some cackles raised in opposition for the newest incarnation of this film but where the hell were you all for Revenge of the Nerds III: The Next Generation or even the God awful, the truly heinous, Revenge of the Nerds IV: Nerds in Love? There couldn’t have been a better reason out there for the complete annihilation for this franchise than these two TV movies. What started out as a comedy that really gave us male Gen Xers a movie that we will all be proud of having seen with our dumb little buddies on any given Friday or Saturday night sleepover (Do kids still do these things or have they somehow been outlawed in this age of uncertainty?) and exposed most of us to our first true taste of…exposure of the female variety? I know I can be counted in that vote.

There are just some films that mean more than just the stock they’re on. REVENGE OF THE NERDS has that kind of resonance that hasn’t ever diminished, in my estimation. Seeing the house that essentially just offered the real exterior for a faux college story on some backlot where the players themselves were well beyond the freshman felt invigorating in a way. I enjoyed the fanboy-ness of it all and it sure made me think of sliding that movie in again, delighting in the immutable truth that I have never used the word “bush” and not thought of Curtis Armstrong every damn time.

Sometimes great movies can transcend our own lives in their own way, be it the ones that win awards or the ones that just mean more than any prize given to it.

UNKNOWN (2006)

Director: Simon Brand
Cast: Jim Caviezel, Greg Kinnear, Joe Pantoliano, Barry Pepper, Jeremy Sistoe
Release: Now Playing
Synopsis: Five men wake up in a locked-down warehouse, none of them able to remember how they got there or even who they are. They soon realize that they were all part of a kidnapping – without having the slightest idea of which side they were on.

View Trailer:
* Large (QuickTime)

Prognosis: Negative; Maybe I’ll Leave It On If It Happens To Make It On TNT Some Night. Stop me if you’ve heard this one: Jesus wakes up in a warehouse without knowing who he is.

I think I included this trailer if for no other reason than the premise seems completely absurd. I honestly had visions, not unlike having a peyote clambake inside a walk-in closet, of some guy, two guys because it would be funnier that way, explaining the idea for this movie to some guy in a $5,000 suit who is thinking about either having an endive salad with his sea bass or a romaine leaf that’s covered in mango pieces. These two monkeys would have their shirt sleeves pulled back over their elbows as they spooge their brilliant concept of this completely made-up premise only to have the suit break out his checkbook by the end of it all.

I mean, really, would you buy a film based on the idea that any high school freshman could come up with for his creative writing class? I believe most of you would but that’s beside the point.

What’s really remarkable here is that there isn’t anything to remark on when we open up on things. We have a wide shot of a building that seems to be in the middle of such a wretched industrial park that only rape and felonies seem like the only legitimate business practice.

Next, somewhere far off, a phone rings. We travel down the corridors of this lonely building, the hum of fluorescent lighting the only real spooky thing about this place, as Jesus wakes up from his nap time.

Hey-Soose doesn’t know who he is, where he is, what is going on or who he’s talking to on the phone but the dude on the other line gives us the great SAW-esque set-up that our Lord and Savior should a) not kill anyone b) look after the hostages c) sit tight and d) realize that since this movie is only a couple hours long he’s going to have to MacGyver his ass out of there tout de suite. But, oh noes!, he doesn’t know anything about anything so what’s the Son of God to do?

Turn to Barry Pepper, that’s what.

“And that makes some of us hostages and some of us kidnappers”¦”

HomeSchool Barry breaks it all down for us like we’re drooling Neanderthals who need to have things explained to other people in the film while not addressing the audience directly; I mean, really, all that’s missing here is a wink to all of us in attendance that he did us a solid by explaining the plot. Thanks, Barry.

Of course from here it’s all about the red herrings and the finger-pointing. I realize that some people dig trying to figure out what’s happening because they took Murder, She Wrote off the air some years ago and you’re jonsin’ for some good old-fashioned mystery but I guess as a one-off you could do a lot worse than this.

Besides, the last Â¼ of this trailer is just chock filled with accusatory “It’s you!” and “You’re the one!” When things devolve into being something that we’ve all seen before, without anything new to say within the parameters of the trailer, I just can’t help but shrug and move on to something fresh.

8 FILMS TO DIE FOR (2006)

Director: Various
Cast: Various
Release: November 17, 2006
Synopsis: A revolutionary, nationwide theatrical release of eight films that are deemed too controversial, too graphic by the mainstream studios. HORROR FEST is an all-weekend horror event featuring celebrity appearances, signings, giveaways, and other special events.

View Trailer:
* Large (QuickTime)

Prognosis: Positive. Who was lucky enough to catch any of these films last weekend and was it worth the effort to see any of them?

Now:

A) Those with epilepsy should not see this trailer; you’ve got enough flashing and blinking lights that could induce a few seizures that could rival Super Mario Bros.’ numbers.

B) This trailer not only forgoes trying to sell this movie on its merit of filmmaking but, yet, pushes the “controversial” angle on us like it’s a badge of honor.

C) This looks like one of the greatest entries into the horror genre since ON GOLDEN POND. Seriously, can anyone here they aren’t still haunted by Henry Fonda’s request to “suck face” with Katharine Hepburn? (Shudder)

I honestly do have to give it up for this trailer for its complete packaging. I think that if I were the one responsible for this movie trailer I wouldn’t want to give short shrift to the varied voices contained in this flick, regardless of the label of “too controversial to be shown in theaters,” but I get that maybe a coalescing of voices in order to do the greatest good is what is in order.

Don LaFontaine just comes right out of the gate with his throaty voiceover as he really plays up the idea that these movies on their own were just too much to be played nationwide at the local AMC but it’s the visuals that are of interesting note. You’ve first got a scared looking girl with a shaking flashlight, a close-up of a face that has a single bead of sweat running down it and then, even after you see a grotesque doll morph into something more hideous, we get a lady in her bra. And this what brings up an excellent topic in modern horror storytelling: the people behind a lot of genre fiction love tormenting women. There is some paper, some thesis, that I know could be made regarding the use of women and their effectiveness in amping up an already tense situation but we’re not left to linger very long on this notion.

It’s the zombie sitting in the bed with the long salt and pepper hair on bloodied sheets that gets me. It’s fantastic. As is the image of a person, or something, that’s on a medical examiners’ steely slab underneath a very dirty sheet; you’ve really got to employ some pausing and rewinding to see it but it’s well worth the effort just try and make out whether it’s human in origin.

How else to explain the Nosferatu looking creature that places its hand on his female victims’ breast than to say that even though there is no context given there really isn’t any needed as the females keep doing a man’s job better by screaming, shaking and, at one point, reaching out for help.

The minimalist scoring of this trailer only segments its appeal to those who would best be served by this movie’s offerings. Discordant images in the middle of this trailer only help to establish the wretched settings, and reveals, that these movies are going to have. I am especially taken by the image that’s nearly dead center in this trailer’s length of a woman (surprise) who wields an ax above her head, her face all sorts of fucked up, in a flickering room.

Even though I find myself pausing for a moment after seeing a lady (what is it with this device) having a coffin door slamming on top of her in fresh grave as she cries out I can’t help but quickly looking about when I can see this movie for myself.

I don’t know where movies like THE TWILIGHT ZONE: THE MOVIE or CREEPSHOW went in the 80’s but I am delighted, over the moon, that horror still beats alive and well. This movie looks like it wants to be the kind of film that’s best enjoyed at night, a kind of function that’s been lost for a while. Disregard all that crap at the end of this trailer about this studio being the only one to have the balls to show these movies. This just looks like a good time, regardless of the hype behind it.

SMOKIN’ ACES (2006)

Director: Joe Carnahan
Cast: Ben Affleck, Andy Garcia, Ryan Reynolds, Alicia Keys, David Proval, Chris Pine, Kevin Durand
Release: January 26, 2007
Synopsis: An incendiary array of stars – including Ben Affleck, Andy Garcia, Ray Liotta, Jeremy Piven, Ryan Reynolds, Peter Berg, Martin Henderson, Taraji Henson and, in their motion-picture debuts, Alicia Keys and Common – star in SMOKIN’ ACES, the new dark action comedy from Joe Carnahan, the acclaimed director of NARC. In these interlocking tales of high stakes and low lifes, Mob boss Primo Sparazza has taken out a hefty contract on Buddy “Aces” Israel (Piven) – a sleazy magician who has agreed to turn state’s evidence against the Vegas mob. The FBI, sensing a chance to use this small-time con to bring down big-target Sparazza, places Aces into protective custody-under the supervision of two agents (Reynolds and Liotta) dispatched to Aces’ Lake Tahoe hideout.

When word of the price on Aces’ head spreads into the community of ex-cons and cons-to-be, it entices bounty hunters, thugs-for-hire, smokin’ hot vixens and double-crossing mobsters to join in the hunt. With all eyes on Tahoe, this togues’ gallery collides in a comic race to hit the jackpot and rub out Aces.

View Trailer:
* Large (QuickTime)

Prognosis: On My Top 10 For 2006. I have a new girlfriend and this trailer is it.

It’s hard to be passionate about big, bloated budgets and star-studded productions but I’ll be goddamned if this preview isn’t the hottest thing to surface in recent months.

Now, to me, I enjoy answering other people’s questions about what music is playing a trailer; I remember growing up that one of the more frustrating parts of evolving as a young man, besides the sudden appearance of body hair below my natural equator, was to hear a tune on the radio and not know who sang it. The real mark, then, of laying down the competition with real force with regard to making people ignore the white noise emanating from other trailers is realizing that Cut N’ Pasting late 80’s hits isn’t acceptable and that ripping your ears off with a pimp track from DJ Shadow is just good business when trying to get your audience’s buy-in. I’d recommend you tune-in and turn it up.

At first, though, you don’t really what to make of the story. There’s no voiceover, there’s no flashes of the high-powered actors who are in the movie to get your attention and there are no conventional set-ups to be found; there is only the presentation of a moment to set things in motion. And it works well.

We get Jason Bateman, Peter Berg, Martin Henderson and Ben Affleck in a room; no, this isn’t the beginning of some ribald joke involving K-Y and a monkey but expediency is the order of business and everyone uses their time well in establishing all we need to know about this film.

