Stuff You Gotta Watch's
(Or: Pure Skill,
Annoyance and
Retribution) |
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2008: Most Boring Year Ever!... Lost is Found... The Silent Clowns... New Domain... Leave Jessica Alone!... Reach for the Stars...
Our with the New, In with the Old... Last Year's Resolutions... Guestbook Goes Wild!... Mailman, Bring Me No More Blues.... Site Statistics News... Heath Ledger... Science is Fun: Peace Averted!... Humble Pie... Woody and Marty... New Contemporary Films Section... Hello Goodbye... Zatoichi News... Beam Me Up Hottie: Summer Glau... Usual Lacey Chabert Career News... Stuff Party Candidate... Randy Quaid... R.I.P. Roy Scheider.... McCartney Divorce... Writer's Strike Ends... Harry Potter Rumor: Steven Spielberg... Harry Potter Rumor: Emma Watson... Elvis Plus Candy = Fun!... Science is Fun 2: R.I.P. HD-DVD... I Know What You Did Last Samurai... Hollywood Runs Out of Ideas... The 2008 Oscars... Smart Money... Win an Oscar, Lose a Brain... Black and White Popeye Volume 2... Jimmy Stewart Section Opened... Science is Fun: Fly Language... Rose McGowan on Turner Classic... Harry Potter Rumor: Deathly Hallows... Can't Buy Me Love: McCartney Divorce... R.I.P. Arthur C. Clarke, Richard Widmark
MOST BORING YEAR EVER
January 5th
From October
through December of 2007, we posted
nearly 50
news stories. In the first five days of 2008, we've managed
only
three, and all of them site-related. Sure, two of the Rehab
Tramps have already made headlines with their increasingly bizarre
antics, but we are not covering them this year. Obama and
Huckabee? We don't do politics here, even if Scarlett
Johansson
is backing Obama and Chuck Norris is backing Huckabee. So
we've
got nothing so far. If you're interested, we have posted a
review
of Charlie Chaplin's The Gold Rush...
a movie that's only 82 years old. 1925 - now that was an
exciting year! Wyoming elected the first woman governor ever,
Al
Capone rose to power, the Pirates beat the Senators in a thrilling
seven-game World Series, and the domestication of
dogs
continued unabated. (That last joke is from The Simpsons.)
LOST IS FOUND
Okay, here's a bit of news: Lost,
the weird show about all those people stranded on an island, will be
returning on January 31st. According to star Matthew Fox, the
show
is finally going to start answering some questions. This is
now
the 714th time in the show's four-year history that this has been
promised, but I won't complain. ABC will air eight episodes
and
then put the show on hiatus due to the writer's strike.
Better
than nothing, I guess. Meanwhile, the third season of
Matthew's
previous show Party of
Five
is finally being released on DVD. That show was a low-rated
but
critically hailed family drama about five kids who lost their parents.
It covered such topics as unwanted pregnancies, crippling
depression and raging alcoholism. Good times, good times.
Party of Five not
only launched the career of Matthew Fox but also of SYGW
favorites
Neve Campbell, Jennifer Love Hewitt and Lacey Chabert so, seriously, to
whoever was responsible for that...
thanks. - JB
SILENTS, PLEASE!
As promised on New Year's Day, SYGW is not only adding more reviews of Charlie Chaplin films, but we've retooled our Silents Please section, which is now called The Silent Clowns and can be found in our menu under The Great Comedians. You'll find Chaplin, Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd there. In the days and weeks to come, we will be adding new reviews of many great silent comedies.
JUST
A REMINDER
As of January 1st, 2008, Stuff You Gotta Watch now has its own domain name - thestuffyougottawatch - dot - com. If you found us, then you know that. If you haven't found us, well, then... you haven't found us. Please sign our guestbook anyway. We'd love for you to explore the site and tell us what you think. Within reason. No cussin'.
LEAVE JESSICA ALONE!
January 14th
The New York Giants beat the Dallas
Cowboys Sunday 21-17, ending the Cowboys' post-season
run after a great 13-3 season. The loss can not be blamed on
Cowboy quarterback Tony Romo's girlfriend, Jessica Simpson, whose been
scapegoated in the past for Romo's poor on-field performances.
But Jessica
wasn't even at the game! So, all you haters out
there -
LEAVE JESSICA
ALONE! All she does is give and give, with great movies like The Dukes of Hazzard
and Blonde Ambition!
