So I'm planning a whole mini-series if you will of TV-related posts in the coming weeks. Because let's be honest, I'm not just a movie nerd, I'm pretty much an all-around media nerd. If it's media, and it can be watched/read/consumed, I'm probably interested in and at least moderately aware of what's going on there. It's about damn time I brought TV onto this blog, as I spend at least as much time there as I do with movies. It's time to bring in other media.
So here I'm going to rank the top comedies. As is usual with everything else here, this is 100% my opinion, so feel free to disagree... but know I'm probably right.
How does on rank a comedy? Humor is extremely subjective and individual, so no doubt we're going to differ on nuance, but let's be honest, if you're a big Two and a Half Men or How I Met Your Mother fan, with laugh tracks and what I call "misunderstanding" comedy, we probably don't really get along that well. So I'm going to rank comedies based on a mix of quality of writing, quality of characters, laughs produced and overall effectiveness. I'm not going to put forth any Simmons-esque faux statistical analysis and pretend that my evaluation has anything to do with anything other than just my opinion. To clarify further, this post is ranking my current excitement level for each of these shows. I recognize that all of them are at varying points in their lives as shows, with some being relatively new and coming into their own while others are winding down or in their prime. I'm basically ranking, if there was a new episode of each of these shows on tonight, my excitement level to watch each of these shows. Here, in countdown form, are the comedies I most enjoy.
Honorable Mentions: South Park, Wilfred, 30 Rock (two once bright stars at the end of their runs though still occasionally brilliant and a new promising premise that's still in its infancy)
7. Curb Your Enthusiasm
If you don't know (and if you don't, I wonder how you're able to read this successfully), Larry David was the co-creator of probably the greatest comedy in television history, Seinfeld. George Costanza is at least 85% based on him, and needless to say, he made himself a whole ridiculous boatload of cash from the whole experience. Curb, which recently started its 8th season on HBO, is basically a fictionalized version of Larry David's life, where the tremendously wealthy and moderately famous Larry David cavorts about Los Angeles interacting with his friends and famous acquaintances in awkward and often hilarious ways. Basically, it's Seinfeld, with an R-rating, and if everyone was rich and Jewish. Although almost always hilarious and a good 25 minutes, this one is all the way down at #7 simply because I know where its ceiling is going to be. And that's nothing against the show really, it's just that the whole "misunderstanding, awkwardness, hilarity" outline, even when done tremendously well (The Palestinian Chicken episode, on the whole, was probably the funniest half hour of television I've seen all year), can only get you so far. Curb is very, very funny, I'm just a little more excited about the other 6 entrants on the list at the moment. Season 8 is currently airing, Sundays at 10 PM on HBO.
6. It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
A few years ago, this one may have well been #1. Unfortunately, this one has fallen from the seasons 3 and 4 heights, where you knew definitively that every episode was going to be tremendous, offensive, hilarious and full of quotable material. I think 31% of my 3L year of law school was spent quoting Sunny in some fashion or another. Now don't get me wrong, I still get very excited for Sunny Episodes, its place on this list should assure you of that, I just feel that at some point over seasons 5 and 6 the limitations of the small group and world that is the focus of every single episode began to show up and the storylines and interactions began to feel strained. Really, considering that every episode features the same 5 people in the same bar and very few recurring characters, it's kind of remarkable it took that long. If Curb is Seinfeld with an R rating featuring rich Jewish people, Sunny is Seinfeld with a serious PG-13 rating featuring dumb drunk people. The show basically centers on the group tackling a subject by being as ridiculous, offensive and horrible as possible. While the show may not be as strong as it once was, it still contains moments of brilliance, and I'm hopeful that Season 7 will come back with a serious bang. (Fat Mac should be great) It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia's Season 7 premiere is Thursday, Sept. 15 at 10 PM on FX.
5. The League
Ostensibly a show about a group of mid-30's longtime friends with a fanatical Fantasy Football league, this show became one of my favorites in Season 2 when it became less about Fantasy Football and more about the oddball shit that groups of guys that know each other intimately and have a weird hetero love going on get into. Like Sunny and several other entrants on this list, the League takes full advantage of FX's basic cable status to be a little raunchier than basic cable allows, and this really adds to the authenticity of the group's interactions. If I have a main problem with this show, it's that no one has an 8 team league... and any 8 team leagues that exist suck. Everyone's team is ridiculously stacked and it takes all the fun and nuance out of fantasy sports. But this show has a really strong ensemble cast with a great rapport between the cast members.. you really believe that these people get along and would be/are friends.. and I dig that. High school friends Pete, Kevin, Ruxin, Andre and Kevin's pothead brother Taco have the sort of chemistry that makes them being longtime friends utterly believable.. and the various supporting characters only add to the strength of the ensemble. When dudes who have known each other for a long time get together, it feels a lot like "the League". I feel like as I get older I may like this one more and more. The League returns for Season 3 on Thursday, October 6 at 10:30 (After Sunny) - happy birthday to me.
4. Archer
Archer is a delicious little spy cartoon comedy on FX (look at FX, just taking over this list). It's raunchy, it's filthy, it's nonsensical, but mostly, it's hilarious. Main character Sterling Archer (Code Name: Duchess) is a dense, egomaniacal, politically incorrect, womanizing international super spy who happens to tiptoe the line between constantly almost starting international incidents and being really, really good at his job. He's part James Bond, part Don Draper, and pretty much all asshole. He's also an amazing character, with deadpan witticisms, pickup lines and incredibly offensive one-liners for pretty much every situation. Oh, he also has some serious Mommy issues. The show, which appears to be set in some odd alternative world where they have cellphones in the '60s (The Cold War is in full-swing, and the computers at the spy agency are large boxy mainframes), focuses on super spy Archer as he selfishly and effectively solves problem after problem while belittling and harassing pretty much everyone he knows. Archer is full of pop-culture references, running gags, Burt Reynolds love, family feuds, sexual innuendo and awesomeness. His cast of supporting characters at ISIS are of varying competency levels, including Archer's mother, Mallory, who runs ISIS and may in fact be Lucille Bluth at a spy agency. I'd describe Archer as part James Bond, part Get Smart, part Family Guy, and all hilarious. Season 3 of Archer premieres on Thursday, September 15 at 10:30 (after Sunny), for a short 3 week run, before returning for the rest of the season in January, 2012.
3. Louie
Look at FX, just dominating this list. Kudos to one of the few networks on TV willing to take chances with their programming. They've really put together a comedy lineup that complements each other and feels like a cohesive voice. Louis CK is a top 3 stand-up for me (he, Patton Oswalt and the tragically deceased Greg Giraldo will have to fight it out in my mind for the top spot), and he has a show on FX that lets him do basically whatever the hell he wants. The first season was great... but the second season (currently airing) is one of the most bizarre, fascinating, and outstanding things I've ever seen. To be honest, I don't even know if it's a comedy anymore, or if it's just a great damn show - period, regardless of genre. The show appears to be set a few years ago, before Louis CK was one of the top stand-ups on the planet, but while he's still relatively well known, as he's playing small-ish clubs and worrying about money, but still obviously being connected enough to have friends in high places. Louis is recently divorced and his two daughters split time between his place and his ex's, and the show takes painful and yet hilarious glimpses into the man, his worldview, life, and bizarre little stories that happen to all of us and yet are amplified 10-fold by the mind of a brilliant comedian like Louis. The show features his bleak, often pathetic, often hilarious, mostly dark takes on life, family, love, sex, and parenting. There's no continuity between episodes (different actresses have played Louis' mother, for instance, and in one episode he has a brother while in another, a sister), and the show usually features short (8-10 minute) stories intercut with bits of Louis' standup, which are always, always hilarious. The stories typically have a surrealist bent to them, which make it clear that they are exaggerated or enhanced versions of things that have really happened in Louis' life. Last week's episode, which was set on a Louis CK USO trip to Afghanistan, was one of the top 2 or 3 hours of TV I've seen on any show all year. I hope FX continues to give Louis CK all the rope he needs, because by the time he's done, this may be #1 on the comedy list and close to that spot on the "all TV" list. Season 2 of Louie is currently airing, Thursdays at 10:30 on FX.
2. Parks and Recreation
Filmed in the style of the Office, and created by Greg Daniels and Mike Schur, two of the men behind the original/good American office, this show instead spun off into something different, separate, and superior to the Office, done in the same style. The show focuses on Leslie Knope (Amy Poehler), the Deputy Director of the Pawnee, Indiana Parks and Recreation department. Leslie's coworkers, friends, and the outrageous citizenry of the city of Pawnee form the supporting characters, and as their chemistry grows, so does the quality of the show. In season 2 Parks and Rec really hit its stride, as Leslie's silly ditziness gave way to a manic competence and the bizarre cast of supporting characters was given more to do. Clearly influenced by the Simpsons, where the citizenry of Springfield was expansive and outrageous, the townspeople of Pawnee, as shown through the media and various town hall meetings are completely over-the-top and completely hilarious. Personal favorites: Nick Offerman's ridiculously manly libertarian Parks director Ron Swanson and Aziz Ansari's horndog would-be cool guy Tom Havingford. What makes this show transcendent of the typical comedy is the sincerity of the relationships between the characters. You (the viewer) truly get and feel the connections, relationships, ups and downs of these people, despite the often preposterousness of their surroundings, the emotions are and feel real. There's an underlying sweetness to Parks and Rec that helps make it great. Along with Ron's enthusiasm for meats, of course. Season 4 of Parks and Recreation premieres Thursday, September 22 at 8:30.
1. Community
Sometimes a piece of media and a particular fan/set of preferences overlap pretty much completely exactly. Let's see how this is true of "Community" and me: I am particularly amused by absurdist situations, I LOVE pop culture/nerdy references, get a big kick out of sarcasm/smart assery, and can't get enough of genre satire. So I'd say that for at least 1/2 of Community episodes, I feel like they are written especially for me. Community is set at fictional Greendale Community College, and features a diverse and ridiculous study group originally formed to allow Jeff (Joel McHale) to hit on Britta (Gillian Jacobs) but that over the course of the series becomes a close-knit group of people surviving the ridiculous situations and characters of Greendale Community College together. Community episodes often have a "theme" in which they brilliantly and succinctly send-up a genre or movie (season 2 featured a Star Wars episode, a Western episode, an Apollo 13/Right Stuff episode, a Zombie episode, and a claymation Christmas episode to name a few) and needless to say, that's right in my wheelhouse. Very much like Parks and Recreation, the actors and characters share a strong like for one another that really allows you to get invested in their relationships and the emotions of a particular episode despite the under/overlying preposterousness of what may be going on. The study group, consisting of Jeff, Britta, Annie, Shirley, Pierce, Abed and Troy, along with many recurring characters, get closer as the show progresses (well, Pierce takes a villain turn, but it works), and I feel that Community has gotten stronger through every episode. Every episode rather copiously references Popular Culture, particularly through Abed, and I can't get enough. Community may well be my favorite SHOW on tv, not just comedy. Season 3 of Community (I can't believe it's gotten a third season) premieres on Thursday, September 22 at 8 PM. If you're keeping track at home, that means that Community, Parks and Rec, Always Sunny and Archer will all be airing on Sept. 22nd. Somewhere, someone's singing "it's the most wonderful time of the year" and it may or may not be me.
