Wednesday, December 31, 2008

Funny Heineken Commercial

I was checking out Adverblog today and came across this kick-ass Heineken commercial.



I love it. My only problem is that they should have saved this idea for the SuperBowl.

Oh yeah, by the way, Happy New Year and Drive Drunk!!

Whoops, I mean 'don't drive drunk' during amateur night.

Tuesday, December 30, 2008

Scat or Scat?

I came across this article on MTV.com concerning the new Beastie Boys album.

In the article, The Beastie Boys are quoted as saying:

"It's a very wordy record, in a good way," Mike D told us. "It's pretty scatological, to be completely honest. There are probably more scatological lyrics on this particular album than ever before," MCA added. "If you don't know what that means, go home and look it up."

Well, writer James Montgomery, with reporting by Tim Kash, completely missed the entire point of what The Beastie Boys were talking about when they reported that they're writing an album about poop.

Correct me if I'm wrong but - in addition to animal excrement - doesn't scat refer to a type of singing? And, the last time I heard, The Beastie Boys are a group of singers?

Wordy record?

Scatalogical lyrics?

I also remember another popular singer who also starred in the movie The Shining that went by that particular name (see above picture).

Although I think there are a lot of talented young writers out there, this is just another example of lazy writing by a bunch of lazy new generation reporters.

Blech.

Friday, December 19, 2008

Christmas Eimertoon

I drew this two years ago after watching The Polar Express:


And here's my review of The Polar Express (shudder):

When I heard Oscar-winning director Robert Zemickis (Forrest Gump, Back to the Future etc.) was directing this adaptation of the Caldecott Award-winning Children’s Book, I was instantly excited. Turns out, after I watched the movie, I felt half satisfied. True, the movie does stay very close to the book, even pulling out key illustrated scenes. And the cinematography and animation, sometimes, is over the top. I say sometimes, because although animators keep trying, they still haven’t quite got humans and their form. Their mouths and their mannerisms. Two things that I have wrong with the movie. Number one was 'WHY NOT HAVE REGULAR ACTORS?' This movie could have been a lot better had there been real actors. My theory is Zemickis and his animation team wanted to test out the bugs in their new animation equipment so they could ‘master’ it for another upcoming film with a better script (Ahem, perhaps Beowulf anyone?) My second fault with the film is that if this is for children, younger kids are going to come out of this movie with half of their fingernails bitten off and crying blood (just kidding). I’m not sure if it was a mix of the scary action, the Santa Claus Hitler-esque episodes at the North Pole or the animated characters themselves, but this movie creeped me out a little bit. It was like watching zombies in a movie. They needed to take a look at The Iron Giant and any Pixar film to see how to emit emotion from cartoon characters. Plus the voices, most of which came from Academy-award winner Tom Hanks, were just annoying as hell. Come to think of it, I’m changing my rating to one star instead of two. Blech

Wednesday, December 17, 2008

My Thoughts on Aronofsky's Upcoming Movie; The Wrestler.

In the early 80's, around The Empire Strikes Back time, my cousin Mike took my brother and me to my first wrestling match in Wheeling, West Virginia. It was Georgia Wrestling and it featured the Road Warriors.

Yes, the same Road Warriors that finally made a name for themselves in the WWF. And the same Road Warriors who spawned son James Laurinaitus from Buckeyes fame.

In any event, it was bloody. Very bloody.

It was so bloody that my 10-year old mind had feverish nightmares for weeks. I pictured the blood. I felt the blood. I was the blood. I was fucking scared.

But then, that mind turned. I started to crave wrestling. Then, I couldn't get enough of it. I bought the magazines. I watched it on TV (not much) and I would go see it was much as I possibly could at the Wheeling Civic Arena.

In fact, my brother and I would go every month. My mom would drop us off at the entrance and pick us up three hours later.

Eventually, I would learn to crave the violence, to lust for the blood, and finally realize that I wouldn't be satisfied until I saw someone die in the ring. Or at least get decapitated by a guillotine. (Which, by the way would be spectacular to see!)

Each month, the matches would get crazier and crazier. If you don't believe me ask my brother next time you see him. The first month it was a cage match. Three months later is was a street fight with no refs. And the wrestler could bring into the ring a weapon of choice. It was a fight to the finish. And it was awesome.

Can you dig it?

Then, came the WWF. Then came puberty. Then came, well ,women. Then came the end of my wrestling fetish and on to other fetishes if you know what I'm sayin. Heh heh.

In my past posts, I was gushing about The Road as an Oscar frontrunner this season (it's not being released until next year). Then I crossed my fingers at the possibility of The Dark Knight cleaning house (It won't. It's good. Just not great).

So now I'm hearing about The Wrestler. Darren Aronofsky's low-budget homage to Jake The Snake, Ravishing Rick Rude, Paul Ellering, Jimmy (Superfly) Snuka and Rowdy Roddy Piper.

I was perusing ESPN looking for Fantasy Football picks for my championship when I came across Bill Simmons praise of The Wrestler in this article.

Let me tell you something, I think this will be a pivotal movie for people of my generation. (Generation X, if you already didn't figure it out). Well, at least from the point of view of those wrestling geeks in the early 80's. I guess that's why I'm pretty psyched to see it.

I still believe The Curious Case of Benjamin Button will finally win Director David Fincher a much-deserved Oscar. But, The Wrestler is one of the movies on my must-see list. Even more so than Button.

Bring on the blood, brothers. Bring on the blood.

Monday, December 8, 2008

Beer, cigarettes, my kids and demolition derbies.

So there I was. Sunday night. Sitting there staring at Elmo's World with my two kids.

For some reason, my mind reverted back to grade school. It was summer or, to be even more descriptive, possibly Indian Summer. Late September. Early October.

Almost every year in my early childhood, my mom and dad would toss us into the car and drive out to St. Clairsville, Ohio, for the Belmont Country Fair where we would stuff our faces on elephant ears, funnel cakes, corn dogs and freshly squeezed lemonade.

Then, we would go see other fantastic attractions like crappy birdhouses at the 4-H tent, bulls eating hay at the farm tent and older kids busting balloons with darts for Van Halen mirrors on the midway.

On this particular day, however, we didn't come for the funnel cakes or the cows eating hay.

We came for the mother-fuckin' demolition derby!!!!

Now, I'm not sure of the chemical make-up of boys. Or why my brother and I enjoyed destruction as much as we did (or do). But, when we found out we were going to see the demolition derby the night before, we couldn't sleep. It was like Christmas in late August. To top it off, the fact that both our birthdays were in July, we had three Christmases (Christmasi?) every year.

And yes, the demolition derby was awesome. If you're a guy, you totally understand why. There's just something about 20 cars crunching, banging and slamming together that gets a guy really excited. It feels like you're in a fistfight against 50-some guys in a scunched up hallway.

And let's not even talk about the busted windows and exploding radiators.

It's almost as exciting as seeing a lady naked. Butt nekkid.

I said almost.

So there I was watching Elmo's World, staring at my son and daughter running around, doing a jig to the Elmo's World theme song and, in general, just having a good ol' time with life.

Then, for a couple minutes, I found an evil Grinch smile form across my face.

I have a son, and perhaps a daughter, who will wholeheartedly go see a demolition derby with me. And by wholeheartedly, I mean without question. And by without question, I mean forced.

Because, you see, my wife might not be interested in seeing a demolition derby, but goddamn it if my kid's aren't going to go with me.

We'll see. I just may get my youth back yet.