The Cavillari

Saint's Row - White Guys Are Cool

2006-09-05T15:01:00.000-05:00

My pearl-faced and glorious device that helps me through the long, dark, lonely nights of a reality living in a basement with my two "roommates" (as Grandma's Boy taught me to refer to them) upstairs got to inject itself with a little awesome last week. His name is Saint's Row and he's an aquarius, enjoys long walks with the boys in matching token primary colors, car theft, drug trafficking, and ho-stealing. The homosexual overtones I ascribe to my xbox 360 aside, this is a good game.

Being a literary loser (not to be confused with a literal loser, who may, for instance, live in his parents' basement because his job doesn't pay him enough to move out, which I also am), my focus on 90% of the games I enjoy is the storyline. A lot of the time this means that I am, obviously, left very disappointed by the experience. But every so often, that is not the case. For every "Redneck Rampage" I get a Half-Life, for every Quake2 there is Halo, and so on into eternity. I think our storyline engrossing experience taps out at the original Knights of the Old Republic. You won't fine a better written game than that.

So armed with a desire for razorsharp wit, three dimensional characters, and maybe a helping of decent gameplay to back it up, I dove into Saint's Row. What I got was a little bit of all of the above. It has some fun and engaging characters with some top-notch voiceover work (voiceover luminaries like the dude who was Goliath in Gargoyles, Clancy Brown, the big black guy from The Green Mile, Mila Kunis, Daniel Dae Kim, and so on), a storyline that is about as compelling as a tier 2 summer movie (Crank, or anything with Jet Li in it, for instance), and gameplay pilfered straight from the ultra popular Grand Theft Auto franchise. And, if you're keeping track, a videogame with a storyline as good as Crank basically puts it near Shakespeare compared to the usual stuff.

So the game is good. Not amazing. It's good. It suffers from a clearly limited development cycle, but has enough that we were satisfied when we finished it. There are a few hilarious, laugh-out-loud moments, and the magnitude of what you can tell your little gangbanger (I made my guy look like Eminem because I'm a fag) to go do. My favorite scandal was the Car Insurance scam, whereby you tell your gangbanger to run out into the street and get slammed into by speeding automobiles. The more painful the impact, the more crap you bounce off of, the more bones you shatter? The more money you can claim in your insurance scandal and the more that goes in your pocket to buy stuff like Uzis, hand grenades, hookers, and tricked out rice rockets.

A lot of people are on the fence about this game because it is a clear GTA clone. I say this to them: who the fuck cares? It's as good as those games are, it's the only one available for the 360, and those games are so fun why is a little bit more of it a bad thing? Would you not buy another Japanese RPG because they are clear ripoff's of Final Fantasy? No? So shut the hell up and go grab a Socialite (Saint's Row's version of a Mercedes) from some grandmother, take it to the mechanic, add a giant racing spoiler, gold rims, an iridescent purple paint job, and run over some FBI Agents. With their blood still splattered on your windshield, swerve across the street to the jewlery store and buy a platinum antichrist medallion for $2,000, whip out your Glock 9 on the cashier, and rob the store of the money you just gave them for the beautiful piece of neckware. This isn't rocket science, people.

And if you were still on the fence about your chance to be a real live Kevin Federline? Remember that you can buy a pimp coat. A fully neon pink pimp coat. And a hat. You can bring your green hat, Snoop. We're going streaking.

Huh?

Ideas Other People Have Thought of First

2006-08-30T08:43:00.000-05:00

A comedian has probably done something like this already, somewhere, but when the brightest candles in comedy are Dane Cook and Larry the Cable Guy, maybe not. I mean, have you ever honestly watched them do standup? I miss Eddie Murphy.

Anyway, here's the really bad bit that is more a subversive attempt to illuminate a troubling aspect of our society. See if you can read between the lines, gentle readers.

"So I got arrested the other day. I got pulled over by a cop for going 15 over the speed limit on the highway but I was just keeping pace with the flow of traffic. For some reason that smelly piece of shit cop singled me out of the five hundred cars that whizzed by him in the last five minutes. So, when he asked for my license and registration, I said exactly that. I said, 'You smelly piece of shit, what did I do to get singled out?'"

"Five seconds later, I was handcuffed and in the back of his car. Now, what do you do when you're in the process of being arrested? You always try and get out of it. People do whatever they can to avoid a ticket. So I'm sitting there thinking about what an idiot I am, in the back of this cop car, I'm thinking about how my diarrhea of the mouth has gotten me into it again. And then, wham! It hits me. Diarrhea. So I lean forward and start talking to the cop. I say this...”

"You know what is messed up about human beings? We are so germaphobic that we're now buying 'hand sanitizer' that we can carry around in our pockets. We squeeze this magic little goo onto our hands, rub a little bit, and then we are supposedly cured of all the deadly microscopic substances floating on our hands. Somewhere, Johnson and Johnson (that is his real name, right?) is laughing his way to the grave."

"But what is even more interesting about all of this is that, we as a society, being so concerned that we pay $6 for these alleged hand sanitizers, still do exactly this every time they go to the bathroom. We take our crap, then we reach over and we start wiping our ass with toilet paper. We then stand up, spend two minutes tucking our shirt back in, and walk over to the sink to wash our hands. This is the order of events for just about everyone on the planet, right?”

“I took a crap, I wiped that misery from myself with my hand and some toilet paper, and then I went to the sink and started tucking my shirt in with that same hand. I then washed my hands. So what does that mean, officer? That means that every single one of us, except those few friends south of the border who might not ever wipe, is walking around with the same microscopic fecal matter on our shirts, our pants, all of it. It's all over us."

"So the next time I call you a smelly piece of shit after you pull me over on the highway? It isn't personal. You really are."

Entourage - Sorry, Ari

2006-08-29T08:44:00.000-05:00

So thus concludes what has become the predominant source of content on this blog: season three of Entourage. I cannot say that I’m not a little sad with its passing. I’ll be forced to fill my Sunday nights playing with myself while looking at the cover of the latest issue of Maxim. I just hope nobody is recording me.

The pseudo-finale itself was decent, but not outstanding. It had a few strong comedic moments but, like a lot of the things this season, the attempts at a thicker and more poignant dramatic chord didn’t work as well. I’m not sure if it is just a case of last year having been so strong in this department, or if it just isn’t as tightly written this year, but I didn’t find Ari’s plight to save Vince as his client all that perilous. Lloyd’s big reoccurring pick-me-up speech was flat, whereas last year it was juiced with pathos, and suddenly Hollywood Eric’s final line was delivered with all the conviction of a Terrell Owens apology.

About the best element of “Sorry, Ari” had to be the sudden cameo by pretend superagent Josh Weinstein. Those two minutes were some of the best of season three, culminating in the shared look of Eric and Vince as yet another incredibly lame powerpoint presentation flashed. Unfortunately, because the show’s writers wanted Vince to fire Ari, they made the character suddenly oblivious to the fact that claiming your star will be bigger than both Microsoft and McDonalds is probably a bad idea. I don’t for a second believe, as he’s been portrayed previously, Ari would be this retarded. And that’s the crux of the problem. The “real” Ari Gold would have known that Vince had been sitting through those ridiculous agent meetings all day, started a powerpoint, and inserted a shot of Jessica Biel getting hammered by some billionaire’s son over the railing at Atlantis in the Bahamas (replace Jessica Biel with any other twenty-something celebrity) before going on a three minute monologue about how Vince is the sunshine of his eye.

Now, instead, for narrative convenience we’ll have a half a season where Ari tries to woo Vince back into the fold and everyone realizes that they need one another because their ties of friendship are stronger than barf, barf, barf. It’s very telegraphed. They need to find a way to surprise me, like they did when I thought Vince was going to lose Aquaman to Leonardo DiCaprio.

After the first episode, Aquamom, aired this season I said the following: “If you go back and watch the season 2 premiere or even the season 1 premiere, neither of them were horrendously funny but they setup the themes of the season. Last year, Aquaman was floated as Vinny's only option for a lagging career, E's love life, Turtle's underappreciated sense of worth, and Johnny's continued sagging career. By the end of the season, we'd seen these threads followed through: Vince did Aquaman and his career is back in the upswing, E has a new rich and very cool girlfriend while establishing that he can manage in Hollywood, Turtle had branched into the recording industry, and only Drama stayed where he started due to his own neurosis.”

So what was the theme for season three? Season two was all about the climb to the top, and season three was the battle to stay there, and ended with the characters in the exact opposite condition they had been the previous season. Turtle lost Saigon, his client, and now again seems to have no particular goal in life beyond being Vince’s driver. Vince has no job, no movie, and no prospects on the horizon instead of walking into the biggest movie in cinema history. Eric’s mismanaged his only client to the point he might be out a career by advocating he fire his incredibly dedicated superagent and badmouth a studio before the Hollywood Foreign Press. And, where last season Drama was the one character who didn’t progress towards potential success, this year he’s also the only character who ends the season on a high note. He’s turned in a fantastic performance in a potentially huge television pilot.

Entourage - What About Bob?

2006-08-21T08:33:00.000-05:00

"Okay, Eric, but only because you have very soft eyes," and with that, I am reminded why I should be a lifelong fan of Martin Landau. There aren't very many people alive who can play an elderly Jewish man who you have to feel compassion for as well as him. Witness his role as the Judge in Rounders and tell me you don't wish he was your father. That's why the about face, "You fucked me I'll fuck you" turn at the end of this episode worked so well. You actually feel more bad for Bob than you do for Ari.

That, unfortunately, may be the limit of what I liked about this new direction Entourage is taking into the pseudo-season finale (it isn't the real finale, they just broke one season into two for $ because The Sopranos got bumped back until Marchish). Unlike last season, we're actually in the middle point, near the end of Act II and charging towards Act III, so I anticipate a lot of people will feel a little let down after next week's "finale." That all aside, the new direction of the foursome + Ari's dynamic is questionable. I'm not totally buying it.

Ari Gold sticks with Vince through thick and thin, and Vince sticks with Ari through thick and thin. Ari is a superagent but is strangely devoted to making Vince into the biggest movie star on the planet. So he makes one questionabley bad decision and suddenly we're supposed to buy that they actually want to fire Ari? Sure, we bought it in the beginning of season two when Vince didn't want to take the fat studio paycheck and Ari threatened him with finding a new agent, but now the group has been through so much I'm having a harder time stomaching it.