Sunday, August 28, 2011
Thursday, August 18, 2011
Facebook II, Son of Facebook
So the facebook post was a big hit. It makes me somewhat proud, like my parents probably felt when they realized their kids weren't complete screw ups. I thought I'd follow up that goodwill with a part 2. It's come to my attention that some important people are missing from the hall of shame that was assembled in the last post. But just in case you for some reason didn't read part I (and are, indeed, too lazy to just scroll on down there right now), here are the first standard bearers of douchebaggery: 1. The Hunny Bunny, 2. The Itinerary, 3. The Spelling Champ, 4. The Soapbox, 5. The App, 6. The Creep. These deplorable citizens of the cybercommunity all serve as reminders that just because the experience of being a person on planet earth can largely be transferred to the digital realm, the fact that 90+% of humanity is utterly obnoxious can never be removed. But that list was by no means an exhaustive one, so I've come back with a sequel. Facebook is one of those things that pretty much everyone has.. and given that everyone has it, and what people do is more or less public (which people obviously don't realize), it gives you a glimpse into how people actually ARE in a way that you wouldn't have any clue with the vast majority of casual acquaintances in actual life. There's something wonderful and soul-crushing about that. So, yeah. Thinking about all of this made me feel like Daniel Plainview and kind of had me down in the dumps.. so I let this one sit on the shelf for a while. But time has taken the edge off of the blade that is my realization that I hate almost everyone, so I've returned to the realm of the anti-social, delusional, narcissistic, vain and downright stupid to bring you part two of the most obnoxious people on Facebook.
1.) The Chronicler - This founding member of the goof troop thinks that every detail of his or her life is worthy of posting in a public forum. Very similar to "the itinerary", this one somehow manages to be even worse. Where "the itinerary" is just boring.. "the Chronicler" assumes that the everyday happenstance of their existence is worthy of documentation in a very public forum. Let's just keep this simple... it isn't. Sure, I understand that to you, this ______________ (insert vacation, job, whatever) is extremely exciting. Know what it is to everyone else? Dull, boring, narcissistic? All of the above? If you're doing something cool, by all means, throw a witty status out there or something. What we don't need is a damn play-by-play. Are you even there or are you just trying to make everyone jealous while you miss your entire trip buried in your iphone? Trust me, anyone who cares enough about your life experiences to want to get all up in there will probably just ask you the next time you see them. Casual acquaintances give less than a shit and a half. If you feel the need to share minute details of your life with people you hardly know, met while drunk, sat by Freshman year in geology, or friended because they dated your friend and you met at a wedding in 2007, your life is NO where near as awesome as you're trying to make it appear. I don't even care about what I'm eating, not really.. and believe me, no one is impressed by the details of your life. If your life is cool enough that people WOULD be impressed by it, then parading it about is just bragging. So either way, keep it to yourself.
a.) The Walter Iooss - not content to describe their life through words alone, this person feels the need to overwhelm the interwebs with album after album containing pictures of every place, meal, person, sunset and so on they've ever been, seen, met, eaten or happened across. Not that there's anything wrong with pictures in and of themselves.. that's clearly one of the purposes that facebook has in mind. But, come on now, let's be reasonable. Why are you taking 250 pictures of anything, let alone taking the time to upload all 250 pictures? I think I've taken a grand total of 45-50 pictures in my life.. and probably 19 of those were completely obscured by a finger/thumb. Granted, I may be more incompetent with a camera than most, but the point remains.. what are you doing taking so many pictures? Probably more importantly, what are you doing sharing ALL of these pictures with the world? By all means, if you've got some cool pictures, throw 'em up. Met Obama? Awesome. Post it. Saw the Eiffel tower? Sweet. Deserving of the public domain. But random meals and drinks and minutiae? I'd say a good rule to follow would be: would I want to see this if someone else posted it? If the answer is "no", don't post it. Is that so crazy? You know how boring it is when people show you stuff/tell you stories about things you don't care about? Well why are you sharing it with quasi-strangers? Granted, there's always the argument "you don't have to look at them". No, I don't, and I don't have to look at the car accident in the other lane either, but I will... and that perverse part of me can't help but be caught up in morbid curiosity at why someone would post 300 pictures in one album. Like... is there something awesome in there? Did they party with Dave Chappelle and Raekwon? Blew Joachim Phoenix? Make out with someone from the Real World? Nope. Just 743 pictures of ________ and boyfriend showing the internet how "happy" they are. Burns me every time.
2.) Super Parent - This is basically the same concept as "the chronicler". We get it, to you, your kid(s) is/are the most important thing to you. Kudos, that's how it should be. You aren't a deadbeat... congrats on that point. But do you know how little 99.95% of your facebook friends care about your little snotnoser? How many friends do you have? 300? 400? Then it's a safe bet that less than 10 people, basically no one but family and/or super good friends really cares what little Jimmy said. I'm going to let you guys in on a little secret: little kids suck. I mean, sure, they're cute, but that's an evolutionary tactic to trick adults into not neglecting them into oblivion. How would we treat an adult who acted like a 5 year old? They're selfish, loud, oblivious to social tact and custom, corny and not very smart. Now that's of no fault of their own, I fully recognize that their developing minds have not yet acquired the necessary experience, knowledge and nuance to be a fully functional member of society, but that's why no one likes someone else's kids. The relationship between parents and kids is (and should be) a deeply private one.. both because they should be cherished moments that are seminal in the creation of a fully fledged human being, and because no one else gives a shit and a half about a near stranger's child. The amount that anyone cares about random classmates'/coworkers'/party partners from last decade's kids can be measured in millimeters. Anyone who cares will ask, I assure you. In fact... there's only one thing more annoying than 24/7 running commentary of the antics of a snotnosed twerp...
a.) The Super Pet Owner - at least a child is, in fact, a human being and thus deserving of at least some attention, pets on the other hand are animals kept loyal by food and used to replicate human companionship. By my approximation, living beings on earth have two biological urges: survival and reproduction. Now for the modern American pet, they're almost all spayed/neutered, and they live with comforts that put 99.9999% of all the humans who have ever lived on planet earth's living conditions to shame, so their "survival" urges consist basically of stuffing their fatass faces. Not only are Americans fat as hell, our PETS are fat as hell. But I digress, as I said, at least children are (or will be) human beings, pets are animals. If no one cares about children, imagine how little everyone cares about dogs and cats. Now I get it. People (women) really like their pets. That's fine, you spend a lot of time around them, I understand. But seriously, why/how would you believe that anyone else gives a hell? The constant status updates, photo albums and etc. pertaining to the creature that you feed to bribe it into being affectionate are the very definition of antisocial behavior. It's just like everything else. Fine in moderation, like all things.. but just ask yourself: does anyone care? If the answer is or probably is "no", just keep it to yourself. Thanks.
3.) The running (wo)man. In the similar narcissistic vein to basically everyone else, this person assumes that their shit is worthy of publication to pretty much everyone they know. Working out/running sucks. I hate that I have to do it, and it's pretty much the most boring, masturbatory activity one can partake in. Tyler Durden said it best: "self improvement is masturbation. now self destruction?" Less than no one cares about your exercise habits. At least kids/pets/vacations are noteworthy life events. Working out? Really? Do you really think anyone cares? I don't even care about MY OWN exercise habits, let alone someone else's. This blog has previously derided the unfortunate state of affairs that has rendered human existance so meaningless that we must set arbitrary goals to meet as some measure of "achievement" and barometer of personal self-worth, but of all the reasons to set out to run an arbitrary distance, make the approval of internet acquaintances second to last, please. (last should be to put one of those "13.1" or "26.2" stickers on your Hybrid/Subaru) Most annoying of all is that Nike+ iphone app that syncs your runs.. jesus christ. "________ ran 7.2 miles in 57 minutes with Nike+ from iphone". I can't tell who this makes me want to kill more... Zuckerberg for unleashing this tidal wave of self centered delusion or the committing party for being so goddamn vain that they think a single other person on earth gives such information anything other than the most hateful of glances and the very least of concerns.
4.) The exhibitionist - This is quite possibly the single most painful type of individual on the internet. For some reason they feel that basically everyone they know (and a lot of people they don't know) need to be brought into intensely personal stuff and/or drama going on with them. You know how it goes... statuses that say things to the effect of "Kno u cant trust nobody" (of course the spelling is often atrocious, these antisocial individuals tend to fit into multiple categories) or "some people are just pieces of shit" like the appropriate place to air conflicts/fights/issues with people is on a public website. Let's talk about what facebook actually is. It's sort of like an online cafeteria for the "high school" that is attended by "everyone you know". You wouldn't scream to the whole cafeteria that your boyfriend cheated on you or that you had a big fight with your friend, right? So why are you announcing it for all to read on a website where literally everyone you've added can see it? Isn't that uncomfortable for you? Some of these cringe-worthy posts are so uncomfortable for me that they, more than anything else, lead to instant blocking or de-friending. Even worse than intense words (always horribly misspelled) are intense relationship status changes. You know how it goes. ____________ is in a relationship with _____________ turns into ____________ is in a relationship, turns into ______________ is single, turns into _____________ is in a relationship, turns into ________________ is in a relationship with ______________. Look, I understand how it goes, believe me.. people are crazy enough without emotions involved, throw in emotions? Coocoo for life. But that doesn't mean your drama needs to be embarrassingly displayed for all the world to see. This sort of public forum behavior leads me to believe that these people are either oblivious to the fact that everything you do on facebook is displayed to everyone you're connected to on facebook (and thus, very dumb), or they get a perverse pleasure from conducting extremely personal affairs in the public domain (and thus, very creepy). Either way, I'm uncomfortable, and you're blocked.
