Tuesday, September 27, 2011

Seth Green rocks the coolest hair of all time.

Apparently Seth Green was in a Nerf ad in the 90's. You may be not at all surprised to learn that it is a terrible ad. It is filled with bad effects, "edgy" camera work, and that particular brand of smugness that pervaded a lot of ads aimed at children and teenagers in the early 90's.

It does however have three redeeming features:
1. Seth Green.
2. Seth Green's ridiculous hair.
3. Seth Green's inexplicable new york accent.*

Enjoy:



Here is Seth Green's hair captured for posterity:

eat your heart out, Justin Bieber's hair flip

Feel free to make the above image the front of your Christmas Cards this year. Especially if you mail most of your Christmas Cards to Seth Green.




Footnote(s):

*Actually its not so much a New York accent, as specifically the accent of Tony Toponi, in the 1986 animated film An American Tail.  Wikipedia describes the character of Tony Toponi as, "a streetwise young mouse of Italian descent," which may be my new all-time favorite character description.

I just discovered via Wikipedia that Tony Toponi was actually voiced by a 30 year old woman. Which was an unexpected twist.

In other unexpected American Tail related developments, Phillip Glasser, the voice of lead mouse Fievel Mousekewitz, grew up to be one of the producers of the terrible Jamie Kennedy film Kickin' It Old School. Though looking on imbd, that film has 10 people credited as various types of producers. So it probably would have been more surprising if he wasn't one of the producers.

It also says that the film cost 25.7 million dollars to make, so I can see how it would take ten people to convince a studio that they should pony up almost 26 million dollars for a Jamie Kennedy film about break dancing. Though there is a happy ending, Kickin' It Old School made only 4 million dollars world wide and made the world a better place by being the last movie Jamie Kennedy was allowed to be in.

Wednesday, September 21, 2011

Qwikster!

So Netflix on Monday made their DVDs by mail service into a separate company, and for reasons that are between them and the lord, they decided to call it Qwikster.

All I have to say about this is that it is impossible to say the name "Qwikster" without sounding like Sylvester the Cat.




If you haven't seen this parody of the video the founder of Netflix released, you should watch it below. This parody video is about blockbuster trying the same thing, and does a dead on parody of the awkward fake conversation style of the Netflix video.




If you go to qwikster.com right now, all it currently says is "Launching soon. Start popping the popcorn" with a photoshop of a movie curtain and a bowl of popcorn. So apparently they are gonna try to get in on the plopydop market as well.

Video via Filmdrunk

Friday, September 16, 2011

This trailer is badly edited

Updated! Now with 100% more Warren Zevon!

I think cutting a trailer for a comedy may be the hardest genre to promote. A lot of really great comedy's out there don't have one liners that work out of context.

Remember the terrible trailer for office space? They showed them beating the fax machine and Diedrich Bader's classic line, "two girls at the same time." But both gags, which were hilarious in context, seemed truly dumb as 4 second beats in a trailer.


I am hoping this film "Goon" is the same way. It clearly aspires to be a good old fashioned dumb violent comedy about my favorite sport to watch* and I will see it because, Liev Schrieber is awesome and Hockey Goons are awesome.** 





That said. This trailer is crap. It shows too much of the girl who wants to have sex with Sean William Scott all the time. Which could be cute in the film but is just boring in the trailer.


They don't make it clear what the main conflict of the film is. Does Scott not want to fight? Does he want to fight but fails the team because he can't skate? Or is it really all just gonna boil down to one 2 minute fight scene between Scott and Schreiber like they hype in the trailer?


Why don't they let Liev Schreiber do anything in the trailer but glower and punch a wall?


In terms of what is actually wrong with the editing. Take a look at the seen at :35 seconds in. Scott punches an opponent into the glass and a little blond girl in the 2nd row of the stands gives him a thumbs up.


This is cute, and probably the best gag in the trailer. It is not done perfectly, they should have cut to a closer shot of her and she should have been even more enthusiastic with her thumb's up, since the whole point of the gag is the disparity between a cute little girl and her endorsing the bloody violence on the ice. But I will take it. It definitely contains all the elements of a joke.


Then for some reason we cut back to the guy bleeding on the glass, and then back to the girl. Except this time she has no expression whatsoever. This is not funny, there isn't even a joke here. If the guy had bled all over the glass and the girl had gotten even more jubilant. That would have been funny. Not a great gag but at least one that contained the elements of a joke. Instead it just looks like the editor assembled the trailer by finding scenes in the film he liked, and then using random lengths of footage from them.


Quick Bonus complaint: What is with the title cards in this trailer? They look like they are in the default font from 2003 edition of Final Cut Pro. 


San serif, white text on a black background,  centered. I think the only setting they bothered to adjust was the make the text bold, which somehow makes it look worse.


I'm starting to think they had an 11 year old who was just starting to learn how to use iMovie put this trailer together.




Footnote(s):
* Actually I will broaden that. Hockey is my favorite thing to watch that does not have muppets in it. 


**Those of you curious of my opinion of Kevin Smith's threat to make the great Warren Zevon song "Hit somebody" into a two part epic dramady. I think Vinnie Jones here sums up my opinion of Kevin Smith's dumb ass trying to ruin that song nicely:

It just occurred to me that everyone on earth is not a Warren Zevon fan (he is most famous for the song "Wherewolves of London") so here is the song embedded below. Also even if you do know the song you probably want to hear now that i reminded you of its awesomeness.




