The NFL Bum

It’s been a while since the screenbum has appeared, and unfortunately it’s because screenbum doesn’t pay. It’s a labor of love. So your favorite video-phile has to work to keep the lights on. I am proud to say that I’m back, and just in time for my favorite time of year. It’s football time.

The NFL kicks off its 90th season bigger and better then ever. Professional football has become the most watched sport in the country, surpassing baseball as America’s favorite sport. I can talk about and watch professional football 24/7. Sure, there are a lot of people out there that love college ball more then pro ball, but I grew up in Brooklyn. New York has always been, and will always be a pro sports town. Some of the college fans are people that cheer for their alma maters, but most are individuals that grew up in a part of the country that didn’t have one of the few pro sports franchises in the states. It’s understandable, but I’m proud of my pro sports roots.

The game has grown in popularity year in and year out. I think the thing that has catapulted football over everything else was the explosive excitement of fantasy football. No matter how popular football was initially, fantasy football players had a reason to not only watch their own favorite teams, but to watch every game that’s on no matter the matchup. I guarantee if you look at the numbers you will see the rise of fantasy football participants parallel the rising viewership of the game. It’s not rocket science. Whenever you have something invested you’re going to pay more attention to it.

There are fantasy games now for everything, including baseball (which started all of fantasy sports), nascar, and golf. There is even a fantasy fashion game, where players try and figure out which designer certain stars are going to wear on the red carpet, but its football that trumps them all. Believe it or not there are still plenty of people that have no idea how it works, including plenty of women that hate when their husbands and boyfriends completely ignore them while watching a game, or trying to figure out who to start in the next game. So let me give you a quick tutorial.

You pick players, and then you get points based on how those players perform in their respective games. That’s it….it’s simple. Then, just like any other game, the guys with the most points win.

This is the most exciting time of year for me, and after years of confusion as to why I love this game so much, my loving wife has finally adopted a “if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em” attitude and now she watches my games with me. I couldn’t have gotten any luckier to get a woman like her. I would love to know what the statistics are of divorces and breakups due to fantasy football. Oh, yeah I’d bet you 100-1 that it’s happened plenty of times.

This isn’t like baseball where there are a ridiculous 162 games. With football each team plays 16 games over 17 weeks, that’s it. Every game counts. Compared with most other sports the entire regular season is like the playoffs. From kickoff of the season, to the final whistle of the Super Bowl the NFL’s season is by far my favorite time to bum around in front of the screen. It doesn’t matter if I’m relaxing watching a game on my own or with a huge crowd cheering for their favorite team, getting to watch football is always the ultimate time to be a screenbum.

The Emmy Bum

The Emmy awards started in 1949, and are still going strong today. Unfortunately last night’s show was a complete bore-fest. The show actually started off really well with this year’s host Jimmy Fallon and a few members of the cast of Glee starting to round up a collection of actors walking around the studio to do a glee-like send up to Bruce Springsteen’s Born to Run. It was a lot of fun until they all actually hit the stage. Then it looked like something you could watch at Great Adventure while you’re waiting for your kids to stop throwing up from the last ride they went on. Jimmy Fallon might be funny at times, but he needs to realize that he cannot sing.

It’s too bad that the singing continued many times throughout the broadcast, including a musical montage devoted to all the shows that completed their runs, like Lost, and Law and Order. Fallon’s schtick was just an unfunny recycled bit from his late night show. Seriously? You couldn’t even think of something original for the emmys? We didn’t see the masturbating bear when Conan hosted. Fallon also tried to get some popular stars involved in the mix by getting some of them to do some ridiculous short duets to introduce each category of the evening.
The lone bright spot of the night was the Modern Family sketch that featured George Clooney. It was the only laugh out load moment of the whole show, and it’s totally worth you taking the time to look it up on You Tube.
Some of the winners included some surprises like Jim Parsons for one of my favorite shows The Big Bang Theory, Eric Stonestreet for Modern Family, and the most deserving person of the year Jane Lynch for Glee. Bryan Cranston won for the 3rd year in a row (and the 3rd season) of Breaking Bad, and a nice complaint was the victory of Cranston’s co-star Aaron Paul for supporting.

Mad Men won again for best drama, and Modern Family took won the prize for Best Comedy, and it really was the best comedy on television last year.
The surprise wins of the night were the best part of the Emmys, but all in all the whole show just felt like it was out of pace, slow, and completely boring. The writing was horrible, and the direction was noticeably off kilter. I say bring back Conan, and leave Jimmy to his night time gig. This year’s Emmy will defiantly not get an Emmy.

The Expenda Bum part II

One of the first screenbum postings was based on the trailer for a movie that I was very excited about. So even though I had to wait a few days before I got the chance to go see The Expendables, I was just as excited as the day I heard about it. The only problem was that I think I built it up so much that, even though I liked it, The Expendables wasn’t as awesome as I hoped it would be. I was looking for it to be my generation’s Dirty Dozen.

As long as there was fighting, shooting, and things blowing up the movie was awesome. Then unfortunately the guys had to act, and that was just brutal. The script didn’t help much either. All I could think about while watching it was that if it wasn’t for the all star cast this movie probably would have went straight to DVD.

Sylvester Stallone wrote, directed, and starred in the movie, and was smart enough to give second billing to one of today’s biggest action stars Jason Statham. Sly looked plastic, and the obvious coloring of his well groomed goatee was laughable, but Statham was charismatic as always. He is one of the things that actually holds the whole movie together.

Stallone plays the leader of a group of mercenaries that gets an offer for a big paying job to take out a corrupt general of a small South American country. Including Sly and Statham, the rest of the group is comprised of Dolph Lundgren, Jet Li, Randy Couture, and Terry Crews. Mickey Rourke plays their guy behind the scenes trying to get out of the game by sticking his ground as the intermediary between clients and the team. So Rourke sets up a meeting.

Sly goes to a church to talk about the job proposal, and meets with the only two action stars as big as he is. It was a really fun scene that Bruce Willis and Arnold Schwarzenegger didn’t have to do, but because of their friendship with Stallone, and the realization of their roots, they were reportedly happy to be a part of this extravaganza of testosterone.

Stallone and Statham go to do some recon on the island nation and soon realize that they are not only up against a general and his army, but a rouge psychotic ex-CIA agent played by, the forever over acting, Eric Roberts, and his own mercenaries Stone Cold Steve Austin, and kick boxing star Gary Daniels.

During a recent interview Sly said that he had a sequel in mind, but the possibilities of the sequel would all be based upon the success of the first. The Expendables came in first place and made $35 million in its first weekend in the U.S., and is now up to $45 million domestically. The movies budget ran about $80 million total, & it will go past that in the states. I’m betting that the movie does a lot better abroad where they love cheesy action flicks. That being said it looks as if The Expendables will garner a serious return even before it’s release on DVD, and we all know that profits mean sequels.

I say leave your brain at home, enjoy the eye candy, and love it for what it is, but if you’re looking for more then that from The Expendables then you will be disappointed.

The Knocks Bum

This is the seventh season of one of my favorite shows on television. Hard Knocks gives you a rare in depth look at an NFL team’s training camp. In previous years they have peeked in on the Ravens (the year after they won the super bowl), as well as the Jaguars, Cheifs, and the Cowboys twice. Not since the first season (Ravens) has HBO had the opportunity to cover a team that has a legitimate shot at winning the super bowl.

The New York Jets and their gregarious head coach Rex Ryan are front and center, and as of the first episode they do not disappoint.

In the past the series has been reverted to teams that really had no personality or any shot at any success in any of their respective seasons. The Jets have both, personality and promise. A flashy young quarterback, a veteran pro bowl running back, the drama of their biggest star holding out, and plenty of other characters. However the best part of the whole three ring circus is head coach Rex Ryan.

