blogger Q's Celebrity Update

Hi all I am the first guest blogger on Bigredcrunch.blogspot.com. As many of you know Ben is getting married on Sat. So congratulations on that. Here is some dirt I heard lately:

Manny R. (of sports fame) cuts the bottom layer of skin off homeless peoples' feet then uses the skin as a strainer in his specially imported coffee.

Paula A. (of TV and music fame) likes to screw the caps off salt shakers and then barely attach them so that it will spill salt all over the place the next time it is used. Surprisingly she only does this at Denny's.

Eric C. (of music fame) use to have a cocaine problem! Also had a long affair with the wife of George H. (who rumor has it is dead).

Sarah P. (of national notoriety) is actually going to pull an Arron Burr (look it up)

Tony H. (of sports fame) has never actually played his video game because hes Amish.

Will S. (of last man on Earth fame) was recently seen gallivanting with Susan S. (of acting fame) in the L.A. river. Word has it they were fighting giant ants, that mutated after the bomb blasts outside of Vegas but this could not be confirmed.

John C. (of savior of humanity fame) wishes that he could have one good nights sleep.

Brad P. (of acting fame) was recently seen discovering the lost city of El Dorado, only to be disappointed when it turned out to be Atlantis, only to be further disappointed to learn it was a set for Stargate.

Micheal L. (of acting fame) was recently seen among the living. This time as an angel that helps people to earn his way into heaven as though on some sort of road.

That's all for now. If you know anymore dirt from tinsel town please post in comments also don't use full names so we can't get sued.

Grassroots Cont....

73, 75. Tropic Thunder
I get what Ben Stiller was going for here. And it was hilarious and wrong and shot just perfectly. But it's hard I think for most of the people going to see funny movies to get the deeply rooted messages that are in this movie. And it will probably suffer at the box office because of it. But I don't care. Stiller made everyone so much money with Meet the Parents/Fockers that he can make whatever he wants. And if he does stuff like this or zoolander, I'm in.

76. Masters of Horror: We All Scream for Ice Cream
A nice little horror movie about voodoo ice cream. That's right. If your kid eats the voodoo ice cream, you painfully and graphically melt into piles of ice cream. Featuring one of the guys from Oz, who's name escapes me, as the protagonist who is fighting against the evil clown spreading the voodoo. It was pretty ok. The nice thing about the MOH series is that they are only 60 minutes long. This story is helped by that as it would have had to stretch really far to make an extra 30 minutes.

77. Wire in the Blood: Torment
I remember what this one was about, unlike the previous entry in the series. I was looking forward to this one as I read the novel it was based on. The novel was really good and featured some interesting twists and turns. So when I was watching this adaptation, I knew the twists that were coming up. Though I knew, it made the experience better. They do a really good job of subtle foreshadowing, which makes it easier to re-watch later. Because I knew who the baddies were, I could scowl as they tipped their hats and gave off clues.

78. What Happens in Vegas
On the way up to a friends house for Labor Day festivities, I had the good idea to take my computer and a movie to watch in the car. I figured it would allow me to pass the time and pad the stats at the same time. I failed to take into account the fact that I would be sitting in the back seat, which is small compared to me. Factor in that I have a very large laptop that didn't fit on my lap, due again to the large man/small back seat equation, and the sun glare that came in from all sides because this was around 4pm, and it was less than optimal conditions for movie watching.
The 30 second trailer made sure to include all the funny parts in it, so there was nothing surprising coming. The trailer also included one of my favorite comedians, Zack Galifinakis. What the trailer also included was his entire performance in the movie, which was disappointing. There were a few other funny parts, but overall this was another rom com. Though this one was heavier on the com till close to the end, when it ramped up with the romance. Overall it was cute and not terrible. I liked it better than 27 Dresses, which isn't saying much.

And that catches me up on the blogging. I need to step it up if I'm going to make my goal for the year. The wedding is less than 6 weeks away, so it will be a juggling act between school commitments and wedding plans.