Thursday, September 15, 2011

best muppets parody trailer yet.

The muppets did a parody trailer based on the girl with the dragon tattoo remake trailer*



Holy shit that thing is amazing. Don't just just sit there reading my text about it, watch the damn thing again.


Fuck yeah Muppets.

Footnote(s):
*on that topic: am I the only one who thinks its weird the David Fincher set the remake in Sweden and is having Daniel Craig speak with a swedish accent is kinda weird? I mean not shot by shot remake of Psycho weird, but still makes the film like more of a needless retread than it would if they actually changed, well, any of the elements.

Podcast Episode 29

Thor's 29: Super Mark-io Brothers 2: This time with Turnips!


The second and final part of are interview with wrester and wrestling league owner Shannon Hunter. Though you hopefully haven't heard the last of her on this podcast because she is awesome. Learn more about Shannon's League: World Professional Wrestling on their website: http://www.worldprofessionalwrestling.com/

This week discuss: Wrestling. We also discuss the IT Crowd at the beginning of the episode.

There are too many numbers in our episode title this week.

Freyja, Graham Linehan, Richard Ayoade, Chris O'Dowd, Katherine Parkinson
Matt Berry. Denholm Reynholm, Roy Trenneman, Maurice Moss, Jen Barber, Richmond Avenal

ECW, Jersey All Pro Wrestling, Jersey Shore Championship Wrestling, Jason Knight, Combat Zone Wrestling, Reading, Pennsylvania, Baldr geeks out, Ring of Honor, Pinkie Pinkerton, Eddie Valentine.

World Class Championship Wrestling, Missy Hyatt, Woman's World Cup Soccer, U.S. World Cup Soccer Team, MMA, WWF, WWE, Jeremiah Riggs, Randy Orton, luke robinson, Andy Leavine, CM Punk, kimbo slice, Independent Wrestling, Low Ki, Kawal, zach rider, Triple H, Chris Jericho, Undertaker, Edge, Rey Mysterio, Jr, Bryan Danielson, Daniel Bryan, Phillip Jack Brooks, Homicide, Low Ki,

Meeting your heros, Tommy Dreamer, Shane Douglas, The Franchise, Mick Foley, Mankind, Deathmatch Santa, Nikolai Volkoff, Josip Nikolai Peruzović, the Iron Sheik, the Mikey Rourke, Wild Samoan Training Center, Necro Butcher, Dylan Keith Summers, Pro Wrestling Unplugged, Gorilla Position, Johnny Cashmere, D.J. Hyde, Tony Myers, Sex & Violence, The Muppet Show, Sami Callihan, Chris Benoit, David John Finlay Jr, Fit Finlay, Elvis, Graceland, The Emergency Room, scars are sexy, Death Match Wrestling, Jason Knight, PWG, "Fat" Frank Iadeavia

Wrestling Themed weddings, Sami Callihan, tommy fierro, Danny Inferno, The Inferno Kid, Ace Darling, Judas Young, They Live, Rowdy Roddy Piper, Terry Funk, Extreme Championship Wrestling.



Wednesday, September 14, 2011

"What's with the goat?"

...I asked the employee in a hunting cap standing next to a goat and a trailer with huge photo of a bear on the side.

This was by the macy's in herald square nyc. Turns out Cabela's, the makers of the worlds best bar game* are releasing a home edition, so you can shoot dear without leaving the house. Cabela's are using this statue, which the employee let me know is actually of a ram, as part of a promotion for the game in herald square tomorrow.  Pictured is me with the dear. Which the cabala's employee said scientists and hunters tell the age of by their horn length, like the rings of a tree. If trees walked up mountains and head butted eachother.**

Footnote(s)
* or at least best bar game that you have to plug in. Flip cup and beer pong are more fun to play in a bar.
**if trees did that trees would be fucking awesome, and I would visit arboretums a thousand times more often

(sent via cellphone)

Guess cowgirl

Ill try to find the video of this once i get home, but I just saw a guess jeans television ad that was:
-in black and white
-featured a guy dressed as a cowboy and a girl in jeans and a corset
- featured an antique greyhound bus
-sexiness

Film noir photography style plus classic western plus a girl looking like betty from the comic book "The Rocketeer"?

I think we can file another one under ads directly designed to appeal to me. Too bad for guess I only buy my clothes from Sears.

(sent via cellphone)

Sunday, September 11, 2011

Vintage auto ad


Badly photographed from the wall of the Hershey, PA Automobile Museum. The ad is from the 1910's.


(sent via cellphone)

Tuesday, September 6, 2011

Podcast Episode 28

Thor's 28: Flesh for Frankenstien & Feet for Quentin Tarantino


Shark Night 3D, Flesh for Frankenstien, Filmdrunk, Filmdrunk.com, Django Unchained, Kevin Costner, Gulf Oil Spill, BP, Oil separating machine, Metropolis, Brainiac, Superman: Red Sun, Labor Day, Jaws, Brody, Quint, What Would Kevin Bacon Do?, bernadette peters, Kill Bill, Midget Porn, Planet Terror, Evil Dead, Jackie Brown, Pulp Fiction, Hammer Horror, Blood for Dracula, The flicks that Church Forgot