Ryan is a member of an old school football family. His dad Buddy Ryan was instrumental in some of the best defenses in NFL history. The Jets defense that held the Colts to seven points in Super Bowl III, earned Buddy his first ring. He was also the defensive coordinator for the Vikings infamous “Purple People Eaters” of the 1970s, as well as, the defensive coordinator for what some consider being arguably the best NFL defense ever, the 1985 Chicago Bears. That’s where Buddy got his second ring. Buddy was always a tumultuous guy; he even got into a fist fight with Mike Ditka in ’85, at halftime of the Bears only loss of the season to the Dolphins. It looks as if Rex is an apple that hasn’t fallen far from the tree.

It’s great watching Ryan deal with his players and personnel, especially seeing how the whole organization is trying to help him stay on his well needed diet. He is fined every time he cheats.

This season will focus on some of the stars like Mark Sanchez, Jason Taylor, Bart Scott, Kris Jenkins (returning from injury), and of coarse the biggest question of all. Will Darrelle Revis report to training camp?

Then there are the players we never even know about. There are plenty of undrafted free agents that are battling for a spot on the team. It’s great to see them competing for their positions, but it’s heart breaking when you have to watch to coaches sit down the players down to explain why they are getting cut.

There are also the rookies that are thrown into a brand new world and seeing how they are learning all about how the NFL can be so much different then college ball.
Seeing all these athletes in this environment is a rare treat. For me it’s kind of like getting to go into the batcave. Before this type of show came about, training camp was pretty much a mystery for most of us. Now we get to see what an organization has to do to put together a solid foundation, and see if that groundwork can hold up all of the pressure of being winners and eventually champions.

The Memento Bum

After watching Inception (still the best movie of the summer), I had the urge to go back and see Christopher Nolan’s breakout feature film Memento, and boy am I glad I did. Memento came out 10 years ago, and I haven’t really sat down to enjoy it since then. I remembered I really liked its originality then, but now I know it is still in a class all its own.


Memento follows Leonard, played by Guy Pearce, as he hunts for the man that murdered his wife. However, the biggest problem he faces is himself. Leonard has a condition called Anterograde Amnesia which completely erases his short term memory. He wouldn’t remember things within minutes of it happening so he would have to keep his investigative notes in a most peculiar way.

Leonard would tattoo all of his most important findings all over his body, and add notes to Polaroid’s he takes of people, places and things to always keep himself as organized as possible. Leonard believed that it’s his experience as a former insurance investigator, & organizational skills that will continue to keep him on the track of the elusive man that took his wife from him.

Helping out Leonard in his quest is his questionable friend Teddy (Joe Pantoliano), and Natalie (Carrie Ann Moss) a waitress with problems all her own.
The thing about this movie that sets it apart from anything we’ve seen before it, and since, is that writer/director Nolan tries to put the film’s viewer into Leonard’s head by telling the story backwards, and a bit sideways, but never in chronological order. You might think that it is hard to keep a story suspenseful once you know the ending, but believe me the ending of the movie itself will still blow you away. It might even surprise you to know that the whole movie was shot in only 25 days.
There is a special edition DVD that has an easter egg that will allow you to watch the movie in chronological order, but unless you watch Memento a few times as Nolan originally intended it will ruin the genius and innovation that the whole film encompasses.
Everyone that saw Memento in 2000 had to know that Christopher Nolan’s opus was the beginning of new visionary’s world that would eventually bring us movies like The Dark Knight, The Prestige, and of coarse Inception.
If you have seen Memento before, well then watch it again, but if you’ve never seen it, you know what I’m going to say, especially if you are a fan of Nolan’s latest inception of original story telling in Hollywood.

The Shark Bum

In 1985 Discovery Channel premiered on cable television, soon after, the higher ups at the network needed to find a way to attract more viewers….and a phenomenon was created. For the last 23 years Shark Week has brought in over 20 million viewers each year, and has become a staple of summer television.
This years six features include Ultimate Air Jaws, which takes a look at the seal hunting tactics of the great white, and their propensity to fly out of the water to capture their elusive prey. The difference with this years air jaws show is the new and super slow motion camera shots at 2000 frames per second of this amazing feat.

There is also Into The Shark Bite where the documentarians risk life and limb to place a camera into the mouth of some of the world’s deadliest sharks, and Shark Attack Survival follows host Terry Schappert as he jumps into the water with the beasts to give us a first hand guide on how to escape a shark attack.
Two other documentaries focus on shark attack survivors, Day of Shark 3, and Shark Bite Beach give some first hand accounts, and recreations of some of the most dramatic stories you’ve ever heard.

The final new feature of the popular week is Shark Bites: Adventures in Shark Week. This takes shark week host Craig Ferguson off of his late night couch and throws him in the water. The show is a compilation of Ferguson’s experiences feeding sharks in the Bahamas, and some of the most exciting shark week moments over the last 23 years. It looks to be a great mixture of fear and funny.
Each year there are so many of us that get excited for this week of television. The mysteries of sharks have kept us riveted for years and continue to do so. There is so much that we still don’t know about these mystifying creatures, but that’s why we love this week of t.v. even more every year.

So many people have had a lot to say about this coveted time, but the best that I’ve ever heard came from comedian Tracy Morgan. Tracy says that “we should live every week like its Shark Week”. The features will repeat throughout the week so DVR them if you can, and live your week. Well said Tracy, well said.

The Salt Bum

Another big summer action movie opened last weekend, and it has officially become the screenbum’s second favorite movie of the season. Angelina Jolie has come back big time.


There aren’t many women in Hollywood that could pull off a role like this, but Angelina is awesome. The role of Salt was originally going to go to Tom Cruise, but Cruise decided to drop out and do the recent bomb Knight and Day. This would have been a totally different movie if Cruise decided to stick with it, but boy, I am glad that he didn’t. The role was rewritten for a woman, and Angelina stepped in.
A Russian spy enters the CIA office to make a confession, and states that Jolie’s character Evelyn Salt is a Russian spy as well. From there Salt goes on a Jason Bourne type escapade to clear her name and save her husband. It is definitely a roller coaster ride of unbelievable action and stunts, but Angelina sells it, and sells it hard. She even did most of her own stunts throughout the movie. The script flows well, and the director does a great job of keeping the film moving so that when the surprise ending comes to fruition it is a revelation that makes you say, “I knew it all along”, but you know you didn’t.

Liev Schrieber is solid as always, as Salt’s CIA confidant that is trying to bring her back in to help her in her quest for the truth, and Chiwetel Ejiofor a counter intelligence agent that has no interest in finding out the truth. His only focus is her capture, but soon realizes that there is a lot more to the situation then anyone originally realized.
Considering all the crap that Hollywood has put out this summer it nice to finally see another movie other then Inception that lives up to it’s hype.

The Inception Bum

This has been one of the worst summer movie seasons ever, but now there is finally a movie that can help salvage it.

Inception will blow your mind; it is like Dreamscape on steroids. If you have been a fan of Christopher Nolan’s scripts in the past you will know that this ride, just like his others, will not be a smooth one, but it will be one you enjoy at every turn. It is also Leonardo Dicaprio’s best movie since The Departed.
Inception is about a dream thief, Dom Cobb (Leo) that needs to do one last job to get his life back. After it goes wrong Dom and his partner, Arthur, played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt (great as always), are put into a position to accept the original target’s (Ken Wantanabe’s Saito) proposal to implant an idea into a soon to die mogul’s son’s mind to get him to split up the company and prevent a monopoly. For a thief to do something like this is like breaking into a bank to put the money back. Arthur doesn’t think it can be done, but Dom knows it can. He needs to put together a team to get the job done, and goes to see his father (Michael Caine), a college professor, to find an architect to help build the world needed to work in. Dom’s father introduces him to Ariadne (Ellen Page), and she takes to this new world of endless possibilities immediately. The rest of the cast is rounded out by Cillian Murphy, Tom Berenger, Tom Hardy and Marion Cotillard. Each one of them is excellent.

I would love to tell you more, but I also don’t want to give out too much of the plot. Simply following the storyline is a mind bending roller coaster ride. A movie like this could have been extremely complicated, but Nolan does a great job of putting the scenes together in way that seems like it should be confusing, but you will able to be follow it at every quick turn. You’ve probably seen the trailers, so you know it looks cool, but it’s the script that really makes it a success.

