For today’s incentive sketch, I decided to make a point. A handle bar mustache and a neck tattoo don’t make you a bad ass. They make you look ridiculous. Vote for Theater Hopper at Top Web Comics to see what I’m talking about.
The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 comes out on Friday over a VERY slow weekend with very few other releases. It seems weird that there is a lull like this at the top of the blockbuster season.
I have a cursory interest in the film, but only for Tony Scott’s particular brand of action directing. Even though his last two film Deja Vu and Domino were muddled messes, Scott gets a good length of leash for Man on Fire.
I’m not particularly interested in either Denzel Washington or John Travolta – which is kind of sad considering their roles as A-list talent. I think Denzel looks like too much of a sad sack in this one. Certainly the man is allowed to branch out from his typical action hero template, but it’s not how I’m used to seeing him. Washington should be running roughshod over this production. Instead, he almost looks incidental.
Travolta as the hilariously code-named villain “Ryder,” (Get it? Subway rider? Ryder?! HAW!) looks ridiculous to me for all the reasons outlined in the comic. I’m wondering at what point everyone sat down and figured out what this character’s look was going to be. It is as if in the back of someone’s head they decided “mustache = evil” and someone up the decision-making change vetoed them on the Snidely Whiplash protruding number that Travolta could twist around his finger. “Sorry, guys. We’re going with the handle bar ‘stache.”
Travolta has played charming villains before. Most notably in Broken Arrow and Swordfish. He didn’t have to bring a visual shorthand to that performance, so why is he doing it now? I guess those guys were supposed to be smooth operators. Maybe Ryder is a little more blue collar? Even so, if this is Travolta’s idea of a working man villain, it’s laughably bad.
The reviews I’ve read so far have said that Travolta brings a strong intensity to the character, so maybe I’m way off base with my criticisms. All I’m saying is that first impressions matter and Travolta as Ryder does not make a good one.
Switching gears here, I’ve been getting feedback from a few people that they’re getting error messages when they try to log onto the site. Their browsers are warning them of malware? I’m not encountering any errors, so I’m trying to gather consensus. If you are having any problems with the site, please let me know in the comments below. Try to tell me what’s on the screen when the error comes up and specifically what the error message is.
Myself and my web administrator have combed through the site’s code and we can’t find any malicious links so we’re suspecting it’s one of the ads being served through the ad network that’s causing a problem. We want to try to isolate that ad and shut it off.
Then again, we could be on a wild goose chase. Any information from you guys would be helpful.
If you have nothing to add about the errors, why don’t you let us know what you think of The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 instead? Are you going to see it this weekend? What do you think about Travolta’s look? Leave your thoughts below!
I can't take it seriously.
What? But it's got Denzel Washington and John Travolta! It's directed by Tony Scott!
It's John Travolta's handle bar mustache! I can't take it seriously!
What's he supposed to be?
A biker?
A leather daddy?
Why does Travolta think a handle bar moustache equals "evil?"
Well, he also has a neck tattoo!
OH! In that case, he's a TOTAL bad-ass
Just watching the trailer for this showed me that Travolta dug up the grave of Robert Shaw and did unspeakable things to the corpse. The guy isn’t supposed to be blue collar!
This is what safari gives as a diagnosis for the site:
http://google.com/safebrowsing/diagnostic?tpl=safari&site=go00ogle.net&hl=ja-JP
The ads look like your usual lot. IMVU. Something from snap linkads. There is one blank
spot for ads but not sure if that is on purpose or not.
I know this movie is guarenteed to make a ton in my town. I live in a yokel town in NH called Pelham, and everytime someone sees the poster they go “John Travolta made a movie about us!”
Half the people in my town have never been on a subway, so it’s really not worth correcting them.
As for me, I’m just sitting tight for “Away We Go.”
Its not ‘stache that equals evil, its goatee. Look throughout science fiction and cartoons, evil (especially an evil twin of someone) is represented by a goatee, going back as far as the original Star Trek, with Spock wearing a goatee on the ‘evil’ Enterprise. So clearly, for us to take Travolta seriously, he needs to have a goatee.
Incidentally, I’m pretty sure that’s not a “handlebar” mustache that Travolta is sporting in that pic. A handlebar is more like what Rollie Fingers or Snidely Whiplash wore…with protruding “handlebars” that come out of each side of the face (that you can twirl with your fingers in an “evil” way). It looks like Travolta has some sort of modified goatee to me.
I thought a goatee had to go across the chin, though? Protrude a little bit, like the beard of a billy goat? Hence the name “goatee?”
Isn’t that a fu manchu?
