Author: UncaScroogeMcD

Quick Stop Thingamabobs: 5/4/2007
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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- Bob and Ray and the komodo dragon… (Thingamabob)
- Bill Murray, still a scrapper… (Thingamabob)
- You just know what the end result is going to be when launching a little brother via a bean bag jump… (Thingamabob)
- I wonder if they comp Bruce Willis at the game… (Thingamabob)
- How far the Hoff has fallen… (Thingamabob)
Have a THINGAMABOB? Send it in!

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May 4, 2007
The Fred Hembeck Show: Episode 100 – Lucky Purple Pants

And thanks so very much to YOU for tuning in, friends – after all, what kind of a show would we have without an audience?

Well, a canceled one, I imagine.

Which leads me to this next announcement – with this initial triple digit reaching episode, “The Fred Hembeck Show” is going on hiatus. No, we’ve NOT been canceled – this little break is entirely my doing. The thing is, I need to devote a goodly chunk of my time in the days directly upcoming to a specific fun-filled project – one I’m not quite prepared to announce just yet, but will, worry not, when the time is right!

In the meantime, I still intend to post a smattering of short entries over on my Fred Sez blog, so if you’re a mind to, keep checking there. Should events merit it, I may even pop back here with a fresh episode – Ken and Kevin would no doubt want you to keep checking THIS site as well! Hey – there’s always Peter Sanderson to keep an eye out for, y’know…

This isn’t goodbye, gang, just see ya later!

–Copyright 2007 Fred Hembeck

May 3, 2007
QSE News: 5/3/2007
Here are today’s top entertainment headlines:
- Author Chuck Palahniuk has announced that a movie based on his novel Choke will begin production next month.Â Having been in development for years with several writers and directors attached, the version of the book that will be made was written and will be directed by Clark Gregg.Â Contrary to popular belief, Choke tells the story of a man who pretends to choke to swindle rich people out of money, and is not a biography of former INXS front man Michael Hutchence.
- Mascara clad bands My Chemical Romance and Panic! At The Disco will be providing songs for an upcoming Smashing Pumpkins tribute CD. Other bands tapped to donate song include The New Amsterdams and (+44). When asked for comment, Pumpkins’ Billy Corgan said “I guess it’s fitting that My Chemical Romance and that Panic! At the whatever are recording some of my songs since they’ve stolen everything else I’ve ever tried to do.”
- Actress and sexpot Keira Knightly has claimed that she felt devastated after rumors began circulating that she was anorexic.Â Knightly, who is best known for being hot and from her role in the Pirates of the Caribbean movies, has long been the subject of eating disorder rumors.Â Knightly claimed that when the news hit she was “so depressed, she couldn’t bring herself to eat a thing.”
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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May 3, 2007
Quick Stop Thingamabobs: 5/3/2007
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”¦

————————————————
- How many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie Roll pop? (Thingamabob)
- And how many idiot executives does it take to f*** up a classic ad? (Thingamabob)
- Conan makes George Lucas smile his half-hearted, creepy smile… (Thingamabob)
- Steve Jobs presents the iRack… (Thingamabob)
- Stan & Ollie in their last on-camera appearance, via rare color home movie camera footage… (Thingamabob)
Have a THINGAMABOB? Send it in!

##
May 3, 2007
QSE News: 5/2/2007
Here are today’s top entertainment headlines:
- Boy George was arrested over the weekend for allegedly falsely imprisoning and assaulting a 28-year-old man.Â The former singer for the band Culture Club, George was released on bail with a court date scheduled for July. Even though the singer has had numerous run-ins with the law, these allegations are perhaps the most shocking, as it’s hard to believe that a man would admit to getting his ass kicked by Boy George.
- Soulman R. Kelly is producing a song in honor of the victims of the Virginia Tech Shootings. The song, titled “Rise Up,” will be available May 15 and all proceeds will go to the Hokie Spirit Memorial Fund. In unrelated news, R. Kelley has also finished his 32nd song about filthy, deviant, sexual escapades and will make the track available later this spring.
- Director Peter Jackson is shopping a new script around Hollywood, hitting up every studio except New Line. The relationship between Jackson and New Line has soured in the wake of an ongoing legal dispute over royalties earned from the phenomenally successful Lord of the Rings trilogy. Jackson’s new script is said to be a complete departure from anything he’s done in the past, meaning there will be no homoerotic/bestiality/midget tossing in the film.
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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May 2, 2007
Quick Stop Thingamabobs: 5/2/2007
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”¦

————————————————
- “I’m a Marvel… And I’m a DC…” (Thingamabob)
- Big Bird on Hollywood Squares, 1976… (Thingamabob)
- This, however, is NOT Big Bird… (Thingamabob)
- The World Series of Uno… (Thingamabob)
- Eviscerating Kevin Federline, Mad TV style… (Thingamabob)
Have a THINGAMABOB? Send it in!

##
May 2, 2007
Interview: Chuck McCann

-by Joe Corey

Chuck McCann is a stealth superstar of showbiz.

While many of you may not immediately recognize his name, odds are high that you’ve repeated his classic catch phrases: “How about a Hawaiian Punch?” “I’m Cuckoo for Cocopuffs!” “I said lunch, not launch!” And “Kibbles ‘n Bits, Kibbles ‘n Bits. I’m gonna get me some Kibbles ‘n Bits!”

He was on the legendary First Family record. The comedy album about the JFK White House sold 9 million copies and won the Grammy for Album of the Year in 1963. Chuck not only appeared on the record, but put up the money.

You might recognize his face from his 50 years in movies and television. He was in The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter, Herbie Rides Again and Silent Movie on the big screen. And when it comes to TV, he’s appeared with nearly the history of crime fighters including Kojack, Columbo, Starsky and Hutch, CHiPs, Police Woman, Hill Street Blues, Matt Houston, Knight Rider and The Rockford Files. Although for a lot of grown children, he’s remembered for being Barney against Bob Denver’s Junior in the Krofft’s Far Out Space Nuts. Did that help?

He recently appeared on The Girls Next Door teaching Bridget Marquardt how to do voiceover work. Now you know who he is.

The Party Favors had a chance to call up the man who taught a Playboy covergal how to sell a product with just her voice. Chuck is promoting ,Cool McCool: The Complete Series, a boxset from BCI containing all 20 episodes. The animated series features a superspy with a Jack Benny accent taking on colorful villains. It was a more flamboyant version of Get Smart. The characters were designed by Bob Kane, best known for creating Batman.

McCann did tons of kid shows in the greater New York City area for nearly every channel including a Dumont network affiliate. I asked him if it was a weird experience going from the guy who introduced the cartoons to becoming animated?

“No, because I did puppets on my show, too,” Chuck said. “I did puppets for Paul Ashley. We did Rootie Kazootie for NBC. I wound up doing an act with Paul where I did impressions for the voices of the puppets. I started to create my own puppet voices when we created new characters. They were unique characters like Mr. McNasty, Mildred and Lester. Al Brodax, a great animator, had a bunch of shows for King Syndicate. He wound up hearing me and becoming a fan of mine. He asked me if I’d do the voices for Cool McCool, a new animation series he was doing. There was three of us. Carol Corbett, Bob McFadden and myself. Bob played Cool and I wound up doing 90 percent of the other voices. I could do multi-voices.”

Unlike today’s animation where a voice actor can record all their lines separately and have them digitally edited together without much fuss, Cool McCool was done like a live radio play. Chuck wasn’t given time to get into the various characters.

“We did them at once as they came up on the script. And so you had to change them that fast. That’s why they used me. But I could have done Cool.” Chuck starts repeating a few espionage lines. Chuck did enjoy working with McFadden and their interaction during the recording sessions. “We were like a jazz band. it was almost like a trio. Because you’re at the microphone and we didn’t have the electronic editing. We’re cutting it like an arrangement.”

Bob Kane did more than lend him name to the series and cash a check. “Bob Kane was at the sessions. He created those characters. They’re very Bob Kane-like,” Chuck said. “It was an adult look.” Brodax’s next major project would be the much more adult Yellow Submarine featuring the Beatles. By the way, Peter Max had nothing to do with the art in that movie.

Chuck remembered those days when kids’ programs mixed the levels of humor so it didn’t appeal to a defined demographic. “My show in New York was very much like that. What I did visually, I did for the kids. What I said, I said for adults. I had a big, wide range audience because my stuff was considered broader than most kid shows. It was a comedy show. It certainly wasn’t Captain Kangaroo.” Chuck would know that since he got his start playing Sailor Clyde on Captain Kangaroo.

Chuck was part of the most infamous moment in children’s TV. On New Year’s day 1965 Soupy Sales told the kids that their parents were still sleeping from the night before. He asked the kids to go into their parents’ wallets and purses and find the “little green pieces of paper with pictures of George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Lincoln, and Jefferson on them, send them to me, and I’ll send you a postcard from Puerto Rico.” Soupy was fired from the show because of this stunt. Chuck’s show at the time aired on the same channel as Soupy.

“When Soupy was fired off the air, they made me go in and apologize for him,” Chuck said. “I went in and said, I can’t do that. The program manager told me that I have to do it. It was in my contract. So I went down to the studio and got on the set. I had Soupy’s crew there. They all knew me. I could see the program manager standing in the back of the studio. I said, ‘A few days ago, Soupy came on the air and told you to take the money from your dad’s pocket, put in envelope and send it to him. This was a terrible, terrible thing. Soupy made a terrible mistake.’ You could see the manager in the back nodding his head like that’s it. The crew looked at me like I was so terrible for saying that. And I said, “It really was a big mistake on Soupy’s part since he forgot to give you the address. It’s WNEW…..” Shit hit the fan. A roar went up from the guy. It was really stupid and Soupy was brought back.”

In the end the management’s fear that somehow the kids took Soupy’s plea for cash seriously was unfounded as the thousands of dollars never arrived at the station. “There was no big money,” Chuck said. “They were getting pennies and nickels.”

But cash would show up in the mail. Chuck told a story about a female fan that would send him hand drawn reproduction of money. “She meticulously sat there and drew every bill.” He discovered that she also sent fellow on TV host Joe Bolton wads of the artistic currency. “He was there before me and would get $100,000 a week from the woman.” In addition to fake money, “She drew the stamps and they were cancelled.”

In addition to doing the various voices on Cool McCool, he contributed a multitude of short vocal roles to The Jetsons. Chuck couldn’t quite remember which bit characters he did. “I forget. I’ve done so many voices for Hanna-Barbara. Everything from The New Schmoo to Drak Pack to CB Bears. I always loved the Schmoo. He looked like tremendous bowling ball with a mustache.”

McCann also served as fill in voice for quite a few famous characters. “When Daws couldn’t come in to New York, I did Yogi Bear. I did an album called Wake Up America With Yogi Bear. I did all the characters.” He does a quick run thought of Yogi, Boo Boo and Ranger Smith that was more entertaining that John K’s Yogi cartoon. “I did Bullwinkle for General Mills. I created the Cuckcoo Bird for Coco Puffs. I was not only Sonny, but I was Gramps.” And with that Chuck breaks into the voices showing he can still push a chocolate coated cereal. You can find several of his Coco Puffs ads on YouTube.

Unlike some showbiz people that fear the internet, Chuck sees it as useful for letting folks follow his resume. “I think its a blessing. When you’re a character actor, you’re buried under make up. I was Oliver Hardy for 40 years for Anco windshield wipers Jim MacGeorge was Stan Laurel, with Stan’s blessing.” Those were the ads that featured Laurel cutting off Hardy’s necktie to help the wiper blades. “I did one with Groucho Marx,” Chuck mentioned.

Remember that if you ever meet anyone with a tale of working with Groucho Marx, you must immediately ask, “What was it like meeting Groucho?”

“Fantastic,” Chuck said. “We really hit it off. We did the commercial in about two hours and we were out of there. They asked me to keep him occupied for a while since he was known for having a short fuse. He didn’t. He had a wonderful time. He said, ‘What are you doing for lunch, McCann?’ We went to a restaurant across the street from my office. About six of the guys working at the studio came with us – they automatically invited themselves. Then we all wound up across the street at my apartment where I had a screening room, ’cause I had a production company. He started talking about Day at the Races. And I said, ‘I have a print of Day at the Races.’ So I ran a 16mm print for him. He would go, ‘Stop it! Stop it! Let me tell you about this.’ And he would talk about the scene we had just seen. He did that with about three of his films. When we finished it was ten o’clock. The phone rings and it was his nurse wondering where he was. She had tracked him down. She was so pissed at me. He had a wonderful time. I later met him at the Playboy Mansion.”

Chuck is friends with Hugh Hefner and gets to enjoy movie nights at the Playboy Mansion. The screening room in the living room is equipped to show 35mm and projected video. “(Hefner) grew up as a kid always saying, ‘I always wanted to be able to show movies in my living room.’ He loves the living room and having people coming in, sitting down and watching the films. That is his dream and that’s what he created for himself.” Chuck’s own screening room is more about the cinema experience. “I grew up in the Roxy Theater. My father was an arranger. I grew up in the dark, sitting in front of a proscenium arch and watching movies that way. That’s what I created in my house. I have a stage. I like the lights and the curtain open.”

Chuck and the inner circle of movie lovers that meet at the Mansion are very active in working with UCLA, The Library of Congress and Eastman House in finding films for preservation. They’re a very giving group, including Hef.

Seeing how Chuck was featured on a recent episode of Girls Next Door, I raised the internet rumors that Hef has settled on Holly. This season’s focus seems to be on the girls finding work outside being Hef’s girlfriends as if Bridget and Kendra’s time at the Mansion was coming to an end.

“No. No. No. No,” Chuck said. He doesn’t see the Big Love ending anytime soon in the Holmby Hills or on E!. “The show is a hit and the reactions they’ve gotten this year have been tremendous. It is fun getting to look at the way they live. And believe me, they’re all that way. Bridget is the sweetest kid. Kendra is hysterically funny. I fall down with her. Holly is just a love. She’s Hef’s main squeeze.”

The bigger question is if Bridget has a career doing voiceover work. “I think she has potential. She’s going to class and has a great teacher. Unfortunately they didn’t pick the best takes. She did a very sexy host voice for a perfume. They didn’t use that.”

While taking about Carol Burnett suing Family Guy over using her image, I ask Chuck what would happen to animation if Phil Silvers ever sued all the cartoons that ripped him off as a character. Chuck gives a hearty laugh.

“I loved Phil. He was a good pal. He used to call me up and say let’s do coffee. He was on my show. I did a special with Phil and Pat Morita. He was a funny, intuitive man.”

Another of Chuck’s comedy role models was Jackie Gleason. “He was over at the Adelphi Theater. I used to go over and sit in the balcony and watch him. I idolized him. He idolized Laurel and Hardy. Who didn’t? I had Marlon Brando’s attorney here. He said, ‘You know, Marlon Brando’s biggest love was Laurel and Hardy.’ Go figure.”

Chuck is upset that the cinematic legacy of Laurel and Hardy is being abused by the companies that have the rights to the films. Even in the age of DVD, this comic twosome’s best material has either been kept in the vault or released in substandard prints (such as the TV edited version of Sons of the Desert).

Chuck’s cult film The Projectionist is now out on DVD. He plays the projectionist at a large movie theater. He daydreams and daydreams into the various movies he’s playing including Casablanca and Flash Gordon. The evil theater manager was played by Rodney Dangerfield.

“I loved Rodney. We had a couple of laughs on that. He couldn’t believe it. He’d say, ‘What kind of a movie is this where you gotta come to work on the subway?’ We were rebel filmmakers at that time. I had just finished making The Heart is a Lonely Hunter. This guy came out of the woodwork named Harry Hurwitz. He sent my manager a one sheet copy of the premise. My manager told him that I’d never do it. But by law, my manager has to show it to me. I took one look at it and said, “Where is he? This is the best thing I’ve ever read. This is exactly what I want to do. It’s Walter Mitty! Does he have the money to do this?’ We figured out how to do it. It took us a year.”

What’s amazing about the film is the numerous film clips that pop up. How could a film with such a small budget get to use Citizen Kane? “David Picker (at United Artists) was the one who helped us. He loved the idea and did a different version of it with Steve Martin. ” That film was Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid, which had Martin solve a case while stepping through the best Film Noir flicks.

