Would the honorable Nutty Professor please yield?

Ladies and gentlemen, Rep. Jerry Lewis.

ATB: Michael Douglas is Old and Horny

For those of you keeping track, this week's Addicted to Bad column is posted, and it takes a hard look at plot conveniences. Okay, not really. Instead it makes fun of movie cliches:

These vehicles have been specially placed and preconfigured to have the keys already in the ignition or hidden in the visor. Our technicians engineer the ignition system to fail comically, only to be triggered when you collapse, sobbing, onto the wheel.

Anyway, go read it. Now. Or your friends will mock you and your pets will abandon you.

Who thinks of these things?

Shoving coins up your ass: a surefire way to win a trip to the emergency room, or a fun videogame? You be the judge.

To Serve and...?

"...instead of giving them a ticket, he forced them to take off their clothes and urinate in a nearby ditch."

Man, people have some weird fetishes.

Two new columns

I have a couple of new columns to mention. First off, I'm late linking to the Movie Poop Shoot column (again).

This week -- or rather, last week -- I was inspired by two items: Entertainment Weekly's listing of upcoming sequels/movie franchises, and watching Robert De Niro hack and slash his way through 15 Minutes, which just proved to me that De Niro will pretty much appear in anything these days. This movie was a mess, just couldn't decide what it wanted to be. Is it a satire? A serial killer drama? A cop procedural? A waste of time? Mostly the latter.

Anyway, go read the column here.

The second piece is my take on the Pink Floyd reunion for Spare Bricks. The column, KAOS Theories, was something I started back when the site began publishing years ago, but recently I started running out of time and inspiration. I struggled for weeks to find something meaningful to write about that related to Pink Floyd, but I just couldn't. I still listen to their music regularly, but as the band had basically closed up shop (or so it seemed), I found myself with less and less to say.

However, the story broke right before the latest issue was to go to press, and Mike, the editor, asked me if I could put something together. I agreed, if only because I felt bad about abandoning the one gig that allowed me to continue to call myself a columnist even when I was no longer doing weekly pieces.

My original concept for the piece was simply a response to all the cynics out there who could only see this as an exploitative move by the band, and believe me, there's more than a few. But as I started writing about that, I found myself vividly recalling the one time I saw the band live (minus Waters, of course, who left the band when I was still in grade school). I mean vividly, and I have a horrible memory. Usually things just slide out of my brain like sand through a sieve. But I found myself recalling just about everything about that day except for, well, the concert itself.

Odd, no?

Anyway, I think it may be the second best thing I ever wrote for the site (the first being my concept for a movie based on the history of the band, which I suppose would have to be re-written in light of the reunion). The call for more optimism is very universal, and I think it would do me good to take it to heart in other matters.

All right, enough blabbering. Go read.

I know I'm not the only one who is getting bugged to death by Tom Cruise lately, so naturally hearing that Tom got squirted in the face by a faux interviewer made me chuckle a little. Seeing that same footage in slo-mo set to porno music is brilliant.

So telling...

"So, does this mean that R2-D2 is really the main character in Star Wars?"

Never thought of it that way, but I think a persuasive case can be made for it. Might even make the prequels seem decent, seen through that lens.

...

Nahh.

Take that, eBay scammers...

Didn't take long for tickets to Bob Geldof's Live8 concert (featuring a reunited Pink Floyd -- well, minus Syd, of course) to show up on eBay. Fortunately, some people got creative and started placing prank bids for millions of pounds under names like "charity-cheaters-get-stuffed."

Good.

Myself, I'll be just fine with my seat in front of the television. (Not that I had much choice.) I'm hoping that Roger pulls out some outrageous political stunt (like showing footage of Bush and Blair during "Brain Damage"). Actually, I'm just hoping they don't embarrass themselves too much...

(And that Bob relaxes the 20 minute set rule. Dude, they have songs longer than that!)

Hilton Checks Out

From IMDB News: "Newly-engaged socialite Paris Hilton is planning to give up public life for family life in just two years time."

First reaction: Thank God. Second reaction: Two more years?

Hell.

Are you there, God?

Forget prayer, send God a postcard instead!

I don't know why, but the line "Letters to God can be addressed in the same way replacing 'Santa Claus' with 'God'" amuses me. Maybe because I can see some nutjob Christian right group making a big fuss out of it.

Speaking of postal woes, my mother called me yesterday to tell me that she had sent me a letter with some birthday money in it, but she had mistakenly used my phone area code instead of my street number. She got the letter back opened, with the money missing.

Curious, I checked out the address yesterday, and there is no such address. So who opened the letter?

Well, hell just froze over.

Addicted to Bad: The English Patient

It's Friday, so that means its column time again, and this week, I take on the horror that is The English Patient. Now, to be fair, I didn't hate this movie, I just thought that the central romance was vague and unconvincing, which meant that the surrounding film was just pointless window-dressing. It was pretty, sure, but ultimately pointless.

The movie felt a lot like someone had all the superficial ingredients for a grand, romantic epic, but none of the weight. We spent so little time actually watching the leads together. It was like a "greatest hits" of their relationship, and we were just supposed to accept that they used to be a really important band in their day.

