Barry Pepper is the model of class and dignity

This guy is the man. I'm watching the Kennedy's mini-series that was deemed too hot for History Channel. People scoffed at the way the family was depicted but 4 episodes in it seems pretty much what I've read. Trying to make a narrative film about anyone's life has to be filled with lies and composites in order to make sense in a 2-8 hour narrative. The thing is well produced but filled with terribly showy performances. This isn't a drama killer per-say, aside from Katie Holmes as Jackie, a showy performance from a girl with little to show is kind of embarrassing.

Kennedy just assigned his "first negro to presidential protection detail." Yes we can America. Yes we can. Uh oh, old whitey's got a problem with it. Kennedy don't give a rip.

Ok back to Barry Pepper. He's playing Bobby Kennedy and has a ridiculous hair cut, but he is holding himself and his facial contortions with grace and dignity that is far more than this extended cable historical drama deserves. He's been in a lot of terrible movies and hasn't always been the best part, but he has done his job and earned his paycheck. I really noticed him in the 25th Hour, which was a scenery chewing performance in a scenery chewing movie (still awesome). But in most other roles he's been reasonably restrained. He played Roger Marris AND Dale Erndhart for crying out loud, and Barry is about the only guy who could make this bastard care about sports. No I haven't seen either of those movies but if they were on netflix I might skim them.

I just looked at IMDB and it turns out he played Tom Ripley in a movie, I must find it. Review forthcoming.

A new franchise

So I had this idea for a movie franchise, probably gonna start off with a trilogy budgeted at 175 million each before prints and advertising. Gonna be this cocky but good guy who gets this power at the same time this evil guy gets power. They gotta fight but for the good guy to win he has to lose his cockiness, not the cockiness that comes from his character traits or jokes but the cockiness that we made up as a debilitating factor. With the help of his love interest and experienced associate he becomes a true hero and saves the day. He enjoys one chaste kiss with love interest before running off for unseen adventures.

WRITTEN/DIRECTED/STARRING C MINUS

BASED ON THE CHARACTERS OF DC COMICS/MARVEL/C-MINUS

END CREDITS

Movie fades from credits to experienced associate. Experienced associate has decided to become evil in the sequel and reveals himself to be the true bad guy and that first nemesis was just some foot soldier or something.

END CREDITS of crew. By crew I mean union personnel. Everyone else has had their name scrubbed off of this thing.

Movie fades from crew credits to reveal previously unseen/heard of supervisor for good guys. Supervisor asks our hero to join this band of good guys for future adventures.

END CREDITS of 14 special effects companies that were rushed into working on top of one another to meet the release date that was set for the movie before the movie was ever put into production.

Movie fades from special effect credits to reveal a spin off character that will be having his own origin story next summer.

END CREDITS of state governments that paid for this movie with tax credits and upfront bonuses for having an important media conglomerate choose their area to construct a green screen and have actors pretend to fight tennis balls.

Movie fades from government sponsorship credits to reveal that the producers of this movie have learned a lot since this movie was released 2 days ago and promise to take the character in "darker" directions for the sequel that will happen if international grosses cover the domestic shortfall.

END CREDITS of 3D effects companies and a message about returning the disposable 3D glasses you paid an extra 2.50 for.

Please see the concession stand out in the lobby for gift certificates and foodstuffs.

3D and lobby messages interrupted to make one last reference to a previous film/media product that this current movie was supposed to be rebooting.

B. Willis

I watched the movie RED and it reminded me of one thing: Bruce Willis is an amazing actor, and severely under-rated. It fathoms me that he has not yet won an academy award. The man can play a superhero and yet still make us believe he's an average joe through his sincerity.
How can a mortal man exude both profound awesomeness, and profound emotion at the same time?
Magic.
Willis' magic is strong, and he's not afraid to show it. Rumor has it that he studied under kings and gods for centuries before emerging in his present state to yippi-kai-yea us out of our mundane slump. (Disclaimer: I've never seen any Die Hard movie all the way through, I'm more of a fan of his later work, e.g. The Fifth Element, Unbreakable.)
So the next time you watch a movie featuring Bruce Willis I challenge you this: Look into his eyes. And I mean really look into them. You may be afraid at first, but trust me, the wonders encased within are well worth the damage.