Do I think they will actually fire Ari? Yes. Do I think it will remain that way? No. Do I think Malcolm McDowell will somehow be involved? Yes. Am I excited for that? A little bit. But I'm having to suspend my disbelief if it actually happens, and I really doubt it'll all be wrapped up in 24 minutes next week. Even to a suitable cliffhangar.

Speaking more about What About Bob, I'm sure everyone loved the Johnny Drama onset disaster #10. It is debatable which is more embarassing, getting caught on tape slapping the salami or popping a huge erection while scening with Brooke Shields. Luckily for Johnny, this time, Ed Burns laughed it off and used it to wrestle a performance where his previous erectile error cost him his gig in the Movie of the Week.

It was also nice to see a little bit of just Vince and Turtle. I'm not sure we've ever actually seen that happen, just the two of them interacting together. There was some surprisingly good chemistry. In a whining, wounded, pet dog to master kind of way, anyway. Perhaps that is why Doug Ellin made sure to show us Turtle's dog chasing the boys as they stormed out of their five million dollar estate to tackle the day?

There's been some facetious talk about Marky Mark actually wanting to produce a real Aquaman movie with some crazy life imitating art element by having Vinny Chase as the lead, but I can't help but think I would much rather see I Wanna Be Sedated become a real, legitimate, film. It's actually a brilliant concept and a role I could see Adrian Grenier playing. He, at least, looks the part and has the goofy, dumpy, we're not sure if there is anything behind that boyish smile, look going for him.

And can somebody explain to me "DJ AM's" popularity? How did this rich, white, Jewish guy become the DJ-of-the-stars, land a gig on E!, and a cameo on Entourage? Would I ever want some upper-upper-class white guy to "spin" his fancy tunes at my wedding? I don't get this guy. He fascinates me. I wonder if he's secretly Hollywood's A-list drug dealer. There's gotta be more to it. I can't see Doctor Dre calling up his boy Goldstein to come slice a few beats. This isn't Hustle and Flow. White dudes do not know how to spin. And if DJ AM actually does? How did he learn? What's going on?

So one episode left before we go on hiatus for 6 months or so (unless HBO decides to again change the scheduling). Overall, season three has brought more of the same, but didn't quite have the edge that season two felt. At this point last year, Ari had just had his Jerry Maguire-esque expulsion from his agency and was spiraling into decay. We didn't know what would happen to him and we had the fantastic sequence from floor eviction, to garage punching, to drunk in the driveway. It was probably the finest episode of television that year.

This year, we spend 20 minutes watching Turtle try and get a pair of shoes.

Entourage Wounded

2006-08-14T09:22:00.000-05:00

Johnny Drama hurt his arm in his battle royale with Seth Green, and I missed last night's episode while I was in the hospital with him. Review will be posted sometime tonight or tomorrow.

Hail to to my TiVo masters.

Entourage - Vegas Baby, Vegas!

2006-08-07T07:47:00.000-05:00

I fell pray to my own hype this week. Vegas Baby, Vegas! had all the strappings to be a legendary episode. I knew about the boys taking a trip to Vegas since before season 3 aired, thanks to the vast majority of their press junkets being held while they were filming at the lovely Hard Rock Hotel and Casino.

I knew about Seth Green's impending second cameo and the fact that he was rolling four deep with his own entourage. I knew that, for some reason, they would get into a fight and that Kevin Dillon would -- in the course of things -- break his arm (this being in reality, not Kevin-as-Drama breaking his arm).

There really wasn't very much that I didn't know about the foursome's trip to the happiest place on earth. And, knowing what I knew, I couldn't think of anything that could be potentially better than this episode. In my mind I had flashes of Ocean's 11 meeting Swingers and all shaken up with a dash of Chevy Chase's Vegas Family Vacation (huh?). You get the idea. I was fully aroused for way too long. I gave myself Entourage Blue Balls.

So there is no way I can realistically evaluate this episode's merits or lack there of. I had such high expectations. I had impossible hopes. I will say that I enjoyed the episode, but obviously, it didn't quite live up to the billing in my mind. How could it? Would they have ever been able to recover if Vince was banging four strippers in the back of a Taxi Cab while being recorded for Taxi Cab Confessions XXVII? Or if Johnny Drama and Turtle got in a fight with a gay transvestite at the Bunny Ranch when he tried to steal their chosen girl? It just wasn't possible.

What was funny about this episode, which for being in the land of love was surprisingly serious, were Ari Gold's gambling hysterics. Mostly because he acted exactly how I like to act when, nine red bull and vodka's deep, I'm swearing at the Thailandian black jack dealer after she slams me with 16 after 16. How on a cruise, where the only option a casino has to deal with a belligerent gambler is to leave them at a communist depot off the cost of Cuba, I passed the threshold of being a loud and obnoxious guy at the blackjack table and straight into an endearing and loud character that people wanted to be around. That's funny, when people give up and just join you.

That digression aside (playing $5 blackjack and swearing isn't quite the same as $300,000 a hand), Drama's head of steam is probably going to come back to haunt him. His temper, once again, was in full effect. They're really playing up that aspect of the character in recent episodes. While I always preferred him a neurotic mess, now it seems easier to just make him a hot-head who loses his cool over the weirdest things. Like his ex-NFL Wideout massage therapist admitting that the adoration bestowed upon him has tempted him to offer Drama some gay sex. What's wrong with that? Give him the decline, Johnny, and then use him to land some of those strippers.

It was nice to see Laissez-faire Vincent Chase return to the table. You know who I mean. The shrugging, give-a-shit about his image, Vince from season one and two. Rather than championing independent values and the moral highroad, Vince just smiles, waves, and lets his unending pool of charm and luck carry him through the day. The fact that he stood there with Ari, laughing as his boys took down Seth Green (I didn't catch if he was getting beat down with his Entourage too), was great.

Still, I can't help but feel like Doug Ellin should have checked out a few of Bill Simmons -- The Sport's Guy -- columns about his trips to Vegas with three of his best friends. And Simmons isn't even The Biggest Movie Star on the Planet and him and his boys had a more romantic, hilarious, few trips down to the Strip than Vince and E. But hey, maybe they'll save all that for season four, when a washed up Vince moves to Vegas to headline a Magic Show with Penn and Teller.

Entourage - The Release

2006-07-31T07:20:00.000-05:00

"VICTORY!"

The sly return of Johnny Drama's trademark catchphrase was perfectly placed, not over the top at all, and completely believable. The rest of this episode could have consisted of Dom banging Turtle behind the yellow Hummer while Vince talked to E about mortgage payments and I would still have liked this episode.

What was good about this episode were all the callbacks to season two. There was the return of indie directory Billy Walsh, full of his usual artiste neurosis and about fifteen different "suit"-bombs lobbed at Eric. What was even better was the reemergence of the Drama Audition Fever, wherein the dude goes completely batshit insane on the day of any major audition. I love that. They could make a show about his meltdowns that aired 24-hours a day and I'd watch it. The fact that Turtle is always the one there with him to witness the explosions is even better. The traffic cop pointing his 'laser' guns at Drama and firing was great.

What wasn't so great was the pacing of everything else. Where last week was a huge injection of character, this week was a huge injection of plot. The pacing is off a little bit; they aren't doing as good of a job this season in weaving it all together. Most people seem to think that Vince is totally trashing his chances of becoming the Biggest Movie Star on the Planet by enraging yet another studio in his public PR debacle, but I think this was a precalculated move by Vince and Eric.

Remember something here, Eric is the smart one who makes the good decisions. He was involved in this decision, unlike Vince's diva denial of breakfast with the Aquaman studio. Could it be possible that they're doing this deliberately now? That they are building the aura of Vincent Chase as this super-principled anti-authority pop culture figure who says "Fuck you" to the studios and just wants to make kickass movies? If, say, Matt Damon did this sort of thing in real life wouldn't you instantly become a fan? Wouldn't you want to see the movies he was in?

Vince could be helping his career on two-sides by doing this. He is building gigantic street cred with the American population by not being a corporate stooge. He's also making it clear to anyone who wants to work with him that he isn't going to compromise his ethics and values of what good cinema is for an easy paycheck. That'll strike a cord with the directors, the real power of Hollywood, at the expense of all the studio executives. So he'll become a figure in popular culture who is incredibly popular for his rebel with a cause ethics (forcing the studios to buckle and put this guy in films anyway) and he'll have the respect of the creative Hollywood community.

Or it could all explode in his face. But I think that is the goal, anyway. I think that is Eric trying to play spin doctor. If you're already Terrell Owens, why not take a shot? And Terrell Owens, my friends, is still getting paid because his talent outweighs his insanity. So might Vincent Chase.

The much anticipated trip to Vegas is next week. Seth Green returns in a second cameo and looks like his entourage is prepared to square off against our foursome. The new dynamic of Ari's second wife nagging him looks delicious, and I'll sit patiently waiting to see how Drama will self-destruct his big chance on Ed Burns pilot. You know it will happen, just like his erectile poking of Brooke Shields in the movie of the week last year came out of left field and floored you.

"He's hard," she said.

"Fuck anger management!" he said.

Entourage - Strange Days

2006-07-24T10:51:00.000-05:00

I like how this season, even moreso than last, is focusing on a small sliver of Vincent Chase's life. Namely, the period between projects. When Vince lands the gig and is off acting, we're on hiatus. When he comes back and has to navigate the world again, we're looking over his shoulder. Last night's episode was another one these 'A day in the life of...' episodes.

Only in this case, it was A Day in the life of Eric. While his threesome woes were amusing, I think the writers were expecting the payoff of watching E feel very awkward while his three friends shilled dude-advice at him to be greater than it ended up actually being. I mean, sure, it was enough to work in one great Connolly line about crossing swords, a gratuitous Seth Green cameo (he'll be back in later episodes as we saw the seeds of Vince's first big celebrity rivalry there in the Sloane dig), and the return of Malcolm McDowell... But it didn't feel like anything truly happened. It was an episode focused on character over plot. Which is fine when it works, in this case, when the character and the plot coordinate well and we feel like we're getting a lot of both. Here, we only got one.

