As former President Franklin Delano Roosevelt once said, “Today is a day that will live in infamy”. April 20th has become a sacred day for many “arboreal-minded” peoples. While they have the option of partaking in the fine art of… doobeying on any day, today is the day that it is required; the only mandatory session of the year. It’s the one day of the year that potheads will bend to the iron fist of capitalism. It’s a day for fun and hijinks and Hostess overload and worshipping at the altar of the Domino’s Pizza Delivery guy. Unfortunately, it’s also a day of watching lame “pot” movies. I wouldn’t have the day any other way except for the last part.

I’m not offended as someone who occasionally enjoys his share of herbal refreshment. I’m offended by someone who loves movies. For whatever reason, an unofficial list of stoner approved movies has passed through the generations. A list of titles that you are obligated to choose from should you be in a “right” state of mind. Here’s a portion of that list: A Clockwork Orange, Wizard of Oz, Old School, Half Baked, Dazed and Confused, The Big Lebowski, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, anything with Jessica Alba in it (who knows why on this one). While that’s a fine group of flicks, I don’t know why any rational pothead would want to enjoy their high while watching any of them.

There are ten rules for determining what makes a truly great 4/20-worthy movie. Every movie on the list of traditional stoner movies violates at one least one or more rule. I’ve just gotten fed up with poser stoners trying to dictate what we should watch. So I decided to post the ten rules in an attempt to end this charade of bad situational-entertainment. After writing the ten rules and analyzing every movie ever made against these rules, I discovered that there is only one move that passes muster. Only one movie that can truly stand up as the Best Movie To Watch When You’re High.

I will reveal that movie at the end of this post.

So for all you wannabe bandwagon 4/20-ers, all you Ethan Hawke in Reality Bites hangers-on, all you Wooderson clones, and for anyone else who has ever gotten baked and picked up the DVD remote, shut your lips and learn. Cause I’m about to take you to stoner film school. I’m putting on a clinic, and my high times are free.

The Ten Rules For Picking The Best Movie To Watch On 4/20

Rule #1: No Action Movies

While it’s fun to look at the pretty orange explosions, and completely nonsensical to watch two grown men with their shirts off punching each other in the face, most stoners will tell you that action = violence and violence = paranoia. And NOBODY wants to be paranoid when they’re high. Especially if you’re watching one of those “The Government is out to get Will Smith and the only way he can save himself is to blow shit up and run through a tunnel in a bathrobe while the camera shakes around like the DP for Blair Witch Project got a lucky break. And oh yeah, is that Earl Hickey getting creamed by a bus? I knew that karma stuff was bogus.” Or any action movie starring Jason Statham (British people are hard enough to understand when you’re sober. Also, Crank might be the absolute WORST movie to watch high. Not even Amy Smart’s tits could make that jerky, frenzy-fuck of a movie easy to sit through. Peace brother, indeed.).

Rule #2: No Science-Fiction or Fantasy, Those Movies Are Crazy Enough Without The Weed

Watching a sci-fi movie while high will lead to one of two distinct possibilities. 1. You get really confused as to why a fey, gold-painted robot is paling around with a light-up trash can that can hack super computers, and you’re head starts to hurt, or 2. You start to believe that whatever is happening on screen could really happen or IS actually happening right now and you immediately run outside to see if Jennifer Lopez is wearing a red licorice body suit and is trying to hack into your mind so she can pet your scary brain-horse (that movie is MESSED up, no matter what state of mind you are in).

Rule #3: High Comedy Is Only Funny When It’s Your High Comedy

When you’re high, nothing is as funny as what’s coming out of your mouth, so how could you truly appreciate a movie like Old School or Van Wilder. “Stoner” comedies are especially poor choices as the humor from those movies is derived by people acting like they’re high, but since YOU are high those actions seem normal and therefore are not funny.

Rule #4: Foreign Movies Are A More Intense Experience

Have you ever tried to read when you’re high? It’s nigh on impossible. Which makes having to read sub-titles that much more intense an experience. As well, people talking a language you don’t know are trippy. Confusion leads to you feeling like you are higher than you actually are, which makes you feel that much happier about your decision to be high.

Rule #5: No Movies About Mistreated Food

Why would you want to watch a movie that speaks ill of the very thing you want most in the world at that moment? How is American Pie fun to watch when all you feel is sadness that they destroyed a perfectly good apple pie? Other movies that won’t work: Waiting, Fast Food Nation, the foodfight scene in Hook, Super Size Me, or anything with Rosie O’Donnell.

Rule #6: Unfortunately, T & A Are Not Your Friends Here

Looking at boobs when you’re high only serves to remind you that there are no boobs in the room with you. Instead of going out and finding boobs, you are stuck on your couch trying to put your hand through the TV. Don’t watch anything that will remind you of what you don’t have. Also, I’ve been told that pot leads to ED, which means masturbation is out of the question when you’re high. Why limit your options, or make you depressed that even if you had real boobs in front of you, that you couldn’t do anything about it? Sorry Porn, you’re staying on the internet where you belong.

Rule #7: The Movie Has To Be Pseudo-Philosophical

Every stoner thinks they’re secretly a genius and that everything out of their mouth is on the level of Socrates speaking of sands pouring through an hourglass (such are the days of our lives…). Watching a movie that has philosophical elements is the perfect way to placate a stoner’s delusions of intellectual grandeur. If a movie makes a pothead do what Kuato pleads Arnold to do in Total Recall (that would be to “open your mind”; but I would add to that “open your mind… and go hit on the chick with three boobs”), then it’s on course to becoming The Best Movie To Watch On 4/20.

Rule #8: No Sports

When has any stoner ever thought about playing sports, EVER (other than Michael Vick)? That’s what I thought. So skip McConaughey in We Are Marshall and cue up something like Failure To Launch instead (at least then you can make “Sarah Jessica Parker is a horsey” jokes.

Rule #9: Swords Are Cool, Don’t Forget That

True story. If swords play an integral part in the movie, then all the better. Plus it gives you the opportunity to stage a full on recreation of the SNL Sean Connery Celebrity Jeopardy skit. I’ll take “Swords” for 5,000!

Rule #10: Any Movie About Law Enforcement, Prison, Addiction, Or Parental Guilt Is Off-Limits

The Shawshank Redemption is all kinds of awesome, but not on 4/20. Watching a movie about jail only serves to remind you that pot is illegal and you could very easily be switching places with Tim Robbins should some opportunistic cop try to get the jump on his monthly misdemeanor quota. And as much as we may enjoy movies where parents disprove of the hero’s life choices only to come around at the end and accept the fact that Adam Sandler really is a good father for that untalented munchkin who currently infects the Disney Channel, why watch a movie that reminds you that you’re parents would probably not like what you’re doing right now. Guilt is the worst emotion a stoner can feel.

So, after careful consideration of all these rules, and a thorough examination of the entirety of the known world’s film catalog, I have come to the determination that the one film that stands above the rest as The Best Movie To Watch On 4/20 is…

The Joy Luck Club!

You got a foreign language, sub-titles, swords, enticing Asian food, Ming-Na Wen at her most pre-Mulan coolest, discussions about living life under a communist regime and breaking away to pursue democracy, no sports whatsoever, a random Andrew McCarthy reference and best of all, an open invitation to discuss Pat Morita’s rightful place in the pantheon of pop culture. Plus, the movie is nearly impossible to sit through when you’re sober, so this is the perfect time to bang out one of those “great movies” you’re always putting off because you have better things to do than take the two hours to watch the generational struggle of four women from China who come to America to give their daughters a better way of life (and let one of them bang Andrew McCarthy).

So today, as you honor this absurd national holiday and sit down to enjoy a quality stoner flick, I implore you to heed the rules of choice and watch the only right movie for this day, The Joy Luck Club.

Happy 4/20!

Bangarang!

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Well I guess I know nothing. Yes, Haley was the least talented of all the contestants, but I never thought she’d be kicked off on Latin week. I guess it just goes to show that America would rather watch creepy bald aliens dreary there way through B-list Santana joints than ogle a pretty cool who tries hard. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a Canadian citizenship test to study for.

A solid singing show overall last night. Country Week always goes over well because the songs don’t require much extra energy. You just go out there and belt. For the most part the songs are easy to sing (no big notes for small voices or vice versa), you know the Idols are only choosing well-known songs, so the crowd and the audience at home are always into it. And the fact of the matter is that the primary audience for this show is country music fans. That’s why Carrie Underwood is a franchise, Bo Bice will have a career till he weeds himself to death, and why Kelli Pickler is paid handsomely to look stupid, sound OK, and keep her deliriously fake boobs as high on her chest as she can. Country music sells in this country and Idols are an easy sell to the Country Music crowd.

The irony of the week is that Phil sounded great. Probably the most pitch-perfect male vocal of the night (not that he had much competition other than Blake). Had he done ANYTHING to dampen the alien head I would have put green money down that he’d be safe tonight. But since Chris reached out to the Virginia Tech kids and America loves a penitent man, he’ll be safe. Sanjaya was obviously the worst of the night (everything the judges said about him was true, despite him being so clever), but his crapiness will be overshadowed by the bitchfest between Simon and Ryan. People will keep Sanjaya around just to see more in-fighting between the talent. And as for Blake, well, forget it, it’s Blake! He’s not going anywhere.

As for the Mentor of the Week, Martina McBride, watching her I couldn’t get that one Rocky IV quote out of my head. “He doesn’t know it’s an exhibition. He thinks it’s a damn fight.” Could she have BEEN more serious about her role? I thought she gave some fairly sage advice, but was way too humorless about it. She’s dealing with Sanjaya Malakar, the girl has GOT to lighten up! Maybe her dog died and her boyfriend cheated on her and her pick up truck just broke down and she’s halfway through writing her next hit record and she’s just feeling that pain. Or I’ve watching too many bad country music videos. Either way, she did nothing to endear me to her talent or to her music.

But ANYWAY…. On to the bloop review.

As stated before, I’ve decided to recap the show week-to-week and grade the singers on a sliding scale of how much I wanted to, or did, TiVo-bloop through the song. At the end of each recap I’ll make my pick for who should (and hopefully will) get the axe on the Wednesday night results show.

Let’s break it down, bloop bloop style!

1. Melinda Doolittle – That’s how an American Idol takes care of business. Vibrant, wildly entertaining, fun, gorgeous and technically perfect; pick one or all of them, it doesn’t matter because Melinda was all those things and more. She might even have been sexy. I’m not sure, but those hair extensions and the halter top we’re doing some confusing things to my bathing suit area. I feel like Randy Jackson a bit, because that was hot! I didn’t even LOOK at my remote during that performance.

2. Jordin Sparks – I love it when an Idol chooses to sing a sung originally done by the mentor of the week, and you can see on the mentors face how much they hate it. Martina McBride may be a great singer, but she’s a horrible actress. Girl cannot hide the hate. Unfortunately for Martina, Jordin rocks the eff out of the song. Whoever took her backstage and told her to pick it up deserves a large cash reward. Jordin finally looked interested and passionate again. Great song choice, wonderful vocal, she looked beautiful, and the performance itself was poised, controlled and thoroughly enjoyable to watch. No bloops for Jordin Sparks tonight. If she sings like this for the rest of the competition Melinda and Blake are gonna have some serious problems.

3. Blake Lewis – First things first, I LOVE the song “When the Stars Go Blue”. I love the Corrs version (with Bono) and I love the Ryan Adams version I recently found online. Added to that, I’m a huge Blake Lewis fan. So I had HIGH expectations for this performance. They were not entirely met. I didn’t hate it and I didn’t love it. I think he struggled with the editing in the beginning and was only really comfortable when he took the mic off the stand and moved around a little. I liked the chorus (but then again the chorus is so good, even Sanjaya couldn’t fuck it up.), but wasn’t loving the intervening verses. However, he looked great, he sounded better than nearly everyone else, the stage itself looked great with all the stars on the floor, and really, he sang one of my favorite songs. He’s not getting anything more than one-bloop for singing “When the Stars Go Blue”, I just wished he had done something more with it.

4. Phil Stacey – Alright, who let the alien back onto the stage? If ever there was a way to make me hate country music more, the return of Alien Phil Head would do the trick. NOT a good way to begin the Idol week. The genre itself actually does good things for Phil’s voice. All the notes are in a medium register, which means Phil’s isn’t dipping into his creepy range. He sounds even, on pitch and exactly like every other male country singer I have ever heard. Which is to say, it was technically OK, but I still felt nothing. The problem for Phil is that the herd has been thinned and he’s the only one that can’t keep up anymore. For the vocal, it was merely a one-bloop, but even that upswing in quality won’t be enough to save him. On his best week, he gets the boot. Idol is a cruel, cruel beast. (Oh, and just a note to whomever it was in the audience that had the sign “Hats Off, Phil!” Unless you come from the planet Quarthos, or some other distant race of non-Earthlings, do not ever, EVER (!), encourage Phil to go out in public without a hat. This country has survived enough horrors lately.)

5. Chris Richardson – The problem that Chris is facing is that he patently refuses to change his look to suit the genre, and that refusal is probably going to cost him a week or two on the show. When’s he doing country, Latin, 60’s, whatever, he looks the same. And he fidgets like he’s gonna bust out a wicked run, even when the song doesn’t call for it. I need to see him adapt to the song. Right now he’s just too one note for me. I’ve never wanted to see Justin Timberlake do country, and I doubt anyone else has either; Chris did nothing to change my mind. Boring, fidgety, off-key, dispassionate and full on double-bloop worthy. He’s definitely bottom three this week.

6. LaKisha Jones – The gumption of this woman, again stealing the thunder of past Idols! I know Carrie Underwood. I’m friends with Carrie Underwood. And LaKisha, you are no Carrie Underwood. LaKisha was pitchy, underwhelming and the big note wasn’t even that great. I’ve been over this girl for weeks now, and I think the judges are finally agreeing with me. If she stopped trying to ape better singers that we have more affinity for, she might actually develop a voice and personality I could grow to like. An easy double-bloop decision for me.

7. Sanjaya Malakar – Another VERY clever performance by the pet rock. He goes for another watercooler hairdo, and chooses a song everyone knows and likes to sing along to, which means we’ll overlook the now expected limp vocal, and sing along with him instead of hearing how bad he is. He had the sex eyes on full-board predator mode, he did the dancing behind the judges bit, and he strutted across the stage knowing full well he wasn’t going anywhere. Confidence goes a long way on this show, and Sanjaya has it in spades. I’m disappointed that he degraded since last week. I was hoping he might actually become a real contestant and not some showboating publicity hound, but it looks like he’s going to test the waters of his own dubious popularity. Well to that I say: “Welcome to the universe of Triple-Bloop”.

Bottom Three: Sanjaya Malakar, Chris Richardson, Phil Stacey

My prediction for who gets the axe: Phil Stacey (Phil Stacey phone home!)

The Jay’s Prediction Record: 2 for 5 (40%)

Bangarang!

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In honor of the most hectic day of the year for crazy, on-the-VT-edge postal workers (too soon?), I dug through the garbage bins of the Beverly Hills branch of H & R Block and found a slew of Celebrity Tax Forms. I’m ommitted a lot of the information (such as Paris Hilton listing her occupation as “princess”), but I will reveal some of the more, shall we say, ludicrous things that celebrities try to deduct on their taxes. You’d think for the all the money they make and free schwag they’re given that they wouldn’t need to even itemize their deductions, but apparently stars are just as stingy as us plebes.

Enjoy the list, and make sure to get that envelope post-dated. You do not want to end up sharing a cell with Joe Francis (I hear he cries himself to sleep, but that’s what happens when you have an extremely painful level 10 strain of genital herpes and no soul).

2006 Celebrity Tax Deductions:

Lindsay Lohan: $14,000 for crotch extinguishers

Helen Hunt: $9,000 for forehead wax (and it’s put to good use)

Simon Cowell: $3000 for super-tight, v-necked black t-shirts, and $5500 for being forced to fill out such a goddawful form (he wrote in the margin “What? Is? This? This form is cabaret. It’s the worst form I have ever filled out. Other door.”)

Matthew McConaughey: $62,420 for acting-enhancing supplements (note: this is code for “weed”)

Shia LaBeouf: $100,000 in unmarked, small denomination bills, used as bribary money to the head of DreamWorks Pictures.

Mel Gibson: $50,000 charitable donation to the Museum of Tolerance (I call shenanigans on this one. Attention IRS, this is tax fraud.)