5.) The Mitch Albom. You know who Mitch Albom is. He's one of the corny assholes on "The Sports Reporters" who maligns the fact that sports aren't as magical as they were when he was 6 and watching Mickey Mantle like he's completely oblivious to the fact that as you become older and accumulate life experience and cynicism, NOTHING is a joyous or meaningful as early childhood experiences. Well, he applied this same cornball naivete to writing several extremely popular "Oprah's Book Club" type corny inspirational books. He's one of the leading cornball pseudo-spiritual secular types who are leading to the downfall of society. Well anyway, everything he writes is pervaded with a mind-numbing sentimentality and false carpe diem "inspiration". Well, the last (for today) obnoxious facebook citizen is the one responsible for putting cornball sentimental or falsely inspirational and/or pseudo-religious "spiritual" quotes in an effort to...? No one knows what the purpose of these things are. Is it to "inspire" other people? Isn't inspiration a personal thing? If it inspires you, great, throw it on a coffee mug, read it to yourself. For some reason people really like posting quotes as statuses... and I can't figure out why. Is it to get validation that a quote they like is a quote worth liking? (I hope not) Is it to "share" said quote? Didn't the original author already do that? Whatever the reason, Mitch Albom is an asshole, and so are all his little immitators, whatever and whoever their audiences may be. Keep your cornball shit out of my newsfeed.
Monday, August 8, 2011
The Inaugural Edition of the Greatest Mailbag on the Web
The Brenner Bag I.
So I'm a big fan of the website mailbag. Whether it's done by Bill Simmons or Drew Magary over at Deadspin, a good mailbag is one of the more enjoyable website reads out there, along the author to spout off on his own nonsense while being guided somewhat by the reader. Best of both worlds! Ideally I'll be doing one once every month or so. I'm planning on picking up the blogging schedule here... at least I feel like writing is somewhat productive, unlike most of the nonsense I spend my time doing. So hopefully this one is at least somewhat good, right? Here goes nothing.
BD: Question regarding War Machine's origins in Iron Man 2:
I was watching the two Iron Man movies again last night, and all through Iron Man 2 War Machine was bugging me for the following three reasons:
1. Jarvis and the rest of Tony Stark's system put him in the Iron Man armor when he's ready to suit up. Why did it put the Iron Man armor on James Rhodes when he is clearly not Iron Man? We know that his system is pretty locked down to only allow people to do things they are authorized to do (see Christine Everhart touching one of the panels the morning after shacking up with Stark and being rejected by Jarvis), but we are supposed to think he didn't put those same security checks into outfitting the most dangerous weapon known to man?
2. In the first movie, we learn that the suit has an icing problem at high altitudes. Stark tells Jarvis to build the suit with a gold alloy that will allow for better temperature management while keeping the weight distribution correct. So, the suits he is building are coming off the assembly line gold and then applying some "hot rod red" paint job. Why does Tony have a silver-colored suit? Did he build a gold one and paint it silver or is this one of the old suits with the icing problem? If the latter, War Machine has a major weakness in future battles.
3. This is my biggest problem with the War Machine armor. Up to the point that James Rhodes steals the armor, these things have been built solely for Tony Stark and are powered by a miniaturized arc reactor that goes about six inches deep in his chest. So, the suit is aligned to power up off of an arc reactor positioned exactly like Stark's. When Rhodes suits up, why doesn't the arc reactor in the armor crush his chest and impale him six inches deep? Does James Rhodes just happen to have a very concave chest?
The Iron Man flicks, while exceedingly watchable and just an all-around "good time", aren't exactly the most plausible things out there. The strength of Robert Downey Jr. as the titular hero certainly glosses over a lot of the more preposterous aspects of the screenplay. I've had similar problems with War Machine's origins myself... it really is a rather large plot hole and problem that just gets completely glossed over. #3 is indeed the biggest problem, and the most difficult to explain away... but here goes nothing. Regarding #1, it would seem to me that events in the films seem to suggest that Tony's inner circle (Pepper, Rhodey and Happy Hogan) have pretty unimpeded access to the Stark mansion, and are on Jarvis' "good side". Christine Everhart's sexy Vanity Fair reporter on the other hand, is an intruder, and treated as such. Pepper Potts shows up more than once in Tony's lab uninvited, and Rhodey is the one who discovers Tony in his lab towards the end of the first movie, suggesting he's been there before and is a welcome guest. As far as gaining access to the Iron Man armor, it seems as though Rhodey would have been one of the few who would have been able to get by Stark security and Jarvis at the point that he does in the second film, and Tony's not exactly in any position to enforce security protocol at the time that Rhodey actually gains access to the gray Iron Man armor he uses to fight Tony at Tony's birthday party. As far as #2 goes, it appears that what becomes the War Machine armor is indeed the Mark II suit that Tony builds upon his return from Afghanistan. This armor, on its first flight, wound up icing over as Tony attempted to break SR-71's altitude record, resulting in him falling back to earth after his electronics froze over. Tony fixes this problem on the Mark III suit by adjusting the alloy used in constructing the suit, allowing for greater temperature variance. Therefore, regarding the Mark II armor that Rhodey takes, it would seem that at the moment Rhodey takes it following Tony's birthday party, the Mark II suit would be susceptible to the freezing problem. So stay out of the stratosphere, Rhodey! However, based on what we see of Hammer industries in Iron Man 2, it does appear that Justin Hammer has SOME skill as a developer.. obviously he's not the revolutionary genius that Tony Stark is, but he's not completely inept either. Therefore, it could be that when the Mark II suit is taken by Rhodey to the Air Force and the armor is modified by Hammer Industries into War Machine, Hammer and Vanko came up with an alternative solution to the icing issue. Perhaps they decided on a heating system to defeat the ice build-up. Perhaps they insulated the suit's electronics or decided on a different solution when turning the sleek gunmetal gray Mark II suit into the gray and black War Machine armor. Pure speculation on my part, but it seems that a designer like Vanko, seemingly the (almost) peer of Stark would be able to come up with a solution of his own. Switching alloys isn't the only solution to icing, or all high-altitude craft would be made of a gold alloy. As I mentioned earlier, #3 is the biggest issue. It's clear that Stark is a genius, but that the true genius of the Iron Man suit design is the miniaturized arc cold fusion reactor technology. It's unclear how precisely the suit hooks up to and interacts with the arc reactor embedded in Tony' chest, but you can see the reactor glowing through the armor, which leads me to believe the suit features a transparent covering directly over where the arc reactor is located in Tony's chest. Indeed, if you take a look at that almost profile view on the movie picture, it looks like Iron Man's chest protrudes in the chest area, thus suggesting that there may plausibly be room for an extra-body power source. Given that the arc reactor built by Tony Stark fits comfortably in his hand, it can't be more than a couple of inches deep. The only plausible explanation for Rhodey's being able to successfully pilot the Mark II armor is that Stark subsequently went back and built extra arc reactors and that the suit exists so as to be piloted whether the arc reactor is in-chest or outside of the body. Whether the armor was originally built with this in mind (seems somewhat plausible, as Tony wouldn't have known how permanent his health condition was at the time of building the Mark II armor) or subsequently modified following the events of the first film is uncertain, but it seems somewhat likely that the Iron Man suits are designed so that they can be powered by external or internal arc reactors. So, that seems to be the only plausible explanation for James Rhodes successfully accessing, piloting and taking the Mark II armor. I think typing that was the equivalent of having sex negative 7 times.
RL: How about rating and ranking the best rappers turned actors and movies starring rappers turned actors.
I like this question. It does appear, for whatever reason, that rappers like to try to transition to the acting game more than any comparable entertainment types. The list of rock and rollers who have successfully transitioned to acting is a rather short one, and while country singers have had more success, there haven't been any country singers become mega-stars like say, Will Smith or Mark Wahlberg. I guess it's somewhat logical, given that rappers succeed largely based on their charisma and stage presence, skills that, needless to say, transition rather well to the big screen. I'm going to do a top 3 and a bottom 3, with a couple of honorable mentions/people to watch.
Bottom 3:
3. Ice Cube. Nothing against the guy, I just think his flicks and acting style are complete garbage. And Ice, really, why are you making all of these cornball family flicks? It's pretty strange that the dude has any street cred left after all of the family flick nonsense he's been up to. The only reason he's not #1 is Boyz in the Hood and Friday. Past performances will win you some points 'round these parts. Being involved in the atrocious current Coors Light campaign is bad enough to get you notice.. making "Are We There Yet" and the like will score you HUGE negative points. And seriously, what's the deal with Coors Light commercials? Isn't beer EXACTLY as cold as the refrigerator it's put in? If you have a cold fridge, you probably have cold beer. Leave some Coors Light in your trunk all day and grab one. Bet you it's the grossest thing you've ever sipped.
2. Bow Wow. Do this dude even count as a rapper? I don't even know. I wasn't going to include him on this list because I didn't want to pick on a little kid, but then I looked him up and realized he was 24(!), that's plenty old enough to get mocked on the Internet. If he counts as a rapper, he's certainly pretty damn bad as an actor too. I haven't seen too many of his flicks, but I saw half of "Tokyo Drift" at the gym once, and it was just all-around garbage to the point that anyone involved should have their SAG membership revoked. A quick glance at the Internet shows that he's been up to an array of limited marketability "comedies" of dubious worth since, and yes.. the dude made "Like Mike". He just barely missed #1.
1. DMX. Dark man baby. This one hurt, because I'll always have a soft spot for DMX. He was the man when I was becoming a man and hanging out, listening to lots of rap, drinking beers on country roads and talking nonsense with other dudes. I still know approx. 9 billion too many DMX lyrics, and will definitely rap along whenever Earl Simmons is played within earshot. However, that doesn't change the fact that his (now direct-to-DVD) acting career was a blight on Hollywood and helped usher along the death of the 90's action flick heyday. In "Romeo Must Die", "Cradle 2 the Grave" and "Exit Wounds", DMX displayed stiff acting, zero charisma and a complete lack of any range or likability. Belly is halfway not awful though.. so he has that going for him. Now I hope he doesn't kill me for writing that. Your dogs are certainly not in the movies, D.
The top 3. Does Mark Wahlberg count? I'm going to say he counts... because Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch was definitely rap, and he was doing that before he was making movies and/or creating Entourage. So given that Marky Mark counts, here's the top 3.
3. Mos Def. I believe Mos Def has the most potential of any rapper turned actor. He shows tremendous range and a certain sensitivity on screen. I would in no way be surprised if Mos Def brought home a best supporting Oscar in the future. In flicks as varied as the Italian Job, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, 16 Blocks and Be Kind Rewind, Mos Def has shown a willingness to take chances and try different genres and character types on for size... definitely admirable. This #3 ranking is probably more for potential than anything else... but I've found that in everything I've seen him in, more than being a liability, Mos Def has more than held his own and actually been a strength. So kudos, not only are you one of the most innovative and legit MC's, you're also a decent actor.