By far the best aspect of the episode was the fact that Ari's superlawyer, a lanky spectacled wimp, is named "Bear" and that he sat in the room entirely inert while Ari and Terrence pounded on each other. I don't think we've seen the last of McDowell this season, either.

Entourage has a tendency to cycle around on some sort of karmic loop. Vince becomes the biggest movie star on the planet but then his ego, thinking he's bigger than the studio, comes back to bite him in the ass. He's worse than Terrell Owens this week. Next week it will be Barry Bonds, when the 90 year old lady who bought him turns out to be the grandmother of someone important. This same karmic loop, however, leaves me girded with anticipation at how Ari will finally reap his delicious vindication on perennial thorn Adam Davies. When Davies screwed Ari last season, we got a momentary flash of alleged sex with Davies' girlfriend, but that wasn't enough. I'm anticipating something so terrible, something so great, I'm having a heart palpitation thinking about it. Something like Ari getting Davies arrested for embezzlement and corporate fraud, sending him to prison, and then hiring some of Saigon's posse to indoctrinate him to the sodomy sandwich from cellblock C.

So this episode was a day in their lives. Turtle barely spoke, Drama was again delegated to his role of striding over from his built-in-wok -- firing a one-liner -- and then disappearing into the background. Vince continued to tarnish his reputation, and Eric probably became the first guy on the planet to ruin his relationship without ever putting his penis in another girl.

But all in all, a mediocre episode that had our boys playing up their characters too much. We get it that E overthinks things and has trouble managing his own life while ironically doing it for other people so well. We get that without E, Vince is self-destructive and seductive. And we understand that Ari's ambition sails beyond the biggest skyscraper.

But the promise of another Drama "VICTORY!" (we've waited all season, haven't we?) is enough to keep us going. And that superagent sit-down looks fun too.

Dude List: Rescue Me - Satisfaction

2006-07-19T08:22:00.000-05:00

(this post will contain spoilers for season one, two, and three of Rescue Me)

In light and err, I didn't undertake the effort of a weekly post-episode watercooler recap like I'm doing for Entourage with Rescue Me. That showed a lack of foresight. I deserve to be mocked for that.

But to be honest, despite raving about this show as a great compliment to Entourage a few weeks ago, I entered into season three with a lukewarm reception. I was like every guy who has seen Goodfellas when they first glimpse the doppelganger wearing Ray Liotta's skin in tv spots for his new CBS show, Smith. Okay, it's Ray Liotta and he earned our faith, but he looks like the Goodyear Blimp with his face stapled onto it. We're not sure which way this can go. Intelligently, CBS added Amy Smart who earned our love for being naked in Road Trip.

So I came into season 3 lukewarm because season 2 was not nearly as good as season one for me. I felt it was a little bit hamfisted, dropped some of the more compelling elements for easier dramatic scenarios (the obviously gay guy in the firehouse being one), and was generally paced poorly. Things were rushed through and the bam, his kid is killed and we're on hiatus. This season, on the other hand, has been paced brilliantly and rather than being burdened by the season previously like season 2, has forged a bold new direction of brilliance.

Anyway. What I'm going to give you now is a list of dude moments from last night's episode of Rescue Me. Since I haven't received a check from FX for $5,000 after my boosting of their program last time, I figure this will cause enough of a viewership spike that I'll be able to retire to Fiji. Or maybe you'll have no context and stop reading this post right here. Either way, I still get paid.

So, with no further adieu and in no particular order, the best dude moment's from Satisfaction:

-Tommy takes his brother's ex-wife (she's in on the scam) to a Policeman's Ball to grope her and make out with her in public infront of all his brother's coworkers. His brother is dating his ex-wife legitimately.

-At the inevitable standoff between brothers, Tommy performs the enviable f-you manuever by swerving from his urinal. Yes, that's right, he pisses on his brother's tuxedo pants. It doesn't get better than that.

-Tommy parlays the opportunity to pretend date his brother's ex-wive, Marissa Tomei, into actually banging her with a deliriously lame line of, "You looked breathtaking in that blue sweater at my firstborn child's christening."

-The Chief is working extra shifts at a local Irish pub to help pay for his wife's medical care. The owner is stiffing him $400, so they call a friend in construction who hangs the owners car infront of the bar twenty feet in the air with a crane until he pays up.

-Probie says "I never did any of that gay stuff, I never kissed him or did anything like that. I just let him blow me. What guy would pass up on a good blowjob?" Uhm... Maybe this isn't such a dude list.

-Tommy fucks a resurgent Marissa Tomei, who while gyrating on him says something along the lines of "Be evil" because he's getting off on his revenge fantasy against his brother/ex-wife pairing.

-Sean snaps his ex-girlfriend with the verbal line of: "Yeah, I've been thinking about you and the other nine guys you were banging behind my back." Who hasn't wanted to say that to a crazy ex-girlfriend?

-Lou wishes beer grew on trees.

-Tommy fucks a resurgent Marissa Tomei again.

-The Chief tells off the 'suit', the Firehose Downtown executive, when he comes to inspect the house for any porno materials. The porno was all hidden in the firetruck's side compartment.

-Franco begins formulating a plan to ask the American Cancer Society to return a $2,000 donation. -Uncle Teddy, from prison, becomes engaged to a woman so that he can have conjugal visits (sex) with her.

-Same woman bribes a guard to give Teddy a cellphone so she can text message him naked photos of herself. He receives the right tit, the left tit, and then the moneyshot.

-Tommy gets date raped with a concoction of whatever that date rape pill is and viagra. Perhaps not male-fantasy, but pretty fucking funny. He then thinks he fell off the wagon (being a recovering alcoholic), because the crazy wench trashes his apartment afterwards and poors vodka all over him.

Revenge is a bitch, but Rescue Me's revenge on me for doubting it is one I can live with.

Feedbackimus Maximus: Try and Serve Me

2006-07-18T15:31:00.000-05:00

Here is a new feature for The Cavillari, dubbed in amazingly not-witty fashion by me as... Feedbackimus Maximus, in th spirit of next summer's THE TRANSFORMERS: A MICHAEL BAY FILM. You will get that joke if you have seen the 'announcement' trailer and are as big of a douchebag as me.

Anyway. My post about the thematic and archetypal similarities between Pirates of the Carribean 2: Dead Man's Chest and Star Wars: Episode V, The Empire Strikes Back has generated some buzz for more than the two sharing ridiculously long titles. I received an email from concerned reader "songtone17":

Hey,

You go out of your way to outline how Pirates 2's structure resembles Empire Strikes back, but I read that whole thing and was hoping for some interesting forecasts based on that information. Instead, you just say that you expect they'll twist the conventions. What gives?

Well. I'll tell you what gives, songtone17 (if that is really your name). Pirates screenwriters Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio are smart guys. If you don't believe me, examine it for yourself. They are pioneers in the "we're underappreciated screenwriters so we'll talk about how smart we are online" crowd (which I love and read desperately, as my links-bar will tell you, every day). Needless to say, browsing their articles for a few minutes and you will quickly realize one thing about that writing powerhouse: they know their genres and they know their movie conventions.

To think that those two, plus Gore Verbinski, weren't ACUTELY aware of what is and has gone on in the movie universe around them is ridiculous. I guarantee that, in deciding to push ahead with a sequel, Rossio and Elliott sat in a room and discussed the long pedigree of movie franchise sequels. They talked about the one's that worked, like the aforementioned Empire Strikes Back or Terminator 2, and they talked about the one's that didn't work, like The Matrix Reloaded, Major League 2, or The Master of Disguise 2 (wait, they didn't make that? Huh? Did the first one suck so bad I immediately flushed a sequel into my post-traumatically scarred mind?).

Firmly armed with a knowledge of what has worked and what hasn't worked in mega movie sequels (and more importantly, mega movie trilogies), the duo set about crafting their tale with the orchestral overture that is Darth Vader's Imperial March humming in the background. That got us to today. But Rossio and Elliott are sly bastards, too. They know their genres and they advocate, right on their website, the best screenplays stick to their genres and then -- when least expecting it -- diverge into something new. They play convention against the audience and thus, create a new convention that we haven't seen before.

Confused? Good, I'm too lazy to go find the direct quote in their archive, but it's there. A better solution to yield clarity is to...

Go watch Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. Feel my Derringer. It's faaaab-u-lous.

Now, songtone17, because Elliott and Rossio are smarter than I am -- they are paid screenwriters in Hollywood -- after all, I don't even want to wast my time hazarding guesses at what they will do in Pirates 2. But if you really must know, a poorly format and allegedly legitimate Act I to Pirates 2 was leaked onto the internet. I'm not a fan of this, so I won't link you, but you can probably find it via google.

Do I have my own fanboyish theories on what I think might happen? Sure. Do I know what likely could happen if they stick to their genre convention like Pirates 2? Yeah, I could probably make something up that might loosely resemble the end product. But the thing is, I don't think they'll do that. I think these guys are wise enough, honestly, to still surprise us. There is more to Davey Jones, whom I forgot to mention serves transparently as the Emperor-ultimate-evil figure in Star Pirates. I mean Pirate Wars. Whatever. You get the idea.

And really, that is my biggest prediction about the end of this trilogy. For a series that nobody thought could ever succeed, surprise is the motto of the game. Surprise, we made 300 million with our first movie. Surprise, we're going to make 600 million with our second movie. Surprise, Will Turner kills Jack Sparrow with a piercing rendition of Blue Steel! So what do I think will happen, and what do I want to happen in Pirates 3? I want to be surprised again. I want to be on the edge of my seat. I want to go, "Oh, I get it," when they find Jack Sparrow and he's sitting on a raft flipping a piece of Aztec gold in the air. I honestly don't know.

The only thing I do know is that if they don't swerve from the trilogy convention, if they do play it safe and emulate Return of the Jedi's broad strokes, I'll be pissed. And not just because they'll of made a believing ass of me, but because I'll have to watch more of these little fuckers.

I'm out.

Want me to read your email and maybe respond in a pointless, twisting, ranting blog post? Send your thoughts, complaints, or propositions for intelligent discourse (that means sex, mom) to me here.