After being a projectionist, Chuck went on to play a theater manager in Foul Play. This wasn’t supposed to be a case of typecasting. Chuck was lined up to be the cop, but he was booked on another film during part of the shoot. Brian Dennehy landed the badge role. Chuck was able to show up for the smaller role and get to share screen time with Goldie Hawn.

Seeing how Chuck was in Herbie Rides Again and Knight Rider, I had to ask which car was more cooperative on the set. “Actually, I love Herbie,” Chuck declared. “Kitt was fun. I work with David Hasselhoff a lot.” Chuck never worked on Baywatch. “He wanted me to, but I was busy.” Well that’s one less red Speedo on the screen. But this raises the amazing concept that McCann is tight with The Hef & The Hoff. If only Felicity Huffman showed up at the Mansion, he’d be hanging with The Hef, The Hoff and The Huff.

Even with the numerous cop shows on his resume, Chuck has yet to appear on any CSI or Law and Order series. “I haven’t done a CSI. But I’m about to do a Boston Legal. ” He’s going be working with The Shatner. Perhaps we should refer to McCann as “The Chuck”? He’s earned a “The” for his name. But Chuck Norris and Chuck Woolery might put in a cease and desist order.

Every time stars are interviewed about working in animation, they joke about how they don’t have to spend hours in makeup and can do the work in their pajamas. Has Chuck ever run into stars in their PJs in the vocal booth? “No. But Brando showed up in a dress one time to do a voice over. It’s the Gospel truth. He wanted to get into the character and showed up in a dress.”

What does McCann think of the studios that load up with name stars to read for animated films? “Some of them are good, but some of them should stay home. Robin Williams is terrific.”

Chuck is filled with praise for the vocal work of Wally Wingert, who also produced the bonus features on the Cool McCool boxset.

“There are guys out there today that are very talented like Wally Wingert. Wally is the best. He calls himself the modern Chuck McCann. He’s very active and doing a lot of work. He helped me with Bridget. He is in love with the genre. And you have to be to be a superior voiceover artist.”

When Chuck guest starred on Diff’rent Strokes, did he sense that those kids would get into so much adult trouble?

“No,” Chuck said. “I loved Gary Coleman. He was a sweetheart. I didn’t get to know (Todd Bridges). You just wanted to hug Gary. He was a great kid. He’s a good actor. One day he’s going to do something outstanding that’s going to blow everybody away.”

“It’s so tough for a kid in this business. Everything is out of proportion. The popularity and the fame. And one day it goes away. Success is like arsenic in a way. You take a little at time in small doses you build up an immunity. But if you get it all at once it’ll kill you.”

The idea of a child star returning to acting after going through a rough patch brings up Jackie Earle Haley’s Oscar nominated comeback in Little Children (due out on DVD on May 1).

“I want to see more of him,” Chuck said. “He’s a helluva an actor. I was glad to see Alan Arkin win since we’d worked together.” They had co-starred in The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter.

On the topic of the Academy Awards, Chuck has agreed to help with the Party Favors campaign to get Gordon Willis a lifetime achievement Oscar for his ground breaking camera work. Willis wasn’t even nominated for The Godfather and Manhattan. It’s time to give the Prince of Darkness his shining moment. If you’re a member of the Academy, please second Chuck’s request for Gordon Willis to receive a standing ovation at the Kodak Theater in 2008.

Another thing the Party Favors is pushing is for Rhino to finally put out Far Out Space Nuts. The Saturday morning series featured Chuck and Bob Denver as two food delivery guys who accidentally get shot into outer space. Chuck is eager for a complete collection with all 15 episodes getting released. I’d enjoy hearing Chuck’s commentary tracks for a boxset.

“From your lips to God’s ears,” Chuck said. “I want that not only for myself, but for Bob Denver. I had a lot of fun. I created that show with Earl Dowd. Marty and Sid Krofft were credited, too.” When showing the younger friends H.R. Pufnstuf and Land of the Lost, they all ask the same question: Were the Kroffts on drugs? I ask a man who was there. Was Lidsville really a lidsville?

“No. No. No. No!,” Chuck said. “If you could have only been there.”

According to Chuck the only thing that ever got lit up at Krofft was the Sigmund and the Sea Monsters set. “The studio burned down. The stage exploded and the studio burned. Everybody almost lost their lives. Billy Barty was stuck in his costume. It sucked all the air out the studio. The walls buckled and collapsed. It was started in the foam material.” Luckily no one was harmed. “They wound up building two new stages. And we inaugurated them with Far Out Space Nuts. The stages were huge and gorgeous. We used one for the moonscape.”

With our time growing shorter, I asked for any memories of his time on Fanstasy Island.

“Herve Villechaize was talking about his love of making movies rather than television. Mickey Callan and I are on stage listening to him,” Chuck said. “Ricardo Montalban turns to Herve and says, ‘You know something, Herve. I got a feeling that this Fantasy Island is holding you back.’ Within two weeks he was gone. It was incredible. I don’t think Ricardo had him removed. Before that I worked with Herve in New York. He played one the elves to a Santa Claus I did.” But there would be a third meeting with Herve in the Friendly Skies. “We reunited on a 747. I was walking up the aisle and so was he. The plane hit an air pocket and he literally fell into my arms. He was a sweet guy.” Hard now to hear Herve’s Tattoo yell, “Da Plane! Da Plane!” without seeing him in midair.

The conversation ended with the subject of Lindsay, Spears, Paris and Nicole. He can’t believe the pack of photographers and tabloid journalists chasing after those girls. “I do not envy success,” Chuck said. “I don’t. That’s why I love doing my characters. I don’t have people bugging me. It’s a pleasure to be able to go into a restaurant. These people are hounded. There’s a big price that comes with this.”

Chuck has been a major success as a stealth superstar. He has been a part of our lives without being an overbearing nuisance. He’s the type of guy you pray to have in the seat next to you on a cross country plane flight. When he says “Hello,” you’ll realize how much he’s been a part of your life.

If you are curious about Chuck McCann’s work, click here.

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May 1, 2007
QSE News: 5/1/2007
Here are today’s top entertainment headlines:
- Former Beatle Sir Paul McCartney has announced the track listing for his upcoming album, Memory Almost Full.Â The disc, which is scheduled to be released on June 5th, marks McCartney’s 21st studio effort and his first in over two years.Â Among tracks such as “See Your Sunshine” and “Vintage Clothes,” fans will be treated to freshly-penned songs “You’ll Never Get My Money, You [EXPLETIVE DELETED]” and “Hey Heather, I [EXPLETIVE DELETED] In Your Leg You Whore,” both of which detail McCartney’s divorce from Heather Mills.
- Courtney Love has announced that she is planning on selling numerous artifacts from her deceased husband, Nirvana singer Kurt Cobain.Â The various items, including the singer’s clothes, will be sold by Christie’s Auction House with the proceeds going directly to Love and her daughter.Â The move has shocked many fans of the band as most were convinced that Love had ran out of ways to milk money out of her dead husband’s name years ago.
- Indie music label Touch & Go Records will soon be unveiling a music download store featuring the label’s entire catalog. Touch & Go representatives said the site will also be the only place to download any music by Steve Albini. While several people are applauding the move, some in the recording industry say the label hasn’t gone far enough, especially with regard to making anyone on Earth actually care that this music is available.
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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May 1, 2007
Quick Stop Thingamabobs: 5/1/2007
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”¦

————————————————
- Sharks eating a whale! (Thingamabob)
- Another Laurel & Hardy rarity… (Thingamabob)
- I can think of no better teacher than Big Bird – even if the pupil is Sid Caesar… (Thingamabob)
- And who can forget when that big yellow turkey visited The Muppet Show.. (Thingamabob)
- Preview the first 9 minutes of Ratatouille… (Thingamabob)
Have a THINGAMABOB? Send it in!

##
May 1, 2007
SModcast 11

SModcast is the meandering palaver of a pair of dudes whose voices are so dull, they don’t deserve to be on the radio (and, hence, aren’t). Kevin Smith and Scott Mosier are SModcast.

The best thing about SModcast? It don’t cost nothing.

SModcast 11: A Fistful of Shame –

In which our heroes talk interstellar joyrides, hotel-stays of yore, the perils of travel abroad, plus-sized swimwear, the best “Jaws” documentary ever made, day trips to death camps, and being brat-deep in a jungfrau.

[CONTENT WARNING] SModcast features harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Listener discretion is advised.

DOWNLOAD: (right click to save)
SModcast 11 (MP3 format) – 38.11 MB

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SUBSCRIBE
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Wanna add your two cents? Spend it here, in the SModcast mailbag.

CLICK HERE FOR THE SMODCAST ARCHIVES

##

April 30, 2007
Party Favors: Worshipping The Giant Acorn

DURHAM – The truth comes at you hard and heavy during the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival. After four days, it’s hard to adjust to faked entertainment. I might have to watch Gene Simmons’ Family Jewels to transition from real to scripted.

The major difference between a documentary and Indie film festival is a complete lack of ponytails. Unlike the Indie film directors that must be the center of attention, the documentarian is a quiet sort of person. They silently observe in order to capture the reality of their subject. This is what it must be like at a Marine sniper convention.

Full Frame is a festival for people who want to see movies and not chatter about the latest hot deals. Seeing how this is Durham, there’s no visit from Paris Hilton, Eddie Murphy and Mariah Carey searching for swag bags on Ninth Street. Nobody hits the slopes of Chapel Hill during the day. It’s all about movies and a few panels. And you have to pick carefully since they show five different films at once and the only ones that get a second play are the award winners.

This year’s festival did feature quite a few no-shows. The big disappointment was Larry Flynt canceling his personal appearance to promote Larry Flynt: The Right to be Left Alone. He caught a cold and couldn’t travel. The Party Favors was supposed to have an interview with him. Sorry folks, but I didn’t get to ask him about helping Courtney Love get into character.

Scorsese was preparing for Cannes, although he did write the introduction to a screening of Harvest 3000 Years. Albert Maysles, who seemed to always show up, wasn’t hanging out by the water fountain. And Sheila Nevins of HBO didn’t make it down for her panel discussion. I was hoping to pitch her a documentary on Isabella Soprano’s fetish career called Isabella Underwraps. Damn it!

Mystery writer Walter Mosley presented a special screening of Leonard Cohen: I’m Your Man. I’m not too big of a fan of the film since I want a definitive documentary about Leonard and not merely a tribute concert strung together with an interview. Mosley’s notes to the film point out that he doesn’t like Cohen. “He seemed aloof and bitter to me. There was an arrogance to his demeanor,” wrote Mosely. I’ve never felt this way about Cohen. The day that I spoke with Cohen, he was like that distant uncle that you only met at your grandfather’s funeral. We would never be constant kin, but he made sure that in that moment, we would feel related. Another person that gave off that feeling was Kurt Vonnegut. In 1989, I was his tour guide when he came to speak at NC State. For two days I was by his side. He even drew an asshole when he signed my copy of Bluebeard. A nice moment was getting to introduce him to my mother – since it was my mother’s copy of Breakfast of Champions that got me started in reading his novels. He passed away the day before the festival. I removed his obit from an abandoned New York Times in the press room. Luckily we still have Leonard with us – he won’t be able to die till he sorts out his money issues.

Before the screening, I asked Mosely if he had seen Leonard performing “Who By Fire” with Sonny Rollins. He hadn’t. This is a shame. If you’re going to talk about a musician to a crowd, you should hunt down one of their glorious moments. Tthe song from David Sanborn’s old NBC show is on Youtube. Leonard had fond memories of the performance. As a viewer, it’s a religious experience and better than anything in the film – except for the part with Anthony covering “If It Be Your Will.” How come they don’t have Leonard Cohen night on American Idol or is that part of Canadian Idol? Does French Idol force those kiddies to bust out the Serge Gainsbourg songbook?

The best documentary I saw at the festival was The Dentist From New Jersey, a short 22 minute piece about a dentist from New Jersey. Luckily filmmaker John Knapich didn’t focus on Simon Leventhal’s root canal work. Instead this film illustrates Simon’s photography. His favorite subject was the World Trade Center towers. For decades, he would take photographs of the Twin Towers from across the river. He’d go down nearly three times a week. Whenever the sky looked interesting, he’d drive over to capture the moment. His photos brought out the beauty and gave a personality to those huge buildings that we lost six years ago. You can find out if a smart cable channel picks up the film by visiting Dentistfromnj.blogspot.com.

Tony Kaye’s Lake of Fire is an unflinching journey into the abortion debate. He gives each side proper time to make their arguments. He also spends a lot of time exploring the men who killed abortionists. The film’s big finale follows a woman into a clinic and shows us the whole procedure. Luckily the film is in black and white because if there was color, probably half of the audience would have bolted the theater. While it was impressive in its scope and exploration, Kaye’s camerawork is way too professional. He frames and lights people as if they were in his commercial campaigns. There were a few moments that felt recreated (such as a protest in front of an LA clinic), but it might just be his talent overwhelmed the reality. Tony didn’t show up so there was no chance to ask about his techniques.

The Last Days of Yasser Arafat dealt with Sherine Salama camping out at the devastated presidential compound in an attempt to land an on-camera interview with the terrorist turned leader of Palestine. She spent nearly a year working every angle to finally get into Arafat’s office to ask a few People Magazine style questions. What makes this film essential viewing is a sense of the space that the leader was confined inside. You get really familiar with the compound. I can direct you to the bathrooms. Plus there’s incredible footage of Arafat’s farewell and his body’s return. This is a “You Are There” documentary.

Tootie’s Last Suit features the colorful tribes that are part of Mardi Gras. While I knew how much work went into those intricate suits, I didn’t know that they made new suits each year. A few of the folks from the film showed up to demonstrate their drums and dancing. After the performance I briefly chatted with them. The word from New Orleans isn’t too promising. Seems like the money for rebuilding flowed quickly for the Superdome, the Hornets and convention center action. But where people actually live, there’s still trailer parks within the devastation. The rents have tripled. The folks who used to work in the convention business can no longer afford to live near New Orleans. None of the guys could see New Orleans returning to normal within the decade. They also saw the Urban Land Institute as a front for vulture land developers who care little for the real people of a city.

Because of a scheduling conflict, I missed out on Crazy Love. Dan Klores and Fisher Stevens (yup, it’s Ben Jabituya from Short Circuit) directed this movie about a lawyer’s longtime mistress. Magnolia films will have this out in June. I was hoping the film would win an award so I could catch the repeat. But the major honors went to The Monastery and War/Dance.

Even though I couldn’t see everything, you didn’t hear people bad mouthing films that they saw. People were frustrated at having to make a choice, but people enjoyed praising the films. Once again the folks at Full Frame have proven they’re at the top of the documentary film festival circuit. Judging from my talk with a guy who acquires films for Netflix’s Red Envelope division, a lot of the films shown will be available for your queue within a year.

HOW MUCH?

During a panel discussion on making money in documentary films, a really disturbing fact came to light. When they were editing The Comedians of Comedy, there was a moment where Brian Posehn’s cellphone went off. The ringtone was Missy Elliott’s “Get Your Freak On.” When they tried to get clearance to use the short ringtone, they were quoted the price of $50,000.

What?

Now you can understand why songs are being yanked off TV show boxsets. A few seconds of a ringtone probably cost more than the entire project. The filmmakers decided to just snip away the moment rather than pay the ransom.

BROKEN SPOOKS

The Ghost Busters have finally come to DVD. Not the Bill Murray movie. But the original Ghost Busters featuring Larry Storch, Forrest Tucker and Tracy the Gorilla. BCI has put all 15 episodes of the series on 2 DVDs.

The show aired on Saturdays in 1975. Unlike most memories of ’70s kid shows, my remembrance does not involve a groggy head, a bowl of Crunch Berries and shag carpeting. The Ghost Busters didn’t air until nearly noon. Seems like I watched this show while waiting for my turn at the Ft. Bragg barbershop. A crummy TV set perched next to those jars of blue goo soaking combs had the trio racing through the various doors in a haunted house. Tracy the Gorilla was a good distraction from the buzzcut butchery to come. Watching these episodes gave me flashbacks of barbers running that buzzer around my ears. Ouch!