Christopher Nolan’s past scripts have been nothing short of intriguing as well. It all started with Memento, when we got to follow around an amnesiac’s quest to find his wife’s killer, then he gave us Insomnia, about a serial killer in Alaska, followed by both of the recent Batman movies (Batman Begins and The Dark Knight).

In a season filled with sub-par schlock Nolan and Dicaprio has finally given us a smart, absorbing two hours and twenty minutes of eye candy. Many are already considering it to be the first movie of the year that might get a best picture nomination, and I am glad to say that I am one of the many.

The Predators Bum

I hate when some critics go on and on when they try to explain their dislike for a movie. So I’m just going simply say Predators sucked. I was actually very excited for this movie to come out. I know that a lot of people do not like sequels, but I’m a big fan of them. Sure majority of them never measure up to the original, but it’s always nice to see the continuing stories of some of your favorite characters. This was not one of them.

I understand that the casting of Adrian Brody as the main protagonist in the movie was an attempt at getting away from the normal thoughts of what a character like that should be, but it just didn’t work. Brody is an Oscar winner for best actor, but this is definitely not his genre, no matter how good an actor he is. I tried to believe it, I really did, but no matter how many smoldering gun toting moments he had on screen, or his still too skinny weirdly ripped physique, he just didn’t sell me. Some of the other actors up for this role were Josh Brolin, Freddy Rodriguez, and Milo Ventamiglia.

This was a Robert Rodriguez production and that is what made this an exciting ticket for me. He actually wrote the script 15 years ago when he was working on Desperado, but the studio thought that it was going to be too expensive to make. The movie will be considered a success considering its modest 40 million dollar budget. It made 25 million its first weekend. He actually considers it a continuing story of the first two Predator films, and has no relation to the Predator vs. Aliens movies.
There weren’t high expectations going into the theater, but there were some of a decent action movie. In the original, and even the sequel you felt bad for some of the characters when they got slaughtered, but I found myself actually rooting for the predators in this one. The only cool thing about the movie was the few references to the original, and the best part of the whole thing was trailer for Machete that was previewed before the movie even started.

Topher Grace was just alright, but still hasn’t lived up to the hype that he built up after leaving That 70’s Show, and Laurance Fishburne is so much better then the role that he was given. Fishburne’s time on screen didn’t even live up to the credit that he received in the commercials for this.
So, to sum up the obvious, Predators could, and should have been so much better. Don’t waste your money at the theater, but maybe if you’re a fan it’s worth a rental in a few months. Otherwise just wait a year until it’s on cable, or even a couple of years before it’s on network. Either way you’re not missing much.

The Burn Bum

One of the best shows on television that so many people are still not watching is Burn Notice.

Burn Notice stars Jeffery Donovan as Michael Westen, a former American spy that has had his spy status revoked, and continuously searches for who burned him, why, and a way to get back into the spy game. Donovan plays Westen perfectly. He has a heart of gold, and a grin to match, but don’t let the grin fool you. He is always the smartest guy in the room; he is constantly underestimated by the people he comes up against.

To help pass the time while he continues his search, Michael Westen and his partners Fiona and Sam help innocent victims around Miami. What else could an ex-spy do when unemployed? The way he meticulously explains how to accomplish each feat makes you feel like you can do it too. That’s half the fun of the show is that it makes you feel like you are a part of it. Michael Westen can use anything around him to get him out of whatever jam he is in. He is with out a doubt the new age MacGyver.

Gabrielle Anwar plays Fiona an ex-IRA militant that has an ongoing romance with Michael, and would do just about anything for him. She is as hot on the show as she is a badass. Anwar actually does an awesome job of making a beautiful woman in a bikini seem believable with a shotgun (no easy feat), and I’m not just saying that because I’m a guy.

A huge part of the show is one of the most under-used actors in Hollywood, everybody’s favorite campy character actor Bruce Campbell. A few years have past since his breakout in the Evil Dead series, and it is so great to see him back on screen on a regular basis. Bruce’s character Sam is a fun loving ex-Navy Seal, and Michael’s best friend. He has a smart-ass answer for everything, and would do almost anything for a six pack.

The show is rounded out by Sharon Gless, Michael’s chain smoking mom. She understands Michael’s situation and career. She doesn’t like it, but accepts it because there have been way too many years without her son while he was off on top secret military missions. Gless brings amazing warmth to the show, even if she pulls no punches when trying to get her way, or her point across. She recently received a well deserved Emmy nomination for the role.

One of the biggest characters is the city of Miami itself. Burn Notice’s backdrop shows the city in an amazing light, and is one of the few shows on television to film entirely on location. The colors of the city, and sunny skies of Miami adds so much to the tone of the whole series. I couldn’t even imagine what the show would have been like if was set in the original planned city of Newark, NJ.

Like I said before Burn Notice is hands down one of the best shows on television, and it is still is not watched by the masses. Sure, it is the top rated show on basic cable, but it beats the hell out of the top overall drama on t.v. The Mentalist, and should have the same amount of viewers. There was even a SNL skit entitled “What is Burn Notice?” Another perfect thing about the show is that even though there is the underlying spy searching storyline intertwined in the series anybody can start watching it at anytime and love it. If you watch it already, well then you know what I’m talking about. If not, then trust me and set it up on your DVR, it well worth it.

The Disney Bum

The screenbum has returned from vacation and even though I didn’t really watch anything on t.v. I have decided to talk about my visit to the magical world of Disney.   It does somewhat follow my screenbum criteria considering the fact that there isn’t on ride or attraction that doesn’t have some kind of video that coincides with it.  I went along with my wife and her sister, and we actually had a great time.  The attractions at the parks we visited ranged from the mundane to the magical.  Nonetheless, we had an amazing time, despite seeing all the big sloppy tourists stuffing those oversized turkey legs down their throats.  I’m not going to list every single thing we saw, but I will tell you about a few.

We started the day at Disney’s Hollywood Studios.  Our first stop was Star Tours, a Star Wars flight simulator.  The excitement of getting our day started was energizing, and the Star Wars environment was miraculous.  While we were waiting in line there was a kid behind us that said, “Daddy I’m scared, is this ride scary?”  His Dad replied no.  We entered the chamber and strapped ourselves in.  The lights went down and the whole compartment began to move as if we were in the X-fighter.  It was just ok until we heard the same little kid behind us yell, “This is awesome”.    That made it so much better.  The once scared kid was sad when it was all over, but we weren’t.

Our next stop happened to be one of the best experiences we had all day.  Muppet-Vision 3-D brought me back to my childhood.  The movie was a blast, and it was some of the best 3-D I’ve ever seen, but it was walking in to the theater that really brought me back.  If you ever watched The Muppet Show when you were a kid you would recognize the theater it took place in, in a hot second.  It was a blast from the past that put a childlike grin on my face immediately.  The thing is that you didn’t have to watch the show 30 years ago to fall in love with the Muppets again.

The greatest thing at Hollywood Studios was also one of the best rides I’ve been on in years.  It was the Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster starring Aerosmith.  I wanted to go on it based upon a recommendation from a friend, and boy I am glad I did.  I had no idea what to expect, but once you enter the chamber and see the coaster car take it’s passengers out of the room like a bullet getting shot out of a gun you know it’s going to be an adrenaline filled trip.  We strap ourselves in, keep our heads back (as directed), and before we know it we go from stand still to 60 in seconds.  Loops, twists, and turns begin before you can think, and it’s done in the pitch-blackness.  There are some lights that represent the streets of L.A. and a rockin’ soundtrack by Aerosmith that goes along with it.  It was, hands down, the best ride of the entire day.