2. Mark Wahlberg. While his rapping credentials may be questionable... (without including him, Common would move up to #3), he is undoubtedly one of Hollywood's stars. He's also a complete enigma to me. I don't know if he just has horrible management or what, but for every great role (Boogie Nights, Three Kings, The Departed) he has some real head-scratchers (the Tim Burton Planet of the Apes abortion, Four Brothers, Max Payne, The Happening). The dude is clearly an above-average actor, and given the right script, right surrounding cast and right director, he can be great, but he's not quite the type of dude who can carry a flick alone. His circuitous route to Hollywood stardom (underwear model, "rapper", actor) makes me laugh, and I'm sure Marky Mark is ashamed... all the way to the bank. White, black, red, brown, feel the vibration.
1. Will Smith. Could it have honestly been anyone else? Arguably, this dude is the biggest movie star on the planet. There's no doubt he's a talented, charismatic SOB.. but I wonder if he's ever going to win an Oscar. He just doesn't take the necessary chances or gutsy, demanding roles. He's undoubtedly strong in pretty much everything (We won't mention the cinematic spray-fart that is "Wild Wild West") and the kind of dude that everyone from little kids to 25 year old dudes to moms like, but pretty much every role is "safe". There were stories all over Hollywood about how desperately Tarantino wanted him for "Django Unleashed", QT's slave revenge saga, and Smith wouldn't take it, out of fear of the controversial material. While there's no doubt something to be said for looking out for your brand, there's also something to be said for pursuing greatness in your brand. If Will Smith was an NFL RB, he'd run out of bounds on long runs. But either way, he's a huge, huge star.. was responsible for one of the most beloved TV shows of the '90's, and made some catchy ass corny rap songs. He's now exploiting his children to make even more money and being a secret scientologist. Kudos, Will.
Honorable mentions: Tupac Shakur - I truly believe he would have been an amazing actor had he lived. A true tragedy robbing both rap and cinema of his talent. Common - one of my favorite MCs has proven to have a knack for the screen, although it's too soon to tell. Queen Latifah - I don't like anything she stands for, but there's no doubt that she's a HUGE star. LL Cool J - Surprisingly solid in a lot of things. My personal favorite role was "Any Given Sunday".
So that's my take on the rap/acting game. Kind of a cop out including Marky Mark, but dude WAS a rapper (kind of).
JRC: Each of the first three season of Mad Men built up to a specific moment in history (i.e. Kennedy/Nixon election, Cuban Missile Crisis, JFK assassination), and the writers weaved their storylines around those events. I have always enjoyed how the writers included these major events in the storyline, but never made them the focal point of the storyline. In other words, there was not some awful CGI scene where Don Draper was standing on the street in Dallas in 1963, and we see Kennedy get shot in the background. Now we definitely see how the characters respond to these events - which makes complete sense for a character driven show - but it is all in the context of the characters, and is used to show us a little bit more about these people (not to make a social commentary on the event). Well, all of us that watch the show know that there was no comparable event in Season four (which was still just as great as the other seasons). My question is: If you were writing season four of Mad Men, what historical event would you have build the season around, and how would you have incorporated the event into the storyline?
Awesome question.. and I'm sure that Weiner and the writers struggled with this one. I know that Weiner has said that he intends to end "Mad Men" in 1970, so given that Season 3 ended in late 1963, we're kind of boxed in to the '64-'65 time frame for Season 4 if you plan on having more than a season or 2 after Season 4. While the 60's were undoubtedly a tumultuous and important decade... 1964 and 1965 were basically the calm before the storm. Trouble was brewing, but it hadn't boiled over yet. Malcolm X was assassinated in 1965, but that was hardly a momentous event at the time and it wasn't exactly something that would have registered with the mostly white and predominantly upper-class characters of the Mad Men universe. Indeed, the most important cultural events of 1964-65 are probably Beatlemania and the rise of Cassius Clay/Mohammed Ali as cultural icon, and both of these events are referenced heavily in Season 4. The Tulkin Gulf Incident took place in August 1964, and ultimately led to military build-up in Vietnam, but the Vietnam war didn't become heated and controversial on the massive scale we think of today until '67-'68. The Civil Rights movement is heating up as well, but, again, not to a level that would impact the largely white upper class cast of Mad Men in a momentous way, not yet. '68 saw the assassinations of Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr., the Tet Offensive and the realization that Vietnam was not going as well as advertised, and '69 saw Woodstock and the Moon Landing. So the writers are in a difficult spot. If you intend on ending the show in 1970, skipping ahead to 1968 for Season 4 means you either squeeze several seasons into the last year and a half of the decade, or you only have one more season remaining, which I'm sure AMC (or the fans...) wouldn't be happy about. So the writers, trapped in a (comparatively) quiet period of the decade, wisely chose to have the tumult take place within the characters' lives, rather than imposed on them from the outside. But, you didn't ask for a history lesson. I suppose what I would have done is have Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce have a major military contractor (say.. a helicopter manufacturer) for a client, and have the characters closely follow unfolding events in Vietnam. (The US had military advisors in-country from 1950 onwards, but LBJ ramped up participation starting in '63 and culminating with the Gulf of Tonkin incident and subsequent retaliatory airstrikes and resolution approving military action) So what you could do is have the season end with the US bombing North Vietnam following the Gulf of Tonkin incident and our Sterling Cooper Draper Price staffers celebrating because their military client was about to get a whole lot bigger. Of course, we the viewers would know that the last thing these characters should be doing is celebrating, but hindsight is 20/20 after all. That puts you in fall '64, and would be a neat little way to wrap things up in a similar fashion to the other seasons.
JT: How many questions do you have?
I have a shit-ton of questions. Why does corn, despite being chewed, come out intact on the other end? Why did Wendy's raise the $2.99 combo prices to $3.29? That's such an ugly number in comparison. Why do guys in wildly successful bands act like high school girls and refuse to get along despite being ridiculously wealthy and the lessons of history that suggest they'll never meet similar levels of success and wind up reuniting in 20 years when no one cares about them any more? How do all of my clients who have no jobs and no money afford to smoke a pack a day? How do guys who wear pre-frayed ballcaps and boat shoes get hot girlfriends? How are there so many legitimately beautiful women in porn? Why is the American political process so goddamn broken? What did people do for entertainment before the internet? Probably lots of drinking, right?
I could go on all night, but I won't. Depending on your counting method I have between 7-12 questions for the mailbag.
Who's your favorite Stark? Tony? Ned? Robb? Explain.
This one was submitted anonymously... but I love it, so I'll gladly dive in. So this is basically an Iron Man vs. Game of Thrones question. Tony Stark, of course, is the billionaire genius/playboy/arms manufacturer protagonist of the "Iron Man" comic book and movie series of Marvel comics fame. House Stark, of Winterfell, of the Seven Kingdoms of the Iron Throne of Westeros, Warden of the North, is the most ancient noble house of Westeros, and Ned Stark is the partiarch and Lord of House Stark at the open of "Game of Thrones" the show and the book. He has various living family members, Catelyn, Robb, Bran, Rickon, Sansa, Arya and Benjen, of which I will eliminate all outright excepting Robb from consideration. However, Ned being daddy, and being on a TV show where according to the complicated rules of TV shows the relationship between characters is always depicted via height, I'll go with Ned. (Have you noticed that? In real life, approx 85% of people are taller than their parents, right? Excepting situations where say, Dad is a foot taller than Mom, I'd say most people are on average, 4-6 inches taller than the average height of their parents. Not so on TV shows. Parents are almost always taller than their children, no matter what the age. Fresh Prince? Carlton is about 8 inches shorter than Uncle Phil. Modern Family? 17 year old Hailey is a solid 6 inches shorter than BOTH of her parents. That's literally never happened before, but I digress) So basically, this comes down to Tony Stark vs. Ned Stark. Let's see. Tony Stark is a wisecracking hedonist who has a moral awakening following a near death experience and realization of the horrors of war and that his weapons systems are being used by foreign terrorists. He has a quick mind and a wit that's nearly as quick, and is unafraid to disarm any situation with force that he's unable to disarm with a smile and quip. Ned Stark is a devoted husband and stern, loving liege Lord and father who is devoted to his King and to his Honor. He believes that a lord should carry out his own justice and his beloved by those who serve him. He's soft spoken and worn by the weight of his duty and responsibility but skilled with a sword and one of the most respected men in all of the seven kingdoms. However, he is far too honorable for the machinations at court, where he finds himself outmanuevered by those who are unencumbered by honor and notions of fair play, who exploit Ned's devotion to honor again and again during the events of "Game of Thrones". Due to Ned's fatal, tragic flaw, I must say that Tony Stark is my favorite Stark.. simply because a fatal flaw will always come back to bite you. Even if your fatal flaw is as virtuous as being too honorable.
AM: I always think it is weird/awesome when popular products are co-branded with others or just sold outside their usual category. In fact I often end up buying the co-branded product when I would never have bought the original. I mean, 7up flavored Popsicles? YES. But 7up yours on your own, 7up. Wait I can buy Taco Bell salsa in the grocery store? I don't buy regular "restaurant style" Taco Bell lest my toilet be party to a red scare, but bring that salsa on. Holy fuck there is a Velveeta Sheels n Cheese that features Hormel bacon bits in it? If I could divine a way to make love to that unholy alliance it would already be done, and our children would feed the entire non-Muslim population of Africa. DiGiorno now sells cookies and pizza in the same box. Stoners everywhere calmly cool the fuck out and rejoice, man.
Keeping this in mind, what name brand products do you think are a match made in heaven and simply must be combined? Are there any fast food or restaurant staples you'd rub out a wax dart in aisle 3 (cleanup in aisle 3 btw) over if they ever popped up? Which combination would be most like to bring about the downfall of humanity? I'll hang up and listen to your answer.
I have thought about this far too often to be normal, and never really talked about it because I thought it was a uniquely "me" thing and far too weird and embarrassing to share publicly. Sort of like how when you first start jerking it you think you're a psychotic freak and no one would talk to you ever again if they knew what you were secretly doing until you find out that literally every person has been jerking like a mad man and between 2 and 3X more frequently than you. This realization isn't THAT liberating (nothing ever will be again), but it's in the same neighborhood.
At this point, it seems like the combinations that DO exist are way down the totem pole on the potential combinations. Like, Digiorno and breadsticks. Meh.. can already get that, Digiorno. Taco Bell salsa. Do they even HAVE salsa at Taco Bell? The awesome combinations that do exist seem to be in the realm of desserts. Actual Oreo ice cream (rather than the pretend Oreos that comprise most "cookies and cream" contraptions).. boner pants. Snickers Ice Cream Bars. Oreo breakfast bars. Golden graham breakfast bars. (with real marshmellows!) All of these things are that rare breed of awesome in that they're so awesome I avoid buying them because I know that actually purchasing any of these things will result in me eating the entire package within 18 hours of purchase and then wondering why my pants hardly fit.
