Culture Shock

Rapid Review: Wanted

2008-07-03T19:45:12Z

So it's official: Wanted was pretty awful. I think it's rare that the experience of watching a movie is so boring and frustrating that even some brief Angelina Jolie nudity (or that of a body double, I'm not sure) doesn't make up for it. This was that experience. But here's the thing: I didn't think the effects were bad or ridiculous. I just thought the script was crap, the original work was tweaked just enough for it not to be as interesting and it was carried out poorly. Also, the soundtrack was just awful. Ech.

Joy Division frontman's headstone stolen

2008-07-03T15:35:23Z

From the BBC story: The memorial stone dedicated to former Joy Division frontman Ian Curtis has been stolen from a Cheshire cemetery. Curtis was 23 when he hanged himself in the kitchen of his Macclesfield home in May 1980, shortly before the band were due to go on tour in the US. Cheshire Police said the memorial stone was taken from where he is buried in Macclesfield Cemetery. Officers are appealing for anyone with information on its whereabouts to contact them. Detectives said the kerbstone, which has the inscription "Ian Curtis 18 - 5 - 80" and the words "Love Will Tear Us Apart" was taken sometime between Tuesday afternoon and Wednesday morning. --- Curtis was recently the subject of the excellent biopic Control, which featured shots of the headstone.

Hulk Hogan on the mat

2008-07-02T19:04:59Z

Like a lot of guys my age, I'll always have a certain amount of affection for Hulk Hogan. He was the live-action Superman of our childhood, a cartoon hero come to life, and even when we realized he was in reality a juiced-up "sports entertainer," even when we outgrew professional wrestling...we were still Hulkamaniacs at heart. When Hulk stopped wrestling and took up reality TV on Hogan Knows Best, I watched even though I usually hate celeb-reality shows. As with Gene Simmons' show, there was something great about watching one of my childhood heroes navigating family life and just trying to get along in his retirement. If it sometimes seemed over-the-top and staged it just brought back memories of his pro-wrestling glory -- with less overt homo-eroticism. And so it pains me to see the Hulkster falling on hard times -- troublemaking son crashing cars and permanently injuring people, wife leaving him and running around with a teenage boy toy. N&R Interactive's Louis Bekoe points me to this item on a bar in Florida (near Linda Hogan's home) that has taken Hulk's side in this little marital spat of his. You almost feel sorry for her -- until you hear the kid's been riding Hulk's motorcycle as well as his wife. That's seriously off sides...

James Lipton welcomes Hellboy to the Actor's Studio

2008-07-02T16:11:46Z

George Carlin's SNL sets ratings record

2008-07-02T15:05:42Z

According to the Hollywood Reporter: NBC’s re-broadcast of the 1975 "Saturday Night Live" series premiere hosted by the late George Carlin delivered the show’s highest out-of-season rating in three years. The repeat (4.5/11) was the top "Saturday Night Live" metered-market overnight rating that aired outside of the show’s broadcast season since a repeat that aired Sept. 24, 2005 (an episode hosted by Will Ferrell that ran at the start of the broadcast season, but before the show launched its original run). Compared to the same night last year, "SNL" was up 29% in the metered markets. --- Carlin's hosting of the first SNL was, believe it or not, controversial at the time. The network wanted him to wear a suit. He wanted to wear a t-shirt and jeans. They compromised - he wore a suit with a t-shirt, which at the time was a big deal. Here's his opening monologue from that night. Here's the famous "Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television" bit that got Carlin arrested a few years earlier and wound up in front of the Supreme Court. Here's his mug shot from the arrest. He looks like a guy satisfied to be going to jail for the right reasons.

New Bond trailer: "Quantum of Solace"

2008-07-01T17:18:18Z

It's hard not to get excited about a new Bond flick even well in advance...but I've been doing pretty well. That is all out the window now, though.

Fast Food Friday Returns! Joe vs. The Big Bell Box Meal

2008-06-27T18:49:20Z

Having killed an entire bottle of Tums since my last Fast Food Friday outing, I decided to "think outside the bun" and head to Taco Bell this week. There I found the new "Big Bell Box Meal," a cardboard chest of paper-wrapped faux-Mexican delectables whose advertising campaign encourages you to "eat like a man!" My manhood thus challenged, I smacked down the $5 to prove I could down this 1,000 plus calorie "meal" and still stand up. Unfortunately, I underestimated the Big Bell Box Meal. It made me its bitch, leaving me wrecked, bloated, nauseous and scared, twitching in a meat-cheese-sugar coma, softly sobbing: "No mas...no mas..." ]]> In the upper right hand side they've stamped the following warning: Unfortunately, all this buildup leaves you in for a bit of a let-down when you crack it open to find...you know, some fast food tacos and cinnamon twists: Don't get me wrong -- it still looks like a lot of food. But it's sort of like when you finally got to see the monster in Cloverfield. After all that...it's some boney sorta lizard thing with a fangy pug nose? That's it? Those weird spider-crab things were scarier. But oh, that's what the Big Bell Box Meal wants you to think. Having lulled you into a false sense of security, it goes to work on your living guts as you shrug and hoist its first burrito. "Not bad," you think. Sure, this cheesy beef burrito thing is essentially just a soft beef taco with some rice and generic cheese sauce...but that's about what you've come to expect from the Bell people, and they're not going to throw you any curve balls. As you unwrap the second one, your confidence begins to waver. Looking down at that box, at how much food is still there, is a bit like looking down as you stand on a 40 story ledge. The view was nice nice till you noticed all the pigeons and the vertigo set in. When the second one's gone down you decide to take it easy -- sip on that Baja Blast and munch a few cinnamon twists as a sugary sweet counterweight to all that beef and processed cheese. Oh, man. That wasn't such a good idea. By the time you get down to just that crunchy taco the very smell of it makes you gag. You've downed a pound and a half of meat and cheese already and chased it with sugary carnival fries and and an effing Mountain Dew. What are you, stupid? Had to give that last taco away. And had a hard time finding someone to take it off my hands. So -- the winner and still champeen... the Big Bell Box Meal. No way around it. It had its way, smacked me on the ass, tossed some bills on the night stand and left me feeling dirty. But what was the real damage? Not a pretty picture. Calories: 1,370. Total Fat: 63 grams Sodium: 3910 milligrams Carbohydrates: 159 Sugar: 22 grams. (Source: Taco Bell) That's more than a Wendy's Baconator AND a McDonald's Quarter Pounder with Cheese worth of calories and fat. And that's assuming you have water or a diet drink. And who are you kidding? You won't. My advice: if you're going to order this little box of gastronomic horrors, bring a friend and split it.