Just about stretched that metaphor to it's break point, haven't I?

Anyway, back to the column: One joke I just couldn't fit into the piece was about the goofy pronunciation of Ralph Fiennes's first name ("Raif"). Does that mean that we were supposed to be calling Richie Cunningham's friend "Raif Maif" all these years?

Okay. Go read the column, dammit.

Tiny pants! Run!

So that explains it...

Star Wars III was directed by Jerry Bruckheimer!

Wait, that explains nothing. Oh hell.

Always Good Advice...

"I will not consume any energy field bigger than my head."

Quite possibly the best Onion headline in a while: Special Olympics Investigated For Use Of Performance-Enhancing Hugs.

Ratner Sucks

So they're going to trust the X-Men franchise to the guy who directed Rush Hour 2 and The Family Man? You know, I wasn't too worried when he was on deck to direct Superman, because that could actually work as a big, dumb action movie, but X-Men, as established by Bryan Singer (who himself left X3 to work on Superman), is more thoughtful and should have less of a cookie-cutter, three-act plot (particularly the second film).

It's not so much that Ratner will "ruin" the franchise, although that's a strong possibility, but he will most certainly wreck the continuity, aesthetically if not literally.

Ah well. Getting worked up about this is a bit like getting worked up about Buffy the Vampire Slayer fan fiction.

PR 101

I love the wording of this statement about Russell Crowe's recent arrest for assault with a deadly cell phone: "He (Crowe) has never been arrested in this country. He is very, very charitable, a decent human being with an excellent background."

Which, to me, reads more like, "Please ignore his dozens of arrests elsewhere, particularly in light of his nice parents who themselves have never been arrested in this country and that check he sent to the Special Olympics the last time he punched someone."

In the news...

America once again offended by breasts:

Teen actress Lindsay Lohan's breasts have been digitally reduced for forthcoming Disney film Herbie: Fully Loaded, to avoid offending family audiences.

Then again, Lohan herself seems to agree that maybe her breasts were a tad too big.

This week's Addicted to Bad is posted, and it's a doozy. It's a concept I've wanted to do for a while, but the subject matter and the technical capabilities needed to align. Fortunately, my old pal (and fellow Lunatic) Rick "Karhu" Anderson helped me out with the programming side, and the subject matter, well... Let's just say that all of Roland Emmerich's movies seem to have a lot in common.

So what I've done is mash together Independence Day, The Day After Tomorrow, Godzilla, and The Patriot (a disaster movie in historical epic clothing) and create a handy little web application that will generate your own disaster movie. Lots of fun to be had by all.

If it goes over well, I'll do more of these. If not, I'll probably do it again anyway.

Column Correspondence

I'm going to start running letters from readers and my responses, just 'cos I feel like it. In reference to my recent column about Mission: Impossible, Kevin wrote:

Okay, here's my problem: Mission: Impossible made perfect sense to me. I don't know why people had so much trouble understanding the film, it made sense on first viewing to me. This of course led to me doubting my sanity as I was told by various outlets that the plot made no sense.....so how could I comprehend it if it made no sense.

In short, I determined that the rest of the world was wrong and that I was, in fact, sane.

The fact that I then bought a copy of the second film leads me to doubt that conclusion however....IT WAS A PACKAGE DEAL! That's a good excuse, right? Right?

kevin

Kevin,

Lord, this reply is overdue. I hope you can forgive me. You see, much like the computer in the episode of Star Trek ("classic" Trek, as opposed to the "new Coke" Treks that came later) where Spock tries to get the computer to perform a logic problem and it starts smoking, my brain shut down for several weeks while comprehending Mission: Impossible and your added conundrum.

It was only after days of deprogramming and nonstop "Dick Van Dyke Show" reruns that I could finally emerge from my confusion. The only conclusion I'm able to come to, you see, is that your brain, in an attempt to avoid ending up like yours truly (at least as far as the confusion thing goes... your brain probably doesn't want to end up like me in any other aspect, but that's beside the point) is to convince yourself that you do, in fact, understand the first film. (Don't bother with the second one. It only makes sense if you have a doctorate-level degree in ancient Prussian mythology.) Much like how your brain can make you think that you were not in some POW camp in Da Nang, or that "According to Jim" is good, it also has elaborate coping mechanisms for Brian De Palma films. Studies have verified this.

Point being, um, thanks for the letter.

Patrick

Next, in response to my column about Andie MacDowell's habit of wrecking movies, Troy wrote:

Patrick,

To provide further evidence toward your inconclusive conclusion of Andie MacDowell, you failed to make any mention of Groundhog Day.

Troy

Troy,

Alas, Groundhog Day was the one element of my theory that almost ruined everything. It's a bit like Einstein writing the theory of relativity and then having an alien drop by and take him for a ride in his saucer.

A lot of people wrote about GD, actually. I may have hit a nerve. Is there a large contingent of Andie MacDowell loyalists out there?

Regardless, I think that Groundhog Day succeeds in spite of Ms. MacDowell, if only because she's largely window dressing, a plot device. Still, Harold Ramis deserves credit for keeping her in check. Having her in the movie is a bit like giving a blowtorch to a toddler and letting him play with your Lincoln Logs. It's entirely possible that nothing bad will happen, but it hardly seems worth the risk.