Renee Zellweger: $5,000 for face scrunch upkeep (a job-related write-off)

Nicole Richie: $7.50 for food-related costs (she went to In-N-Out one time in June last year)

Katie Holmes: No deductions, but did attach a Scientology Center-emblazoned post-it note that read “I’ll give you anything you want, just come save me. Please…”

James Caviziel: TOTAL WRITE-OFF (after all, he is Jesus!)

Britney Spears: Audited for deducting $50,000 for “bikini waxes”. The IRS eventually dropped the audit, sent her $50 bucks, and told her to buy some underwear and never bother them again.

Jon Mayer: $1 Million US government-sanctioned payout for keeping Jessica Simpson out of the limelight (this is worth its weight in whiny white boy angst music gold)

Scarlet Johansson: $4,000,000 deduction for the time spent doing sexy photo shoots that resulted in 13 million “first sexual experiences” by our nation’s male children.

Morgan Freeman: $11,000 for narration-related expenses.

Keifer Sutherland: Deep into a drunken rage (otherwise known as Tuesday), Kiefer went straight down to the Federal office, shot 17 IRS agents, defused 6 nuclear weapons, and demanded a $1,000,000 tax refund. The IRS gave him $2,000,000 and backed away slowly.

Barry Bonds: Attempted to deduct $700,000 in miscellaneous job related deductions. The IRS told him to go fuck himself and to “buy some bigger hats, roid head” (the IRS are Dodgers fans, as they should be).

Owen Wilson: $17050.22 for blonde shag upkeep, $26,540 for collected Butterscotch Stallion costs (mostly just more butterscotch)

Ed Norton: $800 billion deduction for illegal, untested steroids to get into proper shape to play the Incredible Hulk. Apparently, as smart as he is, he didn’t realize the Hulk would be in CGI. Norton just assumed Eric Bana was that ripped (This isn’t so hard to believe).

Keanu Reeves: Deducted Eleventy Billion Dollars for entertainment services rendered.

Bangarang!

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It’s officially Spring, and you know what that means, the start of baseball season, a gradual increase in tabloids printing Lindsay Lohan bikini (starting from three per week and moving to eleventy-billion by late-July), Joe Francis giving some poor girl from Iowa a virulent strain of gonorrhea while on Spring Break, and most of all, the yearly mediocre Bruce Willis thriller (not to be confused with the bi-yearly awesome Bruce Willis action movie).

Yes, it’s become quite the ritual to head to the Cineplex in the early part every year and partake in all the wonders that is Bruce Willis staring cock-eyed down the barrel of a gun, looking creaky but cool, and otherwise sleep-walking through a sub par suspense flick that even Jeff Fahey would have turned down ten years ago. From last year’s 16 Blocks, to 2005’s Hostage, to 2003’s Tears of the Sun, and to nearly every Spring since Cybil Shepherd screamed like the banshee she is and got her wish to end Bruce’s television career, nearly thousands of people have looked forward to a Bruce Willis crapfest in the first quarter of the year. And 2007 is no exception.

This week sees the release of Perfect Stranger a “thriller” starring Bruce, Bruce borrowing Burt Reynolds’ toupee, and the utterly useless Halle Berry. QUICK TANGENT: What a waste of an Oscar, seriously. Since we sat through her traumatic Billy Bob sex scene and gave her an Oscar for surviving his awfulness, we’ve been rewarded with the 1-2 punch of Gothika and Catwoman, as well as her sleep-walking through a mediocre X-Men 3. I give Hilary Swank a lot of crap for making Oscar winners look bad in their post-award film roles, but at least she was good to my boy Steve Sanders. What has Halle given us in the last five years? I’d also like to point out that she had to beg Bruce to be in Perfect Stranger. It’s true, I looked it up. She went to his house, knocked on his door and begged. And he grudgingly accepted. Bruce knew she was a stinker. Bruce! The same guy that made Disney’s The Kid, Mercury Rising and North. When you have to beg the star of Color of Night to be in your clunky Spring computer thriller, you may want to rethink your career choices. Or start considering a move to basic cable. BUT ANYWAY…

I tend to like both of these actors quite a bit (Bruce for obvious reasons, and Halle, despite what you just read, kicked ass in Boomerang, Jungle Fever and as a poor man’s Sandra Bullock in Executive Decision), but I just can’t get my git up to see this. I can get passed the film co-starring Giovanni Ribisi, nearly always a red flag for me, but I just can’t help thinking I’ve seen this movie before. Literally hundreds of times. And several of them starred these same people. Take Bruce in Mortal Thoughts or Color of Night. Take Halle in The Rich Man’s Wife. Heck, Lifetime practically makes its bones on the “woman infiltrating the office of potentially creepy yet handsome corporate boss who may or may not have murdered her friend, and oh yeah a computer is involved” genre, it’s their second highest used gambit after “daddy hit mommy at the dinner table and now she’s PISSED, and oh yeah she also has some form of girl cancer that involves her walking through a park as the leaves fall artfully at her feet”. Since I’ve been snookered into one too many bad Bruce Willis spring thrillers (hello, The Siege!), I think I’ll be sitting this one out.

But to honor Spring’s newest official tradition I thought I’d take a look back at the posters for some of Bruce’s more well-known debacles and give them some grades. One thing to note while I go back to the future of Bruce’s movie poster career, watch how his head gets progressively smaller the farther back in time we go. It’s like de-swelling of ego and fame. A reverse star-ectomy. Now that’s a procedure I’d like to see someone get on Nip / Tuck. Preferably Rosie O’Donnell.

Perfect Stranger

And we start with the newest member of the Mediocre Poster for a Mediocre Movie Club. Who really thought this properly sold the movie? Why even cast Halle Berry if you’re not going to show us her boobs? At least Gothika knew THAT much. But worse that Halle is what they did to Bruce. He looks like a disembodied head floating in the East River. Or like Clint Eastwood. The tagline makes no sense in reference to the poster image, there’s a terrible use of spatial relations (the entire left side of the poster is wasted space), and the title is straight out of the Skinemax cannon. If Bruce were still married to Demi she would have laughed at how bad this was. Demi Moore. Star of The Scarlet Letter and The Juror. Yeah. If this movie opens to more than $14 million, I’ll be shocked.

Grade: D

16 Blocks

Posters with a ton of numbers on it remind me of the debacle that was 11th grade Trig, a bad place to start for 16 Blocks when it already has the hurdle of Mos Def to clear. The only thing I like that it’s trying to be a bit of a throwback to the more design-heavy posters of the 70’s. Beyond that, I can’t tell that Bruce is playing a cop (aside from the clue that it’s, you know, Bruce Willis), David Morse is floating in the ether, waiting for CBS to send his latest Hack royalty check, and the transition from the image to the credits is jarring. The movie isn’t actually that bad, but the poster is terrible.

Grade: C-

Hostage

This has no business being a movie poster, and yet I kinda dig it. It’s too dark, it does not answer the question “Is Bruce the Hostage or is he the one holding the Hostage”, and to this day I don’t know if the white circle is meant to be a lens flare or the viewpoint of a sniper rifle. This looks more like the cover of a novel (which may be purposeful seeing as how the movie was based on a book). Despite all those shortcoming, I like that the poster is somewhat obtuse; it’s not suffering from Big Head syndrome, and at least it’s trying to create an iconic image of it’s star. This is the type of poster that would NEVER survive on the DVD, which I appreciate. It’s a perfect poster to be changed into a giant shot of Bruce’s shaved noggin with an explosion in the background, or him holding a big ass gun.

Grade: B-

Tears of the Sun

Have you seen the size of that noggin? It’s like a planetoid. It has it’s own weather system. I bet he cries himself to sleep every night on his wee little pillow.

There is nothing about this poster that works. Not Bruce’s ginormous head. Not the sell line “From the Director of Training Day” (which could easily have been replaced by “From the Director of The Replacement Killers”, so you know it’s bullshit). And especially not Monica Bellucci half in shadow and clutching a baby over her bosom. I call that bullshit the “Hot Girl In Search Of Credibility Trick” or “No Celebrity Boobs” for short. I get that this is a war picture, but c’mon, give us something to look forward to. Some cleavage or a ripped shirt perhaps? Anything to tease us to the possibility that amidst all the gunfights and carnage and Bruce stubble that MAYBE there’s a scene where they stop by a stream and Monica uses her dirty shirt to bathe herself. Am I really asking too much here?

Grade: F- (would have been a solid “C” with some Bellucci boob though)

Hart’s War

When was it decided that a monstrously over-sized shot of a stubbly Bruce Willis was the key art for all big budget military movies? And why didn’t Tears of the Sun learn from Hart’s War’s bitter mistake? I love me some Bruce Willis. I’m ripping him a bit on some of these movies, but there are easily fifteen others that I love. So it pains me to say this, but why would anyone want to see this movie based solely on a picture of his face? To start, the movie is about a trial in a P.O.W. camp, but you wouldn’t know it by looking at it. Secondly, where is co-star Colin Farrell? This movie came out back when he was fun to watch (pre-the awful Ask the Dust, a movie that even Salma Hayek’s bountiful bare breasts couldn’t save, and post-his frisky turn banging future annoying hero Ali Larter in a river in American Outlaws), so why isn’t he more prominently figured. And thirdly, the main reason we go to a Bruce Willis movie is to see him shooting bad guys and dropping cheesy one-liners. So where’s his big ass gun? Why the lame tagline “Beyond Courage, Beyond Honor”? What does that even mean? If I had designed this poster it would have had Bruce and Colin holding some crazy artillery and shooting some evildoers, with the tagline “Imminent Pwnage” sprawled above the credits. And the movie would have done huge business (but still sucked).

Grade: D

Unbreakable

Alright, now we’re getting somewhere. Bruce’s head size has decreased by a factor of ten, Sam Mother Fuckin’ Jackson showed up to look cool, and there’s a creepy blue light shadowing some scary figure in the center. I can get behind this image. Back before The Village and Lady in the Water, a M. Night Shymaladeefreakingda movie was an event. His name was actually a plus. And even though the poster doesn’t actually sell the movie all that well, I have to give credit to the individual elements being used to sell it. Those names plus those faces equals The Jay seeing the movie on opening night (and liking it more than The Sixth Sense).

Grade: B+

The Fifth Element

Alright, now this is a poster! Spaceships zooming around, Bruce sporting some blond locks, the chick from Kuffs looking sexy, Gary Oldman threatening to sick everyone us (everyone? EEEEVVVEERRYOOONNE!!!), some awesome blue lights and a sweet title. This is exactly what a futuristic sci-fi poster is supposed to look like. I like the cast, the art is intriguing and I want to know more about what the fifth element actually is. The entire marketing campaign for this movie was well done. I especially liked the teaser poster that was just a picture of space with the words “It Mu5t Be Found” on it, and the “5” was in flames. Very cool teaser poster design that was eventually aped by The Matrix. Now if only the movie has had been as consistently cool as its posters, we might have had something.

Grade: A

Last Man Standing

Despite this film sucking worse than Anna Nicole’s decomposing corpse acting in a Merchant Ivory flick (too soon?), you have to dig the poster design. And yes it’s a poster for one of the worst remakes since Rutger Hauer and C. Thomas Howell were too busy to come back for a Hitcher redo, but STILL, “Bruce Willis is the Last Man Standing” is brilliant copy. And the shot of Bruce looking tough in a fedora, shooting a big ass gun, with ANOTHER Bruce behind him bathing him in the light of gunfire, what else can you ask for from a Bruce Willis Movie Poster? I hated hated HATED this movie (yes, I even hated the Walken), but I love this poster. I even had it up on my wall up until it came out and sucked, and I was ashamed to be a Bruce Willis fan for the eighteen months until LeeLoo Dallas Multi-Pass fell into his futuristic taxi cab in The Fifth Element and jumpstarted his cool factor.

Grade: A

12 Monkeys

One of the most iconic movie posters of the last twenty years. It’s so good, I bought it twelve years ago and had it on my wall for nearly a decade. And it’s still in my possession, sitting under my bed right now.

Are you starting to see a pattern here? The more we go back in Bruce’s career, the better his posters get. It’s not a coincidence. As actors become more famous, studios become less creative about selling their movies. They stop going for the interesting design or the daring image and just slap a big picture of their face right above the title. I always enjoy early-career posters more than late ones. Another great example of this is Tom Hanks. Try measuring the coolness of the Apollo 13 poster against the dollface Tom in The Green Mile. It’s not even close.

Grade: A+

Color Of Night

As terrible, cheesy and pornish as it looks, I still like the poster. We had never seen Bruce in this type of movie before, and the filmmakers were smart to hide the fact that he can’t actually pull it off (hello, Perfect Stranger!) by throwing the luscious pout of Jane March’s lips right in the center as a distraction. By putting the controversial star of The Lover in front of the more famous Bruce Willis, we stop thinking about how utterly crappy the movie looks and instead just focus on how we guys all secretly rented The Lover to see Jane March playing a thirteen year-old who gets naked and throws BJ’s at her pervy Japanese boyfriend. And in the end, really, anything that distracts us from the fact that Bruce Willis’s donger shows up halfway through the movie to take the mantle of “Most Traumatic Male Full Frontal Nudity EVER” (until Kevin Bacon snagged the prize in Wild Things), is a good thing. Seriously, how did Demi Moore ever agree to let Bruce do this movie? I bet Ashton is payback for this low-grade big budget soft porn nonsense. I hope it was worth it, Bruce.

Grade: B

Blind Date

I’m going to end our retrospective on Blind Date, purely as a capper to my point of early-career movie posters always being better than late ones. I know it’s the only comedy poster I put up, but it still serves my point. Bruce looking trashed, shoeless (Die Hard shout out!) and with a dazed look, a pre-plastic sugery (and pre-Baldwined) Kim Basinger throwing her hotness right in our faces, and the exact right title for the movie; it all come together to make you want to see the movie. Now imagine this poster if it was just a giant shot of Bruce and Kim making dumb faces. It wouldn’t sell the movie at all. But a guy getting trashed by a hot chick and asking for bail money? That’s something I can relate to. Now if I only I could relate to more Bruce Willis movies this way (read Die Hard)…

Grade: A

Bangarang!

Another lackluster week in Idol Land. I can’t blame the mentor this week, as I found Jennifer Lopez disarmingly endearing (anyone who cracks up at their own jokes because it amuses them so much is OK in my book; I mean, I know she’s really a beyotch, but her on-camera persona is very cool. I’m definitely looking forward to her live performance tonight). The Idols seemed to relate to her a lot better than they did any other mentor since Diana Ross, mostly because they’ve watched her become an Idol over the last half decade. She’s the living embodiment of a singer with a mediocre voice but tons of charisma selling millions of albums. J.Lo is a modern American Idol, and the cast can relate to that. She was fun, upbeat, knew the type of advice the Idols needed to better their performance (if not their vocal), and generally seemed to be throwing a good-time fun bash with the kids. I especially loved when she said she had her favorites but wouldn’t name them, then proceeded to bring Blake on camera roughly 456 times for no reason. Yeah, no chance we find out who her favorite is.

My pick for the blame is not the theme this week, but song choice. Three girls sang Gloria Estefan songs. Gloria Estefan is A) not a “singer” singer, and B) not the end all, be all for Latin music. It’s no surprise that the one performance that was actually sung in Spanish (Sanjaya!) was the most well-received. The overall song choices showed immaturity and lack of depth, and that resulted in a ho-hum performance night. I mean, heck, Chris R. sang a Rob Thomas vocal. I like Matchbox 20 and all, but one thing you can’t say about them is that they represent the Latin world. I get that the producers wanted the kids singing songs people would recognize, but I found it slightly offensive to the hundreds of talented Latin musicians that were pushed aside in the name of the four Latin performers that broke through to Pop Music in the last few decades. Not to mention the fact that, ahem, Jennifer Lopez is not a Latin artist. Either do these theme nights right, or don’t do them at all.

But ANYWAY…. On to the bloop review.

As stated before, I’ve decided to recap the show week-to-week and grade the singers on a sliding scale of how much I wanted to, or did, TiVo-bloop through the song. At the end of each recap I’ll make my pick for who should (and hopefully will) get the axe on the Wednesday night results show.

Let’s break it down, bloop bloop style!

1. Blake Lewis – Sure, mostly all of the performance last night were like bad karaoke, but at least Blake was trying. I wasn’t a fan of his J.Lo suckuppage (he was really throwing game at Jennifer, not that she minded), and I kinda hate Marc Anthony and everything his soulless mummy-face represents (with the exception of his cameo in Hackers), but the Blake-factor made up for most of the hate. He rocked the moves, the melody, the finger-pointing and the “look into the camera and unleash the sexy eyes” bit. In a night of uneven performances, this is the only one I’d want to watch again (not counting Haley’s on mute, of course). Half a bloop for Blake.

