Stuff You Gotta Watch's
(Or: Pure Skill,
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Harry Potter Month... Larry King Meets the Beatles.... Mira Brzezinski... The Chipmunks... Oldies Radio.... James Bond... Popeye... Seven Samurai Remake... Groucho Marx... Stuff You Gotta Watch Two Year Anniversary!... No Balloons for You!... Groucho Marx 2... 1939/2007... The Rolling Stones... The Wizard of Oz with a 2007 Wow Factor... Jessica and Scarlett... Maria Sharapova... The Day the Earth Stood Still... Hole in the Sky... The Dark Knight... Joss Whedon's Ripper.... Maria Sharapova 2... The Greatest Generation... Remakes... Alyson Hannigan... Potter Vs. Bond... Barry Manilow vs. The View... Adam West... 3D News... Pelham Remake... New TV Season
JULY IS HARRY POTTER MONTH
This month, the fifth Harry Potter film will be
released
as well as the final Harry Potter book. With the rest of the
media jumping on the Pottermania bandwagon, SYGW is taking a stand
against bandwagon-jumping... by stepping lightly onto the bandwagon
instead so as not to disturb anybody. Here at SYGW, July is
officially declared Harry Potter Month. Our reviews of The
Order
of the Phoenix should be filed sometime this month. Until
then,
check out what we think of the other Harry
Potter films.
Enjoy Harry Potter Month, and remember, the third floor
corridor on the righthand side is out of bounds to everyone who does
not wish to suffer a most painful death.
NOTE: All Harry Potter Month News has been archived to its own page.
AT LEAST HE DIDN'T CALL PAUL "SPORTY"
CNN's Larry King recently had Beatles Paul McCartney and
Ringo Starr on his chat show. Famed as a man to whom
research and show preparation means remembering to show up on the set
on time, King showed off his amazing hosting skills by
referring to the late George Harrison as "George Hamilton" (in a
not-televised moment) and, during the TV interview, turning
to
Ringo and addressing him as "George". The next night
he had a guest more his intellectual equal - Paris Hilton.
The most interesting news of the whole King - Beatles night is that it seems Paul McCartney and Yoko Ono have put their mutual animosity aside, at least for now, and that George Harrison's son Dhani seems to have inherited his father's snide sense of humor, reportedly saying to Beatles producer George Martin's son "Larry King. Check him out - he looks like Shrek!".
ADD ANOTHER QUOTE AND MAKE IT A GALLON
"Given John Wilkes Booth to interview, [Larry] King would ask if he
preferred dramas to musicals." - Phil Mushnick, New York Post
PARIS
IS BURNING (almost)
Another story mentioning Paris Hilton! Oh My! Recently, MSNBC Morning Joe cohost Mika Brzezinski did something that we hope will catch on with other newscasters. Objecting to a lead story about Paris Hilton during a news update, she refused to read it. During the next update, she again refused again to read the Paris Hilton story and attempted to set it on fire with a cigarette lighter. The third time the story came up, she fed the story into a nearby shredder. If she doesn't win the Pulitzer Prize for Journalism for this, we will be severely disappointed.
THEY
GOT THE CHUZIZZLE IN THE...
Oh, forget it...
July 8th
Remember The
Chipmunks, a group of cute but annoying animated rodents who sang
popular songs in high voices? Well, they are coming back in
December in a new movie and they are, shall we say, different.
Once again, Hollywood proves it has no clue.
Attempting to attract both the people who remember The
Chipmunks from the 1960s and a younger, "hipper"
audience, they will undoubtedly wind up pleasing neither.
Has there been an outcry from anyone, anywhere, for an
updated, hip version of what was essentially a one-joke novelty
cartoon derived from a handful of one-joke novelty records?
Are there people out there who still drag out their The Chipmunks Sing The Beatles
album
and slap it on for a fine evening of novelty music listening? Do
we really need anything more from The Chipmunks aside from that
fairly catchy Christmas song that still manages to wear out its
welcome by the second week of December? Does the image
above remind you like it does us of that Simpsons episode
where the makers of Itchy and
Scratchy add a supposedly hip dog character named Poochie to the
show and nearly lose their entire audience? Have we asked
enough rhetorical questions? And was that last sentence
rhetorical?