Anyway, I think I've used my legal limit of sloppy metaphors...

Patrick

Finally, we have two letters in response to my column about Van Der Beek's enormous noggin. First, Rich wrote:

Patrick,

While I agree that Varsity Blues is a god awful movie, I've got to know what kind of shit are you smoking! Whenever I read your articles, you NEVER fail to bring in something (normally many things) from way out in left field. Needless to say, I love your style of writing and look forward to the column each and every week along with Comics 101. Keep up the good work, or what all of your fans consider good work within the cloud of hallucinations and trippin' balls!

Payce,
Richard

Richard,

Ha! If only I was smoking something! It's more like a steady combination of adrenaline, sleep deprivation, and a thoroughly warped childhood, which tends to produce results not unlike complete and utter blasted-out-of-your-mindedness.

If you're interested, though, I can put you through an intensive course designed to mimic my unique blend of insanity. Guests spend four weeks on a remote farm in North Dakota with a medicine cabinet full of caffiene pills and nothing but the complete "My Mother, The Car" on Betamax for entertainment. Fun for the whole family!

Anyway, thanks for the e-mail. Always good to hear that people are enjoying my demented ramblings.

Patrick

Next, Jerry shared a reminscence about his childhood:

I just find big-foreheaded talk humorous and was instantly reminded of a friend in high school when I read your article about Van Der Beek's enormous forehead. A girl that was a friend of many of the people that I hung out with in high school was often referred to as eight head because her forehead was twice as large as normal. To this day I think she was confused about it because she would over hear us and think that we said egg head and was just plain confused about what we were saying.

Don't know why I wrote just felt like sharing.

Thanks
Jerry

No, Jerry, thank you for sharing.

Sadly, large-foreheadedness (aka excessus cranititis) affects dozens of Americans, and we all owe James Van Der Beek a debt of gratitude for his courage in bringing it to national awareness, much like Clint Eastwood made millions aware of the seriousness of severe squinting in the 70s.

Big-foreheaded people have to contend with low ceilings, ill-fitting hats, and widespread forehead prejudice. People are afraid to let them ride in convertibles, for fear that they will provide too much wind resistance. Studies have shown that people with enormous foreheads are less likely to get jobs as sunglass models.

Sadly, however, they're also really, really goofy looking. Life ain't fair. Tough luck, Dawson, I say.

Patrick

PS 8-Head. Ha!

Would somebody kindly tell me where to find Andrew Hicks, of A Year in the Life of a Nerd "fame"? I used to love that guy's writing.

For the Mad Scientist crowd: How to Destroy the Earth, a primer.

They forgot one: Vote Republican.

Check out Steven Grant's review of the latest issue of Too Much Coffee Man (which I edit):

This issue's something of a breakthrough for humor magazine too much coffee man. While the magazine has always been funny, it usually tends toward a hip, more conceptual funny. But this issue, on the theme of war, is often flat out laugh out loud funny, particularly the "War On Terror! board game" piece, including four other eminently playable board games. Shannon ought to consider actually manufacturing and marketing these. Equally funny are "Darth Vader's Address To The United Nations" (on the topic of the Empire invading Cloud City: "Whatever our disagreements about the liberation itself, I would ask that we remain united on the fact that Cloud City has much better promise for the future today than it ever had under the heel of Lando Calrissian..."), "The tmcm Guide to Afghani Strip Clubs," and other features of the sort that the NATIONAL LAMPOON would have done back in the day. Plus the usual assortment of cartoons from Ted Rall, Graham Annable, etc., reviews and regular features like Mark Russell's brilliant "Superman Stories." Dave Sim fans might want to note the cover sports a brand new piece by The Indy God. Recommended, and funny.

National Lampoon. Holy shit.

Speaking of which, we're currently hard at work (cough) on the next issue, which is the TMCM Women's Issue. Whee.

Rock and Roll, Thesaurusized:

Violet mist completely in my intellect

Recently, effects simply don't give the impression of being identical

Carrying on humorously; however, I am not acquainted with the reason

Pardon me at the same time as I make out with the atmosphere

Violet mist altogether in the region of

Don't recognize if I'm approaching happy or depressed

Am I content or in desolation?

Suchlike it is, that lass placed a magic charm on top of me

Assist me
Assist me
Oh, no, no

Good stuff.

Buyer beware indeed: "The present edition has been revised extensively by the author."

Many churches are not growing simply because their calendars leave little for the non-Christian "seeker" to get excited about. This book focuses on the simplicity of Christ's ministry, enabling you to minister to all individuals without overwhelming new Christians or leaving mature Christians unchallenged. Includes a study guide.

The book? Elements of Arousal: How to Write and Sell Gay Men's Erotica.

Get paid $100k to write about The Dukes of Hazzard? Man, am I in the wrong line of work.

Today's top story: A large fake penis has caused a major terror alert in America.

Film at 11. On Cinemax.

Oh my God... Jerry Bruckheimer remade Clonus!