2. Melinda Doolittle – I didn’t think it was a bad performance, per se, but it’s not like Melinda is gonna be the next Shakira, you know? It’s just not her wheelhouse. But she accommodated herself a lot better than LaKisha, was more involved than Jordin, more poised than Haley, and more likeable than Phil, so she deserves this spot. Pertaining to my careful research of her “shy” persona, I’m leaning evermore to the belief that it might just be a hoax. She’s getting just a touch too confident up there. She batted away Simon’s assaults like Tom Cruise evading “are you gay” questions. Could she just be a fast learner? Maybe. But my money is on the whole persona being a very clever ruse.

3. Sanjaya Malakar – I’m the first to admit when I’m wrong, so here I go: Sanjaya was good last night. He was the only Idol to sing in Spanish, which gives him a ton of cred. He toned down the wild and crazy stage act, which was a welcome relief. And for the first time, I could see him as an actual pop star. That being said, I agree with Simon that the vocal was still not great, and that he was too quiet and mumbly for most of the song. But those complaints pale in comparison to the other things he did well. This was the first time in many, many weeks that I remembered why I originally picked Sanjaya as one of my horses. Welcome to the universe of Sanjaya, indeed. One-bloop for the surging (and possibly legit) Sanjaya.

4. Jordin Sparks – Ho hum. That’s about all I have to say about that. She looked bored, she sang bored and I was bored watching it. I got the distinct feeling she was treading water. She has a lot of support out there, so all she has to do until the finale is give a medium-energy performance and she’ll be fine. She’s still three or four weeks from being in any real danger, so I get the tread, but I’m still not pleased by it. I haven’t wanted to double-bloop her in a while, but last night she deserved it.

5. Haley Scarnato – I hate that Simon won’t expand on Haley beyond her beautiful legs, but I guess that’s all he can do. No, she is not a great vocalist, but let’s be real, neither was Katherine McPhee. They both pushed the sex angle, and look where it got McPhee. To the finals. Will Haley get that far? No, she’s probably gone next week, but I do believe it is her right to use any angle she can to stay on the show. And I also want to point out that Simon put her through to the top 24, and to the top 12, and America has kept her around for another month, so how bad could she REALLY be? I shouldn’t get worked up though, because she has a .5% chance of getting kicked off tonight. You don’t kick off the Latin girl on Latin week. It would be like kicking Blake off during Hip-Hop week, or LaKisha during Aretha Franklin week, or Phil during Creepy Alien Tonal Assault week. As always, a no-bloop on mute, and a double bloop with the volume up.

6. Chris Richardson – I can’t stress this enough: Rob Thomas does not equal Latin music. That’s why you shouldn’t do a Santana song on American Idol (Phil, listen close here). Santana’s music is about the music, not about the singing, which is why he does so many duets. “Smooth” is a great song, admittedly, but you don’t get points for picking it, just because a Mexican guy played the guitar behind the vocal. Chris has been pulling a bad karaoke bit for a few weeks now, and this time he needs to be punished for it. Put him in the bottom three until he learns to find his own voice, and not Justin Timberlake’s or any other well-known white male solo performer. A double-bloop to Chris R.

7. LaKisha Jones – When are people going to finally come to my side of the fence about LaKisha? She has no range! She can’t do anything on stage other than belt a big note! She has no charisma! And she keeps ignoring the mentor’s advice, which does nothing to make the “bitch” vibe go away! Whenever she picks a song that doesn’t have big, blow-the-doors notes she botches it, and last night was no exception. The hyper-speed lyrics tripped her up, as did the moving around. I can usually just tune out the garbage and wait for her to nail at least a piece of the song, but I was S.O.L. last night. I wasn’t able to get a thing out her. Triple-bloop to the stumbling LaKisha.

8. Phil Stacey – Like this was a surprise? I doubt anyone beyond Phil and his wife thought he could convincingly pull off a Latin song (and his wife was probably lying so he’d agree to change the baby’s diaper). What I said about Chris goes doubly for Phil, as the Bald One lacks Chris’s inherent likeability. Phil will always have his ungainly looks to overcome, so he’s started under par every time. For him to stay on each week he has to excel at every other point and he stumbled multiple times last night. His voice cracked, he put the emphasis on the wrong syllable for the last note, he was stiff in his movements, and Jennifer was right, he didn’t connect to the lyrics. The only good thing I can say about Phil is that at least he wore a freaking hat, and thus kept the creepy to a minimum.

Bottom Three: Phil Stacey, Chris Richardson, LaKisha Jones

My prediction for who gets the axe this week: LaKisha Jones (this was right about the time Mandisa was kicked off last year. Coincidence, I think not.)

The Jay’s Prediction Record So Far: 2 for 4 (50%)

Bangarang!

How do you spell credibility? “T-H-E-J-A-Y”. Not only did I nail the ouster last week (smell you later, FrankenSligh), but I also pegged the correct bottom three. I am the unofficial Idol Kreskin. The Mandalay Bay should hire to me to work their sportsbook and take crazy Idol bets like “will Haley start her performance on the steps” (5-2), “will Melinda put her hand to her mouth to express wonder that she’s receiving a compliment (even)” “How many times will Paula Abdul clap like a seal” (+5 and the points). Aside from correctly predicting that King Kong would tank, this is my proudest prophetic moment.

Now to tonight’s show, I thought it was a letdown. I got the feeling nobody was putting that much effort into it. The train kept rolling, shaky singers were shaky, great singers were great, Seacrest was dapper and the judges were as evasive with Sanjaya as ever. Nothing was a surprise. Tony Bennett was a classy choice for a mentor, but didn’t provide nearly as much insight into singing as Lulu or even Gwen Stefani did. This may have something to do with Bennett being roughly 136 years old. The Idols all acted as if he was the Grandfather you don’t want to get close to because he smells like menthol and death. The Idol kids (as well as most of the viewing audience) have no connection with classic American standards. They know the songs because it’s natural to know them, but it means nothing to them (Look at the disparity in how Gina and Tony looked at “Smile”.). Blake looked like was doing a bad karaoke set at Dimples; he sucked for the first time in the competition, and I don’t think it’s a coincidence.

I understand that the Idols need to be pushed to sing multiple genres and styles. But it does them (and us) no good if they ALL can’t pull it off. Of course Melinda would own this, she’s a throwback. But was there any doubt that Jordin, Haley, Gina and Sanjaya would trip up? That Chris R was going to do anything but Mraz his way through a sixty year-old tune? That LaKisha would find the one tune that let her belt out the final note and flap her arms faux-Diva style? It was all just too predictable. Go outside the box to test these kids. Have them all do electronica or house or speed metal. Have the guys sing girls songs and the girls sing guys songs. Make Gina sing Shakira and Blake sing Milli Vanilli. Force Melinda to sing Ashlee Simpson and LaKisha sing All-American Rejects. If this is really nothing more than a national karaoke contest, than get these kids drunk and pitch them the hell out of their comfort zone. They’re all coasting by on guile, when they should be fighting tooth and nail with guts and grit. Heck, the only one who’s really fighting this season is Sanjaya. This must change.

As stated before, I’ve decided to recap the show week-to-week and grade the singers on a sliding scale of how much I wanted to, or did, TiVo-bloop through the song. At the end of each recap I’ll make my pick for who should (and hopefully will) get the axe on the Wednesday night results show.

Let’s break it down, bloop bloop style!

1. Melinda Doolittle – I was sitting at my Passover Seder, you know, talking about Moses and not eating bread, and American Idol came up. Tony Bennett is the big time for my Mom and she asked me what I expected to see tonight. The first thing out of my mouth? That I’d give her two-to-one odds Tony adopts Melinda right on the spot. Seriously, like she wasn’t gonna be his star pupil? She’s the like the short, black, no-necked daughter he never had! Liked the hair, dug the dress, agreed with the song choice, was impressed with her attempts at being “jazzy”, and secretly recoiled at all her odd facial ticks. Girlfriend needs to get those under control, lest she fall into prey to a surprise one-bloop. For now though, it’s all good, she’s still the one to beat. (One last thought… is it me or is Melinda kind of developing a “look thoughtful while they tell me how much I kick ass” face? More as this develops…)

2. Chris Richardson – So that’s what it looks like to see Justin Timberlake sing a Standard. Huh? Not bad. Not too bad at all. This was the first time I liked Chris R. more than Blake. Warrants mentioning. A thoroughly pleasing no-bloop performance. He will not be in the bottom three this week. Though I’d warn Chris not to look so contradictorily grungy. A pressed vest and shirt with a cool cap looks smooth and GQ, but ripped jeans and Vans make the ensemble look like a reject idea for the fourteenth Mark Wahlberg Details magazine cover. Either dress up all the way, or rock the slacker look whole-heartedly. Halfway class eventually becomes no class at all.

3. Jordin Sparks – I’d bet green money that if you had to grade the idols on consistency week–to-week, Jordin would be right at the top of the list. If she had half even the stage or vocal experience of Melinda, this competition would be a walk. I like the comparisons she’s drawing to Kelly Clarkson (young, fun, not cynical about the business). I’m officially considering her the dark horse to sucker punch Mindy Doo off the Season Six throne. No bloops for you Jordin, way to work the precociousness.

4. Blake Lewis – I got a bad feeling about this night the second Blake started singing. This particular group of Idols has exactly zero love for music history, and as such, is in no way capable of relating to this style of music. Blake tried his damnedest to keep me interested, but there’s not much he can do. The kid is super-talented, can entertain like gangbusters, but tonight he was a pizzazz-filled one and a half-bloop. Also, and this is not his fault, anytime I hear a Bobby Darin song now I immediately think of the atrocious Kevin Spacey movie Beyond the Sea, and how far Keyser Soze has fallen. The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he was an A-list actor. And like that, his box office was gone…

5. Gina Glocksen – The Glock made Tony Bennett tear up! That’s an automatic exemption from the Bottom Three if I’ve ever seen one. I really enjoyed being able to hear a clean vocal from Gina; I was quietly thrilled to see that when she’s not aping Amy Lee she actually has quite a pretty voice. The stillness and the sentimentality worked for her. The hair on the other hand, is a whole other story. What was with the tied-back braid bangs? Yelch! As per the bloopage… a few weeks ago I wrote and directed a ten-minute play that was produced in a one-act show in North Hollywoood. One of the other one-acts used “Smile” as its soundtrack, and I was forced to sit through the snorefest eight freaking times. So despite my enjoyment of The Glock, I had to double-bloop her on principle. I will never get those cumulative eighty minutes of my life back.

6. Haley Scarnato – She has got to stop opening her performances on the steps. The whole “starting my set sitting so I can stand up and reveal my legendary gams” gimmick has gotten stale too quick. She was always going to need to back up the awesome body with a matching acceptable voice, and in that regard, she failed tonight. In fact, I’d say she failed on all accounts this week. She inadvertently dogged the importance of Randy and Paula, she threw crazy mad dog looks at Simon after he only spoke about her body (do not throw attitude at Simon, he will unleash a vendetta against you. See Sligh, Chris, for further information), she got a harsh buzz from Tony Bennett, and I was tempted to TRIPLE-bloop her (though Paula was right, Haley looks GOOD in green). I’ve got a bad feeling that the aesthetic quality of American Idol Season Six is about to take a severe downturn. I’d like to give my girl one more week to roll by on looks, but I don’t know, I think she may be toast.

7. Phil Stacey – Can someone please put some blush on Mr. Klaatu Barakta Niktu? I’ve never been so creeped out by a human being singing an American standard. Even though the song was right in his wheelhouse, I had trouble taking him seriously. How can you not focus on how otherworldly he looks? Call it a double-bloop for the look, but a surprise one-bloop for the vocal. Also, someone needs to up Paula’s Klonopin dosage. Ain’t no way Phil Stacey resembles a young Frank Sinatra. Maybe a young alien Hugh Jackman in The Fountain, but definitely not a Junior Chairman of the Board.

8. LaKisha Jones – And thus begins the downfall of LaKisha. She looked pretty good, yes, but she was off-key, pitchy, boring and far too dependent on the big notes to coast her through the rough small ones. I hate that the judges are conspiring to keep her around by not slamming her full board. They have to know she’s not as good as they’re making her out to be. The beeyotch vibe was in full effect tonight; I hated this performance. Triple-bloops all the way.

9. Sanjaya Malakar – “Welcome to the universe of Sanjaya”. I think I might have turned a corner on this kid. He still sucks, don’t get me wrong. His white suit and slicked back hair made him look like the worst kind of dinner waiter. Simon hates the kid so much he’s trying some reverse juju on him. Even Randy (!) admits he sucks huge donkey balls. But the kid’s got confidence to burn, and I have to show some respect. He’s gone from a timid young boy who can’t sing, to a “fuck you if you can’t take a joke” boy who still can’t sing, but at least he might drop an F–bomb or two. It’s a welcome transition. If I absolutely have to watch him every week (when I’m not triple-blooping him, natch), at least I get to see him spar with Simon. I say bring the trainwreck back!

Bottom Three: Gina Glocksen, LaKisha Jones, Haley Scarnato

My prediction for who gets the axe this week: “Legs” Scarnato (boo!)

The Jay’s Prediction Record So Far: 2 for 3 (66%)

Bangarang!

It rarely occurs to us what happens to video game characters after we beat the game. We tend to shut the game system off and go have some apple slices, but what becomes of the avatars of our gaming success?

For all intents and purposes, we’re watching these characters go about their day jobs. We have absolutely no idea what they do at night, or how they handled the glory of defeating the big boss, saving the princess or winning the race. Sure, some go on to sequels and cartoon shows and ill-advised live action movies, but for the majority of video game characters, once the credits roll, they are on their own.

And some can’t handle that kind of pressure.

Pac-Man buckled under the strain of his success. World renowned for his dot-eating and blue ghost devouring prowess, Pac was unable to acclimate to life as a celebrity. As the following video will attest, his life is a cautionary tale for all legendary 8-bit heroes trying to make it in the real world. What you are about to see may shock you. Pray for Mrs. Pac-Man. Pray for her.

(Video courtesy of the awesome website Super Deluxe!)

Watching that utterly hilarious rundown of Pac-Man’s descent into debauchery piqued my interest in learning about the afterlives of other classic video game characters. I became obsessed with tracking them down and hearing their stories of survival. Did they parlay their acclaim into a lucrative Super Sweet Sixteen Birthday Party Appearance business? Did they put their trust into the wrong animators and throw their lives down the drain? Did they become addicted to gold coins? I had to know.

So with my crack team of researchers (code names: Wikipedia, Google Search, Shit I Made Up), I went about uncovering what went down after the red Power light went off. After many years of hard work, I am proud to finally present:

Classic Video Game Character Epilogues

Frogger: After successfully navigating the busy streets of Metropolis for nearly two decades, Frogger was killed in a malicious aluminum bat attack. Two teenage boys later confessed to the crime, claiming: “Uh, huh huh, Frog Baseball rules!” “Yeah, heheheheh, Butthead licked his butt and got dizzy. It was cool.”

Samus Aran: After successfully defeating Mother Brain and completing her service in the military, Samus went on to pursue her greatest love: beach volleyball. She was part of a championship winning two-girl team until a betting scandal rocked the sport. She was implicated in a large scale point shaving scandal, and was given a life-time ban from the sport. Depressed, disgraced and in debt to her eyeballs, but with a body to burn (not to mention the ability to bend into a ball and roll around), Samus was forced to make ends meet as the featured Tuesday afternoon dancer at the Sparkle Spot Nudie Bar in San Antonio, Texas. If you look carefully during a private lap dance you can still see her bikini tan lines.

Mario: Is a pederast, and listed on the National Sex Offenders Watch List. The former plumber who shot to fame by saving the princess, only to be later implicated in her kidnapping, Mario was arrested and formally charged with felony sexual assault after he was busted in a sting operation that found him offering “free mustache rides” to kids in the park, in exchange for them “powering him up” or scoring him some “fireball plant”. He subsides on welfare and charitable donations. Find him on MySpace at www.MySpace.com/SuperMarioToucher.

Luigi: Abandoned by Brother Mario during an especially difficult water level. He eventually swam to shore on an unknown south Pacific island owned by the Hanso Foundation. He was never heard from again.

Toad: Found in a wheat field and accidentally smoked by a group of confused University of Wisconsin sophomores.