The show was like a haiku in narrative structure with its limited sets. On a soundstage they had the Busters’ office, a cemetery and the main hall of a haunted house. They used an exterior location for the store where they played off Mission: Impossible‘s tape recorded mission moment. Except this time the tapes were more comical when they self-destructed.

Tucker and Storch are comic gold as they hunt down the ghosts and monsters that have taken refuge in the haunted house. No matter how cornball the scripts got, the duo still crack me up. They brought their F Troop magic to this low budget Filmation series. The second (and final) season of F Troop comes out May 29. The guest ghosts include Billy Barty, Bernie Kopell, Ted Knight, Lenny Weinrib (the man inside H.R. Pufnstuf) and Howard Morris (Ernest T. Bass from The Andy Griffith Show).

There’s a few bonus features including an interview with Bob Burns, the “trainer” to Tracy. He shares great stories about working with Storch and Tucker. Also they have the old commercial break bumpers. They threw in the first episode of the animated version of the series which came out after Bill Murray’s Ghostbusters became a sensation.

Deepdiscount has the set going for $16.46. It’s the perfect show to watch while detoxing on a Saturday afternoon. Just don’t sneak behind me with a pair of electric clippers. I don’t want to have an army haircut flashback.

BIGGEST SKANK

What exactly is that lucky gal winning on Pussycat Dolls Present: The Search for the Next Doll? They beef up this act as an American version of The Spice Girls. But besides lead singer Nicole Scherzinger, the other five “members” seem more like Janet Jackson’s back up dancers. They don’t even come close to the aura of Sporty Spice. The other five dolls don’t even rate a last name. What sort of prize involves you losing your last name?

How do the other five non-surname dolls feel knowing that they’re a reality show away from getting their jiggling asses booted off the road?

Why do they bother forcing the contestants to sing on key? Are we supposed to believe that the real Pussycat Dolls don’t have Autotune patched into their microphones? All that really matters is that you look skanky enough when slapping your ass during the chorus.

What sort of commitment does Nicole have to the Pussycat Doll organization? She’s pretty much as good as a solo artist. Do they have a Simon Fuller contract binding her to PCD until McNamara/Troy can’t keep her looking 24?

Do the losing performers get recruited for Vivid Video’s How Bad Do You Want to Stay In Hollywood, Little Girl? reality show? Not like those failed Dolls don’t have the wardrobe and heels to win Best Newcomer at the AVNs.

The only gig in music that could give you even more anonymous career than being the seventh Pussycat Doll is The Search for the New Banana Splits. You think you can slide inside Bingo’s fur?

It was an anti-climax when the winning girl got to “perform” with the Pussycat Dolls since she just faded into the rest of the one name girls while Nicole dominated the performance. This would be like the winner of American Idol being forced to mow Simon’s lawn. At least she can feel like a winner while staring at Nicole’s ass.

HE’S DEAD, JIM

What’s the point of the Pulitzer Prize Putzs honoring John Coltrane? He gets a citation for his “masterful improvisation.” Wow. Talk about a risky honor since Coltrane has been dead for nearly 40 years. Last year would have been way too soon to give Coltrane a Pulitzer. That award might have gone straight to his head.

This seems to be another way that the creepy Pulitzer folks want to rewrite their history. Now Coltrane’s bio will talk about him getting a Pulitzer even though the judges didn’t give a crap about his “masterful improvisation” when he was breathing oxygen into his sax.

Maybe next year they can give an award to William Shakespeare. Do you think he’s more than a flash in the pan, Pulitzer Prizers? You can give him a citation for inspiring so many great movies like Stop Or My Mom Will Shoot and Fantastic Four (both are based off Hamlet). How about Plato or is he still iffy?

WHAT’D I SAY?

Here’s what I don’t get about the whole Don Imus ugliness; how exactly did people know what he said? Imus sounds like a stroke victim choking on marbles. Isn’t there a chance he really said, “Nibblets Flavored Oreos?” Which would still probably be a nasty thing to call people.

The worst thing he did was go on Al Sharpton’s radio show. What’s the point of trying to give an extended apology to people who want you fired? The slightest word will be received as a slight. He got nailed when he said, “You people” to Al and a Congresswoman. My father used to yell that at the family when we weren’t ready to get in the car. Does this mean my dad was racial bashing us? When will Al Sharpton picket in front of my dad’s house? I want justice and face time on Larry King!

If you want to make fast money, sell pitchforks and torches with the Fox News logo. This is a growth industry as each week we find a new celebrity to chase based on their faux pas. Remember when you had to spew about an hour’s worth of hatred before people really suspected you had improper thoughts?

And Alec Baldwin needs to take a few lessons from my father about how to explode on the phone.

SHEPPING IT

Anyone else distracted by the new graphics on Studio B with Shepard Smith on Fox News? They have this rotating gold circle with a purple “B” inside. It looks like Shep is hosting the Kobe Bryant show. Is this part of Fox News’ way to attract a demographic that is dazzled by shiny spinning objects?

DUMP THE NAME

As CourtTV announces that it’ll be rebranded shortly, what exactly is keeping MSNBC’s moniker? If that channel really expects to get old people to flip over, they need to trash the link to Bill Gates. First off, it takes too damn long to say. CNN and Fox News fling out of your mouth like a bullet. MSNBC is like a test word the doctor gives to see if your tongue works properly. It sounds like you only tune in to find out the latest glitch in your Windows Vista. The MS does very little for me. Give it back to Gloria Steinem. What is holding up the boys in marketing from giving this news channel a real name. How about NBC Newz. The “z” will give it the youth appeal lacking from CNN and Fox News. Even calling it Peacock News would be an upgrade.

Why does ESPN Deportes give us updates on ESPN with Spanish speaking commentators speaking extra fast in English? I can’t understand what they are saying. Just say it in Spanish and give me subtitles. It’s as bad dealing with the call center folks in India. Why do American corporations keep hiring non-English speaking people to deal with those of us who speak English? It’s bad enough that I’m trying to hear over a phone line that’s going halfway around the world. But then I have translate through an accent that has no business speaking to me in a conversation that shouldn’t go beyond me pointing at items. Why is Dell turning me into Archie Bunker? Why does Travelocity want me to hate Indians? If press 1 to continue my call in English, I want to be able to use conversational English instead of translator skills. It’s called Customer Service. Service me, Citibank!

LOST IN TRANSLATION 2

I’m not against people who don’t speak English as a primary language. Indeed my recent gig involved being the local support for a Japanese video crew. It was like a reverse Bill Murray moment as I stood a head taller than my employers. The nice part was that the director and the cameraman spoke exclusively in Japanese. This allowed me to just sit back and watch. There was zero chance of me making any suggestions unless directly addressed in English. It’s a good feeling to know that I can’t help them until they ask.

During my chats with them I discovered that Takeshi’s Castle, the series that’s redubbed as Most Extreme Elimination Challenge on Spike TV is 20 years old. Did I feel like a dork asking if the show was still on. It would have been like them asking me about new episodes of A Team or Manimal. But it did lead to interesting talks about Takeshi “Beat” Kitano – called Vic Romano on MXC.

They were impressed that my favorite Japanese baseball team was The Nippon Ham Fighters (current Japan Series Champs). How can you not root for a team that understands that pork products must be beaten down before they take over the world?

The best part of the trip was taking my six Japanese pals to Raleigh’s premiere dining establishment, The Underground. They covered our table with plates. Chef Daniel Taylor’s crispy softshell crab benedict was a transpacific success story. I can’t speak five words of Japanese, but the international language for a great meal is silence punctuated by chewing, slurping and pleasant moans.

While giving the crew a tour of Raleigh, they were amazed by our giant acorn statue. If you ever come to the City of Oaks, you must worship in front of the giant acorn. Then get a hot glazed donut at the nearby Krispy Kreme. Raleigh is a town of religious experiences.

OFF WITH HER HEAD

Speaking of Sophia Coppola, my wife hated the ending of Marie Antoinette. Why? Because The final reel stopped without Kirsten Dunst getting her head lopped off by the Guillotine. How can you make a film about Marie that doesn’t have the blade come down? And don’t go “you need to put a Spoiler Alert” on this. Anyone who wasn’t stoned during World History class knows what happens to the Queen of France. To not have her head bounce into a basket is like having a Catherine the Great movie that avoids the horsey love.

WHO WE WANT IN 2008

This column is throwing its support behind the presidential ticket of Ben Gazzara and Robert Loggia.

Does Willard Scott feel sad when he reads about someone dying at 99? It’s another name that won’t be on the Smuckers jar.

How many of Russell Simmons’s “Do You!: 12 Laws to Access the Power in You to Achieve Happiness and Success” involve divorce law?

WHAT COURTESY?

During a report about how Fergie from the Black Eye Peas had her first big role in Monster in The Closet, the guys at E! showed a clip from the film. In the top right corner of the frame was “Courtesy of Youtube.” Who is running the style book at that channel? It’s good that the channel sourced that they downloaded the footage from Youtube, but that website had no permission to actually host the movie. Troma was the company that should have been given a “Courtesy of…” credit. The folks at E! owe Troma a major apology. Instead of telling people that the DVD of Monster in the Closet can be bought, they tipped off folks that they can just visit Youtube and watch the film for free. Would the folks at E! be pleased if Entertainment Tonight ran a clip from the upcoming season of The Simple Life and claimed “Courtesy of Youtube?”

FLIPPED OFF

I recently discovered Flip This House and Flip That House are different shows. Were these two shows based off the English series Flip This House? If you want to get on one of these shows, tell the producers that you have won’t waste money on a home inspection before you buy the property. That insures a certain disaster site that TV producers love to document.

Is there anything you can do to a house that won’t add value beyond the expense? How much does a glory hole add to your guest bathroom? Wouldn’t you be better off buying a dump and putting in your own upgrades? You can always put your own new roof on a house. Are these shows “crack” for viewers who see the concept of buying a house, working on it for three weeks and scoring a $100,000 payday is just a dump away?

When is someone going to do a spouse swap show that also involves remodeling? Call it Dad ‘N Hammer. Imagine the joy in the eyes of young children when a nutjob with a toolbox shows up at the front door. It’ll be comedy gold when the dads return to their families and check out the “improvements” at their homes. What dad wants to know that all the projects he swore over the years that he’d finish were done by another man?

OLD NOSTI

Why is it when I get dragged into Old Navy, they never seem to play Beth Orton? Where’s “Stolen Car” when sifting through ringed t-shirts? One time they played Husker Du’s “Could You Be The One.” Looking around at the shoppers eager to find that perfect pair of cords, it was easy to surmise that nobody else was getting pangs of nostalgia. What’s to do when you miss the Du?

Do you think Beth Orton is jealous about my Leslie Feist crush? Feist’s new album The Reminder is due out May 1. The airport moving sidewalk video for “My Moon My Man” has inspired me to buy the CD when it comes out. I’m sorry that I’m unfaithful cad, Beth, but Feist called my name.

April 30, 2007
Nocturnal Admissions: DVD Review – Night at the Museum, Pulp

If you look closely, you’ll note Mickey Rooney in the trailer for Night in the Museum. He has only a small part in the movie, as a night guard with essentially one line that he utters repeatedly with slight variations. Rooney’s near-absence from the trailer makes sense. Its advertisers don’t want to traffic in nostalgia for films past. To that end, it emphasizes, logically, the main character, played by Ben Stiller, and his “fun” go-stars, Robin Williams and Owen Wilson, all with obvious appeal to younger viewers. But in addition to Rooney, there is also Dick Van Dyke and Bill Cobbs, as, apparently (it’s not clear), retiring night guards from a Manhattan natural history museum.

As everyone knows, Stiller’s Larry Daley is the typical modern movie loser who ends up with the job. He’s a failed inventor (see the forthcoming Knocked Up), his ex-wife (24‘s Kim Raver) rides him (previous comedies incalculable), and all he wants to do is earn the love of his son (Wild Hogs). Soon he learns, however, that due to the presence in the museum of a pharaoh’s tomb, that every exhibit in the museum comes to life at night, with the codicil that they must all stay there (keeping them inside is the night guard’s job) or be turned to dust if left outside when the sun rises, what amounts to a fake suspense ploy, but which puts it in league with all the current animal animated films, which all rest on the same premise. The movie is calibrated to appeal to all ages, but it is primarily a kids film, and the presence of the old wrinklies in the cast are a sop to the elderly sentimentalists who think back fondly on the TV shows or, for the older, movies of their youth.

Night in the Museum is a truly terrible movie. I haven’t seen as bad a film that is also a major box office hit since, well, The Da Vinci Code, also a movie of supreme ineptitude – in pacing, editing choices, framing, casting choices, dramaturgy, just about everything. That it was the box office leader for three or four weeks in a row is cause for a whole other column, about the disconnect between reviewers and moviegoers, which I don’t have anything to add to anyway, but it does suggest that American filmgoers really don’t want their films to be good, if by good one means stylish, coherent, intelligent (the failure of Grindhouse, its polar opposite in quality, at the box office suggests this to be true). They are made uneasy by complex emotions, as opposed to the simple emotions of kids movies (Night is based on a children’s novel), and by visual sophistication. An example of the film’s incoherence is that Robin Williams’s Teddy Roosevelt admits at one point that he isn’t really the old president, but a ceramic stature made in a factory; yet in the film’s resolution, Larry introduces his love interest, docent Rebecca (Carla Gugino) to the subject of her stalled Ph. D. thesis, Sacajawea (Mizuo Peck) – as if another statue does have intimate knowledge of the person she is modeled on.

Which isn’t to say that Night in the Museum should be ignored. On the contrary, it should be studied, both by scholars seeking to understand society, and by film students seeking a way into the business. Don’t follow the QT way! Go the superficial way, as this film’s director, actor-turned-director Shawn Levy has done.

To that end, the two disc special edition of Night in the Museum is an aide to study. It comes in a good widescreen transfer (1.85:1, enhanced) with DTS and DD 5.1 audio, plus Spanish and French 2.0 Surround tracks, and English and Spanish subtitles. Supplements on disc one include two commentary tracks – one by a boosters Levy, the other by co-writers Robert Ben Garant and Thomas Lennon (of Reno 911!).

The second disc begins with almost 20 minutes of deleted or extended scenes, most of them about Larry’s loserhood, followed by a blooper reel, out takes with the monkey-related outtakes; a gag reel of Levy’s wit as manifested in hijinks on the set, an episode of Comedy Central’s Reel Comedy focused on Night at the Museum, and making of featurettes segregated by subjects such as special effects, costumes, and set design. In addition, there is a storyboard to screen comparison, two “making of” specials from the Fox Movie Channel, one about animated the T Rex skeleton, the other showing Levy lecturing some film students). Finally, there are trailers and a DVD-ROM game based on the movie.

Rooney was, reportedly, 86 when he made Night at the Museum. He was 52 when he made Pulp, released on the same DVD day, April 24, 2007, and shot during the middle phase of Rooney’s career. Something of a cult film, Mike Hodges made Pulp in 1972.

There are three great modern cinematic homages to crime fiction in the movies. Gumshoe, Peeper, and Pulp. Two of them star Michael Caine, while Gumshoe stars Albert Finney. Each of them parodies the tough guy similes of Raymond Chandler’s books, and turn conventions of the genre on their heads. All three are brilliant in their various ways. And it is partially because in their individual ways they ultimately take the task of storytelling seriously, despite the ribbing. Pulp is the first one to make it to DVD.

Caine stars as Mickey King, a disreputable cad who ran out on his wife and kids to write, dictate actually, pornographic mysteries. He is approached by a mysterious tough guy (Lionel Stander) to ghost write the memoir of an at first secretive figure, but who eventually turns out to be Preston Gilbert (Rooney), a former Hollywood actor who mixes up the gangster roles he played with his real, or “real” life.

However, someone doesn’t want Preston’s book to come out. Is it the mysterious photographer (Lizbeth Scott, whom you might confuse at first with Melina Mercouri)? Is it the luscious young associate of Preston (Nadia Cassini)? Could it be the creepy mystery expert (a subtly brilliant Al Lettieri ) King meets on a tour bus? Though the mystery is “solved,” ambiguities remain, and King, who narrates the movie like he writes his books, is left at the end confined in paradise with a broken leg, but, like the Rules of the Game style images at the end suggest, not unlike a boar in a shooting pen, to be picked off by powerful elites.