That isn’t so much a handlebar ‘stache as it is a Fu Manchu.
A Fu-Manchu denotes the facial hair on the sides to be long enough to extend past down the chin. Just like well, FU MANCHU: http://thenostalgialeague.com/galleries/fuman/04karloff.jpg
Like Morgan Spurlock, Travolta’s ‘stache design is indeed a “handlebar.”
The “he has moustache/facial hair so he must be a bad guy” should be added to the Movie Cliche list. Even Andy Samburg riffed on it for a recent trailer for the MTV Movie awards (http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/2f83f68347/andy-samberg-and-rashida-jones-in-best-villain).
Ryder is indeed a terrible name. I know the makers were unable to use the colours as codenames that appeared in the original due to Reservoir Dogs but surely they could’ve come up with some thing better. I’ve never been a huge Tony Scott fan so I think I’ll give this one a skip.
We’ve got The Hangover & Red Cliff this weekend and Transformers 2 the next (before the US, how did that happen?!) so it’s easily avoidable anyway.
This is such movie weekend which of course would happen when I have friday off from work. I’m proppably going to see Away We Go cuz that seems like the only decent one.
I really don’t think that’s a handlebar… he’s sporting a horseshoe… check out this site… http://www.americanmustacheinstitute.org/MustacheStyles.aspx
I’m getting the malware alert as well on two computers, both of them using safari, if that helps at all trying to figure out what’s going on.
I’m looking forward to the movie, if only because of my mom, she read the book a few years ago and said it was an amazing read, so hopefully they’ll be able to translate the story well into the movie. Especially since she said by the end of it you’ll be rooting for the ‘bad guy’, though that might be a little hard with the horrible mustache he’s sportin’.
demonfafa – Not according to this wiki page, it’s not:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Handlebar_moustache
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moustache#Styles
The “mustache styles” website describes a “handlebar” as the below:
“Handlebar – bushy, with small upward pointing ends. See baseball pitcher Rollie Fingers. Also known as a “spaghetti moustache”, because of its stereotypical association with Italian men.”
According to the site, Travolta’s (and Morgan Spurlock’s) is called a “Horseshoe.”
It’s a horseshoe mustache, not a handlebar: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Handlebar_mustache
Either way, yeah, it looks terrible. But was it Travolta’s choice, the director’s or the costume designer’s? Or perhaps a commandment from Xenu?
I’ve been getting the malware alert at home using Google Chrome – which is weird because Google Chrome has no problems while I’m at work…
It’s the standard Google error message though – full red screen saying that due to the risk of malware it won’t bring you to the site; but you can still click OK or whatever to go on.
I’m also using Google Chrome and getting their standard Malware warning before entering your site. I think it’s something that has changed within the last few days.
I’m getting two malware alerts from AVG antivirus every time I come to the site; my guess is that someone has hacked your page and installed the things. Started this morning, as far as I know. Exploit.c_AHL is apparently the name of the bug.
Tom, there’s a new feature in IE8 that allows you to report a site as “unsafe” (Safety –> SmartScreen Filter –> Report Unsafe Website). My suspicion is that someone (either maliciously or just inadvertently) marked your site as unsafe using this tool. It’s not supposed to flag the site unless some third party (or Microsoft) has vetted the warning, but maybe they let yours slip by. If the warning comes up, I believe you can use the “Report that this site does not contain threats” to go to a Microsoft feedback Web site and request further investigation.
Bill,
I don’t know if the IE8 unsafe warning would apply in this situation or not. It seems like people who are reporting the problem are using Safari or Chrome. Any thoughts?
DeJa Vu was great! Ok, there were some time-travel related inconsistencies but otherwise great!
I had it myself with IE8, which was what got me thinking. It’s true that it would depend on the other browsers supporting the same feature and using Microsoft or their third party as a reference. But then, if I were building a browser and knew that even one of my competitors was using such a service, I’d want to do it too. But perhaps Gomro (last post before my first one) has the answer, and all browsers are responding to that.
That mustache looks badass as hell. I think Tom is jealous because he looks like a giant baby.
Don’t fool yourself, KO. I can grow a pretty patchy beard when I want to!
I’m getting the error, too. I’m using Google Chrome.
Isn’t anyone interested in seeing what they did to the Walther Matheau character, who really didn’t give a dang in the first place (there’s your sorry sac of Denzel…)? And if the classic ending of the original will hold up?
I like that beard, dude! lookin grizzled!
No that incentive image alone does not make you a bad ass yet, but if you were use it as your user pic/avatar on here, twitter, etc – it’s a distinct possibility XD