1 Happy St

When I was watching Mannequin the other night (still don’t judge me), I noticed that the antagonist, well one of them, was James Spader. I forgot that he was in that, which makes sense because it didn’t really look like him. He definitely looked a lot different in Mannequin than he did in Pretty in Pink. I got to thinking about other movies where I was shocked to learn who one of the actors was. For instance:

- One of Biff’s friends in Back to the Future is Billy Zane.

- The villainous nerdy kid from Road Trip is Daryl from Adventures in Babysitting. "Ya think?"

- Connie, the mom from Son in Law, is also Ferris’s mom. I found this one out by questioning how two "different" actresses can have the same name. Wasn't that against union rules? Oh yeah I'm a smart one.

- Ronald Miller’s little brother is Seth Green.

- Siggy from What About Bob is the "beer has gone bad" guy from Can’t Hardly Wait.

Can you think of more that shocked you when you first learned/realized it?

Okay I have an idea for a movie. Here me out, I think it’s rock solid. Hey, Rock Solid, that’s a pretty decent porn name. Alright, so this idea: a down-on-his-luck man in his mid-20’s keeps going from job to job, but can’t seem to find anything he’s good at, nor anything he enjoys. It seems like every day he has a new job, and every day he gets fired. Silly, right? Yeah, but also awesome. Until one day, he gets a job as a night cleanup boy at a large department store. Oh you see where I’m going with this.

His first night at his new job, he’s not all that enthused with what he’s doing, but at the same time, he can’t help but notice that he enjoys creating mannequins. Did I lose you? I may have, but please hear me out. So he ends up creating this beautiful mannequin who comes to life whenever the two of them are alone together and she helps him create ridiculous window displays at the department store that become so wickedly popular that they end up increasing the store’s foot-traffic to the point where the store is saved from pending bankruptcy. Okay so the idea is still a little wet behind the ears, but the premise is almost too perfect not to be made into a movie, am I right? There will also be a sub-plot or two where a competing department store manager tries to get him fired, there’ll be a bumbling security guard of course, maybe a gay guy or two and a jealous former girlfriend. Look, all the details haven’t been written yet. But I think I’m onto something here.

Oh, the mannequin. You may be wondering how she comes to life. Well that’s the beauty of Hollywood. We don’t really have to explain it. Maybe she can be from ancient Egypt or something and she’s come here via some kind of portal or….you know what, that’s not important. What is important is I think I have a Rock Solid (still a good name) movie idea that needs to be made ASAP.
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By now, you may be wondering what the point of all that was. A few nights ago, I fell asleep with the TV on and I woke up at like 1 AM to this classic 80’s montage playing in the background. I ended up staying awake and watching the rest. Don’t judge me; you would have too.

Headline seen: Romijn and husband welcome twin girls

Poor Jerry O'Connell. He's listed as "husband" in a headline about him and his wife. We're talking about Vern here. No, we're talking about Cush. I've got Cush-lash. Cush-lash, Cush-lash, Cush-lash Cush-lash Cush-lash. No wait, even better. Am I to believe that Trip McNeely doesn't get top billing in a headline?

For shame.

I watched an extended version of "That Thing You Do" a couple nights ago on Starz. It included most (or all) of the deleted scenes and it made the movie like 40 minutes longer. At first I didn't know what the hell was happening. I had seen the movie like 418 times (give or take 395), but this time I kept seeing things that I didn't remember. The 3rd or 4th time this happened, I started to realize what was going on (I'm a quick one). The deleted scenes changed quite a bit of what I had previously known:

- The band members at first didn't trust their manager who worked in the van.
- Faye made them all baloney sandwiches. Guy said he hates baloney (just odd).
- Fans got rowdy at the pizza place by the airport (Villapiano's?)
- Boss Vic Koss was a bigger a-hole than we even knew.
- There was a lot more focus on Tina and her dentist (deleted with good reason).
- Guy said "I am Spartacus" 6 or 18 more times.
- Mr. White's character was gay for his assistant (played by Howie Long. Awesome).
- TB Player had sex with one of the Chantrellines.
- Guy's reasoning for staying in L.A. was because he got a job with Clint Howard at the radio station as an interviewer of jazz musicians.