Pulp is funny (whimsical might be a better term), and also a premiere example of film soleil, especially those in the revisionist mode of the 1970s. Such films maintained the narrative pleasure of the old noir movies but added an extra level of delight by undermining or deconstructing key elements of the genre.

The Pulp disc from MGM, via Fox, doesn’t go into any of this. It’s a bare bones release with an adequate widescreen transfer and three sound options. Nevertheless, it’s a must for every noir and neo-noir collector.

April 30, 2007
QSE News: 4/30/2007
Here are today’s top entertainment headlines:
- The film Disturbia was number one at the box office this last weekend for the third week in a row, despite only pulling in $9 million. Hollywood insiders are surprised the film was able to maintain its dominance with such highly touted releases as Kickin It Old Skool and the Stone Cold Steve Austin vehicle The Condemned.
- Actress Julia Stiles will star in and produce a film adaptation of the novel The Bell Jar. The novel, by Sylvia Plath, follows the character of Esther Greenwood as she slides into mental illness. Stiles is best known for being hot.
- Former American Idol contestant Jessica Sierra was arrested over the weekend for allegedly hitting a man with a glass. When news of the arrest came out, American Idol judge Simon Cowell criticized Sierra for her performance during the fight, calling it “too clichÃ©.”
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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April 30, 2007
Quick Stop Thingamabobs: 4/30/2007
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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- Everybody do the Weng Weng Rap… (Thingamabob)
- Squash & Stretch… (Thingamabob)
- Men In Black… (Thingamabob)
- PAX presents The Sopranos… (Thingamabob)
- Stan and Ollie in the UK… (Thingamabob)
Have a THINGAMABOB? Send it in!

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April 30, 2007
Interview: Simon Pegg

-by Ken Plume

After jobbing as a standup and working in a string of groundbreaking UK TV series (including Asylum, Big Train, and the beloved sitcom Spaced), Simon Pegg – along with co-writer and director Edgar Wright – hit the big screen with the even more beloved Shaun of the Dead.

Their latest is the genre-bending cop flick (and Shaun of the Dead follow-up) Hot Fuzz, currently in theaters.

Pegg stars as a London cop banished to the hinterlands by jealous colleagues, who’s then teamed with a witless partner (Nick Frost) before stumbling on a series of suspicious events that uncover the dark underbelly of the seemingly bucolic village.

We had a chance to chat wth Pegg as literally the last official interview of the Hot Fuzz press rounds…

(Be sure to check out our interview with Edgar Wright here)

KEN PLUME: I assume you’re probably sick of answering Hot Fuzz questions so I thought we’d just talk about Big Train.

SIMON PEGG: (laughs) You’re my last interview, actually, of the whole press tour…

KP: Really?

PEGG: Yeah.

KP: I’m never going to live up to that.

PEGG: You’re the 500th caller.

KP: What do I win?

PEGG: A Big Train DVD.

KP: That’s actually what I was hoping for.

PEGG: (laughs)

KP: You’ve made a small boy’s… well, large man’s dreams come true.

PEGG: You know, they don’t even give me a free Big Train DVD.

KP: That’s unfortunate. But it is the BBC.

PEGG: Yeah.

KP: But you would think that Graham or somebody would send you a set…

PEGG: Yeah, I know. It’s hard to get free stuff from certain people.

KP: I think maybe you just need to start a website, simonsdvdappeal.com. Just “Here’s a list of the stuff I haven’t gotten yet. If anyone can send something from HMV or something, it’d be appreciated.”

PEGG: There’s plenty of it…

KP: It could be your own registry – like for a wedding or a baby shower – but stuff that you want…

PEGG: Well, I was in Dublin recently and I was walking down the street and walked past a shop and, unbeknownst to me, there had been a 12-inch talking me released. A Shaun of the Dead doll that I didn’t actually… I knew it was coming out, but I didn’t know it was already in the shops. So I went into the shop and they actually gave me one, which was sweet. But I don’t want to embarrass Universal by complaining that they set my tiny version free in the shops without even telling me.

KP: And even then, do they send you a box?

PEGG: No.

KP: So, police officers can commandeer a car – you, as a celebrity, should have the ability to go, “You know what? That’s me. I want it.”

PEGG: I know. I wouldn’t ever be so pushy, but I was quite pleased that when I went into the shop they actually did say, “You shouldn’t have to pay for this.” (laughs)

KP: That was good of them.

PEGG: Yeah, I thought it was sweet.

KP: Of course, they went hungry for a month after that because of the loss of that sale…

PEGG: Yeah. Well, what I did is I autographed another couple so they could flog it for five more pounds.

KP: Well, that’s good. I guess if they really want to get on your good side they should have offered you a smoothie along with the doll.

PEGG: Exactly. That’s the way to my heart.

KP: Have you finally fulfilled that dream of having that machine installed in your home?

PEGG: The unlimited smoothie machine?

KP: Yes.

PEGG: No. I think it’s called craft services.

KP: So, you’re going to get a craft services installed in your home.

PEGG: That would be nice – just to have them hanging around providing me with treats. The only thing about craft services I’ve found, working on an America film, is that you’re not hungry when it comes to lunchtime because you’ve just been pecking all morning. They keep putting out peanut butter sandwiches and nuts and stuff.

KP: That’s when they have the most outrageous things available at those mealtimes – so everyone’s full and yet you have lobster and steak…

PEGG: Yeah, and then you get this amazing sort of beautiful pork belly and roast potatoes and you’ve spent all morning eating beef jerky.

KP: So what were the craft services like on Shaun or Hot Fuzz?

PEGG: We don’t really have craft services. We have catering companies that come along. You get your breakfast and then you get a midmorning snack, possibly, and then you have your lunch, and that’s it.

KP: So, it’s literally like you’re in school.

PEGG: Exactly. It’s not like there’s a running buffet – it’s regimented.

KP: You should issue milk cards or something to the cast, and they can go up and get them punched. “I’m awfully sorry, but you’ve had your juice for the day, Nick.”

PEGG: Exactly, (laughs)

KP: “Can I have one more?” “No, you’ve already had your chit.”

PEGG: It is. It’s like Dickens.

KP: So you’re living Oliver Twist.

PEGG: Exactly. That’s what the British film industry’s like, it’s like Oliver Twist!

KP: What was the biggest, besides craft services, sort of culture shock doing a Hollywood production?

PEGG: It was remarkably similar. In fact, that was almost the bigger shock, was that the production structure remains the same. There’s still the director and the 1st AD and the gaffers and the props people and the costume and makeup. It’s all pretty much exactly the same – it’s just happening on a bigger platform. The video village is more high tech and there’s more chairs, but that’s it. I mean generally speaking, you’re doing the same job of work. It’s not like everyone is walking around on gold hoverboards.

KP: Were you expecting that?

PEGG: I don’t know what I was expecting. I kind of arrived in Beverly Hills and stayed there for a few days on my own trying to get over my jet lag, being slightly freaked out because I hadn’t received any script pages. And then…

KP: Welcome to Hollywood…

PEGG: Yeah, and then like received this monstrous monologue the night before I had to shoot it. And turned up extraordinarily disoriented – which is compounded by suddenly being face-to-face with Tom Cruise. So it was a strange but gratifying experience. I went back again and shot some more stuff, and that was a lot easier. I had a much better time because I kind of knew what to expect and I was looking forward to seeing JJ again, who I got on with really well. So it was a good experience.

KP: Well, you and Edgar used to – and it’s more common in the UK, where the rehearsal process is usually a big part of the production.

PEGG: Massively, yeah. It’s absolutely vital to us that we have a period of time where everybody can get together and go through their lines and have time to come up with stuff, as well. I think because the way Edgar shoots, there’s not really much room for impro once we get on the set. It’s pretty regimented when we’re on there because the camera works sort of symbiotically with the script, so the minute you start adding things, the cameraman might not get to his right point at the right time. So we like to have a period where it’s just us. Particularly with Nick. We get Nick a week before anyone else and we go through the whole thing. All his lines. Anything that he wants to bring to it or that he kind of… a joke he thinks of will, if we like it – which is usually yes – we’ll feed it into the script.

KP: Is there anything for which you’ve had to tell Nick, “No, that’s not working…”?

PEGG: Sometimes you do. Edgar and me are quite anal, and obviously Nick is on our wavelength, so pretty much everything he says we love, but sometimes people will suggest things and you kinda go, “Um, yeah, we could try that…” which basically means no.

KP: That’s what you told Bill (Bailey), wasn’t it?

PEGG: Yeah, (laughs)

KP: “I can’t bring the otter?”

PEGG: Yeah, exactly. (laughs)

KP: “People are always saying that to me.”

PEGG: (laughs)

KP: Of course, he was talking about Phil Jupitus.

PEGG: Yes, yes, of course. Yeah, his otter thing was hilarious.

KP: By the way, that was a very good use of Bill in the film…

PEGG: Yeah. We worked with Bill on Spaced a long time ago, and he’s always grateful. I find him very hard to work with because he just makes me laugh. It’s actually slightly shooting yourself in the foot when you employ him for me. But he’s great, and it was lovely to have him in the film. Because we did write him a part in Shaun of the Dead, but he couldn’t do it.

KP: It’s unfortunate that more people haven’t utilized Bill’s talent.

PEGG: I think so. He’s very much still a standup comic, though. He’s still very much a live performer. He does the odd TV and movie, but first and foremost he’s a standup comic. It’ll be nice to see him on the big screen a bit more I think.

KP: I’ve always been curious exactly what your standup act was like…

PEGG: I would say it was like surreal observationalism. It’s hard to remember.

KP: I’ve heard about what it was through the filter of Nick, when I talked to him a few years ago…

PEGG: Yeah. It was conversational and a bit absurd. It wasn’t a character as much as an extension of me. It’s the most immediate and exhilarating form of performance, I think, because you’re validated immediately. Even more than in theater, because in theater there’s the pressure to just sit and watch rather than actually respond. And also it’s you – generally speaking, if you’re a standup, it’s your material. So it’s like the crack cocaine of performance.

KP: Do you miss it at all?

PEGG: Absolutely. I don’t miss the grind of it. I don’t miss the schlep. People would say, “Oh god, it must be the hardest job in the world,” and I would actually disagree. I think it’s probably one of the best, in terms of how great it is. Because once you get to a point when you know your material’s good and you know you’re good, you’re pretty unflammable, in a way. Even if you have a bad gig and you walk into a room that doesn’t want to listen, you know it’s not your fault. It’s not demoralizing. It doesn’t happen very often, either, when you get to a certain match fitness. So, that, I don’t miss – but what I do miss is the fact that as a jobing standup, you would pretty much have to spend your entire weekend in a pub without drinking. And that’s tough to do. I could now. I could probably, if I had the wherewithal and the time, I could set up like a little stint in a West End theater and do a live show. But I wouldn’t want to go in there half-cocked. I’d want to get back out on the circuit and get an act together that was really good, and then do it.

KP: Do you ever see yourself getting to a point where you would do that?

PEGG: I’ve done a couple of gigs recently. I did a couple of little quick shows at the Comedy Store, and when we were filming Hot Fuzz I did a gig at the local comedy club. It was fun. It reminded me of just how much fun it was. It is. So you never know. Never say never.

KP: So there is, at this point, no video of your act…

PEGG: I did some television appearances in the 90’s…

KP: On the Comedy Store program?

PEGG: A show called The Stand Up Show, for the BBC. Which I have, but I doubt anyone else does. They probably won’t turn up on YouTube or anything.

KP: Are we taking bets?

PEGG: Well, you never know. That’s the weird thing – it’s incredible what does turn up on the internet…

KP: Anything that you’ve been surprised at, or shocked at, or disappointed, that’s turned up on YouTube?

PEGG: Not disappointed… Oh, the one thing – there’s a clip of some guy who supposedly looks like me, playing the guitar, and it says underneath “Simon Pegg Shredding It Up” or something. I just saw it the other day. And it’s just not me. It’s just someone who looks maybe… insultingly like me.

KP: Well, that’s nice. And I bet he gets free drinks and free dolls.

PEGG: Yeah. Everything else… I quite admire the ingenuity of people to bother to put these things up. There are little phone camera segments of us at various things we’ve been to recently in the run-up to Hot Fuzz. Oddly enough, I think the most watched thing that’s up there is a DVD extra that Nick and I did for his…

KP: Danger, 50,000 Volts…

PEGG: Yeah. This Danger, 50,000 Zombies. It was this ridiculous bit. The whole thing happened because the company that made Nick’s show lost all the tapes, all the rushes for the show. So when they came to the DVD there was no hope of deleted scenes or outtakes or anything. So we thought, “We have to make this…” And then they were charging a lot of money for this DVD. Nick was saying, “I’ve got to make this worth people’s money, otherwise it’s just insulting.” So we hastily put together this kind of half-improvised survival guide to zombies. It’s just utterly ridiculous anyway, and it’s on YouTube, and it’s had like 150,000 hits or somerhing. It’s quite bizarre.

KP: And now that DVD’s available in the US. I’ll bet half the people don’t even know it’s out here.

PEGG: I know, I know.

KP: Does it disturb you how many people are coming forward claiming to look like you?

PEGG: Yes.

KP: In fact, one of them works for us.

PEGG: Oh really? I have two MySpace impersonators.

KP: He met you a few weeks back and introduced himself as your son.

PEGG: Oh yeah, right, yes. That’s happened a couple of times. Any sort of faintly ginger, potato-headed, snub-nosed person is going to claim to look a bit like me. It’s a cross that they have to bear as well as I do.

Pegg and Quick Stop’s own Ian Bonds

KP: Does anyone go up to Nick and say that? You never see them showing up with a Nick counterpart…

PEGG: We did a radio show in Seattle recently and there was a guy… the main DJ on the show was a big fan and he had a kind of sidekick who was a hefty guy a bit like Nick, and we were joking about him being Nick’s equivalent. And it turned out they were actually born on the same day, which really freaked us out. There’s an on-air freak-out in Seattle on opening day.

KP: Well, that’s good.

PEGG: Yeah.

KP: I’ll bet that’s on YouTube.

PEGG: Well, you know what, it might be, because there was video footage. It was opening day and it was about 7 in the morning, and we went to this radio station. It was our first press engagement of the day. And everybody was drunk. It was like a big beer celebration and we walked into this bar and it was like, “Hang on, what time of day is it? This is ridiculous.” It was 50% sort of baseball jocks with pitchers of beer and 50% are sort of fans, these lovely colorful geek kind of people that we are.

KP: And by the end of the day you had won them all over.

PEGG: By the end of the day we’d won 50% of them over.

KP: You can’t beat that effort.

PEGG: No it’s pretty good.

KP: And now that you’re working on the road comedy with Nick, you’re finally, fully going to become Kermit the Frog and Fozzie Bear.

PEGG: Absolutely, yeah. We’re trying to. It’s not easy when you’re doing a press tour as intensive as this one. We came away with the best intentions of, like, “We’ll ride on planes and we’ll grab five minutes here and there.” But the second that we can switch off, we literally just, you know, (laughs) don’t want to do anything. We sort of lie on our back in a cold dark room.

KP: I found it interesting – obviously in tackling Shaun of the Dead, and particularly Hot Fuzz as a genre piece – within UK films, you don’t exactly see big action pieces like Hot Fuzz…

PEGG: No, not at all.

KP: In fact, I was talking to Edgar about it, that it seems like the entirety of British cinema is in 1:85, and to have a British 2:35 film that isn’t a Bond film is quite rare…

PEGG: Yeah, exactly. Well, Edgar was very specific about that.

KP: He was surprised, and pleased, that I commented on it. But another genre that you don’t really see in the UK is a road picture.

PEGG: Right.

KP: Which I’m assuming is just because of the size difference.

PEGG: Absolutely. There’s no… you can travel the length of the country in eight hours.

KP: I can’t even travel the length of my state in eight hours.

PEGG: Exactly. And you can travel the width of it in less, so that whole thing doesn’t really exist unless you’re doing a film about somebody who’s going up and down.

KP: Or runs a fish & chip van.

PEGG: Yeah, and is trying to circumnavigate the UK. The film we’re writing is set over here, and when we came up with the idea, in the back garden, when we were shooting Shaun of the Dead, it was something that we always envisaged as being set in the U.S. – I mean, it’s about two British guys, but it’s definitely set in the U.S.