A NEW YORK STORY
WCBS-FM was New York's oldies station, playing classic songs from the '50s, '60s and '70s. It was one of the last bastions of radio for the "no longer 20" crowd, our country and Big Band/Standards stations having gone by the wayside years earlier. Two years ago, WCBS switched to the "Jack" format, the supposedly edgy and hip style in which there are no D.J.'s and the music played was more contemporary and random. Despite outcries from New York citizens, mayors, senators and congressman, "Jack" prevailed and our oldies station was gone. But, as in shady massage parlors, there is a happy ending. On Thursday, July 11th, WCBS will play The Beach Boys "Do It Again" and the station will switch formats once again - back to oldies. Sometimes the good guys win. - JB
NO, MR.
BOND, I
EXPECT YOU TO
LAUGH!
July 26th In keeping with our mostly British news lately, we offer this bit of news: according to Daniel Craig (aka The New Bond), the producers of the James Bond films, having successfully revived the spy series after Die Another Day killed it, have decided that in the next Bond film, they will reintroduce Roger Moore -style comedy to the proceedings. We can only assume - hope and pray, really - that Craig was joking.
NEW POPEYE SECTION!
SYGW is proud to introduce a new Popeye section,
inspired by the following piece of news - at long last, the black and
white Popeye cartoons from the Fleischer Studios are being released on
DVD. Volume One is out now, featuring the first 60 Popeye
cartoons from 1933 through 1938, restored and uncut. For a
generation of TV-addicted rugrats, these beautiful, quirky and funny
cartoons were instrumental in helping us develop a love for all things
black and white. We watched Bugs Bunny and he was in
color.
We watched Popeye and he was in black and white. And it
didn't
matter. Welcome back, Popeye!
AND CEDRIC THE ENTERTAINER AS "Kikuchiyo"
The Weinstein Company has announced plans to remake Akira Kurosawa's Seven Samurai, as part of a multi-million dollar investment in Asian-themed films. According to the Internet Movie Database, Weinstein wants to infuse "Western sensibilities" into the films to make them appeal to both the U.S. and Asia. Hmm, nobody's ever done that before... except... who was it?... oh, yeah. Akira Kurosawa.
Let's see: Psycho - check. King Kong - check twice. Seven Samurai - check. Anybody wanna start a Citizen Kane remake pool?
HELLO, I MUST BE GOING
We are coming up on the 30th anniversary of the
death of Elvis Presley,
meaning that the media will once again be celebrating this 20th Century
musical icon in ways both respectful and nauseating. And once
again, another major icon will be ignored and forgotten. So Stuff You Gotta Watch,
while tipping its hat to The King, would like to remind everyone that
30 years ago the same week as Elvis died, we also lost perhaps
America's greatest comedian, Julius Henry Marx, better known as Groucho. The man
who once said to a friend: "I've got nothing but confidence in you...
and very little of that."
LIKE THE FELLA ONCE SAID:
Ain't That a Kick in the Head?
August 11
This month, Stuff You
Gotta Watch celebrates its
Second Anniversary. Yes, it was just two years ago we started
with an article about Neve Campbell's
disappearing career, some internal emails about James
Cameron's Titanic
fleshed out into an article, and a lot of pluck. Look at us
now!
What other site has an entire section devoted to the Zatoichi series of Japan, sitting
side by side with Harry Potter,
The Beatles, Screwball Comedies, The Little Rascals and Buffy the Vampire Slayer?
What other site devotes praise to Takashi
Shimura, Bruce Campbell,
Lacey Chabert, Craig T. Nelson and William A. Wellman
without breaking a sweat? None, friends, none. We
thank
those of you who have written to us (and it hasn't been many) and we
thank those of you who have visited and ask you to write us if this
site pleases you in any way. We can be reached at stuff (at)
laurelandhardycentral (dot) com. Please write.
Operators
are standing by. We now return you to Upstairs,
Downstairs. Phase one, in which Doris gets her oats.
AND
CUSTARD PIES CONTAIN
TRANS-FAT
Entertainment
news comes in all sizes. In Jolly Old England lives one now sad clown
named Barney Baloney. For years, he entertained the little
nippers of England with his bubble machine and balloon animals.