We then jumped on a shuttle bus to the once miraculous EPCOT.  We started off with the ride inside the iconic silver ball called Spaceship Earth.  The entire thing was laughable, and extremely slow.  Especially since the ride got stuck for 10 minutes.  By the time the tour through time ended I could understand why it was cutting edge 30 years ago when it was built, but it is completely out of date now.  Even the ride attendant told me that E.P.C.O.T. used to stand for Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow, but the higher ups know how dated it is so they have now just dubbed it the single word of EPCOT.

The rest of the park consisted of tours that were drawn out and absurd.  We even walked around the whole park, and if it wasn’t for our ability to laugh about it all, and a whole lot of alcohol then our time at EPCOT would have been considered a complete waste of time.  Sure, there were a couple of things that made us say, oh that’s cool, but not enough to give any of us a reason to ever go back there.  We did however redub the whole experience PoopCot.

Finally we took the monorail to hit the anchor of the whole Disney experience, The Magic Kingdom.  We made a B-line for what’s known to some as the most exciting ride in the kingdom, Space Mountain.  After waiting in-line for almost an hour, and a ride on another indoor roller coaster I realized that I understood why it used to be the most talked about ride around, but I just saw it as Rock-n-Rollin Coaster light. 

We then hit a few of the famous rides, It’s a Small World, Haunted Mansion, and Pirates of the Caribbean, all were charming in there own ways.  Eventually the sun went down and the summertime Disney Electrical Parade began.  The parade consisted of all of your favorite Disney characters.  Mickey, Minnie, Donald, Goofy, Pluto, Cinderella, Snow White, all seven Dwarfs, Pinnochio, and pretty much any one of the others you can think of all danced up main street or rode on one of the light covered floats.  The parade was fun, but not as much fun as the faces of all the kids watching it.  Once the parade ended everyone reserved their spots for the big nightly million dollar fireworks spectacular over Cinderella’s Castle.  It really is the cherry on top of a wonderful day.  The fireworks were just as amazing of any of the New York Macy’s shows I’ve seen over the years. 

Before we left we hit a couple more rides including the Monsters Inc. Laugh Floor, an improvised interactive hysterical show that gave us some of the biggest smiles of the day.  We did some shopping at the over priced merchandise shops and then made our way out of the park.

All in all we had an absolutely amazing day, and I do have to thank one of my best friends in the world for it.  You know who are (Zabazoo).  Disneyworld is still too big to do in just a day or even two, but I think we did a great job of hitting the mainstays.  Next time I would love to checkout the Wide World of Sports, both of the water parks, and the Animal Kingdom.  The despite Epcot, Disney World is truly a magical place that will make every kid’s imagination go wild, and every adult forget about all the crap in their lives and get to relive the carefree lives of their youth.  I think that is exactly what Walt Disney had in mind when he created this extraordinary world. And for that, I thank him, we all should.

 

The Knight Bum

Yesterday I went to see Knight and Day.  I thought it would be a lot of fun.  Tom Cruise back in an action movie, and Cameron Diaz in a bikini.  How could that go wrong?  Too bad it did. 

When the movie started it felt like it was going to be the beginning of a great roller coaster ride.  The opening action sequence on the plane was original, and a whole lotta fun.

It wasn't that the acting was bad.  Tom Cruise was actually better in Knight and Day then he has been in any other movie he's done in a years, and Cameron Diaz is always great to look at. (Yes I'm that shallow).

The thing is that the script was absolutely ridiculous.  Cruise plays Roy Miller, a super-spy that inadvertently gets Cameron's character June involved in the fight over a stolen item of great importance to so many people.

The action scenes are so over the top they got laughable, especially the car chase scene in Boston.  However it's still the script that I will blame most of this on.  I didn't give a crap about either one of these characters.

Every time Roy and June get into some kind of trouble Roy drugs her and when she wakes up everything is all better.  Eventually she starts to realize that he did it all for love, and within a week she goes from timid tomboy to 

cunning spy.  Eventually she spins around on Roy while on a motorcycle to shoot at the bad guys as they are being chased through the streets of Pamplona during the great running of the bulls.

It was just to huge of a leap with her character to make it believable. 

This could have been a real great high octane "Bird on a Wire" type movie, but it falls way short of that.  Like I said before Tom Cruise was actually really good in this, and I had such high hopes that it would

be great.  The thing about making a movie that has unreal action sequences is that it just has to fit the whole movie.  It is just a small piece of the puzzle.  The A-Team had too many unbelievable moments, but it was the

frickin A-Team that's what you should expect.  I expected so much more from Knight and Day. 

The Eli Bum

There hasn't been a lot of time lately to sit down and enjoy something, anything. Work, Father's Day BBQ, and my Birthday have all monopolized my time over the last few days. It's not horrible, but I do miss being on the bum even after a day, let alone several. My wife and I were going to go to the movies last Friday, but the summer movie season of 2010 has continued to be forgettable. I liked The A-Team a lot, but when it is still the best movie I've seen so far this summer, well thats just sad. I finally did get to sit down and watch a movie that I meant to see in the theater.

The Book of Eli is another post-apocolyptic tale about a man traveling across the now desolate world. Denzel Washington plays the title character of Eli. We follow him during his 30th year of traveling west, by foot. I kept on thinking that this guy had to have hit ocean by now. Does it really take over 30 years to walk across the country? Forrest Gump did it in much less time, even though he was jogging. Eli carries a book that he reads every day. He believes the book will be bring back the faith that people don't even remember that they need. The Book of Eli is pretty much a story of a messenger of faith to save the humanity in all the people that are left in the world. Gary Oldman's character Carnegie seems to be the only person that knows the power of the book, and he is determined to get it back, at any cost.

It's cool to see Denzel in a role that shows some fighting skills. Sure, he has been in a few action movies, but he's never beaten and killed guys like does in Eli. Ricochet is still one of my favorites though. It's also great to see Gary Oldman play a bad guy again. He still has that certain panache that he had in movies like The Professional, and Romeo is Bleeding. Mila Kunis co-stars as well, and she continues to garner some good roles. Even though she has been in Hollywood for years she is finally showing she can do more then just be that pretty girl from That 70's Show.

All that said The Book of Eli is an o.k. movie. It wasn't awesome, and actually, a little slow. The Hughes Brothers do a really good job of setting the tone and visuals of the whole movie, but at times it feels like it's just crawling along.

By the time I hit the surprise ending I realized why it took Denzel 30 years to walk west, but it also made me want to watch it again to see all that I missed (after knowing the big reveal) the first time around.

I'm glad I didn't buy a ticket, but it is worth a rental.

The True Bum

A few years back when HBO’s biggest hits, The Sopranos & Sex and the City, ended many of us thought that their hold on must see Sunday night television was over, and for a little while it was. Then came True Blood.

True Blood occurs in a world in which vampires walk amongst humans, not to mention so many other supernatural creatures. It is based on The Southern Vampire Mysteries novels by Charlaine Harris, and series creator, and producer Alan Ball has created a phenomenon unlike any other vampire themed production in Hollywood. I know, I know, the Twilight movies and books are so much bigger and more profitable, but True Blood kicks Twilights ass.

I’ve been working a lot lately, but I finally got a chance to sit down and watch the premiere episode of season 3 that aired on Sunday. Most of the story lines were set up with all the cliffhangers of season 2. Who kidnapped Bill? What will Sam do when he finds his family? How will Tara be able to get over the death of Eggs? What will happen when someone finds out about the Queen and Eric’s distribution of v? ….and those are just a few. Not all of the questions have been answered yet, and probably won’t be until seasons end.

Over the last few years there has been a huge adoration for all things vampire, but I think True Blood outranks them all. Like most stories True Blood builds on the foundation of a love story. Anna Paquin plays the lead character Sookie Stackhouse a mind reader, and probably so much more, she’s completely endearing. Her love interest and real life finance is vampire Bill Compton played by Stephen Moyer. Bill lives by a different code then most vampires; he doesn’t believe in the death of innocent humans and is pretty much looked down upon by other vampires for his decision.

