Posts Tagged ‘scam’
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It should be noted that I am totally talking out of my ass with today’s comic. Although I am fascinated by the legacy that Tupac Shakur left behind and the many conspiracy theories regarding his death, I don’t own a single one of his albums and, at the end of the day, I’m just a lame white guy from Iowa who can’t really relate to what Tupac meant to the people he left behind.
Still, it’s fun to speculate on what happened to him. Kind of like wondering aloud if Courtney Love killed Kurt Cobain. There’s always going to be that part of you that wonders if life would be different if they were still around.
That being said, I’m usually more of a realist at heart. And that’s why MTV’s latest biopic offering to the Tupac legacy, Tupac: Resurrection smacks of grave-robbing to me. It just seems shady to be making a buck off his estate supposedly “in his own words”. Tupac narrates the film through interviews recorded before he was gunned down in Las Vegas back in 1996. It seems like it would be a noble thing to let a slain performer eulogize himself, but it doesn’t seem like it would take a lot of effort to cobble together a few sound bites.
I don’t know. That’s just me. Sorry today’s strip didn’t aim more up the middle, but I was really stripped for ideas.
I went to see Lost in Translation with friends for a second time at a different theater over the weekend. You might recall I had some difficulty seeing it the first time around. Things were better, if only slightly this time out. There were no boom mics in the shots, but the presentation seemed unusually dark. Either I’m just getting picky about it, or the only way I’m going to watch this movie as intended is when it comes out on DVD.
I also had a chance to see Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World on Saturday. I liked it. Russell Crowe does a good job and so does Paul Bettany. Crowe does his usual burly man thing, but Bettany was the real revelation for me. Far less creepy this time around. A very subdued performance that I enjoyed.
I think the picture will be nominated for a few awards come next year, but not all of it stuck with me. There’s a lot of old English nautical slang that went right over my head. There were a few scenes that I had no idea what was going on.
Language barriers aside, the movie script was very clever and it gave you a good taste of what life was like on these warships back in the day. You can’t help but watch the film and think of what a difficult life that had of been. Even though it is a work of fiction, they make you feel like this was something that actually happened. I thought that was pretty cool.
Not much else to report for now I guess. So I’ll just cap things off there!
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Disaster Movie comes out this weekend and if you don’t think this movie looks like it was made for five dollars, check out the production stills on IMDB and get back to me.
I’m not particularly interested in ragging on Disaster Movie (I get more of a chuckle out of making Jared "the heavy" in this strip) because it’s like shooting fish in a barrel. But I was looking back over the previous films in this dire franchise and was trying to figure out the formula for it’s success.
Date Movie, Epic Movie, Meet The Spartans and Superhero Movie are some of the lowest common denominator films out there. They get trashed by critics and I seem to know very few people who watch them or enjoy them. So why do they keep getting the green light?
It has to come down to simple economics. Cheap to produce and released on slow weekends against weak competition. Even if the movies only stay in the theaters a week, they more than make up their production cost. Then it’s on to the next steaming turd of a parody starring a brand new cast of unnamed actors who will work for scale.
Say what you want about the Scary Movie franchise, but at least they kept some of the characters consistent throughout those four films…
This is a stray thought not really tethered to anything, but I was looking at the production stills again and was kind of admiring how quickly they get their parody to market on some of these films. Indiana Jones, Hellboy II, The Hulk – these are references to some fairly recent movies.
I would almost be impressed if the impact of these references extended beyond the recognition factor and were actually funny. “Hey! I just saw that movie a few weeks ago and now they’re makin’ fun of it! That’s amaaaaaazing!” It’s a parlor trick for the easily impressed. The cinematic equal of a big rock band coming to your down and saying "It’s a thrill to be back in… [insert name of town here]!” The people who “WOO!” in recognition of their city being named… that’s who Disaster Movie is for.
Gotta cut it short tonight. I’m feeling a little under the weather. Stress catching up with me perhaps. I was a little bit down in the dumps this morning with a stuffy nose and an itchy throat. I thought it was allergies. But now I know for certain that I’m sick. So I’ve got to drink my Ovaltine and go to bed.
See you back here on Friday!
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