But the untapped combinations have to be fast-food related, right? Come to think of it, the only real fast food presence you ever see in the Grocery store is frozen White Castle burgers... which is disgusting. If there's one thing I love in this world, it's Chipotle, (well, that's an exaggeration, but I do love Chipotle) and I fail to understand why they are doing no non in-restaurant sales of any kind. If you're in a Chipotle and take a look behind the counter, there's always some small Guatemalan gentleman grilling large, scrumptious-looking chunks of meat, which he then dices into small chunks and throws in one of those pans to be scooped into your burrito/bowl. (or taco, but if you're ordering those tacos, I hate you) Now granted, those diced pieces are necessary for optimized burrito consumption, there'd be too much biting/tearing/mess if otherwise, but I'm intrigued by the untapped potential of those giant sexy looking marinated chunks of meat that are so delicious diced up in my burrito. I want to throw one on a toasted bun with a little lettuce and mayo and take a bite of what may in fact be the most glorious sandwich on the planet. Can you imagine what a Chipotle slab of steak would taste like on a bun? Good lord I'm getting hungry just typing this. But herein is why restaurants don't do that stuff. I'm going to use the opportunity to buy frozen chunks of Chipotle meat for good, but the crazed ranch-obsessed redneck is not. Chipotle has to protect their brand and their perceived quality. If they start selling stuff in the freezer section, you're going to have people serving it up half-cooked and slathered in nacho cheese and a half-gallon of ranch and then suing Chipotle when they get salmonella from undercooked poultry and/or when they gain 600 lbs from eating 19,000 calorie meals. Boom, all of a sudden, Chipotle's brand is shot. Thanks, Cletus, for eating like an asshole. You'd better believe those dudes are out there. I ate Subway for lunch today and the dude with the sleeveless shirt and flame tattoos got more ranch than I've ever seen anyone get before slathered on his sub. The worker looked at him like he was an idiot when he asked for more. And that's when you're asking for it at a restaurant. Can you imagine what this dude is up to at home when he has control over the ranch supply? I want Wendy's to sell their hamburger patties too. I know they're frozen, I've seen a glimpse inside of a Wendy's freezer before... but god damn are they delicious. But, same deal. Wendy's can never be sure what the mouth-breathing public is going to do with their delicious patties should they be set loose on the world. People will be throwing 9 of them on a bun with 19 slices of provolone cheese and 38 slices of Bob Evans bacon and then blaming Wendy's on the 10 o'clock news when they collapse a deck or capsize a catamaran.
As far as combinations go, as you may or may not know, I love me some Smoothie King. Well, I need Chipotle to buy Smoothie King and put Smoothie Kings inside of their Chipotle locations so I can get my steak burrito with fajita peppers and black beans along with a Caribbean Way and die a happy man. This is do-able at the Kenwood Towne Center, where the Chipotle in the food court is separated only by a Chick Fil-A from a Smoothie King, but that would entail dealing with nightmare parking plus nightmare wading through 17 year olds plus nightmare long ass Chipotle line plus then nightmare dealing with traffic to get home to eat your now cold Chipotle and/or nightmare trying to find a table in that crowded-ass food court where 17 people will undoubtedly run into you while you're trying to enjoy exquisite food glory.
At the grocery store, the combination that would make me happiest would be if Smoothie King sold frozen ready to go Smoothie Mixes. I spend my time at home carrying out elementary school science fair experiments trying to concoct awesome Smoothies but failing epically at least 45% of the time. My culinary skill consists basically of baking a frozen pizza, so I need my hand held through these things. This is a massive potential revenue stream for Smoothie King. Just freeze all of the ingredients in a bag or whatever, you take it home, throw it in your blender, add juice or milk or whatever and boom. Smoothie King. At home. That's not even a combination, really... just an awesome idea.
PB:
1. You're an all-Ohio guy -- love the Indians, love OSU, went to Miami, UC, etc. Seem to be someone who has a good sports-fan ethos and would hate on anyone who arbitrarily picks a team to root for. How did you end up a Bills fans? If not a Browns fan, it seems the Lions would be the next logical choice for a Fo-town native.
2. I often refer to Bob Seger as "the poor-man's Bruce Springsteen" or the "Midwest's Bruce Springsteen." Knowing that any member of the Brenner family would be willing to give a kidney to Seger if need be, is this an accurate sentiment? Is there a Midwest v. East Coast rivalry here? If Bob Seger is from New Jersey, does he get the same level attention as the Boss?
I respect both of these questions very much, so, kudos. I shall address both in turn.
1. A complex set of circumstances led to me embracing the Buffalo Bills as my NFL team of choice. First, my father was a semi-psychotic Browns fan growing up, to the extent that destruction of property was not un-heard of. So growing up in the '80's, that era of "the Drive" and "the Fumble" so infamous on the banks of the Cuyahoga some of my earliest memories of football Sundays are slammed remotes, turned off TVs, stomping away and angry yelling. At the same time, I had an Aunt and Uncle who lived in Lewiston, New York, very near to Niagra Falls and Buffalo, New York. At the same time, the Bills had a dominant team, making 5 of 6 AFC title games and 4 straight Super Bowls, as well as having a top-2 team on the greatest sports video game of all time, Tecmo Super Bowl. Repeated visits to the Buffalo area and proximity to Bills-fandom through my aunt and uncle + psycho Browns fan at home + me being a little kid and little kids liking weird shit like "cool team colors" + the Bills being very good + Tecmo Super Bowl led to my brother and I liking the Bills. Plus, if you DIDN'T like Jim Kelly, Thurman Thomas, Andre Reed, Bruce Smith and co. you were definitely a communist. Or a Dolphins fan. As I progressed into young man-dom (I am of the belief that no one is really a "fan" of anything until they are an actual "person", which happens around ages 12-15 depending on the person), the Browns packed up and left Cleveland, leaving C-town with no NFL team, and the Bills being the dominant AFC CBS team broadcast in the Northwest Ohio area from '96-'98. Also, by the time I was old enough to have opinions on things, I was too obsessed with Ohio State to possibly root for any M*chigan-based team, even the hapless Lions. That was a contentious time in OSU fandom, being completely owned by M*chigan for basically a decade. By the time the Browns came back, I was a semi-man and a full-blown Bills fan. At that point, switching from the Bills would have been seen as a poser move from my own perspective. So, I'm not sure if I would approve if someone just explained that situation to me, but that's my explanation. I have said that when and if the Bills move from Buffalo to Toronto or LA or wherever, I'm going to switch to the Browns. So there's that. Plus there's the fact that the Bills' ineptitude over the past 12 years has been matched and exceeded only by that of the Browns and Lions.
2. I like to refer to Bobby Rock as "the midwest Springsteen" myself, and there's certainly a slight rivalry going on there. When you're from Ohio and meet people from out-of-state you're automatically on the defensive. For some reason or another, pretty much every other state thinks it behooves them to look down on Ohio, and that's Ohio's own fault. The state is too fractured to create a unified front. There's Cleveland, Cincinnati, Columbus, and several other semi-major urban areas, and all of these cities have a certain rivalry going on with all of the other. None of them have ever been big enough to completely dominate the other like happens in most states, so accordingly, Ohio doesn't present a unified front to the nation as a whole. Since Ohio's identity is so fractured, people mistake this fractured identity for a lack of an identity, and pounce accordingly. I've even heard people from Indiana and Kentucky and (gasp) M*chigan making fun of Ohio.. really? It's not even a discussion. So for Ohio at least, we deal with a sort of inferiority complex that leads to much conflict with the East Coast in particular. Despite the fact that Ohio boasts an impressive population (7th) and population density (10th, with only NY and Pennsylvania having both higher populations and population densities than Ohio), we are treated as a cultural backwater by anyone from somewhere that the coast-centric media has deemed "cool". So it's a Catch-22. Coast-based media deems place "cool", place then becomes "cool". Total chicken/egg situation. Now, granted, Seger isn't from Ohio, but he's sort of been adopted and his blue-collar ethos and worldview speaks to a large chunk of the Ohio-based population. If you're putting Bruce and Bob head to head, I think it goes without saying that Seger's pipes are far superior. Bruce is a superior songwriter and probably boasts a superior band (but Alto Reed vs. Clarence Clemons is a good debate..), but Bob's no slouch there either. Bob had his moment in the sun, but ultimately never caught fire nationally the way that Bruce did. Seger's songs don't have the same cultural/societal bent that Bruce's do, with Bob being more focused on life and love and pondering while Bruce takes more chances, but I'd argue that it's almost impossible to pretend that if Bob Seger was a native son of Jersey and embraced by the media center that is NYC like Bruce Springsteen, he'd have enjoyed a cultural significance similar to that of Bruce. Seger is 5 years older, but it's impossible to ignore that the midwest isn't exactly launching music careers like it used to. Back in the 50's when Detroit was the 3rd biggest city in the US and Cleveland was top 10 that Detroit to Cleveland corridor carried a lot more clout than it does today, when Detroit looks like the setting of the next Snake Plisskin movie and Cleveland is pretty damn depressing on its own accord. If the Black Keys were LA-based instead of Akron-based they may well be the biggest band on the planet. But, as any native son of the midwest can tell you, that's just how it goes. We've been downtrodden and overlooked for so long that it's just par for the course. Seger would have something wise and profound to say on the issue, but that's why he's an icon and I'm just a bored guy pontificating to the 13 people that actually read this far.
So I'm a big fan of the website mailbag. Whether it's done by Bill Simmons or Drew Magary over at Deadspin, a good mailbag is one of the more enjoyable website reads out there, along the author to spout off on his own nonsense while being guided somewhat by the reader. Best of both worlds! Ideally I'll be doing one once every month or so. I'm planning on picking up the blogging schedule here... at least I feel like writing is somewhat productive, unlike most of the nonsense I spend my time doing. So hopefully this one is at least somewhat good, right? Here goes nothing.
BD: Question regarding War Machine's origins in Iron Man 2:
I was watching the two Iron Man movies again last night, and all through Iron Man 2 War Machine was bugging me for the following three reasons:
1. Jarvis and the rest of Tony Stark's system put him in the Iron Man armor when he's ready to suit up. Why did it put the Iron Man armor on James Rhodes when he is clearly not Iron Man? We know that his system is pretty locked down to only allow people to do things they are authorized to do (see Christine Everhart touching one of the panels the morning after shacking up with Stark and being rejected by Jarvis), but we are supposed to think he didn't put those same security checks into outfitting the most dangerous weapon known to man?
2. In the first movie, we learn that the suit has an icing problem at high altitudes. Stark tells Jarvis to build the suit with a gold alloy that will allow for better temperature management while keeping the weight distribution correct. So, the suits he is building are coming off the assembly line gold and then applying some "hot rod red" paint job. Why does Tony have a silver-colored suit? Did he build a gold one and paint it silver or is this one of the old suits with the icing problem? If the latter, War Machine has a major weakness in future battles.