Isn't that enough! (sniff) Leave her alone, you bastards!
Leave her alone! (Stuff
You Gotta Watch
apologizes for this late, lame Chris Crocker parody.
But, you
know, this site loves old things, and Crocker's act was old 15 minutes
after he became famous on YouTube. So... okay, it's still
lame
filler. But look at Pookie! With the blonde hair
and eye
liner! Isn't that funny? No? Okay, it's
just lame.
Welcome to Monday. Have a nice day and try not to
hurt
yourself.)
REACH FOR THE STARS
The results of the latest Harris Poll of
America's favorite TV and Movie stars are in - and yes, John Wayne,
dead since 1979, is still in the Top Ten:
TV
1) Ellen
Degeneres 2)
Oprah Winfrey 3)
Jay Leno 4)
Hugh Laurie 5)
John Stewart 6/7
-tie) David Letterman, Stephen Colbert 8) Bill O'Reilly
9/10
- tie) Ray Romano, Homer Simpson
MOVIES
1) Denzel
Washington 2)
Tom Hanks 3)
Johnny Depp 4)
Julia Roberts 5)
Will Smith
6) John
Wayne 7/8
- tie) Matt Damon, Sean Connery 9) Sandra
Bullock 10)
Bruce Willis
OUT WITH THE NEW, IN WITH THE OLD
The Bucket List, starring two up and coming unknown actors named Jack Nicholson and Morgran Freeman, was the number one movie of the week, despite many unflattering reviews. SYGW has seen it and liked it. It may not be one of the essential movies of all time, but it's Jack and Morgan doin' what they do. And it's directed by Rob Reiner (The Princess Bride, The Sure Thing). And it's about two old guys dying of cancer. Sounds like a good time to us.
LAST YEAR'S RESOLUTIONS
In January of 2007, SYGW listed several resolutions we had promised to fulfill before 2008. Here's how we scored on some of them.
PASSING GRADES
* "See
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, have reviews up same day."
-
The reviews were a day or two late, but we were close enough. Not
surprisingly, we liked it.
* "No more gratuitous Scarlett Johansson news items." - We came to realize that there is no such thing as a gratuitous news item about Scarlett Johansson. All Scar-Jo News is vital. And now she wants to direct! And she's coming out with a CD where she sings nothing but Tom Waits songs. Let's face it, some women are just perfect. You go, girl!
* "More reviews of foreign films." - Okay, they've all been Japanese, but that's something.
* "Keep complaining about the sad state of modern comedy." - See the last paragraph of The Sure Thing review.
* "Get separate domain name." - We shoot, we score!
FAILED MISERABLY
Reformat every review.
Re-open improved TV section
Find synomym for "portrayal". Retire phrases "in
movie
history" and "of all time" in reviews. As well as the
completely overused
sentence "[Actor name] makes for a fine [character name]".
Stop
complaining about CGI. Complete W. C. Fields section.
Drink
sake after
completing Zatoichi section. We tried, we
really
did... okay, we really didn't. And we never got around to
creating an Albert Brooks section either.
WE COULDN'T HELP IT
*
"Be at Oscars when Steve
Buscemi gets his Lifetime Achievement Award."
- Once again, the Academy let us down, and Mr. Buscemi remained
Lifetime Achievement award-less.
* "Keep your friends close and your enemies closer." - We weren't paying attention and now we can't find anybody!
* "Get a bigger boat." - Jeez, it was just a Jaws joke. Don't take it so seriously.
GUESTBOOK GOES WILD!
If
anybody had trouble accessing our
Guestbook in recent days,
we apologize.
The thing has a mind of
its own. To be honest, it scares us sometimes. As
of this
writing, it seems to be working again, and we have it under control -
for now. We suspect some woman in Brooklyn nearly brought
down
the entire site in anger the other day while trying to access the
Guestbook.
Probably still mad about the Dodgers moving to Los Angeles.
MAILMAN, BRING ME NO MORE BLUES
We've made it easier for you to send us a quick
email. Just go to our Email
Us! page
and fill in the form. No subject lines, just your name, an
email address where we can get back to you if necessary, and your
message, question or thoughts. With any luck, it will work as
well as
our Guestbook does(!). For more elaborate emails, you can
always use
your usual email service and our address:
stuff
(at) laurelandhardycentral (dot) com.