Entourage - Three's Company

2006-07-17T07:43:00.000-05:00

A capsule episode. That is what I would call last night's foray into the lives of Vince, E, Turtle, and Drama. Or I should say, Vince, E, Drama, and Ari Gold. After last weeks news of life-changing events on the horizon, Turtle doesn't do much more than sit on the couch and play with the 3d motion captured replica of Johnny Chase in The Godfather video game. As a nerd, that was a pretty cool opening segment. But this was a capsule episode. What do I mean by that? Simple. This is an episode of Entourage I would give to any potential, but unconvinced, fan. I would say, here, watch Three's Company and if you like that, you understand the show and you will want to see more. Why? Because this episode perfectly captured the spirit of the show and straddled the lines between humor and drama. It had all the flare we love in a quality episode of this show.

E is our lens into the world of Hollywood. He has since day one, episode one, when the series started we trail him as he walks through a raging Hollywood party with a dumb grin on his face. We're meant to fantasize about this lifestyle through him, and in the process, we empathize with his absorption into that world because we feel like we're becoming a part of it. It creates a link between the fictional reality of the show and its audience. That's why E will forever be Doug Ellin's 'main' character. This is why I hate people who ask why Vince doesn't controll more of the storyline and show time. I mean, I hate hate them. I want to slam their heads into a urinal at the DC Marriott and pull the flusher while saying in an Austrian accent: "Chill out."

So "Three's Company" had E, our established everyman lens, fall right into the world of Hollywood's alleged carefree lifestyle where his girlfriend, Sloan (a resurging Emmanuelle Chriqui), is willing to get into a threesome with him. Because, as we all know, girls raised in Hollywood are just a little bit more crazy than the rest of us, right?

But while Eric is living the dream every last red-blooded male on the planet has (I don't mean a threesome, I mean having sex with Emmanuelle Chriqui), his abscence puts Vince once again to the forefront of making his own decisions. And his decision this time could be catastrophic for his career. That's the tension of this show and when it starts to get really, really, good. When we see the cause and effects of the Hollywood lifestyle in reflection on Vinny Chase's career as an A-list movie star, we're running on all cylinders.

This was a perfect middle-of-the-season episode, as well. It established a dramatic tension for the next leg of episodes (the studio and Vince) while introducing some intriguing and humorous subplots for the other characters. Lloyd repping Drama, who will star in an Ed Burns movie? Bring it on. Eric continuing down the path of becoming a Hollywood suit because he isn't satisfied with his clearly awesome, down to Earth, and mega-hot Sloan? Instead he is intrigued by the blond vixen who is probably only using him to get with Vince? Bring it on.

I'm anticipating, if not next week, maybe the week after we have some sort of Tom Cruise-calibre PR-diaster for Vinny that Shauna is unable to prevent. Perhaps the studio leaks that Vince broke his contract because he's too busy doing coke with Paris Hilton or something. Why? Because she is in the hospital, giving birth. This will generate a hilarious moment where Ari Gold storms into her hospital room while she's doing that whole puff-puff-give birth thing I don't know anything about, and berates her for not doing her job. It'll be a classic Ari and Shauna moment. I can't wait.

Where else but "Hollywood" would you find a man so egomaniacal as to say: It's 4:02 and I'm making my own calls, how do you think I feel?

Well, after last night's episode, I feel pretty damn good. Thanks for asking, bald-and-menacing studio head who happens to have the last name Grey much like real Paramount Pictures Chairman and CEO Brad Grey.

Think he's pissed off today? Think all of Hollywood isn't glued to their couches at 10:00 pm every Sunday?

Think again.

Redesign

2006-07-12T15:24:00.000-05:00

I gave the site a small redesign, as you will probably notice. I think this one is much more streamlined and looks cleaner. Let me know if you hate it, nothing is set in stone.

"You Always Remember Your First Girl"

2006-07-12T08:43:00.000-05:00

Saint Pauli Girl, a mediocre European beer that has managed to achieve worldwide distribution based entirely on having an attractive girl on their label (and thus generating great marketing potential), has a slogan for all of their ads:

"You always remember your first girl."

Implying, of course, that the cathartic experience of drinking their beer scorches its way into your memory for eternity. Unfortunately, the only thing to have ever permanently scorched itself into my frontal lobe was this.

So I thought it would be fun to take a trip down memory lane and recount a story of my first girl. No, this isn't a torrid expose on my first time with a lady. It's actually about my first time drinking Saint Pauli Girl!

Wait, you're still reading?

The scenario was this. It was around the 7th or 8th week of my college life. I was a green as hell freshman pledging a fraternity in the south. Most people, especially people who have ever been involved with a fraternity, know that in the southern USA fraternities are still a very major thing. They dominate the campuses of Georgia, Clemson, South Carolina, Alabama, you name it. These aren't those pussy little 8 person 'fraternities' you see on MTV's Fraternity Life. We're talking big institutions aided by campuses that are flooded with students but lack a local infrastructure to support them socially. Because it isn't New York City, most southern college campuses are their city and thus, the best social avenue is the Greek life.

That all said, there I was a freshman pledge. I'm not going to go into any details of that. What I will tell you is that here comes the midsemester "date party." I'm a freshman; I've never even fathomed this sort of thing. I've spent the first month and a half of my new life blasting like Peter North in his latest adult adventure. And I mean that metaphorically, ladies, metaphorically. I was cruising down the highway, things were on a hellacious pace and I never had a moment to slow down.

Like a thunderstorm, I'm suddenly notified on the Thursday before that I am required to bring a date to this "date party" the following evening. The theme, because we're dumb white males and we need to ascribe themes to make the concept of drinking 30 beers and falling off the roof sound like something more, is a "Western Handcuff Party." Perhaps some of you have heard of this type of thing.

The concept is simple: a guy asks a girl to be his date for the party. The guy then prepares a cooler that is stored at the venue. In the cooler, the party's rules mandate you have 18 'alcoholic' beverages. This usually comes down to, unless you're this guy, a 12 pack of beer for the guy and a six pack of something fruity (like Miller Lite, am I right?) for the girl. Okay, easy enough.

But wait! There's more.

Further party rules require the guy and the girl to be handcuffed to one another upon their arrival. This is great for a date party as it forces the girl into your company. And most of the girls don't quite realize what that means until it is too late. Wait, erase that last sentence. We're not shady or creepy. Forget I said that.

Anyways, you're handcuffed to the girl and the only way to be uncuffed is the finish the contents of the cooler. That means 12 beers for you, and six for her. Even the biggest fratboy lush on the planet (my friend P.W., by the way), couldn't down all twelve beers in anything under an hour. Most people it'll be more like three or four hours. Maybe even longer. Remember, the handcuffs? And you don't want to come across as a belligerent prick while you're cuffed to some girl.

You also don't want to come across as a cheap bastard. You want to do anything you can to impress this girl. Usually. In many cases, this means springing for that high-class marquee alcohol. You're laughing, right? Obviously, you've never been a college student and witnessed the vast efforts young men will do to save the three dollar difference between a suitcase of Bud Light and a Milwaukee’s Best.

In my case, I wasn't 21. I was a freshman, remember? So I told my fraternal big brother (think, mentor in the fraternity) to grab me something nice. He returns with a box of some weird beer called St. Pauli Girl. Some incredibly heavy, dark brown, beer with a stripper on the label. Let me remind you, I'm a freshman. I couldn't finish twelve O’Douls, let alone twelve imports, at this point in my collegiate cycle. I just didn't have the tolerance yet. It's like Peyton Manning's first year with the Colts. You might see flashes of future Beers and Balls guzzling showmanship (I'll save that tale for another column) but I needed to take my licks for a year first.

So let's rewind some. For the thirteenth time in this column I'll reiterate that I was a freshman and had been in college for a little over a month. I had no concept of time management, money management, or anything that ends in management. I would routinely be so busy running around for that first month between balancing pledge obligations, class obligations, and partying obligations that I probably averaged one meal a day if I was lucky. And that meant that when it came time to finally eat, you ate a lot.

As a pledge, you spend a lot of time doing remedial tasks other people don't want to do. This includes setting up for the awesome Western Handcuff Party. All those coolers I told you about? Who do you think is lugging them out there, stocking them with ice, and cleaning the designated venue for later? That's your friday afternoon, right there. And you probably didn't get up until noon anyway because you were so hung-over from Thursday night.

By the time you get back to your dorm room (remember, freshman), you are so pushed for time the only recourse you have is to order something that looks like this from the campus 'food court' (you know, they all have them now. There's usually some lame Burger King Express and a couple of other generic 'fast food' counters that take some type of campus meal points). In my case, it was something that looked like this. I was bordering on 48 hours without a meal here, people!

So there I was finally, stuffed to the brim at about 8:35 and picking up my blind date (because I didn't know hardly anyone yet at the school and I didn't even know about the party until the day for) to take her to the party. I'm still picking genoa salami scraps out of my teeth. By breath can burn a twelve-inch hole in carbon fiber. I'm awesome.

The initial party goes smoothly. We are handcuffed awkwardly, because we have never met, and we start on our cooler. I drink my first Girl. I note as it goes down that this beer has a mildly pleasing flavor but feels like wet cement in my 24-inch submarine sandwich filled stomach. Curious.

I engage in the usual collegiate freshman banter with my fellow freshman date. She isn't feeling my awesome insights into, at the time, the wildly relevant pop culture phenomenon of Napster. But I have over ten gigabytes of MP3's. We should go back to my dorm room and listen to them on my hifi computer speakers because we are trendy, hip, and countercultural. Instead, she notes -- being about as clueless as I am -- that my beer has a hooker on the label. Funny, I thought it looked more like a stripper, I say. They're the same thing, she says. I scoff, telling her the difference is you get genital warts from a stripper, full-blown AIDS from a hooker. She laughs, uncertainly, as I scratch my groin.

The night continues with similar conversations. She doesn't like the Smirnoff Ice I selected (or rather, was given) for 6 drinks in the cooler. We barter with fellow handcuffed couples to acquire a Mike's Hard Lemonade or two. Eventually, we reach that pivotal handcuff party moment of needing to go to the bathroom. This is the moment every male who attends a party like this anticipates. This is where they break down that first social restrictor plate and slowly begin the process of molding the date into something you could take home later.

Most couples at these things, if they like each other at all, will just trust the other party to look away. It is an extremely awkward scenario, in that tiny porcelain prison, that is almost guaranteed to create a scenario where you bond through the awkwardness with her.

