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The Fall of Mira Sorvino

Catching up on Tivo – watched the Last Templar. I’m a sucker for all this templar/grail quest bullshit and will lap it up any chance I get. The fact that this made for TV gem also stars the lovely Mira Sorvino - who I have the best unshareable story in the world about - was a huge plus. What the hell happened to her career! Mighty Aphrodite and boinking Quentin Tarantino one minute to making the first movie I had ever seen receive a 0 star rating from the highly sophisticated Philadelphia Inquirer movie review section and “taking on” such premium quality made for TV fare such as the Last Templar. At least it was a two night “event” feature!

 

I am quite shocked that this movie made it on to TV. It was atrocious and could not have possibly been worse. It co-starred that RA from Felicity who is now keeping it real on the Unit putting up with the worst wife in TV history – Kim Brown, I would face punch you if you existed in real life! I am not one of these uppity people that calls a movie a “film” and I definitely am not crushing the indie film circuit, but I will say that I do require a certain level of acting. Now this scale slides a bit based on hotness – for example, I put up with season 1 of Smallville because Lana Lang aka Kristin Kreuk was an 18 month monster crush for me –

 

 

 

but in this turd, you’ve got an old Mira Sorvino who looks like she’s been crushing the leg press machine and getting her face skin pulled back!

 

The coup de grace of this travesty had to be one of the worst sex scenes of all time in the deserts of Turkey. It was horrible. I have put up with a lot of bad scenes in my day – it’s inevitable if you’ve watched enough Skinemax – but this was truly awful. It was totally forced and you could tell that the RA from Felicity wanted nothing to do with it – clearly, he’s not a fan of MILF hunter because he wanted nothing to do with that old bag Mira Sorvino!

 

Come on TV, you’re better than this!

The Horror! The Horror! Welcome to Detroit!

Fooyeah! I am in Detroit - the Motor City, the Count of Montechrysler, home of Motown records. We’re here to visit with some people working on the future of the American auto industry and check out the Detroit Auto Show. What a depressing city – these guys are totally f’d. The auto show was a total joke – “electrification” is the new buzzword! These donkeys actually want us to believe that Americans who won’t buy their shoddy products now are going to flock to dealers to buy their shoddy “electrified” products at higher prices?? Please.

I have a great story that pretty much encapsulates what I think has killed the American auto industry. We were at one of the Big 3 automakers and we drive up to the building that houses their advanced battery division. Our host was driving a BMW which I hopped out of in order to figure out if we were at the right building for our meeting. I run to the front desk to see if our person was there and the security person proceeds to tell me that we can’t park in the building lot because we are not driving that automakers brand. It has just snowed and they have not cleared any parking lots nearby and he tells us that we’re going to have to park a mile away and take a shuttle. I tell the guy – hey, we’re here to help you guys and figure out what we can do to make you successful. Nope – you’re taking the shuttle.

 

When these bozos are more concerned with hiding in their bubble and pretending that no competition exists because they don’t see it in their parking lots than maximizing our time in trying them to build a future, you quickly understand how we’ve gotten to this place.

Here’s a picture of Detroit that I captured on the way back to the airport – it’s the sun setting on Detroit, oh snap!

 

Goodbye Entertainment Industry as We Know It

Man, the interwebs is going to destroy anyone in the entertainment industry who decides they’re going to hide under a pile of coats like the music companies did. I just got back from my ill-fated trip to Phoenix to watch my Eagles rip my heart out, stomp on it, poop on it, and then insert it back in my chest to make sure the poop infected the rest of my innards. I hate you Andy Reid.

 

Anyways, was tired when we got back but I wanted to go see “Notorious” which just got released. I had a real dilemma: I wanted to watch the movie, but I also didn’t want to have to sit up because I didn’t have enough energy to fight gravity. But Notorious featured Notorious BIG and I NEEDED to understand how that obese motherfucker managed to pull so much ass – including the crazy Lil’ Kim. (Total Side Note: Is it just me or is the era of “lil’“ making a fantastic comeback? The golden days of Lil’ Penny, Lil’ Kim and Lil’ Romeo are now being brought back to life with sweet acts like Lil’ Mama (funniest judge on America's best dance crew!) and Lil' Wayne, I could not be more excited!)

 

Given my hesitancy to sit upright and my burning desire to watch content now, I of course had to resort to using the magiks of the internets to solve my problem. It took about 3 minutes, but I eventually found a place where I could stream a decent quality version of Notorious through a mac mini to an HDTV and you know what – it was fantastic! I was able to hit up a couple mid movie naps, lay on the couch like a beached whale, and thank my lucky stars that I had not paid for a full price ticket to see that poorly put together, abortion of a movie.

 

Here’s the thing – I probably would have paid some amount to see a higher quality version of it with some better streaming/buffering. And I am cheap! But as long as these knucklehead studios cling to their “windowed” release approach, they are going to slowly screw themselves and end up in the same place as the music guys. I can already see them thinking about VOD of newer releases that are MORE expensive than going to the theater! Of course this is how they think – totally foolish. Given that you don’t need to share any revenues with the theater chain (who is an independent entity) or pay for the distribution of the film to said theater chain or the print itself – here’s a wild and crazy idea: figure out how to get me my content at a cheaper price than going to the theater!