Grassroots Movement

68. Step Brothers.
It's not a secret that Will Ferral has turned himself and his preferred style of comedy into a money making machine that churns out movie after movie riffing on the same things just with different backgrounds. Step Brothers is right in line with most of this, but veers off into a more "adult" direction. I say adult because he just cusses more and has some brief, yet funny, scenes of man danglies. The basic plot is two adult men who refuse to grow up and enjoy video games, kung fu, rocking out, and general silliness. Somehow I broke down the walls and connected with these two dueling personalities. It was a stretch, dear reader, but I made that leap. Very funny at times, and overall enjoyable. Though I was glad to only pay $5 for it, since there was really nothing in there that needed viewing on a big screen. It also achieved status of a movie that Adie would be embarrassed being seen at by her students/parents. Though that list continually grows when she's out with me.

69. Sex and the City
Yes, I know how unlike me it was to watch all the shows and the movie. Yes I know that my masculinity can be called into question because of all this. And No, I didn't start peeing sitting down while I took these in. As some of you may or may not know I have a fairly addictive personality. Once my mind grabs onto something I grab all I can until I have either finished or super saturated myself. So once I got the SATC bug with Kristen at the start of the summer, coupled with the interwebs available to me to acquire what I needed, it was a foregone conclusion that it would be all over for me. So once the movie came out and I was able to aquire it, I waited until I was done with everything else. As was my habit with SATC, I generally only watched them when I was alone, and could watch like 15 episodes in a row. So one day when Adie was away I fired up the movie to finish this odyssey. Surprisingly, I felt more like simpson than homer throughout.
The movie took some criticism from the critics because it was too long, had cheesy voice overs, and had no strong male characters. Of course this is exactly what made the show popular, and if the movie makers had veered from their formula they probably would have had a riot of horny middle aged housewives on their hands. The movie effectively continued the overall story arcs of all the characters, and wrapped up in a predictable fashion that both tied everything up neatly, but also left the door open in case they make a sequal(read:want to make lots more money). My one complaint in the context of the stories is how they wrapped up Samantha's storyline. They spent the better part of the last season and movie establishing how she had grown and changed, only to erase it all for no real good reason.
Now excuse me while I go pee sitting down. SHIT!!! My secret is out.
(It was also a coincidence that SATC was the 69th movie of the year)

70. Hannibal Rising
Another one of my obsessions is the acquisitions of DVD's. I have over 500 when you factor in box sets. And inevitably I buy DVD's that I have never seen, but that I have a feeling I will enjoy. So when I found Hannibal Rising, the prequel if you will to the Hannibal Lecter story, for a cheap price one day at Blockbuster I snatched it up. So one day when a buddy came over to watch a movie, I let him pick. He picked this one as he was also a Hannibal fan and it was on my DVD's I own that I have never seen list. Well we are both are horror movie buffs and were ready to see what Hannibal was all about. We quickly realized he was all about his creators cashing in on a big check. His back story was very convoluted and pretty dumb. The whole movie was basically his revenge on some people that wronged him and his sister when they were little. But it was boring and dumb and very predictable. This had something to do with the fact that of course we knew Hannibal was never going to die, because he appears in several movies that are set after this. This is one of my main complaints with dramatic situations in series. Such as 24. Everyone knows that Jack Bauer isn't going to die in season 3, when season 6 is already out. Even if you haven't seen a second of it, you know whatever sticky situation Bauer gets himself into, he'll survive. Anyway, back on point. One good part of the movie was the unknown french guy they got to play young Hannibal. He was quite good at emulating what Hopkins had earlier done with the character. He did the best he could with a sub-par script. Skip it if you can. I also quickly sold this DVD after we watched it, which marked a rarity for me where I get rid of DVDs.

71. Cracker: A new terror
As I've reviewed before, this is a BBC series starring Haggred. This one was good and dark as it covered some PTSD of war veterens while also touching on the Iraq war and it's potential consequenses on the soldiers that are fighting. A former soldier snaps one night while flashing back to some war time experiences and starts killing people. Haggred tracks him down and tries to help him, but he's to far gone. This was a very dark and powerful movie, which again confirmed to me that the British can put together much finer psychological dramas than Americans on TV.