STATISTICS DON'T LIE, LIARS DO
Jan 21
Because of our recent move to a new
domain, our
site
statistics will be screwed up for some time. Until we upgrade
to
a higher traffic plan with our hosting service (the fine people at Doteasy.com),
we do not have access to our usual stats that tell us which pages are
popular, which search engine phrases trigger hits to this site, etc.
This stuff is important (relatively speaking) as it is what
we
use to decide our Man/Woman
of the Year and Yearly
Top Twenty
Phrases. We've only recently subscribed to another
statistics
counting service and are in the process of adding a tiny bit of code to
all of our pages
(sheesh! what a job!) but it will take a long time. All of
this
means nothing to you, our dear Stuff
You Gotta Watch
and post our reader, but we
thought you might like to know. Plus it gives us a chance to officially
introduce Percy Dovetonsils (as played by the late TV comedian Ernie
Kovacs) in his new capacity as our Official Icon of All Site Statistic
News. We've been wondering what to do with him for a long
time,
and now he has a job.
HEATH LEDGER 1979-2008
Jan 22
Australian-born Actor
Heath Ledger, most famous for his starring role in the film Brokeback Mountain,
was found dead in New York City today. Among his other films
were 10 Things I Hate
About You, A
Knight's Tale, Monster's
Ball and the recent I'm
Not There. He also played The
Joker in the upcoming Batman film The
Dark Knight. Cause of death currently unknown.
Ledger was 28 years old.
SCIENCE IS FUN: PEACE AVERTED!
Jan 26th
Greetings,
Earthlings. General Krankor here with more fun science news.
According to some of your Earth scientists, over the next few
days, the Moon, Jupiter and Venus will all converge in your morning
skies. Remember that old song "Aquarius"? "When
the moon is in the Seventh house, and Jupiter aligns with Mars, then
peace will guide the planet, and love will fill the stars"
?
Sorry, not this time. No Mars, just Venus, and what
house
the Moon will be in, I have no friggin' clue. The
Moon was in my house
last week and now I can't find my wallet and all my Justin Timberlake
CDs are missing. I'm just sayin'. So, anyway,
Earthlings,
no peace for you. Have a nice weekend. Krankor
out...
HUMBLE PIE
Jan 28th
Thanks to the new site statistics service we
subscribe to,
we have been able to see, for the first time, where some of our
visitors come from. And we are humbled. Although
this is
not an overly popular site, in recent days we have had visitors from
Brooklyn, New York to Portland, Oregon as well as from Canada,
The
United Kingdom, South Africa and India, to name just a few countries
around the world. Sure, it's probably like this for every
site on
the Internet, but now just knowing that people worldwide are visiting
this site, even in error, makes us feel like in some way, we are making
a contribution to the planet. Probably a negative one, but
what
the hell. It keeps us off the streets.
WOODY ALLEN SECTION
OPENED
(And Yet Life is Still Meaningless)
While tidying up the site in recent days, we noticed we had five Woody Allen reviews (three comedies and two dramas), which we felt should be compiled together on their own page. And so we opened a Woody Allen section. After all, how can you ignore a guy who said "Life is full of loneliness and misery and suffering - and it's all over too quickly."? So joining our pantheon of directors we honor on this site (John Ford, Alfred Hitchcock, Akira Kurosawa), we welcome Woody Allen. And for those of you who say "What happened to the long-promised Martin Scorsese section, ya mumblin' stuttering pr*ck, ya?". Well, guess what? We've finally opened that one too, ya friggin' mutt ya! Both sections are a little light on pictures, and we still need to do some editing. But we'll get to it in a day or two.
MARTIN SCORSESE SECTION OPENED(Random Violence Ensues!)
See Above.
THIS JUST IN: IT'S THE 21ST CENTURY
Jan 30th
While Stuff
You Gotta Watch prides
itself on being a site that covers classic movies more than
anything else, we do sometimes see comtemporary films
and, when
the mood strikes us, we even like them. In that spirit, we
decided to
open a section called Contemporary
Films,
which will feature reviews of
movies that have been released in the past two years. These reviews may
be temporary or, if we like a film enough, they may become a permanent
part of the site when the two year limit passes. We opened
the
section because we want to
prove we are relevent, hip and not in anyway stuck in the past wishing
for the good old days when John Wayne walked the earth. And
because of the new Federal Law that says that not only does Morgan
Freeman have to appear in or narrate one out of every two new movies,
but must be frequently mentioned on any movie review website.