Here is a great idea turned into a very rushed script

Script: Dateable (rough draft)

Will I ever do this? It's not looking likely so I will allow you to read a very rushed version of "Dateable" that costar and I wrote after seeing Tron 2 over Christmas break. I have had this idea in my head forever. It was originally a rejected part of the untitled movie project that I will no longer be bitter about. It's funny because the one sentence description of a Dateable is better than anything in the untitled movie script.

This would be 5-8 minutes long and I was going to do it as kind of a anthology or whatever with 2 other ideas bouncing back and forth. An idea to go with it would be "girl scent for men" which is a spray that gives the faint impression that you may have been hanging out with a really nice girl recently. The scent would be used in many situations, like making someone you are into think you are seeing other women. Or making a party seem like there might be girls there so the only girls that show up don't feel like its a dude party. Or if you are a girl you could use it to cover up the scent of hanging out with a guy or something. The ideas are endless.

So we have that and we also had the gem of an idea called the "blanket snorkel" which is a blanket with a breathing apparatus under it which would let fresh air in while also keeping your whole body warm under the blanket. Good for cold rooms and dutch oven protection.

Each of the products would have a stupid little relationship drama folded around them. I thought it would be fun to have the "blanket snorkel" take place entirely under the covers of a bed and filmed with the nightvision feature on my camera. There would be different ways to work in product descriptions such as the infomercial/training video that is playing during the dateable thing.

I got the idea for Dateable the product after buying a lunchable and talking with one of the workwives about the romantic possibilities of the lazy lunch option. I believe I sketched her a very detailed diagram but I believe she threw it out as she threw out all memories of us and our workplace when she was accepted into the promised land (a job with very good pay, benefits and respect without the sexual harassment [I didn't think they existed in Michigan either]).

Maybe a month or two from now you will see a refined video version of this script. You could be all like "Aww man I could have been a part of this/Aww man I could have stopped this." But you didn't and so now you will just have to sit there with the other 12 viewers wishing you would have did something.

Ok the laptop is starting to feel like its 20 feet away from me as I type this which means I'm either getting tired, sick or the salvia I just dropped is kicking in.

Oh and I got my stitches out today. The scar makes my back look like a treasure map. AND THE TREASURE IS PUSS!

Just because it's British doesn't make you cultured

"Ugh I can't believe they are doing the office as an American show. It's gonna be awful."

-Me, 2004

I was an idiot in 2004. I am an idiot in 2011 but that is for other reasons than thinking I was a cool person for watching shows, movies and other crap that originated overseas. I illegally downloaded both seasons and the holiday special of the British Office and almost bought the DVD's on many occasions. I thought I was special for liking it because Joe Six Pack hadn't heard of it yet. I was not special, I was one of the first ten million to be exposed to a television program, and felt that I had to defend the show's honor in regards to the Am

erican version.

"You don't understand, if they take this classy show and dumb it down for the American Idiots (see that was an album in 2004) that watch 'Everyone Loves Raymond' it'll be a disaster. Those miscreants might as well go back in time and prevent the original show from ever happening. Remaking the show for an entirely different audience is that terrible!"

-Me in 2004

"First of all C-Minus from 7 years ago: Get a Life. You don't have any friends and that is a much higher priority then some silly show. Second: can you tell me why you like this show? No you can't, because you have not thought about why you like the show. This show is something obscure for you to champion which you feel you must do to make up for your lack of accomplishments."

-Me in 2010

I was not special because I liked the British Office. I was an a-hole because I was an a-hole. Let me try to tell you something I like for a moment.