Bateman looks disheveled and while I don’t really find myself getting lost in whatever character he’s trying to inhabit I find his delivery delightful. We get the set-up and the reason why we are going to pay to see this flick: Jeremy “Poke My Person With An Emmy” Piven is going to testify against the mob and a whole lotta people want him dead. The idea, let’s face it, isn’t so original but Joe Carnahan’s style here rises above those who have come before, stealing a little bit of something from the Guy Ritchie playbook and the McG School of Flash Over Substance, straps you down on the examination table and goes to town on your synapses with the quick cutting.

We get additional information that there’s a $1 million price tag on Piven’s head and, of course, naturally, there are all sorts of seedy elements out to get their fingers on the prize money. What’s also making this movie even more popcorn-y and is going to get me to the multiplex is that we get a slew of “characters” who are so over-the-top and outrageously out of the norm that I can feel the pulsing of wanton violence bumping like bass lines right underneath the veneer of things.

Seeing Ben Affleck put out onto the pavement in an all too brief moment, his aggressor rocking a dirty wife-beater and couldn’t be more obnoxious looking even if put into Brett Ratner’s hands, I am reminded that while this may have given away too much there is the very palptable sense that everyone could be expendable; that would be a very nice thing, indeed, to realize and again would validate my suspicion that Carnahan has created something original out of the simple kill-the-informant plot line.

It’s about a third of the way in when the real style of the trailer’s creativity comes into bloom and bleeds all over the screen. Ryan Reynolds, sporting the same scruffy/patchy facial hair that made his part in BLADE 3 oh so memorable, carries the tension of the moment when you can feel that we’re about to launch into hyperspace.

Ah, but not yet.

A jaunty Muzak song plays as we’re treated to a real close up of a guy, who the hell knows who he is, quietly taking a black marker to his face, creating a Hitler “˜stache which I am thinking is not an ironic statement. It’s very out of the norm but it’s all sorts of great.

BOOM.

Thrust back into the action, and I mean action with a capital A, the whole world is shredded around your eyes. More freaks than a circus, more guns than at an army supply depot and enough shattered glass to make DIE HARD look like a prissy warm-up, there is one moment I hope you turn your speakers up to listen to.

As soon as you hear Ben Affleck say “These guys will go megaton” just feel the bass and listen to the way the sound dances around the field as bullets on the screen whiz in every which direction just before some wiggidy-wack white boy with a vision problem and in need of serious dental work pops in with his own bon mot. It’s gonzo, nuts and complete chaos all wrapped in a tasty package.

Seriously, kids, this is one of the most intense action trailers this year. It’s perfection of mindless action at its greatest.

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QSE News: 12/1/2006

Filed under: Columns,News — UncaScroogeMcD @ 2:09 am

Here are today’s top entertainment headlines:

Bird’s of a feather flock together and so do… Hollywood racists.Â Mel Gibson is throwing his support behind Michael Richards, the beleaguered “comedian” whose racially charged tirade at a comedy club recently all but ended his “career.”Â When asked why he was supporting Richards, Gibson responded “Well, you know… since I found out he’s not really Jewish, I figured he was probably a pretty OK guy.”

In a case of life imitating art, the girl who plays Mary in the new the Nativity movie is pregnant. The 16-year-old actress, Keisha Castle-Hughes, is “pretty sure” she’s not carrying the son of God and that this is not a case of “immaculate conception”… unless, of course, “immaculate conception” means a night of rough, drunken sex in the back of a Camaro with her “boyfriend” Lloyd.Â However, the actress has publicly stated that she IS planning on delivering the child in a barn somewhere in Iraq.

In television news, CBS has announced plans for a new reality show called Armed and Famous, where minor celebrities go through police training.Â Featuring such F-List actors as Eric Estrada, LaToya Jackson and Jack Osborn as “the drug-sniffing” dog, the “celebrities” will eventually go on actual patrols and wield “real” guns.Â CBS has already announced plans for a follow up series called How Ponch Got Capped In The Head During a Botched Drug Raid.

Hoping to lure and trick young people into the cut-throat world of Canadian politics, former Canadian Prime Ministers are appearing as judges in a new reality TV show called The Next Great Prime Minister.Â And, of course, I’m sure I’m echoing most of Americas sentiments when I say, “Canadians have television??”

And finally, on a sad note, popular children’s group The Wiggles are losing their lead singer, the “Yellow Wiggle,” to an undisclosed illness.Â According to the remaining members of the band, the short list for a replacement includes only one name:Â Justin Hawkins, ex-lead singer of the band The Darkness.Â When the Wiggles were asked “Why Hawkins?,” “Blue Wiggle” responded, “Are you [EXPLETIVE DELETED] kidding me?Â Justin has a $2000 a week coke habit!Â Hell, he’ll fit right in.Â Oh yeah, and the [EXPLETIVE DELETED] kids are going to [EXPLETIVE DELETED] love him!!”

That’s all for today’s news, stay tuned to this channel for all the news that matters least but you still care about.

(Compiled by M. Bell)

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Quick Stop Thingamabobs: 12/1/2006

Filed under: Columns,Thingamabobs — UncaScroogeMcD @ 1:59 am

The web. It’s a big place, full of plenty of distractions ““ some funny, some informative, some ludicrous, some disturbing, some inane, some profound. Each and every weekday, we present links to a few of our favorite finds”¦

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What not to do with WD-40… (Thingamabob)

Who needs Wii when you can get Blip for Christmas… (Thingamabob)

One bad note… (Thingamabob)

Live action Astro Boy… (Thingamabob)

Damn you, Neil Cicierega… (Thingamabob)

Have a THINGAMABOB? Send it in!

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Weekend Shopping Guide 12/1/06: Ooo-de-lally

Filed under: Shopping Guides — UncaScroogeMcD @ 1:51 am

The weekend’s here. You’ve just been paid, and it’s burning a hole in your pocket. What’s a pop culture geek to do? In hopes of steering you in the right direction to blow some of that hard-earned cash, it’s time for the Quick Stop Weekend Shopping Guide – your spotlight on the things you didn’t even know you wanted…

I’ve waited years for Fox to begin releasing St. Elsewhere (Fox, Not Rated, DVD-$39.98 SRP) on DVD, and the first season is finally here. In addition to all 22 episodes of the groundbreaking dramedy’s inaugural season, the 4-disc set features an audio commentary on the episode “Cora and Arnie” and a clutch of retrospective featurettes. My only beef? I wish Fox would stop releasing their TV shows on the damned double-sided discs that every other studio has abandoned.

No one will say that this was the Man of Steel’s finest hour, – and after an hour, things tend to get a bit repetitive – but there’s an undeniable camp charm and enthusiasm in the fully restored Superman: The Theatrical Serials Collection (Warner Bros., Not Rated, DVD-$39.98 SRP), which features the original 15-part 1948 Superman, as well as 1950’s 15-part Atom Man Vs. Superman – both of which star Kirk Alyn as the last son of Krypton. Bonus materials include the retrospective featurette “Saturdays With Superman” (featuring historians and the original Lois Lane herself, Noel Neill), as well as an excerpt from the documentary Look, Up in the Sky! The Amazing Story of Superman (the full version of which is available via its own DVD).

Maligned as an inferior post-Walt offering, I’ve always loved Disney’s Robin Hood (Walt Disney, Rated G, DVD-$29.99 SRP), and am thrilled that it’s finally gotten a much-needed remastering for DVD, featuring a brand-new 5.1 mix (the better to hear narrator Roger Miller’s tunes). It also contains an alternate ending, and the black & white Mickey Mouse short Ye Olden Days.

I hold out hope that the actual film is as fun and funny as the tie in book Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny (Titan Books, $14.95 SRP). From the history of the “D” to excerpts from the script for the film, this is your guide to Jack Black and Kyle Gass’s acoustic metal phenom.

To some, the “singer/songwriter” appellation is a stigma (after John Mayer, I can sympathize), but Cat Stevens was a standout even at a time when his peers included Paul Simon, Harry Nilsson, James Taylor, and Joni Mitchell (just to name a very limited few). Introspective, questioning, but mostly upbeat (a rare commodity in the s/s set), Stevens’ music is there to be rediscovered, especially as Yusuf Islam (the name he took after converting to Islam) has just released a brand new pop album years after abandoning the music industry that had thoroughly burnt him out. Listen to the tunes that made him a star with the excellent 4-disc Cat Stevens box set (A&M, $59.98 SRP). If you don’t have the funds to pick up his complete catalogue (which has recently been fully remastered, with particular recommendation going to the Tea for the Tillerman album), this set provides a nice overview of his career.

Kenny Vs. Spenny (VSC, Not Rated, DVD-$29.98 SRP) is a truly guilty pleasure, in that it unfortunately reveals – in stark reality – the sad, pathetic competitive nature that makes idiots of even the brightest men. In this series, best friends Kenny Hotz and Spencer Rice engage in the most inane of head-to-head competitions – from who can stay naked the longest to who can drink more beer. It’s madness, but so very accurate. The 2-disc set features all 15 second season episodes, plus audio commentary on a pair of episodes, deleted scenes, a season two promo, and a season three preview.

Ever since its premature cancellation and the release of first season set a few years back, fans have been wondering wen the second (and final) season of Joan of Arcadia (Paramount, Not Rated, DVD-$49.99 SRP) would gets its release. Well, the wait is over, and the 6-disc set contains all 22 remaining episodes, plus audio commentaries on 4 episodes, a making-of, table read footage, a season 2 overview, and a tour of Joan’s high school.

With digital downloads and piracy nipping at their heels, record companies are really beginning to go all out in making CD releases a real event, particularly with catalogue releases. Not only do the first two Pretenders albums – Pretenders & Pretenders II (Rhino, $24.98 SRP each) – get fully remastered, but they both feature a second disc loaded with demos, rarities, b-sides, and more… and by loaded, I mean the discs are packed to the gills.

Kudos to David Boreanaz for finding another vehicle that has achieved the mainstream success that sadly eluded Angel during its entire 5-season run. In Bones (Fox, Not Rated, DVD-$49.98 SRP), Boreanaz is FBI agent Seeley Booth, who’s partnered with forensic anthropologist Dr. Temperance “Bones” Brennan (Emily Deschanel) to solve crimes that are the oddest of the odd. Think of it as a cross between CSI and The X-Files, with all of the charm and chemistry of the latter and the procedural of the former. The 4-disc set features all 22 first season episodes, plus audio commentary on the pilot, character profiles, interviews with the cast, a look at the real inspiration for “Bones,” and a guide to forensic terminology.