And
because we needed a reason to create a permanent home for a
Jessica Alba graphic. In short, it's all good.
HELLO GOODBYE
Feb 3
On cable television these days, we have had to say
hello and goodbye to two semi-icons. On TLC, the
cute but often too-perky Paige Davis has come back to host Trading Spaces, a
show who's ratings went south when The Powers That Be decided to get
rid of... Paige Davis. Duh! On IFC, we say goodbye to the
talented John Favreau and his show Dinner
for Five, which featured Favreau and four famous guests
chatting up a storm at a fancy restaurant. It was like the
old Joe
Franklin Show, but with a nicer setting, more intelligent
talk and less emphasis on references to Snub Pollard. (Jeez, nobody's
gonna get that last joke! Why do we even bother?)
ICHI COME, ICHI GO
Recently we printed a list of resolutions for 2008.
Since
we failed to archive these, we forget what most of them were.
However, we have a clear memory that one of them was "Track
down
the 'lost' film Zatoichi's
Pilgrimage to complete our Zatoichi
- The Blind Swordsman
section." Well, John B. has just bought it from a seller on
Ebay
and once it comes in, he will review it and the section will be
complete, at which point he promises, this time for real, to try sake
for the first time in his life. We are not sure what Zatoichi's Pilgrimage
is about, but we are going to guess that it features Ichi entering a
town, finding a bunch of bad guys, killing them all and then leaving
town again, just like every other Zatoichi film. Sounds like
a
good time.
BEAM ME UP, HOTTIE
We have a little space to add some filler, so here is a nomination for Sci-Fi Hottie of 2008: Summer Glau of TV's Terminator: The Sarah Conner Chronicles. Or whatever it's called. Formerly of TV's Firefly (and its feature film, Serenity) and TV's The 4400, Ms. Glau is officially a modern day Sci-Fi icon. And officially a Sci-Fi Hottie. And, as we all know, Sci-Fi Hotties make the world go 'round. Along with God, gravity and stuff.
IF HOPE SPRINGS ETERNAL, WHAT DOES CROSBY SPRING?
As many of you know, one of the missions of this site is to last
until the day that wholesomely lovely actress Lacey Chabert (this
site's Woman of the Year for 2007) gets her movie career on track.
Last year, we pretty much gave up any hope, after a string of bad
horror movies, bland cable flicks and incomprehensibly bad independent films. But
now, we hear that Ms. Chabert has signed on to the Jennifer
Garner/Matthew McConaughy romantic comedy The Ghosts of Girlfriends Past,
directed by Mark Waters. Waters has built himself a nice
career on making amiable little inoffensive films that people seem to enjoy (Freaky Friday, Just Like Heaven) and coaxed a funny performance out of Chabert in Mean Girls.
Unfortunately, the new film doesn't come out until 2009,
leaving Chabert too much time on her hands to further
accidentally destroy her career credibility with a couple of more
incomprehensible indies. Which you just know she will - she's got
several coming out (direct to DVD we suspect) this year.
AN ANNOUNCEMENT FROM THE STUFF PARTY CANDIDATE
Feb. 6th
Dear voters and readers of Stuff You Gotta Watch:
I thought this was a country where we had put aside our
differences and were ready to put a guy with bandages all over
his
face in the White House. But apparently old prejudices run
deep. After my dismal showing in the Super Tuesday
primaries, I have decided to drop out of the race. Yes, perhaps you
didn't even know I was running for President of the United States, and
that may have been a factor in my receiving zero votes yesterday.
Perhaps my platform of "Higher Taxes, Lower
Expectations" was ill-conceived. Perhaps my
naming Johan van der Sloot as a potential running
mate was a
slight misjudgment. I think the
turning point was when I decided to put all my hopes in winning West
Dakota. You would think somebody on my staff would have told
me there is no
such State, but noooooooo! I also think that
my effort to
turn "What the hell do I know? I'm just a guy with bandages
all
over his face!" into a catchphrase during the debates may have brought
too much attention to the fact that, in the end, I'm just a guy with
bandages all over his face. I don't need them, mind you...
they
just feel good. Anyway, ... whatever. The race is over for me
and
I'm
outta here. You won't have the guy with bandages all over his
face to kick around any more! I would return all your
campaign
contributions but (a) they only totaled $1.85 and (b) I've already
spent
it on fresh bandages.