A
while back, he had to stop using his bubble machine because he couldn't
get the legally required liability insurance (children could slip and
hurt themselves on soap residue, you know). Now a supermarket where he
works has banned him from making balloon animals because some
children could be allergic to latex. "At this rate I'll have
no
act!", Mr. Baloney (real name Tony Turner) rightfully assessed.
Meanwhile, we wonder how we ever survived as a species,
growing
up in a world where clowns were always attacking us with their deadly
bubble machines and balloons.
HOORAY FOR CAPTAIN SPALDING
August 19th
30 years ago today
Groucho Marx,
arguably America's greatest comedian, passed away. Here is a
nice
tribute to the man from Keely Brown, in an August 18th article in
the Summit Daily News titled Searching for Elvis:
"A few years ago, when I was still performing with the cruise ships, several hundred Elvis impersonators came onboard for their annual Elvis Convention. Since I remained hidden in my cabin for as much of the cruise as possible, all I can remember is a few glimpses of white-spandexed behinds as they made their way past my piano bar either to the karaoke room or to the main lounge for the Elvis Impersonator Competition. That was fine with me — given my taste and my repertoire, my piano bar was no place for them.
"Now, if it had been a crowd of Groucho Marx imperonators, I’d have rolled back the piano lid and played “Hooray for Captain Spaulding” and “Lydia the Tattooed Lady” until the ship rolled into port."
WHAT A DIFFERENCE 68 YEARS MAKES!
MOVIES RELEASED IN 1939: Beau Geste, Gone with the Wind, Goodbye, Mr. Chips, Gunga Din, The Hound of the Baskervilles, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Of Mice and Men, The Wizard of Oz, Wuthering Heights
MOVIES RELEASED IN 2007 or IN PRODUCTION: The Dark Knight (Batman), Fantastic Four 2, G.I. Joe, The Green Hornet, Ironman, Spiderman 3, Transformers, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Voltron
LIKE A SMOKING STONE
August 23rd
There
are reasons why some of us don't really get all that excited
about the Rolling Stones these days, one being that
they
haven't really done anything amazing since Exile on Main Street
(1972) or, if you want to be kind, Some
Girls
(1978). But there are also reasons why you still gotta love
them. When in
concert a few years back in NYC, two members, Ron "I'm Not Keith" Wood
and Keith "Ain't I Dead Yet?" Richards flagrantly violated New
York's vehement anti-smoking laws throughout the entire show.
Now, at a recent show in the UK, they showed the same
attitude
for London's similar laws. We are not here to advocate
smoking,
although, if you want to slowly commit suicide legally, smoking is the
way to go. But it's fun to see that being the "bad boys" of
rock
and roll now means sneaking a ciggie on stage. The times,
they
have a-changed, eh?
THE 2007 WOW FACTOR!
(Or: Eventually Everything Good Will Be Ruined)
Looking around for cherished icons from our glorious past to destroy for a new generation, Todd MacFarlane and Josh Olson have settled on creating a new movie based on the characters of The Wizard of Oz. McFarlane is the creator of the comic book character Spawn, while Olson is known for writing the film A History of Violence. (And doesn't that just make you cry out "Yes, please, show us your take on the most beloved fantasy characters of the past century!"?). While we hate to disparage any project before it has even started (yeah, right), this quote from McFarlane pretty much sums up all our fears: "I want to create (a movie) that has a 2007 'Wow' factor. You’ve still got Dorothy trapped in an odd place, but she’s much closer to the Ripley from Alien than a helpless singing girl." Look out, Wicked Witch! Dorothy's back and she's armed with more than just a bucket of water, bee-yotch!
EXECUTIVE ORDER
It is hereby decreed that Stuff You Gotta Watch
will no longer make jokes about the following actresses: (a) Jessica
Alba (b) Scarlett Johansson.
While we still have doubts about
their fame to talent ratios, the recent, nonstop criminal antics of
what we will kindly call The Rehab Tramps have made SYGW realize that
there are worse crimes in the world than being young, beautiful,
hard-working and sober. Alba and Johansson may not be the
best
actresses in the world, but they work, damn it, and they like
to
work. And it's really hard to make fun of them when you look
around at some of their contemporaries, who shuttle back and forth from
jail to rehab on a weekly basis. So J-Alba and
Scar-Jo are off the hook.
Unless they do or say something really stupid.
