Archive for September, 2009
17 items.
I have to admit I was kind of surprised by the response that Friday’s comic got in the comic field. A lot of people were on my side as far as the disdain for Megan Fox went. Some people were outright thanking me as if this was no a complaint already prevalent on the internet.
Then again, Fox seems to have a lot of people in the mainstream media snowed. Take Ken Tucker from Entertainment Weekly. Although he acknowledges the box office shortcomings of Jennifer’s Body, Tucker seems to think that her “smart, funny, and self-aware” interviews on television this week promoting her movie indicate a move to the small screen.
If you put all of the adjectives known to man and asked me to put them in order of terms that best describe Megan Fox, “smart, funny, and self-aware” would be at the very bottom of the list.
Of course, keep in mind that this is Entertainment Weekly we’re talking about. So take everything they say with a boulder of salt.
Push comes to shove and I was looking for a way to once again strike while the iron was hot and serve up another comic about Megan Fox to get your feedback. In that way, I suppose she has me snowed as well. But Jennifer’s Body dismal fifth place bow at the box office this weekend all but confirms that Fox doesn’t have the star power to launch a movie on her own.
I mean, this movie earned $2 million less than Love Happens. It earned $4 million less than Tyler Perry’s I Can Do Bad By Myself – which was in it’s second week and lost 50% of it’s business!
Obviously there are multiple factors that contribute to the success or failure of a film. I’ve read some comments that have said the movie was not advertised very well. Perhaps some of the blame should fall on Diablo Cody’s script, which hasn’t been popular in reviews. Some are going so far as to point the finger at director Karyn Kusama – who started her career with the excellent Girlfight and followed it up with the dismal Æon Flux.
But at the end of the day, people don’t usually see movies because they’re fans of the screenwriter or the director. They usually go to see their favorite actors and actresses. And Fox simply doesn’t have an audience large enough to support her in a headlining role this soon in her career.
I’ll leave it at that. For now, I need to crash. It’s been a long, stressful day and I need to get some sleep if I’m going to be any good watching Henry when we’re home on Monday.
Come back to the site this afternoon, though. I plan on writing a blog while Henry’s napping that shares some very important information that you’re not going to want to miss. It’s a game-changer, I can say that much.
In the meantime, did anyone here see Jennifer’s Body? What were your thoughts? Leave them in the comments below!
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If you read these blogs, you know that 2009 has not been a very good year for me. I’ve seen the lives of friends shatter and crumble around me – divorce, miscarriage and death. My own life has been beset by difficultly – my job being eliminated, emergency room visits. In general, 2009 has been tough to muddle through.
But I have something waiting for me in December that I think is going to make everything worth while…
Cami and I are expecting our second child.
As you can see from the date on the sonogram – July 23 – I’ve been sitting on this information for a while. Not for any particular reason. Except sometimes it’s hard to wrap my mind around the thought that we’re having another baby. I mean, Henry keeps us so occupied already, the fact that Cami’s pregnant sometimes slips my mind.
I would feel bad, but I’ve talked to friends who are also in the middle of their second pregnancies, and they admit to the same thing. You’re so busy trying to keep the first one from stabbing his eye out with a fork, you kind of forget the second one is on the way.
Well, there is no avoiding it now. Cami is showing beautifully and thoughts of the pregnancy consume my thoughts every day. Sometimes those thoughts are “Holy crap, I don’t have a job. How are we going to afford two kids in day care?” But most of the time, they are less panicked.
At any rate, for those of you wondering: Yes, we do know the sex of the baby and; Yes, we are sharing that information…
It’s a girl.
As for the name? We’re keeping that one close to the vest.
Having a girl let alone having a sibling for Henry to interact with is new territory for me. I’m not worried about the burping / feeding / rocking phase of development. I feel like I have those skills finely tuned. What freaks me out is what will happen when the kids are older and start bouncing off each other.