My date hated me. Instead of bonding, I have a permanent scar on my wrist from where she tried and failed to yank the handcuffs off. I also smelled like butter. You do the math. In the end, I was forced to tie a towel around my face like I was Osama Bin Laden. I was beginning to resent my situation. I was six Girl's deep.

The night continued, going from passably uncomfortable to downright miserable. Around hour two, 7 and a half Girl's deep, the girl pulls out her tiny pink cellphone and begins talking on it. I am standing directly beside her.

For the next hour, I am filling my already bursting belly with more Girl's because I am a neurotic freak who can't just stand there in a big crowded area where people are having the times of their lives. I have to be doing something. Sipping a beer achieves that. So while the date chats and chats on her cell phone for an entire hour about how she wants to get out of this lame party, I am starting to find the stripper on my bottle more and more attractive. I also find the shovel and bag of cement leaning against the garage wall strangely compelling as well, as I glance to my side and hear "Oh yeah, it's retarded. He didn't even get me Zima."

Finally, she concludes her conversation with what I can only imagine was her ex-boyfriend, and asks me how much longer we'll be doing this. I reply with a transparent grin that there are only five more beers in the cooler. Perhaps, pretty pink cellphone princess, might like to assist the beleaguered freshman pledge finish one or two. What, with all the calories in one of those? Yes, I don't think you need to worry, I reply, the hour you just spent on your cell phone will give you inoperable brain cancer faster than a few St Pauli Girl's will plant themselves on your ass. They rolling of her eyes tells me she is starting to break; she's beginning to open up to me.

Two more girls later, we're one of the last couples still handcuffed. It us and a few of the other freshman because we still have our adolescent stomach lining intact. My date has returned to her cellphone, captivated by the mindless banter that can be achieved when seven drinks are in your system and your date is a six foot two orangutan whose mom unfathomably compares him to Vince Vaughn but he only wishes.

Everyone is now drunk and we quickly come to the realization that we will never finish the bottomless pit of Girl's. Thankfully, all the drunk people mean nobody cares anymore if we remain handcuffed. Keys are found, and we cheat and break the rules. Freedom brims on the horizon, the opportunity to enjoy a party that has a perfect ratio of one girl for one guy in the room. Surely other dates went as poorly as mine; the field is wide open to find another recovering victim. We'll bond, share a drink on the patio over talk about how stupid our cuffmate was, and then have pornstar sex beneath the poster of The Matrix I have hanging above my bed.

Freedom brims on the horizon. A night of opportunity is laid out before me. The girl immediately, as I massage my honey and butter coated wrist that has a small, hungry, hive of bees attached to it, asks me to take her home. My alcohol fogged mind takes a few minutes to process the request, as I weigh the moral dilemma of taking a raging bitch that I would like to see immortalized like this (so I can crush her with a sledgehammer) home. I look down to the tenth girl in my hand, asking the shrewd seductress on the label her opinion.

Fifteen minutes later, I have forced myself to finish the last two Girls because I am desperately cheap, and have successfully prompted the question from the girl of why I couldn't just do that when we were handcuffed earlier. I reply, impressed with my own, that I now have two hands. She squints at me, as if I was drunk and somehow that prevented me from coherently annunciating any of my words. But I tell myself, fine crazy-pink-phone-bitch; someday I will get my revenge when I write about it in and sprawling mess of a post in a blog that nobody reads. And on that day, I will triumph.

Due to everyone at this party being drunk, accommodations from the fraternity were made to escort people back to their homes. Giant white passenger vans were rented and driven by sober freshman who were not suave enough to score a blind date with a future Make-a-Wish patient. At 2 a.m., these vans are filled to capacity and more. I find myself, having just drunk twelve Girls, beneath the collective mass of China as four people cram into my lap on the bench seat.

To my side, the lovely bride-to-be, wears an enchanting smile that conveys her admiration of my struggle and her delight at having crystallized the idea to murder me with the ice pick on her kitchen counter. Convinced I made the right decision in not staying at the party, I spend ten minutes unable to breath as my planet begins to spin with images of busty blond European's in cleavage enhancing blouses.

Half-way to our destination, I kindly request to the driver that he stop the van so that I may get out. I am twelve seconds away from being violently ill. I'm not sure at the time if it is the results of the five pounds of lunch meat in my stomach, the twelve beers piled on top of it, or the fact that I am asphyxiating beneath fourteen tons of fratboy. Nobody hears me except my date, crushed at my side. I smile at her. She looks horrified. But I know this is the final opening, she is determined to let me into her world, impressed by my handling of the evening and my willingness to escort her back to her home.

I manage to hold back the surging feeling in my stomach for several more minutes. I think about asking her to use that pretty pink cellphone to call 911 while gesticulating to the giant mangle of bodies bearing down on my head. I open my mouth, prepared to make the witty and sardonic request, knowing that my sarcastic wit will be the final straw necessary to lock her up. In a terrible situation, she will appreciate my levity. But at the last minute, I swerve courses, and ask, "Are you hungry?" "What?" she replies, annoyed that I am speaking again. "I said, are you hungry?" "Yeah," she says, appeasingly.

I'm confident the violent gout of half-digested St. Pauli Girl, Capricca, Salami, Onions, Lettuce, Tomatoes, and Turkey I had the waiter violently deliver four seconds later made her night.

I'll always remember my first girl.

Borat, The Movie Update

2006-07-12T08:36:00.000-05:00

I'm not sure when or where it happened, but the IMDB page for the previously listed "Borat, The Movie" has been updated with what appears to be a new (perhaps official) title:

BoratT: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan

Brilliant. Just brilliant. There is no way this movie can fail. It probably cost them $35 dollars to film. It'll go on and make 60 million.

ON TRILOGY, PIRATES 2 IS SMARTER THAN YOU THINK

2006-07-11T13:25:00.000-05:00

(this post will contain spoilers for PotC: Dead Man's Chest)

You all might remember that I picked a certain record smashing movie to dominate this summer. I'm not going to succumb to my childlike impulse to say "I told you so" so much as I will say "I'm really good at this and if you're smart you'll keep reading this blog and telling all your friends how really really really really good I am." I might also hire a hooker to punch out the guy who invented Girls Gone Wild.

But before I do all of that I'll lend you, out of the magnanimous spirit of my heart, some thoughts you probably already heard seventy-five other places on the internet. But I assure you, I thought of them first. My mom said so.

The biggest gripe that all the bigtime critics, of whom, as I stated a paragraph above, I'm much better than have with Dead Man's Chest is that it bloated away a good story with mindless action. What these alleged intelligent movie reviewers seem to have forgotten is a little movie I like to call Bad Boys 2. There is also a little movie I like to call The Mummy Returns. The Matrix Reloaded. The Matrix Revolutions. The Bad News Bears. Wait, how did that slip in there?

Those were movies filled with cinematic gluttony. Those were rollercoaster action-pieces that had nothing else going for them. They had no characters, they had no inspiring plot. Take Bad Boys 2, the biggest disaster I've ever sat through. The runtime of BB2 is 147 minutes. The runtime of Pirates 2 is 150 minutes. BB2 made, IN TOTAL, $138 million. Pirates 2 made $135 million in three days.

I don't always think the American public knows its head from its ass, but this is not a movie that is too long nor is it an example of action blockbuster gluttony like Bad Boys 2. Please, somebody, put the two films on side-by-side and tell me which one entertains and which one overloads you until you find yourself subconsciously eyeing your shotgun and that Nirvana CD.

Is Pirates 2 the best movie ever made? No, not a chance. It has its flaws, just like the first one did (don't kill me), but OVERALL it is a significantly enjoyable and entertaining movie that has enough there beneath the surface to prevent me from hating myself for liking it as much as I did.

UNDER THE SURFACE?! Screw you, man! That movie was one muddy, dark, scene after another and then it just ended, man! What happened to the cartoonish, quirky, wit and humor of the first film, man!? THEY RUINED MY CHILDHOOD, man!

Shutup, man.

What needs to be understood about Pirates 2 to achieve any sort of enjoyment of it beyond the visceral is the homage we saw to the best trilogy ever compiled in cinematic history.

No, I'm not talking about Kickboxer. I'm talking about Star Wars, dummy. The original trilogy. A trilogy that almost everyone who watched it agrees (except me, naturally): the second movie, Empire Strikes Back, is the best film of the three. So let's investigate what Gore Verbinski did here when his delightful little Pirate movie ballooned into an intergalactic, Aquaman crushing, trilogy.

He copied what he knew worked.

Let's draw some parallels here. In the ORIGINAL trilogy (not the remastered crap all the Star Wars fanboys growl about), Han Solo is a lovable rogue character who is morally ambiguous. He shoots a Bounty Hunter first in a bar to save his own teeth. He only sticks around for the money (he is a smuggler, a science fiction equivalent to a Pirate) and then, later, the girl. You never know where he stands and he dominates the screen when he's on it. Everybody loves Han, while everyone agrees that Luke was a bit of a whiny prat.

Juxtapose Han Solo with Jack Sparrow. Here we have another morally ambiguous, beloved, rogue of a character who values his own well being and safety over that of any other relationships. Here we have a character with a tattered past who has wronged many people along the way, creating rivals and enemies. Here we have a character who loves his ship, the Black Pearl (our Millenium Falcon), but has consistently been forced to share it with another person because of his own gambling and roguish tendencies.

Han Solo's past catches up to him in the Empire. He is chased down by his past, his debt to Jabba the Hutt, and he ultimately is frozen in carbonite and believed lost to our heroes. He is going to be fed to the vagina-like Sarlaac (shutup, fanboys, I don't care if I spelled it wrong); a big tooth-lined sphincter.

Jack Sparrow's debt to Davey Jones catches up to him. He is chased down by his past, ultimately is fed to the vagina-like maw of the Kraken; a big tooth-lined spchincter. At the end of Pirates 2, we are unsure of his fate, just as we are unsure of Han Solo's fate.

Let's keep going.

Orlando Bloom/Will Turner is Luke Skywalker. When he walks that Voodo Witch's swamphut the first thing she says is that he has a grand destiny set out before him. Sound familiar? Furthermore, Orlando Bloom's quest becomes not one of saving the galaxy, so much as one of saving his father -- Bootstrap Bill -- from a lifetime of servitude to Davey Jones. He thinks he can save his dad from the darkness. He thinks he can bring him back. Hell, he flat-out says it in the movie.