The extended version didn't flow at all. It was like watching an early episode of Seinfeld. It wasn't bad; it just wasn't right. I'd like to know what made Tom Hanks change his mind about Mr. White though.

I sat and watched "Teen Witch" with Jill earlier tonight.

I could pretty much type whatever I want here and it won't matter, will it? There's really no recovery from typing the words "I watched Teen Witch" and publishing it on line for anyone to see. But I'm confident in my whatever it is I need to be confident in, so laugh all you want. Fact is, I took one for the team. I think Teen Witch is one of those movies that girls watch when they're in grade school or junior high and then remember it fondly later in life even though it sucked balls.

Now that isn't to say that it sucked balls in the way that you suck balls. Er, scratch that. No, not my balls. Scratch what you just read. What I meant to say is that it didn't suck balls in the way that Chris Klein movies suck balls; no it sucked balls in the way lower budget late-80's teen comedies suck balls. Bad acting, weird clothes, mullets aplenty, choreographed dance routines, gay younger brothers, popular quarterbacks dating popular cheerleaders, etc. etc. etc.

It starred Blake Lively's older sister, that guy who played Travis from Son in Law, one of the Darren's from Bewitched, and a late 80's Mustang 5.0 convertible. Yeah I think the Mustang got 4th billing in the credits.

Playing the role of Travis from Son in Law's car - 1989 Mustang 5.0 convertible. The director of this spectacular piece of crap had to have been in love with that car. Half the shots came from inside the car looking out, outside the car looking in, and a few from the point of view of the car itself.

I can't even tell you how it ended. It's like the people making it had 90 minutes to tell their story and they simply ran out of time. Nothing really got solved. You know how in every teen movie where the ugly duckling becomes popular, but it's at the expense of their current batch of ugly duckling friends, but then they all make up in the end after the lead learns a life lesson that they shouldn't treat their best friends poorly? Hmm, you don't know? Okay, think "Can't Buy Me Love". Ronald Miller ditches his poker friends for the popular kids, then shits on Kenneth's house. You shit on my house, Man. You shit on my house. Now do you also remember how Ronald stood up for Kenneth at the end when Rico Suave started messing with him in the outdoor cafeteria? Right, because that's what you do when you shit on your best friend's house: you stand up to Rico Suave. Okay so anyway, in this movie, Teen Witch becomes popular and starts treating her best friend poorly. At the end though (yes it takes place at a dance), they never end up making up. That whole story arc goes unfinished. Whatever happened to the best friend? Did they continue hanging out? Also, did Teen Witch continue with her witchcraft? I think she learned her lesson that she shouldn't abuse its powers, but was she still going to use it? Did she have her powers harnessed like Michael J. Fox was able to harnass his wolf? We don't know; the director ran out of time I guess.

This movie really needed a sequel.

There's a handful of movies that I'll sit and watch at least a portion of any time they're on. Shawshank is one of them, which I happened to catch a few days ago. But when I got to the end this time, something caught my attention that I had never noticed or questioned before.

Just before Andy broke through the prison's plumbing system and crawled through that river of shit, he slammed a rock into the pipe a handful of times to get it to break. Now assuming that it was made of some type of lead/galvanized steel, how did he puncture it using just a rock? And then how was he able to carve out a perfectly round hole big enough to fit through? Do you know if any of that is even possible? I have two thoughts on the subject:

1. He wouldn't have been able to break it using only a rock.
2. Even if he could have, he probably wouldn't have known that beforehand, which makes his overall plan rather suspect right from the start.

Please tell me I'm wrong. I hate to find flaws in my favorite movies.

I caught the beginning of Ferris Bueller on Saturday morning*. I hadn't watched it in a while, but I think I noticed for the first time that the first 15 minutes or so of that movie is pretty stupid. I know I'm blaspheming when I type that, but consider some of the following:

- Ferris is on the phone with Cameron, who is lying in bed. Ferris's dad calls, so he clicks over and has a 30 second conversation. He hangs up the phone, then looks into the camera and says something like "I'm so disappointed in Cameron. 20 bucks says he's sitting in his car right now debating on whether or not he should go out." Cut to Cameron, who is doing exactly that. How did he get there so fast? 30 seconds earlier, he was in bed and complaining that he was about to die, and now he's fully dressed and in his car? What the?!?