3. This is my biggest problem with the War Machine armor. Up to the point that James Rhodes steals the armor, these things have been built solely for Tony Stark and are powered by a miniaturized arc reactor that goes about six inches deep in his chest. So, the suit is aligned to power up off of an arc reactor positioned exactly like Stark's. When Rhodes suits up, why doesn't the arc reactor in the armor crush his chest and impale him six inches deep? Does James Rhodes just happen to have a very concave chest?
The Iron Man flicks, while exceedingly watchable and just an all-around "good time", aren't exactly the most plausible things out there. The strength of Robert Downey Jr. as the titular hero certainly glosses over a lot of the more preposterous aspects of the screenplay. I've had similar problems with War Machine's origins myself... it really is a rather large plot hole and problem that just gets completely glossed over. #3 is indeed the biggest problem, and the most difficult to explain away... but here goes nothing. Regarding #1, it would seem to me that events in the films seem to suggest that Tony's inner circle (Pepper, Rhodey and Happy Hogan) have pretty unimpeded access to the Stark mansion, and are on Jarvis' "good side". Christine Everhart's sexy Vanity Fair reporter on the other hand, is an intruder, and treated as such. Pepper Potts shows up more than once in Tony's lab uninvited, and Rhodey is the one who discovers Tony in his lab towards the end of the first movie, suggesting he's been there before and is a welcome guest. As far as gaining access to the Iron Man armor, it seems as though Rhodey would have been one of the few who would have been able to get by Stark security and Jarvis at the point that he does in the second film, and Tony's not exactly in any position to enforce security protocol at the time that Rhodey actually gains access to the gray Iron Man armor he uses to fight Tony at Tony's birthday party. As far as #2 goes, it appears that what becomes the War Machine armor is indeed the Mark II suit that Tony builds upon his return from Afghanistan. This armor, on its first flight, wound up icing over as Tony attempted to break SR-71's altitude record, resulting in him falling back to earth after his electronics froze over. Tony fixes this problem on the Mark III suit by adjusting the alloy used in constructing the suit, allowing for greater temperature variance. Therefore, regarding the Mark II armor that Rhodey takes, it would seem that at the moment Rhodey takes it following Tony's birthday party, the Mark II suit would be susceptible to the freezing problem. So stay out of the stratosphere, Rhodey! However, based on what we see of Hammer industries in Iron Man 2, it does appear that Justin Hammer has SOME skill as a developer.. obviously he's not the revolutionary genius that Tony Stark is, but he's not completely inept either. Therefore, it could be that when the Mark II suit is taken by Rhodey to the Air Force and the armor is modified by Hammer Industries into War Machine, Hammer and Vanko came up with an alternative solution to the icing issue. Perhaps they decided on a heating system to defeat the ice build-up. Perhaps they insulated the suit's electronics or decided on a different solution when turning the sleek gunmetal gray Mark II suit into the gray and black War Machine armor. Pure speculation on my part, but it seems that a designer like Vanko, seemingly the (almost) peer of Stark would be able to come up with a solution of his own. Switching alloys isn't the only solution to icing, or all high-altitude craft would be made of a gold alloy. As I mentioned earlier, #3 is the biggest issue. It's clear that Stark is a genius, but that the true genius of the Iron Man suit design is the miniaturized arc cold fusion reactor technology. It's unclear how precisely the suit hooks up to and interacts with the arc reactor embedded in Tony' chest, but you can see the reactor glowing through the armor, which leads me to believe the suit features a transparent covering directly over where the arc reactor is located in Tony's chest. Indeed, if you take a look at that almost profile view on the movie picture, it looks like Iron Man's chest protrudes in the chest area, thus suggesting that there may plausibly be room for an extra-body power source. Given that the arc reactor built by Tony Stark fits comfortably in his hand, it can't be more than a couple of inches deep. The only plausible explanation for Rhodey's being able to successfully pilot the Mark II armor is that Stark subsequently went back and built extra arc reactors and that the suit exists so as to be piloted whether the arc reactor is in-chest or outside of the body. Whether the armor was originally built with this in mind (seems somewhat plausible, as Tony wouldn't have known how permanent his health condition was at the time of building the Mark II armor) or subsequently modified following the events of the first film is uncertain, but it seems somewhat likely that the Iron Man suits are designed so that they can be powered by external or internal arc reactors. So, that seems to be the only plausible explanation for James Rhodes successfully accessing, piloting and taking the Mark II armor. I think typing that was the equivalent of having sex negative 7 times.
RL: How about rating and ranking the best rappers turned actors and movies starring rappers turned actors.
I like this question. It does appear, for whatever reason, that rappers like to try to transition to the acting game more than any comparable entertainment types. The list of rock and rollers who have successfully transitioned to acting is a rather short one, and while country singers have had more success, there haven't been any country singers become mega-stars like say, Will Smith or Mark Wahlberg. I guess it's somewhat logical, given that rappers succeed largely based on their charisma and stage presence, skills that, needless to say, transition rather well to the big screen. I'm going to do a top 3 and a bottom 3, with a couple of honorable mentions/people to watch.
Bottom 3:
3. Ice Cube. Nothing against the guy, I just think his flicks and acting style are complete garbage. And Ice, really, why are you making all of these cornball family flicks? It's pretty strange that the dude has any street cred left after all of the family flick nonsense he's been up to. The only reason he's not #1 is Boyz in the Hood and Friday. Past performances will win you some points 'round these parts. Being involved in the atrocious current Coors Light campaign is bad enough to get you notice.. making "Are We There Yet" and the like will score you HUGE negative points. And seriously, what's the deal with Coors Light commercials? Isn't beer EXACTLY as cold as the refrigerator it's put in? If you have a cold fridge, you probably have cold beer. Leave some Coors Light in your trunk all day and grab one. Bet you it's the grossest thing you've ever sipped.
2. Bow Wow. Do this dude even count as a rapper? I don't even know. I wasn't going to include him on this list because I didn't want to pick on a little kid, but then I looked him up and realized he was 24(!), that's plenty old enough to get mocked on the Internet. If he counts as a rapper, he's certainly pretty damn bad as an actor too. I haven't seen too many of his flicks, but I saw half of "Tokyo Drift" at the gym once, and it was just all-around garbage to the point that anyone involved should have their SAG membership revoked. A quick glance at the Internet shows that he's been up to an array of limited marketability "comedies" of dubious worth since, and yes.. the dude made "Like Mike". He just barely missed #1.
1. DMX. Dark man baby. This one hurt, because I'll always have a soft spot for DMX. He was the man when I was becoming a man and hanging out, listening to lots of rap, drinking beers on country roads and talking nonsense with other dudes. I still know approx. 9 billion too many DMX lyrics, and will definitely rap along whenever Earl Simmons is played within earshot. However, that doesn't change the fact that his (now direct-to-DVD) acting career was a blight on Hollywood and helped usher along the death of the 90's action flick heyday. In "Romeo Must Die", "Cradle 2 the Grave" and "Exit Wounds", DMX displayed stiff acting, zero charisma and a complete lack of any range or likability. Belly is halfway not awful though.. so he has that going for him. Now I hope he doesn't kill me for writing that. Your dogs are certainly not in the movies, D.
The top 3. Does Mark Wahlberg count? I'm going to say he counts... because Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch was definitely rap, and he was doing that before he was making movies and/or creating Entourage. So given that Marky Mark counts, here's the top 3.
3. Mos Def. I believe Mos Def has the most potential of any rapper turned actor. He shows tremendous range and a certain sensitivity on screen. I would in no way be surprised if Mos Def brought home a best supporting Oscar in the future. In flicks as varied as the Italian Job, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, 16 Blocks and Be Kind Rewind, Mos Def has shown a willingness to take chances and try different genres and character types on for size... definitely admirable. This #3 ranking is probably more for potential than anything else... but I've found that in everything I've seen him in, more than being a liability, Mos Def has more than held his own and actually been a strength. So kudos, not only are you one of the most innovative and legit MC's, you're also a decent actor.
2. Mark Wahlberg. While his rapping credentials may be questionable... (without including him, Common would move up to #3), he is undoubtedly one of Hollywood's stars. He's also a complete enigma to me. I don't know if he just has horrible management or what, but for every great role (Boogie Nights, Three Kings, The Departed) he has some real head-scratchers (the Tim Burton Planet of the Apes abortion, Four Brothers, Max Payne, The Happening). The dude is clearly an above-average actor, and given the right script, right surrounding cast and right director, he can be great, but he's not quite the type of dude who can carry a flick alone. His circuitous route to Hollywood stardom (underwear model, "rapper", actor) makes me laugh, and I'm sure Marky Mark is ashamed... all the way to the bank. White, black, red, brown, feel the vibration.
1. Will Smith. Could it have honestly been anyone else? Arguably, this dude is the biggest movie star on the planet. There's no doubt he's a talented, charismatic SOB.. but I wonder if he's ever going to win an Oscar. He just doesn't take the necessary chances or gutsy, demanding roles. He's undoubtedly strong in pretty much everything (We won't mention the cinematic spray-fart that is "Wild Wild West") and the kind of dude that everyone from little kids to 25 year old dudes to moms like, but pretty much every role is "safe". There were stories all over Hollywood about how desperately Tarantino wanted him for "Django Unleashed", QT's slave revenge saga, and Smith wouldn't take it, out of fear of the controversial material. While there's no doubt something to be said for looking out for your brand, there's also something to be said for pursuing greatness in your brand. If Will Smith was an NFL RB, he'd run out of bounds on long runs. But either way, he's a huge, huge star.. was responsible for one of the most beloved TV shows of the '90's, and made some catchy ass corny rap songs. He's now exploiting his children to make even more money and being a secret scientologist. Kudos, Will.
Honorable mentions: Tupac Shakur - I truly believe he would have been an amazing actor had he lived. A true tragedy robbing both rap and cinema of his talent. Common - one of my favorite MCs has proven to have a knack for the screen, although it's too soon to tell. Queen Latifah - I don't like anything she stands for, but there's no doubt that she's a HUGE star. LL Cool J - Surprisingly solid in a lot of things. My personal favorite role was "Any Given Sunday".
So that's my take on the rap/acting game. Kind of a cop out including Marky Mark, but dude WAS a rapper (kind of).