Who did Luke Skywalker want to save from the darkness? His father, Darth Vader, beloved Anakin Skywalker. What was Luke Skywalker? An orphan, a pragmatic and practical kid with dreams of greater glory in the stars. What is Will Turner? An orphan with dreams of greater glory -- namely -- the social status that would enable him to wed Keira Knightly/Elizabeth Swann.

Let's keep going.

Keira Knightly/Elizabeth Swann is a self-assertive young woman who hails from a regal upbringing. She's the daughter of the Governor, the colonial brit equivalent of a Princess. She is captured by the bad dude, Barbossa, and interrogated for information. She eventually yells "TRY WEARING A CORSET" (a lame line if I ever heard one) and hits a Pirate with a paddle.

Princess Leia is the daughter of some sort of King of Alderaan. She's royalty, has a priviledged upbringing, but is violently independent and capable of taking care of herself. In A New Threat, she is captured by the bad dudes and hit up for information, only to be saved -- much like Elizabeth -- by Han and Luke.

Let's keep going.

Commodore Norrington is a strong, devoted, man who seeks his personal honor. He makes some bad decisions in a life that until the heroes show up is going very well; such as letting Jack, Elizabeth, and Will get away at the end of Pirates 1. He ultimately betrays the heroes at the end of Pirates 2, after they think he heroically saved them when he draws Davey Jones crew away with the Dead Man's Chest. In the end, it turns out he duped them for his own benefit, delivering the heart to the East India Trading Company.

Lando Calrission is a bad ass mutha who is a strong, devoted, man who seeks his own personal fortune. He makes some bad decisions in a life that until the heroes showed up was going very well. He owned an entire mining colony. He ultimately betrays the heroes, after they think he is their salvation by giving them a safe haven to hide from Vader and the Empire. In the end, Lando duped Han and Leia, and hands them over to the Dark Side.

So just on an archetypal character level, we're dealing with some very startling similarities.

Then they introduce a love triangle between Elizabeth, Jack, and Will (Leia, Han, and Luke).

The only thing we were missing was Will Turner flexing some sort of half-crustacean, claw-hand right before the closing credits and we'd have an eerie similarity between the two films be complete.

There a lot of other narrative and symbolic similarities to the two trilogies. Things like Tortuga's resemblance to Mos Eisley Cantina on Tatooine. There is, as a counterargument, however the glaring lack of a mentor character for Will Turner. He just naturally seems to know the direction he needs to take without a direct Obi-Wan (although the Voodoo Bitch, I mean, Witch, does share a quasi-Yoda relationship).

Some people might see this emulation of a beloved trilogy as weakening the Pirates films, but it is a tested and true formula that when executed well works. And in Pirates case, it definitely works thanks to sure direction and good performances. Much like Star Wars did. And it is the narrative path that these flicks are taking, that echoes a beloved franchise of yesteryear, that make this movie something more than Bad Boys 2.

Furthermore, the close pairing of the two films works for Verbinski and crews advantage for Pirates 3 because now -- with it so firmly entrenched as the Empire Strikes Back edition to the triangle -- they can twist our expectations. And, they look very poised to do that, because Will Turner isn't Elizabeth Swann's long-lost brother just yet. Thank god.

Why's the rum always gone?

ROCKY XXVII Trailer!

2006-07-11T13:15:00.000-05:00

There is a new trailer for Rocky Balboa, the two hundred and seventy-seventh Rocky movie. This time, Rocky will be played by a piece of shoe leather wrapped around a brick of limestone. Oh wait, that's Stallone there, still. My bad.

Watch the trailer here. Notice how they cleverly skewed the original underdog white guy who amounts to nothing fighting a black guy story into old white guy who is over the hill fighting the black guy. Mason Dixon Line?

Yes. I still self-fellated myself when the trailer started.

Entourage - Crash and Burn

2006-07-10T07:25:00.000-05:00

Boy, they really are on fire with these episode titles this season, aren't they?

As predicted, the disappearance of Dom has generated the return to form for Entourage. It's like they haven't missed a step and the Dominator is firmly cemented as that almost-disaster both for our foursome in their fictional Hollywood reality and for HBO in its quest to create a new half-hour comedy megahit.

This week had two celebrity cameos. A forgettable one by actress-turned-producer Penny Marshall doing her best Barbara Streisand impression (she was Laverne on Laverne and Shirley) and a James Cameron-rivaling left field appearance by Hollywood's Golden Boy, Paul Haggis. Man, was that a great cameo. Paul Haggis, fresh off Oscar Best Picture wins for Million Dollar Baby and Crash decides that he will cameo on Entourage and sit around a living room with the crew drinking wine and hitting the bong.

Drama: Did you see that one, Paul?
Haggis, awkward pause: --No.

I hope that Haggis is a season regular in the vein of Cameron about as much as I hope that next summer's Michael Bay helmed Transformers movie doesn't suck. And speaking of Bay, he's the next director for Aquaman 2. Now the question is, skewered as he was by Ellin and company as being a studio-shill who churns out blockbuster flicks whenever an executive snaps his fingers, will we actually see a Bay cameo? Or will we see Vince going to Cameron and begging him to direct Aquaman 2?

I hold major doubts in Vince being able to take down the corporate heirarchy and not, in some capacity, be forced into doing Aquaman 2. The question is, of course, what capacity? And that was what tonight's episode was all about, with a brilliant cliffhanger ending that -- unfortunately -- the amazing preview for next week all but spoiled.

It was good payoff to see that E's new ride is a slick Aston Martin. It was even better payoff to see that they're all getting new cars now that Vince is a megastar. And it was still even better payoff to see how Eric is slowly becoming the very Hollywood suit that indie writer director Billy Walsh always calls him. He takes the free car with a little smirk and a shrug, but then even more tellingly, he becomes the perfect yes-man Manager by going against his judgement when they go into Haggis' office and then, even moreso, he sits there spewing company line bullshit at the man.

E: We'll work it out.
Haggis: Why the fuck does he keep saying that?

Man, what a cameo. What a show. Turtle's bling. Drama's every little boy's dream speech. The promise of the first Saigon/P.Diddy/Kanye nightclub incident. And here's hoping for some sort of surreal Sacha Cohen/Borat cameo somehow with mention of ol' Max going off to film in Kazakhstan. I would just give up and die right then and there.

KISS KISS BANG BANG -- BRILLIANT BRILLIANT

2006-07-07T12:11:00.000-05:00

Some of you may have heard of a man by the name of Shane Black. Some of you may have not. Please, if you haven't, peruse his IMDB entry and then come back. Got it covered? Ready? Good.

Shane Black is, to put it simply, one of a small selection of people whom I would answer "Yeah, OK, sure" to if they posed the question "Can I murder you?" (other potential kill-me candidates would be LOST's Damon Lindelof, The O.C./Grey's Anatomy/Young Avenger's super-writer Allan Heinberg, and this person) That is how deep my fangasm runs for this man. I cannot think of a single other person alive who produces some sort of creative entertainment whose work I absolutely love as much. I don't just mean being a fan, or enjoying it, I mean every single thing that I know that has Shane Black's name attached to it I am obsessed with.

I have probably watched Lethal Weapon and Lethal Weapon 2 fifty times, at least, each. His line in Predator (a movie he was allegedly given a role in because the studio hoped that, while on set in some god forsake Jungle, he would have nothing better to than provide rewrites for the script free-of-charge) still makes me laugh when I hear it. When I think of Bruce Willis, I don't immediately think of Die Hard so much as the amazingly underrated The Last Boyscout. Shane Black is a auteur, he's a master of his genre. But like comic book writers, Sports Columnists, and the tortilla man at Chipotle, his genre is underappreciated because of it's subject matter. People just disrespect the Action Movie.

But as I'm sure anyone reading this can tell you, there is a difference between a brilliant opus like Lethal Weapon and a piece of filth like xXx. There is a reason that 24 has the most Emmy nominations of any show on television this year, whereas Secret Agent Man didn't even last a single season. Why is that an applicable example? Because Secret Agent Man came out at around the same time as 24, smartass. The point is that there is a definite talent involved in crafting a good action movie. There is just as much, if not more, involved in this genre than any other, I'd argue. Perhaps only a good comedy that appeals to all audiences is more difficult to do well.

Forget Tarantino, Roger Avery, Paul Haggis, or even Stuart Beattie (who I happen to really like) -- Shane Black was the first and the best. You can hear screenwriters complain, probably justifiably, about what ends up on the screen being only remotely related to the script they turned in but you cannot deny that consistency and talent wins out. While someone like Jeb Stuart rolled out one great action movie script (Die Hard) and a few pretty good but not great scripts, Black has never missed.

That is why I was so intrigued when I heard that he was going to not only be writing a new movie, but directing it as well. And let me tell you, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang does not disappoint. If you liked any of his movies, you will like this one. You will see familiar things, and you will see Black's self-deprecating ace up his sleeve as he twists the very conventions he helped create. Some people will be turned off by this metafictional fourth-wall-breaking approach in the movie, but if you can get past that you will find yourself grinning like Aaron Sorkin on crack through the whole film.

The basic premise of the movie is a film noirish mystery within reality within a movie. It has layers, people, come on. Work with me. It has fiction stacked on reality stacked on fiction. This is why, I theorize, it didn't receive a huge wide release and a gigantic hype engine like other Black imitations (Lucky Number Slevin, anyone?). Much like Pulp Fiction with it's non-linear storytelling, the executives were worried that the public was too stupid to comprehend the unique narrative structure and layered approach of KKBB.

I give you guys more credit.

The film stars Robert Downey Junior who plays a giant fuck-up. Yeah, he really had to go out of the box to pull off that one. He is joined by Mission Impossible III's Michelle Monaghan (looking 100% hotter than she did in the Cruise-fest) as a struggling actress, and the always reliable Val Kilmer as a gay detective. Val Kilmer who has now, quietly and subversively, pervaded my consciousness as a brillaint comedic actor. I never saw that coming. I'm like Tommy Lee Jones in Under Siege and Kilmer just stabbed a knife through my eye socket. Anyway. This trio all brings something to the table to make for a very thoroughly enjoyable movie. The dialogue is as sharp as anything you've seen and you actually have to listen to what they're saying to appreciate it. Nothing, like the plot and theme of the flick, is spelled out fo you. But if your ear is attuned, I promise you, you will laugh out loud at least six times. How many movies can you say that about these days?