GRATUITOUS FILLER PHOTO
Maria Sharapova, Tennis Player
Remember
Anna Kournikova, the most famous female tennis player in the
world who never won a singles tournament let along a singles Grand Slam
title but received endless media coverage because she was a babe?
Well, she's retired now - we picture her balding and
being pushed around in a wheelchair on her estate ala Charles
Foster Kane. Luckily we still have the lovely and very
talented
Maria Sharapova, who is the number 2 woman player in the world,
and who actually wins tournaments or at least comes
close. Over the
next two weeks, she will attempt to repeat her U.S. Open
Championship of 2006. She was runner-up in Australia this
year
and reached the semi-finals of the French Open. In 2004, she
won
Wimbledon. Sharapova is everything Kournikova was
supposed to be, and she is also the utterer of a quote we think
someday will be remembered as much as "Give me Liberty or give me
death!" and "Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!". Here it
is, in all its glory: "I believe, at the end of the day, personally,
my life is not about a banana." We couldn't agree more, Maria.
THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL (IN HORROR)
Auguest 27th
Another day, another remake, this time of the classic The Day the Earth Stood Still. Rumor has it that Keannu Reeves has been tapped to star as Klaatu, the guy from space who visits Earth to warn us that our violent tendencies are worrying the rest of the Universe. Possibly the most intelligent and literate science fiction film from the fabulous fifties, now being remade with what we can assume will be the "2007 Wow Factor" and with Keannu Reeves standing in for the great Michael Rennie. Klaatu Barada Nikto, dude!
I'M LOOKING THROUGH A HOLE IN THE SKY
That's right. Stuff You Gotta Watch is so cool we make headlines out of Black Sabbath songs. Anyway, astronomers have recently been shocked and stunned to find a ginormous void in space, an area a billion light years across that is completely empty, devoid of stars, planets and galaxies. It is so empty, you can't even find a Starbucks there. It is so large that if you tried to fill it with as many Rosie O'Donnells as you could, the world would be better off. Scientists don't quite understand what this void is, but some have theorized that this unbelievably large area of complete nothingness is where Hollywood now gets most of its ideas for new movies.
BLOWED UP REAL GOOD!
August 30th
On the set of the Batman Begins sequel, The Dark Knight, they recently blew up a building. For the movie, we mean. Blew it up real good. No CGI, just old-fashioned building - blowing - upping. It does a heart good to see such movie-making. Big Jim McBob and Billy Sol Hurok would be proud.
GEEKS OF THE WORLD, REJOICE!
Sept 1.
Think
of Joss Whedon and you think of one thing: really, really cute young
women.... no, wait... let's start again: Fans of Joss
Whedon's
television work (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel and Firefly)
have been waiting for a long time for something new from the master of
genre-bending orthicon tube programming. Well, word from the UK is that
the long rumored series Ripper
has now been given the green light. "Ripper" is better know
to
Whedon fans as Rupert Giles, the uppercrust "Watcher" in
charge of
training young vampire-slayer Buffy Summers for seven seasons. Giles
was and will be played by Anthony Stewart Head (pictured),
whom non-Whedon
fans may remember as the single guy in the old Taster Choice
commercials. Ripper
will be about Giles coming out of retirement to hunt ghosts and other
things that go boo in the night. While this sounds
suspiciously
like the old Kolchak
series, I expect it to be a bit more plausible,
because it's by Joss Whedon, the man who discovered Alyson
Hannigan, Charisma Carpenter, Emma Caulfield, Julie
Benz and
Juliette Landau. And if that isn't good enough for you,
you've got problems, my friend. - JB
I'LL NEVER
FALL IN LOVE AGAIN
After I dedicated a "Gratuitous Filler Photo" to Maria Sharapova, (and those are not just dedicated to anyone!), the talented tennis beauty lost her cool and her match to Agnieska Radwanska (yeah, I've never heard of her either) and is now out of the U.S. Open after only the third round. I blame myself. Now I don't know who to root for in the Open. Maria Ouspenskaya perhaps? - JB
TALKIN' 'BOUT THAT GENERATION
"They smoked, used hair grease, drank bourbon, wore fedoras, and died in foreign wars. That sums up that generation." - from the Internet Movie Database message board of a very famous 1940s movie. Ignorant, disrespectful and yet somehow touching at the same time. Because they did all that and so much more. (Note: This news item was originally titled Happy Memorial Day, until we remembered that it was Labor Day. Oops.)