Link: The Wii Link is not the real Link. Nintendo 64 Link had grown so rich, he wanted to retire. So he took Wii Link into his cabin and told him his secret. “I am not the real Link,” he said. “My name is Ryan, I inherited the sword from the previous Link, just as you will inherit it from me. The man I inherited it from (SNES Link) is not the real Link either. His name was Cummerbund. The real Link (NES) has been retired 15 years and is living like a king in Patagonia.”

Ninja Gaiden: Works in the private sector as an Assassin for Hire. He claims responsibility for over 20 high profile deaths, none of which can be confirmed because, you know, he’s a ninja. He’s currently on assignment in the Orient tracking famed celebrity whale, Steven Seagal, for termination. Shhh… don’t tell anyone.

King Hippo: After a high cholesterol scare that resulted in a deep depression, the King decided to go on the Jared from Subway diet. Eating only two six inch turkey sandwiches (on wheat) per day, the King lost more than 200 pounds in less than ten months. Unfortunately, the newly thin King lost all his street cred and was run out of the boxing world. In an effort to shed his tarnished image, the King changed his name to Jonathan H. Ippo, and is now selling life insurance for State Farm in Tacoma, Washington. But though his name and occupation may have changed, his pants will still fall down if you punch him in the stomach.

Donkey Kong: Became a renowned Hollywood monkey stand-in, natch (Though he’s a touch disgruntled at being passed over for the Peter Jackson King Kong remake. They went with the uppity ape from Mighty Joe Young. Charlize Theron’s name has weight in this town, after all. DK was forced to take a lesser paying job as Robin Williams’ stand-in on RV, just to make ends meet. Hollywood is a cruel, cruel place.).

Simon Belmont: Married a nice Transylvanian town girl, became a father of twelve children, and lived out his days in peace. Occasionally he whips local boys for stepping on his rose bushes.

Double Dragon Brothers: After a vicious fight over the hand of lady love Marian (who was actually two-timing them with Ryu from Street Fighter), the Lee brothers had a falling out and have vowed never to speak to each other again. Billy took it the hardest and is now a drunk begging for change and challenging random pigeons to fistfights, in New York City. Jimmy moved to Hollywood and tried to make it as an actor. He didn’t. He currently works four days a week as a Non-Union background actor. His claim to fame is that he once crossed in front of David Caruso during one of his “put the glasses on and emote” scenes in an episode of CSI: Miami. When the director yelled “Cut”, Caruso spit in Jimmy’s face and cursed the Lee family. The lesson as always, do not fuck with Horatio Caine’s eye line.

Sonic the Hedgehog: Meth addict.

The Paperboy: Ambitious to a fault, the Paperboy excelled through the ranks of his daily newspaper, eventually becoming the Editor-in-Chief. After breaking the famous Nintendo Thumb Conspiracy story, he wrote a tell-all book that sold millions of copies. He went on to conquer the stock market, made a mint on foreign gun exportation and decades later is now the multi-billion dollar owner of a global news corporation. Though he was never originally given a name, he has taken to using the one he created for himself. You know him now as Rupert Murdoch.

Contra Commandos: Honorably discharged from the Commando Corps. Currently reside in Oceanside, California, where the two former soldiers run a T-shirt hut. Their best selling shirt has the Konami Code design “Up Up Down Down Left Right Left Right B A Select Start” on it. They occasionally make appearances at state fairs, and are quite content with their lives.

Lara Craft: Retired from tomb raiding and moved to Hollywood to become a socialite. Is a frequent figure in supermarket tabloids like US Magazine. Recently gave birth to her second illegitimate child (Randy Spelling is rumored to be the father), shaved her head, bought a diseased ferret, had a botched boob reduction, got addicted to coke, stopped eating foods that didn’t end in “iggarette”, guest starred on Two and a Half Men as one of Charlie Sheen’s conquests, got into a fistfight at Hyde with Shauna Moakler and escaped the Promises Rehab Facility twice. She is repped by Endeavor. Her romance-themed reality series “Hearts and Craft” premieres this fall on Vh1.

Bangarang!

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Regular Intervals of Will Arnett.

Let’s start the month of April out with some GOB-times. Check out some great Monday Morning Hilarity with these promo clips from the new mediocre “Look, I’m a racist, sexist, ugly, fat bufoon who says outrageous things and am therefore lovable” Will Ferrell suckfest, Blades of Glory (Jon Heder’s dying career also co-stars, not that it matters). The film is currently in theaters, not that you needed the reminder.

Here are some more random reasons why I miss Arrested Developments:

• The world’s first Analrapist!

• Ron Howard actually entertaining me.

• “Yeah, the guy wearing the $4,000 suit is holding the elevator for the guy who doesn’t make that in four months. Come on.”

• Because is the show were still on, Tony Hale would not be on Andy Barker P.I., thus increasing the hypothetical chances that that show would not have pushed 30 Rock off the air and thus denying me my weekly awesomeness that is Jack Donaughey. Fucking Andy Richtner! How many different ways can we say “go away” before you stop wasting network air time with your second banana shtick? Conan doesn’t even miss you anymore. Take note!

• “on the next Arrested Development” airing scenes that never appear in the next episode, but do happen in the continuity of the actual series. Love that.

• Europe’s “The Final Countdown”. Whenever I hear that song now I automatically expect to see some doing card tricks or flailing around on stage while tons of pennies accidentally fling from his sleeves.

• The Bob Loblaw Law Blog

• Alia Shawkat turning into a pretty impressive pre-approved hottie. Also, her token expression “Marry Me!” It’s awesome, though I could never use in it real life. Too many angry hookers.

• “Tobias, you blowhard.”

• The note-perfect reaction shots from one Mr. Jason Bateman.

I never thought I would miss the guy from Teen Wolf 2 so much.

I would show you a great clip of my favorite Gob bit from Arrested Development, for your viewing pleasure, but… yeah, like the guy with a website that has 40,000 people a month coming to read his writing is gonna do a post about YouTube clips? Come On!

Bangarang!

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Scholastic has released the art for the cover of the zealously anticipated final book from the Harry Potter series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. It’s cool, it’s gorgeous to look at, and like a frustratingly well-written episode of Lost, it begs more questions than answers. Why is Harry in a Coliseum with shadowy people watching him (is this a knock off of Best of the Best 2?)? Where is his wand? Is the arms spread pose an homage to Daniel Radcliffe’s now infamous onstage nude work? What is the necklace around his neck? Where are Ron and Hermione? If they cast only British actors in the movies, when are they going to get to uber-hot septuagenarian Queen, Helen Mirren?

Those questions all have intriguing answers, to be sure, but none of them concern me. What I want to know is what he’s reaching for. It would seem from the context of the picture that Harry is in the middle of a fight. And if you’ve seen the full wraparound cover (available HERE, and here’s the UK version), you’ll know he’s facing off against Voldemort (holla, Ralph Fiennes, you aeronautical pervert!). So is this a snapshot from the final battle between the two? Are they fighting to the pain, instead of to the death? Are the “Deathly Hallows” merely the name of the place where wizards bear out their final, murderous duel? Or is it just the pet name for Paris Hilton’s vagina? Hopefully, the answers to these questions will be revealed on July 21st when the book hits stores. But until then we can only prognosticate.

I’m going to assume that Harry and Voldemort are both reaching for a wand and that this moment is the crucial turning point in their climactic battle. But for the sake of argument and good fun, I came up with some other possibilities for what Harry might be reaching for. J.K. Rowling is a fine novelist and shrewd intellect, but I bet she’s not clever or daring enough to put a few of these things in ole Harry’s hands.

Things Harry Might Be Reaching For on the Cover of “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows”…

• He’s reaching for a calendar to double check when pre-approved hottie Emma Watson FINALLY turns eighteen (4/15/2008, for all those interested).

• He’s actually checking to see if it’s raining. His hair goes frizzy like Monica Gellar in Jamaica when it rains.

• It’s a boomerang. Ron put on Crocodile Dundee the other day and Harry can’t get Australian culture out of his head. That’s not a wand, THAT’S a wand!

• He’s clearly practicing holding a server tray for his future career. Harry Potter is destined to be a waiter. Probably at Shenanigans, or some such other Office Space-like place that requires their servers to wear 26 pieces of flair.

“Hi, I’m Harry, I’ll be your server tonight. Would you like some water? Accio! There you go.”

“Let me clear these plates for you. Evanesco!”

“A five dollar tip on a $60 dollar bill? Are you kidding me? Avada Kedavra! Dammit, not again…”

• Harry’s doing his best Darth Vader from Empire imitation. “You will never know the power of the Dark Arts!”

• He’s in a Coliseum, so obviously he’s busting out some Shakespeare in the Hogwarts school play. “To be in the sequel, or not to be. That is the question… for my agent.”

• What reaching? He’s just trying to get Lotus Pose on! (This all started because Harry is a rapid Madonna fan (fav song: “Live To Tell”); ever since the Brit-con Material Girl started taking up yoga, HP’s been doing all he can to look trendy.)

• He’s just showing his frustration over Sanjaya not getting kicked off American Idol. Harry’s a closet Phil Stacey fan (I know!).

• Harry is secretly obsessive compulsive and can’t stand to see the two “T’s” in the title look different. He’s reaching out to try and fix it. Related note: Harry’s favorite muggle TV show: Monk (he secretly prefers Sharona over Natalie. What can you do, he’s British?).

• VOLDEMOOOOORT! (Think Star Trek 2.)

• He’s holding his hand up as a perch for his owl, Hedwig, natch. Side question: If J.K. Rowling had called the owl Hootie, do you think it would have prevented Hootie and the Blowfish singer Darius Rucker from making a horrible second album? Because I was really waiting for him to write another great song about how the Miami Dolphins always suck.

P.S. Screw you, Darius! I get enough headaches trying to root for Ricky Williams to accidentally lose the number of his pot dealer and remember he’s good at football. Not mention the atrocity that is Daunte Culpepper. So I don’t need you making it any worse with your easy listening light rock and affable Southern demeanor.

• He’s reaching for his customized platinum snitch, which is emblazoned with the words “Seeker 4 Life” on it. Harry is nothing if not a big baller.

• Again, not reaching for anything, Harry just can’t stand negative space on book covers, so he put his arm up to create a proper special relationship.

• He’s holding up his invisible cell phone, trying to get reception. Unfortunately, there’s no spell powerful enough to overcome Cingular’s shoddy service.

• He’s recreating his favorite moment from Gladiator “My name is Harry James Potter, commander of Dumbledore’s Army, Student of Hogwarts, loyal servant to the true grand wizard, Albus Dumbledore. Son to a murdered Father, pupil to a murdered Principal. And I will have my vengeance, in this book or the next.”

Bangarang!

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I can remember countless times during my college years when my roommates and I would sit around our apartment and complain about how there was never anything good to do (like Cameron from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, except with Detroit Red Wing jerseys). Sure we lived two blocks from the beach, had easy access to certain parentally frowned up “activities”, and went to a nationally ranked party school. Not to mention Downtown Santa Barbara having a slew of nice movie theatres, fantastic restaurants and a great club scene.
But for the most part, life was boring. And this video brings back those memories.

Stuff like this happened all the time. This probably went down on some random Tuesday in February. I can’t tell you how many parties I went to that ended the same way. Some drunk guy spills another drunk guy’s half filled cup of Natty Ice and suddenly it’s Order 66 time. And let me tell you, nobody ever let the Wookie win. You’d think a campus half-filled with potsmokers would be more laidback with their lightsaber draw, but no. There was always a couple of idiots who let their fear turn into anger. And their anger into hate. But their hate always turned into our suffering when they knocked over the freaking keg during their duel. It’s like, can I just one time chill at a friend’s house and do some late night drinking without some yahoo trying to Strike Back? Please? I was lucky if just once a week I got drunk and made inappropriate phone calls into my ex-girlfriends. That’s no way to live!

On Fridays the local Stormtrooper Patrols rode around on dewbacks but we weren’t intimidated. All they ever did was give out lame parking tickets to podracers who went five minutes over on their parking meters. And don’t get me started on their racial Jedi profiling. If you were wearing a brown cloak you couldn’t even force throw a guy five feet without getting hassled. I thought college was about freedom and higher education? Not cloaking your Dark Jedi powers to avoid getting put in the campus paddywagon.

Life at UCSB, sigh…

Bangarang!

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American Idol gave me exactly what I deserved. I railed against them for bringing in mentors that today’s viewers (and Idols) could not relate to. So what do the Idol producers do? They give me Gwen Stefani Week, and not surprisingly (cause my karma is for “S”; I could be Earl’s stand-in, truly), the show was decidedly awful. The palette of songs to choose from is probably the culprit here. Seacrest claimed the Idols were singing either No Doubt songs, songs from the 90’s, or songs that inspired Gwen. O…k. So you brought Gwen on to rope the moderns but don’t require the Idols to only sing No Doubt or Gwen-solo songs? Why bother then? I wanna hear Haley try to gam here way through “Spiderwebs”. Or LaKisha bring it big on “Ex-Boyfriend”. “New” would have been a perfect choice for beat boxer Blake. And I would have paid green cash money to hear Sanjaya sing “Just A Girl”, even with the hair-saster.

The show had no rhyme, reason or rhythm. Songs came from out of nowhere, and the performances reflected that lack of connection. I never got a sense that the songs really mattered this week, which is surprising considering Idol shilled out for a hit-making superduperstar to mentor them in the ways of pop success. And on the Gwen Stefani tip, she was cute as hell, but seemed to be in way over her head. Her tips to the Idols were limited to “watch out for the melody” (Lulu was better at this), she rarely had a good word to say (other than for Melinda, natch), and she’s a terrible actress, because it was beyond obvious when she hated someone (Chris Sligh). Furthermore, how can someone so successful be so “deer in the headlights” just because she’s pulling studio time with Sanjaya? Is he THAT detrimental to the health of modern music? Should Gavin Rossdale put on his machinehead and destroy the kid? Can we get Sanjaya a time machine to 1996 so he can wander into Orange County and kill the evil Ska trend before it gets invasive and nearly deafens a nation of grunge recovery victims?

I thought the show needed an injection of 2007, but I was wrong. Maybe Idol is better off staying an old-school karaoke contest, than it is trying to artificially paint some Top 40 on kids who aren’t ready yet (and those who never will be).

As stated before, I’ve decided to recap the show week-to-week and grade the singers on a sliding scale of how much I wanted to, or did, TiVo-bloop through the song. At the end of each recap I’ll make my pick for who should (and hopefully will) get the axe on the Wednesday night results show.

Let’s break it down, bloop bloop style!

1. Melinda Doolittle – When they opened with the wide shot of the lights going crazy and Mindy waving her hands in the air I knew there was no chance she was getting the bloop tonight. Match that awesomeness with the kickin flippy bob, the daring six inch heels and the under the boob beltage, and this was a package I would mail first class with insurance. No plebian ground delivery for this girl. She rocked, as per usual. And I - and the nation - loved it, as per double usual.

Gwen was right, who needs luck when you got the Doolittle? And let me add how scary this performance must have been for the rest of the Idol-wannabes. The only hope they had was that Melinda would falter on the up-tempo songs, but as she proved tonight, that ain’t happening. It’s scary how over this contest already is and there’s still eight more weeks to go.

2. Gina Glocksen – A calculated song choice error on Gina’s part. She cannot go up against Melinda and LaKisha with a ballad. She needs to toe the rocker line and get threw the herd thinning with as little collision as possible. Gina does not do stand-still singing well. The arm movement was clumsy, she seemed stiff and unsure of her talent and I was not a fan of the haircut. I like her a lot, I like her voice, but I would not advise her going down this route for too much longer. A half bloop at best.

3. Chris Richardson – I grew up listening to the radio in the Valley, which for a period of time in the mid-90’s could have been called No Doubt FM, so I’ve been over Don’t Speak about fifteen different times. But I knew if it was No Doubt night someone had to sing Don’t Speak, and I was pleasantly surprised to find it was Chris R (when Gina was the obvious choice). I was even more surprised to find I really enjoyed it. This should have been a double bloop purely on principle, but I upgraded to a one bloop because I dug the R & B twinge, the ornamentation, the passion and the fact that he didn’t have the damn Hindu dot on his forehead like a certain platinum mentor who looked stupid when the song first broke and who will remain nameless (Gwen!). I think he botched the words near the end, and he didn’t have nearly as big a finish as the anchor spot requires, but that’s secondary to how flat out nice it was to hear him sing this song and not want to gouge my ears out with a dooce-stained Q tip. I will never forgive KROQ for slobbing on the No Doubt knob so voraciously (and they don’t even play her new music, fucking hypocrites! Go spin the new Panic song again, asses).