Thundercats: Season Two Volume Two (Warner Bros., Not Rated, DVD-$64.98 SRP) brings the original adventures of Lion-O and the Thundercats to a close, as they finally vanquish Mumm-Ra and establish New Thundera. However, just when all seems won, Mumm-Ra returns for the expected final battle, with the fate of New Thundera and the Thundercats themselves in the balance. I admit… I cried a little to see it end.

I’ve heard some incredible things about the film (and the play that spawned it), and if the movie itself is halfway as enjoyable as the soundtrack disc, I think the praise for The History Boys (Rhino, $18.98 SRP) is well-earned. Featuring tracks from Echo & The Bunnymen, The Clash, Rufus Wainwright, the Pretenders, and The Smiths, it’s like an alt-punk parade.

Setting aside the soap opera his life has become, listening to the career-spanning 3-disc set David Crosby: Voyage (Rhino, $49.98 SRP) – from his time with The Byrds and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young to his recent solo and group work with CPR – is to marvel and just what an incredible voice Crosby had, whether in group harmony or just his pipes alone. The set includes rarities and demos in addition to the remastered tracks themselves.

I’m still not entirely sure why Van Wilder (Lionsgate, Not Rated, DVD-$19.98 SRP) has achieved such cult status by being Animal House-lite, but there you go – it is, and it’s now got a 2-disc unrated special edition, which just amounts to more boobies.

I’m still trying to figure out who exactly thought Ant Bully (Warner Bros., Rated PG, DVD-$28.98 SRP) was a good idea. While the premise is interesting – a kid who tortures ants is shrunk down via a magic ant serum and learns empathy for the tiny natural world – the design and execution of the film is just atrocious. Besides ripping of the ant designs from Dreamworks’ Antz, it’s just a lackluster affair that proves the CG fad has become a glut. Bonus materials include a behind-the-scenes featurette, 7 animated shorts, and additional scenes.

So there you have it… my humble suggestions for what to watch, listen to, play with, or waste money on this coming weekend. See ya next week…

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November 30, 2006

Quick Stop Thingamabobs: 11/30/2006

Filed under: Columns,Thingamabobs — UncaScroogeMcD @ 2:15 am

The web. It’s a big place, full of plenty of distractions ““ some funny, some informative, some ludicrous, some disturbing, some inane, some profound. Each and every weekday, we present links to a few of our favorite finds”¦

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Ach! I forgot to highlight the latest Kaspar Hauser comedy podcast, wherein Captain Kirk takes some bad acid… (Thingamabob)

Go, partake of some very funny QI… (Thingamabob)

Private Snafu on the home front… (Thingamabob)

Behold the future, and weep… (Thingamabob)

The entirety of Friends, in 90 seconds… (Thingamabob)

Have a THINGAMABOB? Send it in!

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QSE News: 11/30/2006

Filed under: Columns,News — UncaScroogeMcD @ 1:58 am

Here are today’s top entertainment headlines:

Not wanting to be out-done by his peers, Snoop Dogg was arrested Tuesday on suspicion of possessing a hand-gun and drugs. Police said they became suspicious when they realized the person they were following was Snoop Dogg. This brings Snoop Dogg’s total number of times arrested to 1,122, just 24 times shy of Charlie Sheen.

TV anchorman Matt Lauer and his wife Annette welcomed their third child into the world on Wednesday. While the baby, named Thijs, was pronounced healthy upon birth, Matt Lauer’s reaction was said to be surprisingly glib. When asked for comment, the Today show anchor said, “Well. . .at least THIS time it’s white.”

And in other news, it appears that not everyone in Kazakhstan hates Borat. A leading Kazakh author, Sapabek Asip-uly, has nominated the comedian behind the character, Sacha Baron Cohen, for a national award.Â When asked for comment, Borat said:Â “That’s niiiice!Â I like sexy time with Sapabek for he give koo-koo good hand relief!Â High five!”

Executives at Marvel comics are demanding that famed X-Men illustrator, Dave Cockrum, be buried upside down in an un-marked grave after it was discovered that he passed away while wearing Superman pajamas and clutching a Batman blanket.

Finally, in today’s obligatory Paris Hilton news – apparently the party is over for newly reconciled friends Hilton and Lindsay Lohan.Â Lohan, who in the past has been referred to by Hilton as “Firecrotch,” was seen leaving a fancy-schmancy L.A. nightclub in tears after Hilton reportedly called Lohan a “[expletive] coked-out whore….”Â Witnesses were quick to come to Lohan’s defense, saying that the “actress” may be a coked-out whore but Lohan is certainly not [expletive]… or at least not on the night in question.

That’s all for today’s news, stay tuned to this channel for all the news that matters least but you still care about.

(Compiled by J. Allen)

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The Fred Hembeck Show: Episode 82 – Undercover Fred

Filed under: The Fred Hembeck Show — UncaScroogeMcD @ 1:48 am

Today, we’re going to look back on a pair of my favorite classic cover redos (all props to original artists Curt Swan and Steve Ditko, natch), each with just enough commentary included to hopefully elicit a chuckle or two. Take a gander, and read on…

Just take a look at that cover! Look at it! Are they kidding?

No, they weren’t – and that’s just what makes it so unintentionally hilarious! I’d only been buying super-hero comics for a few short months when I picked up this specimen, but even as a relatively uniformed eight year old reader, I had to pause and wonder – didn’t big, brave Justice Leaguers have more important ways to spend their time than locking lips with the Man of Steel’s erstwhile lady friend?

Not if they wanted to save the big fella’s life, as things turned out! The editor masterminding the Superman family of titles at the time – Mort Weisinger – built an entire mythos around his central star, and then packed a half-dozen different titles each month with stories seemingly more concerned with characters acting in a highly suspect manner rather than performing heroic super-feats, motivating curious readers to plunk down their dimes (this being one of the very last ten-cent comics) in hopes of learning a hopefully reasonable explanation for such outre behavior.

Like, say, the Daily Planet‘s star female reporter planting her luscious lips on every Tom, Dick, and Green Arrow that wandered along!

Let me attempt to briefly boil down editor Weisinger’s overly convoluted plot for you: Lois, y’see, apparently carries a special lipstick with her at all times, one which contains a trace of a specific strain of Red Kryptonite (Red Kryptonite being a Weisinger creation whose radiation allows the big guy to be affected in various unpredictable – and story-generating – ways, albeit only a single time each for each variety). In this case, the Red K in Lois’s possession is a type that will counteract the deadly effects of the traditional Green Kryptonite poisoning all native Kryptonians are prone to.

Like, well, YOU know who…

So one fine day, spotting Krypto the Super-Dog using smoke to write a large “L” in the sky overhead, the sharp-witted girl reporter realizes that the time has come to put the top-secret Plan “L” into motion. Letting no one in on what’s transpiring – including the hapless reader, and especially not Superman’s Smallville era sweetie, Lana Lang, conveniently on scene throughout in her capacity as a television correspondent – mainly because Lois fears that the baddies have her under observation, she concocts elaborate situations that allow her to get up close and personal with several manly costumed crime fighters. As she smooches passionately with them, the glamorous Ms. Lane whispers what we’re led to believe are sweet nothings in their ears (or in Batman’s case, cowl), but is in reality, the plan.

Each happy fella wipes Lois’ sloppy kiss off onto one particular hanky, and when they’ve accumulated enough of her special smears, Batman – last in line – delivers it to a prone Metropolis Marvel, lying stricken near the Arctic location of his vaunted Fortress of Solitude (did I mention that Plan “L” goes into operation when ol’ Supes finds himself devastated by Green K in the nearby environs of his home away from home? Talk about specific planning! Hey, how else do you think Batman knew where to deliver the goods? He ain’t THAT good a detective!”¦).

The heroic hanky quickly revives Superman. Back at full strength, the big red S chases off his alien captors by threatening to destroy them, a move which is glaringly out of character for this character even in an era in which characterization barely registered! But hey, we were almost at the end of this nine page story – yes, all this and a whole lot more took place in a mere nine pages – and things needed wrapping up, pronto. Hence – and I’m paraphrasing here – ” Geddoutta here, youse spacemen, or I’ll kill ya all!!”

And all the while, poor Lana Lang, witness to each lusty encounter, but privy to absolutely NONE of this Super-subterfuge, has to be thinking to herself time and time again:

“Omigosh, did she just slip him the TONGUE?!?”¦”

When my eyes first glommed onto this cover, I’m not sure which stunned me more: Steve Ditko’s innovative design, or the blurb announcing Peter Parker’s graduation from high school!

I mean, back in those days (1965), characters each had a specific milieu they existed in, and that’s pretty much where they’d stay. Clark Kent was a reporter for the Daily Planet. Hal Jordan was a test pilot. Casper was dead and seemed to have a really, really good attitude about it. And Peter Parker was Midtown High’s nerdy science whiz.

Only, suddenly he wasn’t. Not anymore.

Suddenly, he was making the transition to college student, and the way things were presented at the end of this issue, with the inherent gravity of the situation clearly on display, you just knew it wasn’t going to merely be a cosmetic change.

College and high school: there are tremendous differences between the two institutions, a fact I was later to find out first hand. This story, and the ones that directly followed, provided me with a much needed oasis a half-dozen years on, as I myself entered the hallowed halls of higher learning. Now, please understand, I’d grown up comfortably associating with pretty much the same group of friends right on up through and including my 18th summer. But come that September of 1971, a new world beckoned as we all went our separate ways.

Left living at home as each of my buddies took off for various points all across the globe (okay, okay – mostly across New York state – but, c’mon, it’s BIG state!!), I found myself burdened with a 60-mile round-trip commute. All to attend the art program at the State University of New York at Farmingdale, and lemme tell ya, those first few months were a lonely go. Thrown into a totally foreign environment, I desperately needed something familiar to cling to during what little free time I could squeeze into my tremendously busy days. So, I chose to reread what are, in my opinion, the very best super-hero comics ever published, Stan Lee and Steve Ditko’s legendary near forty issue run that launched the Amazing Spider-Man series.