All the supporting characters add so much to the more to the show, and are what makes it such a huge success. Eric, a vampire sheriff of “Area 5” in Louisiana, rules with an iron fist and looks to have some big plans for Sookie, which are still a mystery to us. Sookie’s brother Jason is a trouble maker, but it’s always fun to see what kind of mess he can get into next. Sam Merlotte, owns the local watering hole, and just happens to be a shape-shifter. Sookie’s best friend Tara is a no nonsense southern girl that is never afraid to speak her mind. One of the most enjoyable character’s to watch is Lafayette. Lafayette is Tara’s cousin, and is as flamboyant, and sassy as so many people you see in New York and L.A., but in Bon Temps, Louisiana his, fuck ya’ll I am who I am attitude, is a whole lot of fun to watch on screen. Bon Temps means good times in French, and lives up to it.

Season 3 promises more shape-shifters, werewolves, a vampire detective, and a gay vampire couple. When Season 1 started True Blood had 1.4 million viewers, now Season 3 premiered with 5.1 million, and that is just the people that watched it when it aired. By the time the final tally was taken from on-demand and re-airs True Blood averaged over 12 million. That is a huge leap for a show in it’s third year.

HBO and former Six Feet Under creator Alan Ball have created a wonderfully mysterious world of the supernatural and the sexy. Oh yeah, there is a whole lot of sex. They have also brought us back to something that hasn’t happened in a very long time. Must see Sunday night t.v., and some great Monday morning water-cooler conversation. I say keep it coming, because this season looks to be the best yet.

The A-Team Bum

I went to see “The A-Team” with a couple of friends, and we loved it. Sure, it’s not an academy award winning script, but it was exactly what I expected it to be. It was a ridiculous over the top action movie, and perfect mindless summer popcorn fun.

Director Joe Carnahan (Narc, Smokin’ Aces) did a great job realizing that no one was really going to take this movie seriously so why not create something completely off the spectrum of reality. Some of the moves this A-team accomplish makes no sense at all, including directing a falling tank into a lake by shooting its cannons, or Murdock’s ability to defy the laws of physics with a helicopter. The thing is that if you just let all that nonsensicality go, and just have fun with it, this movie can be a real good time.

Liam Neeson wasn’t my first choice to play Hannibal Smith, but he sold me. Never looking like he was trying to embody the character made famous by the classic George Peppard. The movie needed a solid actor to anchor the team, and he made it his own.

Capatalizing on his success from last summers “The Hangover”, Bradley Cooper does a great job as Templeton Peck aka Face. He’s got that American James Bond (Roger Moore style) charm that Dirk Benedict created so well on the series.

Howling “Mad” Murdock is played by Sharlto Copley from “District 9”, he was a lot of fun, and completely unpredictable. There were times in the movie when you can tell that he didn’t even know what he was going to do next, but he did it anyway and was always happily surprised by the outcome. Not to bad for a guy in, only, his second big movie. Copley gave us a few big laughs via his insanity, just like Murdock should.

Finally, B.A. Baracus was played by Quinton “Rampage” Jackson a UFC fighter in his first role. He is not the best actor in the world, but then again he is playing a role made famous by a horrible actor, so the shoes weren’t that hard to fill. Mr. T had three great roles in his career, Clubber Lang in Rocky III, Samson in D.C. Cab, and of coarse B.A. Baracus on The A-Team. Mr. T played Mr. T in all of them. Hey, I’m not even counting his Saturday morning cartoon in which he played Mr. T.

I understand that they needed a strong female lead, but Jessica Biel, no matter how hot she is, was completely miscast as the army officer delegated with the responsibility of bringing in the A-team. Patrick Wilson, and Brian Bloom round out the cast. Bloom has been a character actor in Hollywood for a long time, and he co-wrote the script. It’s nice to see him get a big role like this after plugging away with small roles for so many years. There is even a nice part for old Simon & Simon / Major Dad himself, Gerald McRainey.

When it comes down to it the whole movie’s foundation relies on the chemistry of the team, and you can tell that they have complete faith in each other. You can also totally see that they are having a lot of fun. So it made me feel like they could do anything no matter how extraordinary and I could suspend my disbelief for a couple of hours and just enjoy the craziness. I can totally see “The A-Team” getting panned by some critics, but that’s because most of them are looking for films. This isn’t a film it’s a movie, and it’s exactly what a senseless summer movie should be….a whole lot of stupid fun.
So when you're all out of choices, and you think there is nothing left to see, and if you can find them, then may be you can hire "The A-Team".

The A-Team - trailer

The Marathon Bum

Although I have seen a countless number of movies, there are still a few classics I just either never got around to, or just had no interest in. Marathon Man was always a movie that interested me, but for some reason I just never sat down to watch it. Today, I finally did, and now I know that I should have watched it so much sooner.

Dustin Hoffman plays a jogging obsessive, graduate student that inadvertently gets involved in a mysterious plot involving his brother (Roy Scheider), who is working for a U.S. government group called “the division”. It all begins with the accidental death of the brother of Szell, a Nazi death camp doctor, and the unexplained safety deposit box that he left behind. Sir Lawrence Olivier is the character of Szell, a character that closely resembles Dr. Josef Mengele head SS Doctor of Auschwitz during WWII, and he is creepy. Most of the movie plays out in NYC circa 1975. It is always great seeing the way the city looked in the past. I’m not going to give away anything else, the whole point of the movie is the intrigue and suspense. Trying to figure out why they are screwing with this guy, what are they looking for?

When producer Robert Evans was casting he wanted Olivier to play Szell. At the time Olivier had cancer and was uninsurable for the film. So Evans got friends including David Niven to get him a meeting with the U.K. House of Lords, and got them to urge Lloyd’s of London in insure Olivier. The good knight paid back the favor by earning an Oscar nomination for the role, and then went on to hold off the cancer and live for another 13 years.

While watching the movie I came to the scene that reminded me of why I probably stayed away from it for so many years. Szell’s nickname was “the dentist”. He used to steal the gold from Jew’s teeth during the war. If any of you have seen the movie you know the moments I’m talking about. Once I saw Hoffman strapped down to the chair, and then Szell’s tools unravel I remembered hearing about the infamous interrogation scene. I’m o.k. with doctors, but I hate the dentist, and this movie does not help with that issue. The sound of the drill will send a shiver or two up your spine, but not as much as hearing Olivier repeating the notorious line “Is it safe?....Is it safe?......Is it safe?” over and over again.

I love new movies, but I adore revisiting, or discovering older ones even more.

The Glee Bum

Sometimes when you’re in a relationship you wind up watching some shows that you probably wouldn’t watch if you were single.  I introduced my wife to shows like The Shield, Oz, True Blood, and Breaking Bad, and she has loved every one of them, and she introduced me to many as well, especially Glee.

Glee is a blast.  There have been other shows in the past that feature singing and dancing, like Cop Rock, and most recently Viva Laughlin, but none of them have had any success.  Glee has broken that curse with a vengeance.  Besides the ratings, there have been top selling albums, concert tours, Glee karaoke nights at bars, and self described Gleeks all over the world.

The show seems like it doesn’t take itself too seriously, but anybody that knows anything about Broadway knows different.  The cast is lead by veterans of the great white way like Matthew Morrison, Lea Michele and Jenna Ushkowitz, with support from some amazing guest stars like Neil Patrick Harris, Idina Menzel, & Jonathon Groff.  The ironic thing is that the best character on the show hardly ever sings (other then twice – Vogue & Physical).  Jane Lynch as Sue Sylvester is delightfully devious.  Her quick witted quips toward her self described enemies are always punctuated with a surly comment to make herself laugh, and we laugh along with her.  The meaner she gets, the more fun she is to watch.  Jane Lynch has been a dry witted ad-libing comic actress for years and it’s about time she got the focus she deserves.

The real star of the show is the music.  The choice to use popular songs instead of original material has become the life blood of the series.  Their renditions of songs we’ve all known for years have been nothing short of a whole lot of fun.  Don’t Stop Believin’,  Somebody to Love, Proud Mary, True Colors, a merely a few.  There was even an entire episode dedicated to Madonna.  As well as a Lady Gaga episode that also honored Gaga’s fashion sense that has taken the music world by storm.