4. Blake Lewis – Is Blake a Cylon now? Is he hearing All Along The Watchtower in his dressing room? Because I’ve never seen him so boring, dreary or stalkerish (check the eyes, they had “Giggity Giggity” written all over them). The only explanation for this lapse was that he was too busy watching the BSG finale to put his usual spin on things. I don’t dig Blake bringing it tender. And I really don’t like him saying he’s covering The Cure when he so obviously sung the 311 version from the Sandler in Hawaii flick. That’s twice with the substandard 90’s crap rock band. Let it go Blake. You go or we go. Double bloop this unfortunate Blake bullshit.

5. Haley Scarnato – I see someone got the “Your gams are great” memo, cause Haley unleashed them on a sick world and instantly healed the populace. Her KaBAM was so good it’s almost an afterthought that her voice was so thin and pitchy (not to mention she nailed exactly zero of the big applause notes). For those who are watching the show for reasons that have nothing to do with the singing, you can put your TiVmote down. For those who are purists, you might be dipping into double-bloop territory. Good thing I’m of the former group. Idol needs her for the eye candy so she’s not going anywhere, despite having the second worst voice on the show (hi there Sanjaya, we’ll deal with you and your epic vertical follicle trainwreck in just a minute).

6. Phil Stacey – I see the aliens took the Phil Cylon back to the baseship and replaced him with an upgraded model; one that doesn’t suck so terribly, and has heightened suck up powers. I want to triple bloop his obnoxious audience pandering arm movement and head bops, but his voice only merits a bloop and a half. Though I did notice that the background singers stepped all over him and sounded off-key. They took away from the great mid-section of the performance and completely ruined the close. But factor in the hat, the decreased alien-ness, the “everyone loves this song so much you get points just for reminding us how much it rocks” angle, and sympathy vote for the regrettable background ornamentation mishap, and it all spells a chance for Phil to finally break out of his weekly bottom three purgatory.

7. LaKisha Jones – One-bloop for the dress she sported that looked like the downside of a melted pack of Original Fruit Skittles; one bloop and a half for her tired vocal. Is it me, or did she seem out of breath for most of the middle of the song? Finally smiling rid her of most of the “bitch” vibe, and I liked the up tempo song, but she still didn’t do enough to get me to consider buying a ticket on her bandwagon. A good first step, though.

8. Jordin Sparks – A disaster of near Malakar-ian proportions. Bad song choice (the vocal was way too low in the opening verse), horrible wardrobe choice (that skirt wasn’t just doing nothing for her, it was running all over town messing up her credit), and frustrating tempo (either speed it the hell up in true No Doubt style, or flip the script and go super slow in true Blake Lewis style, but don’t wish wash the speed). I hated hated HATED this performance. Double bloop. And she’s lucky I like her or it would be worse.

9. Chris Sligh – Aside from him being a total fucking abominable monster of arrogance and prickitude, I dig the guy. But his performance tonight sounded like Pee Wee Herman doing an above average Sting imitation (how scary is the thought of Paul Reubens mastering tantra? He’d be a pervert force of nature.). A forceful double-bloop for the Sligh Creature From the Idol Lagoon. When even the performer admits he botched the job, I can’t abide by anything less. I guess I was wrong about him turning a corner, last week. I could very easily see him hitting the bricks tonight.

10. Sanjaya Malakar – He’s an automatic triple bloop, let’s get that out of the way. Now, to the performance… WHAT? THE? FUCK? IS? WITH? THE? HAIR? It made him look like the soulless villain in a late 80’s Jean Claude Van Damme movie (and not Bloodsport). He forgot the words like Gwen said he would, he was timid and quiet even when he was on point and again, the hair? Really? REALLY? Gwen should have sacked the Harijuku Girls on this poor child. Randy and Paula are right, the only chance this kid has is to go balls out every time and appall the viewers so much that they have to vote for him as out of sheer shock that someone had the balls to be so humiliating on purpose. He’s like a cast member of The Office wandered out of the Scranton branch and somehow made their way into CBS Television City.

Bottom Three: Chris Sligh, Haley Scarnato, Phil Stacey

My prediction for who gets the axe this week: FrankenSligh

The Jay’s Prediction Record So Far: 1 for 2 (50%)

Bangarang!

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A few weeks back I was asked to review the DVD for the Comedy Central Roast of William Shatner, and without even thinking about it I said yes. And why not? Shatner kicks ass, I dig watching roasts (although they jumped the shark with Pam Anderson last year), and after all, it was a free DVD. So it arrived in the mail and I dutifully sat down to watch it. And I got some good laughs out of it. Jason Alexander was alarmingly unfunny, further enhancing the belief that he stole his entire George Costanza routine from Larry David and that beyond acting like a weasel in “Julia Roberts is a Whore” movies he doesn’t have much to offer the world. Farrah Fawcett was a train wreck of Bald Britney proportions (which was sad for all the desperate comics up on the dais who kept saying they used to masturbate to her and are now horrified at what she’s become. I say guys, welcome to the Lindsay Lohan era. Call me when she unleashes her Farrahcrotch.). And a good number of the roasters had funny stuff to say about each other and about Shatner (Kevin Pollack excluded, of course. I hadn’t remembered how unfunny he is. Maybe Jessip was right to take a cheap shot at Lt. Weinberg.).

A few days later I sat down to do some research about Shatner before writing the piece, and had a revelation. I don’t know anything about the man. Not only that, but I have never seen an episode of Star Trek: The Original Series. I’ve also never seen an episode of T.J. Hooker or Barnaby Coast. And while I’ve probably sat in front of the television while Rescue: 911 was on, I was either too little to remember it or I was busy playing with Ultimate Warrior action figures and couldn’t be bothered with the Ham Actor on the TV with a Jersey rat on his head. All I really know Shatner from is a few of the Trek movies (I liked the whale one, but for reasons that had less to do with Shatner and more to do with the scene where Bones hands a pill to an old woman begging for a new liver in a hospital and says “Grow a new one!”), The Practice / Boston Legal, National Lampoon’s Loaded Weapon 1, Miss Congeniality and an occasional Star Trek spoof. I know him more because of his status as a pop culture icon, than because I’ve taken the time to bask in his onscreen Shatnerness.

And this bothered me as a geek. How is it that I’ve come to admire Shatner for his unique “style” of acting and general air of awesomeness, without actually partaking in the very shows that birthed said style and air? Am I allowed to like William Shatner if I don’t like Star Trek? If I’ve never read TekWar? If I don’t know how to do the Vulcan Death Grip? If I’d rather hear him say “Denny Crane” than “Captain’s Log…”? If whenever I do an impression of him it’s always the one Jim Carrey does in Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls (There’s…. somethingonthewing. Some… THING!)? What is the protocol for enjoying and appreciating William Shatner?

I pondered that question for a while. This post is actually three days late because I needed an answer to that question before I could defend writing about him to myself. You’ll notice I don’t write about things I don’t know, and apparently, I don’t know shit about Shatner. But then earlier today while rewatching the Roast it hit me. I don’t know Star Trek and I still dig Captain Kirk. I watch the YouTube clips of him singing Rocket Man and I get why it’s funny. I watch the Priceline commercials and actually pay attention to what he’s saying. I see that infamous SNL skit where he tells the nerds to get a life and I inherently understand what’s going on. When William Shatner comes on-screen I immediately sit up in my seat and start cracking a smile. Because I get the joke. Because he gets the joke.

And that’s why he’s William Shatner. And it’s why he has been a beloved pop culture icon for going on 40 years.

It doesn’t matter where you came into his career, he’s gonna seduce you anyway. Whether you’re 18 and first saw him as the Big Giant Head on 3rd Rock From The Sun. Or you’re a 16 year-old girl and first enjoyed the Shatner single-handedly pulling the albatross Miss Congeniality from the depths of later career Bullockian mediocrity. Or you are much much older, never cared for Science Fiction but saw him on the Twilight Zone, or on Hooker or you saw him on Broadway. It doesn’t matter. Shatner will get you. He gets everyone.

Who doesn’t love William Shatner? Sure, everyone can agree he’s not the best actor in town. But he’s also surely not the worst. After all, the man has won two Emmy’s and a Golden Globe in the last three years. And he’s had a career for four decades. This is akin to my “Keanu Reeves Doesn’t Suck” theory. You can’t have an extensive career in Hollywood if you suck. You just can’t. So what’s to explain Keanu toplining movies for 20 years? Or Shatner being relevant and consistently working for 40? You just cannot deny that people of this ilk have something that people want. Shatner not only knows what you want, he’s more than willing to goof on himself to give it to you. He’s cultivated the Shatner image over time, and unlike certain actors who are associated with iconic characters yet shun their fans (ahem, Han Solo), Shatner embraces his place in the cultural lexicon. He swims just fine in those waters.

He’s in on the joke. That’s the reason he’s still around. And it’s the reason I love him despite not ever having seen a second of his most famous work. And that’s the reason I was finally able to write this post.

More actors need to embrace the persona they create in the media, instead of begrudging it. Why is Meg Ryan irrelevant today? Because she turned her back on the label of “America’s Sweetheart” and tried to convince us she could do big drama. But we don’t care to see her doing that. Ditto Jim Carrey. Look at Sylvester Stallone who finally came to grips with his place in the world (he will forever be Rocky Balboa) and is now experiencing a rebirth in the public eye. Or Billy Zabka, who just directed a hilarious music video based around his Johnny character from Karate Kid twenty years later. He gets that he’ll always be the guy who swept the leg and he’s cool with it. And we are so very cool with him, and happy to have him back. When celebrities embrace that which made them celebrities in the first place, we are obliged to love them more. Shatner knows this and that’s why he rules so hard, more than 40 years after he first began his voyages on the Starship Enterprise.

I recommend everyone go out, pick up his Roast on DVD, and spend some time thinking about why you dig Shatner so much. It’ll be worth your time.

A few more quick thoughts on some of the Roasters:

Andy Dick: We find you funny when you’re grabbing Pam Anderson’s boobs or getting hauled off the Jimmy Kimmel show, not when you’re doing shtick. So less with the talking and more with the crazy drunken Carrie Fisher face-licking and widespread celebrity herpes transportation.

Patton Oswalt: Had the best joke of the night. He pulled out a paper bag and said to Shatner “Can you settle a bet between my friends and act your way out of this”.

Fred Willard: When did he start being thought of as an insult comic? I’m confused. Isn’t he supposed to be ironic funny, not funny funny? Can we get a ruling on this?

Lisa Lampanelli: She’ll never get her own sitcom or movie, but she may be the funniest comedian per capita in the business.

Artie Lange: I may not have liked you on Mad TV. Or liked your movie Beer League. Or ever cared to watch Boat Trip. But for giving me a new, awesome way to say “Whores” (pronounced “Who-ers”) I will love your comedy forever. Now start eating some salads before you pull a Chris Farley and your tombstone reads: “Here lies that drunk fat guy from the Stern show”, instead of “Here lies that drunk guy from the Stern show”.

Some clips of classic Shatnerian awesomeness for your viewing pleasure:

Bangarang!

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“Ok dudes, let’s walk this sucker!”

“This is ass sliding!”

“Looks like Cru and Christian are gonna do a little Bicycle Boogie!”

“Bart Conner is stopping. He wants Cru Jones one-on-one!”

You know him as Cru Jones from Rad (or perhaps from Born on the Fourth of July), but I know him as Mr. Bill Allen. And he was cool enough to stop by the PopLoad show and talk to me about the movie.

We talked about all things Rad. Bill let us in on some super secret Special Edition DVD news. Spoke about his desire to produce and star in a Rad sequel. Talked about training for the movie, how the bicycle stunts were done and implored kids to wear protective gear (yeah right!). We talked about how it feels to be in a movie beloved by so many, and how he feels about playing a character that affected a generation of 80’s kids. Bill was a great guest; completely willing to let us geek out about a movie he made 21 years ago, and gracious about all the praise I and my listeners bestowed upon him. It was truly a proud moment in my life as a pop culture geek.

If you missed the interview, you can download the mp3 by CLICKING HERE (takes a minute to download)!

For more cool, geeky celebrity interviews, tune in to PopLoad every Monday and Wednesday from 7-8pm PST on www.NowLive.com

RAD!

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This is quite possibly the most legendairy clip YouTube has ever aired. On a scale of one to awesome, this video is scrumtrillescent. It’s better than Rod Burgundy, and he’s the balls! It’s so good I just broke my hyperbole meter.

It’s so important that this video be watched by every human being in the world (and some dogs) that I broke my rule of no posts based solely around a YouTube clip. Such is the reverence I hold for this clip. Bask in it’s greatness. BASK IN IT!

The Wii Movie Adaptation Market has just pushed to the forefront of the Digital World. Here’s hoping we get to see some Wii Caddyshack, Wii Major League (a Wii Pedro Cerrano would be so completely tuttle), and of course, Wii Rocky. I’ll post more of these as they come.

“Wii Donny, you’re out of your element!”

Bangarang!

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The Top 11 came correct this week; from top to bottom one of the most solid shows, performance-wise, in as long as I can remember. The quality of the show was a direct result of the theme of the week. British Invasion / The 60’s opened up a broader, more fun palette of songs for the contestants to choose from, songs they knew and love, and that familiarity and passion made the performances brought out the best in all the Idol hopefuls (Sanjaya excluded, of course). Big props to Peter Noone and Lulu, two singers I wasn’t familiar with and was ready to completely discount; they were great teachers, knew the show and what the singers needed to do grab the attention of the viewers, were extremely knowledgeable about all the chosen songs and were, most of all, fun to watch. Regardless of their relevance (ahem, Diana), they were perfect artists to headline this week on Idol.

As stated before, I’ve decided to recap the show week-to-week and grade the singers on a sliding scale of how much I wanted to, or did, TiVo-bloop through the song. At the end of each recap I’ll make my pick for who should (and hopefully will) get the axe on the Wednesday night results show.

Let’s break it down, bloop bloop style!

1. Chris Sligh – Now that’s the Chris Sligh I’ve been missing! No bloops whatsoever for the Slighster this week. I dug the walk through the crowd, the mic stand transportation, the return of the glasses (peace out, creepy eyes!), and the perfect song choice. I wanted to hear more of the song and I was inclined to hit up iTunes to hear the OG version (but instead I just reverse-blooped and watched the perf again. Love that TiVo!). A major step up from the monstrosity he became in the last few weeks, when all is said and done, this may be considered the turning point for Sligh as an American Idol True Contender.

2. Melinda Dolittle – I was tempted to one-bloop during the opening notes, but then I punched myself in the head and remembered it’s the Dolittle, she’s gonna get the job done. And she did. The vocal, taken as a whole, was spot on, crisp and gripping. She delivers the chills every time she puts her lips to the mic. I love the voice, the look and the personality. And I might add, girl looked GOOD in that bob do. Haley better watch out…

3. Blake Lewis – A great ornamentation, smooth melody, solid mixture of beat boxing and straight singing and a cool, controlled and confident vocal earns Blake a bloop-free performance that may have vaulted him to the top tier of contestants. The judges love him, the audience loves him, he brings a unique sound to the competition, and he even got Seacrest to dance! What can’t he do? In my book, this is Melinda and Blake’s show to lose.

4. Jordin Sparks – All female singers on Idol this season must be compared against the level set by the reigning contender, that being Melinda Dolittle and her automatic non-bloop status. On this night, Jordin took a big swing at knocking down the Dolittle. I was tempted to one-bloop to stop the suicide thoughts in my head, but however dreadful the lyrics may have been, it would have meant denying my ears the kick ass voice of Jordin Sparks. And that’s something I can not do. For me, it’s Melinda first, Blake second and Jordin crashing hard into third.

5. Haley Scarnato – That was a “drop the TiVo, lock the door and have some private time with Idol performance” straight out of the Kat McPhee playbook. Haley was smart enough to know that to stay in this competition she needs to highlight the fact that she’s the hottest girl on the show. So she brought out the gams, left the bra in the dressing room and shook her goods straight into the land of Safetown. Simon was completely on point in describing the singing as screechy at points, but really, what does it matter? She’s our Official Season Six Eye Candy, and my TiVmote is getting a rest every time she’s on stage.