Happily, they proved to be the perfect respite from the newfound pressures of college, and when I finally reached the sequence that kicked off with this issues conclusion, I found Peter Parker’s subsequent adventures at Empire University to have taken on an entirely new – and not unsurprisingly – relevant resonance to my own then-current situation. The good news was, although it proved, as a commuter, to be a tad bit more difficult to make friends, by late October, I had found a steadfast pair of pals every bit as reliable as my one-time cadre of Longwood High compadres, and, brother, after THAT, the sailing was far, far smoother!!

I put down my Spideys shortly thereafter – only got a little ways into the John Romita illoed issues – and fully threw myself into life after high school. But those precious books had more than served their purpose. Y’see, for a short period there, when I literally didn’t have a friend in the world (or at least one who wasn’t, oh, 500 or so miles away) I DID have my Spider-Man comics. Goofy as that may sound to some, believe me when I tell you that they sustained me during a dark and unsettling period.

And when I eventually got to the part where the hero goes off to college, well gee, his confusion somehow empathically echoed a lot of what I myself was feeling! Is it any wonder then that I have such a warm spot in my heart for the earliest escapades of Marvel’s amazing arachnid ? After all, my Green Lantern comics sure weren’t any help – sorry Hal, but I WASN’T majoring in test pilot, dig?…

Hembeck.com – aka The College of Comix Knowledge – tuition free since 2002! Stop by for a lecture or two!

-Copyright 2006 Fred Hembeck

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November 29, 2006

QSE News: 11/29/2006

Filed under: Columns,News — UncaScroogeMcD @ 1:03 am

Here are today’s top entertainment headlines:

In a surprising turn of events, the once-peaceful nation of Sweden has declared war on heterosexuality by announcing their plans to open the first ever ABBA museum. When questioned as to “why,” an un-named official responded that “Drag-queens need a ‘Mecca,’ too, and Liza Minnelli isn’t from here.”

Things were looking up for nu-metal schlocksters, Linkin Park, late Tuesday after the band mistakenly thought they had re-established contact with their last remaining a fan. As it turns out, the “woman,” from Albuquerque, NM, was merely hacking into singer Chester Bennington’s phone for the purpose of leaving text messages regarding how much the “band sucked.” Bennington could not be reached for comment. Apparently, his shift at Wendy’s just ended and he’s off until Thursday.

Owners of The Laugh Factory in Los Angeles are reportedly demanding that Michael Richards pay $1 million for every racial slur that he recently used during a tirade at the club. Advisors are suggesting that Richards off set this amount by suing Nabisco for their liberal use of the word “cracker.”

Saturday Night Live alumni and current 30 Rock star Tracey Morgan was arrested on drunk driving charges in Manhattan. When asked to comment Morgan reportedly responded by simply stating, “Take me drunk officer, I’m home.”

Eat your heart out, Sharon Stone! After kicking K-Fed to the curb, Britney Spears has decided to let the “cat out of the bag”… so to speak. Showing up to a trendy LA hot-spot with new “girl friend” Paris Hilton in tow, Britney surprised the waiting paparazzi with a full-frontal shot of her “money maker.”

That’s all for today’s news, stay tuned to this channel for all the news that matters least but you still care about.

(Compiled by J. Allen)

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Quick Stop Thingamabobs: 11/29/2006

Filed under: Columns,Thingamabobs — UncaScroogeMcD @ 12:51 am

The web. It’s a big place, full of plenty of distractions ““ some funny, some informative, some ludicrous, some disturbing, some inane, some profound. Each and every weekday, we present links to a few of our favorite finds”¦

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If you didn’t catch it when it aired, South Park does Buck Rogers… (Thingamabob)

Stephen Fry discusses Peter Cushing, Vincent Price, and Christopher Lee on QI… (Thingamabob)

Okay, I can’t resist sharing a side-by-side of the whole South Park/Buck Rogers thing… (Thingamabob)

Bill Bailey on the song stylings of U2… (Thingamabob)

A pair of Nazis come to a unique realization, courtesy of That Mitchell & Webb Look… (Thingamabob)

Have a THINGAMABOB? Send it in!

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November 28, 2006

QSE News: 11/28/2006

Filed under: Columns,News — UncaScroogeMcD @ 1:20 am

Here are today’s top entertainment headlines:

In a shocking turn of events, the honeymoon is already over for Pamela Anderson and Kid Rock as the two filed divorce petitions Monday. Sources close to the couple say that the divorce is a result of Pamela learning that Rock, who’s real name is Robert Ritchie, was not, in fact, Lionel’s son and that her and Nicole would never be sisters.

Paramount has announced plans to make not one, not two, but three Smurf movies. A top executive at Paramount said that fans will finally find out who smurf’d Smurfette in the smurf with the smurf while smurfing a pound of smurf.

Officials in the southern Chinese province of Shunde broke ground today on a theme park based on the life and career of famous martial artist, Bruce Lee. According to one of these officials, Chinese Children in Lee’s “ancestral home town” will now have an opportunity to “pay lots of cold, hard yen” for a chance to get kicked in the face by Chuck Norris and ride Kareem Abdul-Jabber.

It looks like the Eagles of Death Metal got aced”¦ or should I say Axl’d, from their recent tour with Guns N Roses. Apparently Axl thinks only one of the bands can suck during a tour.

And finally tonight, we just hate to report this”¦ but one of America’s, nay, the World’s most talented actors, Jean Claude Van Damme, will not be appearing in the next Rush Hour movie. I, like his other 23 fans, am sorely disappointed.

That’s all for today’s news, stay tuned to this channel for all the news that matters least but you still care about.

(Compiled by J. Allen)

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Quick Stop Thingamabobs: 11/28/2006

Filed under: Columns,Thingamabobs — UncaScroogeMcD @ 12:29 am

The web. It’s a big place, full of plenty of distractions ““ some funny, some informative, some ludicrous, some disturbing, some inane, some profound. Each and every weekday, we present links to a few of our favorite finds”¦

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I got a kick out of yesterday’s trip down music video lane, so let’s kick off today’s column with “The Curly Shuffle”… (Thingamabob)

Paul McCartney plays the wartime “Pipes of Peace” in the trenches… (Thingamabob)

Tracy Ullman takes on Kirsty McColl’s “They Don’t Know”… (Thingamabob)

Weird Al lost on Jeopardy, baby… (Thingamabob)

And finally, Kirsty McColl duets with Shane MacGowan on the holiday classic “Fairytale of New York”… (Thingamabob)

Have a THINGAMABOB? Send it in!

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November 27, 2006

Toy Box: The Nightmares of Lovecraft

Filed under: Columns,Toy Box — admin @ 11:33 pm

I’m cheating a bit this week. I already reviewed the first two of the new Lovecraft figures from SOTA at my site, and if you read that review, I suggest skipping the next 5 paragraphs. Trust me, it’s the same background info. See, I’m a lazy bastard.

H.P. Lovecraft was a great horror, fantasy and science fiction writer of the early 20th century. Like many writers, he led a fairly tortuous and difficult life, and like many, wasn’t as well recognized as the great author he was until after his death.

Many of his works were actually drawn from his own nightmares, and so it’s appropriate that SOTA has titled the line of action figures based on his works as The Nightmares of Lovecraft.

He is best known for his creation of the concept of the Necronomicon. This fictional book of dark magic has since been used and mentioned repeatedly in other works from the Simpsons to the Evil Dead.

It was late in his career that he created the Necronomicon (also called the Book of the Dead) and the beings that it’s writers worshiped, Cthulu and Yog-Sothoth. These were Gods of a sort, cosmic and universal in nature.

SOTA has produced three figures from some of the best known stories of Lovecraft – Cthulu (The Call of Cthulu), The Ghoul (Pickman’s Model), and Dagon (Dagon). There’s also a variant on Cthulu, done up in black instead of the standard green, which is a Diamond exclusive. I’m reviewing just the Dagon and black Cthulu here, and I’ve already covered the regular Cthulu and Ghoul at MROTW.

“The Nightmares of Lovecraft – black Cthulu and Dagon”

Packaging – ***
The boxes have the whole collector friendly thing going for them – they are easy to open, require no damage to the packaging to get the toy out, and you can pop them back in for storage or sale later if you’d like. The graphics and text are solid, but even with a wrap around window, actually seeing the figure clearly inside is a bit of a trick.

Sculpting – ***1/2
Both of these figures sport great sculpts, with lots of nasty detail. The textured skin looks terrific, and on Dagon this texturing varies from area to area, giving him a much more realistic appearance. His talons and teeth look deadly, and they both live up to the nightmare title.

Both figures also appear fairly close to the text descriptions of Lovecraft, and he’d most likely approve of the appearance. Lovecraft liked tentacles, and I’m sure Freud would have a romp with that.

These figures need no base to stand, and the sculpted basic poses are dynamic and threatening. The sculpt actually works pretty well with the basic articulation, allowing you to personalize the evil to your liking.

The only negative here is one that was also true of the basic Cthulu and Ghoul – mold lines. Both figures have apparant mold lines that break the smooth appearance of the sculpt, particularly on the under belly of the Dagon’s fat tentacles. Scale may also be an issue for some folks, but the only one that bothered me in regards to size is Ghoul. Both Dagon and Cthulu could use a slightly bigger treatment, but these are adequate in size.

Paint – ***
The paint is where these fall well short of the early prototype figures. That’s not particularly surprising, since the hand painted prototypes were amazing, and getting something like that accomplished with a production figure was highly unlikely. But this is the one area where folks may find some disappointment.

I’m satisfied with the work though, giving both of these a solid B score. Dagon was a particular suprise, because early photos of the production figures appeared more washed out and sporting fewer details. But the production figures I received actually have quite a bit of small detail work, and the variation between the white, maggoty under belly and the darker, scaley skin on top looks excellent. There’s also a nice use of different finishes, matte and gloss, to give the impression of fleshy, wet areas.

The black Cthulu isn’t quite as canon as the green variety, but he does have some visual pop. There’s also great contrast between the lighter colored suckers, claws and eyes, although the black skin is very consistent and even.