KP: What was your perception of the country the first time that you arrived in the U.S. and transversed it at all?

PEGG: Well, we had a little sort of research trip at the beginning of the year. I was utterly floored by the size of it and the crippling emptiness it engenders when you’ve been traveling for an entire day and you haven’t seen a single soul and the road seems to come to a hill and you think, “Okay, well, there’s going to be something over this hill…” and it’s just more road. It’s quite incredible. But then the scenery can be fantastic. We had this day on the trip that we called “awe day”, because it was just… I think we were coming through Utah into Wyoming, past Salt Lake City and over the mountains, and it was really snowing. We’d had a load of snow and it was just… every single corner inspired this awe from us, which was great. It was wonderful. So, that was amazing. But it was incredible to be in a country with such a gigantic population and travel for so long and not see a single human being.

KP: There are certainly different perspectives on the U.S., from a UK point of view. When I was talking with Phil Jupitus, he talked about one of his dreams is to take a road trip across the U.S. And then you hear about the perspective of the U.S. that someone like Jeremy Clarkson has, which isn’t particularly pleasant. I’ve talked to Neil Innes, who did a tour the year before last, and he just was continually baffled in being able to time things right, because he always thought he’d be someplace hours sooner than he actually was.

PEGG: Yeah, because our perspective is just different. Our notion of size and distance is different. It was weird. We’ve had two odd experiences which we kind of hoped might bode well for Hot Fuzz. But on two occasions, both on this trip and when we were doing our road trip, we racked up in a tiny little… it was literally like a kind of a town in Nevada that was just some trailers and a diner. And we went in, and immediately two guys went, “Hey, Shaun of the Dead!” (laughs) But we hadn’t seen a single person for 100 miles. And then we were in Waco, Texas, driving from Dallas to Austin, and stopped off at a gas station, and the same thing happened again. These two guys, “Hey, Shaun of the Dead!” So it was a peculiar thing to be so far away from everything and yet still be spotted. It was both creepy and encouraging, I guess.

KP: What has been your view – as a comedian, as an actor, performer, writer, filmmaker – on what success in the U.S. means? There are UK comedians like Eddie Izzard who chased establishing themselves in the U.S., and there are some that could care less about the U.S. …

PEGG: It has to do with – what kind of fundamentalizes our sort of output, in terms of Shaun and Hot Fuzz, is it’s kind of a diet of American culture, growing up. There is a desire – and it’s nothing to do with finance or even credibility – it’s to do with getting it right. The acceptance of Hot Fuzz or Shaun of the Dead in America means that we’ve done what we set out to do. Do you know what I mean? Because we sort of adopted American archetypes. So, for us, it’s gratifying, because it just means that we got the subject matter right. We’re finding on the press tour that the American audiences seem to respond to Hot Fuzz with even greater enthusiasm than the British, in terms of how they receive it, and that’s amazing. It’s also, obviously – in terms of making movies – it’s the biggest territory in the western world for moviemaking. So you do tend to need to have a presence here in order to progress in the industry.

KP: Why do you think that so few British filmmakers tend to try to attempt a film of this type?

PEGG: I think, generally speaking, British film will be about British things, and there’s a cultural barrier between us, in that we live in different countries and, despite speaking the same language, we have different life experiences and different… the minutia of our cultures are different, and often British films will be about those things. And, you know, what you have essentially is a foreign movie. In this territory, a British film is a foreign film, and a lot of people see it that way. I guess the way that… without ever being divisive or even meaning… using this as a way of doing well here, the thing that we’ve done is kind of take what we’ve learned from American cinema – what’s inspired us growing up – and kind of tried to make those films at home. So, immediately you have the familiarity both home and abroad which seems to have worked quite well.

KP: It always upsets me when people try to say that these films are spoofs in any way…

PEGG: Yeah.

KP: But is there anything else that you’ve seen – besides a road picture and what you’ve already done – as a sort of American genre that hasn’t been tackled before in British cinema?

PEGG: I don’t think so. The UK had a great tradition of genre cinema leading up to the 70’s. And then America kind of took over in some respects. I think particularly when it came to, like, horror…

KP: Hammer horror being the biggest…

PEGG: Hammer horror was sort of bludgeoned to death by the likes of Landis and Carpenter. That’s not to say that was a bad thing, because they came forward with this new horror, which I love.

KP: You could also say the small, quirky comedy type was basically an Ealing type…

PEGG: Yeah, absolutely. But I think, with us, we just kind of want to make the films that we want to watch. That’s always our starting off point, is that we never… without sounding selfish or exclusive, we never really make films for anybody other than ourselves. It’s like, “What would I want to go and see?” That’s how we judge what we do. It’s like, “Let’s make the film we want to see.” And you can pretty much guarantee that the whole… there are a lot of people around that kind of feel the same way. So it’s never like we think, “Right, let’s do period pics or let’s do this or that.” It’s more like we start with the story or just the feel of the film and go from there. The fact is, we grew up in the VHS age, at a time when we were renting films that were slightly unsuitable for us and watching them in darkened friend’s houses, and grew up on this diet of American cinema. So inevitably it affects our own output. I don’t really want to make a film about inner city problems in Birmingham, you know what I mean?

KP: You say that now…

PEGG: Yeah, I know.

KP: When we talk in five years, “I was really thinking about Birmingham inner city problems…”

PEGG: Yeah… (laughs)

KP: “And I felt I really needed to tackle this with Nick.”

PEGG: That’s never going to play well in… the only place it will play well is in Detroit and Alabama, where there are Birminghams. We might be able to trick people into going into the cinema.

KP: Every place has a Birmingham.

PEGG: Even the moon has a Birmingham.

KP: Yes. It’s on the dark side.

PEGG: That’s right.

KP: Is there any movement on the release of Spaced in the U.S.?

PEGG: Not so far. We’ve been asked a lot on this tour, and the problem remains just a simple clearance issue for six… there are six tracks on the soundtrack which we don’t want to change, which weren’t cleared for North America. Because when we made the show…

KP: I’m assuming some of these are dealing with Lucasfilm properties?

PEGG: No, not at all. We have a very good relationship with Lucasfilm. I don’t know if George has seen it at all, but the people at Lucasfilm, I think, quite enjoy… I think they have a vicarious thrill from the dissent in Spaced. Even to the point where, when they released the new film… I’m sorry, when they released the original trilogy without any augmentation – without any of the special edition stuff – I got a parcel in the post which I opened, and there was an embossed envelope with “Lucasfilm” written on it. And I opened it up and it was a card saying, “We thought you might like these,” and it was the three original films on DVD.

KP: So you can get that, but you can’t get Big Train.

PEGG: Yeah, I know! (laughs) See, that’s it. I’m treated better by Lucasfilm – who I have criticized vocally for their prequels – and the show that I’m in, I don’t get for free.

KP: Well, maybe you need to start criticizing it.

PEGG: Yeah, Big Train was shit.

KP: A box is on its way to you. Here’s hoping the Spaced set eventually comes out. Is the door completely closed on Spaced, as far as you’re concerned?

PEGG: I think so, yeah. I think the worst thing we could do now is spoil it. I’d hate to… you know, time and logistics aside, the notion of actually adding to it and diminishing it frightens me. I think it’s best left now. Because we’d want to kind of pick up where we left off, and we can’t. We’re almost 10 years older and it’s kind of… I think it would look a bit weird.

KP: And you certainly did have that coda in the “behind the scenes” features on the DVD set.

PEGG: Yeah. I’d love to do a kind of… it’d be nice to wrap everything up, but I just honestly don’t know how we possibly could.

KP: Do you see the doors being closed on you returning to TV at any point?

PEGG: I don’t think so. Never say never. TV is as valid as anything. I think the thing is, with films it just feels like you’re working in an arena which is slightly more permanent. One of the heartbreaking things about doing TV was that you’d work your ass off as hard as you would do on a film, and then it’s on and then it’s gone. Sure, DVD’s kind of changing that a bit now, but plenty of times you’d feel like it would be on and then the ratings wouldn’t be that good… like, Spaced only ever got about a million and a half viewers, probably max, when it was on TV. And it was quite soul destroying. And so film it feels like you’re working in a slightly more… in a medium that has a bit more permanence. But yeah, as an actor and a writer, you shouldn’t just say, “Right, I’m doing this now, and everything else is shit.”

KP: Are there any arenas that you haven’t pursued yet that you are keen to? Obviously you’ve done radio, you’ve done TV, you’ve done pictures. When’s your first musical role?

PEGG: I did a musical when I was at college. I don’t know if I have a strong enough voice.

KP: That’s what they all say.

PEGG: I’m not a big fan of musicals, either. That’s a genre that we probably wouldn’t spoof – even though we do’t do spoofs I thought Joss Whedon did it very well in that episode of Buffy. I think what has to be in place before we make a film is an utter devotion and affection for what we’re taking on. Do you know what I mean? Anything less… that’s why I think Mel Brooks’s films, they start to fall away as soon as he starts addressing things he’s not that interested in. Big, big horror movies and Hitchcock films and westerns are brilliantly done by him, but as soon as he starts… like Spaceballs. He hates Star Wars. He doesn’t really like it that much. And you can tell because Spaceballs is shit.

KP: And by then, he also had this feeling that he had to live up to a formula…

PEGG: Exactly.

KP: It’s like Airplane 2 or Naked Gun 3…

PEGG: Exactly. Spaceballs is funny, though, because it’s a film that has the distinction of being 10 years too late and 10 years too early.

KP: Do you worry about falling into the trap of becoming your own clichÃ©?

PEGG: Yeah, but I think people are kind of second guessing us before we’ve had a chance to prove either way. The question we’ve had the most on this tour, the one that I trust you’ll finish with, because it would be a shame if you didn’t, would be, “You’ve done cops, you’ve done zombies, what’s next?”

KP: I wouldn’t ask that.

PEGG: (laughs)

KP: You know what? I’m going to leave you with a nice little sense of openness instead of closure on this. I would feel bad if I asked that.

PEGG: But it’s a fair question, in a way, because even though when you start to break down the two films, they’re actually pretty different – in terms of Shaun of the Dead is simply us kind of appropriating a genre as a context, whereas Hot Fuzz we are actually trying to say something about a specific genre. What links them is the sort of incongruity of seeing Romero-style zombies in Crouch End, North London and seeing Michael Bay sort of pyrotechnics in Somerset. They both take on board a sort of American ideal. Whether we do that for the next one or not, I don’t know.

KP: I thought what was fascinating with the two films is that it took the fantastic – and I don’t mean this as a criticism – and made it pedestrian.

PEGG: Yeah, exactly.

KP: It actually brought these things down – in talking with Edgar, we were talking about the ending in miniature of Hot Fuzz, it’s that you literally take these outsize concepts and place then within this easily manageable, and therefore enjoyable, sort of context.

PEGG: Yeah. It was like, with Shaun of the Dead, the whole idea was to try and highlight the mundanity of zombie invasions. The kind of ordinariness of it. And you just do that by reframing things. We didn’t do that much. In the final sequence of Hot Fuzz, there aren’t really any jokes – it’s just the joke is entirely seeing those kind of events unfolding in a village.

KP: It’s interesting that particularly in British sci-fi, every post apocalyptic British sci-fi film, Britain is the only country left somewhat intact.

PEGG: Yeah. That’s because we’ve got a great infrastructure.

KP: You’ve become fascist, but besides that, you’re still there. We’re a barren wasteland, but Britain is still relatively intact.

PEGG: Big Ben’s still ringing.

KP: When you end in miniature like that, you’re kind of proving that it really is about the characters, the films you make…

PEGG: Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

KP: Well I don’t want to end this with that question so I’m not going to. So I will say that I’m glad that your press tour’s finished and you can finally relax.

PEGG: Yeah, as I put the phone down I’ll fall, and there’ll be a shot from just beneath me falling – like Godzilla felled by a missile.

KP: That’s unfortunate.

PEGG: As you say goodbye, you can just imagine me tumbling like a giant oak.

KP: Goodbye… and “Timber”…

##

April 28, 2007
Weekend Shopping Guide 4/27/07: Wright On

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…

Fearing that his audience was aging in the 16 years since his last major comedy special and his only sporadic appearances on television, Steven Wright decide to rectify matters by filming a brand new spotlight performance featuring brand new material. That special is When The Leaves Blow Away (Image, Not Rated, DVD-$14.99 SRP), and it proves definitively that he’s just as sharp – and just as funny – as we all knew him to be. In addition to the special itself, the DVD features an early career performance in Boston, and his 1999 short film One Soldier. Don’t be a stranger, Steven…

Though shaky and still finding its footing, all of the goofball charm is present in the first season of The Drew Carey Show (Warner Bros., Not Rated, DVD-$39.98 SRP), which did for workplace comedy what Roseanne did for the family, in presenting office drudgery and the everyday workers as they were, and not Friends cast pretties. Long-awaited and finally here, the 4-disc set features all 22 episodes, plus a retrospective featurette and the “1-900-MIMI” spoof.

I’m as giddy as an 80’s geek can be, because one of those seminal 80’s faves of mine has finally made it onto DVD. As a kid, I couldn’t get enough of Harry and The Hendersons (Universal, Rated PG, DVD-$14.98 SRP), that endearingly Amblin-esque Bigfoot flick starring John Lithgow as the patriarch of a family whose freak car accident adds the loveable “Harry” to the suburban Henderson clan. Bonus features include an audio commentary with director William Dear, deleted scenes, making-of featurettes, and the theatrical trailer.

Past all of the awards season brouhaha and Helen Mirren’s fait accompli wins, it’s much easier to judge Stephen Frears’ The Queen (Miramax, Rated PG-13, DVD-$29.99 SRP) on its own merits. And while not a glitzy affair, it’s a solid, enjoyable, well-constructed film with Mirren’s Elizabeth front-and-center. It’s certainly the most realistic, human portrait of the royal family to come down the pike since King Ralph (and yes, the latter part is a joke, people!). A great, great flick. Bonus materials include an audio commentary with Frears and writer Peter Morgan, a second audio commentary with British historian and royal expert Robert Lacey, and a making-of featurette.

The BBC’s massive documentary series Blue Planet was a truly impressive, stunningly beautiful exploration of our natural world. Planet Earth (BBC, Not Rated, DVD-$79.98 SRP), however, easily trumps it. Spanning every continent and natural environment, it truly is the definition of jaw-dropping. From the summit of Everest to the open ocean, it’s… well, it’s incredible. I can’t get the scene of a great white shark literally jumping out of the water to seize prey out of my eye. This is also the first release to come along that I think truly merits purchase on either HD-DVD ($99.98 SRP) or Blu-Ray ($99.98 SRP), as it was shot entirely in HD, and the already mind-blowing visuals positively pop off your screen. Really, if stores were smart and wanted to move HD-Players, they’d put this series on a loop. Bonus features include over 90 minutes of behind-the-scenes footage, plus a 150-minute documentary that explores the possible future of the planet.

Check another one off the list, as the clamoring of fans can finally be quelled with the release of the complete first season of The Odd Couple (Paramount, Not Rated, DVD-$38.99 SRP). As if the 24 episodes themselves weren’t enough, Paramount has treated us to a feature-laden 5-disc set, packed with audio commentaries on select episodes, audio intros from Garry Marshall, Tony Randall & Jack Klugman appearances on The Mike Douglas Show, original promos, Jack Klugman’s home videos and 1971 Emmy award win, Tony & Jack onstage in their 1993 production of the original play, and even a gag reel. Kudos to Par for a great set – and for setting the bar for season two so high!

It has no aspirations to greatness or awards, and that’s probably why Night At The Museum (Fox, Rated PG, DVD-$34.98 SRP) is so much popcorn fun, as it wears it fun “night at the movies” vibe on its sleeve. The plot, in a nutshell, revolves around a newly-hired museum security guard (Ben Stiller) who finds out that the cryptic statements made by the two old-timers (Dick Van Dyke & Mickey Rooney) are that the various exhibits of the museum he’s to be guarding come to life every night. The 2-disc special edition features a pair of audio commentary (of note is the writers’ commentary, featuring Thomas Lennon and Robert Ben Garant), behind-the-scenes featurettes, deleted scenes, Comedy Central’s Reel Comedy special, bloopers, and more.