6. Gina Glocksen – She gets automatic double bloop exemption for her kick ass rocker do, well played leather pants and insertion of the Stones into little old, square American Idol. But taking that all into account, she still can’t avoid a one bloop. Every time she stalked the stage she lost her breath. She had problems pulling the mic off the mic stand and the hair was distracting as all get out. I liked the “let it go and wail” parts, but the restrained chorus was tough to sit through. The rocker role will take her through the bottom rounds but she needs to refine her vocals if she wants to break out of the middle of the pack.

7. Chris Richardson – He was in the unfortunate position of singing directly after the Haley Scarnato Hottie Tornado, so he suffered a reverse double-bloop back to Scarnato’s toned legs and exposed back, then a mild one-bloop through his saccharine ballad. He sang it well and looked snap collar perfect, but he just does nothing for me. He’s the male Haley for all the lady viewers. And he’ll definitely be back next week. But hopefully he’ll go back to his signature fast-pace performances, as I’d like to not bloop through him again for a few rounds.

8. Lakisha Jones – When she unleashes the Big Voice she’s bloop free, but when she has to talk through a verse or deal with a slow chorus I can’t hit the bloop button fast enough. She’s safe this week, but if she dropped this type of performance near the end of the season she’d be getting the boot. Plus, if you’re gonna do a Bond theme, why would you not do Live and Let Die? Lakisha by way of GnR and The Beatles is a Lakisha I wanna see.

9. Phil Stacey – Phil in that white button down shirt was something out of a THX-1138 deleted scene. Or out of a rerun of Stargate: Atlantis. He has got to start mitigating the bald alien factor. Based on looks alone, he’s a two bloop guy every time. But judged on the voice he’s merely an intermittent one bloop. I love the big notes, yet I involuntarily twitch at the falsetto ones. He’ll be in the bottom three again, but for this week he’ll be OK. But dude, Phil, do NOT wear white again. I thought I was watching one of those bad X-Files episodes where the Duchovny was M.I.A. and Scully had to grin and bear it through another week of oak-acting Robert Patrick.

10. Stephanie Edwards – Stiff as a bored + Dull / Beyonce voice, again? = the night’s first double bloop performance. Tactical error on Stephanie’s part, I think. She’ll never out sing Melinda or Lakisha so slow, big vocal songs aren’t the way to go. She needs to be eclectic with her song choice and really dig her heels into a persona that no one else on the show is occupying. And she needs to find it fast because I’ve double blooped her for two straight weeks and have no intention of slowing down if she survives. I gotta feeling I won’t have to worry about it.

11. Sanjaya Malakar – I have to accept that as much as I triple the kid into oblivion, Sanjaya is the Scott Savol of Season Six, and as such, is going to be around for awhile (after all, he made a little blonde girl cry Beatle-esque tears of joy. And little girls pick the winners on this show). But please God, someone please crush some singing pills into this kid’s Diet Coke. He yelled and screeched his way through a performance that would have gotten him laughed off the karaoke stage at his own birthday. It had energy and passion, I guess, but it was a full frontal assault on the ears. Good thing for me, my triple bloop meant I avoided any lasting trauma.

Bottom Three: Phil, Stephanie and Sanjaya

My prediction for who gets the axe this week: Stephanie Edwards

Bangarang!

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There are many great things about the movie 300. The stunning digital cinematography. The slo-mo shots of bloody, epic carnage. Gerard Butler stealing Sean Connery’s trick of playing all his characters with a Scottish accent. Lena Headey’s boobs. But what most people are focused on are the utterly yoked out bodies of the Spartan warriors. Ripped, shredded, ridonkulously pumped, call it what you will, those boys were in wicked good shape. They got that way through a training regimen called, coincidentally, the “300 Reps Workout”. The workout (created by Mark Twight, at his gym Gym Jones) was designed to not just help the actors mimic the bodies of the Spartan warriors, but to actually become them.

This is the workout as it was first reported:

• 25 pull ups
• 50 deadlifts
• 50 push ups (sometimes on gymnastics rings)
• 50 jumps onto a 24-inch box
• 50 tire drags (dragging a huge tire attached to your waist across the room and back)
• 50 single-arm clean-and-presses using a 36-pound kettlebell
• 25 pull ups.

The cast trained to be able to that workout several times a week at heightened levels of speed and intensity. If you can do that workout in under twenty minutes, you are well on your way to looking like King Leonidas.

So everyone is freaking out over this new workout, declaring it to be THE new “in” training method. But little do “they” know that this workout has been around in the top circles of Hollywood for some time now. It’s used for training the manliest of men, but when it was first developed, it was designed for the Young Hollywood tabloid crowd. Yes it’s true; the Spartan training method was first updated to prime the bodies of the dastardliest warriors of our time, the Celebritards. The likes of Paris Hilton, Nicole Ritchie, Lindsay Lohan and former pioneer of the method, Ms. Britney Spears, were the first to successfully complete what has since been dubbed the “300 Clubs Workout”.

TheJay.com was able to uncover the official training regiment needed to become a 300 Celebritard Warrior. If you aspire to be like the most well-known, least respected skazz Hollywood has to offer, simply complete the follow exercises and you will be on your way to suffering from “exhaustion” and gunning over photographers outside of Hyde.

The Official “300 Clubs Workout”:

• 25 Blackberry Thumb Ups
• 50 Melodramatic Sidekick Texts
• 50 Limo Door Bends (sometimes in six-inch heels)
• 50 Jumps Onto A Slippery Club Table
• 50 Papz Drags (dragging an US Weekly paparazzi attached to your Bentley across a parking lot and back)
• 50 Single-Arm Drink Lifts using a Grey Goose Vodka & Red Bull
• 25 Blackberry Thumb Ups

Paris can do the workout in twenty-two minutes flat. Lindsay has been known to complete two sets back-to-back at twenty-five minutes a piece. Nicole can do the circuit in twenty-one minutes, but she substitutes 50 Dry Heaves for the 50 Single-Arm Drink Lifts. And at her peak, Britney could do the “300 Clubs Workout” in under eighteen minutes. She was a true prodigy!

Here are some super secret celebritard testimonials on the merits of the “300 Clubs Workout”.

Nicole Ritchie – The “300 Clubs Workout” helped to finally get rid of those pesky ethics that normal Celebritard workouts just wouldn’t get rid of.

Kim Kardashian – When I first started out in Hollywood, I was a nobody. Sure I slutted around in mini-skirts and banged my share of low-rent Direct-To-Video producers, but I just wasn’t getting the type of exposure I was looking for. But after transforming myself through the “300 Clubs Workout” I went from ineffectual Paris Hilton plus one, to starring in my very own “fake” publicity-garnering sex tape and getting stalked by the best of the B-list paparazzi. The workout was totally worth giving up my sense of self-worth!

Kimberly Stewart – I couldn’t do the workout. I’m not shitty enough to be a Celebritard, I’m just a waste of space.

Sienna Miller – A lot of people think the reason I’m famous is because I dress like a cheap Carrie Bradshaw, show my tits to anyone with a digital camera and pay magazines to hype my never-before-seen reservoirs of acting talent. But the real truth is my utter devotion to the “300 Clubs Workout”. I would never have been able to convince Jude Law to disrespect himself by shacking up with a no name Tard-In-Training if I didn’t have the loose morals and voracious sexual appetite common to coke whores that I gained by completing the “300 Clubs Workout”. If you want to be known forever as merely “a person famous for being in a relationship with a celebrity, and who also happens to be in a bunch of movies where you show your boobs and hump the whiny Darth Vader” than this workout is for you!

Paris Hilton – The “300 Clubs Workout” is the reason I am the most highly-regarded Celebritard in the entire world! That’s hot!

Tara Reid – Oh yeah, I used to do the “300 Clubs Workout”, but then I found something better. I call it the “300 Botched Plastic Surgeries”. It has done wonders for my career. Can you put down that I’m available for Sweet Sixteen’s and Bar Mitzvah’s? But only if they have an open bar. I’m thinking of going back in training. Thanks!

Lindsay Lohan – Celebritard? THIS! IS! FIRECROTCH!

Bangarang!

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Listed on humor-blogs.com

The nice thing about being a celebrity is that if you bore people they think it’s their fault.

They mostly come at night. Mostly.

We all go a little mad sometimes.

You’ve lost, you just don’t know it yet.

Fred Willard + Bikinis = Heaven

This movie is rated “R” for violence, language, sexual situations and nudity.

Save the Cheerleader, Save the World.

What’s next?

Disneyland is the happiest place on Earth.

Feeling screwed up at a screwed up time in a screwed up place does not necessarily make you screwed up.

If you haven’t seen it, it’s new to you!

The Internet As A Tool For Good.

Don’t ask me how my flight went. If something interesting had happened, I would have told you.

Whoa.

Everybody pities the weak; jealousy you have to earn.

Nothing is wrong with California that a rise in the ocean level wouldn’t cure.

MySpace is for whores.

THIS! IS! SPARTA!

I will be there as soon as traffic allows.

Now I know I’m pretty, but I ain’t as pretty as a couple of titties.

Good writers borrow from other writers; great writers steal from them outright.

Decisions are made by those who show up.

Always Be Closing

people are afraid to merge on freeways in los angeles

The covers of this book are too far apart.

You’re not your job. You’re not how much money you have in the bank. You’re not the car you drive. You’re not the contents of your wallet. You’re not your fucking khakis. You’re the all-singing, all-dancing crap of the world.

Try not. Do or do not, there is no try.

Imitation is the sincerest form of television.

Chance favors the prepared mind.

It can’t rain all the time.

Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.

Strong reasons make strong actions.

Talk hard!

Bangarang!

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The real game finally begins, as the American Idol Top 12 hit the big stage and tried to convince the country that we care at all about Diana Ross. Early grade: we don’t. I’ve decided to recap the show week-to-week and grade the singers on a sliding scale of how much I wanted to, or did, TiVo-bloop through the song. At the end of each recap I’ll make my pick for who should (and hopefully will) get the axe on the Wednesday night results show.

Let’s break it down, bloop bloop style!

1. Melinda Doolittle – Full on no bloop, put the phone on vibrate, close the iBook, drop the fork performance. I’m right with Simon who felt the song itself was dreadful, but the performance was dynamite. I dig her power, her control and her look. And I’m only 8% put off by her horse teeth. She’s an effervescent performer, utterly absorbing to watch. This is definitely her competition to lose.

2. Blake Lewis – The smartest performance of the night. Blake knows he has a smaller voice than most of the other singers, so he pushes his strong suit of showmanship and arrangement. The music was kickin, I didn’t care that the vocal was small and quiet, and the moves were right on. I was thinking it would be a locked up one bloop for Blake when I heard it was a Diana Ross night, but he pulled through. I put the TiVmote on the coffee table for this one.

3. Haley Scarnato – One bloop it so you can avoid the singing, but still take an extended opportunity to leer at the hotness of Haley. Girl brought it fly last night. I picked her as one of my horses, and though I don’t think she’ll get by on her voice (it’s thinner than Sanjaya’s flat ironed hair), she is easily the hottest, most camera-friendly contestant. And as Katharine McPhee will attest, kittenish good looks and a suspect voice will take you very far in a resoundingly LA-5ish finalist pool. Put it to you this way, Stephanie, Gina and Sanjaya the boychick all have better voices than Haley, but push come to shove, who would you rather watch week it and week out? Exactly.

4. Chris Sligh – A surprise bloop and a half for the de-spectacled Sideshow Chris. I’m always nervous when people known for wearing glasses try to fly sans specs, and Chris did nothing to help that concern. Kid’s got a slight case of the creepy eyes. Simon was right; he needs to wear the glasses. As far as the performance, I kind of enjoyed the Coldplay-Clocks arrangement, but for the most part I was bored. He’s a savvy player, but it won’t be enough once the heard is thinned. After the audition round I had him pegged as a Top 5-er for sure. Now I don’t see him beating any of the three divas, or Blake and Chris R.

5. Jordin Sparks – Bloop through the beginning, let it play for the middle and strongly consider one-blooping through the end. But I still love the kid; she has an energy and attitude that is unique to this season. Though she was damn boring last night. She’s a Top 3 female, but I wanna see at least two or three non-bloop perfs before I’m completely sold.

6. Gina Glocksen – Let it sit for the start, catch the drift, then double bloop right to the judge’s comments. She’s cool enough, I guess. I like that she’s the only traditional “rocker” of the season, and that she finally embraced the image (after all, she is sporting an Amy Lee-goth lite visage. What did she expect from us? Girl needs to talk to Avril about image misconception, as both of them are genre liars.). With Gina all you need to hear is a few bars before you get your fill. I give her three weeks before the Divas consume her whole during a commercial break.

7. Chris Richardson – One bloop for the ladies, two bloops for the dudes. I’m always a fan of the people who get off the stage and work the crowd, but I wish Chris’s walk on the audience side had been in service of a song or performance I care about. It doesn’t matter though because as “B-“ as I’ve thought he’s been the last few weeks (way to make me remember how obnoxious I find Jason Mraz), he’s a virtual JT Version 2.0 (now with less talent and more practiced stubble!). The girls drive the wagon train on this show, so get the Chris Richardson bloop train ready. It’s going to be running for quite some time.

8. Brandon Rogers – Dub bloops for the remainder of his run, however short. Unlike Melinda, Brandon steadfastly refuses to break away from the back-up mic mark. He’s too quiet, too shy, too quick to distract us from his lack of charisma with a beatific smile, and far too short on as Randy likes to say, the “Yo!” factor. I get the voice, I’m not a fan, and until further notice, I don’t care to see if it gets any better.

9. Lakisha Jones – I’m in the minority on this, but double bloop Lakisha and don’t worry so much on when you stop the FF. Was it me or did she seem bored up there? And very negative? I get a bitch vibe from her, and I’m not bowled over by her voice. Just because you can belt doesn’t mean you can dog the staging or the look. And I’m still put off by her presumptuous “And I’m Telling You” perf five days before Jennifer Hudson stuck Idol with a “suck it” needle and nabbed herself an Oscar. Just something I don’t like here. I prefer my divas with a nervous smile, Doolittle-style, thank you very much.

10. Phil Stacey – Let the trip bloops begin! He has a great, powerful voice on the big notes, and an utterly abysmal voice on everything else. He can’t begin a song, he can’t do the falsetto, and he has problems with any run that doesn’t include an arms-out Scott Stapp-like note. And this is all before we even begin discussing the alien head. If I wanted to watch a freaky bald singer, I’d cue up Britney’s Toxic video on YouTube. I don’t want to look at Phil, and I only want to hear about 1/14th of his voice. The mothership can take him back, for all I care.

11. Stephanie Edwards – A double bloop that moves to a snooooore, causing an accidental third bloop that you don’t regret when you wake back up. She’s in the back of the diva pack vocally, in front of only Lakisha in the looks department and I’ve never been able to get through even one of her songs without spraining an ankle diving for my TiVo remote (even Sanjaya kept me interested a few times, though that’s mostly due to him being a train wreck), or rolling my eyes and going back to my latest issue of Entertainment Weekly (memo to editors: Stephen King is not funny. Stop encouraging him.). As Ivan Drago might say, if she’s bootetd, she’s booted.

12. Sanjaya Malakar – A full-on, trip bloop, throw the TiVo remote in disgust, muse about what Sundance might have been, consider flaming Justin Guarini on a chat board because Sanjaya went there follicly, groan that the Idol producers couldn’t change the rules and allow Sabrina Sloan in as a seventh girl, check on Sanjaya’s nicely-racked sister’s MySpace page and finally hit play in time to hear the judges rip this kid bitch to shreds. He has GOT to go. I’d listen to the entirety to Taylor Hicks’s CD before willingly non-bloop a Sanjaya song. His voice is small, shy, effeminate in a bad way, karaoke in a makes karaoke look retched kind of way, and just plain boring. His hair drug him into the Finals. Phil Stacey should seriously consider waiting until Sanjaya cries himself to sleep after an especially salty episode of The Hills, and then whipping out his dome buzzer and Mr. Cleaning the poor boy’s noggin. Maybe a bald Sanjaya would finally snap the teenybopper girls back to reality and boot the kid the hell off my favorite show.

My prediction for who gets the axe this week: Phil Stacey (phone home…)

Triple bloop don’t fail me now!

Bangarang!