Articulation – Cthulu ***1/2; Dagon ***
The general designs of these characters don’t allow for a ton of articulation, but SOTA did a decent job of getting in what they could.

Dagon has a ball jointed neck that has a greater range of movement than you might anticipate, a hinged lower jaw, ball joints at the shoulders of all four arms, and cut wrists on all four arms as well. None of his fat tentacles can move however, so the majority of the pose personalization is through the arms.

Cthulu fairs a little better, largely due to his bendy tentacles. All six of them can be positioned in any number of ways, and hold positions quite well. The wings have ball joints where they meet the torso, and there are ball joints at the shoulders and neck as well. Cut joints at the wrists round out his articulation. A cut joint at the elbows would have been nice, but not completely necessary.

Accessories – Bupkis
Yep, bupkis for both of these guys. No accessories with either one, which isn’t surprising considering the characters (it’s not like Dagon used batarangs), but at this price point things are going to feel a tad light for most folks.

Fun Factor – ***
Both of these characters actually make some pretty cool looking monsters for any sort of bad guy/good guy action. Pit them against a six inch scale Batman or Superman, and most kids won’t care who Lovecraft is.

Value – **
These run around $18, depending on the retailer. That’s the high side of the current specialty market, where most figures run in the $13 – $15 range. While they have some bulk, and are slightly bigger than something like the Mcfarlane Dragons, they still lack the size and paint quality to really command this price point. Had they been in the $15 range, they would have picked up another half star here.

There’s a scale photo below with a 6″ Batman and an 8″ Hellboy. And yes, that’s the green version of Cthulu rather than the black, to give you some idea of the difference in color.

Things to Watch Out For –
Other than the usual warning about picking the best paint, there’s really nothing else here to watch for.

Overall – ***
Photos of these were released a few weeks ago, and fans were disappointed. They appeared far less detailed, and much lower quality, than the original prototypes. Now, of course they’d never match the quality of hand painted prototypes, but fans were concerned that they had suffered greatly in the process from prototype to final product.

I’m happy to say that this is not the case, particularly with these two. While they still do carry a price tag that may put off some folks and keeps their score from getting too high, they are much better in quality than I had expected based on those recent photos. Dagon was a particular surprise once I got him out of the box, and may just end up my favorite of the bunch.

Where to Buy –
These haven’t quite hit stores yet, but should in just the next week or two max. Some options:

– Amazing Toyz has the singles for $17, or the set of three for $52.

– CornerStoreComics has the individual figures for $18.50 each, or the set of three for $54.

– YouBuyNow has the regular Cthulu for $19.

Related Links –
I reviewed the other two figures in this series earlier this week.

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Quick Stop Thingamabobs: 11/27/2006

Filed under: Columns,Thingamabobs — UncaScroogeMcD @ 2:52 am

The web. It’s a big place, full of plenty of distractions ““ some funny, some informative, some ludicrous, some disturbing, some inane, some profound. Each and every weekday, we present links to a few of our favorite finds”¦

————————————————

If you thought The Office was fiction, then you may find your mind blown by the mediocrity of the Bank of America balladeer… (Thingamabob)

Cleanse your palate with David Cross’s take on the BoA tune… (Thingamabob)

And a slightly different performance from Cross at a different venue… (Thingamabob)

The great Richard Dawson sings of “Apples and Oranges”… (Thingamabob)

And we wrap up our music edition with Paul McCartney’s video for “Spies Like Us”… (Thingamabob)

Have a THINGAMABOB? Send it in!

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November 24, 2006

Scrubs Blog: Happy Thanksgiving!

Filed under: Production Blogs,Quickcasts,Scrubs Blog,Video — UncaScroogeMcD @ 3:23 am

VIDEO BLOG #65: “My Thanksgiving Shout-Out” ““
The cast and crew extend holiday greetings to all, and dish on their favorite Turkey Day eats.

Download Scrubs Video Blog #65:

Large (560 x 420 – QuickTime – 46.8 MB)

Small (320 x 240 – QuickTime – 20.3 MB)

VIDEO BLOG #66: “My 6th Season Return” ““
Bill Lawrence and some familiar faces remind you to watch the 6th season premiere in Scrubs‘ all-new timeslot this Thursday, November 30th at 9pm on NBC.

Download Scrubs Video Blog #66:

Large (560 x 420 – QuickTime – 6.96 MB)

Small (320 x 240 – QuickTime – 3.01 MB)

VIDEO BLOG #67: “My Shameless Plug” ““
And while he’s at it, Bill reminds you to check out NobodysWatching.tv for a look at a new comedy he’s got on tap.

Download Scrubs Video Blog #67:

Large (560 x 420 – QuickTime – 3.33 MB)

Small (320 x 240 – QuickTime – 1.46 MB)

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Weekend Shopping Guide 11/24/06: Hello, Newman

Filed under: Shopping Guides — UncaScroogeMcD @ 1:07 am

The weekend’s here. You’ve just been paid, and it’s burning a hole in your pocket. What’s a pop culture geek to do? In hopes of steering you in the right direction to blow some of that hard-earned cash, it’s time for the Quick Stop Weekend Shopping Guide – your spotlight on the things you didn’t even know you wanted…

While the seventh season of Seinfeld (Sony, Not Rated, DVD-$49.95 SRP) marked the departure of Larry David, it was also an incredibly jam-packed outing, loaded with the episodes the shine even within the already-stunning firmament of the show – episodes like “The Soup Nazi,” “The Rye,” “The Maestro,” “The Sponge,” and the darkest way to end a marriage storyline, “The Invitations.” After David’s departure, the show lost a bit of its more gothic touches, to be sure, but not until the final season would there be anything even approaching a clunker. As with previous sets, Volume 6 (remember, the first volume featured seasons 1 & 2) is loaded with bonus features – including commentaries, deleted scenes, bloopers, TV spots, exclusive Stand-Up footage, and cast & crew interviews. In addition, there’s a spotlight on Elaine Benes and Julie Louis-Dreyfus, reflections on Larry David’s final season, and more “Sein-Imations” (classic scenes reinterpreted through animation).

I love Boston Legal (Fox, Not Rated, DVD-$59.98 SRP). I think David E. Kelley has finally found a way to meld the sensibility of his past shows – like Picket Fences, The Practice, and Ally McBeal – without falling into the sometimes overbearing, overblown, schizophrenic pitfalls of the previous series. Oh, and it’s got William Shatner, James Spader, Rene Auberjunois, and Candice Bergen. The 7-disc complete second season set features all 27 episodes, plus a pair of behind-the-scenes featurettes.

Its release was delayed due to MGM’s transfer of its home video distribution from Sony to Fox, but the long-awaited special edition of A Fish Called Wanda (MGM/UA, Rated R, DVD-$26.98 SRP) is finally hitting stores, packed with 2-discs of bonus materials in addition to newly-remastered picture and sound. Those bonus materials include an audio commentary with John Cleese, deleted/alternate scenes, a retrospective documentary, a message from John Cleese, and more.

While not the films that many remember as his classics, the 7-film Paul Newman Collection (Warner Bros., Not Rated/Rated PG, DVD-$59.98 SRP) is a must-have set for the bonus features alone. In addition to the films themselves – Somebody Up There Likes Me, The Left Handed Gun, The Young Philadelphians, Harper, Pocket Money, The Mackintosh Man, & The Drowning Pool – the set features commentaries (from Newman, the late Robert Wise, Martin Scorsese, Robert Loggia, Richard Schickel, William Goldman, Arthur Penn, and Vincent Sherman), vintage featurettes, and trailers. Can you guess what set I’ll be digging my way through over the holidays?

Try as I might, I can’t understand what people love about How I Met Your Mother (Fox, Not Rated, DVD-$39.98 SRP). I’ve watched every episode, and I love the actors involved, but the writing seems flat and clichÃ©d – I honestly wish it was better, because I want to like it. Is this what it was like for all those people who didn’t “get” Friends, or am I living some kind of sitcom version of They Live, where only I can see the non-funny? The 3-disc set features all 22 first season episodes, plus audio commentaries on select episodes, a blooper reel, and a “Video Yearbook” featurette.

You’d think it wouldn’t have taken so long for one of the highest grossing comedies of all time to get a decent special edition, but it’s taken forever to get one for John Hughes & Chris Columbus’s timeless holiday tale of unintentional child abandonment, Home Alone (Fox, Rated PG, DVD-$19.98 SRP). The new edition features a gag reel, over a half-dozen featurettes, deleted scenes, and – best of all – an audio commentary with Columbus and Macaulay Culkin.

With the 3-disc set collecting season 6 & 7, the end of the original run of Columbo (Universal, Not Rated, DVD-$39.98 SRP) on DVD comes to a conclusion with the final 8 tele-movies starring Peter Falk as the memorably rumpled detective famous for his case-solving refrain of “Oh, there’s just one more thing…”.

The fifth and final season of Alias (Buena Vista, Not Rated, DVD-$39.99 SRP) was a bit of a jumbled affair, with the increasingly onerous Rambaldi mythology sort of reaching some kind of resolution, but I wouldn’t exactly call the last adventures of Sydney Bristow a high water mark in the show’s history. Much like The X-Files before it, they were never able to sustain the passion, energy, and mystery that had propelled better times. The 4-disc set features behind-the-scenes featurettes and a blooper reel.

My little nephew has recently been getting into Blue’s Clues, so I sat him down with the new volume of Blue’s Room – Meet Blue’s Baby Brother (Nickelodeon, Not Rated, DVD-$16.99 SRP). As the title suggests, this introduces Blue’s new baby brother… and my nephew approves.

So there you have it… my humble suggestions for what to watch, listen to, play with, or waste money on this coming weekend. See ya next week…

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Trailer Park: They’re Just Screwed… That’s All

Filed under: Columns,Trailer Park — admin @ 12:37 am

By Christopher Stipp

Archives? Right Here…

Alright, let’s hope all of you out there helped to continue America’s reputation as the fattest country in the free world, which, ironically, isn’t but that’s neither here nor there. What IS here, though, is a shortened column this week as I am well aware that the numbers of you who are presently reading this equate to nearly zero, the only people genuinely looking at these letters I’m writing right now is the result of what happens when you have a boss who thinks the day after Thanksgiving is a great time to catch up on all that work you neglected from Monday to Wednesday of this week. Believe me when I say I’ve been there. It’s crap for those who have to work today, it’s enough for you to think that yes you need to look for a new job where you get these one-offs every now and then, and instead of just hanging my keyboard up for the week I want to continue what I’ve been doing for you shackled people of the world for the past two years: giving you new content.