I never had a brother or a sister, so I understand very little about family dynamics. Cami has a younger sister, so she brings some experience to the table. But I’m coming at this with no idea if or how these two are going to get along.
This is my problem as a parent – I’m always thinking three years ahead of myself. Before Henry was born, I had all these big ideas about going to the zoo, playing catch and hanging out all the time. I gave no thought to the burping / feeding / rocking, etc.
I feel like I’m falling into the same trap with the new baby. “What’s it going to be like when she comes home crying because another girl said she didn’t like her shoes?” That kind of thing. What kind of advice can I give? Except for the highly acerbic kind?
Like anything else, I suppose I just have to play things by ear. All I know is that it will be a different experience for me.
Cami’s due date is sometime around the middle of December. But since Cami is planning on having another C-section (after delivering Henry by Cesarean last time) we won’t know the exact date until we meet with our surgeon.
All I know is that I’m very much looking forward to meeting Baby Brazelton and as I know more, I will be happy to share details with you.
In the meantime, I just wanted to put the good news out there and share a little bit of my life with you.
Thanks and take care.
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First, I totally have to give credit to my good friend Joe Dunn of Joe Loves Crappy Movies for making the observation that the robot avatars in Surrogates look like the creepy family from the Duracell commercials. Joe noted the similarity during Monday’s episode of The Triple Feature – which I highly encourage you to download!
If you have no idea what this reference means, here’s a handy video to help educate you:
If you grew up in the ’90’s, you’re probably very familiar with the Putterman family (as they were called). If you grew up in any other era, I’m sorry that I’ve now scarred you for life.
The Little Dutch Boy? Let’s hope that everyone has some cursory knowledge of his fable. If you don’t know who he is, then your parents must not love you.
In either case, I’ve created this visual aid to help put it all together for you.
I think it’s the hair that really trips me up. Like I said, if you could walk around in a robotic avatar that looked 20 years younger, why would you give it a haircut that exposes a high forehead and make it look like it was wearing a bad wig?
Maybe I should talk about the movie a little bit…
I like the idea for Surrogates and I certainly like seeing Bruce Willis in action hero mode, but I think this film is suffering from some bad advertising – especially the first trailer, which is heavy with exposition explaining exactly what surrogates are.
I don’t want to hold the marketing against the movie too much, though. I realize that it’s necessary for the film to establish “the rules” of the society depicted in the not-too-distant future if they’re going to bring people on board. I just wish it weren’t so cheesy – what with the robotic female voice literally selling us the concept of surrogacy. It’s not very clever.
If the advertising is anything to go by, I fully expect the exposition in the opening act to be boring and things won’t get interesting until we get to see the “real” Bruce Willis stomping in robot heads.
Once again, however, I have to give credit to Joe for pointing out a unique trend in avatars at the movies this year. First it was Gamer. Later in the year is Jim Cameron’s aptly named Avatar. But right now, it’s Surrogates. All movies about a separate consciousness controlling the body of another.
Is Hollywood trying to send us a warning about technology. Should I stop posting to my Twitter account? Should I drop off the grid entirely?! Time will tell.
What’s your thought about Surrogates? Are you planning on seeing it this weekend? Are you excited to see Bruce Willis back in an action movie two scant years after Live Free or Die Hard? What do you think about that plasticine look? Leave your comments below!
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This comic stems from another one of our conversations on The Triple Feature this Monday. It’s largely a rant that I tied off with a punchline here, but went unchecked during the recording of the podcast.
I’m greatly annoyed by the remake of Fame. Not because I’m a fan of the 1980 original or even the lousy TV spin off that spawned from its success. As a matter of fact, I hate the movie Fame and pretty much cite it as the flash point of a generation deluded into thinking that they were amazing singers/dancers/actors just waiting to be discovered.
More and more, the culture seems to advocate fame and popularity by birthright rather than by hard work and talent. I don’t know if it is a uniquely American expectation or not, but I’ve noticed an upswing in the last few years. People seem to fall ass-backwords in to fame with increasing regularity. Blame YouTube, I guess.