JRC: Each of the first three season of Mad Men built up to a specific moment in history (i.e. Kennedy/Nixon election, Cuban Missile Crisis, JFK assassination), and the writers weaved their storylines around those events. I have always enjoyed how the writers included these major events in the storyline, but never made them the focal point of the storyline. In other words, there was not some awful CGI scene where Don Draper was standing on the street in Dallas in 1963, and we see Kennedy get shot in the background. Now we definitely see how the characters respond to these events - which makes complete sense for a character driven show - but it is all in the context of the characters, and is used to show us a little bit more about these people (not to make a social commentary on the event). Well, all of us that watch the show know that there was no comparable event in Season four (which was still just as great as the other seasons). My question is: If you were writing season four of Mad Men, what historical event would you have build the season around, and how would you have incorporated the event into the storyline?
Awesome question.. and I'm sure that Weiner and the writers struggled with this one. I know that Weiner has said that he intends to end "Mad Men" in 1970, so given that Season 3 ended in late 1963, we're kind of boxed in to the '64-'65 time frame for Season 4 if you plan on having more than a season or 2 after Season 4. While the 60's were undoubtedly a tumultuous and important decade... 1964 and 1965 were basically the calm before the storm. Trouble was brewing, but it hadn't boiled over yet. Malcolm X was assassinated in 1965, but that was hardly a momentous event at the time and it wasn't exactly something that would have registered with the mostly white and predominantly upper-class characters of the Mad Men universe. Indeed, the most important cultural events of 1964-65 are probably Beatlemania and the rise of Cassius Clay/Mohammed Ali as cultural icon, and both of these events are referenced heavily in Season 4. The Tulkin Gulf Incident took place in August 1964, and ultimately led to military build-up in Vietnam, but the Vietnam war didn't become heated and controversial on the massive scale we think of today until '67-'68. The Civil Rights movement is heating up as well, but, again, not to a level that would impact the largely white upper class cast of Mad Men in a momentous way, not yet. '68 saw the assassinations of Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr., the Tet Offensive and the realization that Vietnam was not going as well as advertised, and '69 saw Woodstock and the Moon Landing. So the writers are in a difficult spot. If you intend on ending the show in 1970, skipping ahead to 1968 for Season 4 means you either squeeze several seasons into the last year and a half of the decade, or you only have one more season remaining, which I'm sure AMC (or the fans...) wouldn't be happy about. So the writers, trapped in a (comparatively) quiet period of the decade, wisely chose to have the tumult take place within the characters' lives, rather than imposed on them from the outside. But, you didn't ask for a history lesson. I suppose what I would have done is have Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce have a major military contractor (say.. a helicopter manufacturer) for a client, and have the characters closely follow unfolding events in Vietnam. (The US had military advisors in-country from 1950 onwards, but LBJ ramped up participation starting in '63 and culminating with the Gulf of Tonkin incident and subsequent retaliatory airstrikes and resolution approving military action) So what you could do is have the season end with the US bombing North Vietnam following the Gulf of Tonkin incident and our Sterling Cooper Draper Price staffers celebrating because their military client was about to get a whole lot bigger. Of course, we the viewers would know that the last thing these characters should be doing is celebrating, but hindsight is 20/20 after all. That puts you in fall '64, and would be a neat little way to wrap things up in a similar fashion to the other seasons.
JT: How many questions do you have?
I have a shit-ton of questions. Why does corn, despite being chewed, come out intact on the other end? Why did Wendy's raise the $2.99 combo prices to $3.29? That's such an ugly number in comparison. Why do guys in wildly successful bands act like high school girls and refuse to get along despite being ridiculously wealthy and the lessons of history that suggest they'll never meet similar levels of success and wind up reuniting in 20 years when no one cares about them any more? How do all of my clients who have no jobs and no money afford to smoke a pack a day? How do guys who wear pre-frayed ballcaps and boat shoes get hot girlfriends? How are there so many legitimately beautiful women in porn? Why is the American political process so goddamn broken? What did people do for entertainment before the internet? Probably lots of drinking, right?
I could go on all night, but I won't. Depending on your counting method I have between 7-12 questions for the mailbag.
Who's your favorite Stark? Tony? Ned? Robb? Explain.
This one was submitted anonymously... but I love it, so I'll gladly dive in. So this is basically an Iron Man vs. Game of Thrones question. Tony Stark, of course, is the billionaire genius/playboy/arms manufacturer protagonist of the "Iron Man" comic book and movie series of Marvel comics fame. House Stark, of Winterfell, of the Seven Kingdoms of the Iron Throne of Westeros, Warden of the North, is the most ancient noble house of Westeros, and Ned Stark is the partiarch and Lord of House Stark at the open of "Game of Thrones" the show and the book. He has various living family members, Catelyn, Robb, Bran, Rickon, Sansa, Arya and Benjen, of which I will eliminate all outright excepting Robb from consideration. However, Ned being daddy, and being on a TV show where according to the complicated rules of TV shows the relationship between characters is always depicted via height, I'll go with Ned. (Have you noticed that? In real life, approx 85% of people are taller than their parents, right? Excepting situations where say, Dad is a foot taller than Mom, I'd say most people are on average, 4-6 inches taller than the average height of their parents. Not so on TV shows. Parents are almost always taller than their children, no matter what the age. Fresh Prince? Carlton is about 8 inches shorter than Uncle Phil. Modern Family? 17 year old Hailey is a solid 6 inches shorter than BOTH of her parents. That's literally never happened before, but I digress) So basically, this comes down to Tony Stark vs. Ned Stark. Let's see. Tony Stark is a wisecracking hedonist who has a moral awakening following a near death experience and realization of the horrors of war and that his weapons systems are being used by foreign terrorists. He has a quick mind and a wit that's nearly as quick, and is unafraid to disarm any situation with force that he's unable to disarm with a smile and quip. Ned Stark is a devoted husband and stern, loving liege Lord and father who is devoted to his King and to his Honor. He believes that a lord should carry out his own justice and his beloved by those who serve him. He's soft spoken and worn by the weight of his duty and responsibility but skilled with a sword and one of the most respected men in all of the seven kingdoms. However, he is far too honorable for the machinations at court, where he finds himself outmanuevered by those who are unencumbered by honor and notions of fair play, who exploit Ned's devotion to honor again and again during the events of "Game of Thrones". Due to Ned's fatal, tragic flaw, I must say that Tony Stark is my favorite Stark.. simply because a fatal flaw will always come back to bite you. Even if your fatal flaw is as virtuous as being too honorable.
AM: I always think it is weird/awesome when popular products are co-branded with others or just sold outside their usual category. In fact I often end up buying the co-branded product when I would never have bought the original. I mean, 7up flavored Popsicles? YES. But 7up yours on your own, 7up. Wait I can buy Taco Bell salsa in the grocery store? I don't buy regular "restaurant style" Taco Bell lest my toilet be party to a red scare, but bring that salsa on. Holy fuck there is a Velveeta Sheels n Cheese that features Hormel bacon bits in it? If I could divine a way to make love to that unholy alliance it would already be done, and our children would feed the entire non-Muslim population of Africa. DiGiorno now sells cookies and pizza in the same box. Stoners everywhere calmly cool the fuck out and rejoice, man.
Keeping this in mind, what name brand products do you think are a match made in heaven and simply must be combined? Are there any fast food or restaurant staples you'd rub out a wax dart in aisle 3 (cleanup in aisle 3 btw) over if they ever popped up? Which combination would be most like to bring about the downfall of humanity? I'll hang up and listen to your answer.
I have thought about this far too often to be normal, and never really talked about it because I thought it was a uniquely "me" thing and far too weird and embarrassing to share publicly. Sort of like how when you first start jerking it you think you're a psychotic freak and no one would talk to you ever again if they knew what you were secretly doing until you find out that literally every person has been jerking like a mad man and between 2 and 3X more frequently than you. This realization isn't THAT liberating (nothing ever will be again), but it's in the same neighborhood.
At this point, it seems like the combinations that DO exist are way down the totem pole on the potential combinations. Like, Digiorno and breadsticks. Meh.. can already get that, Digiorno. Taco Bell salsa. Do they even HAVE salsa at Taco Bell? The awesome combinations that do exist seem to be in the realm of desserts. Actual Oreo ice cream (rather than the pretend Oreos that comprise most "cookies and cream" contraptions).. boner pants. Snickers Ice Cream Bars. Oreo breakfast bars. Golden graham breakfast bars. (with real marshmellows!) All of these things are that rare breed of awesome in that they're so awesome I avoid buying them because I know that actually purchasing any of these things will result in me eating the entire package within 18 hours of purchase and then wondering why my pants hardly fit.
But the untapped combinations have to be fast-food related, right? Come to think of it, the only real fast food presence you ever see in the Grocery store is frozen White Castle burgers... which is disgusting. If there's one thing I love in this world, it's Chipotle, (well, that's an exaggeration, but I do love Chipotle) and I fail to understand why they are doing no non in-restaurant sales of any kind. If you're in a Chipotle and take a look behind the counter, there's always some small Guatemalan gentleman grilling large, scrumptious-looking chunks of meat, which he then dices into small chunks and throws in one of those pans to be scooped into your burrito/bowl. (or taco, but if you're ordering those tacos, I hate you) Now granted, those diced pieces are necessary for optimized burrito consumption, there'd be too much biting/tearing/mess if otherwise, but I'm intrigued by the untapped potential of those giant sexy looking marinated chunks of meat that are so delicious diced up in my burrito. I want to throw one on a toasted bun with a little lettuce and mayo and take a bite of what may in fact be the most glorious sandwich on the planet. Can you imagine what a Chipotle slab of steak would taste like on a bun? Good lord I'm getting hungry just typing this. But herein is why restaurants don't do that stuff. I'm going to use the opportunity to buy frozen chunks of Chipotle meat for good, but the crazed ranch-obsessed redneck is not. Chipotle has to protect their brand and their perceived quality. If they start selling stuff in the freezer section, you're going to have people serving it up half-cooked and slathered in nacho cheese and a half-gallon of ranch and then suing Chipotle when they get salmonella from undercooked poultry and/or when they gain 600 lbs from eating 19,000 calorie meals. Boom, all of a sudden, Chipotle's brand is shot. Thanks, Cletus, for eating like an asshole. You'd better believe those dudes are out there. I ate Subway for lunch today and the dude with the sleeveless shirt and flame tattoos got more ranch than I've ever seen anyone get before slathered on his sub. The worker looked at him like he was an idiot when he asked for more. And that's when you're asking for it at a restaurant. Can you imagine what this dude is up to at home when he has control over the ranch supply? I want Wendy's to sell their hamburger patties too. I know they're frozen, I've seen a glimpse inside of a Wendy's freezer before... but god damn are they delicious. But, same deal. Wendy's can never be sure what the mouth-breathing public is going to do with their delicious patties should they be set loose on the world. People will be throwing 9 of them on a bun with 19 slices of provolone cheese and 38 slices of Bob Evans bacon and then blaming Wendy's on the 10 o'clock news when they collapse a deck or capsize a catamaran.
