The New Mystery Science Theater 3000

Many of you out there might be familiar with Mystery Science Theater 3000, the low budget show that had a good run the 1990's on the Sci-Fi Channel and Comedy Central. For those of you who aren't familiar, it was a show where a guy and two robots were banished into outer space and forced to watch really awful movies from the 50's, 60's and 70's. The catch is, as they watched them, they would make fun of them, but at a well thought out comedic level. Eventually the show ran out of steam and finally ended. Many of the episodes are available on DVD with the option of turning off the wise-cracking audio commentary, although why someone would subject themselves to watching Manos: The Hands of Fate or Red Zone Cuba in their original form is beyond me. Fast forward to today. Mike Nelson, one of MYST3K's creators, has set up a web site called Rifftrax.com where he and some of the old gang have moved on to making fun of current popular movies. How it works is you pay somewhere in the neighborhood of $3 to download an audio track of snarky comments and then play it in an MP3 player while watching the movie, thus mimicking the Mystery Science Theater experience. The whole idea's popularity appears to be growing along with the available library. They've got big bidget stuff like Star Wars: Episodes I, Casino Royale and The Fantastic Four, plus a number of other movies that are ripe for mockery like Crossroads with Britney Spears and Glitter with Mariah Carey. So far I've downloaded the Rifftrax for X-Men and Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (see some sample clips below) and all I can say is it's good to have the guys back. I've even taken it a step further and extracted the movie from the DVD, added the Rifftrax to the audio and re-burned it to DVD. It makes for an enjoyable 2-3 hours of viewing. For more samples go here.

AFI 100: My Thoughts

Ten years ago the American Film Institute celebrated 100 years of film making in America by releasing a list of the 100 Greatest American Films. Since then, it has periodically released similar "100 Greatest" lists including Greatest Stars, Greatest Heroes & Villains, and Greatest Movie Quotes. Last night CBS aired a 10th anniversary revision in which the institute essentially threw out the old list and ranked the 100 Greatest American films all over again (See the complete list here). Frankly, I was a little surprised with the amount movement when comparing the two lists. Raging Bull jumped from 24 up to 4, Vertigo moved from 61 up to 9, and the John Wayne western The Searchers made a huge leap from 96 all the way to 12. There were 23 films new to list, but only four of those have been released since 1997: The Fellowship of the Ring (50), Saving Private Ryan (71), Titanic (83) and The Sixth Sense (89). The others are just older movies that have apparently grown in stature, the most notably being the 1927 Buster Keaton film The General which debuted on the list at 18 (how a movie is perceived 80 years after its release can be that different from how it is perceived 70 years after its release is beyond me). Of course, 23 new films means 23 films were taken off the list. James Dean seems to be the big loser here as two of his movies, Rebel Without A Cause and Giant, are no longer among the elite. More recent movies to get dropped were Dances With Wolves and Fargo. Those were the facts. Now here's my opinions. I could just rank my 100 greatest films or say which ones are too high, but that's exactly what the AFI would want me to do. That's why they air these specials, so people will debate them next day. Instead I'll just focus on a handful of films from the list and issue my own recommendations for you to watch. Take them for what they're worth. Citizen Kane (1), The Third Man (Dropped): Orson Welles was a genius. His problem is he made the greatest movie ever at age 26. Where do you go from there? Citizen Kane is a great example of excellent film making. The camera angles, the editing, the acting are all brilliant. For a follow up watch The Third Man, which features Welles in one my favorite scenes of all time. His acting in that movie is nothing short of incredible. The Godfather (2): I've previously commented on Al Pacino's performance in this movie. It's very different from the over-the-top Pacino you see these days. Brando is excellent as well. Some people like the sequel better, and the parts with Robert De Niro are great, but I think Part I is still the better of the two. Casablanca (3), The Maltese Falcon (31), The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (38): Here we have three contrasting performances from Humphrey Bogart. Sure he plays a tough guy in all three, but in a different way. The stoicism in Casablanca is what he's best known for, but in Falcon he shows a little more personality. In Treasure he goes mad. Lawrence of Arabia (7), The Bridge on the River Kwai (36): David Lean was so far ahead of his time it's ridiculous. These two movies are definitely worth viewing, even though they are both really long. Peter O'Toole is amazing as T.E. Lawrence and Alec Guiness out performs William Holden, who was the first actor to receive a million-dollar paycheck for his role in Bridge. On the Waterfront (19): Here we see a young Brando in his other Oscar-winning role. Watch this and then watch The Godfather. To Kill a Mockingbird (25): While we're talking about AFI, the institute named Atticus Finch as it greatest film hero of all time. It's a good choice and Gregory Peck is legendary in this movie. High Noon (27): Gary Cooper was in quite a few good movies, but this one sort of stands alone, no pun intended. Dr. Strangelove (39): I'm not much of a Stanley Kubrick fan, but this movie is hilarious. Peter Sellers plays three characters and each one is more over the top than the previous. It Happened One Night (46): They don't make movies like this anymore. In the height of the studio contract days, Frank Capra managed to "borrow" Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert from MGM for two weeks to film this little movie that went on to big things. Though nearly 75 years old, it's is still a lot of fun. Rear Window (48): Vertigo may have climbed way up on the list, but of the four collaborations Jimmy Stewart had with Alfred Hitchcock, it's probably my least favorite. I like Rear Window and The Man Who Knew Too Much more. I even like Rope, a movie that was filmed in only eight shots, more than Vertigo. Jaws (56): The original shark movie is still a classic. The editing and pacing in this movie are excellent, even if the shark does look fake. In the Heat of the Night (75): It's all too easy these days for filmmakers to make racism the bad guy. This movie goes a little further and gives its characters enough flaws to seem more realistic without detracting from the overall sense of right and wrong. 12 Angry Men (87): Henry Fonda is really good in this movie. It's interesting to watch as his character, just trying to do his duty as a juror, goes through and creates reasonable doubt in the minds of the other jurors one-by-one.