DOES THIS MAKE YOU FEEL RANDY?
You would think that an actor whose screen credits
include The Adventures
of Pluto Nash and the straight-to-DVD National Lampoon Christmas
Vacation 2 would be thankful just to be working.
Actor Randy Quaid, who was set to star in the Broadway-bound Lone Star Love, has
been banned for life by Actors Equity Association and fine 81
thousand dollars for verbal abuse and other antics. All 26
cast
members - repeat - all
26 cast members
- brought charges against him, claiming his unprofessional conduct
caused the show to be shut down, ruining any chance of it ever getting
to Broadway. Which answers that age old question heard from
New
York tourists every day: How do you get to Broadway? Don't
hire
Randy Quaid.
R.I.P. ROY SCHEIDER
Feb 11
Actor Roy
Scheider, most famous as Chief Brody in Jaws
("You're gonna need a bigger boat") and choreographer Bob Fosse in All That Jazz, has
passed away. Some of his other more notable films incuded The French Connection, The Seven Ups, Blue Thunder, 2010 and The Rainmaker.
He was 75.
WILL YOU STILL NEED ME, WILL YOU STILL FEED ME?
Details of the Paul McCartney - Heather Mills divorce are now
being worked out behind closed doors. Although it's all a bit
sketchy, Stuff You Gotta Watch has managed to uncover a few key details
of the settlement (cue list of Beatles jokes now):
* Heather will get custody of their daughter Heather. But she must also take Ringo off Paul's hands every other weekend.
* Paul must publicly apologize for constantly using the phrase "She
doesn't have a leg to stand on" during the court hearings. But he
is allowed to still refer to her as "Stumpy McAlimony" in private
conversation.
* Heather's face will be pasted into the cover of the classic
Beatles album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. After tense
negotiations, they settled on that empty space near the top next to
"Bowery Boy" Huntz Hall. Without the devil horns and Hitler
mustache Paul wanted added to her photo.
* Yoko Ono will be re-instated as the official "Most Hated Beatle Wife Ever".
* Everybody will stop mucking about and promising stuff and finally
re-release all the Beatles albums remixed and remastered. That's
not actually part of the settlement, that's a request from this site.
OUR LONG NATIONAL NIGHTMARE IS OVER
The TV and Movie Writer's Strike has come to an
end.
What this means for humanity will only be revealed in the
coming
months, as new scripts are turned into fresh TV episodes and movies.
But even as we speak, writers from NY to LA are probably
creating
hundreds or brand-new penis and vomit jokes for our entertainment!
Thousands of writers are combing through their comic book
collections right now for inspiration! At this moment, somebody
somewhere is probably working on turning The
Searchers into a vehicle for Ben Stiller and
Beyonce! It's Morning in America!
HARRY POTTER RUMOR #1:
BUT WHAT HE REALLY WANTS TO DO IS NOT DIRECT
Feb 16
All alliteration aside,
rumors were rampant recently that Steven Spielberg would be directing
the final film, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.
However, Harry himself, Daniel Radcliffe, took the air out of
everybody's collective balloon, telling the world "It's not true.
How's that for a definitive answer?" While we are a bit startled
by the implied anger of this reply, at least now we know the truth. Director Guillermo del Toro (Mimic, Hellboy)
was also recently rumored to be on board, but that too has been
debunked. Other directors we are fairly sure won't be
directing the final film include Terry Gilliam (not a big fan of
the movies), Quentin
Tarantino (probably not asked), Tim Burton (no part for Johnny Depp)
and Frank Capra (currently deceased). We are actually sorry
Spielberg is not directing. We looked forward to the scene where
Ron and Hermione sit in rapt attention while Harry describes his
harrowing experience when the S.S. Hogwarts sank. "And you know
the thing about a Dementor? He's got lifeless eyes. Black eyes,
like a doll's eyes..."