Glee came out of nowhere.  The best thing the producers did was wet the whistle of fans by showing the pilot months before the premiere of the series.  Once the show started it hit the ground running, with a vengeance.  Glee just exploded.  Within 2 weeks of the beginning of the series FOX ordered a full season.  The cast had 25 singles at once on the Billboard top 100, almost breaking the Beatles record of 31, and they have been invited to and sang at The White House.

It is set as musical, dramedy that captures the heartfelt emotions of being a teenager, and a teacher, but it is much more.  There so many great moments that makes the show more then a singing venue.  Quinn’s pregnancy, Rachel finding her mom, Mr. Shue’s horrible marriage to a crazy lady, and Kurt’s coming out to his understanding father are just a few.  Even the surprising revelation in the season finale that Sue Sylvester has a heart was wonderful.

A few of my friends will probably make fun of me enjoying this show, and writing about it, but I don’t care.  I’m thankful to my wife for introducing me to Glee, so I guess what I’m trying to say is I’m now a self confessed Gleek.

The District Bum

This weekend was the premiere of District 9 on cable, and it was such a joy to watch again.  A movie like this is why I love Hollywood.  It came as a sweet surprise to everyone.  No one knew much about it, until it was finally released.  The movie itself was almost never made, and the lead player never even thought about being an actor.

When producer Peter Jackson’s film based on the popular video game Halo was shelved, Jackson decided to give director Neill Blomkamp $30 million dollars to make whatever he wanted to.  Blomkamp put together a short film (Alive in Joburg, 2005), and asked non-actor Sharlto Copley to appear on camera for it.  Blomkamp loved Copley’s presence, and depiction of lead character Wikus van der Merwe, and offered him the role.  Copley took it and ran hard.  Soon after the success of District 9 he took the role of Howling Mad Murdock in the new A-Team movie that is being released next week.

You can see the obvious parallels to the apartheid of South Africa.  Instead of racial relations being the issue, it was the co-existence of aliens and humans.  Despite all of the alien visitor movies that have been released this one actually makes you ask yourself the question….what would we really do if a million alien refugees came to this planet?  If they were peaceful, would we greet them in peace?  Or would we try cage, or destroy them out of fear?  I guess these questions might be answered after you answer the main question, do aliens exist in the first place?

Either way, this is not just another movie about aliens.  It received Oscar nominations for Best Editing, Best Visual Effects, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Picture. Part documentary, part feature film.  District 9 became the first mockumentary (or at least part mockumentary) to be nominated for a best picture Oscar, surprising everyone in Hollywood.  Including producer Peter Jackson, whose trust in Blomkamp turned a $30 million dollar investment into an over $200 million dollar box office windfall.

Just like any successful commodity in Hollywood, if it makes money, then someone will find a way to keep it going.  Talks for District 10 (the so-called title) are going on right now.  I know a lot of people are not a fan of sequels, because they feel as if most of them are not as good as the first.  However, if a sequel is done right, then it can be a wonderful continuation into a world you’ve enjoyed so much the first time.  My only solace in this sequel, if it happens, is that producer Peter Jackson, and Director Neill Blomkamp are both involved.

District 9 took Hollywood by surprise, and maybe it was only nominated for best picture because of the new 10 nominee rule, but it was still well deserved.  If you haven’t seen it by now, then it takes a few seconds to set up a record on your dvr, and enjoy it now.

The Spelling Bum

It is just amazing how the spelling bee has become a, highly popular, nationally televised event.  With every word that these kids have to spell I feel a little dumber.  Would you know how to spell words like…..aguinaldo, terribilita, ochidore, gyokuro, engysseismology, or stromuhr?  Would you even know what the definitions are? I didn’t.  One of the funniest things that I realized while writing this is that Microsoft word didn’t even recognize these words.  These kids are absolutely amazing.

Considering all the crap that is put on TV these days it is really nice to see something like this be recognized.  I’m still trying to figure out why any of the Kardashians are famous (other then, as Joel McHale on “The Soup” would say, Kim is famous because she has a big booty and a sex tape).   To most of us the spelling bee gives us memories of being in front of your class, or school, but ABC/ESPN has brought it to an all new level.  The whole thing has been produced like most any sporting event.  Dramatic hosts & camera angles, backstage interviews, highlight reels, and a huge trophy presentation.  This year it got even bigger, Shaquille O’Neal even walked onstage and challenged last year's winner, 14-year-old Kavya Shivashankar, to a spell-off for his show “Shaq vs.”, which is also on ABC.

This was the 83^rd National Spelling Bee, and ABC/ESPN has been televising it since 1994.  When ESPN started out they would broadcast some of the most unusual, and unwatched sporting events including darts, strongman competitions, wrestling, and Australian rules football.  So it wasn’t a surprise that they decided to start broadcasting the national spelling bee.

There is so much pressure on these kids.  You can see it in their face while they stand on stage, especially if they spell the word incorrectly.  Not only are they on national television, but you can also see the desperation in their parents eyes while their children are asking the moderator every question they can, so they can figure out the spelling of each outlandish word.  Most of which you will probably never use or even hear in your entire life.  I have also never seen that many mustaches on 13/14 year old kids in my life.  (Sorry, I had to put that in there somewhere, it’s just crazy).

So I congratulate this year’s winner, 14-year-old Anamika Veeramani from Cleveland, Oh, continuing the Indian-American domination of the spelling bee in recent years.  Indian-Americans have won the bee for the last three years, and for the last 8 out of 12 years.  She beat out 273 other competitors, over three days, to win the huge trophy, and $30,000 in cash, as well as a $2,500 savings bond, a reference library from Merriam-Webster, $3,800 in reference works from Encyclopedia Britanica, and a $5,000 cash prize from the Sigma Phi Epsilon Foundation.

The Spelling Bee is a wonderful thing to see get so popular in this pop culture hungry society.  So I figure that it’s only a matter of time before someone starts to broadcast the school science fair, or at least I hope so.

The Finals Bum

So what to watch tonight? The answer really isn’t that hard. This years NBA finals is simply classic. Is there a bigger finals matchup in the history of basketball then Lakers/Celtics? I don’t think so. These two teams have actually met in the finals 12 times. Between the two of them they have a total of 32 championships, that’s more then half of the 63 overall championships in NBA history.

Most of the matchups have been in the ‘60s with stars like Elgin Baylor and Jerry West for the Lakers, & Bill Russell and Bob Cousy for the Celtics. However, it was Magic vs. Bird in the ‘80s that Bryant Gumbel once said “...saved the NBA…” It was blue collar vs. Hollywood, and everyone loved to watch them battle each other. It was Magic, Bird, and the emergence of Michael Jordan that turned the NBA in the media powerhouse it became at the time, and still is today.

Once Johnson and Bird retired both teams had their problems, at least until Kobe and Shaq teamed up in L.A. for a couple of championships in the 2000’s. Then in 2008 the rivalry was renewed. It was great seeing both of them in the finals against each other, but Kobe vs. Garnett was still no Magic vs. Bird. The series ended with Garnett finally believing that “…anything is possible”.

This year is going to be a little bit different for these two teams. It is the Lakers that have the home court advantage this time. Also, the emergence of Rajon Rondo for the Celtics is something the Lakers didn’t have to deal with in 2008, but then again Kobe didn’t have the support of Ron Artest at the time either.

So that being said screenbum fans, I’m calling for Lakers to win the whole thing in seven games. The big three on the Celtics (Garnett, Pierce, & Allen) aren’t getting any younger, so it might be a while before these two teams meet again in the finals. Enjoy it now while it’s here. These teams are so evenly matched that this series will have no problem fitting right in with the history of this classic rivalry.

The Wolfman Bum

There are certain times that you get to watch a movie that completely draws you in. You care so deeply for the characters that you can literally feel for them, and there plight, whatever it may be. The Wolfman was not one of those movies. Actually, I almost fell asleep at least four times.