- Ferris's big plan to get Sloane out of school was to have her grandmother die. I have a couple problems with this plan. First of all, unless her grandmother was already dead, it would have been real bad karma for Ferris to fake something like that. My guess is Sloane would have had a huge problem with Ferris making light of a non-light situation. And if Sloane's grandmother was in fact already dead, there's a million things that could have gone wrong with killing her off again simply to get out of school. Somehow I doubt an expert in hyjinx like Ferris would have used it.

- Ferris asked for a car, but instead he got a computer. How's that for being born under a bad sign? Well I'm not sure what the answer is to that question, but we do know that Ferris was an accomplished computer hacker. So why did he wait until he had reached 9 absences before hacking into his attendance records? Why wouldn't he keep them permanently updated with the fake number? Better yet, why wouldn't Mr. Rooney question that the number was being changed right in front of him? Here he was watching fraud occur right in front of him and all did was yell for his assistant. This is FBI stuff, man. Your computers are being hacked. Make a phone call already.

- When Ferris called Mr. Rooney to ask if his sister could pick up his assignments, why didn't he use the sick voice that he used on his dad? Instead he sounded all chipper. Wasn't he supposed to be deathly ill?

- And finally, I'm just not buying the Ferris/Cameron friendship. If Ferris was so popular with the sportos, motorheads, geeks, sluts, bloods, waistoids, dweebies, and dickheads, how did he even end up with Cameron as a best friend? You'd think that a guy like Ferris would have a best friend whose ass wasn't so tight that it could turn a lump of coal into a diamond. I understand they were best friends since the 5th grade, but their differing personalities makes it hard for me to believe it would have lasted. Some time before H.S., Ferris would have dropped Cameron as a friend. I have no doubt.

Or course the last 90 mins or so of this movie were classic, so I suppose I can forgive the first 15. But I wish John Hughes would have addressed some of those things.

* Aren't Saturday morning's the best? They're especially great if you wake up early and have nothing planned. You can get up and make some coffee and read the paper (if the weather is nice, it's a bonus because you can do this outside), or you can lay there in bed and watch TV. Either option is a friggin awesome way to spend a morning.

1. Jimmy Dugan
2. Apollo 13
3. Gump
4. The Terminal
5. Carl Hanratty
6. Busom Buddy
7. Joe Versus The Volcano
8. The Green Mile
9. Woody
10. Sam Baldwin
11. The Polar Express
12. Joe Fox
13. Road to Perdition
14. Ladykiller
15. Walter Fielding
16. Turner & Hooch
17. Punchline
18. Private Ryan
19. Big
20. And last but not least… That Thing You Do!

Do you know what today is?
It's October 3rd. Get a calendar. Jeez.
Do you know what else today is?
It's Friday. How is this hard?
But do you know what movie gets released today?
This one.

3 months of anticipation and it's finally out. I realize that the White Sox begin Game 2 tonight, but I can't possibly wait until later in the weekend to see this masterpiece, can I?

Ohhhhh Chihuahua!

Ok. I'm officially a horrible person. This story cracked me up.

Soon after the lights went down, a source tells us, "a man in the audience started yelling, 'Don't touch me!' People looked around and shrugged. Ten minutes later, the voice yells again, 'I said don't touch me!'"

Again, people shrugged off the disturbance. But a few minutes later, says our source, "the guy stands up in the darkness and thwacks the guy behind him with a big festival binder. He hit him so hard everybody could hear it. Everyone freaked out and turned around."

Poor defenseless Roger Ebert got bitch slapped for tapping another film critic at a recent movie screening.

Apparently Ebert, who has suffered bouts of cancer that have rendered him unable to speak, was tapping the guy in front of him to move his humungus melon so Ebert could see the screen. The guy turns around and clocks Ebert with a Trapper Keeper. Dude hasn't apologized either.