Great Plains & Rolling Stones

A few months ago The Discovery Channel aired a series of nature and wildlife programs called Planet Earth. I recently started watching the series as it has been replaying on Discovery's sibling station Animal Planet. So far I'd say it's a notch above other nature programs out there. I definitely have to give a lot of credit to the amazing camera shots that were secured. Below is a short clip (1:04) from the episode entitled "Great Plains." I added a little music to spice things up a bit.

As Seen on IMDb

It's been kind of a crazy weekend here at Entertainment News. Back in February I drafted a sarcastic blog entry entitled "Untapped Goldmine" which talks about how Hollywood should turn to workout videos for new movies ideas. Friday it was featured on the The Internet Movie Database's Hit List, a daily list of 5-10 links to movie and TV articles from sources such as Variety, Entertainment Weekly, The LA Times and other major Hollywood publications, as well as a few amateur sites. Since then it's been mentioned a number of other places like exercise video forums, a Hollywood insider message board, a major joke of the day site feed and even a white supremacy blog, whose writer feels rather passionately about white jokes and affirmative action, both of which I touched on briefly in the form of movie clichés. Needless to say, traffic to the Web Log went through the roof. For the first 7+ months of tracking, Entertainment News received 2,365 visits, an average of about 10.5 per day. Although, more recently it had been averaging about 48 per day, mostly from people who got here by way of a Google image search that turned up a collage I created for a surprisingly popular blog entry about bad 1980's sitcoms. For the three days the link was on IMDb.com (June 8-10), the Web Log received 12,910 visits, the bulk of which (7,280) came on Friday. Now things should return to normal. I still expect a few extra visitors to trickle in from those other links I mentioned, and who knows, maybe I landed some new Entertainment News fans. Of course there will always be the random visitor who finds his way by typing some odd phrase into a search engine. Below is a sample of my favorite more recent searches that have somehow brought people here. (The hyper links are to blog entries that discuss those topics, although usually not in the searcher's intended context.) Why does tourettes get worse in your 30's? What happened to Bee Gee's music on iTunes? Marilyn Manson, 80's sitcoms What was the plot development in the movie Stomp the Yard? Soleil Moon Frye hot Why does Baskin and Robbins have 31 flavors? List of cars Robert Goulet owns What would Mikey Smith mean in mafia terms? The average guy wishes he could step into: George Clooney Seduce a marine Is Brice Beckham in a rock band? Josie Davis ugly Nicole Eggert pretty Air Bud based on a true story Does Johnny Depp use sense memory in his acting work? Explain the ending of Pirates 3 David Caruso was a navy seal John Travolta look alike in Phoenix, Arizona for parties Salma Hayek catfight legs Is Jerry Supiran really Billy Corgan? Fight Club in comparison to the Allegory of the Cave Keith Olbermann sucks People who disagree with the infinite monkey theorem NBA Finals 2007 game fixed The silver surfer's weenie