CITIZEN KANE AND CASABLANCA STILL SAFE
It's increasingly obvious that Hollywood has few new ideas and would rather remake something than create something. It's also obvious that they will remake anything. Among the upcoming remakes: The Stepfather (1987), originally a low-budget horror flick featuring the great Terry O'Quinn before he became a star on Lost, and Total Recall (1990), the weird sci-fi flick starring the great Arnold Schwarzenegger before he became The Governor of Colly-Fawn-Ya. Meanwhile, Disney wants to do a sequel to Tron (1982) and casting has just started for a bigscreen adaptation of the old TV series Kung Fu (1972-75). We believe in recycling too, Hollywood, but this is getting ridiculous.
WHEN REALLY CUTE WOMEN GET REALLY BAD
HAIRCUTS
This
site's very
first "Gratuitous Filler Photo" (I think) was dedicated to the lovely
Alyson Hannigan, who has had a career made up of some very good things
and some very bad. One new bad thing is her hairstyle, which
she
displayed recently on Conan O'Brien's show promoting the new season of
her hit CBS sitcom How
I Met Your Mother.
I've always adored Aly (true fans call her "Aly") but what's
up
with the Cleopatra-do? She looks like she's auditioning for a
fictional Bruce Campbell movie to be title Bubba-Ho-Tep versus the
Mummy's Daughter. First Neve Campbell
early this year, now Alyson Hannigan. Why do they do it?
What possesses them? Please, Jennifer Garner -
don't ever
change! You look mah-velous! - JB
A POTTER GOLD AT THE END OF THE RAINBOW
The five-film Harry Potter franchise has now
eclipsed the 22-film James Bond
franchise
as the highest grossing movie series in world history.
Of course, back in James Bond's original
heyday (the
fabulous
'60s) you didn't have to sell your living room furniture on Ebay to
afford a night out at the movies with the family, but still,
in
the words of Darth Vader (from the third highest grossing film series
in history), the Potter lead is "impressive". Meanwhile, in between
Potter films, the young stars have not been resting on their
laurels (or
hardys). Daniel Radcliffe can be seen next week in December Boys,
where he plays an orphan. Meanwhile, Emma Watson has been filming Ballet Shoes
for BBC television. In it, she
will play... wait for it... an orphan. Rupert Grint has apparently been
doing nothing, all the good orphan parts having already been taken.
BLONDE
ON BLONDE
(or: "A Dumb Blonde... plus Elizabeth")
Singer, songwriter and
all-around bon vivant Barry
Manilow was booked for a guest-shot on ABC's inane gabfest The View,
but balked at being on the same stage with token conservative
co-host Elizabeth Hasselbeck, whom he considers "dangerous and
offensive". He asked to have Hasselbeck removed for his appearance,
even though he had been on the show before with the former Survivor contestant
without suffering serious bodily harm. To their credit, rather than
oust a co-host for the sake of a guest, The View told
Manilow to go soak his head and peddle his fish elsewhere, though they
probably said it in language that wasn't from the 1930s. While
SYGW agrees there are many dangers in the world, we find it hard to
fathom how the fairly vapid Elizabeth Hasselbeck can be one of them.
However, it becomes clear when you consider some other things
Barry Manilow considers dangerous:
* Week-old kittens who have
not been declawed ("I was hospitalized for a month!").
* Turning the pages of books
without heavy gloves ("Those darned papercuts!")
* When babies grab your finger ("I was hospitalized for a
month!")
* Hannah Montana ("What if she gets a hold of a nuke?")
* The children's amusement park ride popularly known as "The
Whip" ("It goes around those corners really fast
like... well... a
whip or something!")
* Marshmallow fights ("I was hospitalized for a month!")
GO, WEST, YOUNG MAN
Sept 19th
We
normally don't do celebrity birthdays at SYGW because, let's face it,
celebrities are always being born, and there are plenty of other sites
that will clue you in on who was born on what day. But some
birthdays are too special to ignore, and this is one of them.