HARRY POTTER RUMOR #2:
BRITAIN'S LONG NATIONAL NIGHTMARE IS OVER
After a day of national outrage and
much hurrumphing, tut-tutting and clucking of tongues, Brits
everywhere were
relieved to find out that their beloved teen star Emma Watson, not yet
18 until April, is definitely not dating 27-year-old grunge rocker
Johnny Borrell
(no, we've never heard of him either) and that, according to the actress herself, they merely shared a cab
together while going to some oh-so-posh event recently. Not that
we're her parents (as far as we know), but.. bloody 'ell!
Our sweet little 'ermione, barely out of her jellies, snogging
with that nancy boy wanker? Cor blimey, the 'ole bloomin' world's
gone barmy! Bob's your uncle! (We actually don't understand
a
single word of what we just said. In fact, Bob's not even our
uncle.)
ELVIS PLUS CANDY EQUALS FUN!
Hey, kids! You like candy? You like Elvis? Well, now
you can enjoy both with new Reese's Peanut Butter and Banana Creme®
flavored candy! Remember the King the way he would want to be
remembered - a bloated, lost soul scarfing down peanut butter and
banana sandwiches to ease the pain of a sad, lonely life that ended in
tragedy on a toilet in Graceland! Buy a case and eat your way to
300-plus pounds just like Elvis before he died! Coming soon:
Chocolaty Lethal Cocktails! Peanuts, nougat, coconut and 14
different medications, covered in delicious creamy chocolate! (Candy
not sold without a prescription.)
SCIENCE IS FUN: R.I.P.H.D.D.V.D.
Greeting, Earthlings, Science Editor General Krankor here once
again. Fresh from my co-hosting the Oscars Science and Technology
Awards with Jessica Alba (though your security people called it
"stalking") I come to you with great news. All of you who spent
hundreds of thousands of your dollars on HD-DVD players and HD-DVD
movies... you're totally screwed! The format wars are over and
Blue-Ray has won! Everybody from Toshiba to Netflix to Best Buy
is abandoning HD-DVD like the passengers on your Titanic! And how
long before your regular old DVDs, which have been around for a decade,
become obsolete? All I can say is... hahr hahr hahr! We
Kranokorians, of course, have the most advanced technology in the
Universe. Our entertainment discs are so sharp, you could poke
your eye out just watching them! The one drawback - you don't
want to watch a Krankorian edition of Saved by the Bell. You think
Screech looks fugly on your discs? You don't know the half of
it. Oh, and... Surrender or die! Krankor
out.
I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SAMURAI
Feb 21
Next month on the Independent Film Channel,
Samurai Saturdays will be devoted to the team of director Akira Kurosawa
and actor Toshiro
Mifune. To start things off, the month will open
with Throne of Blood,
in which Mifune essentially plays Macbeth. A weirder film you
will be hard-pressed to find. The second Saturday will
feature Hidden Fortress, Kurosawa's
epic comedy which inspired much of George Lucas's Star Wars.
The third Saturday, they're showing the classic Seven Samurai.
To round things off, the final Saturday features Yojimbo,
which John B. in his private life has called "the coolest movie ever
made." If you want to see the Tim Burton and Johnny Depp of
1950s
Japan, tune in to IFC next month! Or risk being hacked to
pieces
by the ghost of an angry Toshiro Mifune!
IT'S OFFICIAL: HOLLYWOOD RUNS OUT OF IDEAS
You may think we are making this up, but we
aren't.
No longer content with just making movies based
on video
games and toys, Universal Studios has signed a deal with Hasbro to make
movies out of... wait for it... board games. Yes - Monopoly: The Movie.
Candy Land:
The Movie. Clue:
The Movie.
Wait - didn't they do that one already? Never mind.
Move along. Nothing to see here. After
this, where
else is there to go? Movies based on games kids play with
paper?
Tic Tac Toe:
The Reckoning? Quentin Tarantino's Drawing a
Turkey By Tracing Your Hand? How about making
movies based on games you play with babies? Peek-a-Boo ("This
Time It's Personal"). I'd like to see one called Who's a Good Baby?
Oooh, Who's a Good Baby? A Buh Buh Buh Buh Buh... Who's a
Good Baby? You
Are! Yes You Are! A Buh Buh Buh Buh Buh.