Arrested Development: The Band Reunites

It's been a while since I've posted anything related to Arrested Development, so here's a classic clip from Season 1 where Dr. Fünke's 100% Natural Good Time Family Band Solution gets back together. I would like to point out that this blog entry was made possible by The Natural Life Food Company, a division of Chem Grow, an Allyn-Crane acquisition and part of the Squimm Group.

Epiphany of Confusion

Have you ever had one of those moments where you're watching a movie that isn't like most movies because it's really artsy or there's lots of symbolism or the story isn't told in chronological order or the movie is Asian? The moment I'm referring to is when you're engrossed in film because it's kind of hard to follow but you're determined to see it through because you've paid so close attention thus far. Finally the various plot elements are starting to come together and you hope the payoff in the end will be completely mind blowing. Then you have the moment. It dawns on you that you won't understand the ending, even though it's still 30 minutes away. You identify with the characters. You pick up on a few pieces of symbolism. But none of that matters, because you already know the ending won't make any sense, at least not to you. You realize you're watching a movie that will no doubt end up as a cult classic because 1) it's too weird for mainstream to embrace it and 2) it's so confusing that the few people out there that claim to understand it will band together and pat each other on the back. That's not to say that the movie experience has been a complete waste of time. Maybe the movie is visually stunning or the acting is profound or the score is particularly powerful or the cinematography is ground breaking. But in the end, you know you'll be disappointed because this could have been one the great ones. I had such a moment recently while watching Darren Aronofsky's The Fountain with Hugh Jackman and Rachel Weisz. Without giving away the ending (which I don't think I could, since I'm not really sure what happened at the end), here's a brief synopsis: three stories - one each from the past, present, and future - about men in pursuit of eternal life. A conquistador in Mayan country searches for the tree of life to free his captive queen; a medical researcher, working with tree sap, looks for a cure that will save his dying wife; a space traveler, traveling with an aged tree within a bubble, moves toward a dying star that's wrapped in a nebula; all seek enlightenment. I just wish someone would enlighten me as to what it was I just watched. Other movies where I've had similar epiphanies of my own impending confusion include Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and, to a lesser extent, Memento and Spirited Away. It's worth noting that I liked those movies.

