Posts Tagged ‘shame’
2 items.
I might be stepping outside of regular continuity a little bit with today’s strip. In fact, I could very well be brushing up against the 4th wall – which I usually try to avoid for fear of structural damage.
But this time out, I decided to do something different. I was little tired of the same mechanics of telling a joke and wanted to go in a different direction. Is it a little gimmicky? Sure. But you can’t fault me for trying new things. Actually, I’m kind of proud of the way it turned out!
For anyone who is sensitive to these kinds of things, I’m not making fun of Kabuki or of Japanese culture. In fact, like most people, I’m facinated by everything about the country. I even took a course on Japan in college. This is just a little homage – my way of tipping the hat without mentioning anime.
The overly-dramatic events of today’s strip aren’t too far from truth. At least the genesis of the conflict.
Cami and I have a system where we abuse each other with our movies choices. It’s actually working quite well for us. I drag her to something like The Hulk where she rolls her eyes for two hours. Then a day or two later, she shuffles me out the door to watch some clap-trap like Alex & Emma.
You all know my feeling about The Hulk, but I haven’t talked about Alex & Emma.
We should have picked up a clue when we read the film came in 7th on its opening weekend. We should have thought twice when we could only find the movie playing in ONE theater that wasn’t 50 miles away. This, in a town of a dozen multiplexes.
But no. The system is there for a reason. If the movie looked good once, by God, we’re going.
So we went.
And the movie was HORRIBLE!
The first hour and a half is basically watching Kate Hudson and Luke Wilson (two actors completely without chemistry) write a book. If you thought READING books was fun, then certainly watching a movie about people WRITING a book is going to be right up there with chocolate-flavored heroin.
WRONG!
The movie kept flipping between the dingy, busted down reality the authors live in, and the glossy, white, Gatsby-esque, flapper reality of the book. At what point the two real-life characters fall in love is kind of a mystery. It seems like they never have the time.
I could go on about it, but I’m really even too tired to recall it and it’s not worht the effort.
Just know that it’s terrible, director Rob Reiner is screwing up his career and that I expected as much from Luke Wilson, but Kate Hudson deserves better.
It’s kind of funny how the system failed us this time around. We both picked movies we were sure at least one of us would love. As it turned out, both of us hated both movies. I guess you win some, you lose some.
This weekend looks like Charlie’s Angels is on the docket. I think I’ve got a rant simmering somewhere, so I’ll save it for Friday.
In the meantime, the new Mars Volta CD is kicking my ass and I have a ticket to see Deftones next Wednesday. Yes – I rock.
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Good day, all. Welcome to another exciting Monday!
Sorry if I’m drawing out this Eastern Promises-inspired S&M nightmare a little too long. But I love jokes that have that awkward pauses in the middle of them and when I thought about Tom’s prediciment in Friday’s strip, I couldn’t resist. It’s kind of a low pitch, but I take pleasure from rounding out the narrative. I promise we’ll move on to greener pastures soon.
I just wanted to take a moment to touch on the contest from last Friday where I announced that I would be giving away three copies of The Sarah Silverman Program: Seasone One on DVD. I made it a trivia contest of sorts – challenging readers to uncover the reference in the title of Friday’s comic (“PALOMINO”) within the context of the comic and e-mail me their guesses. From those that guessed correctly, three winners would be randomly selected.
Okay, first thing I want to say that this contest gathered more entries than another other contest I’ve run so far. I don’t know how much of that is due to it being the prize itself, the knowledge-flexing nature of the contest or what. But I think part of it has to do with notifying my readers about it in a weekly recap through Theater Hopper’s mailing list. I noticed a spike shortly after I sent the message.
If you guys are interested in signing up for the mailing list, you can do so here. You’ll get one e-mail from me a week – THAT’S IT. And I will be recapping the comics, and any contests or reviews that we run.
More on that later. But for right now, I want to get back to the Sarah Silverman contest.
So like I said, this has been our most successful contest so far. Of all the enteries, half of you caught the reference and the other did not. In some respects I was surprised at how many people knew what I was talking about. It’s somewhat obscure unless you’re a fan of late night comedy.
Oh, alright. I won’t torture you anymore. Here’s the answer to Friday’s contest giveaway trivia question:
It’s the opening sketch from the November 11, 2006 Saturday Night Live with Kristin Wiig as newly elected Speaker of The House Nancy Pelosi. In it, she congratulates voters for ignoring warnings from the adminstration of Democrats “San Francisco values” and for turning out to the polls in record numbers to send the message that “‘stay the course in Iraq’ is not a plan; that our health care system should serve ordinary citizens, not pharmaceutical companies; that so-called rough sex can be a necessary and fulfilling adjunct to a better sex life – partiularly when it involves fantasy role-play scenarios, such as kidnapping or forced interrogation, provided, of course, that both participants are willing and disease-free, and have agreed on what we call a “safe word” – for example: ‘Palomino’…”
I don’t know why, but the sketch stuck with me and, well, that’s the reference!
As entertaining as I found the sketch, I found some of the answers equally entertaining. Some of you took the meaning of the comic title literally and thought I was refering to horses. Some people extrapolated that conclusion and referenced Hidalgo – a movie about an international horse race that Viggo Mortensen starred in back in 2004. Some people took that idea, flipped it and got more personal with it. Suggesting that since Mortensen rode a Palomino stallion in Hidalgo and because he’s naked in Eastern Promises that he must be “hung like a horse” and that was the reference. Yikes!
Some people were very matter-of-fact about what they thought the reference was. Since Tom was asking about the safe word in the punchline of Friday’s comic, they assumed “Palomino” was that word. In a general sense, they’re right. But for the purposes of the contest, I needed them to be more specific.
Probably the most out-there guess I recieved was when someone talked about a strip club in Las Vegas called the Palomino and surmized that might be a place Victor would frequent. I thought it was crackers until two or three more people submitted entries with the same guess. I gotta get out more.
At any rate, it was a fun contest and the winners have been notified. My thanks to everyone who entereted.
For those of you who didn’t win, don’t worry. We’ll have a new contest up and running on Wednesday and this one will only be made available to those of you who are currently on the mailing list.
It’s going to be pretty straight forward. I send a message to everyone on the mailing list with a clue. If you want to be enterted, mail the clue back to me and you’ll be chosen at random! I’ll be delivering more specifics about WHICH DVD I’m giving away on Wednesday. But you probably want to sign up for the mailing list now to hedge your bets!
Remember, only one recap message from me a week and occassionally there will be mailing-list only contests that will not be made available on the main site!
The Triple Feature talkcast – Monday, 9PM CST, TalkShoe.com
Before I forget, I want to remind everyone to check out The Triple Feature talkcast tonight at 9:00 PM CST over at TalkShoe. This evening, Gordon, Joe and I will be discussing the films of Wes Anderson in honor of his latest release, The Darjeeling Limited. I don’t think we’ve ever concentrated an episode around one filmmaker, so it should be a lot of fun. Whether you have opinions about Bottle Rocket, Rushmore, The Royal Tennebaums, The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou or are eagerly anticipating The Darjeeling Limited, be sure to listen in tonight LIVE as we broadcast at 9:00 PM CST and talk about all of them! See you then!
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