72. Wire in the Blood: Time to Murder and Create
Just as I compliment the Brits, I follow it up with a damning post. Another one of my favorite BBC series is wire in the blood. To date I've watched 14 in this series, each one that clocks in at 1:30. But for the life of me I can't remember what this one was about. Even my very basic search of wikipedia and imdb about this episode gave me nothing to jog the memory. This is one of the problems with not updating the blog as I watch things. It's lost in the ether somewhere. I dont' remember hating this one, but I can' tell you anything about it. I'll need to work on that, as one of the main reasons besides sharing with my dear readers my very important ramblings, it is an effective way for me to chronicale what I media I take in in a year and remember what I thought about it for later reflection.

74. Ghost Rider
Another of the DVD's that I thought I would like, but ended up not. Though to be fair this was recomended to me because it was so terrible. And man were they not kidding. Nic Cage has no place doing action movies anymore. I know he did this film because he's a huge comic book nerd, but really he didn't have anything to do with the production and script. But man it's laughably bad. Avoid, even if you like comics and ghost rider. I also promptly sold this one too, so not only can I mark it on the list for the year, I can remove it from my DVD list. Booyakasha!!!

Bow Down Before the One you Serve

Calling all (any) readers. As I have slowed in my updates to what could only be considered a snail's pace, I'm putting out a request to anyone who actually visits this page to send me some suggestions about what you want to hear me spew about. Hopefully I will get a few submissions to jump start the creative process once again.

BREAKING NEWS...I'm slow at updates

59. Paul Mooney: Analyzing White America
Paul Mooney was first introduced to me on Chappelle's show and I was intrigued by his delivery and style of comedy. He's quite up front and confrontational about his perceived slights. This was a recording of his stand up routine. While he's not very animated, and spends the entire set sitting back in a chair, he is no less captivating or boring because of it. While some of his material is more social commentary than actual comedy, he still delivers some funny stuff and entertains throughout.

61. 27 Dresses
Adie enjoyed this one. It starred Katherine Heigel, who I used to enjoy on Grey's Anatomy and in Knocked Up but who has fallen out of grace with me after she publicly bashed Knocked Up and it's creators as being misogynistic and exploitative. Here's a quick thought. If you thought it was derogatory and a bad role for you, don't take it. Here's one more. Don't bash the people that launched your movie career only after you've made a few more films (read: money). Anyway, this was a "rom-com" centered around weddings and whatnot. I'm sure it resonated a bit more with Adie due to the pending nuptials. I watched it with her one night to pad the stats for this year. It was light on both the rom and the com and ended up being really boring to me. Feel free to skip this unless your body possess ovaries.

62. The Love Guru
Skip it. It's not funny. It's borderline offensive if you think you know what funny is. I equated this the other day to a friend to be "Mike Meyers did something funny that was funny in 1997. And he's never changed the jokes. Just the wording. But the jokes remain the same. And if you hear a joke now that you heard 11 years ago, it's not going to be funny anymore." I only laughed one time, and it was during a scene where Mike Meyers was no where to be found.

63. The Dark Knight
You may have noticed, intrepid reader that I skipped a number earlier. Or you may have not noticed at all, in which case, shame on your head. You must read every last character that I churn out here. For they are all my children and I love them equally. Anyway, I saw The Dark Knight twice in a week. Thus the skipping of order.
It was awesome.
Dark, violent, and well paced. I love that Nolan doesn't have to bow to any pressures from the studio to make it family friendly like the original sequels. There isn't the need for huge tie ins to every imaginable product that must be acceptable to everyone in the world. The studio let the people make an awesome movie, and they will end up making close to a billion dollars on the whole thing when it's said and done.
The Joker is the best villain Batman has, and they nailed it down in the film. He's presented just as he should be in this type of movie. He's just a crazed man not afraid of anything and ready to deal out mayhem at the drop of a card.
My one complaint is the completely overacted and distractingly funny way Bale decides to voice Batman. They explain why he does it in the movie, to hide his real identity, but it's just so cheesy and fake. But if that's my only complaint about the movie, then they kicked some major ass.