It seemed like this was a character Benecio Del Toro was born to play. It’s too bad that the script just couldn’t stand up. This was a huge opportunity for him to carry a big budget film, and put himself on the leading man list that has eluded him for years. Del Toro has had a few good roles over the years, like the title character in Che’, Jackie Boy in Sin City, and Dr. Gonzo in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, but still nothing holds a candle to his breakout role as Fenster in The Usual Suspects. His next chance comes in the form of a stooge, as Moe Howard in The Three Stooges movie coming out in 2011. It’s going to be a Farrelly Brothers movie, and Sean Penn is already cast as Larry. No word on Curly yet, but the rumors are that it will be Jim Carrey.

Anthony Hopkins, Emily Blunt, and Hugo Weaving are part of the supporting cast, but with a script this mundane, there wasn’t much they could do.

The Wolfman is supposed to be a tortured soul that we are supposed to have empathy for. I had none. The brutality that he exhibited on screen made me start rooting for the villagers, and the story gave me no reason at all to care about Benecio’s character. All it showed was that a werewolf has no problem literally ripping a person apart. Complete viciousness became the main focal point of the whole thing. It got to a point where I was hoping that Hugo Weaving’s Scotland Yard detective would silver bullet his ass already, so the movie would be over. Don’t get me wrong, I love some good old blood and guts in a movie, but if the story doesn’t have a good foundation then it’s still a crappy movie. On a positive note, the effects were pretty cool, but I would never expect anything less from a Hollywood legend like Rick Baker.

I wanted to like it, I really did, but the mysteries were predictable, and the final battle scene was nothing if not anti-climactic. I always thought that the secret to a great movie is how the audience identifies with the film characters. If you don’t care about them, then you don’t care about what’s going to happen to them, so why would you want to watch them for two hours.

If you want to see a good werewolf movie go rent An American Werewolf in London, Teen Wolf, The Howling, or even The Wolf Man, with the originator Lon Chaney. I would even say go rent Abbot and Costello meet Frankenstein to enjoy some more of Lon Chaney’s work.

The Wolfman was a huge disappointment at the box office (cost $150 mil / box office take $62 mil.) and it will continue to be one in your living room. Sorry folks, if you want to be bored for two hours, and see violence for no good reason then by all means watch it. On the other had if you want to see brutality for a great reason, and a lot of fun skip The Wolfman, and get any Rob Zombie movie.

The Queens Bum

I didn’t really get to watch much today, because I was trying to fix my frickin’ Xbox for hours. Damn, the red rings. (If you have an Xbox you know what I’m talking about) So I want to talk about something I watch almost every day.

As a huge fan of sitcoms it is always great news when I find out that one of my favorites is going into reruns. When there is nothing else on, you always know that one of your old reliable shows is always going to be there. In my house we go on certain sitcom rerun trends. Cheers, Friends, Seinfeld, & Two and a Half Men have all been set on the DVR to be there to throw on at a moments notice for a dependable laugh.

The flavor of the month has been The King of Queens. So many people wouldn’t even realize that the show was actually on for 9 years. Seriously, 9 years. I watched the show when it was still on CBS and I didn’t even realize that it was on for that long. It ran on CBS from 1998-2007.

Kevin James and Leah Remini play Doug and Carrie Heffernan, a simple hard working blue collar couple. Doug loves the simple things in life, especially food, and Carrie is a loud and forceful typical Queens girl. She has the same attitude and volume as so many girls that I knew growing up in Brooklyn, even the ones in my own house. One of the best protagonists on the show is Carries father Arthur Spooner that is played by the always classic Jerry Stiller. Arthur is a legend in his own mind; he loudly, and hysterically, voices his opinion at any given moment. Jerry Stiller’s Arthur is pretty much the same character he played in Seinfeld, but he adds so much to the show that it just doesn’t matter.

I know some of my friends would say: Seriously? You’re talking about The King of Queens? But I don’t care. The show makes me chuckle. However, the best part of the show is all the ridiculous moments that make my wife and I look at each other and laugh when we realize that we the same issues or argue about the same nit picky things as they do, or even just get on each others nerves enough to simply say “Shutty!”.

The show might have ended it’s run three years ago, but it has given Kevin James the opportunity to become a movie star, and with hits like “Hitch”, and “Paul Blart: Mall Cop” he has solidified himself on the big screen. He is even been able to fill the shoes of the late great Chris Farley in the upcoming movie “Grownups” starring SNL alums Adam Sandler, Chris Rock, David Spade, and Rob Schneider. You know that that other role would have gone to Farley if he was still alive, but Kevin James looks to be a perfect fit with those other guys.

The King of Queens might be a silly generic sitcom for most people, but to us its comfort and a quick laugh. So if you don’t like it, well that’s cool, but I do suggest finding one of the amazing reruns on TV nowadays, because it’s always good to have something there that you can always count on. Hey, it beats the hell out of channel surfing.

The Persia Bum

It’s Memorial Day and ever since I was a kid, the kick-off of summer was always synonymous with the release of all the summertime blockbusters. Sure, Hollywood has decided to change some of that magic by starting to release their potential big hits in the beginning of May, but I won’t let them change my psychologically dysfunctional youth instilled traditions So, it’s show time. There were two huge movies that came out this weekend, Sex and the City 2, and Prince of Persia. The choice wasn’t really that difficult between the two.

Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time is based on the popular video game, and is good, but it’s also just another standard Jerry Bruckheimer produced action movie. There were plenty of cool fight scenes and special effects, but Prince never really lived up to it’s much hyped potential. It was just another popcorn movie, fun, but empty and predictable. Disney hinted in the past that they wanted this to become another mega-hit like the “Pirates of the Caribbean” franchise. It won’t even come close. Prince, in its first weekend, couldn’t even outperform the second week showing of Shrek Forever After, at the box office; it didn’t even beat out Sex and the City 2. So, it is going to be tough for Prince of Persia to recoup its $200 million dollar price tag at the box office, and even tougher to become a franchise.

This is supposed to be Jake Gyllenhaal’s biggest role as a leading man. He is solid, and it is well known that he worked out like an animal to fit the part. My wife said “the movie was ok, but I got to stare at muscle-y, sweaty Jake for two hours”….so she was happy. Hey, I got to look at the leading lady Gemma Arterton for two hours, so we called it even.

I think Gyllenhaal was solid and has always had great screen presence, but he played the part too straight. It didn’t seem as if he allowed himself to have any fun with the character, he let the script and the action do all the work for him. That is actually only one of the things that won’t make it the next Pirates. Persia doesn’t have any of the fun memorable characters that Pirates did. Jake had a great opportunity to take a brand new movie character and make it his own, but he played it safe.

The supporting characters do a better job at holding your attention while on screen. Ben Kingsley plays Nizam, the prince’s uncle, and is great as always, but it was Alfred Molina as the shady businessman, Sheik Amar that really stole the show. Molina provided some great comic relief to the film, and was even part of a nice homage to one of his classic early roles in beginning of Raiders of the Lost Ark. It’s quick, but if you’re a fan you’ll see it. It was a cool moment.

Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time is just another big budget, special effects laden, mindless summer movie. Sure, you’ll get some eye candy, amazing fights, and visually stunning special effects, but it still seemed like something was missing. We left saying “ehhh, it was good, not great, but good.” Hey, at least I didn’t have to go see Sex and the City 2.

The Hopper Bum

The late sixties through the mid-seventies, was to me, the second renaissance of Hollywood. Independent filmmakers like Martin Scorsese, Francis Coppola, and Steven Spielberg were breaking all the rules. They were showing the entire entertainment industry that there is more then one way to make a film. The golden age of formulaic film making was over.

Dennis Hopper was one of the guys from that time that had truly left an indelible mark on Hollywood. He started out as just another actor, and got his big break in “Rebel Without a Cause”. Then he moved on to a whole bunch of TV and film roles, including working with James Dean again in “Giant”. It was only after he wrote and directed Easy Rider that Hopper was truly able to be Hopper.