Several questions...
Ebert isn't deaf. He heard the guy say "Don't touch me!" So why did he keep touching him?
Secondly, wasn't anyone else there with Ebert that could have told Big Head to move?
And why couldn't Ebert just slip the guy a note or something.. "Please move your head, I can't see the screen. Love, Roger."

"I SAID STOP WRITING ME NOTES!!!!!"

This story sounds familiar:
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- A family going on a European vacation forgot their 3-year-old daughter at the airport. The couple and their 5 children were late for a charter flight to Paris and made a mad dash to the gate. In the confusion, one of their daughters got lost and was left behind. The parents didn't realize they were missing one of their kids until the plane had already taken off.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I'd say these parents are now the frontrunners for the Parents of the Year Award, if an award like that exists and is given out ironically or sarcastically.

NOTE: That story sounds familiar to you because it's the plotline to Weekend at Bernie's Part 2.

I'm so glad that Disney is finally coming out with a movie that I want to see.

Also, every Disney executive should be shot.

Also, I'm serious.

Shot dead.

Murdered.

Too far?

No.

Bloody assassinated.

I can't wait for this movie.

Drink Sprite.

Not to be the guy who craps on the good story [okay, I love to be the guy who craps on the good story], but did you notice that Tiger Woods only grimaced yesterday when he shanked the ball into the rough? Every time he hit a good shot, his knee somehow gave him no pain.

The White Sox have lost 5 of 6. I think today is the day when Crazy Bones kills someone.

Yankees pitcher Chien-Ming Wang injured his foot in yesterday's game. Can you guess which of the following lines related to that injury were found in articles by the AP, NY Post, NY Times?
A. An injured Wang doesn't bode well
B. They need a healthy Wang if they're going to make it to October
C. The other guys will have to step it up in the absense of Wang
D. You have a superior Wang
E. All of the above

Yep, the answer is E. Nicely done.

Actually, I made up A, B, and C.

And D was from Boogie Nights.

Yesterday was the 20th anniversary of the day that Bull Durham was released. A lot of people will put Bull Durham on their list of favorite sports movies (or at least favorite baseball movies). Those same people will cite this line by Kevin Costner as one of its classics: Well, I believe in the soul, the bleep, the bleep, the small of a woman's back, the hanging curve ball, high fiber, good scotch, that the novels of Susan Sontag are self-indulgent, overrated crap. I believe Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone. I believe there ought to be a constitutional amendment outlawing Astroturf and the designated hitter. I believe in the sweet spot, soft-core pornography, opening your presents Christmas morning rather than Christmas Eve and I believe in long, slow, deep, soft, wet kisses that last three days. After that line, Susan Surandon gets a little weak in the knees and she falls in love with him. Okay fair enough. Who wouldn't fall in love with Kevin Costner after he said that? But I ask you: is there any way someone could ever give an impomptu speech like that without it being rehearsed? I don't think so. He totally used that speech once before. Or read it somewhere, liked it, and memorized it. Which means that Susan Surandon fell in love with a lie. That always bothered me about that movie.

You wanna know the best part though? Next time you catch that movie on cable, you'll think of me when Kevin Costner starts his little spiel.

Jill dragged me to Sex and the City last night*. I'd like to tell you that I missed the whole thing because my eyes were bleeding, but that's not true. No, I tried to force my eyes to bleed, but I didn't have a fork handy and I didn't want to use my fingers because they were still a little bit dirty from having done yardwork earlier. So instead I had to sit there and take it.

* She didn't drag me. It was my idea. I didn't think I would mind it, plus I actually watched most of the episodes on TV back in the day when it came on before The Sopranos. So what the hell, right?