While the complete season sets of the show remain frustratingly available only as website exclusives (what’s up with that?), Mythbusters fans can at least get a small taste of the show via Mythbusters: Mega Movie Myths (Image, Not Rated, DVD-$14.99 SRP), which features 84 minutes of compiled segments that dealt with various – well, movie myths. Sadly, there’s not a single bonus feature in sight. Now, where are my season sets?

It’s easy to just call Adult Swim’s Moral Orel (Warner Bros., Not Rated, $29.98 SRP) a riff on the sanctimonious religious storytelling of that stop-motion “classic” Davey & Goliath, but that would be as limiting as calling the brilliant Venture Bros. a Jonny Quest parody. Moral Orel is actually a very pointed, often very funny riff on the thinking behind a show like D & G. If you don’t believe me, check out the 15 episodes features in this 2-disc first volume, which also contains deleted scenes, the original intro, promos/bumps, a behind-the-scenes featurette, and the (very) awkward San Diego Comic-Con panel (with commentary from both Orel‘s Dino Stamatopoulos and the objects of his drunken desire, Venture Bros.‘ Jackson Publick & Doc Hammer).

After viewing the watered-down borefest that was the sitcom adaptation of his life (the quickly-cancelled Kitchen Confidential), it’s certainly welcome to view the original article in Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations (Image, Not Rated, DVD-$24.99 SRP). The 4-disc set features all 8 globe-trotting episodes that find the hedonistic, iconoclastic chef partaking of culinary delights and oddities in all 4 corners.

It was only a matter of time before we got a James Cagney: Signature Collection (Warner Bros., Not Rated, DVD-$49.98 SRP), and while it’s not the absolute cream of the crop, it’s certainly a catalogue clutch worth snagging on DVD (particularly as Warners has loaded them down with their always-delightful bag of goodies). In addition to the 5 films – The Bride Came C.O.D., Captains Of The Clouds, The Fighting 69th, Torrid Zone, and The West Point Story – each flick features a complement of “Warner Night At the Movies” extras, including cartoons, newsreels, short subjects, trailers, and more.

As we quickly approach Memorial Day – and the war in Iraq grinds on – a film like Overlord (Criterion, Not Rated, DVD-$39.95 SRP) is quite a powerful think. Utilizing actual archival war footage interwoven into the tale of a 20-year-old’s journey from boot camp to the front line is a shocking testimony to the brutality – and capricious violence – of war, and manages to succeed where Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket fell flat, in the depiction of the war itself. By all means, snap this up and see for yourself. Bonus features include an audio commentary with director Stuart Cooper and actor Brian Stirner, a featurette on the archival war footage, a British film tribute to wartime cameramen, a 1941 British Ministry of Information propaganda film, a photo essay, actual D-Day soldier journals read by Cooper, and the theatrical trailer.

The release of the series proper may have ended, but Universal is now releasing the specials I remember with fondness with the Columbo Mystery Movie Collection: 1989 (Universal, Not Rated, DVD-$26.98 SRP), featuring the 5 made-for-TV-movies produced for the 1989 season.

Having the complete first season of WKRP In Cincinnati (Fox, Not Rated, DVD-$39.98 SRP) is a bit of a mixed blessing. Though it’s definitely one of the most requested titles to hit DVD, it’s also one whose release has been held up over the years by the thorny subject of what to do with the massive music clearance issues the show presents, as many of the scenes were scored with some legendary rock and pop songs. What they decided to do in this 3-disc, 22 episode set is a not-too-terribly good compromise, as nearly all of those songs have been removed and replaced either with needle-drop or cheaper tunes – although in some egregious cases, actual scene edits have been made to accommodate the loss of a song, so this is far from an uncut release as fans remember it. Sadly, Fox didn’t want to bite the bullet and get the necessary clearances that would have made the fans happy – a course of action taken by Shout! For Freaks & Geeks and Universal for Miami Vice. It’s a shame, really, because the show deserved better treatment. Bonus features includes an audio commentary on the legendary “Turkeys Away” episode, and a newly-produced cast interviews featurette.

Satiate yourself with a massive Renoir fix via the Jean Renoir: Collector’s Edition (Lionsgate, Not Rated, DVD-$29.98 SRP), a 3-disc set featuring 7 of the director’s films – Whirlpool of Fate, Nana, Charleston Parade, The Little Match Girl, La Marseillaise, The Doctor’s Horrible Experiment, and The Elusive Corporal. Bonus features include a brand new documentary on Renoir.

As manipulative, mushy, and cute as it is, there’s something loveably endearing about Ron Howard’s portrait of child-rearing on the late 20th century, Parenthood (Universal, Rated PG-13, DVD-$19.98 SRP), which features a brand-new transfer, a newly-produced retrospective featurette, a featurette on the casting, and a conversation with composer Randy Newman.

It was only a matter of time before today’s digital technology would produce a series like Dogfights (History Channel, Not Rated, DVD-$49.95 SRP), which takes the viewer inside the cockpit of fighter planes in some of the most intense aerial battles in World War II, Vietnam, North Korea, and more, including testimonials from the pilots themselves. The 4-disc first season set features all 11 episodes, plus the feature-length pilot and behind-the-scenes featurettes.

If you’ve really got a hole burning in your pocket and want to load up on some rarely-seen catalogue titles, Fox has raided the vaults for a ton of formerly dusty titles, many of them war classics. The list? Robert Mitchum in Man In The Middle, The Purple Heart, Tonight We Raid Calais, and Fixed Bayonets! (Fox, Not Rated, DVD-$14.98 SRP each). From their “Studio Classics” line comes Vivien Leigh & Ralph Richardson in Anna Karenina, a disc featuring both the 1935 & 1952 versions of Les Miserables, and Orson Welles in Jane Eyre (Fox, Not Rated, DVD-$19.98 SRP). Some of the titles (particularly the “Studio Classics”) even get audio commentaries, featurettes, still galleries, and the original theatrical trailers.

Not to be outdone, MGM has also unleashed a clutch of vault titles, most of which are eagerly-anticipated genre flicks, including The Chocolate War, Pulp, True Confessions, Thieves Like Us, China Doll, and Von Richtofen and Brown (MGM/UA, Various, DVD-$14.98 SRP each).

You can’t get very much more dysfunctional than the Gallagher family. Abandoned years ago by their mother, this Mancunian clan of 6 was left to be raised by their not-terribly-affectionate (and sometimes abusive) father. The real guardian of the family is eldest sister Fiona, and she tries desperately to keep the family together in the oddball dramedy Shameless (BBC, Not Rated, DVD-$34.98 SRP), the first season of which is now available. The 2-disc set features all 7 episodes, plus a cast featurette and an interview with creator Paul Abbott.

You know, you just never can predict things in life… like mentioning that the official cast album for Evil Dead: The Musical (Time Life, $18.98 SRP) is now available for your listening pleasure. It’s just as odd and secretly wonderful as you’d hope.

Love him or hate him, Al Franken has turned from one of the country’s most prolific and satirical comedic writers and speakers into a political force to be reckoned with, who now has his sights aimed at the senate seat of his native Minnesota. The folks behind the documentary The War Room turned their camera on Franken for Al Franken: God Spoke (Docurama, Not Rated, DVD-$26.95 SRP), a candid, biting, and thoroughly engaging portrait of a preeminent satirical voice in today’s political field. Bonus features include deleted scenes and the original theatrical trailer.

It came and went at the box office, but there’s nothing like cracking out the popcorn and pop for the teaming of Jerry Bruckheimer, Tony Scott, and Denzel Washington in the exciting but otherwise forgettable action romp DÃ©jÃ vu (Touchstone, Rated PG-13, DVD-$24.99 SRP). Pulled off the case of a horrific New Orleans ferry explosion, Federal agent Doug Carlin (Washington) is taken to a secret government location and introduced to an amazing time-shifting surveillance device, ostensibly to prevent crime. Yeah, that’s all well and good, but we all know he’ll use it for that whole ferry thing. Bonus features include behind-the-scenes featurettes and deleted/extended scenes.

In the age of DVD, even a series cancelled halfway through its first season is virtually guaranteed a DVD release, and such is the case with NBC’s serial drama Kidnapped (Sony, Not Rated, DVD-$49.95 SRP), which faced the axe after only 13 episodes. For the sake of the storyline, they were notified of the end in enough time to make sure there was a resolution to its tale of the wealthy Cain family’s kidnapped son. In addition to all 13 episodes, the 3-disc set also features a behind-the-scenes featurette.

If the theme song doesn’t conjure up memories, then the presence of everyone’s favorite uncomfortably over-present building superintendent Schneider is sure to evoke warm memories about another of Norman Lear’s 70’s hits, One Day At A Time (Sony, Not Rated, DVD-$29.95 SRP). The 2-disc first season set features all 15 episodes from the premiere season, full of all the Bonnie Franklin hilarity.

I am by no means a fan of any kind of sports, but I’ve always had a warm place I my heart for the New York Yankees, even if I could care less about the sport itself. That warm place in my heart – and the fact that the set focuses on the year I was born – is more than enough to make me interested in checking out the nicely comprehensive 1977 World Series: New York Yankees (A&E, Not Rated, DVD-$69.95 SRP). As with the previous releases in this series, the 7-disc box set features all 6 games in their entirety, plus a bonus 7th disc and tons of bonus features.

The preeminent documentary film festival returns with its 5th volume of short subjects. Full Frame Documentary Film Festival: Volume 5 (Docurama, Not Rated, DVD-$26.95 SRP) features another half-dozen of the festival’s best, and are definitely worth a viewing.

I do believe that it was during the shooting of the cross-country Dunn & Vito’s Rock Tour (Image, Not Rated, DVD-$14.99 SRP) – featuring Bam Margera’s frequent accomplice and foil – that the now-infamous arrest of Don Vito occurred. Viewing the road trip featured on the disc, it’s no surprise that this rolling train wreck would eventually have something happen.

Though a point of some embarrassment, I admit that I enjoyed many a Gallagher special during my impressionable childhood, delighting in both the wordplay & observational part of his act, as well as the inevitable sledge-o-matic melee. If you remember the whole melon thing, than you might want to check out Tropic of Gallagher (SRO, Not Rated, DVD-$14.99 SRP), a purportedly “lost” special featuring everything you’d expect.

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…

-Ken Plume

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April 26, 2007
QSE News: 4/27/2007
Here are today’s top entertainment headlines:
- Crooner/Thespian Snoop Dogg has been denied entry into Australia due to his extensive criminal record. Earlier this year Dogg was not allowed a visa to perform in England. To protest the Australian government’s refusal to allow him into the country, Dogg says he will not “smoke anything from that country until they let me in.” Australian agricultural exports, especially the crop known as “Down Under Wonder Bud,” are expected to take a major hit.
- Fox has announced that they have pulled the mid-season drama Drive after only two episodes. Drive, a rip off of the hit film Smokey and the Bandit 3, never seemed to click with an audience. To fill the show’s time slot, Fox has ordered another show that it will cancel after only a few airings.
- Filming on the Batman Begins sequel, The Dark Knight, had to be halted on Tuesday when a fire broke out on roof of the building the crew was using. The fire only prevented filming for a few hours, and when it was cleaned up, production resumed. Investigators are looking into what caused the blaze but claim that reports of Richard Simmons being sighted on the roof are “completely false.”
- Geek God, David Goyer, has signed on to helm a film based on the popular X-Men villain Magneto. The film will tell the back story of Magneto as well as his relationship with Charles Xavier. Goyer has promised the film will delve into the attraction between Magento’s [EXPLETIVE DELETED] and Charles Xavier’s [EXPLETIVE DELETED].
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)

##
April 26, 2007
Quick Stop Thingamabobs: 4/27/2007
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”¦

————————————————
- Comedy, thy name is Batman: Defenders of the Night… (Thingamabob)
- And there’s a sequel! (Thingamabob)
- Gnarls Barkley & The Joker… (Thingamabob)
- The late, lamented Dinner For Five, hosted by Kevin Smith, and featuring guests Jason Lee, Stan Lee, Mark Hamill and JJ Abrams… (Thingamabob)
- The golden age of Marvel ads… (Thingamabob)
Have a THINGAMABOB? Send it in!

##
April 26, 2007
Interview: Edgar Wright

-by Ken Plume

After directing a string of groundbreaking UK TV series (including the beloved comedy Spaced), Edgar Wright – along with co-writer and star Simon Pegg – hit the big screen with the even more beloved Shaun of the Dead.

Their latest is the genre-bending cop flick (and Shaun of the Dead follow-up) Hot Fuzz, currently in theaters.

Co-written and directed by Wright, it stars Pegg as a London cop banished to the hinterlands by jealous colleagues, who’s then teamed with a witless partner (Frost) before stumbling on a series of suspicious events that uncover the dark underbelly of the seemingly bucolic village.

We had a chance to chat wth Wright as literally the last official interview of the Hot Fuzz press rounds…

KP: I guess the question that everyone’s asking you – and I should probably start out with – is, what was it like to work with Bill Bailey?

WRIGHT: (laughs) Well, I worked with Bill Bailey before. Bill was in Spaced, and I also did his show back in the late 90’s, Is It Bill Bailey?…

KP: Oh yes… that was a six episode run, right?

WRIGHT: That’s right. And Simon Pegg was in it, and I directed all of it. It was a lot of fun. One of the sketches in Is It Bill Bailey? is kind of almost like a very similar character to Nicholas Angel, actually. It was about a baggage handler. I don’t know if you’ve seen that. You can actually see it on You Tube, if you look up “Bill Bailey baggage handler sketch.” It’s the spark of inspiration for Nicholas Angel, in that he’s the most dedicated baggage handler of all time.

KP: Now I have to go back and re-watch that sketch. I can’t get the one of Bill as the warlock applying for his unemployment check out of my mind…

WRIGHT: Oh yeah, that’s right.

KP: It’s hard not to notice – and I don’t mean this in a negative way – just how incestuous the British comedy community is…

WRIGHT: Well, to be honest that’s more sort of like a practical aspect of it, in terms of, as you might imagine, it being a smaller country and a smaller industry, there’s only a finite amount of absolutely world class comic actors, and all you do is gravitate towards the best people and the people you want to work with. We’ve been very lucky, between Spaced and Shaun and Hot Fuzz, to work with some of the best. There are still people that we haven’t worked with, but it usually comes down to you’ve got these brilliant comic actors… Spaced, we only did two seasons of – fourteen episodes – and when you’re writing parts you tend to think, “Oh, you know who’d be brilliant playing this? Bill Bailey.” And of course he is brilliant. So why should there not be a reason to cast him? Why wouldn’t you want to work with the best comic actors around?

KP: So when you’re saying “people you haven’t worked with,” does that mean you still get phone calls from Jimmy Carr?

WRIGHT: (laughs) I know Jimmy Carr, actually, and he is just starting to break out into doing acting, so he’s only done a couple of films. But out here he’s a very famous stand-up.

KP: Well, obviously his part in Confetti must have been an audition for you guys…

WRIGHT: I haven’t seen Confetti, actually. (laughs)

KP: You know Jimmy’s going to be heartbroken.

WRIGHT: I’ve been busy. I’ve been making the film.

KP: In writing the film, do you – in the process of writing – go, “This is a part we’re really looking at Bill for,” or, “so-and-so would be great for that role…”?

WRIGHT: In that particular case, yeah, we kind of wrote it with him in mind.

KP: When you’re writing the films, what is your pie in the sky sort of, “God, we wish we could get so-and-so for this part…”?

WRIGHT: Well, I think we have quite a number of those in Hot Fuzz. People like Timothy Dalton, Jim Broadbent, Bill Bailey… people who were our dream cast, actually.

KP: Did you write with Dalton in mind, or you had that character type in mind and Dalton just fell into place?

WRIGHT: I think in the case of Timothy we actually had that character type in mind and then later it occurred to us that we should go after Timothy. So, in that case, it didn’t happen straight away but we had it written in notes “a Timothy Dalton type.”

KP: Has anyone that you’ve really been chasing turned you down flat?

WRIGHT: Yeah, that’s happened a couple of times, but I think it’s bad mojo to mention them by name.

KP: Yeah, that bastard Jonathan Ross. I did want to ask you, having watched the film, were you intending to make a British version of Batman?

WRIGHT: Of Batman?

KP: Of Batman, yes.