With that in mind, will a remake of Fame even resonate with today’s audiences? Is having talent and a work ethic even attractive to a culture that is willing to accept humiliation on national television if it means they get their 15 minutes of infamy?
You can stand in line for 18 hours to sing for Simon Cowell. If you’re good enough, you might get to go to Hollywood. But even if you’re a piss-poor singer, maybe they’ll throw you onto the highlight reel of all the dismal failures so America can have a good laugh at your expense. So what, right? As long as someone is paying attention. William Hung took that lack of self-awareness all the way to the bank.
One could argue that this comic is its own desperate plea for attention. I would be hard pressed to argue with them. Am I proud of the success I’ve found with Theater Hopper? Of course. Could I do with a little more exposure? Well, sure. I mean, who wouldn’t want that? So I’m just as guilty as everyone else.
But then, I’m not exactly the audience this remake of Fame is shooting for.
So if you’re a teenage girl with aspirations to become a great singer, are you going to watch a movie like Fame that promotes the concept of hard work and sacrifice or are you going to tune in to American Idol three times a week an nurture the fantasy that maybe you too can be America’s most popular karaoke singer?
Food for thought, I guess.
What about the rest of you? Any aspirations to see Fame this weekend? Are you a fan of the original movie?Do you think a remake can possibly bring anything new to the table? Leave your comments below!
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Credit where credit is due, it was my friend Lauren from Honey Bee Manor that made the observation about Jesse Eisenberg’s proclivity to star in movies that end with “land” in a Twitter post a couple of months ago. I kept that in my Rolodex of ideas and I hope she doesn’t mind me borrowing it. Maybe if all of you visit her blog, she won’t be mad.
Of course, one look at Eisenberg’s IMDB page and we can see he’s starred in many movies besides Adventureland and Zombieland, it’s kind of interesting that his most high-profile outings are so similarly titled.
I like Eisenberg. He seems like a sharp guy who has a little bit more going on under the surface than he lets on in a face-to-face conversation. So I think it’s kind of interesting that he’s adapted his East coast know-it-all persona to something like Zombieland – which, from the trailers, seems to be more about gallows humor than anything else.
For the record, I’m not a fan of zombie movies. Specifically, because I don’t do well with gore. Probably the last zombie movie I watched (if you can call it that) was Planet Terror. And even though the violence and the raspberry glop they used as blood in that movie were so cartoonishly over the top, it still made me squeamish.
That said, I’m interested in seeing Zombieland primarily because the trailers make it look like a lot of fun. The zombies don’t look particularly scary. Just kind of unfortunate. So instead of being scared out of my wits by a bunch of jump cuts and slow pans across zombies feasting on intestines, I can enjoy the vicarious thrill of putting a shotgun to the temple of the undead and get some video game jollies out of it.
More than anything, I’m impressed with the cast. Eisenberg, Emma Stone, Abigail Breslin and Woody Harrelson are all smart actors. Harrelson is especially disarming when he plays up the Midwestern bumpkin he perfected on Cheers. And am I seeing this right? Is Bill Murray in the movie playing himself?
Oh, yeah. This is a must-see.
I hope I have time to get around to it this weekend. It looks like Cami and I are going to make time on Saturday to see Toy Story and Toy Story 2 in 3D as part of it’s two week limited engagement starting this Friday. We’re huge Pixar fans and I read some particularly positive reviews from a screening that took place last week. Apparently the 3D really does the films justice and there is some fun trivia and original content during the intermission.
Originally we had it in our head that this would be Henry’s first movie. He was a little too young to watch Up when it was in theaters earlier this year. But since then, we’ve indoctrinated him into the world of Pixar by watching Finding Nemo, Cars and Toy Story at home. He has no problem sitting through any of the movies. They keep his attention throughout. Whether or not he would have the patience to sit through TWO movies back to back, with the 3D glasses on, in a new environment he’s never been in before… well, that’s something else entirely. We’ll probably end up taking him to The Princess and The Frog later in the year and that will be his first movie.