We were in the theater with about 40 other females and 3 other guys. Before the movie started, the 4 of us guys had a debate amongst us on who had the smallest pair of balls. Sadly I don't think we ever came up with a "winner", but looking back, my case was just as strong as any of theirs. Except for the one guy who had no balls at all who was there with his sister. I mean honestly man, your sister? You can say no to your sister. There's no "taking one for the team" with your sister. That was just ill-played. The sad thing is he knew it. Poor bastard. As for the movie itself, I can say in all honesty that the 1st hour of this thing was the worst 60 minutes I have ever experienced at a movie theater. And remember this is coming from someone who once saw The Beverly Hillbillies on the big screen. And that Chris Farley movie where he plays a ninja. And 8 Heads in a Dufflebag. And the Police Academy movie where they go to Miami.**

** One of the most regrettable decisions to ever come from my childhood was my answer to the question, "which would you rather see, Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure or Police Academy Assignment Miami Beach?" To be fair, I was only 10 years old at the time. Neat aside - I think another option would have been Say Anything, but I doubt I would have understood that movie anyway. "Why are they taking Frazier's dad to jail? What did he do wrong? Wait, who is Frazier's dad?"

And then something happened after those first 60 minutes - the movie got better. Not better as in "wow I'm enjoying this" better, but better as in "wow I no longer wish I had that fork" better. The best part turned out to be the girl sitting next to us who kept snorting at every funny line. Now to be clear, I'm using the word "funny" with discretion. Perhaps I should modify that sentence to read "the girl sitting next to us who kept snorting at every line that SHE THOUGHT was funny". Yeah that makes more sense. But this girl was great. She totally kept me occupied for the final 90 minutes of this thing.

Wait, did I say the final 90 minutes?!? Yes I did. The movie started at 7 and we didn't get out of there until 9:30. Apparently when you're a producer in Hollywood who has ugly actors to star in a movie with a sub par script, you want to stretch it out as long as possible for your audience. Well played Mr. Producer. So after the 2.5 hours, Jill and I pretty much had the same reaction:

Jill: "Not bad, but I should have seen that with a group of girls."
Brian: "Not bad, but you should have seen that with a group of girls."

All in all though, it wasn't a total waste. Like I said, the last 90 minutes were actually okay. But for you guys, if you end up being dragged to this thing, bring a magazine or a book or something for the first hour so you have something to keep you occupied.

Or a fork.

I waited in line to see Sex and the City at midnight last night*, but it was all sold out. Fortunately this gave me a chance to read Roger Ebert's review of it beforehand. Perhaps this passage from his column that I will paste here in italics will be enough to sell you on the fact that there's no possible way this movie can suck horribly**: ...dramatic developments cause the four women to join one another at a luxurious Mexican resort, where two scenes take place that left me polishing my pencils to write this review. The girls go sunbathing in crotch-hugging swimsuits, and Miranda is ridiculed for the luxuriant growth of her pubic hair. How luxuriant? One of her pals describes it as “The National Forest,” and there’s a shot of the offending proliferation that popped the Smith Bros. right into my head.

* A complete lie.
** Sarcasm.

At this point, I'm tempted to ask you to just read Roger's entire column. Because his next paragraph completely sold me*, again in italics. A little later, Charlotte develops a tragic case of turista and has a noisy accident right there in her pants. This is a key moment, because Carrie has been so depressed she has wondered if she will ever laugh again. Her friends say that will happen when something really, really funny happens. When Charlotte overflows, Carrie and the others burst into helpless laughter. Something really, really funny has finally happened! How about you? Would you think that was really, really funny?

Please forgive me for not previously knowing what the word 'turista' meant. I had an idea based on the words that Roger typed following it. But I also had my doubts because yeah, in my head, that's gross and entirely unfunny. Unfortunately, it means exactly what I thought. Hence, grossness and entire unfunniness.

* Another complete lie. Or sarcasm. Your pick really.

So I guess the questions beg to be asked: Who are the people that are helping this movie sell out at every theater? And who can fill in for me when Jill asks me to go?

[Editor's Note: Don't let him fool you. Brian totally wants to see this movie]

Here's something that has always bugged me. How does the movie Career Opportunities get made after the movie Mannequin? I mean essentially they are the same movie.

• Geeky ne'er-do-well lands overnight job in a department store.
• Said ne'er-do-well somehow gets incredibly hot woman to fall for him.
• Hilarity ensues

What I want to know is how that pitch meeting went...

"Ok, I have an idea for a movie. It's like Mannequin, except the hot girl isn't a mannequin."
"I love it!"