WRIGHT: Why do you think it’s like Batman?

KP: It wasn’t until about the 20 minute mark when it started clicking in with me, when I thought, if you were to make a British version of Batman and have that driven character type, he most likely would be a British police officer – because vigilantism isn’t huge in the British mindset. And you introduce Robin in Nick’s character, who grounds Angel. You have the aversion to handguns. To the point where, does he every actually kill somebody?

WRIGHT: No, he doesn’t do that. And that actually is interesting, Simon used that analogy when we were talking about, you know, that Nicholas Angel is such a great cop and such a great shot, and nobody actually dies by gunfire in the film. He kind of takes them out, he disarms them. That’s an interesting analogy.

KP: One that you’re not wholly sold on, I can tell.

WRIGHT: The thing is Nicholas Angel is not a vigilante. In other words, he doesn’t have a secret identity. So, for me, that’s where it slightly falls down.

KP: Right. But like I said, it would be the British version of how you would pull off a character like Batman. I’m going to die with this.

WRIGHT: I’m not one to dismiss a metaphor or anything. I love the idea of it.

KP: It was either that or I was going to say really the two of them, Simon and Nick, are Kermit the Frog and Fozzie Bear.

WRIGHT: (laughs) Well, they mention Kermit the Frog in the film.

KP: Which they do, but never the Fozzie Bear analogy.

WRIGHT: Well he would be Fozzie, and Kermit is who Simon wanted to be when he was a kid.

KP: Well, I hear you’re doing a road picture next…

WRIGHT: That’s something that Simon and Nick are writing… I’m not involved in that.

KP: Yet…

WRIGHT: Well, they’re writing it. I’m not writing that one. I might come on board as an executive producer, but we shall see.

KP: You’ve made various statements about the state of British films and certain genres that British films haven’t really done in the past, and in watching Hot Fuzz – and Shaun of the Dead – it always struck me that British films are usually a very 1:85 world…

WRIGHT: Yeah…

KP: I can’t think – outside of the Bond franchise – of any real 2:35, cinemascope British films.

WRIGHT: Well, no. We made a really concerted effort, and we did that with Shaun of the Dead as well. With Shaun of the Dead, having done TV, I really wanted it to look cinematic and I think what’s interesting is that 2:35 is great for action, but it’s also good for comedy as well, because most of your shots end up being two shots – essentially Simon and Nick – and that really works for the comedy. In the case of Shaun, it kind of worked that it had a similar ratio to John Carpenter films. And in Hot Fuzz, we’re kind of making like a prolonged Tony Scott, epic so it worked for that as well. You’re one of the first people who’s actually spotted that, and I appreciate that.

KP: Well, I appreciate you guys doing it. Why do you think that, traditionally, British films have shied away from that sort of grand vista approach to telling a story?

WRIGHT: Well, I think – for the most part – a lot of British films are maybe more concerned with realism. That might be it. That’s a very sweeping generalization, but I would say that’s one of the aspects.

KP: It seems to me that even in comedy, even looking at high and lowbrow comedy – from Ealing to the Carry On films – that British comedy always struck me as being very insular. Even the Carry On films are almost like an in joke for a British audience.

WRIGHT: I think when the Carry On films were made, I think they were making them mostly for the Brits, but the Carry On films were hits in Europe as well. It’s only really in the US that they didn’t really take off. But in Europe, and especially in Australia, the Carry On films were huge.

KP: You’ve made statements about breaking the mold in the past, as far as what a British film could accomplish, and that British film traditionally was largely uninterested in being a hit overseas…

WRIGHT: I don’t think that was necessarily the case with Ealing, but it was when the more recent comedy films have been spinoffs of TV shows that maybe people haven’t seen. What we tried to do with Shaun of the Dead is just kind of start from scratch so anybody could enjoy it and didn’t have to have previous knowledge of previous work.

KP: The one thing I’ve enjoyed about both Shaun and Hot Fuzz is that it’s not just a series of gags strung together. That it does make a point that there is a story, there are solid characters here…

WRIGHT: Yes.

KP: … and the comedy happens naturally within the world you’ve created.

WRIGHT: Yeah. I think that’s very true and hopefully that’s what makes them not spoofs, really, is that they do have a story and characters and the comedy comes out of the characters in the situation rather than just being… I think probably one of the things that people misrepresent Shaun and Hot Fuzz as the most is that they’re spoofs and every scene is from something else – which isn’t really the case. There are nods to things, but the idea is that it comes out of a character structure and characters and friendship. Shaun of the Dead is all about Shaun’s different relations, and in Hot Fuzz the buddy aspect of it is like two kind of disparate people kind of completing each other.

KP: I thought the wink and the nudge isn’t there. In American comedy, it’s all been about it being a pop culture thing. It’s like, “Oh look, you should know what this is, and aren’t we clever for putting it in,” whereas in Shaun and Hot Fuzz, it’s more that it’s in a natural situation in a world in which pop culture exists, and the characters are just going to go, “Oh, that was just like that movie,” and actually reference the fact that “we’re acknowledging the fact that this stuff exists within this world.” Which I think makes the characters much more real than if they were being, again, sly and pop culture savvy in a wink and a nudge kind of way.

WRIGHT: Right.

KP: If that made any sense whatsoever.

WRIGHT: Yeah, I know what you mean.

KP: What was the tougher nut to crack, story wise? Was it Shaun or Hot Fuzz?

WRIGHT: I think probably Hot Fuzz is tougher, because I think that we were working slightly outside our comfort zone in terms of… like, with Spaced and Shaun of the Dead, we were essentially writing about people we knew and experiences that we had – but neither Simon nor I have been police officers, so we had to do a lot of research… and it wasn’t just watching our favorite cop films, but it was basically interviewing police officers and doing a lot of genuine research.

KP: Were you basically looking for strict procedural information when you were doing that, or were you also accumulating anedcotes?

WRIGHT: It’s everything, actually. The greatest thing about it… doing practical research is fantastic, because you just kind of get a sense of people’s characters, and there are elements of a Nicholas Angel and a Danny and Frank Butterman, and some of the other people that we met are based on people, interview subjects that we had. Even though we had an idea for the characters already, when you meet people who are the real people – like you meet an officer who has moved from east London to the country and the difficulties that he had in terms of adapting to a rural life – we already had the idea for the story, but then you actually seek out people who’ve done exactly that. And you just get great information and detail from them. So writing characters and anecdotes, there are several bits in the film that are kind of inspired by real anecdotes. The escaped swan sequence…. The idea of people having to buy cakes as punishment…. The idea of using a local policeman as a translator… that all came from real anecdotes.

KP: One of the other fascinating things – from an American perspective – is to view this sort of action film, and particularly the police force, in a non-gun culture.

WRIGHT: Well, this is the thing, it’s a sort of… and that’s why there haven’t been any British cop films, is because basically the British police are lacking that basic filmic requirement of having a gun. That’s why there have been no British cop films.

KP: But they’re remarkable runners and throwers.

WRIGHT: Yes, exactly. Though that’s not necessarily the case in real life.

KP: Was there any point where Simon was just sick of running?

WRIGHT: No, he really got into shape for it.

KP: When you’re visually trying to conceive of how exactly to pull of and ratchet up the action of a piece like this, knowing that you’re handicapped by not having something visual like a gun, and the ability to use that as either an action piece or a way to end a scene – how do you, in the writing, get around that? What were the discussions that you and Simon would have about, “Okay, well, how are we going to pull this off?”

WRIGHT: I think this is the idea. It’s kind of like with Shaun, but Shaun with budget and time constraints. Part of me always wished the action at the end went a little bit further in Shaun of the Dead. And with Hot Fuzz, I mean, we had double the budget – which is still incredibly modest by Hollywood action budgets, but we really tried to push the boat out as much as we could so the final act goes completely over the top.

KP: In doing that and cutting loose, did you ever find yourself checking how far you let it go, or was it always “What else can we throw in here?”

WRIGHT: Well, I think we just wanted the entire thing to reach a climax and every loose end be tied up. The idea of the climax of the film is – it’s almost like a sort of Russian doll ending in terms of like each set piece kind of comes out of the next and each one gets smaller and smaller to the point – not to give to much away – but the location of the final fight is almost like a scale gag in itself.

KP: A wonderful telescoping effect…

WRIGHT: Absolutely. That’s exactly it. And even, it could be said, like a video game structure. One of the ideas – like, there is even a line when Simon says, “You guys stay here. We’re going after the big boss…” referring to the end of level boss that you have in video games. And obviously video games are mostly based on action films and the idea of like… we really wanted tick every box of having every single action clichÃ© – of every bonus ending and surprise baddy and hostage standoff – that you could possibly have. We really tried to go all-out on that.

KP: I enjoy the fact that it still has quite a British rationale for the criminal motivations of the piece…

WRIGHT: Yeah.

KP: How far off base do you believe the commentary is on that sort of “Little Britain” type of thinking?

WRIGHT: I think even though the film gets quite ridiculous, that a lot of it is based on truth and some stuff that’s quite close to home. You do have that sort of little England sort of mentality of people kind of more interested in a surface gloss than what’s necessarily deep rooted problems. And that probably is quite a universal aspect – kind of people are more worried about graffiti then they are about what goes on behind closed doors, because graffiti is visible to everybody. There are definitely satirical aspects within the film, and the idea that the film can’t truly be slam bang unless it does have a load of guns in it. So there’s lots of aspects to it, in that respect.

KP: I guess you’re also commenting on how outsize and over the top these films are, as you say, by ending up in a tiny version of the world they’re inhabiting.

WRIGHT: Yeah. It’s like a big scale gag.

KP: And you got to do your Godzilla picture.

WRIGHT: In a roundabout way, yeah. I think that idea came… I’m trying to remember when that idea came around, but I think as soon as that came up, as a model village idea, it was, “Wow. That’s the way to end the film.”

KP: How would you describe the conceptualization process, and Simon as a working partner?

WRIGHT: We do write everything together. I think because I’m directing and we’re writing, I don’t really go into a great detail on the visuals in the screenplay, because I don’t need to communicate it to anybody. If I was a screenwriter and it’s been given to a director and I have strong ideas, I try and write them in – but because I’m going to be doing the storyboards, that’s where I can communicate that information. That’s where I’d put that information, really. So if you read the script for Hot Fuzz and Shaun of the Dead, they don’t really give a great indication of what the visuals are going to be like.

KP: When you talk about writing together, is the process the two of you in a room? Or do you go off and write separately and then meet back together…

WRIGHT: In a room thing, opposite each other.

KP: Are you generally on the same page, or do you guys go back and forth often?

WRIGHT: Pretty much. We literally sit opposite each other and just kind of hammer it out. You always have disagreements about everything, but then I think the best way to approach writing is to be completely honest with each other all the time. You never worry about hurting somebody’s feelings. You just be honest the whole time.

KP: In the two films, what would you say was the biggest point of contention you two have had over a story or character point?

WRIGHT: I can’t really think of anything, particularly. Nothing that springs to mind. And even if there was, I probably wouldn’t tell you! (laughs)

KP: I’ll bet Simon would.

WRIGHT: No, I don’t think he would… (laughs)

KP: How fluid, when you actually get on set, is what you’ve written?

WRIGHT: Well, what we do is we write the screenplay, and then we rehearse it with the actors. Firstly with Nick Frost, and then with the whole cast, and basically any good new ideas of improvisation that come out of that we then put in the script.

KP: Who would be the person, besides your core group, who surprised you the most on the day?

WRIGHT: Well, you’ve been in rehearsal, so you kind of know what people are going to do. Has anybody surprised me the most? Usually in that sense it’s kind of tiny parts, because they’re people that you haven’t rehearsed with maybe, like… um… which is very few. There’s only a few people in the whole film that I didn’t rehearse with. Like maybe our mystery, Oscar-winning cameo, for instance. Or the guy, actually, who plays the gas station clerk.

KP: Can you ever envision doing a film without that rehearsal process?

WRIGHT: It would not be a good idea, because I think it’s quite crucial for the… especially if it’s a comedy. If it was an action film it’d be different. If it’s a comedy, I think it’s a really good thing to make sure you rehearse, because you can work out a lot of stuff. If you’re doing it as a drama or a horror film or an action film, you might not need to rehearse.

KP: There’s been an aspect of, after Shaun was a hit outside the UK as well, particularly in the US, that a lot of people were going, “Well, now certainly you have control of the world and everything’s your oyster…”, and both you and Simon were always quick to deflate that by saying, “Well, you know, it did well in the US, but it was not a 400 million dollar blockbuster.” That there was this perception that all of a sudden you two had this immense power, you were leaving the UK, you were going to be Hollywood Edgar Wright and Hollywood Simon Pegg. Do you still feel that people perhaps are overestimating exactly what kind of power a modest success gives to a filmmaker?

WRIGHT: I don’t remember ever saying that. (laughs) No, I think maybe what we said… it sounds like we’ve been misquoted. What we said was… because after Shaun of the Dead we both had offers to do stuff over here. That might still happen, but we wanted to make our second film in the UK. It was as simple as that, really.

KP: What do you think that making a film in the UK, as opposed to the US, allows you? What are the benefits that you see, particularly having made your second film in the UK?

WRIGHT: I don’t know…

KP: Ricky Gervais has been famously dismissive of the British film industry…

WRIGHT: Well, Ricky Gervais is dismissive of everything. (laughs)

KP: That’s the best way to sum it up. Do you see where he’s coming from, in the statements that he makes?

WRIGHT: When he includes Hot Fuzz and Shaun of the Dead in that bargain I disagree. (laughs) He did say that in an interview maybe about a month after Shaun of the Dead had come out. I thought, “Hmm, that’s a bit strange.”

KP: Well, that’s nice of him. Particularly since Stephen Merchant’s in the film.

WRIGHT: Exactly.

KP: But not Ricky. Maybe that’s why.

WRIGHT: Well I don’t think… anyway…

KP: I’m not going to start a feud, I swear. (laughs) So at this point, now that the film is out, are you encouraged by the feedback it’s received? It already did well in the UK…

WRIGHT: Yeah, it’s been great. It’s been really great.

KP: What doors has this one opened up that you’re currently looking into? Obviously Ant-Man‘s on the horizon…

WRIGHT: All of the things that I’m working on are things that I was working on before Hot Fuzz. To be honest, we’ve been doing the press since… I finished doing the film in January. I haven’t even thought… literally tomorrow is the first day when I start thinking about the rest of my life.

KP: And I’ll bet you can’t wait for that.

WRIGHT: I’m looking forward to having a lie in, but I am gonna go and have some fun tonight.

KP: Well, I was definitely encouraged by your statements regarding Ant-Man, that it’s not going to be a tongue in cheek affair.

WRIGHT: No. It will be funny, but it’s not going to be, like, a comedy. It’s not going to be a superhero spoof. That’s not the idea.

KP: A “spoof” is something which you guys have not done yet, even though many people who obviously haven’t been paying attention have tried to say that about both Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz, though neither of them are in any way spoofs of genres.

WRIGHT: Yeah.

KP: But right now, I’m eager to let you go and hopefully start your life anew.

WRIGHT: Thank you.

KP: But as always it’s been a pleasure to speak with you.

WRIGHT: Thank you very much.

##

April 26, 2007
Music For The Masses: 4/26/07

Welcome back again, my friends, to a brand-spanking, new and improved edition of Music for the Masses. Now, with 10% more girth!! So”¦ did you enjoy the trip down memory lane last week? I sure did. You see, since I didn’t have to “waste” actual time writing a new column, I was able to coach my buddy Alec Baldwin on how to better communicate with his daughter. According to him, she’s a real handful. So you know what I says to him? Why I says “Look Alec”¦ don’t take any more of her bullshit. Teach her who’s the boss. Teach her who her daddy is. You know what they say, Alec”¦ spare the rod, spoil the child!” Boy, I can’t wait to catch up with him later this week and find out if he took my advice and how that conversation went! I’m guessing well!! If not, though, I’ll have to tell him how he can remind her of his love and keep her in line with wire hangers”¦ or a rabbit-punch to the kidneys.

Don’t make daddy angry”¦ you wouldn’t like daddy when he’s angry.