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Apparently, by no sane measure of logic, adding a kid to a movie franchise will liven up a tiring concept and reinvigorate a series for the millions of people who once breathlessly paid to watch the adventures but whom now shrug a collective “meh” to the whole deal. Further, the mere sight of a plucky young boy or girl boldly entering the grown-up fray will reduce audiences to a puddle of mush and insure a long life for the series. It matters not that the series was born and received without the need of a kid, and was probably successful due to not having one. It matters not that the introduction of a kid stunts the natural progression of the characters and swings the emphasis from an adult-oriented storyline to one of beleaguered parents and/or guardians risking life and limb to save said plucky kid from situations that are only necessary because the script called for the damn plucky kid to begin with. It matters not that kid is not so much plucky as he is really annoying. Apparently, all that matters is that people love plucky kids.

This, along with much of how decisions are made, is completely off-base.

Kids do not make movie sequels better. They are merely a signal that the producers have no more stories to tell and are just throwing their hands up in the air and grabbing whatever trite sitcom cliché happened to be stuck to the ceiling. Are you in the third or fourth gratuitous sequel and grosses keep going down? Congratulations are in order, because someone’s having a baby! Let us all rejoice that we can no longer swear or show nudity in the movie because someone decided to drop a precocious eight year-old onto the scene. Huzzah!

I say humbug.

Sure, there are exceptions to the rule (Shortround in Temple of Doom comes to mind), but generally speaking, adding a kid to a movie franchise equals creative death. Such is the concern many geeks across the world are having as news comes in that Steven Spielberg has cast Transformers-loving, Michael Bay explosion-runner-away-from, Shia LaBeouf, in the role of Indy’s long lost son. Regardless of the fact that no one wants to see a younger version of Indiana Jones (If we did, Sean Patrick Flannery would be on his 14th season of The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones and not threatening us with more jittery episodes of The Boondock Saints), the bearded master remains convinced that what audiences have really waited seventeen years to see is Harrison Ford and Sean Connery chasing the plucky kid from Even Stevens across the desert. And we wonder how War of the Worlds went so wrong. He should have just killed Dakota and the jackhole son and let Tom Cruise single-handedly take down the entire Martian army using only his Xenuian mind powers (though it’s not like he was ever gonna off Dakota Fanning. She would have had his hands cut off. It would have been “to the pain”.).

It’s not so much the idea of introducing a kid, as much as what the real purpose of doing so is. For example, the Alien series brought out Newt in Aliens and it was a resounding success. This is because she humanized Ripley, gave her a will and motivation to destroy the Alien Queen, and was the impetus behind the classic line “Get away from her you bitch!” It also helps that Newt had one of the most awesomely adaptable movie quotes of all time in: “They mostly come at night. Mostly.” You can use this quote in almost any situation and it will always get a laugh. If you’re at a bar and someone asks what you want to drink you can say “I mostly drink Heineken. Mostly.” If you’re talking to a date about sex, you could say “I mostly like oral. Mostly.” It always works! Other good uses for the quote:

• “I mostly deuce at night. Mostly.”
• “You’re mostly a bitch. Mostly.”
• “I mostly hate Reese Witherspoon. Mostly.”

Newt rules.

The point is that Newt had a reason to be in the movie. She advanced the Ripley character and provided crucial plot points for the movie. Now on the other hand, take the African American girl from The Lost World who showed up out of nowhere as Jeff Goldblum’s daughter. What did she bring to the movie? What was her purpose? Nothing. She was there to add a kiddy element to the picture. To put her in jeopardy so that Goldblum could be heroic in saving an oh so PC black girl. She was there for that stupid gymnastics routine. She should have been there as raptor food.

Getting back to the point, we already know that Indy can be a good father figure, as we were shown Temple of Doom. And Indy already worked out his daddy issues in The Last Crusade. So the only purpose for having an Indy prodigy in Part 4 is to align Indy with a past lover and potentially settle his personal life. But who cares? We don’t need Indy to settle down. We need Indy to crack Nazi’s in the face with his whip. We need him to ride horses in the desert and blow up tanks. We need him to make “wise choices”. We don’t need to see him playing catch and cheering on little league games. And that’s what it will be, make no mistake. The movie WILL focus on the Shia LaBeouf, and Indy will become a passerby in his own movie. It will be depressing, disgraceful and disrespectful. But most of all, it will be a bad movie.

And if Steven Spielberg and George Lucas don’t believe me, here are some other instances of kids ruining successful movie franchises.

(more…)

You know him as Johnny from The Karate Kid, or as Chaz from Back To School, but I know him as ZABKA!

And he was on my show PopLoad last Monday night!

We talked fighting on The Karate Kid, boobies in Just One Of The Guys, Rodney Dangerfield doing crazy shite on the set of Back To School, Pat Morita’s wishes for a fifth KK sequel, his Oscar nomination, and the most awesome music video ever created by humans. To listen to my interview CLICK HERE!

Thanks for listening!

ZABKA!

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The Scene: A confidential meeting to pitch potential cover ideas for next month’s issue of Vanity Fair.

The Players: Three Vanity Fair editors (VF Editor 1-3), and one Random Hot Blonde (aka RHB)

INT. VANITY FAIR BOARDROOM – DAY

Three Vanity Fair Editors sit around a table discussing potential cover ideas. Pictures of hot young starlets and passed their prime male actors litter the table.

VF Editor 1: So what do we got for next month? What’s the hot happenings?

VF Editor 2: How about Darfur?

VF Editor 3: God bless you.

VF Editor 2: I didn’t sneeze.

VF Editor 3 …

VF Editor 1: Darfur, eh? Pretty popular, but there’s nobody good looking running that campaign. I need someone hot. I can’t put hard nipples on Darfur. I damn sure can’t put hard nipples in a wet T-shirt on Darfur. And I need those hard nipples people!

VF Editor 3: I like boobies.

VF Editor 2: American Idol? Put the judges on the cover.

VF Editor 1: I meant chick nipples, you idiot. If I wanted man boob on my cover I’d call Al Gore and do another stupid Green issue. What else?

VF Editor 2: Britney Spears, the rise and fall of a popstar?

VF Editor 3: Oops, she did it again!

VF Editor 1: Not bad, not bad. Kinda dig the bald look. Annie Leibowitz could reflect some lights off of her bald head, make her look like a pop star Gandhi.

VF Editor 2: America likes a tragic figure.

VF Editor 1: Yes, but she’s also a Mom. You know what that means.

VF Editor 3: Saggy mom boobs?

VF Editor 1: That’s right! I can’t put saggy nipples on my cover, this is Vanity Fair! The magazine that made Gretchen Mol’s rack famous. And proudly displayed Demi Moore’s painted cans. We won’t settle for anything less than headlights to the sky! Bald Britney is out. What else you got?

VF Editor 2: Umm…. Uh…. Well, The Sopranos is ending soon.

VF Editor 1: A Gangster issue? This could work. I love it. What’s on the cover?

VF Editor 2: A three page gatefold of the entire cast. With, uh, James Gandolfini on the front fold?

VF Editor 1: I like it. But it’s missing something….

VF Editor 3: Boobies!

VF Editor 1: Exactly. I like the way you think, kid. Ok, so we need skin with the Sopranos. Is there a hot chick on the show?

VF Editor 2: Not really. Lorraine Bracco’s kinda over the hill. Edie Falco might be a man. And Drea De Mateo is mostly a road rager.

VF Editor 1: Yeah, trucker nips are not classy. This is not good people. I need those nips!

VF Editor 2: Well, James Gandolfini has some nice boobs. For a dude.

VF Editor 1: Don’t be an idiot! He has nice boobs for anyone, but that’s beside the point.

VF Editor 3: Zing?

VF Editor 2: Why don’t we just use a hot celebrity that’s unrelated to the show? Like Carmen Electra?

VF Editor 1: No, I can’t use Carmen. I tried to grab her boob at an Oscars after party and she slapped me so hard I lost a cap on my back molar.

VF Editor 2: Pamela Anderson?

VF Editor 1: Won’t do it. I gave her herpes once.

VF Editor 2: Giselle?

VF Editor 1: Fuck Giselle. Fuck Tom Brady. Go Jets.

VF Editor 2: I like Peyton Manning.

VF Editor 1: Let’s see. Time to be creative. Gandolfini’s a big guy, right?

VF Editor 3: Orca fat!

VF Editor 1: So we need a slightly bigger girl on the cover so he doesn’t look even bigger. Is there a hot, slighty bigger girl we can find? Preferably famous?

VF Editor 2: Tyra Banks?

VF Editor 1: Do you want me to fire you?

VF Editor 2: Jennifer Hudson?

VF Editor 1: Vanity Fair doesn’t put black people on the cover. Unless Halle wants to do a Swordfish redux.

VF Editor 2: Kate Winslet

VF Editor 1: British girls frighten me.

VF Editor 2: Salma Hayek?

VF Editor 1: I owe her money.

VF Editor 3: Anna Nicole Smith?

VF Editor 1: …

VF Editor 2: …

VF Editor 3: Too soon?

VF Editor 1: C’mon people! This is Vanity Fair! We’ll put any random girl on the cover. And if I’m gonna go with a sausage fest for a whole month I’d like some ham flaps with my sausage. Wait, I got it! Remember that hot girl I groped at the Anna Wintour tribute last month? Let’s use her! She had a great ass! And she wasn’t that tiny either. It’s perfect. And I bet she remembers me.

He calls her. She picks up.

(more…)

Well, this is MUCH better! Can we please get a petition going to save the “Die Hard 4.0″ title? Die Hard is one of my top five favorite action franchises, and I won’t allow so great a series to be devalued by so bad a sequel title as “Live Free or Die Hard”. It’s been hard enough getting over Bruce Willis not sporting his customary John McClaine toupee. Not to mention the Justin Long involvement. Or bland Timothy Olyphant trying to living up to the tradition of the Gruber boys. Was it too much to ask for a suitably creepy eurasian actor to play the villain? Was Peter Sarsgaard to busy with his new Gyllenhaal spawn? Did Jason Isaacs ask for too much money? Somebody really screwed up here.

Yikes. Great poster, but I still have my fingers crossed. A lot of people are worried about Michael Bay botching the Transformers movie. I sweat it out over Bruce making a lame Die Hard 4. Please let this me a sign of good things to come…

Bangarang!

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As a fun little endcap to all the pro-Oscars, pro-creativity, yay! Hollywood nonsense, here’s a little look at the flipside of awards season. It’s the Golden Raspberry Awards; the only award that no one in Hollywood ever wants, but so many TOTALLY deserve. I figured turnabout is fair game, so here’s a little something I like to call:

Things Overheard on the Razzies Red Carpet…

Marlon Wayans: I suck!

Shawn Wayans: Double-down on the Wayans Brothers suckage!

Hilary and Haylie Duff: Ditto all of that, but replace Wayans Brothers with Duff Sisters.

Carmen Electra: I’m hot! …and sucky.

Kristanna Loken: You’re telling me!

M. Night Shyamalan: I make like I’m smart and creative, but there’s a twist! I secretly SUCK!

Danny DeVito: I’m tiny and I suck.

Martin Short: I’m short, but not tiny. Though I do also suck.

Lindsay Lohan: Not only do I suck, I suck HARD.

Rob Schneider: Do I even need to say it?

Tim Allen: I am a really bad actor. You might even call my work in Zoom suck-worthy.

The Jay: Ok then, it was suck-worthy.

Tim Allen: I walked right into that one.

The Jay: Yeah, well, I’m sure you’ll redeem yourself in Wild Hogs.

Tim Allen: Oh ye of little faith…

Nicolas Cage: What’s happening over here? A suckfest? Can I come? I’ll bring my Wicker Man!

Jessica Simpson: I suck too, ya’ll!

Kate Bosworth: I’m too hungry to suck.

Jenny McCarthy: Well as long as there’s sucking involved, count me in!

Uwe Boll: Me too!

Larry the Cable Guy: Total suckage right here!

Sharon Stone: Don’t worry everyone, for as we all know, I suck the most.

Sylvester Stallone: Here here!

Bangarang!

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I really need to be hired as an official Oscar prognosticator by some reputable news source. I went eight for eight in the big races, and also nailed Best Documentary, Editing, Animated Feature, Cinematography, and Makeup. I’m especially proud of picking the Alan Arkin upset. My only real lapses were Foreign Film (I was banking on a Pan’s Labryinth sweep of the minor categories), and underestimating the tremendous Dreamgirls backlash. Somebody powerful really hates Bill Condon (but likes Jennifer Hudson).

Check any of the other eight million entertainment websites for a detailed recap of everything Oscar, because you’re not getting one here. I wasn’t overly impressed by the show, as I suspected I wouldn’t be, and don’t really want to spend any more time dissecting just how unnecessary the Michael Mann America montage was, or just how lame and unfunny the “Ellen giving Martin Scorsese” a script bit was. Instead, I’m giving you what I always give you. A look at what was on the minds of the celebrities as the walked the red carpet for the biggest night in Hollywood. It’s a little something I like to call…

Things Overheard on the Oscars Red Carpet…

Nicole Kidman: I should never have made out with Charlize Theron’s dress last year. I knew I was gonna catch something.

Jessica Biel: I can’t wait for the day when I’m nominated for Best Actor, um, I mean Best Actress. Dammit! Why do I keep doing that? I really need to lay off the bench press.

George Lucas: Wait, did I ever have a chin? I don’t think so. Maybe I can digitally insert one in post?

Beyonce: I knew I should have had Dakota Fanning kill Jennifer. I don’t know what it would have cost, but it would have been worth it.

Ryan Gosling: This is all so beneath me. I’m going home to Rachel McAdams, like I care if the dude from Battlefield: Earth beats me?

Elisabeth Shue: Wait, why am I here? Am I being belatedly honored for my work in Hide & Seek?

Kate Winslet: Well, this is gonna be an uneventful night for me. Again. Good thing I brought my iPod. (singing to herself) My humps, my humps, my lovely lady lumps…

Jackie Earl Haley: Danny Bonaduce WISHES he looked as good as me.

Forrest Whitaker: This all just goes to show that the key to success in this business is starting your career in Jean Claude Van Damme movies. Maybe if Peter O’Toole had played Tong Po in Kickboxer he’d have won one by now.

Meryl Streep: I love that everyone points out all my nominations but doesn’t mention the fact that I haven’t actually won one since 1983.

Ben Affleck: So I gained all the weight and did the respectable actor part everyone told me I needed to do to earn respect and salvage my career and not only didn’t I get nominated but I STILL get crap for Gigli? Fuck this noise! I’m going home to bang my duck-beaked wife and greenlight Surviving Christmas 2: Attack of the Hanukkah.

Jodie Foster: Wait a second, why does everyone look so pretty and heterosexual? I thought the theme was “Gay Chic”? I wore my Tuesday clothes! So embarrassing…

Jack Nicholson: My head looks like a Trader Joes AA-size egg and I’m still getting the best tang tonight! Who wants to bet me I can nail Helen Mirren without taking my pants off?

Reese Witherspoon: And the “Eat It, Ryan Phillippe! I Look HOT!” Tour keeps rolling on.

The Jay: As does the “Shut UP, Squirrel Chin!” Tour. See you in Woodstock!

Peter O’Toole: Where am I? Who are all you people? Wot’s all dis, then? Are we shooting King Ralph 2? … I am old.

Sherry Lansing: Now, I, Skeletor Sherry, am Master of the Universe! Kneel before your master, Tom Cruise! KNEEL BEFORE ME!!!

Tom Cruise: I will never kneel to you! By the Power of L. Ron, I have the power!

Will Smith: Just keep smiling and laughing and no one will see your pain. It’s ok Will, one day we’ll convince them. One day. Oh HA HA HA! That’s a funny joke, Mr. Scorsese. … love me.

Gwyneth Paltrow: As long I keep putting the attention on the girls, no one will remember that I’ve been a vapid suck whole of talent for the last eight years. Yes, that’s it people, stare at my ugly boobs. STARE!

Samuel L. Jackson: Muthafuckin’ Academy not nominated me for Snakes on a Muthafuckin’ Plane! Shiiiitt. We’ll see how they like it when I toss around a half-naked white woman. Fucking Christina Ricci gets you places in this town, just look at Charlize Theron. … muthafucka!

Helen Mirren: I am a right hot bitch. Who wants to bet me I can nail George Clooney during my acceptance speech and still look classy?

Martin Scorsese: Oy! I got schpielkis in my genectikizoid! Look at Clint over there, looking all smug. I hate him. I HATE HIM! I swear to God, if he beats me again I’m dialing Dakota during the commercial break.

Cameron Diaz: I really can’t be mad at Justin. I mean look at me. Even I know I’m a wreck. Jessica Biel, even with her manly arms and overwhelming aura of butch dykeyness, is still hotter than me. Hell, he’d probably bang bald Britney again before me. I must stop letting myself look like the bad end of a three day coke bender. If Robert Downey Jr. can do it, so can I!