Yeah, I Still Hate You Pacey

I love Fringe. It’s clearly one of the best shows of the new TV season - although that’s not saying much in a season that has delivered us such turds as “True Beauty”, “Mammas Boys”, and “My Own Worst Enemy”! I wanted to resist it at the start because I still hate Pacey for stealing Joey from Dawson and people being cool with it, but at the end of the day, can we call ourselves “good people” if we can’t support Dawson’s Creek alums?

 

The show has been good – not great yet – but JJ Abrams is laying down a good foundation. The core girl, Anna Torv, has been getting consistently better after a rough start and I love the whole concept of “The Pattern”! I want to attribute my recent gassiness to the Pattern – that could be my contribution to science.

What kills me about the show though is the intro – they play this spooky music and have these three screens that flash words about “fringe” phenomena. They put up stuff like Precognition, and Teleportation, and Suspended Animation and Transmogrification – but they also put up stuff like Nanotechnology, Artificial Intelligence and Dark Matter!

 

Yo JJ – read a copy of Scientific American, “nanotechnology,” while sounding cool is not fringe!! And artificial intelligence, seriously? Do you play video games? AI driven bots in newer games are smarter than half the people I know! Come on TV – you’re better than that!

A Black Daily Show? Let's Run With It!

I watched more CNN in the past 6 months than I have probably watched in the last 8 years combined. I’ve got issues with their biased coverage, but it’s the best you can get versus the reactionaries on Fox News and the communists on MSNBC. I wish CNBC had some news coverage instead of cycling reruns of their shows for west coast auds – I like their crew and they’ve got the hottest people on TV (is there anything better than waking up to Erin Burnett who makes Maria Bartiromo look like a slightly more youthful Bea Arthur?). 

 

 

What kills me about CNN recently though is the D.L. Hughley Breaks the News. Seriously, I cannot imagine a worse idea and the show comes in slightly above the Chevy Chase Show and just below the soon to be disaster Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. I can just see some douchebag programmer at CNN pitching this idea to the other knuckleheads and donkeys at Turner:

 

“Hey guys, the Daily Show is huge – it’s how most “young people” today get their news on TV – and black people are hot right now! Let’s combine these two unstoppable forces and drive our demographics out of the retirement home and into the clubs – Axe Body Spray commercials here we come!”

 

Terrible. The show is just terrible. D.L. Hughley isn’t even the funniest black comedian of his generation – he barely breaks the top 10! If you’re going to mix black people + daily show, can you at least go to the absurd (Tracy Morgan Breaks the News! ) or do it right (Dave Chapelle Breaks the News!)? Memo to CNN brass: Just because he played the socially progressive and articulate Simon on Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip doesn’t mean he’s a sharp dude! It’s easy to sound smart when you’ve got the writer of the West Wing and A Few Good Men writing your lines!

 

Also – what’s up with the suits; you look like Michael Irvin on Sunday NFL countdown! Can you add a tilted top hat to that look?

FMDB In Tha Hizzy!

I love seeing people from old TV shows and movies on new TV shows as new characters that are totally ruined based on who the actor/actress used to be. Not to toot my own horn but I have an uncanny ability to catch people across shows; I call my power FMDB, I shit on IMDB and should be on Heroes if Ando gets to be on the show with his shitty power. I was just catching up on Numbers – sorry CBS, I meant Numb3rs (sweet! ) – and Marshall from Alias was playing a bit part as the bus driver of a tourist bus that gets hijacked. Seriously Marshall, I know the economy is tough for everyone but you’ve gone from super technical genius spy solving incredible technical problems in 20 minutes that haven’t been solved in real life for decades in order to keep Sydney and Vaughn alive to driving a fucking tourist bus? You’re better than that!

 

The worst part about this is that Marshall was really living the ultimate tech geek’s dream on Alias. He had an unlimited budget to buy anything he wanted. He had no oversight. He got to play spy every once in awhile. And he had a fucking hot wife who use to be an agent – and not only did he score this lady as his wife, he knocked her up and produced offspring who will probably crush 3d problem solving tests. And now he’s driving a bus. Awesome.

Calling Rachel Dratch! Calling Rachel Dratch!

30 Rock I love you. It is no wonder the show is a ratings disaster, they are clearly writing it with people of my ilk in mind. Memo to NBC: most people in America don’t read above a 5^th grade level – they don’t get irony, stories about nerds, or Tracey Jordan doing a music video for a song called Werewolf Bar Mitzvah. Those Star Wars jokes and references – fantastic, but check out the success of Fanboys for evidence of success around that strategy. (can’t even get out to theatres!) Please NBC, we need some lowest common denominator humor or I’m going to lose another show: give us a person slipping on a banana peel, fat person falling on a table and breaking it – you know, Farley level stuff.