Add onto the strong performances a great script and Black patronizing himself, in a way, with the events his trio of characters find themselves in and then add a little bit of Roger Dorn into the mix and you've got yourself a cult classic. Much like Bill Simmons, I thought that the first half of Wedding Crashers was possibly the best scripted comedy ever (up until the unsettling Vince Vaughn gayrape scene) KKBB's first half is the best scripted action/mystery/thriller movie I've seen in a long time. And with a start that good, even though it tapers off as moments are drawn out for narrative necessity, we're already playing with the house's money.

And if you're still not convinced to give this movie a try, here's the worst possible quote I could find on IMDB because I don't want you to read a really good one because that might ruin it...

[shortly after Mr. Frying Pan makes an obscure "Ike, Mike, and Mustard" reference]
Mr. Frying Pan: You wanna know who we are? I'm the frying pan, see? And my boy over here, he's ...
Mr. Fire: Mustard. I'm Mustard, baby.
Mr. Frying Pan, rolling his eyes to the camera at Mr. Fire's stupidity: He's the fire. (turns to Mr. Fire) Fuck you, Mr. Mustard.

Capsulari

2006-07-06T07:39:00.000-05:00

We don't make it a habit of going a week without posting. Especially when there is a new episode of Entourage. But sometimes it happens. We're sorry. Here, have a dosage of this:

"The winner of Survivor: Thailand was arrested early Tuesday on misdemeanor battery and animal cruelty charges after his wife called Atlanta police to report that her angry other half had shot a puppy with a bow and arrow. He was taken into custody and later released on a $6,000 bond."

Do I even have to try?

Now, there is a lot to catch up on and we're pressed for time. I promise that you'll get a double dosage of Entourage, Rescue Me, and more in the next week as life swings back into a normal rhythm. Some capsulated thoughts:

Guys and Doll was another mediocre offering. The entire Dom-scandal needs to be wiped from our memories as we move on to the vastly more interesting world of precisely what I predicted: Vince having to deal with the burdens of being associated with a franchise. I am still waiting for the girl to enter the picture here, though. It has to happen. And they did miss a major opportunity to actually have Dom dominate Mario Lopez (who is now cast in next season's Nip/Tuck). Oh well.

Rockstar: Supernova: The Tommy Lee Project: INXS: Back to College: Idol Superstar: Has Talent premeired last night. I will say this, compared to the last offering, at least they have marginal rock talent as the judges this year. The show clearly suffered last year by the fact that nobody on the planet wanted to hang out with a bunch of 40-year-old 80's pop rockers still clinging to their glorydays. I mean, I can do that every weekend with my dad, why would I want to risk public humiliation for the chance to do that for a living?

So this year is a little bit better. They got better judges, they got better contestants, and they kept the only thing that worked previously: Brooke Burke. For a summer reality series, you could do worse. Much worse. You could be watching this.

There is word from the big brain behind LOST, Damon Lindelof, that there will be a LOST movie. Lindelof has made this public because he has a gigantic, and very warranted, fear that the network will try and draw out the LOST franchise for all it's worth. He wants five seasons and then his movie is a big-budget method to appease the executives. Will it work? I hope so. Nothing would be worse than Lindelof, the real genius (not the overhyped JJ Abrams), leaving the show prematurely. It would kill everything that was unique about the show, a show whose utter lack of conventional network television tendency elevated it to the top of the ratings. Don't fuck up, ABC.

Lastly, Superman Returns. Good family movie. Not essential multiplex viewing. It's no Batman Begins. For having a budget, allegedly, that ballooned above 300 million (maybe more?) there were many less effects than you'd think. I wonder if Singer isn't good at managing his budgets, perhaps? This movie cost more than King Kong, and watch the two and tell me which one you think cost more? And by the way, King Kong is criminally underrated. They just don't make movies like that very often. Totally impressive.

Life Or Something Like It

2006-06-26T12:16:00.000-05:00

Mark Millar, a Scottish comic book writer and my all around neurotic super-idol, had this to say today:

Okay, those here who know me socially know that I'm famed for saying absolutely the wrong thing at the wrong time. It's like Curb Your Enthusiasm squared and the harder I try to avoid this shit the worse it seems to get.
Anyway, we've got these two new rabbits and they're still too young to get snipped, but I'm out in the garden yesterday and Gordo is humping his sister Lizzie like you wouldn't believe. I'm standing at the back door and having a cup of tea when I hear the commotion in the hutch and am horrified to see the brown bunny on his sibling's back and humping her like she's the new bitch in Oz penitentiary.
I drop the cup of tea, run into the garden in my T-shirt and boxers and start screaming "Get off her! That's your sister, you dirty wee bastard. You can't shag your sister!" as I prise them apart. Cut to my vision focusing through the slatted fence between us and the neighbours and I see the mother and daughter next door sitting having breakfast on their little breakfast bench.
I say nothing and neither do they as I slip back indoors...

Sounds familiar. Check our Mark Millar on Amazon.com if you want to read awesome adventures of dudes in spandex. I recommend The Ultimates

Reason #1 to see Borat, The Movie

2006-06-26T12:08:00.000-05:00

As a contemporary put it:

Is ni-ice, yes?

Entourage - Dominated

2006-06-25T22:04:00.000-05:00

After last weeks untoppable performance by Vinny Chase and boys, this week had to be a let down. It had to be, right? Was anyone expecting it to top itself? Was that even possible? This was the equivalent of following the Beatles on stage. After the brilliance of One Day in the Valley, Dominated (witty episode title aside) could not hope to compare. And, the real kicker? It didn't. This episode is what we in the "biz" (were I actually in a biz) would call setup. It was pure narrative filler to establish a direction that the subsequent episodes would go.

These types of episodes are a necessity in almost every narrative program eventually. In order to move your characters to the scenarios you desire to earn the dramatic beats necessary, you have to do a little bit of exposition. And the problem with Entourage being only 24 minutes long is that it eats up pretty much the entire episode. But the real question becomes, is this setup a good one? Will the introduction of the Dominator to the foursome yield a more enjoyable story? That remains to be seen.

I am a bit leery, however, because this character was so utterly unlikable. It's like they went out of their way to cast the ugliest person alive. The actor playing Dom looks like the real live version of Seinfeld's "Pigman." Can you imagine a more revolting, fat, slob of a human being on your television anywhere else? Not even Lou on Rescue Me is such a sausage of a person. I am willing to give Doug Ellin the benefit of the doubt on this because he has impressed me so much in the past, but I can just very easily picture him sitting around his writer's table with the rest of the shows crew and doing something a little like this...

Doug Ellin: Okay, so. We need a compelling dramatic thrust after the Hollywood romanticism of the first two episodes. What can we do?
Writer: Well, the big theme is the brotherhood between these four guys and how their friendship is so strong, right?
Ellin: Yeah.
Writer: Why don't we introduce a fifth person?
Ellin: I'm listening.
Writer: This fifth person to the group can be a totally abrasive personality. He can ruin their perfect foursome dynamic. We can use him to create artificial tension in Vince's crew and over the course of, oh, three or four episodes, we can use that tension to resonate the friendship theme amongst these four when they finally oust the cancerous fifth member!
Ellin: Brilliant!
Writer: But let's take it further. Let's make this guy a total caricature. He should probably be coming out of jail, and a total psychopath who gets in anyone's face. You know, the type of guy you knew in high school who never backed down. You loved him then, but now you're rich and famous and people kiss your ass. You don't need a meathead watching out for you. He's an antiquated being, he's the mead-swigging knight errant in the world of fake tits, fake noses, and fake personalities.
Ellin: Yeah, and that caricature of a character will create some funny exchanges because he is so abrasive and in our face and extreme! What'll we call him?
Writer: We're thinking Poochy, the rocking dog.

Anyway, you get the point (and if you don't, you don't watch enough of The Simpsons). If anyone is actually convinced we'll see the Dom by the end of this season, you're insane. It's just a device. And I'm still not sold on if he's a good one or not. We'll have to wait and see.

As for the episode itself, it really wasn't that funny. They tried their best, and most of the humor did come from Ari Gold and his obsessive compulsive behavior with his daughter. I loved how she's dating the "Young 21 Jump Street" tweener who just so happens to look exactly like Vincent Chase would fifteen years ago. A lot of people probably didn't get the humor of a "Young" 21 Jump Street, as the real "21 Jump Street" was a critically lauded show that launched a ton of major careers but was considered by many to be "before it's time". We're talking people like Johnny Depp, Mario Van Peebles, and about three-thousand other oft-cancelled televised drama stars. Jump Street's basis was "young-looking police officers who specialize in investigations relating to young people." So what dose Young 21 Jump Street deal with, teenage hall monitors who can pass for elementary schoolers? Who stole the Burnt Siena crayon?

And it was a very true-to-life moment, I'm sure, for many teenagers in the world today to learn that their parents know their screenname and are monitoring their online time. That was a priceless moment of 'real' that helped to ground Entourage after last weeks totally pure Hollywood fantasy (biggest movie ever, giving your car to some fans, acting like Jesus on a roof, etc). But shouldn't Ari be happy his daughter is attractive enough to catch the eye of her super-famous celebrity heart-throb classmates? Hmm, maybe not. I'm guessing every dad in their right mind wishes their daughter was either a lesbian or so repulsive (until she turned 24) that no male would ever think about intercourse. But then, at 24, they need to become beautiful and get married, am I right? Right.

Anyway. I look forward the the burning embers and simmering tension that is goin to develope, as previews indicate, between the foursome and the Dominator. I also am holding out for a moment of pure brilliance when Dom "Dominates" some C-list celebrity. I'm really hoping it'll be something like him bitchslapping Drama's former Pacific Blue costar Mario Lopez (AC Slater from Saved by the Bell) or something on that level. I'm actually salivating at the thought of that scene.

Or maybe Vincent Chase will just get herpes from drinking hooker juice.