"You should check out the show Community which is on at 8PM Thursday's on NBC. It is hilarious and actually scarily accurate to some of the stuff at a community college. Chevy Chase is in it but not enough so that he ruins it. You will want to start at the beginning of the season 1 though, do you want to borrow my DVDs? The rest I think you can see on Hulu or NBC.com. I know you are in to Big Bang Theory which is on at the same time but I think this show is special."

-Me now.

See what I did there. I didn't try to exclude you for not being aware of something. I concisely told you why I love something I love and then I gave you a very easy option to check it out. Community is on NBC so everyone wants to hate it, and it's not a remake so there is no original to try to defend...but if it was I think I'd be old enough to get over it and enjoy the show for what it is.

My favorite movie (this week) is "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory" when they remade it I rolled my eyes and begrudgingly checked out. I was mature enough not to blow the rape whistle because my childhood was being molested by Tim Burton, my childhood is still available on video and I don't think the remake is gonna stick around in people's minds. Do I wish more original movies and TV shows were made? Probably, but if the absence of that it's not worth it to go crying wolf over some remake/adaptation that's going to bring about the apocalypse.

You can boil 90% of the idea's out there into coming of age stories, competitions, or revenge plots so if the idea is not a remake in name then it is ripping something off in spirit. The social network, I loved it. I love it even more when it was called Citizen Kane. And I'm not dropping Citizen Kane on you because I want you to think I'm classy. I live in my mother's basement and one time I blew my nose (reference deleted) into the same sheet of paper towel, so I think the classy boat has sailed. I'm telling you about Citizen Kane because it's awesome.

Here is a self-test I gave myself regarding telling you about new things and not sounding like a prick:

"Ok I got a old movie you should check out. You've heard of it, it's called Citizen Kane and it's in black and white, but its crazy and fast paced and has awesome editing. The main character is so like a bunch of people in the news today."

"Have you played Alpha Protocol? It got some bad reviews but it's really great. It's a streamlined Mass Effect style action RPG set in a spy movie. You can have sex with 4 women in the game if you do the dialogue options right. Would you like to borrow my copy for 360? I'm done with it but I don't want to sell it incase it becomes a collectors item."

"Did you hear that they are remaking Ocenia of Time for the 3DS? I don't know about paying 40 dollars for a 13 year old game, but I bet the original still holds up and it should be cool in 3D."

"YOU HAVEN'T SEEN THE MISFITS? WHAT KIND OF A JAGOFF ARE YOU?"

My 80s Montage

When I got to the gym, I revert to my formative years. Perhaps it's becuase I feel as awkward in my workout cloths as I did in my own skin when I was young. Whatever the reason, as soon as I start working out, my world becomes a real-time 80s training montage.

It is a great motivator, and to keep the juice flowing, I decided to make a workout playlist consisting of all my favorite 80s montage songs. (DISCLAIMER The 1980s lasted form 1975 until 1995 for the purposes of this list.)
Herefollows my actual playlist:

Theme from Rocky (Gonna Fly Now)
The classic of classics when it comes to training music. Been used and parodied more times then can be imagined.

Eye of the Tiger
More of a recap montage from Rocky, but also a great song in itself.

Hearts on Fire
Probably the best Rocky montage there is. Training to defeat the entire Soviet Union and tear down every wall ever.

NOT on my playlist but found this is the actual title while looking for the other Rocky videos:
Training Montage (Yes, that's the song's title)

You're the Best Around
The Karate Kid was and is one of my favorite movies of all time. I still want to name my son Larusso.

One Foot in Front of the Other
Revenge of the Nerds is a great movie about overcoming adversity. I look the other way about how this was for a cleaning up montage.

Win in the End
Teen Wolf is quite possibly one of the most American movies there is. No Commies here.

Sidekicks Score
Chuck Norris + Kid with Asthma + Faux Oriental sounds = Great Inspirational Bettering Yourself Movie/Music.