I don’t feel like writing about trailers this week. I am all sorts of ready to unload what I think of the new SPIDER-MAN 3 trailer (I mean, really. Holy shit. I would go toe to toe with any nerd who wants to take umbrage with anything there in the trailer. I also thought enough in advance to download the OTHER SP3 trailer that wasn’t so much debuted but leaked onto the Intertubes. I am thinking that either this was a well placed “tease” or some person(s) are looking for new employment.) I’ll make sure this is all talked about next week. Promise.

As for what I’m doing this week I am beyond words to describe it. I thought since I am feeling like taking the week off but still wanting to give the two of you who stopped by today something interesting I would take my family out to see a film and get their reactions to it.

I am taking my mother, father and wife to see BORAT.
Many of you know, or should know, that good art, beyond the kindergarten notion of just being pleasing to the eye, should evoke. Be it repulsion or manical attraction a work of art should be something that produces that psychological shape, its gestalt, which people can interpret as they wish. BORAT, to me, is a rare comedy that evokes something in its audience by making them project their own thoughts about what people are really like when you, “just come down right to it.”

To wit, Dave Chapelle described it best, and woefully interpreted the situation much to his own detriment, when he described a scene he was shooting for Season 3, the doomed season, wherein:

“Chappelle…admitted to Oprah that he felt some of his sketches were socially irresponsible. He singled out the “pixie sketch” (in which it implied everyone has a pixie that appears to them and encourages them to act in a way stereotypical for their race) and said during the filming of the blackface pixie sketch a white crew member was laughing. Chappelle said “it was the first time I felt that someone was not laughing with me but laughing at me.” He also said that during the sketch he was called nigger by one of the other non-important cast members.”

Right, Dave. That’s the point, you dolt; sometimes comedy is about people finding something within their own set of prejudices that illuminate a greater evil. Did Sacha ever state that he wanted to stop with the idea of going forward with filming BORAT because he found a dirty underbelly of American society as he did when he sang “Throw The Jew Down The Well” at a bar no more than a couple hours south of me here in Arizona? No, this, hopefully, was the reason he knew he SHOULD have made this movie.

Besides this situation reflecting why Dave Chapelle is not the great emancipator of comedy like he truly could have been, and why he’s a whiny little girl, this shows why getting together three different people of varied backgrounds was such a neat idea. The questions bounded everywhere in my mind: “What would they find funny?” “Would they feel comfortable laughing at material that is beyond anything their sensibilities have ever been socked with before” “Would they really be offended by the movie’s main thrust?” or “Would they simply write everything off in this film as just sophomoric, and dismiss any grand notions about what this film says about America as simple overreaching on my part?”

Perhaps.

Mary-Anne is a 59 year-old who enjoys all sorts of cinema. She’s the matriarchal vanguard of the family with regard to film. While she doesn’t go out of her way to catch out every and any independent film, she does find joy in taking advantage of any opportunity to indulge in the occassional LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE while letting her son do the footwork in bringing her to important flicks in the last few years like CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON, MEMENTO, and, my personal favorite that makes me proud that moms went along with this one just based on a “trust me”: REQUIEM FOR A DREAM. It was a profound experience for me to have been able to see this movie in the theater and taking her to the film, for my second go-around, is a very special mother/son memory that I think a lot of film geeks would no doubt appreciate. I’m looking forward to her and I taking in THE FOUNTAIN in the coming days for what should be another solid moment.

Jack. Jack, oh Jack. Dad would’ve peeled his face for the duration, I would posit, if I would’ve also taken him to the above films. He probably would’ve liked the wire-fu of CROUCHING TIGER but, he no doubt, would’ve bitched like a school girl that he had to read the screen. Yes, dad, they’re subtitles; there are some places in the world that don’t speak “American.” He is a guy, however, that any college dude with a predilection for explosions and the desire for there to be nary a trace of any noticable amount of character development could relate with. He loves STRIPES, ANIMAL HOUSE, THE BLUES BROTHERS. He was a fan in recent years of OLD SCHOOL, WEDDING CRASHERS and even the recent release of OVER THE HEDGE had the man in stiches; the man travels every week by plane so many of his cinematic adventures of late have been sanitized for his protection by the airlines. He has zero desire to see anything daring, in my opinion, and would’ve done well in Roman times when it was all about the bread and circuses and not much else. You all know a man like this, especially one like my father who enjoys absorbing himself in DIE HARD and showing-off his pimp surround system to his other WASP-y friends with the first five minutes to TOP GUN. Someday I hope he understands there has been great strides since TOP GUN was remastered and that the lobby scene from THE MATRIX, the club scene from BLADE or even the opening sequence of SAVING PRIVATE RYAN would allow the paternoster of the family to show how good his built-in system (I mean, the guy had the speakers installed INTO the walls and ceiling) really is.

Sherry Stipp. My blushing bride. The light of my life, the mother of my children and a woman who would willingly push me out of the door to see X-MEN a dozen times on my own before sitting through a single viewing. A woman who has a clear sense of taste I am amazed by what she wants, and does not, want to see at the theaters. Sure, she’ll make me sit through LEGALLY BLONDE but should I want to pop in BATMAN BEGINS or any other movie made based on a comic book character then I might as well be offering to watch a snuff film of a puppy being put down with a spork. I love the woman with all my heart but with regard to movie watching I see this as a lifelong battle of wills of what DMZ we can meet at whenever it comes to our cinematic adventures. She did like LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE a lot and, believe it or not, it’s moments like this that make me feel like she’s allowing to come deeper into my territory as long as I pick movies that give her something she can grab onto.

This is what I was dealing with as the lights went down and I hoped at least someone would see what I did; just one would’ve made this experiment worth while.

Flash forward 84 minutes. There was some gasping from mom, she really got into some of the more ribald moments so high-five to her, my wife damn near covered her eyes for a majority of the screening as she has this thing about feeling sorry for Sacha’s victims and about the copious amount of male man-ass on display and dad, well, I didn’t hear much out of him.

Walking out the theater I was curious, what was the final verdict from these not-so-representative samples?

Dad: “Well, I had real high expectations. I had heard so much about this film being really funny but… I kind of felt let down. They could’ve eased up on the offensiveness of it all… And I cannot understand how [Sacha Baron Cohen] didn’t get arrested for some of those things.”

[Excellent observation, pops. How he evaded imprisionment could be a whole movie unto itself.]

The Wife: “I can’t get that friggin’… Just too much wrestling with men! I don’t think I would be able to see that again because I felt so bad for the people he was duping. Plus, I can’t believe you have our 3 year-old daughter walking around the house saying ‘High-fiiiive’ and ‘Thaat’s nice'”

[Don’t forget I am also working on getting her to say “Greeeat success…”]

Mom: “It was so offensive, so offensive to everyone; nobody was left out.”
Dad: “Well, he didn’t do anything to the Native Americans… or even the Spaniards.”

[Right. Sacha did drop the ball with that large Spaniard population in America.]

Wife: “I did think that the prostitute was really cute. She seemed really genuine.”

[Hmm…]

Dad: “Whether Pamela Anderson was in on it, I’m not sure, [She was] but I would seriously consider getting new security personnel if she didn’t tell her bodyguards.

Now, this is just my opinion, but I think [Sacha’s] next movie needs to be serious. I can’t see how he would be able to continue to do this without affecting his longevity in movies.”

[Gee, dad, for a guy who finds the dialogue from OVER THE HEDGE to be gut-burstingly funny, this is a good assertion.]

Favorite parts?

Wife: “The high society dinner. Best part of the whole film.”

Mom: “The pastor’s face when [Sacha] pointed to the other men’s wives in adulation and then put down his wife right in front of him. Great, very funny.”

Dad: “The rodeo. I thought he was going to get killed or beaten up when he started singing his national anthem.”

Mom: “You know, the driving instructor. I think he really did, was perhaps one of the only ones, who genuinely liked Borat the way he was. ‘Will you be be my boyfriend?’ [Laughs] Very funny. Now I can see why everyone wants to sue him.”

Dad: “Here’s my take: it’s all about saving face. It really only costs a few bucks to file a lawsuit but these people have been humilated, publicly, and now they need to do something to show that they’re not the idiots they really are. It’s not so much about the money, there’s a little bit to that, but the only option left to them is to sue in order for these people to try and convince the rest of us they were wronged.

They’re just screwed. That’s all.”

[Well, dad, thanks for putting such a button on the proceedings. Very astute observation. Color me impressed.]

I thought that while none of my filmic companions had as much love for the greater themes of the film as I did, the larger statement on our own issues as a nation and how Borat was really just a magnet for drawing out what’s beneath that thinly veiled superficiality we all put on in order to exist in this society, none of them remarked that they were disgusted by the film or that they were offended by what they saw. I think they all “got it” but obviously once you have two dudes wrestling naked with one of the getting a facefull of ass crack and balls you run the risk of alienating the audience.

Not me, though, as I laughed just as hard the second time, wiping tears from my eyes from the sheer delight of it all.

The next morning my mother sent me an email as an addendum to the previous night’s conversation:

From:
XXXXXX@aol.com
Date:
Wed, 22 Nov 2006 08:06:03 EST
Subject:
Borat
To:
christopher_stipp@yahoo.com

Well, here’s one more — I mean two more. Just thought of another thing to mention, both from your dad:

On the way home I asked him if he knew where the guy who played Borat was from and your dad said he obviously was Americanized and he could tell he’s lived in this country a while. It was too funny when I told him he was from London.

[I wish I could say I’m suprised that dad didn’t know Sacha not only was from England and was Jewish himself but his epiphany on this matter evoked enough laughter out of me that it made me realize how flawless Cohen’s performance actually was.]

Then, I talked about the part that we didn’t mention at dinner and that was when Borat was having a meeting in Washington, D.C. with some guy. And it was funny that before the meeting it was his tradition that all meetings begin with sharing cheese. Then your dad said, “That cheese didn’t really come from where he said it did, you know that don’t you?” I laughed my fanny off half way home.