2007 NBA Playoffs

Disclaimer: As a matter a full disclosure, I feel it necessary to point out that I grew up in Utah and therefore I am a huge Jazz fan. However, I now live in Phoenix and the Suns style of basketball has wooed me to the point where I now count myself among their fans as well. Now that the 2007 NBA Playoffs are over, I thought it would be a good time to recap the action. "But John," you're probably saying to yourself, "the playoffs aren't over yet. We still have to decide the Eastern Conference Finals and the NBA Finals." Let's stop and reflect for a minute. The San Antonio Spurs versus any team form the East. How about somebody just send me an e-mail when it's all done letting me know who wins. Let's begin with the first round. The big story is Golden State's dismantling of Dallas (my sympathies to Fatty and Jonny). While I'll agree the Warriors played some excellent high-energy basketball, I wasn't ready to anoint them the champs like everyone else. In fact, after they won the series in six games, I wanted the Jazz to beat Houston worse than ever because I knew that would mean a real chance of advancing the conference finals. The Utah-Golden State series showed that the Warriors' success over the Mavs was all about match-ups, which is why Utah had such an easy time with them in Round 2. I know, Golden State was right there in Game 1, should have won Game 2 and blew out the Jazz in Game 3, but after that, the wheels came off. Their performance in Games 4 & 5 reminded me of Game 7 of the 1994 NBA Finals where Houston defeated New York because John Starks couldn't hit a shot but refused to stop trying. Talk about one-dimensional basketball. It was as if Don Nelson really wanted to beat Dallas and after he did he just sort of exhaled and went in to semi-retirement for Round 2. Speaking of the Jazz, how can their fans not be excited for the future, especially after the way DeRon Williams emerged as some sort of 22-year-old hybrid of Jason Kidd and Steve Nash. Also, that bench is full young promising stars like Paul Milsapp and Dee Brown, two rookies who both played quality minutes. The fact that Jerry Sloan has never won Coach of the Year is a sham. This year it went to Toronto's Sam Mitchell. Please. The Eastern Conference is the NBA's answer to the NIT and should be treated as such. (In a related matter, the fact that the lottery awarded the top two picks to Western Conference teams suggests that things aren't likely to get better any time soon). The other half of the Western Conference bracket was just as intriguing, at least in the second round. After Phoenix dismissed the Lakers in five (oh, poor Kobe), and San Antonio did the same with Denver, NBA fans were treated to the true NBA finals. Seriously, with Dallas out of the way, did anybody have any realistic expectations of winning it all besides these two? Too bad David Stern and his cronies had to go and ruin it. I know a rule is a rule but so are traveling and lane violations and how often are they enforced? In essence, suspending Boris Diaw and Amare Stoudemire for almost leaving the bench after Robert Horry's hard fowl on Steve Nash rewarded the aggressor and punished Phoenix even though the two players really didn't do anything. What that ruling did is encourage thuggary in the NBA because it sends the message that if you send in a bench player to commit a hard foul, you've got a good chance of inciting your opponent into behavior that could result in suspensions. It really is a shame because Phoenix most likely would have won Game 5. Would they have won the series? I guess we'll never know. I've found it interesting how the Spurs have fallen out of favor with me the past few years. It was hard to root against David Robinson and Tim Duncan because of their attitudes and work ethic, but now Duncan has supplanted Dikembe Mutombo as the player with the most outlandish look of disbelief when whistled for a foul. Yes, Tim, when you grab a guy's elbow and clock him in the head as he goes up for a shot, it is a foul. How Tony Parker continues to get calls after driving into the lane and falling down baffles me. The rest of the Spurs are a lot like Detroit's bad boy teams of the late 1980's, but with a more international flavor. Bruce Bowen is a dirty player, despite what he says, and Robert Horry is nothing more than a cheap-shot artist, reminiscent of the legendary Rick Fox. For the most part, TNT and ESPN/ABC's coverage of the playoffs was poor. I think Steve Kerr is the best color commentary guy in pro basketball and Craig Sager is the be all and end all of sideline reporters. I found myself tuning in just to see what suit-shirt-tie combination he would wear next. Aside from them the coverage sucked. I know the NBA season is long, but did anyone else get the impression that the guys picking the camera angles were bored? That wire camera was vastly overused. Also, I wouldn't be surprised if there was a camera constantly fixed on Eva Longoria so they could cut to shots of her at a moment's notice. Of course, that way ABC can plug her show which happens to be on their network. The announcers were mostly pretty bad too, especially during the Western Conference Finals. Mike Breen is fine, but Mark Jackson and Jeff Van Gundy's playful banter and jabs at each other got old fast. Also, some geography lessions might have helped the announcers. At one point Breen, talking about Spurs center Fabricio Oberto, said he was in his second year in the NBA, but was 32 years old because he had played 12 years in Europe: six years in Argentina, one in Greece and five in Spain. Another occasion saw them talking about how when drafting Argentinian Manu Ginobili, the Spurs had a choice between him and another European player. The guys at ESPN Deportes need to slap their colleagues on the back of the head. I suppose it could have been worse. Had it been Bill Walton during every game I would have watched on mute. I've never been a fan of the three-man broadcasting team. The art of the two-man team is apparently lost on ESPN who had no less than 11 on-air personalities at Game 1 of the Utah-San Antonio series. At least none of them was Charles Barkley, the epitome of unprofessionalism. Below is a clip of the post game show following Utah's Game 7 victory over Houston in the first round (1:57). Sir Charles was too busy watching a boxing match to do his job.