 

Liz just mentioned she was feeling nervous about an “away poop” situation – awesome. Larry David already covered the topic in an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm, but I loved the way they dropped that in. I refuse to poop at work as well and hate getting stuck in an away poop situation: gross seat, bad toilet paper, no home base reading material, wearing shoes, etc. Luckily I live 5 minutes from work so I can race back in an emergency scenario.

 

What the hell ever happened to Rachel Dratch? One of our shining Dartmouth celebrities has just disappeared from the face of the earth! (luckily we’ve still got the delicious Connie Briton who plays Coach Taylor’s wife in Friday Night Lights and the hot chick who plays Sarah on Prison Break who was apparently at Dartmouth when I was there – she must not have played pong in the Pit at GDX!) Now Rachel Dratch was never really hot, but she was funny because she looked weird.

 

She was originally going to play Jenna, but the execs at NBC thought she was too grim so they got the secretary from Ally McBeal. Tina Fey didn’t totally throw Rachel under the bus bringing her on for cameo roles as Baba Wawa and a Zookeeper - but now that Tina is big time, she’s just tossed Dratch-bat under the bus! Those “lover” bits she used to do with Will Ferrell in the hot tub were gold – way better than the awful awful shit that’s on SNL now. They should have brought Rachel back instead of that fatso they brought in to replace Amy Poehler – she sucks. Rachel – where are you!? I’ve sent suck up emails to her Dartmouth account in the hopes of a response, maybe she’s got her name in Google Alerts and will be a special guest on our world premiere Groundhog Day podcast?

What Ever Happened to the Half Tee?

I love Rocky 3. Granted it’s no Rocky 4, but it’s damn good – it is hard to go wrong with a movie that features fantastic performances by Mr. T as the menacing Clubber Lang (Rocky should have scheduled their first fight on a plane, BA HATES flying!) and Hulk Hogan as the wonderful Thunder Lips (although hard to argue for him as the “Ultimate Male” given his thick, giant-headed, and old wife dumped his ass to get banged by some high school dude who is clearly trying to work his way from Linda to Brooke).

 

No discussion of Rocky 3 can be complete without the gayest hetero-male scene of all time – you know what I’m talking about, Rocky and Apollo racing on the beach after Adrian has convinced the Ultimate Meatball to not be afraid? Where Apollo is clearly running at ¼ speed and the Stallion barely gets past him to the finish line and they frolic and hug each other in the water and are oh so close to transitioning into full make out mode? What kills me about that scene – besides the race and the frolicking – are those crazy half t-shirts that Apollo and Rocky are wearing. Where the hell did that style go?

 

I can honestly say I haven’t seen someone wearing a sweet outfit like that in over a decade – has that scene killed people’s desire to wear the super bright half tee with headband? I wonder what it takes to pull that look off. I would most likely look awful with my fat protruding out into open air with the same zeal as a plant reaching for sunlight. But I can’t imagine it would look good on the following people either:

- skinny douches with no arms,

- chicks with saggy boobs who don’t like wearing bras,

- super hairy dudes who have so much fur that the tee looks like a pattern print sweater,

- the old spice centaur

Who Woulda Thunk It: Using a Payphone to Make a Call?

Wow, I forgot I even had a blog for about a week – whoops! I was at SFO today waiting to catch a stupid flight and I swear I saw a lady using the payphone! I didn’t even know payphones still existed other than to serve as semi-private open air bathrooms for hobos – seriously, it’s pretty easy to pee between cars, but getting a good dump squat in the city takes real work.

 

Who the hell doesn’t have a cell phone? Cell phone companies make those sub prime mortgage lender scumbags look like Warren Buffet given the extremes they go to get you addicted to their services and hooked on a plan. For Christ’s sake – I was watching something about those Somali pirates and those mother fuckers - who are literally taking over oil tankers from homemade canoes with weapons forged in the fires of Mordor – are sitting there playing brick breaker on their blackberries. Come on lady, displaced Katrina victims are rocking lady gaga ringtones on their cellies and you’re telling me you can’t scrap together the nickels to join us in the present?

Back in POG form!

I’m back! In POG form. That’s right, after spending a year and a half off the grid, it has come to my attention that the internets cannot live without my critical contributions. I’m actually quite surprised that the interweb is still operating at its current level given the fact that I have not been regularly updating it with my pointless observations, commentary on TV and deep thoughts on things like dress pants on the outside with elastic waistband sweatpants on the inside as the future of workplace couture.

To be honest, I’m surprised I’m back. Let’s all be honest, blogging about stuff you actually care about and saying what you actually think is a quick path to a few things: a) the end of a political career (well, unless you write a tell-all memoir in anticipation of running for office where you talk about your experiments with nose candy and proclivity for putting it in the butt! ) and b) getting fired from your job because you “make the firm look bad” since it is better to have no opinion and avoid making a single enemy, and c) becoming an internet celebrity who is well known within your circle of dork and nerd friends. Rationally, blogging is totally pointless from a “get ahead” perspective unless you actually assign utility to your vanity. Good news for you – I’m vain, baby! And I’m back – please to enjoy!