Eddie Murphy: No matter what, at least I look better in a fat suit than Martin Lawrence.

Abigail Breslin: OMG! Was that Dakota? Is she here? Oh no! Oh no! Steven Spielberg’s coming up to me. What if she’s reprogrammed him to be her own personal ninja assassin? I’m young and ever so adorable. I don’t want to die.

Dakota Fanning: Don’t fuck with the Fanning.

Steven Spielberg: Just do what she says and everything will be just fine. … I hope.

Bangarang!

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Best Picture

• BABEL
• THE DEPARTED
• LETTERS FROM IWO JIMA
• LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE
• THE QUEEN

Will Win: The Departed - It’s the only film everyone can agree on. Well, at the very least, it’s the only one most people have even seen. This is the weakest crop of Oscar nominees, in terms of box office, in decades. In cases like this, I say go with the movie that has the biggest stars in it. You don’t get any bigger than Nicholson, DiCaprio, Damon and Scorsese.

Should Win: The Queen - Little Miss Sunshine is a cute indie flick, but is in NO way an Oscar movie. Especially not a Best Picture. Please, we learned our lesson with American Beauty. Once burned, twice learned (that Kevin Spacey makes bad movies). Letters From Iwo Jima is a pedigree pick, only here because of the man who directed. Know how I know that? Only twenty people have even seen the damn thing. Babel is a muddled mess of an ensemble film that wasn’t even powerful enough to get Brad Pitt a gimme Best Supporting nomination. Don’t be fooled by pundits who say this could be like Crash. Even Brad is hoping The Departed wins. As for that film, been there done that. With the same director I might add. He should have won for Goodfellas; it’s not The Queen’s fault that people liked Kevin Costner in 1990. The Queen, however, was the best film I saw all year. The most emotional film I saw all year. I learned about things I was unaware of, saw a world I’m not accustomed to seeing, it showcased the best acting performance of the year in Helen Mirren’s titular monarch (more on this later), and it managed to be captivating despite being a story EVERYONE knows. I would be proud to call The Queen the Best Picture of the year.

Best Actor in a Leading Role

• Leonardo DiCaprio, BLOOD DIAMOND
• Ryan Gosling, HALF NELSON
• Peter O’Toole, VENUS
• Will Smith, THE PURSUIT OF HAPPYNESS
• Forest Whitaker, THE LAST KING OF SCOTLAND

Will Win: Forest Whitaker - The Academy tends to toe the line for the Best Actor race, and Forest has the most amount of shiny plaques. Though don’t be surprised if the Academy decides to follow the Be Old rule and give a goodbye award to Peter O’Toole. He was nominated on name recognition, so who’s to say what people actually seeing the movie could do for his chances.

Should Win: Leonardo DiCaprio, but for The Departed. I don’t know who’s brilliant idea it was to play both Leo films down the middle. He was never going to win for a movie he has to do an accent for. No one gets Oscars for accents, they get them for performances. Leo may be brilliant in Blood Diamond, but I bet the only thing people paid attention to was how well he did the South African accent. But he was brilliant in The Departed, without the help of an Oscar bait accent. The Departed was the first time I truly looked at Leo as a man, not a boy. He not only held his own in the scenes with Jack, I thought he was better. Go back and watch the scenes with Vera Farmiga to see the emotion, intensity and desperation in his eyes and words. If that’s not Best Acting, I don’t know what is. Just a monumental blunder by whoever decided to go with Blood Diamond.

Best Actress in a Leading Role

• Penelope Cruz, VOLVER
• Judi Dench, NOTES ON A SCANDAL
• Helen Mirren, THE QUEEN
• Meryl Streep, THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA
• Kate Winslet, LITTLE CHILDREN

Will Win: Helen Mirren - She gave the undisputed best performance of the year. End of discussion.

Should Win: Helen Mirren - Everyone else is playing for second place.

Best Director

• Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, BABEL
• Martin Scorsese, THE DEPARTED
• Clint Eastwood, LETTERS FROM IWO JIMA
• Stephen Frears, THE QUEEN
• Paul Greengrass, UNITED 93

Will Win: Martin Scorsese - The Departed is his Scent of a Woman, so to speak. It’s not his best work, but we screwed up by not honoring him for those movies, so this is the consolation. The Departed was his most accessible film in years, his highest grossing, and was a welcome return to the mobster-genre he defined over the last few decades. And it’s also what might be the last chance to give him an Oscar. It’s a weak year, with even Clint not bringing his best work to the table. In any other year Marty wouldn’t stand a chance. It’s his time. And if he loses to Eastwood again I will never watch the Oscars again. It’ll be a joke. Martin Scorsese is not Susuan Lucci. He’s Martin fucking Scorsese. Somebody better show him some goddamn respect.

Should Win: Martin Scorsese - Do I even need to explain why?

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Tonight marks the end of a show I was once lived and died for. The OC was a series that helped shape my vocabulary (“Ginormous!”), my Wednesday nights (and now Thursdays), my hatred for Mischa Barton, my drink of choice (The 7 and 7, thank you Ryan Atwood), my nighttime locked door viewing choices (thank you, Rachel Bilson), and was the catalyst for my very own Chrismukkah party.

It also perfectly satisfied by neverending need to always be watching a cheesy nighttime soap opera (preferrably of the irascible teen variety). From Beverly Hills, 90210 to Dawson’s Creek to The O.C., I’ve always been able to get my fix for pretty people melodramatically doing melodramatic things while looking and acting pretty. To honor the final episode of my former favorite show (Where have you gone The O.C. Season One, The Jay turns its lonely eyes to you. Ooh Ooh Ooh!), I am attempting my first foray into the potentially unfunny (and overdone) world of liveblogging. Let’s get right to it.

8:58 - Punk off, Rudy Cardenas! My night takes a bittersweet jump-off, as I completely agreed with three of the four people kicked of Idol. Ya’ll probably guessed my thoughts on Rudy. I was put off by Paul Kim since the start; put some shoes on, dork ass. And Nicole Tranquillo sent me to the double bloop faster than a mid-season episode of Smallville. As for Amy Krebs, she will be missed by me if only because she was the spitting image of my ex-girlfriend and I enjoyed how morbidly hilarious it was to “root for my ex” in a national singing competition. Riisa, if you’re reading this, I don’t think you sing like a candle. Simon was wrong about that. If I had to choose, I would say you sing much like an armoire. So to speak.

9:01 - Hello, final episode of The O.C.! I’m rocking the Atwood wifebeater, got my honorary glass of 7 and 7 by my side, and have Death Cab cued up on iTunes. I am officially ready to liveblog.

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(NOTE: This is an updated version of a column I ran last year before the Oscars. CLICK HERE to read that piece.)

As the saying goes, there are two things you never want to see get made, laws and sausages. Whether that’s true or not I won’t speculate, but if I could add one thing to the expression, it would be Academy Awards. Now I know what you must be thinking, “You can’t see how the Oscars are made!” Ah, but you’re wrong. Of all the awards, positions and accolades given out by a body of people, the Academy Awards are easily the most transparent. Even the Mtv Movie Awards have more suspense these days (How could Jennifer Carpenter in The Exorcism of Emily Rose beat Dakota Fanning in War of the Worlds? I can’t believe Spielberg didn’t rig this. Or that Dakota and her preternatural precociousness didn’t have Carpenter killed so as to blunt the awards glut of arch rival Abigail Breslin. No joke guys, I’m afraid of Dakota Fanning.)

The problem isn’t with the nominees, who more often that not are right on the mark. The problem is that the winners are so pre-ordained that if you don’t win your office Oscar pool every year, you just aren’t paying attention. This isn’t like the NCAA tournament where the weird girl from the smelly cubicle can randomly throw darts on her bracket, picks George Mason over Connecticut, and steals your money. For the Oscars, there are real ways to determine who will win. For example, merely keeping an eye out to the state of affairs in Hollywood will cue you in on the Best Picture race.

(The Departed will win because Hollywood is actively shifting back into a period of BIG, story driven movies. After successive years of divisive, small-in-scope, actor-driven winners, the last thing the Academy needs is for the depressing, manipulative Crash-wannabe Babel to take Scorsese’s glory. They want Marty on that wall. They NEED him on that wall!)

The directing Oscar generally matches the Best Picture, and the two writing Oscars are determined mostly from the WGA, and thus are beyond obvious come Oscar night. And absolutely no one cares about the technical awards. Even the costume designers don’t care about their category. The eight awards given to civilians are very much like throwing darts at a bracket, they don’t affect the Oscars in any real historical way, and besides, doesn’t John Williams win every year anyway? For all the arm-chair critics that decry the Oscars for being too long, how about making it like the Golden Globes and only give out awards where the winner is someone we recognize.

So that covers pretty much the entire show, except for the acting. And that’s what this column is going to cover. Over the next 2000 words or so, depending on how many “Little Miss Sunshine, Really?” tangents I go on, I will teach you how to predict the acting Oscar winners. There is a proven formula that I will share with you today.

Some think that the acting categories are merely a popularity contest, the High School student-body president race of the Oscars. Those people are wrong. I know this, the Academy knows this, and most importantly, actors know this. Actors are well aware that there are ways of manipulating the Academy into giving you an Oscar. Ever heard the phrase “Oscar bait” when someone is talking about one of those pretentious December movies that Miramax used to put out? Career decisions are often made not by money, but by how it will affect their relationship with the Academy. It’s a dance, you see. Some are good at it, and dip their way into Oscar gold before their feet even hurt. Others take so long to learn the steps that when they finally figure it out, they can barely do a box-step waltz. But make no mistake, every actor knows the way, and now you will to.

There are six ways to absolutely guarantee an Academy Award for acting. Any one way on its own gives you the edge in your category; any combination of the six will give you front-runner and likely winner-status. Any three put together, and the other four nominees shouldn’t waste their time writing one of those “I’m so humble about all this” speeches that Kate Winslet cries herself to sleep with. Now there are exceptions to this rule, as there are for anything, but these six ways are tried and true.

The Six Ways to Win an Academy Award for Acting

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Jim Carrey’s new thriller The Number 23 looks about as appealing as your average Joel Schumacher-directed film. This is to say, it looks mediocre. As a public service, I have compiled a coincidentally numbered list of reasons why you should save your money and not go.

1. Directed by Joel Schumacher.

2. Jim’s hair looks like a wig from the bottom of Tom Hanks’ Da Vinci Code reject pile.

3. Jim plays a dogcatcher in the movie. Is that still a job? What, was VCR repairman taken? I call shenanigans on this script!

4. If you thought chain letters were annoying, then you’re gonna hate the viral marketing campaign for The Number 23. Find out why HERE.

5. There are exactly 23 letters in the phrase: “This movie is complete shit.” Coincidence? I think not.

6. Don’t encourage Jenny McCarthy. It only makes things worse.

7. The official MySpace page for the movie does not have a modified Top 23 friends list. That’s a total lack of branded marketing support, if you ask me.

8. Why do I think about drinking Dr. Pepper (23 ingredients in each can!) when I see commercials for this movie? Everyone knows I Do The Dew!

9. Giving this movie your money is more incentive for Jim Carrey to never talk out of his ass again. I think we can all agree that that would be a bad thing.

10. Since she’s now become a respectable actress, there’s a -2.3% chance former-schlock-horror movie screamer Virginia Madsen will get naked. A scary movie with no boobies? Uh, no thank you.

11. Jim apparently pulled his dick out and peed on the set during an especially flat take. Peeing on set? That’s bush league. You don’t pull that kind of noise on a Schumacher set! That’s amateur hour! And besides, peeing is nothing to Joel. This is the man who directed St. Elmo’s Fire. You think Judd Nelson didn’t pull his dick out during the Ally Sheedy scenes? Hell, Demi Moore took a crap on Andrew McCarthy’s face during one scene and Joel printed the take! You gotta do a lot more than simple micturition to earn the director of Lost Boys’s respect.
    

12. Need I remind you of what happened the last time Joel Schumacher and Jim Carrey got paid for the same movie? A little something I like to call “Why Does Everyone Hate Val Kilmer?” aka Batman Forever.

13. “23” is one of the infamous numbers on Lost. Like Hurley says, the numbers are bad.

14. I don’t like math, and that’s what this POS looks like it’s all about. I didn’t like math in high school or college and I don’t like it now. Why would I want to sit through two hours of Jim Carrey learning fucking algebra? 2X + 3Y = Suck Off, The Number 23!

15. Unfortunately, this movie has nothing to do with Michael Jordan.

16. When it comes down it, if you only see one number-related movie this Spring, isn’t it going to be “300”? I know Jim Carrey’s cool, but he isn’t as cool as a million digital Persian warriors attacking the city of Sparta.

17. There are 23 letters in the phrase: “Britney Spears Shaved Bald”, which is a clear sign of the apocalypse.

18. Presumably, if you see the movie you’re gonna go around saying stupid shit like the phrase above. If that’s not enough of a deterrent, I don’t know what is?

19. Sideways ruined the Santa Ynez Valley for me. It’s so overloaded with stupid fucking non-wine drinking tourists that someone who actually collects wine, like me, can’t get a good seat at Buttonwood anymore. So screw you, Virginia Madsen. I liked you in Candyman, and for being the hotter of the two Madsen siblings, but for being indirectly related to decreasing my SB wine tasting enjoyment by a good 43%, I’m gonna have to boycott your stupid thriller. Call me when you’re doing something better than encouraging Jim Carrey’s laugh-avoidance or sobering up Harrison Ford.
    

20. The Number 23 will be released on February 23rd. Movies with gimmicky release dates never turn out to be any good. See: Omen 666, The

21. There’s an approximately 2.3% chance that Jim will be funny at any point in the movie (and that’s being generous).

22. Did I mention it was directed by Joel Schumacher? I did? Well, it’s worth reiterating.

23. The movie is so worthless I can’t even come up with a 23rd reason not to see it. So I’m just gonna go home, watch Ace Ventura: Pet Detective for the 47 time, and call it a day. I urge you to do the same.

Bangarang!

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The fun part can now begin. We have our Top 24 and it’s up to us not to screw it up like we did the last time (suck it, Taylor Hicks. Think maybe Chris Daughtry might have been a better way to go, America? Sometimes I wish I were Canadian.). I love this part of the show because I can finally just pick my horses and ride them to the finish. So while it may be exceedingly early for Finale predictions, and these six people may not even make it to the Top 12, for my money, these are the (and my) early American Idol favorites. In picture order: Chris Sligh, Amy Krebs, Brandon Rogers, Hayley Scarnato, Sanjaya Malakar, Melinda Dolittle.

Let me know who your favorite is by leaving a comment.

Bangarang!

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Thank God!

Hilary Duff finally came to her senses, had her dentist dragged into a back alley and beaten within an inch of his life, and fixed her truly god awful chiclet-like teeth. This may be the smartest career move she has ever made (though she had fairly suspect judgment to begin with. I know she’s your sister and all, but really Hilary, you’re putting you’re stock in Haylie Duff? She couldn’t even hold her own against Jon Heder. Everyone holds their own against Jon Heder. Orlando Bloom is a flaming suck pit of blandness and even HE could burn Heder off the screen. Seriously, don’t even think about Material Girls 2. And you might want to ask for a DNA test, just to be on the safe side.). Hilary’s career (which is currently taking a nose dive faster than Gavin Newsome’s) just got a brief extension.

For the entire Horse Teeth/Anorexia-era Hollywood was slowly taking a step back from the former Disney Idol. With one trip to the dentist she gambled her entire future and rolled a snake eyes. But like an addicted gambler hitting up the ATM for one final roll of the dice, so Hilary Duff, once a cute and perky, blonde tween queen, then a scary buck-toothed skeletor, is now a fully-recovering minor Hollywood hottie. Welcome back, kid. Now eat a hamburger.

Here’s the official PR flackment:

Well, in comparison to what she looked like before, ANYTHING was going to be an improvement. This girl’s been through a lot. What with the anorexia, intense Hollywood-required workout regimen, probable smoking habit, definite excessive club drinking, two major oral surgeries and the general unrest that is celebridom, her face and figure are barely holding on by a thread. She looks like a cross between a constipated Michelle Branch and one of those porn stars who spent just a few too many months in the business. In other words, packed hard and laid down wet. Just as a reminder, she’s only 19. Such is the life of a minor Hollywood hottie desperately clinging to her place on the star pole.

I weep for Lizzie Maguire.

Bangarang!

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