64. Vince Vaughn's Wild West Comedy Tour
One dark and gloomy day I found myself at home alone. Faced with a dark cloud overhead and nothing else to distract me I turned to Netflix and their wonderful new "View it now" option. I ended up watching three comedies in hopes of boosting my mood.
The first was this Vince Vaughn project. Much like the Dane Cook Tourgasm from a few years ago, they filmed a group of lesser know comics on the road with a well known headliner. The four guys they picked for the show were funny at times, adequate the rest of the time. It was more a documentary about their travels as they put on 30 shows in 30 nights. They toured the hurricane damaged south and donated money to charity. They toured around and did whatever they wanted for 30 days.
Overall it was funny at times. If you like seeing the behind the scenes stuff that goes into a traveling concert tour, than this will appeal to you more. But if you think your just going to see two hours of comedy, than you would be disappointed.

65. The Comedians of Comedy: The Movie
This was a repeat for me, but I knew it would guarantee a laugh. I love the four comics that they used for this project. Much like the previous entry, they followed comics trying something different and documented not only the shows by the rest of their travels. Check it out. It's much better put together and features some truly alternative and subversive comedy that will entertain to no end.

66. Super High Me
A documentary featuring known pot head Doug Benson in his quest to see the effects on his body after not smoking weed for 3o days, and then smoking weed all the time for 30 days following. He went to numerous doctors and psychologists to test his memory, IQ, psychic ability, sperm count, and overall health while he was "clean" and then took the same tests during his month long high. Overall it didn't make a huge difference either way to any of the tests. His one major revelation was that he thought he would be sick of smoking after 30 days, and he wasn't. And when I say he was high for 30 days, I mean all fucking day. He would smoke as soon as he got up and continue throughout the day until he went to sleep. There wasn't a waking moment for him that month that he wasn't high.
And much like Dave Chappelle has admitted, random people will recognize him and just give him drugs. So he's never at a shortage for weed.
This also featured a sub plot about the licenced and legal distributors in California who provide weed and weed products to those prescribed it medically. I'm not saying that those people shouldn't be able to use the drug to dull their pain. But instead of focusing on the patients and their true need for it, they just focused more on how the DEA wants to shut them down and how stupid hippies in cali think that their rights are being infringed upon. They call for the local government and police to enforce the state law, which allows the medical sale of weed, over the governmental jurisdiction. The funny part is that anywhere else in America you could never do what they do there. And they are all up in arms when one dispensary gets shut down for like a week. But the movie makes a point of pointing out that the number of dispensaries is constantly on the rise, and that there were like 300 others in the LA area that they could go to during that ONE WEEK they couldn't go to their preferred weed dealer.

67) Blade 2
I re-watched this one morning instead of tuning into my regular morning dose of sportscenter. And it pretty much was what I remembered. I think it was the best of the three blade offerings. The first movie was pretty awesome, but they had to set up all the back story and whatnot which had a tendency to drag on. The second offering in the series already had the basics established. Right off the bat they introduce the main villain, who kicks alot of ass. A new breed of vampire that was genetically modified by the other vampires in hopes that their known weaknesses would be erased. But in doing so, they created a creature much stronger than anything else, and someone who is really pissed at being cast off. So instead of the vampires feasting on the humans, and Blade trying to save them, it's a Vampire turning other vampires into it's bitch. Of course eventually they would turn on the humans once they ran out, but this movie doesn't fall into that old trap.
The visuals are pretty cool, the fight scenes passable. It was pretty good I thought. Any horror movie that takes a oft-tread theme, such as vampires or zombies, and can create something new out of it I will typically be a fan regardless.

If I could choose
I would rather be a king
Like Elvis, not Henry
Same amount of women, much less guillotine costs.

If I could decide
I'd rather be a priest like Judas
Not Jesus
Groupies all around
and some won't crucify you

And if I could pick
between damnation and redemption
I would choose happiness over all

KCBS #1

In a few short minutes we are heading to Madison for a BBQ, Blues, and Hot Air Balloon festival. This will be my first opportunity to use my prowess as a official barbeque judge. Tomorrow I will be graced with 6 portions of Chicken, Beef Brisket, Ribs, and Pork Butt. Also on the menu is a sauce contest, an "Anything Butt" competition (i.e. more meat) and finally a banana themed dessert battle.

This will be a three and a half hour orgy of meat and bananas. I'm going to do my best to not throw up or have explosive diarrhea during the middle of the competition.