But hey, enough about all that folks for we have a full stack of reviews to get to today. Up first, we check in with the brilliant new release from one of my all-time favorite bands, Rush. Afterwards, Double A checks in with the latest from Madlib and a freshman Liberal Arts major proffers an opinion on the latest from Good Charlotte.

Sound like fun? Well, you ungrateful little pigs, what do you say we find out?

Artist: Rush

Album: Snakes and Arrows

Sounds Like: Another clinic in “musicianship” from “the masters” that won’t be heard by a fucking soul because a) most of you don’t live in Canada were “the Man” dictates that 40% of the radio/tv content be Canadian in origin and b) you more than likely think this is “your father’s music.” Silly fuck-tards.

Anne Murray”¦ Greatest American Hero”¦ 8^th Grade Shop Teacher.

I’m sure some of you may recall me saying that the greatest thing to come out of Canada was Anne Murray. Of course, I was just pulling your leg like Paul McCartney getting Heather Mills ready for a good, hard fucking. A complete and total joke, people! Although Anne Murray is highly regarded in Canada by the same people who have, in the past, “highly regarded” “comedian” Tom Greene and “singer” Corey Hart, she’s done nothing more for me outside of being a “chick” that bears an uncanny resemblance to my 8^th grade shop teacher, Mr. Trodick (I swear on all that is holy that was his name). In fact, I haven’t verified this, but I am guessing that they are one in the same and that “she,” too, has only 2 fingers remaining on her left hand from a drunken dance with a table saw. One day, Mr. Murray”¦ one day. We WILL learn the truth.

You see, if I had been being serious here, you would now know that the best things to come out of Canada are those tasty french fries, with a name that sounds a hell of a lot like “poon tang,” covered in brown gravy and chunks of what appears to be “FromUnda” cheese”¦

Fresh from the fry cook’s butthole area to your mouth”¦

*Quick digression and no-shit true story… the first time I ever had these things, at a Rush show in Toronto believe it or not, I thought the Canadians were playing a trick on me for all the crap I’ve written about them in these articles. “Oh, ha ha”¦” I thought. “Funny Canucks squirting chocolatey poo-juice on my french fries and adding your ‘taint pickings! Ha ha!” Of course, that didn’t stop me from putting those fried ‘taters in my mouth (DAMN YOU, ORAL FIXATION!!!!) and holy crap”¦ I’m glad I did. Those fries are like crack (no pun intended)”¦ covered in gravy”¦ and “FromUnda” cheese.*

And the other most-bestest thing to come out of that godforsaken country to the nort’ is the progressive rock band, Rush. In fact, as I’m sitting here writing this, I have on my original “2112” concert tee. Yeah”¦ rocking it old school”¦ dork style. Hey, fuck off”¦ not like I’m getting ready to play D&D in mom’s basement after this. I live on my own, dammit. I have my own basement now.

Now, to say that I was greatly looking forward to this new album, Snakes and Arrows, is an understatement akin to saying that R. Kelley only “kinda” likes to pee on people or Michael Jackson only “sorta” likes to wear young boys like class rings. See, as far as I’m concerned, May 1^st, the date the new Rush album is released, should be a national holiday. In fact, I’m proposing it right now. May 1^st, to me and hundreds of thousands of Rush fans around the world and mostly in Brazil will now be, at least, an official holiday. We’ll call it Rush-ashana”¦or Rush-mas”¦or, hell, I don’t know”¦ Uno de Mayo? Whatever.

And make no mistake, Rush fans and people that SHOULD be Rush fans, May 1^st will be a day of great celebration for it will be filled with cake and porn (hey”¦ it’s my fucking holiday, I’ll make the rules. K?) and some phenomenal new music for May 1^st will be a day when this amazing trio unleashes it’s best album in over 20 years (read: since Power Windows, circa 1985). Yeah, Rush fans”¦ you read that correctly. Bring it on, bitches. You want to dance? Oh, we can dance! We can dance.

Good lord”¦ I wish I was wearing THAT Rush shirt”¦ with her still in it.

The reason I say this? Well, aside from the overall strength of all the tracks on this album in both melody and complexity, Snakes & Arrows is easily the best produced Rush disc in years. There is not a “Dog Years” on this mother fucker AND the mix doesn’t sound like it was done in the bottom of a Port-a Potty. Take a bow, Mr. Nick Raskulinecz of Foo Fighters fame. You done good, son. You done good. Nothing like hiring a Rush fan to mix a Rush album, eh, hosers?

Yes, unlike the last studio outing, the muddy and uneven Vapor Trails, Snakes & Arrows marks a return to form for this band in both production quality and musicality.

You fiddlin’ with my knob?

With searing and crisp delivery and an accessibility that defies most Rush albums, EVERY track on this bitch is a winner. Sure, some tracks are more accessible than others to the casual listener, like the Oingo Boingo-esque, “The Larger Bowl” (just listen to that arpegiated chord progression during the verse”¦ Boingo all the way, baby!), the country-fried, Alex-centrique instrumental, “Hope,” and, of course, the first, melodically driving single “Far Cry,” but dig deep and you hard core fans can be rewarded with songs like the ass-kicking, Geddy/Neil showcase of “Malignant Narcissism” and one of the strongest tracks this band has EVER recorded (and one of Neil’s personal favorites) “We Hold On.” Good shit, all around people. Seriously.

Quite simply, if you are a fan of Tool, Porcupine Tree or even Pink Floyd and have previously avoided Rush as being too “obtuse,” give them another chance. This is your disc. If you are a casual fan of the band, give in to temptation and reward yourself by checking out this entire disc. You won’t be disappointed. If you are not a fan of this band, well”¦fuck you. I hate you with the hate of a 1,000 Oprahs. You make my heart cry and my anus bleed. Keep pining for that new Linkin’ Park disc, “friend.” It’s coming soon and I’m sure that it will be *COUGH* brilliant.

I bet”¦

If, for some reason, you are still not sold on checking this disc out, allow me to put it in the vernacular of my fellow Rush fans/D&D freaks”¦ Rush may have -3 Charisma, but they are minstrels with +21 Dexterity and you would be forgoing the Chalice of Everlasting Orgasms if you miss this puppy. Know what I’m saying?

Now, if you’ll excuse me”¦ I’m off to “roll the old 12-sided die””¦ if you catch my drift”¦

I have mace? Ha! That’s what SHE said!

Up till now, I’ve really dug what I’ve heard come out of Madlib. Granted, I’ve only heard one cd and a handful of songs, but every one of those has been pretty damn good. Unfortunately that streak seems to have hit a wall. Now when I say hit a wall, I mean that the streak was riding in a car without a seatbelt when the streak’s girlfriend asked him why they weren’t married yet. Well you know the streak and you know that he’s not ready to settle down to one piece of poon tang, so he brushes his girl off. Well the streak’s girlfriend gets all pissed off and emotional, like chicks do, and crashes the car into a wall. Since the streak wasn’t wearing his seatbelt, he flies thru the window and hits the wall himself. You see what I’m getting at here? No? Damn, I was never very good at metaphors. Or is that a simile? Who the hell cares? All I know is that this new album from Madlib isn’t all that great. That thing about the streak and his girlfriend. Um, yeah, about that. That’s a story for another time. Moving on.

This album, Time Out Presents The Other Side: Los Angeles, is kinda hard to describe. It’s credited as a Madlib disc, but a lot of the tracks are instrumentals with other peoples names on them. The disc also skips from genre to genre. There’s straight up rap songs on it, there’s some that lean more towards the reggae and there are some that feature hard core jazz noodling. Yes, I said “hard core jazz noodling,” deal with it. For the most part, the album probably isn’t bad, it’s just not what I was expecting, so I think that my opinion might be a bit tainted. That might be why this album initially squeaked in under my radar. I didn’t know it was coming out until I saw it actually sitting on the shelf.

Aside from the disappointment of the album not living up to my hopes and expectations, there are some pretty good songs on this album. MED’s song “What It Do” is a damn fine song. This track sounds like the Madlib that I thought I knew. The beats are tight as are the flows by rappers MED and Poke. Then there’s the collaboration with beat pioneer J. Dilla (R.I.P. Dilla!) that is short but insanely groovy. But these few bright spots only serve as beacons in an otherwise boring album. Even the track by the mostly reliable and entertaining Quasimoto (an alias of Madlib) fails to hit that special bar that he has hit before.

Like I said, this album is probably pretty good, if you listen to it in the right frame of mind. I was expecting a cd full of bumpin raps. Instead I get a mix and mash of a ton of different styles. Over time, I’m sure my pleasure in listening to this album will grow, but after the first few listens, all I can say is “eh?” Oh and the cd also comes with a DVD by Peanut Butter Wolf, taking the viewer on a visual tour of Los Angeles. I haven’t watched it yet. What? I got too much porn to watch.

REVIEWS BY”¦

A College Freshman Majoring in Liberal Arts

Artist: Good Charlotte

Album: Good Morning Revivial

As I was walking across campus to my “Feminist Indian Poetry in the 20^th Century” class the other day, I was enjoying an internal monologue and just thinking to myself “Good Charlotte are so”¦ lame. Anyone that listens to them is immature”¦and stupid.” And so is their new album.

I mean, sure I used to listen to them when I was in high school but that was sooo forever ago. Now that I’ve matured, my musical tastes have become more sophisticated. I listen to “real” music now like the Shins and Death Cab For Cutie. Okay, I’ll listen to a little bit of Fall Out Boy but that’s about as “high school” as I get these days because high school was lame and it sucked and everyone in it was so immature”¦ and stupid.

Okay, I’ll admit it”¦ actually, I didn’t listen to the new Good Charlotte CD. I had a test in “Rhetorical Lesbian Rantings of the Late 19^th Century” and I just didn’t have the time. But I’ll guarantee that it is immature and stupid. In fact, this girl in my “Television in Society: From Dick Van Dyke to Friends” class said something about liking this group, Bright Eyes, so I’ve been listening to them a lot lately. At first I didn’t like it but the more I listen, the more I think I like it. That and this girl is really mature and way hot so I have to hurry up and like this. Man, she is really super smart. She reads Joyce for fun. For fun!! I think I love this girl.

So yeah”¦ Good Charlotte. Totally lame. Like my “Economics” class, “Chemistry” or “Business Ethics.” I mean, if you’re some stupid, immature high school kid, I guarantee that you will totally eat this album up. But then again, what do you know? You’re just a kid. Mark my words, once you grow up and go to college, you’ll realize just how immature you were and you, too, will like bands like Bright Shins. I mean Bright Eyes.

Let’s face it, high school kids just don’t get it. You just haven’t lived enough yet. God, what I would give to go back to high school knowing now what I didn’t know then. I mean, with what I’ve learned in this last semester in my “Knowing Nietzsche” class alone”¦hell, I’d rule that school. And I’d like to see those popular kids kick my ass after I whip out a little Gertrude Stein on their feeble minds. Their immature asses would just sit there”¦trembling. But whatever. Now that I’m in college and things are totally different, I don’t even care about high school anymore and stupid, immature bands like Good Charlotte. I just don’t have the time to be listening to stuff like that anymore.

At any rate, I’d give this new Good Charlotte one immature high school kid out of a possible five. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m late for my “Radical Thinking in Children’s Literature” class.

Well, friends, there’s another one in the bank. Until next time, keep wearing it proud and playing it loud.

Send pictures of your 8^th grade shop teacher, review copies, assorted hate mail and presents to:

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

E-MAIL THE AUTHOR

April 26, 2007
QSE News: 4/26/2007
Here are today’s top entertainment headlines:
- Model turned gold digger Heather Mills was finally voted off of the TV show Dancing With The Stars on Tuesday.Â Mills, the former wife of Sir Paul McCartney, has been facing elimination for the past several weeks before finally getting the axe.Â When asked for comment, a teary eyed Mills exclaimed “I did the best I could, but the competition just had a leg up on me.”
- It has been announced that Rosie O’Donnell will be leaving her gig at The View. The morbidly obese O’Donnell wasn’t happy with the new contract that ABC was offering and opted to leave the show.Â According to sources, ABC offered the porcine princess a $15 million contract but refused to meet O’Donnell’s demand for a “lifetime supply of tasty Hostess snack cakes” clause.
- Spinal Tap is reuniting for a Live Earth concert at London’s Wembley Stadium. The original members, guitarist Nigel Tufnel (Christopher Guest), singer David St. Hubbins (Michael McKean) and bassist Derek Smalls (Harry Shearer), will all take part in the reunion. Not surprisingly, the promoters are having issues finding a drummer who isn’t afraid to spontaneously combust or explode at the end of the band’s set.
- George Lucas and Mark Hamill have been tapped to lend their voices for an upcoming episode of Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim show Robot Chicken. The episode will be dedicated to Star Wars, with Lucas providing the voice of cartoon version of himself, while Hamill will reprise the role of Luke Skywalker… in cartoon form. The producers of the show were allowed to parody Star Wars in return for all marketing and future editing rights.
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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April 25, 2007
Quick Stop Thingamabobs: 4/26/2007
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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- Video podcasts are now available for Have I Got News For You. Brilliant… (Thingamabob)
- Which joins the vodcasts available for both Doctor Who… (Thingamabob)
- And Graham Norton… (Thingamabob)
- Eddie Izzard on being bilingual… (Thingamabob)
- And the Death Star canteen… (Thingamabob)
Have a THINGAMABOB? Send it in!

##
April 25, 2007
QSE News: 4/25/2007
Here are today’s top entertainment headlines:
- Fall Out Boy’s Pete Wentz has gathered some of his buddies to open a new club in New York City. Wentz will be opening his club, Angels & Kings, next week. The “high concept” club will allow patrons to fully immerse themselves in the Pete Wentz experience by applying mascara, hopping into a booth built for one, wishing they were loved by someone and pretending that they’re punk.
- In music news, The Raconteurs are in the studio recording a new album. The band, fronted by Jack White and three other guys that are not Jack White, has 12 songs already written for the album. White said that while he maintains his role in both the Raconteurs and The White Stripes, all this work will force him to cut back on banging hot chicks and his planned drug/alcohol induced meltdowns.
- It has been announced that the upcoming Simpsons movie will feature a scene that has full frontal nudity of 10-year old boy Bart Simpson.Â When asked to comment about the scene, the creators claimed that they only did it to entice the elusive pedophile demographic “back out to theaters since Harry Potter is too old now.”Â Michael Jackson is also said to be very excited to see the film.
- In continued Simpsons news, Universal Studios is set to unveil a new ride based on the popular cartoon. The attraction will be a motion simulator that takes riders on a tour through the fictional Simpson hometown of Springfield. Amusement Park aficionados are excited by the news but have also cautioned that the ride “just isn’t as good as it was 10 years ago.”
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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April 25, 2007
Quick Stop Thingamabobs: 4/25/2007
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”¦

————————————————
- Nothing makes me feel better than a little Rocky & Bullwinkle… (Thingamabob)
- And then there’s Raging Bullwinkle… (Thingamabob)
- Well, you’ve got to recoup that obscene budget somehow… (Thingamabob)
- Stop, Look, & Listen… (Thingamabob)
- All I have to say is “Right on, Roger, and I hope your recovery is speedy”… (Thingamabob)
Have a THINGAMABOB? Send it in!

##
April 25, 2007
QSE News: 4/24/2007
Here are today’s top entertainment headlines:
- Actor Crispin Glover has been cast in the lead role of the indie horror movie The I Scream Man.Â Glover, best known for his role as George McFly in the Back to the Future movies, will play an ice cream man who takes out vengeance on a small town.Â In related new, actor Danny Glover still can’t get a damn taxi.
- The brains (and most of the talent) behind the Gorillaz has said there won’t be another album from the fictional group, however there may be a soundtrack. Damon Albarn said that he is currently working on a film featuring the cartoon members of the band and continued to say that an accompanying soundtrack will be produced. The plot of the movie is said to be “autobiographical in nature,” with the band being continually confused with the band Bush, and how they deal with that on a day to day basis.
- Russell Simmons, co-founder of the hip-hop label Def Jam Records, is lobbying the recording industry to stop using certain words he has deemed “extreme curse words.”Â Simmons said that three words in particular, “H*,” “B***h” and “N****r” should never be used in a recording and has asked the industry to police itself.Â If this action succeeds, it is expected that Simmons will next go after the words “A*s L****r,” “F*****g” and “X*******e.”
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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April 24, 2007