[Kids, you know you’ve arrived at a certain plateau in your life when you’re able to share in the frivolity of a good breast milk joke with your mother.]

Your dad is soooo black and white. Not too much middle. He spends too much time on airplanes!

We had a great time. It was a movie I shall never forget and am still processing it this morning. Can I sue for having seen it???????

Yes, mom, it’s one of the benefits of living in this glorious country of ours, of living in America.

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Nocturnal Admissions: Movie Review, Deja Vu

Filed under: Columns,Nocturnal Admissions — UncaScroogeMcD @ 12:30 am

Many people could have directed Deja Vu, the new sci fi romance action thriller with Denzel Washington as an ATF agent who time travels in order to squash a terrorist attack. It’s the sort of idea that would appeal to numerous directors. For example, if Terry Gilliam had directed the film, it would end tragically, with time ineluctable and resistant to revision (as in his film 12 Monkeys), the lovers dying and the explosion going off as planned. If Brian De Palma had directed it, Deja Vu would have devolved into Denzel Washington learning that his best friend had sold out and helped the terrorists, and evil would once again triumph. If Michael Mann had helmed the film, the focus would be on the wear and tear on the team of agents, their exhaustion and the lack of appreciation for their labors. If Tony Scott had directed it, the film would be a non-stop tapestry of visual effects, MTV editing, and even text and other advertising techniques across the screen.

In fact, Tony Scott did direct the film (from a script credited to newcomer Bill Marsilii and Terry Rossio, who wrote Small Soldiers, Shrek and numerous other kids films). But it is a different Tony Scott from the one you may be familiar with from recent films such as Domino and Man on Fire, where he tries to outdo Oliver Stone in visual pyrotechnics (but even Stone has calmed down of late). The downshift in gears may be due to the fact that the narrative is so complex, to augment it with visual tricks would be to further burden an already taxed viewer with even more impediments to clarity.

Denzel Washington plays Doug Carlin, a New Orleans ATF agent investigating the bombing of a ferry on Fat Tuesday. Soon enough he is approached by alleged FBI agent Pryzwarra (a puffy Val Kilmer), who tells Carlin about a new government technology that allows them to essentially videotape the recent past, but only exactly four days and X hours into the past. Through these technologies, Carlin is able to explore the case of Claire Kuchever (Paula Patton, of Hitch), whose body was found the same day as the terrorist attack (we used to call it sabotage), yet whose corpse bore evidence suggesting a connection with the attack. As Carlin studies her life (and falls in love with her), he yearns to find a way to go back and save her. The rest of the movie plays on that possibility. Here’s a hint: call him Saint Elsewhere.

It’s a clever script that plays fair with the audience, once you get past the idea of time travel in the first place. It also links up with, and completes a trilogy of Scott’s recent forays into Stonian cinema of paranoia in films such as Enemy of the State and Spy Game, but it takes a softer stance. The massive intrusion that the so-called Snow White technology offers is only for the good, and maintained by essentially loyal hardworking Americans.

On the zeitgeist level, the film ties in with recent cultural products such as the British crime series Life on Mars (to be remade for the American market) and Day Break, a kind of Groundhog Day policier for network television. Why the sudden interest in time travel and rectifying mistakes? Perhaps we are all suddenly taking life more seriously within the current climate of war and terror and wish we could make the right decisions as we stumble though the day, with the option of fixing things if we totally mess them up anyway. Of course it is impossible, and the tragedy of life is that we have but this one chance.

Anyway, it’s a terrific movie, perhaps a tad slow in its second quarter, revivified by a scene that is half gratuitous chase sequence and half deeply clever and mulit-layered. The love story is quite poignant, and the various deaths evoke memories of the darker elements of supposedly light fare on similar themes such as It’s a Wonderful Life. The cast is uniformally excellent and naturalistic, and it’s one of the best films of the already bloated holiday season so far.

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November 23, 2006

Music For The Masses: Turkey Day, 2006

Filed under: Columns,Music for the Masses — UncaScroogeMcD @ 11:45 pm

Hello, friends! Welcome to a special “Turkey Day” edition of “Music for the Masses.” First things first… Happy Thanksgiving everybody!! Having fun yet? If your household is anything like the Bell household, and I’m sure it’s EXACTLY like mine, you are just now beginning to remember that Thanksgiving is that one, “magical” time of the year where we gather our family and friends into one, tight-fitting location to firmly re-establish each and every dysfunction. Okay, maybe not every dysfunction… hell, for the Bell’s to cover everything we would need to extend Thanksgiving by a couple of days… a week, at the most. You’re also remembering that Thanksgiving is a time to dust off and celebrate your proud family traditions. For me, those “proud family traditions” include an under-cooked turkey, a fully cooked bag of “innards” inside said turkey (I get the neck!!), a gin-soaked grandmother telling jokes that would make a sailor blush (where the hell does she hear this shit?), a bathroom that smells like somebody killed a skunk in a French morgue after one of grandpa’s “movements” and, of course, my “uncle” showing up, “dressed to the nines” and looking like a reject from a bad Baz Luhrmann film. Good times… good times.

My Uncle Nancy

Yep, as you can probably guess, I’m glad that “Thanksgiving at the Bell’s,” much like a married man, only comes once a year. However, lest we forget, Thanksgiving isn’t just a “frying pan to the face” reminder of just HOW fucked up a family can be when assembled under one roof. It’s also a time for one to give thanks to… well, to whatever the hell it is you’re thankful for. Personally, I’m thankful for lots of things. For instance, I’m thankful that Michael Jackson now lives in Ireland, where, one assumes, he is trying to determine if young Irish boys are “magically delicious.”

I’m thankful for Kevin Federline’s “talent” and Brittany’s parenting skills and the many hours of laughter those two have brought me. I’m thankful for Pearl Jam fans and the numerous and colorful ways they told me to go fuck myself when I made fun of their “favorite” band awhile back. I’m thankful for the cookouts I attended at Reverend Ted Haggard’s house this summer. Say what you will about the man, but let me tell you this… he is an absolute magician with those wieners!!

I’m thankful that I’ve never met Dateline reporter Chris Hansen. I’m thankful for internet porn sites that have shown me the glory of the Cleveland Steamer, the Rusty Trombone, “ATM,” “Cream Pies,” Bukaki and Brazilian Fart Porn (yes, sadly, that really exists). I’m thankful to Paris Hilton for showing the world that you don’t need talent to be famous. I’m thankful that I was never an alter boy thus denying a Catholic priest a chance to size up my anus with his index finger. In that regard, I guess I’m also thankful I was never in the Boy Scouts. I’m thankful for Don Julio TequilaÂ® and its ability to turn this…

Into this. . .

But you know what I’m most thankful for? Why, I’m most thankful for you, dear reader, and your enormous capacity for putting up with all my bullshit for the past year. All ten of you are the ABSOLUTE best and I’d give each and every one of you a giant kiss right this very minute, but I got this sore-thing on my lip and… well… you know.

But enough about all of that. It’s time now to check out some new music! We’re keeping it short this week as I take a quick look at the soundtrack to the new Tenacious D movie and Double A fires up the latest from Snoop Dogg. Plus, we provide another opportunity for aspiring artists to “Pimp Their Band.” Should be fun. So, what do you say? Let’s get to it, shall we??!!

Artist: Tenacious D
Album: The Pick of Destiny
Bastard Love Child of: Ronnie James Dio and Frank Zappa
Best for: Rockin’ Your Fuckin’ Socks Off!!!

A long ass fuckin’ time ago,

In a town called Kickapoo.

There lived a humble family

Religious through and through.

But nay there was a black sheep

And he knew just what to do.

His name was young J.B.

And he refused to step in line.

A vision he did see-eth

Fuckin’ rockin’ all the time.

He wrote a tasty jam

And all the planets did align. . .

-from the opening track, “Kickapoo”

I don’t know about you, but I cannot wait to see this movie. In fact, just the thought of seeing it makes me more euphoric than Lindsay Lohan with a belly full of pills and an arm-full of knife wounds. Sure, some of the things I saw in an early trailer at Comic-Con this year and some of the things I’ve heard regarding the movie (especially the whole “flying Sasquatch” thing) are fucking bizarre even by Tenacious D standards, but, regardless, I’m confident that if anybody can pull it off, it’s Jack Black and Kyle Gass. They always do. After all, they’re fucking rock gods…

Seriously. I LOVE the “D” and their first studio album with its blend of humor and acoustic “folk metal” is absolutely brilliant. In fact, I shit you not when I say that it is one of my all time favorite discs. If you don’t have it yet, buy it. Now. Go ahead… I’ll wait. “Kielbasa Sausage… your butt checks is warm.” Pure gold. I’m also confident that the new movie will be absolutely brilliant, but after giving the accompanying soundtrack more than enough time to grow on me, I gotta say… this is not a disc befitting the “Greatest Band in the World.”

For those of you playing along at home, all of the elements that made the first disc so damn entertaining are present here: JB’s surprisingly impressive voice, KG’s surprisingly nimble guitar work and liberal rhyming of the words “cock” and “rock.” Unfortunately, none of these elements are given sufficient time to shine and too much of the disc’s RIDICULOUSLY short running time is spent flushing out the plot of the movie… which, as I’ve already noted, most of us haven’t seen. I gotta ask, guys… what the fuck?? Why the hell release it a week and half before the movie? WHY??!! I haven’t seen a gross miscalculation on this scale since Michael Richards sparred with some hecklers. What I’m trying to say here is that the end result is a choppy and, perhaps more surprisingly, largely unfunny disc. I’m guessing that when paired with the movie, this soundtrack is going to prove frickin’ (yes, frickin’) hilarious but until then, and as a stand alone disc, it just falls flat.

“D” fans deserve more and, I’m confident, we will eventually get it. Unfortunately, now is not the time.

Rating: 2.5 out of 5

Snoop Dogg’s “Glamour ShotsÂ®?”