Life Imitates Art

Our story begins in 1903 with founding of the Pacific Coast League, a minor league baseball league that was once considered for "promotion" to the majors after WWII. One of the original members of the PCL was the Oakland Oaks who would remain in the Bay Area until 1956 when the New York Giants moved to San Francisco. The Oaks relocated to Vancouver and called themselves the Mounties. In 1970 the team moved to Salt Lake City becoming the Bees and then the Angels and then the Gulls. In 1985 they moved back to Canada becoming the Calgary Cannons. This is where things get interesting. In 2003 the team moved to its current location: Albuquerque, NM and held a fan-voting contest to choose a new name. It had been only two years since the Dukes had left town, but fans still wanted a new name. They chose Isotopes. The few naive people in New Mexico will say this is because the state deals with nuclear chemicals, but everyone else knows the name comes from a Season 12 episode of The Simpsons entitled "Hungry Hungry Homer." This is the episode that features Blocko Land, the amusement park made entirely of Blocko brand assembly fun blocks. The trip to Blocko Land marks the beginning of Homer's quest to help "schmoes with their problems." He talks a girl into asking Bart on date and helps the hair dressers at Hairy Shearers increase their razor-thin profit margins by switching from loafer lightener to mincing gel. He then moves on to his most daunting task of all, a hunger strike to bring to light the Duff Corporation's plans to move the Springfield Isotopes to Albuquerque. The highlights include Homer getting visited by the spirit of Cesar Chaves ("Why do you look like Cesar Romero?" "Because you don't know what Cesar Chavez looks like."), getting replaced by Paint-Drinking Pete and the brand new Isotope Dog Supreme with Mesquite-grilled onions, jalapeño relish and mango lime salsa, the kind of bold flavor they enjoy in Albuquerque. My reasons for telling this story are to spotlight the power pop culture has over the masses, and to remind people that The Simpsons was actually funny not that long ago.

Finding Nemo In Sushi

Having worked in direct mail advertising, I can really appreciate the creative genius behind this piece from Australia. The channel TV2 sent sushi to media planners and buyers to encourage them to book advertising space during Sunday Premier Movies. The piece, which was in fact edible, generated unprecedented inquiries to the sales team which managed to sell 100% ad space for the show.