OSCAR, OSCAR, OSCAR:
Lame Awards Handed Out At Random in
17-Hour Ceremony
Feb 25
Last night at
the Academy Awards, No
Country For Old Men
won Best Picture, The Coen Brothers won Best Director(s), and
Daniel-Day Lewis and Marion Cottilard were named Best Actor and
Actress, respectively. Fifty percent of the women wore the same red
dress, there was a long overdue tribute to bees (finally!),
and Jennifer Garner presented herself with the Honorary
Award for
Worst Achievement in Oscar Hairstyles, which is a little golden
statuette shaped like Cher. Singer Bjork was
not invited, but reportedly wore a dead goose around her neck anyway,
just in case.
Jessica Alba came out to remind everybody that
there are some awards that nobody wants to see on live television, like
the Science and Technology Awards, and then showed a clip of herself
hanging out with Special Effects Nerds who probably weren't thinking
"Cool, I won an award!" but rather "I'm a Special Effects Nerd... and
I'm hanging with
Jessica Frakkin' Alba!". Thankfully,
with the Writer's Strike officially over, there were plenty of
unbelievably stale jokes for presenters to read awkwardly from
cue
cards before announcing the nominees. And, finally, and most sadly,
character actor Steve Buscemi is still waiting for his Lifetime Achievement Award despite much lobbying from this site.
Maybe next year.
I USED TO THINK CLASS WAS THINGS AND DOUGH...
But this? This is the Real Class!
Smart Money,
the only film in history to star both Edward G.
Robinson and James Cagney together (dig the ultra-cool art deco fonts
on the poster!), is being released to DVD in the U.S. on
March 25th as part of the Warner Brothers Gangsters Collection Volume
3. Along with Smart
Money, other films included in the set will be
SYGW favorite Brother Orchid (Robinson), Picture Snatcher, The Mayor of
Hell, Lady Killer (all Cagney) and Black Legion
(Bogart and technically not really a gangster flick). Six
movies
featuring three classic Warner Brothers male stars
from the
great "Gangster Cycle" of the 1930s. It'll be like Christmas morning in
Alcatraz! (By the way, for those of you playing at home, the
obscure headline comes from the closing moments of Brother Orchid).
WIN AN OSCAR, LOSE A BRAIN? (or: Idiots Don't Always Delight)
Oscar winnner
Marion Cottilard, who was named Best Actress last week for her work in La Vie en Rose,
has garnered some controversy from a 2007 interview where she
gave her theory on what
happened on September 11, 2001. According to Cottilard,
planes
were flown into the Twin Towers and 3000 people died because the
buildings needed to be modernized and destroying them was a lot
cheaper. That explains a lot, except for what was up with two other
hijacked planes that day and exactly how many hundreds of
people
had to be in on these secret plot in order for it to work.
But we
do know this --- winning an Oscar doesn't mean you are
smart. Oh,
by the way, Miss Cottilard is also not sure if we ever landed on the
moon. We bet she also thinks Paul
McCartney is dead and Elvis is alive.
And please, readers, welcome back Kukla, our icon for celebrities who
are so contemptibly stupid, they are not worth
tracking down a photo. (Ed. Note: Cotillard claims her quotes were
"taken out of context".)
I CAN'T STANDS NO MORE!
The good news is that Warner Brothers will be releasing the
second volume of the classic black and white Popeye the Sailor cartoons
in June. The bad news is that we still won't be able to
complete
our Popeye
section because the second
volume will be a two-disc affair covering only the years 1938 to 1940.
While we are happy that these classic cartoons are finally
being
released on DVD, it is more than a little annoying that Warners
decided, without telling anybody until the last minute, that Volume Two
would be scaled back to two discs. It amounts to a bait and
switch routine, allowing all of us Popeye fans
to believe that after the four-disc Volume One, a similar four-disc
Volume Two would complete the collection, when, in fact, we now have to
wait even longer.
ZUZU'S PETALS! IT'S A NEW SECTION!
A Sunday morning, a cup of coffee and a new section created from scratch. This time around, it's Jimmy Stewart, star of such classics as It's a Wonderful Life, Rear Window and The Philadelphia Story. A favorite of such great directors as John Ford, Alfred Hitchcock and Frank Capra, Jimmy had that indefinable quality that made him appealing to just about everybody. Welcome to Stuff You Gotta Watch, Jimmy!
SCIENCE IS FUN: FLY LANGUAGE!