I should mention that I had a chance to see a sneak preview of Whip It! over the weekend – the roller derby movie directed by Drew Barrymore. It comes out this weekend as well.
I liked the movie. Certainly Barrymore’s trademark enthusiasm translates through her role as a director. I have a review rolling around in the back of my head that I might try to publish here on the site either tomorrow or Thursday. But if I don’t I’m sure I will be talking about it tonight on The Triple Feature. So be sure to tune in live at 9PM CST over at TalkShoe for some meaty movie discussion!
Until then, tell me what you guys think about Zombieland. Do you think it looks more funny than scary? What do you think about the cast? Is it weird for Woody Harrelson to be running around with a couple of twenty-somethings and a tween? Are you planning on seeing Zombieland this weekend, or something else? Lots of good stuff coming out on Friday. Leave your comments below!
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I don’t know if this is something worth mentioning or not, but I put a little bit of effort into it yesterday and I want you guys to check it out.
After months of the plain, boring default background Twitter gives you for your account, I decided to put together some custom artwork for my page. I don’t want to say much more than that because I don’t want to ruin the joke. The artwork makes a very specific reference that I think you guys might enjoy.
You can see the new artwork on my Twitter profile at http://twitter.com/tombrazelton
Let me know what you think!
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Sorry for the delay on today’s comic, but the reason for the delay is kind of ironically related to the punchline!
I’m in the middle of trying to obtain my Master’s in Communication Leadership at Drake University here in Des Moines. For those of you wondering what that is, it’s kind of a hybrid of their business college and their journalism college designed for communication professionals.
Right now I’m taking an accounting course that has me bent over its knee and spanking me hard. I come back from a three hour night class every Tuesday completely spent. Basically what happened last night is that I came home, laid down on the couch to rest for 15 minutes and didn’t get back up.
I woke up at some point around 2AM and dragged myself to bed. I was way too out of it to finish a comic.
I suppose this is one of the benefits of being unemployed, though. I have the morning to stay at home, draw silly pictures and post them on the internet.
But I don’t like missing deadlines – even when they’re self-imposed. So, sorry about that.
Capitalism: A Love Story comes out this weekend. In my estimation, it’s an important film being delivered to theaters with unfortunate timing. There’s a lot of good stuff coming out this weekend. Toy Story and Toy Story 2 in 3D, Zombieland, The Invention of Lying and A Serious Man are all movies I want to see in addition to Capitalism: A Love Story. If I hadn’t already seen Whip It! at a sneak preview last Saturday, I would be additionally stymied.
I hope people don’t look at Michael Moore’s film like Tom does in today’s comic. I’m kind of counting on Moore to frame the current economic crisis in more simplistic terms. By that, I don’t mean that I hope he talks down to us. Rather, I hope that he able to do what he normally does so well in his other films and puts a human face on the devastation this Great Recession is doing to people.
Incidentally, if you haven’t seen Moore’s first foray into documentary filmmaking, I strongly suggest you watch Roger & Me – a film about Moore’s pursuit of General Motors CEO Roger Smith as he seeks an explanation for the massive downsizing he ordered which resulted in an economic decimation of Moore’s hometown of Flint, Michigan.
If you look at what General Motors did in the 80s, its like a microcosm of what corporations are doing with America today. In many respects, I think Capitalism: A Love Story can be seen as a natural progression of the issues Moore explored in Roger & Me. A sequel of sorts.
I know Moore is a polarizing figure, but I’m curious to know what you guys think about Capitalism: A Love Story. Given the current economic climate, I wonder how much criticism Moore is going to attract for his film. Who is going to make the argument that is pro-corporation? Do you plan on seeing Capitalism: A Love Story this weekend, or are there too many other distractions at the multiplex? Do you think you’ll get around to seeing it later if you don’t see it right away?
Leave your comments below!
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