You remember Pee Wee’s Playhouse? You remember how every show started off with Pee Wee going to his robot Conky and finding out the secret word for the day? If Pee Wee had been listening to The Blue Carpet Treatment by Snoop Dogg, the secret word would have been “Boring.” Either that or “Collapsible Baton,” but that’s a joke for a whole other criminal trial. I didn’t have that high of hopes, no pun intended, for this disk. I was never a huge Snoop fan, but I have bumped his tunes several times in the past. That’s what makes this album all the more disappointing. I like they guy, I just don’t like this album. Hopefully me saying this wont force Snoop to come after me with the aforementioned “Collapsible Baton.” Well, not the same baton he tried to smuggle on that plane. I’m guessing that one got confiscated, but I would assume Snoop has two or three back-ups. He seems like that kind of person. But I digress.

Like I said, this album is just flat-out-boring. I have listened to it several times and I cannot recall anything that stands out. I’m even listening to it as I write this, and besides the song that’s on, I can’t tell you a thing about this disk. Well, that’s not entirely true, but I’m trying to prove a point here. If I were to choose another word to describe this album, it would be “lazy.” Snoop, to me, has always been all about “being different than everyone else.” From his lyrical stylings to his delivery, no one else on the scene sounds quite like Snoop. While this album is still very “Snoop,” the flashy raps are gone. All the lyrics here are stale, stale, stale… kinda like Snoop just needed money to keep himself in “the weed.”

Nothing on this album stands out. Okay… if you were to twist my arm, or threaten me with a collapsible baton, I would say that the song “Candy (Drippin’ Like Water)” is the best on the disk, but even that’s stretching it. Filled with guest stars like E-40, MC Eiht, Daz and Kurupt, this song should be a good one. Unfortunately it falls just as flat as the others. With so many good guest stars on the album, Dr. Dre, B-Real, R. Kelly, The Game, Jaime Foxx, you would think that there would be something to go on here. Come on Snoop! You have R. Kelly on this album! At least put some rhymes on there about peeing on underage girls! Well, if anything, at least I got to make several jokes about Snoop and his “collapsible baton.”

R. Kelly

Rating: 1 out of 5

BAND OF THE WEEK!!!!

You know? In addition to MySpace being a GREAT place to meet a Dateline reporter. . .

it’s also a great place to check out some new and/or unsigned artists. To honor these individuals and their art, I thought it would be cool to feature a band here each time out, sans any remarks or comments from yours truly. Consider this your place to shine. If you want you or your band featured here, just drop me a line. Up this week…

Steel Loaded

Waco, TX

www.myspace.com/steelloaded or www.steelloaded.com

Band Members:

Brian: Vocals and Guitar

Taylor: Lead Guitar

Kevin: Bass

Rance: Drums

Upcoming Shows: Waco’s “Battle of the Bands Finals” (Graham’s on 11/29/06)

CD Available? Yes… “You Don’t Know Me”

Band’s Bio: ” Since my early childhood years, it has been a dream of mine to one day have or play in a slamming rock band. I got my first electric guitar at age 6. By the 5th grade I was trying to get something going.

It wasn’t easy being a 5th grader and trying to find a group of guys to jam with. This is when I met Kevin Knox (better known as “Big Kev”). He quickly became a good friend and a really good bass player. The next big thing that happened came when we met Rance Northern.

Me and Big Kev were invited by Rance’s dad to a Christmas party at their house in 2004. We were told to bring all of our equipment because we were going to rock out that night. Rance played the drums all night. I always knew he could play but it just blew us away! We knew right then we had found our drummer and quickly began practicing regularly and learning cover songs and things like that.

All this time we are getting anxious for find a “kick ass” singer so we started letting our friends sit in and they sounded ok but we all wanted something better. Big Kev saved the day for us when he invited Brian Courtney to come and watch us play and sing a song or two. Kevin told us that Brian could sing and play the guitar. We were ready to listen.

So, next things next, we are at the “jam pad” and all these people are around listening to us play. We started playing “Creep” by the Stone Temple Pilots and Brian grabbed the microphone. WE WERE SHOCKED!!! Everbody in the room was like “Oh Hell Yea!!!….this guy has to be your new singer!

By March of 2005, STEEL LOADED was officially formed. So Let’s get JAMMING!!!”

—Taylor Williams

Message from the band: October 2006: Steel Loaded is back in the studio again. They are working on a 5 song demo with all new songs! It will be finished sometime in early 2007.

Be sure to check them out!!!

Well, folks, that’s going to do it for me and the gang this week, so. . .until next time… keep wearing it proud and playing it loud.

Send your left-over turkey necks, review copies, presents and assorted hate mail to:

M.C. Bell
P.O. Box 1222
Arvada, CO 80001

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!!

E-MAIL THE AUTHOR

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November 22, 2006

Quick Stop Thingamabobs: 11/22/2006

Filed under: Columns,Thingamabobs — UncaScroogeMcD @ 12:17 am

The web. It’s a big place, full of plenty of distractions ““ some funny, some informative, some ludicrous, some disturbing, some inane, some profound. Each and every weekday, we present links to a few of our favorite finds”¦

————————————————

Why so depressing, Charlie Brown? The 5 lamest Charlie Brown cartoons… (Thingamabob)

New Kaspar Hauser comedy. Go. Watch. Laugh. (Thingamabob)

I hope that, one day, The Sound of Young America‘s Jesse Thorn will be able to viewÂ L.A. with Randy Newmanesque irony… (Thingamabob)

They’re grrrrrreat! (Thingamabob)

Tracy Morgan’s new show, Blackass… (Thingamabob)

Have a THINGAMABOB? Send it in!

##

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Take Me Home Blog #16: In Memoriam – Robert Altman

Filed under: Production Blogs,Take Me Home Blog — UncaScroogeMcD @ 12:08 am

I was washing dishes this morning when I heard the news on the radio. In some unspecified Los Angeles hospital, at some unspecified time of night, director Robert Altman died. He was 81 years old. In his parting, he leaves with us a body of work that pushed the limits of filmmaking.

TWO JOURNEYS
Robert Altman was, and will forever be, an exception to many rules. Practically every film released by a major studio since the success of Star Wars has followed The Hero’s Journey first defined by Joseph Campbell; a young man/woman must accept a task and ultimately overcome personal and situational obstacles to succeed in the end. But Robert Altman never seemed to play by these rules of cinema. His work wasn’t about the ordinary person against extraordinary odds, but the ordinary person against common odds. His films are as close as cinema has come to an honest depiction of life.

Beginning with Countdown in 1968, it was clear Altman had a different focus. The film, starring Robert Duvall and James Caan, was a documentary-style drama that revolved around the first mission to the moon and the toll it took on both the astronauts and their families. The film, though not considered among his best, indicated two very important characteristics of the films to come. Firstly, the film was topical; America was to land their first man on the moon later that year. But it was the documentary style, the attempt to catch characters in the middle of struggles rather than from beginning to end, that Altman quickly perfected. Two years later he would shadow the Vietnam war with the anti-war classic M*A*S*H.

THE (anti)ANTI-WAR FILM
The film, set during the Korean War, is as black a comedy as you’re likely to come across. No “Hero’s Journey” here. No scenes of precious indignation, no long-winded speeches about the atrocities of battle. The people of this film are too busy creating havoc with episodic parties and pranks. Isn’t this a more honest depiction of how we as human’s cope with life during wartime? Most other films about war, no matter how light their mood at the onset, eventually culminate with some remarkably “honest” realization for the hero (see also Good Morning Vietnam). That, for the first time, the hero (and thusly, we the audience) get the point: that war is hell. We see bodies on stretchers. The carnage left after artillery fire. What’s the brutally honest climax of M*A*S*H? A fixed game of football featuring heavily doped athletes. Offensive? Possibly? But… accurate?

One of the other constraints of The Hero’s Journey is that the hero/heroine is called to duty and mentored throughout his quest by an old wise man (see also Yoda, Obi-Wan Kenobi, and of course Mr. Miyagi). What’s Altman’s answer to that? Quite possibly Jack Lemmon’s character from Short Cuts, an estranged father who tries to gain his son’s sympathy by explaining his infidelity. He’s clearly the elder statesman of the film, but all he can offer the hero is shameless rationale that borders on denial.

DECADE (AND A HALF) UNDER THE INFLUENCE
While Altman may have faltered through most of the late eighties and early nineties, it had more to do with the enormous shift in cinema than with the director’s vision. His film adaptation of the beloved cartoon Popeye was a risky failure. Altman was exploring many new creative avenues… perhaps too many. His film was a musical about a popular NON-musical cartoon icon. It was Altman’s largest budget. It was also a critical and commercial failure. Popeye, along with Coppola’s Apocalypse Now and Michael Cimino’s notoriously bloated Heaven’s Gate tightened the reigns on 70’s filmmakers. Because of these costly endeavors, the studios took back the power from directors and have retained that control ever since. Altman would never helm a major studio film again. It may have taken the next decade for Altman to come to terms with these constraints. In the end, was worth the wait.

In the early 1990’s, Altman returned to critical acclaim with the searing black comedy The Player. Born out of the creative turmoil he faced in Hollywood following Popeye, The Player was a sinister look at the inner-workings of an industry that had given him every freedom and inevitably taken them all back. What was most notable about the film’s reception is that its champions were, coincidentally, Hollywood insiders themselves. Did this in some respect pave the way for the self-congratulatory work to come (how much fun has this industry gotten out of patting its own back? See also HBO’s over-hyped and under-amusing Entourage).

EAVESDROPPING
It can be said that Altman was not meant for the big-budget film, and vice versa. His films didn’t hit you over the head with lessons to be learned, nor did they flourish due to grand camera moves and roaring musical scores. It’s comical to imagine him at the helm of a Gladiator or Troy. Those situational “epics” didn’t seem to interest him in the slightest. It wasn’t the grand that fascinated Altman, but the mundane. His films are the conversations you hear from the next table over, the ones you probably shouldn’t be listening in on, but can’t help yourself.

If a person approaches an Altman film expecting to see anything BUT a Robert Altman film, he or she is likely to be confused and possibly anxious. This may be what kept his audiences relatively small, but also incredibly loyal. Altman didn’t reveal his themes, nor did he indicate where these particular stories would lead. He didn’t seem concerned with where he was taking you. It was never about the destination to Robert Altman, but the journey itself.

That was the kind of journey Altman knew to be endlessly more rewarding.

-Sam Jaeger

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