Greetings, puny Earthlings. General Krankor here with some
exciting science news. Some of your primitive Earth scientists have
discovered that common houseflies actually have their own
language. It took you years to discover this fact, yet we on
Krankor have known this for centuries. In fact, our own
scientists have actually translated some of the fly language and know
what the heck they are talking about. Some of their most popular
phrases are as follows:
"A million eyes and I couldn't see that was flypaper!?"
"Language, schmanguage - I'm still only gonna live 15 to 30 days!"
"Hoo boy, I'm full - I couldn't eat another bite of dog poop!"
"I don't want to just be your friend - I want to be your larva!"
Okay, enough bad fly jokes. Actually, we have no
clue as to what they are talking about. In fact, we don't even
study them, we run away from then. On my planet, flies are ten
feet tall. It takes twenty of us just to lift the fly swatter.
Oh, well, that's about all. I'm just bored and wanted to
check in and say hi. So, bye now... oh, and --- surrender or die!
Krankor out.
SHOW ME A ROSE OR LEAVE ME ALONE
In an earlier news story this year, we stated the
following about Actress Scarlett Johansson: "Let's face it, some women
are just perfect." We said this not because of Ms. Johansson's
obvious beauty but because of her obvious beauty and
her decision to record an album of Tom Waits songs. But move
over, Scarlett, because here's another candidate for The Perfect Woman:
Rose McGowan. She's no superstar - she's most famous for the TV series Charmed and the films Scream and Grindhouse - but she's got the looks and she loves classic movies! In fact, she's now co-hosting Turner Classic Movies The Essentials on Saturday with Robert Osbourne, and although we missed her thoughts on The Apartment,
we read (from Mr. Osbourne himself) that she's quite the learned
scholar on Hollywood history. She's supposed to be sharing her
thoughts on Laurel and Hardy this coming Saturday. We kinda
hope she sings some Tom Waits songs too, but that might be too
much to ask for.
HARRY POTTER RUMOR #3:
HARRY POTTER AND THE MAGICAL CASH COW
According to almost anybody who's anybody (how's that for a source?), the final Harry Potter film, HP and The Deathly Hallows,
will be split into two separate films, one to be released in 2010, and
one in 2011. According to these sources, this is being done in
order to soak every last dollar out of wallets and purses of devoted
fans who will blindly and foolishly accept any... no, wait, sorry,
reading the wrong source... umm... this is being done because there is
just too much in the final book to squeeze into a two and a half hour
movie. Um, yeah... right, that's the ticket.
CAN'T BUY ME LOVE
Heather "Cha-Ching!" Mills has entered
our 2008 Quote
of the Year contest and we wish her luck. But don't worry - there is
plenty of time left in 2008 for an even more outrageously
self-centered, "Go ahead, hate me, I don't care" quote than what Ms.
Mills said after being awarded 48 million dollars of Sir Paul
McCartney's money in a divorce settlement: "I am very, very, very
happy. I was always going to get between $40 and $60 million, but Sir
Paul was offering much less than that. The judge said Paul was only
worth $800 million, but everyone has known he has been worth $1.6
billion for the last 15 years." Just what Ms. Mills had to do
with any of that money, we can't quite figure out. Sir
Macca's
written tons of hit songs since the early sixties, but how
many has he
written during his marriage to Ms. Mills? Go ahead - we'll
give you
time to think of one.
R.I.P. ARTHUR C. CLARKE, RICHARD WIDMARK
March 18
"The only way of discovering the limits of the
possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible." - Arthur C. Clarke's Second Law.
One of science fictions's greatest
novelists has left this planet. Sir Arthur C. Clarke,
whose book 2001:
A Space Oddysey
was made into one of the classic films of the 1960s, died
today at the age
of 90. Author of over 100 books, Clarke was a science fiction
writer well respected by both average readers and the world's
scientists. If you've never read Clarke, you are missing out.
We sugggest Rendevous
with Rama or Childhood's
End. Rest in Peace, Sir Arthur.
March 24
Legendary Hollywood tough guy Richard Widmark has died at the
age
of 93. Rather than wax poetic about the man, we'll let his
work
do the talking. Here is a YouTube link to what has to be his
most
famous scene. Richard
Widmark and a woman in a wheelchair... what could go wrong?
From the film Kiss of
Death.
http://thestuffyougottawatch.com
Copyright © 2008 John V. Brennan, John Larrabee