Sure the box office figures won't back me up on this but I actually think that Career Opportunities was the better movie. Hear me out...

1. Frank Whaley vs. Andrew McCarthy - Push. Both of them suck. Although Whaley did play a young "Moonlight" Graham in Field of Dreams so if I had to choose...
2. Jennifer Connelly vs. Kim Cattrall - Connelly by a mile! She's gone on to win an Oscar for cry eye! And one can't help but think that we would have all been spared the Botox-injected train wreck that is Cattrall in her 50s (or is it 60s?) if Mannequin never happens. Hell, she didn't even play the Mannequin for half the movie! They could have made a wooden statue of Jennifer Connelly and killed two birds with one stone!
3. Target vs. Prince & Co. - Advantage Target, though I probably would have went with Prince & Co. if I was in the market for a pipe organ or hang glider.
4. Supporting Cast - I'll give this round to Mannequin. You just can't beat a flamboyantly gay James Spader and the guy that played Capt. Harris in the Police Academy movies. The Hollywood Montrose character was very memorable too. As for Career Opportunities, the cameo by John Candy was a nice surprise and I'm sure Dermot Mulroney is sure to list that film at the top of his resume too.
5. Plot - It's pretty ridiculous to discuss plot since both of these movies were pretty awful. But frankly, I found it more believable that the chronic screw-up in Career Opportunities continued to be a screw-up when he took his job, compared to the dumbass in Mannequin that suddenly saw the err of his ways and straightened out. I say once a screw-up, always a screw-up!
   

Overall, its clear that Career Opportunities was the better movie.

It's a good sign that you're at a decent Italian restaurant if they bring you a bottle of oil and a plate of parmesan along with the bread basket when you first get there. Yeah that's the best. But have you ever thought to yourself while you're at an Italian restaurant that you're paying $15 to $20 a plate for something you could have prepared by yourself at home in 20 minutes? Noodles, sauce, spices, parmesan, and crumpled sausage? Yeah I coulda done that. And I probably should have. At least then I wouldn't have felt like an idiot in front of a 22 year old Greek waiter for butchering the name of an obscure Pinot Grigio. Obscure my ass, it was bottled in Napa.

We finally got around to seeing "Forgetting Sarah Marshall". I think it's one of those movies that would be funnier if you saw it in a packed theater. There's something to be said for a movie seeming to be funnier when you have 300 people laughing at every joke versus just 2 or 3. I noticed this for the first time when I was an usher at a theater 11 or 12 years ago. It was the Jim Carrey movie "Liar Liar". The Friday night packed house version had people walking out loving it, but the Wednesday night version had the handful of people who saw it walking out thinking it was dumb. So my recommendation if you're planning on seeing it for the first time - make sure you see it on a Friday or Saturday night when there's a good chance that the theater may be relatively full. I hope it's not too late where you missed your window. Oh also, this movie had 3 or 4 instances of unprovoked man-meat that I was not prepared for. I didn't think it was funny at all; I thought it was oddly out of place and inappropriate. Nobody needs to see man-meat. Ever.

That is all.

There's a woman named Shirley Baker who is the PM for a project that I'm working on, so every so often I'll get an email from her. Whenever I see her name pop up in my inbox, I can't help but think of the girl from A League of Their Own who couldn't read. Do you remember that conversation she had with Jamie Buchman's sister in front of the cut list (or non-cut list actually)?

Jamie Buchman's sister: "What's your name?"
Shirley Baker: "Shirley Baker."
Jamie Buchman's sister: "This is you. You're with us."

Yeah I think of that conversation every time I get an email from my Shirley Baker. And yes, I also imagine that my Shirley Baker pronounces her name like a crying retard. Oh like you wouldn't do the same thing.

I haven't seen the Will Ferrell movie Semi-Pro yet [mostly because I still want to believe that Will Ferrell has the ability to make me laugh], but after reading this story, I have a feeling that the moment I finally do see Semi-Pro, I'm going to have the same feeling when seeing that bear as I get when watching The Naked Gun and O.J. comes on the screen. Kind of like I'm about to watch snuff or something.

h/t Conti