And speaking of being Dominated, don't ever type that into Google's image search. You won't like what you find. Seriously. Stop typing it. Why aren't you listening to me? I'm serious! I spent four hours flushing my retinas with seawater and I'm still seeing a four hundred pound man in a gimp suit in my peripheral vision. Don't go down this road.

And maybe this is the same type of road Entourage is making us go down. Maybe they are so smart on that show that they wanted us to feel completely uncomfortable whenever the Dom is on screen, like the foursome does on the show being in the same room with him. I mean, I expected him to Dominate Ari with a left elbow jab on that Aquaman Ride before stealing his Rolex. So if the goal was to make your audience feel the same quesy uneasy feeling as the characters do towards Dom, mission complete.

I just hope when he's finally ostracized, it's good. I'm talking posting his naked picture to a gay porn website good. You don't fuck with the Vincent Chase and his Entourage without paying the price, son. It is too bad they missed an opportunity for a Turtle one-liner by having E, and not Drama, grab the golf club when they thought their house was BnE'd. We could have had a critical callback to last season's battery of the surfer's PT Cruiser while on the way back to Malibu that landed Drama on CJ.

Maybe next time, Turtle.

The Best Compliment to Entourage?

2006-06-22T10:09:00.000-05:00

Dude shows have always been a rare breed on television. Major networks have, for a long time, seemed to think that the male audience is lured and satiated, like a hooker doing a line of blow, by the simple formula of televised professional sports. And this is, for the most part, true. But leave it to the geniuses at the fringe networks like FX and HBO to shatter this conception. Show's like the Sopranos, Entourage (and it's flipside, Sex in the City) are specifically targeted for more selective demographics than the average 9 p.m. drama on CBS. And they've worked, too, forcing network TV to rethink their approaches to the market.

I have talked about the dude quotient of Entourage and how it's manic, pop-culture explosion makes it arguably the best show for a 15 to 35 year old male on the planet. I don't need to go over it again and again; my weekly gushing reviews will suffice. But like many, after the 24 minutes of Entourage evaporates every Sunday, I'm left saying: "Fuck, this show needs to be an hour." But it doesn't, really, need to be an hour. I just want more of it faster because it is so good. I wouldn't mess with a successful formula.

So the question then becomes, what else is out there that can satisfy our addiction to this type of show?

If I were to to sit down with you at a bar and start talking about this awesome idea I had for a TV show, you tell me if you would watch it. First, it would have a primarily male cast of everyday joes. They would have a romantic, "guy" profession like a cop or bouncer. You know, something that you respect because it has a social value in the dude community. They would cuss and swear at each other and argue about the littlest shit, like what the best porn magazine is or what the rules for dating a friends sister are. They would go to trendy NYC Clubs after work and pickup annoying college students and then duct-tape their mouths shut when sleeping with them so they'd be quiet. They would hate-fuck their ex-wife at their sit-down meeting to hash out the particulars of their divorce. They would talk their 17-year-old nephew out of sleeping with his 30-something science teacher, only to fall willingly into filling the void and banging her behind their nephew's back. They would seriously debate banging their long-lost half-sister because she was an 11 out of 10, we're talking Angelina Jolie hot. They would break into their ex-wives house and steal back a valuable watch they lost in the divorce settlement. They would haze the youngest guy at their place of employment, making him build a deck for a friend while they sat in lawn chairs drinking beers and watching him.

Doesn't this show sound awesome? Allow me to present to you FX and Dennis Leary's Rescue Me. All of the above scenarios and many more have erupted to Tommy Gavin and his crew of FDNY Firefighters. Where Entourage is the romantic dream of every dude on the planet, Rescue Me is our closest thing to emulating our true reality. Are the scenarios, sometimes, far-fetched and bordering on unbelievable? Yeah, sure. Are the scenarios often darkly hilarious and true to life? Yeah, sure. The point is: Rescue Me is a show targeted specifically at us, the dudes.

Don't believe me?

Look at this exchange between Tommy Gavin and his Uncle, who is in the slammer facing murder charges. Uncle Teddy is about 350 pounds:

Tommy Gavin: How ya doin'?
Uncle Teddy: I lost another five pounds, 83 total.
Tommy Gavin: Wow.
Uncle Teddy: Yeah. This murder 1's the best goddamn diet I ever been on.

If this were a normal television drama, or even a female-slanted Sex in the City, romp... This is what you'd of heard:

Tommy Gavin: How ya' doin'?
Uncle Teddy: I'm tired, Tom. I've lost a ton of weight, in here. It's a madhouse.
Tommy: What, from the stress?
Teddy: You're god damn right the stress! I can't keep this up, Tommy. Everywhere I turn, I see those eyes looking back at me. I think I'm cracking up.
Tommy: I'll do what I can to get you out of here.
Teddy: Thanks, Tom. You're a good kid.
Tommy: Hang in there, Teddy.

See, dudes do not talk to each other like this. The rules of being a dude prevent you from exchanging sappy exchanges even when you are very likely looking down the barrel of a life sentence in prison. And, let me tell you, prison is one of the most terrifying things any dude on the planet fathoms. We'd rather stare down the barrel of a shotgun, or worse, have Kyle Boller as our NFL team's starting QB, than go to prison. Even in the face of complete terror, you put on a strong front and you bust each other's chops.

So if you haven't watched Rescue Me before (Tuesdays at 10 pm on FX), for whatever reason, I encourage you to check it out. It is a serial drama, meaning there are ongoing plot threads you may not understand if you pick it up mid-season 3 next week, but the DVD's are out there and it is easy to jump in and understand the firehouse's dynamic. And while the drama is sometimes heavy-handed, it clubs you deliberately in the face, the off-settling humor balances it well and makes for a thoroughly engaging dude drama.

Here's the best test. What do you expect would happen when the firefighter crew responds to a car accident between a SUV and a horse-drawn carriage in Central Park?

I guarantee you didn't anticipate one of the firefighters finding the carriage's horse, riding it up to the firetruck, getting off, giving a speech about how much he loves horses and hasn't rode one since he was 7 years old back on the farm in the upstate, sending the horse on it's way with a big fat smile and a slap on its rump, and then the entire crew watching as the horse marched right into interstate traffic and was creamed by an 18-wheeler.

No, you probably thought they'd go into some dramatic rescue of a trapped five-year-old girl beneath the overturned carraige, didn't you?

Summer 2006 Movie Half-Time

2006-06-21T13:28:00.000-05:00

It's June 21st and we're officially half-way through the Summer Blockbuster season. Let's see how our old predictions made back on May 1st are holding up.

You'll remember, our sheet of candidates were The Da Vinci Code, Superman Returns, X-Men: The Last Stand, Mission Impossible III, Poseidon, Pixar's Cars, Pirates of the Carribean 2: Dead Man's Chest, M. Night's Lady in the Water, and Miami Vice.

So far Da Vinci, X-Men 3, Mission Impossible, Poseidon, and Cars have hit the screen. Potential juggernauts Superman Returns, Pirates 2, Lady, and Miami Vice remain in the wings. Let's look at the grosses so far (my prediction in paratheses):

Cars -- $117 million (150-200 million, Ice Age 2 numbers).

The question then is, is Cars good enough to bring in summer dominating Nemo numbers? I have no idea. I'm going to say no, it will do well but it won't light up the universe and become a pop culture icon. I think we'll see around Ice Age 2 numbers, which means about 150-200 million by the time it is all said and done.

X-Men: The Last Stand -- $216 million (middle of the road, low 200 millions).

I think X-3 and MI:III will have comparable numbers in the low 200's but not enough to dominate the summer (can you believe we're in an age where 200 million doesn't win?)

The Da Vinci Code -- $198 million (loser, around 200 million).

this movie is going to be very predictable and will not have the kid-friendly sense of wonderment and magic (literally) that something like Harry Potter has to lure in audiences.

Mission: Impossible III -- $130 million (middle of the road, 200 million, 65 million opening).

I'm gonna laugh my ass off when it rakes in 65 million next weekend and finishes in the low 200 millions after the summer. And while Cruise pretty much guarantees at least a 100 million on account of his name and ability to select great projects with good directors, I don't anticipate this being the biggest movie of the year simply because it's audience will be somewhat limited (to 16-45 year old males).

Poseidon -- $56 million ("biggest bust of the summer").

A remake. Strike one. The perennially overrated Josh Lucas as your big draw. Strike two. A director renowned for bloated budgets and just missing the mark. Strike three.

I think we're looking at the biggest bust of the summer in Poseidon.

So I'm shooting about 85% so far. I correctly predicted that Da Vinci would do well but not amazing. I pretty much nailed X-Men 3's rake and look to be on pace for Cars. I made you all beg for it like Paris Hilton in reading the wave of suck rolling off of Poseidon. My predicted champion, Pirates 2, still looks poised come July 7th to harpoon it's only real remaining competition: Superman Returns. That'll be the real question. Pirates versus Superheroes. Don't you love how summer movies are all genre-flicks these days? I'm sure the spectacled "intellectuals" over at McSweeney's who demand all fiction be genre-free love how the summer blockbusters validate their sense of artistic importance.

I digress.

My big miscalculation came from Tom Cruise. Apparently, America really is sick of both him and spy movies. And I actually liked MI:III as a movie. I thought it was one of Cruise's better outings, topped in recent memory only by Collateral. But Tom Cruise's engine did the fatal flaw any actor or so-called artist can do: he integrated the consciousness of his audience so well that he broke the believability of his artistic universe. Namely, we all know it is Tom Cruise up there on the screen and not Ethan Hunt. When Cruise sprints through the streets in an extended long take we don't gasp and feel the tension in our guts; we think about how Tom Cruise thinks he can run a 4 minute mile.

And while I do think that Pirates 2 will be the summer movie champion this year, closely tailed by Superman Returns, I'm not really looking forward to either of them. This is the first year in memory I cannot remember there being a major summer movie that I wasn't desperately anticipating. There's no Star Wars III, or Spider-Man, or Batman Begins, and I had no anticipation for X-Men 3 because of the loss of Singer. Really, the only movie this summer I am dying to see is Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby.

And anyone who isn't pumped for that isn't an American.

Entourage - Variety Ad (UPDATE)

2006-06-19T15:04:00.000-05:00

I thought some of you might like to see this. Do not keep reading if you have not watched this week's episode of Entourage yet.

From today's issue of Variety:

So brilliant. I want a poster.