Peter Fonda said “We rode the highways of America and changed the way movies were made in Hollywood. I was blessed by his passion and friendship."

He became a hellraiser, a wildcat. Hopper probably did every drug in Hollywood, and he either made the people he met the best of friends, or the worst of enemies. The stories range from smoking pot on-camera on the set of Easy Rider along with Peter Fonda and Jack Nicholson, to pulling a knife on Rip Torn in 1992 at a pre-production meeting of The Tonight Show with Jay Leno.

One of my favorite Hopper stories was something I read in the book “Easy Riders and Raging Bulls”. (An amazing book, by the way) According to the book when Hopper was on the set of a film he would be on a number of different drugs at any given time of the day. He would smoke a joint and be completely relaxed, and then while the director switched camera angles, or any break was taken, Hopper would do some blow, and be absolutely hyped up. The shots just wouldn’t match up. The producers could not get him to stop no matter what they tried. Eventually they got to a point were they figured, if can’t beat the flow, then we might as ride it. They needed Hopper to be who they needed him to be for the shot. They put indicators on his sides for the day that told him which drug he could be on, for each particular scene. If they needed him to be calm for a scene they told him he could smoke weed for that and well you can figure out the rest. Hopper was uncompromising in his films, and especially in his personal life. He even had a funny side, using Alan Smithee as one of his aliases. (Google it if you don’t know who Alan Smithee is)

There aren’t many Hollywood icons left in the world, and today we lost one of them. So I will leave you with this………………

A quote from Dennis Hopper in Easy Rider:
“No, man, like hey, man. Wow. I was watching this object man, li-like the satellite that we saw the other night, right? And, like, it was going right across the sky, man, and then... I mean it just suddenly, uh, it just changed direction and went whizzin right off, man. It flashed.........”

………….Don‘t stop chasing the flash Dennis, and thanks for the memories.


The best of Dennis Hopper
Rebel Without a Cause (1955)
Giant (1956)
Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (1957)
Cool Hand Luke (1967)
Easy Rider (1969)
Apocalypse Now (1979)
Blue Velvet (1986)
Hoosiers (1986)
True Romance (1993)
Speed (1994)
24 (2001 – season one)

The Invictus Bum

You can think if this as just another sports movie, but it’s not. It’s just another movie. Maybe if I was a fan of rugby I would have thought of it differently. Sure it was inspiring to a point, but if you want to see a great non-fiction sports movie that deals with race relations, rent “Remember the Titans”. If you want experience some of the true life events that led to Nelson Mandela’s post election popularity in South Africa, and his first step to bring peace to the post apartheid nation, then you will like Invictus. Mandela did have the right idea nothing brings people closer together then the joy of watching their team victorious. Just attend any one of the New York Yankees ticker tape parades in NYC and you will see what I mean.

Back in 1994, after Nelson Mandela (Morgan Freeman) was elected President of South Africa, he knew that he needed a way to unite his country. He felt that his best option was getting them to connect by cheering for an under performing national rugby team to win the 1995 world cup. He enlisted the help of team captain Francois Pienaar (Matt Damon) to get his team to be proud once again to be wearing their colors, and their country.

Clint Eastwood has always been a great director, as well as an iconic actor, but compared to many of his other films this one falls a little short. It was a good movie, but not a great movie. I think a great sports movie should give you chills when the crowd roars, or make you clench with anticipation for the title team to win it all. The message was there, but the drama was not.

Was I happy when they won? Sure. Did I care enough to jump on facebook and tell everyone to rent this as soon as possible? Nope. Sorry Clint, you’re good, and so was the movie, but I still expected better.

The Idol Bum

Yes, I watch American Idol. To be honest there have been many times that I do enjoy the show, but I probably wouldn’t watch it as much if my wife didn’t love it. That being said tonight was the season nine season finale and the last show for Simon Cowell. The producers of the finale tried to put together a star studded music fest full of emotional goodbyes to Simon, as well as a huge amount of returning contestants including 7 out of the 8 past winners. There were duets with the contestants and performances by Bret Michaels, The Bee Gees, Janet Jackson, Chicago (sans Peter Cetera), Christina Aguilera, Hall and Oates, Alanis Morrisette, Michael McDonald, and Joe Cocker. Any other time I probably would have said that this was a fun two hours of music, but this time the producers were able to turn the season nine finale into a complete bore fest.

Simon Cowell has always been loved and hated for his straight forward thinking, and overall rudeness, or honesty, depending on how you looked at it. I always thought he was the smartest guy on the show, and after seeing the finale, let alone the whole season, Simon is just proving that he is still the smartest guy in the room, by leaving. Next year Simon will be on the American version of his UK talent show The X-Factor.

There was not one exciting or musically enjoyable moment in the entire two hours. Sure, it was cool seeing all the past winners together on stage (all but David Cook was there), and it was great seeing Bret Michaels up and around singing “Every Rose Has It Thorn”. Also, Janet looked great, as always, but still the show was still awkward and lackluster.

The biggest joke of the night was a big version of the infamous song from the auditions called “Pants on the Ground”, not only did it feature the songs creator Larry Platt, but many of the notorious audition round rejects like William Hung. The whole thing was completely laughable.

When the big announcement was coming up I really didn’t care much. Then when Lee Dewyze was named the winner over Crystal Bowersox, I cared even less. Crystal should have been the clear-cut winner, and was a week-to-week consistent Janis-like joy to watch. She is an original talent, and even though she didn’t win it all, she will, with out a doubt, be a more commercially successful artist then Lee Dewyze. It just goes to show that as American Idol’s ratings decline over the years, it has become mostly teenage girls that are doing the voting. Over the last 3 years it has been young guys that have won, David Cook, Kris Allen, and now Lee Dewyze, all with the same sound.

American Idol will always be a success, but just like this years season finale it has become increasingly boring, and will never be the powerhouse it once was. The one thing that might bring it back its former glory is the person they pick to fill Simon’s chair, but even then it will always come down to the talent.

The Road Bum

The Road was released on DVD today and is based on the Pulitzer Prize winning book by Cormac McCarthy, the same author of No Country for Old Men. When I read The Road I considered it to be one of the best books I ever had the pleasure of opening. It literally gave me chills. The relationship between father and son, and their will to live was both unnerving and inspiring. The biggest challenge for anyone when adapting a successful book is capturing the same essence that made the book a success in the first place. It is a rare occasion that an adaptation can recreate the imagination of an author or the reader. When I first learned of the desire to adapt The Road in a movie I knew it would not be an easy project considering the nature of the story, the settings, or the minimal characters, so I could only hope that the heart of the story would be captured and everything else would fall into place.

Viggo Mortenson plays a man traveling through a post-apocalyptic America. You never really now what happened, or why, you are just forced to be engulfed in this new grey world just as they are. The man’s only job is to protect his son from this destitute land, and from the few survivors that are forced to cannibalism to survive. Along the way the man and his son encounter a band of cannibals that force him to use one of the last two bullets he has left in his gun. The bullets that they intended to commit suicide with once all hope was lost. Eventually their journey is set on the reaching the coast. The father knows that there is nothing there to help them, but also knows that he needs to continuously give his son hope. It is this hope that will give them their much needed will to live. The man knows that his only hope for peace is to give his son the skills to survive once he is gone. Which he knows in his heart is soon.

The movie does take some license by giving the man’s wife an expanded role in their back story, but I don’t think that it gave anything to the story of the man or his journey. In the book she was hardly ever mentioned, and it was that mystery of her absence that made their relationship so heartfelt.

Other then that I believe director John Hillcoat tries to stay true to the book, despite a few other changes and omissions, but sometimes there is just no way to capture the purity of words from these pages, or the vast universe that is the readers imagination. It’s no wonder why there are so few successful adaptations of novels, but when done correctly it can really be an amazing journey. The movie wasn't bad but, I really wanted it to live up to my experience reading it, but unfortunately, it didn’t. So maybe I’ll just go ahead and read the book again.