Happy Birthday to Adam West, most famous as the man who
played
the titular role in the classic 1960's series Batman. 79 years young today. We
not only remember him as Batman but as the star of Zombie
Nightmare, and the host of
one of Mystery Science Theater 3000's Turkey Day Marathons, a Thanksgiving
tradition that has sadly gone the way of so many other great American
traditions.
THERE'S NO "D" LIKE "3D"
Good news, 3D fans! Count
Floyd here once again
bringing you all the news from the exciting world of 3D, which is
having a stronger comeback than Britney Spears! And
less
flabby too! Heh heh heh... Hollywood bigshot Lawrence
Katzenberg has decided to release next year's new 3D film Monsters Vs. Aliens
ahead of James Cameron's 3D film Avatar,
so the two won't have to compete wth each other. More 3D for
everyone! If the new Kings of 3D can get along like that,
why
not
the rest of the world? 3D for Peace! Katzenberg
called 3D
"the most exciting thing in moviegoing" and this vampire can't agree
more. Can you imagine a penetrating and thoughtful social
drama starring Morgan Freeman, with him furrowing that brow in
three dimensions? How about a 3D romantic comedy with
Jennifer
Garner? Ooh, very scary, kids, all those teeth, coming right
at you!
Brrrr..... I've got goosebumps on my goosepumps!
And I don't know about you, but I can't wait for a new
Michael
Moore documentary in 3D! Oooh, three dimensions might not be
enough to
hold him, a big guy like that! 3D is back, folks!
There's
no
stopping it, and why would anybody want to? To be
sure you
are prepared for the new 3D world we'll be entering
soon, Count
Floyd strongly suggests you send away for a pair of my special 3D
Glasses. Just $29.95! That includes shipping and
handling!
Get 'em while they're hot! And I mean "hot!"
They
fell off the back of a truck, I got 'em and now you reap the savings!
Heh heh heh... Now back to our movie, Harry Potter
and The Brain-Eating Weasels from Missoula, Montana!
Owoooooo!
THE RETAKING OF PELHAM ONE TWO THREE
Sept 23
Word now is that The
Taking of Pelham One
Two Three, a classic movie thriller of the 1970s, is going to be remade
with Denzel Washington. The story concerns four bad guys,
headed
by the late great Robert Shaw, who hijack a New York City subway, and
the NYC officials, headed by the late great Walter Matthau, who try to
foil their plan. I've been trying to figure out why so many
movies are being remade these days, and I think I have it -
laziness. Why come up with a new plot and title when you have
thousands and thousands of old plots and titles to choose
from?
Sure, Denzel and company could make a movie called Subway or Hijack and
come up with a different train-stealing story, but why
bother?
They've already got a title and a story that worked wonders
before! Now all they need is a ton of that good old CGI, and
some
catchy profanity-laced catchphrase ("This is your stop,
motherf------!") and they've got themselves a movie! With no
real
creative work involved at all! Hooray for Hollywood! - JB
TV - NOT JUST GOOD, BUT GOOD FOR YA!
A new TV season has begun, and you know what that means. No,
neither do I, but I do know The Bionic Woman is back on the
air.
The creators of the Sci-Fi Channel's excellent "re-imagining" (oh, how
I hate that term) of Battlestar Galactica have done the same with the
cheesy old Six Million Dollar Man spinoff, which lasted all of 59
episodes in the '70s. I haven't seen the new one (it got good
ratings for the premiere), and I probably won't watch it even though I
love Galactica. Why haven't I watched The Bionic
Woman? I
wasn't a big fan of the original, and, more importantly, I don't
believe genre stuff like this can last on mainstream broadcast
television. There's a reason Buffy and The X-Files were on smaller
upstart stations and the best science fiction shows are on cable
stations: those stations will sometimes accept lower ratings.
CBS, NBC and ABC will not. So why fall in love with a show
that
is not going to last? There is also a new show on CBS called Moonlight,
about a vampire in Los Angeles who moonlights as a private
eye.
Wow! I haven't heard of such an original concept since....
well,
Joss Whedon's Angel. Which lived for five seasons on the
WB. Moonlight will probably not last five weeks.
Anyway,
befitting the randomness of this news item, above is an unrelated
picture of Battlestar Galacatica's Grace Park. Just because.-
JB
http://thestuffyougottawatch.com
Copyright © 2008 John V. Brennan, John Larrabee