Batman! Spider-Man! The X-Files!

2008-06-27T16:27:13Z

A few quick reports on movies in various stages of not-out-yet: * If you just can't wait for the new X-Files movie, the opening scenes are now online at Yahoo! Movies. * Rolling Stone movie reviewer Peter Travers has an early review of The Dark Knight. He digs it - especially Heath Ledger's performance, which he calls "mad-crazy-brilliant." "If there's a movement to get him the first posthumous Oscar since Peter Finch won for 1976's Network, sign me up," he says. * A fourth Spider-Man movie has been scheduled for a 2011 release. Neither leading man-boy Tobey McGuire nor director Sam Raimi have yet signed on for the sequel -- and after the trainwreck that was the last one, I can hardly blame them. Still, I'll probably end up seeing it and feeling dirty afterward. Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in!

Matt Damon looking fat human

2008-06-27T16:18:51Z

This picture of Matt Damon from the set of his next film is birthing a lot of bad jokes online this week -- I'm Stuffing Matt Damon, The Bourne Obesity, The Talented Mr. Rumpley. But I love pictures like this. Because looking like a fierce, ripped killing machine is Damon's job when he's filming movies like the Bourne trilogy. But it's good for people to see that his default mode is normal, human body. Whether he's doing it for a part of just letting himself go a little because he hasn't had a cheeseburger in three years, it's good for people to see superhero actors and actresses without makeup, hairy, flabby -- in a word, human.

This is why I watch shows like "America's Got Talent"

2008-06-26T18:03:06Z

Why does this guy not have a record deal? I love, love, love his voice. And his pretty eyes don't hurt, either. Eli Kerr is much better than this show, but every so often, that happens.

Jason Bateman talks "Arrested Development" movie

2008-06-25T16:05:24Z

In a recent interview with The Times of London, Jason Bateman confirms we'll see an Arrested Development movie in 2009. Nice. Michael Cera and Bateman (both of whom were in Juno) rocketed to film success after the show was canceled -- which Bateman attributes to the show missing with America at large but being beloved of people in L.A. "..and those are the ones who hire us," Bateman says.

DVDs to catch this week

2008-06-25T15:13:31Z

I've become addicted to those little Red Box DVD machines in the grocery store, so I'm paying more attention to DVD releases lately. A bunch of movies I dug in theaters are being released on DVD this week. If you missed them the first time around, you should check them out now. Charlie Bartlett - A teen angst flick that's just a little Wes Anderson, a little John Hughes and a little Cameron Crowe. Plus, it has Robert Downey Jr. as a high school principal who is also (in a shocking case of casting against type) an unstable drunk! In Bruges - Colin Farell, Brendan Gleeson and Ralph Fiennes star in this strange tale of two hitmen hiding out in a very strange little Belgian city. But there are some things you can't run away from, no matter how many drugs, women and midgets you hide behind. Persepolis - The animated (not CGI -- animated) film adaptation of Marjane Satrapi's graphic novel about growing up in Iran during the Islamic revolution. Like Life is Beautiful, it's really a lot more fun than a plot synopsis makes it sound. Definitely, Maybe - Just caught this one on DVD myself. You should too. Ryan Reynolds plays a recently divorced father who tells his little girl the story of how he met her mother -- but makes her figure out which woman she is in the story of his life, in which he's changed the names to protect the guilty. The concept actually works better than you might think -- and the funny retro-90s bits where Reynolds works on Bill Clinton's first campaign and discovers Nirvana's Nevermind may be the best bits of 90s comedy nostalgia yet committed to film.

Barack Obama talks Dylan, Jay-Z in Rolling Stone

2008-06-25T15:02:01Z

Barack Obama's on the cover of Rolling Stone again -- this time without "FASHION TIPS FROM PANIC AT THE DISCO!" blaring from beneath or around him. Maybe the best cover shot I've seen of him yet. In the interview he talks about (among other things) what's on his iPod -- Stevie Wonder, Bruce Springsteen, Dylan -- and how well he gets along with Jay-Z. Taking a lesson from John McCain's "Bomb Iran" Beach Boys flap, Obama cannily avoids saying something like "I got 99 problems but Hillary Clinton is no longer one." Interview here.

George Carlin's first Rolling Stone interview

2008-06-24T20:43:15Z

Rolling Stone has posted George Carlin's first interview with the mag, from 1972. Wouldn't it be great if they put him on the cover? Talk about a counter-culture hero - an influence on stand up comedy and comedy writing for two generations. I think he earned it.

"Moonlight" gets the wooden stake

2008-06-24T20:25:02Z

Looks like the Vampire detective show Moonlight is finally, truly dead. Never saw it? You didn't miss much. I love detective shows. I love supernatural fiction. I think they can be melded together well. This one didn't do it -- and it's going on the slag heap with Forever Knight.