As far as combinations go, as you may or may not know, I love me some Smoothie King. Well, I need Chipotle to buy Smoothie King and put Smoothie Kings inside of their Chipotle locations so I can get my steak burrito with fajita peppers and black beans along with a Caribbean Way and die a happy man. This is do-able at the Kenwood Towne Center, where the Chipotle in the food court is separated only by a Chick Fil-A from a Smoothie King, but that would entail dealing with nightmare parking plus nightmare wading through 17 year olds plus nightmare long ass Chipotle line plus then nightmare dealing with traffic to get home to eat your now cold Chipotle and/or nightmare trying to find a table in that crowded-ass food court where 17 people will undoubtedly run into you while you're trying to enjoy exquisite food glory.
At the grocery store, the combination that would make me happiest would be if Smoothie King sold frozen ready to go Smoothie Mixes. I spend my time at home carrying out elementary school science fair experiments trying to concoct awesome Smoothies but failing epically at least 45% of the time. My culinary skill consists basically of baking a frozen pizza, so I need my hand held through these things. This is a massive potential revenue stream for Smoothie King. Just freeze all of the ingredients in a bag or whatever, you take it home, throw it in your blender, add juice or milk or whatever and boom. Smoothie King. At home. That's not even a combination, really... just an awesome idea.
PB:
1. You're an all-Ohio guy -- love the Indians, love OSU, went to Miami, UC, etc. Seem to be someone who has a good sports-fan ethos and would hate on anyone who arbitrarily picks a team to root for. How did you end up a Bills fans? If not a Browns fan, it seems the Lions would be the next logical choice for a Fo-town native.
2. I often refer to Bob Seger as "the poor-man's Bruce Springsteen" or the "Midwest's Bruce Springsteen." Knowing that any member of the Brenner family would be willing to give a kidney to Seger if need be, is this an accurate sentiment? Is there a Midwest v. East Coast rivalry here? If Bob Seger is from New Jersey, does he get the same level attention as the Boss?
I respect both of these questions very much, so, kudos. I shall address both in turn.
1. A complex set of circumstances led to me embracing the Buffalo Bills as my NFL team of choice. First, my father was a semi-psychotic Browns fan growing up, to the extent that destruction of property was not un-heard of. So growing up in the '80's, that era of "the Drive" and "the Fumble" so infamous on the banks of the Cuyahoga some of my earliest memories of football Sundays are slammed remotes, turned off TVs, stomping away and angry yelling. At the same time, I had an Aunt and Uncle who lived in Lewiston, New York, very near to Niagra Falls and Buffalo, New York. At the same time, the Bills had a dominant team, making 5 of 6 AFC title games and 4 straight Super Bowls, as well as having a top-2 team on the greatest sports video game of all time, Tecmo Super Bowl. Repeated visits to the Buffalo area and proximity to Bills-fandom through my aunt and uncle + psycho Browns fan at home + me being a little kid and little kids liking weird shit like "cool team colors" + the Bills being very good + Tecmo Super Bowl led to my brother and I liking the Bills. Plus, if you DIDN'T like Jim Kelly, Thurman Thomas, Andre Reed, Bruce Smith and co. you were definitely a communist. Or a Dolphins fan. As I progressed into young man-dom (I am of the belief that no one is really a "fan" of anything until they are an actual "person", which happens around ages 12-15 depending on the person), the Browns packed up and left Cleveland, leaving C-town with no NFL team, and the Bills being the dominant AFC CBS team broadcast in the Northwest Ohio area from '96-'98. Also, by the time I was old enough to have opinions on things, I was too obsessed with Ohio State to possibly root for any M*chigan-based team, even the hapless Lions. That was a contentious time in OSU fandom, being completely owned by M*chigan for basically a decade. By the time the Browns came back, I was a semi-man and a full-blown Bills fan. At that point, switching from the Bills would have been seen as a poser move from my own perspective. So, I'm not sure if I would approve if someone just explained that situation to me, but that's my explanation. I have said that when and if the Bills move from Buffalo to Toronto or LA or wherever, I'm going to switch to the Browns. So there's that. Plus there's the fact that the Bills' ineptitude over the past 12 years has been matched and exceeded only by that of the Browns and Lions.
2. I like to refer to Bobby Rock as "the midwest Springsteen" myself, and there's certainly a slight rivalry going on there. When you're from Ohio and meet people from out-of-state you're automatically on the defensive. For some reason or another, pretty much every other state thinks it behooves them to look down on Ohio, and that's Ohio's own fault. The state is too fractured to create a unified front. There's Cleveland, Cincinnati, Columbus, and several other semi-major urban areas, and all of these cities have a certain rivalry going on with all of the other. None of them have ever been big enough to completely dominate the other like happens in most states, so accordingly, Ohio doesn't present a unified front to the nation as a whole. Since Ohio's identity is so fractured, people mistake this fractured identity for a lack of an identity, and pounce accordingly. I've even heard people from Indiana and Kentucky and (gasp) M*chigan making fun of Ohio.. really? It's not even a discussion. So for Ohio at least, we deal with a sort of inferiority complex that leads to much conflict with the East Coast in particular. Despite the fact that Ohio boasts an impressive population (7th) and population density (10th, with only NY and Pennsylvania having both higher populations and population densities than Ohio), we are treated as a cultural backwater by anyone from somewhere that the coast-centric media has deemed "cool". So it's a Catch-22. Coast-based media deems place "cool", place then becomes "cool". Total chicken/egg situation. Now, granted, Seger isn't from Ohio, but he's sort of been adopted and his blue-collar ethos and worldview speaks to a large chunk of the Ohio-based population. If you're putting Bruce and Bob head to head, I think it goes without saying that Seger's pipes are far superior. Bruce is a superior songwriter and probably boasts a superior band (but Alto Reed vs. Clarence Clemons is a good debate..), but Bob's no slouch there either. Bob had his moment in the sun, but ultimately never caught fire nationally the way that Bruce did. Seger's songs don't have the same cultural/societal bent that Bruce's do, with Bob being more focused on life and love and pondering while Bruce takes more chances, but I'd argue that it's almost impossible to pretend that if Bob Seger was a native son of Jersey and embraced by the media center that is NYC like Bruce Springsteen, he'd have enjoyed a cultural significance similar to that of Bruce. Seger is 5 years older, but it's impossible to ignore that the midwest isn't exactly launching music careers like it used to. Back in the 50's when Detroit was the 3rd biggest city in the US and Cleveland was top 10 that Detroit to Cleveland corridor carried a lot more clout than it does today, when Detroit looks like the setting of the next Snake Plisskin movie and Cleveland is pretty damn depressing on its own accord. If the Black Keys were LA-based instead of Akron-based they may well be the biggest band on the planet. But, as any native son of the midwest can tell you, that's just how it goes. We've been downtrodden and overlooked for so long that it's just par for the course. Seger would have something wise and profound to say on the issue, but that's why he's an icon and I'm just a bored guy pontificating to the 13 people that actually read this far.
Friday, August 5, 2011
2011: The Year in Film: "Rise of the Planet of the Apes" Review.
I'm not going to lie, until the reviews came back, I had absolutely zero interest in this one. I'm a big fan of the original Planet of the Apes (no, not the Marky Mark/Tim Burton version), and felt like the concept here may be betraying the spirit and message of the original. The mythology and concept behind the original Planet of the Apes and its decreasingly effective sequels is one of the cooler and high-minded concepts in classic sci-fi. The cold-war era antiwar message is poignant and extremely effective. So here we are with a reboot of the franchise and retooling of the origin tale., let's check it out, shall we? I was openly scoffing at the trailers for this one... up until the reviews came back. So after I read a couple of those reviews, I was interested enough to check this one out in the theaters on opening night, and I'm glad I did. It's the near future (the exact date is never specified, but America is headed to Mars, so it's obviously not today), and scientist James Franco is nearing a breakthrough on his Alzheimer's cure. Chimpanzee test subjects are responding favorably to the treatment, one in particular. This chimpanzee gives birth, and Franco smuggles the infant home and raises him there. Over time, it becomes clear that the Alzheimer's drug has enhanced Caesar's (as he named the infant) intelligence, which is far above normal both for chimps and for humans of comparable age. A fateful incident leads to Caesar being taken by animal control, and he's sent to a great ape sanctuary. There, after being mistreated, he blossoms into a revolutionary leader and leads an uprising.
English director Rupert Wyatt was given the task of helming his first major Hollywood picture, and Planet of the Apes reboot, with James Franco, Jon Lithgow, Brian Cox and the absolutely gorgeous Freida Pinto filling out the leads. The man who may be the world's first CGI star, Andy Serkis (of Gollum and King Kong fame), was given the Herculean task of playing the all-CGI Caesar. The human leads are adequate, but the film really sings once Caesar becomes the focus. It's strange that someone/something that doesn't even exist can be so compelling and interesting a character. Caesar is charismatic, charming, funny, thoughtful, tragic, sad and above-all, good. We see through a character who hardly speaks the rise of the George Washington of apes.. and it's completely awesome to see. Serkis yet again knocks it out of the park.
My complaints are, simply, that the human parts of the film simply don't measure up to the ape-centric parts. Pinto, who plays a Primatologist, isn't given much to do, and doesn't add much to the flick other than window dressing. Lithgow, who plays Franco's Alzheimer's-afflicted father is solid, but simply isn't given enough to do. Franco's scientist, desperately seeking a cure for the disease that has ravaged his father, is by far the strongest human character, and really the only character who's given anything other than a stock personality.
Conversely, basically everything that centers on Caesar and the apes is great. There are several "characters" among the apes that are compelling, and that just speaks to the strength of the script. The film's second and third acts are extremely strong. The scenes dealing with the rise in Caesar as a leader and subsequent uprising are heart-wrenching and simply great. The script is outstanding, the directing is strong, the acting is more than adequate, and the effects are amazing. Caesar is expressive and more convincing than all but a handful of real-life human actors. His struggle and journey is heart-wrenching. My concerns over the plausibility of the story are more than handled by the script... I'll spare you major spoilage. Just be comfortable in the knowledge that they've successfully updated the mythology of the franchise from cold war era nuclear to something more modern and more in-line with present day realities. I am completely content with the updated treatment.
I would rank this as just behind Captain America and Super 8 as best "blockbuster" movies of the summer. This flick will be a giant hit, and deserves it. Rare is the film that is as rewarding to the viewer.. this is a true achievement. The crowd cheered several times during the flick.. that doesn't happen all that often. It's thoughtful, emotionally powerful and features a truly great character who manages to be completely compelling while speaking a grand total of 5 words.
8.2/10.. do yourself a favor and see this incredibly watchable flick in the theaters.
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