Hollywood's Old Shoe

Even though this summer's movie season is just barely underway, it's never too early to look ahead to next year. In fact, I'm convinced that many of the movie publications out there, including some legitimate ones like Entertainment Weekly, are too obsessed with what's coming in the future. There are two reasons for this. First, the hype feeds the machine that is Hollywood's current business model. It's all about the opening weekend. Sometimes sequels get the green light based solely on a good opening weekend. Second, when nobody has seen a particular movie, there's still a chance that it could be the greatest movie ever. In other words, when a movie is still just an idea, Hollywood hasn't had a chance to ruin it yet. This couldn't be more true when it comes to remakes. Janet Maslin of the New York Times summed it up best: "Can there be too much of a good thing? For some movie makers, the answer is clearly no. Every so often, one of them is tempted to tinker with success by remaking an esteemed or popular old movie. Sometimes the remake is a labor of love, and sometimes it's an exercise in commerce. Sometimes the endeavor is a homage to the earlier film or its director. Sometimes there is an effort to update an old story. Sometimes the idea is to apply new techniques—color and wide-screen—to a film that once unfolded in black and white on a small screen. And sometimes the remake is pervaded by a challenge—to take the old movie and make it bigger, better, gaudier than before. Hitchcock even remade Hitchcock. The master of suspense made The Man Who Knew Too Much in England in 1934 with Leslie Banks, Edna Best and Peter Lorre. And he did it again in the United States in 1956 with James Stewart, Doris Day and Bernard Miles. As is often the case, there are those who love the first, loathe the second." So in a effort to do my part to feed hype to the machine, here are some examples of remakes that are somewhere in the development pipeline. Hitchcock set a dangerous precedent by remaking Hitchcock because now it seems everyone wants to remake Hitchcock as well. We've already seen Psycho, A Perfect Murder (a remake of Dial M for Murder) and several remakes of Rear Window (the latest being Disturbia), but on the way are The Birds, The 39 Steps and Strangers on a Train. Hitchcock isn't the only master to get a makeover. Other notable movie remakes you can hope to see soon include Kiki's Delivery Service, Labyrinth (this time with Hillary Swank instead of Jennifer Connelly), The Topkapi Affair (a remake of Topkapi which earned Peter Ustinov* an Oscar, and which will serve as a sequel to The Thomas Crown Affair which is itself a remake), The Incredible Shrinking Man, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty and two movies that could sure use an upgrade in the special effects: Clash of the Titans and Logan's Run (the latter of which actually received a Special Achievement Oscar for its visual effects the year before Star Wars came out). Of course, what would a list of upcoming remakes be without the obligatory recycled horror movies. Coming soon are Creepshow, Halloween, Hellraiser, Piranha and The Fly. Don't forget the TV shows that will be butchered—I mean adapted—for the big screen. In the past the good ones have been The Fugitive, The Addams Family and... I can't come up with any more, but I'm sure there are some. The list of bad adaptations are too long to list, the most recent ones being Starsky & Hutch, The Dukes of Hazzard and Miami Vice. Let's just say I don't have high hopes for the ones I'm listing here except perhaps Get Smart with Steve Carrell as Maxwell Smart and a supporting cast that includes Anne Hathaway, Alan Arkin, Terence Stamp and Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson. The rest are CHiPs (with Wilmer Valderrama, aka Fez from That 70's Show, as Ponch), Dallas (with John Travolta as JR), I Dream of Jeannie (with Jimmy Fallon as Major Nelson), Knight Rider and The A-Team. And don't forget this summer's The Simpsons Movie. As for kids' cartoons making it to movie form as either cartoon, CGI or live-action, we have The Jetsons, The Smurfs, Voltron and this summer's Transformers and Underdog. Following the Success of The Departed (a remake of Hong Kong's Infernal Affairs), expect a slew of other Asian movies being remade for US audiences. And, speaking of imports, TV will also be dabbling in foreign remakes. Popular British shows Life on Mars (about a cop trapped in the 1970's) and Footballer's Wives (changed from soccer to American football and renamed Football Wives) will be remade like The Office was. They will join The Bionic Woman as new shows next season based on other shows. * The late Peter Ustinov was an accomplished actor who is probably best known to my generation as the voice of Prince John in Disney's Robin Hood. My favorite quote of his is "I believe that the Jews have made a contribution to the human condition out of all proportion to their numbers: I believe them to be an immense people. Not only have they supplied the world with two leaders of the stature of Jesus Christ and Karl Marx, but they have even indulged in the luxury of following neither one nor the other."