And I thought it was just me. But all day long I’ve been hearing people talk about how tired they are. I’m not sure if it’s because, like me, they were up late last night parked in front of the TV being thoroughly entertained, or perhaps their cat is in heat and her screeching kept them up. Either way. Sounds like a good time.
I was up into the wee hours last night, bathed in the cathode ray light coming from that big box of fun in my living room. I was comfortable in my overstuffed recliner and before I knew it, it was after one in the morning. Time flies.
After what I’d seen last night, it’s going to be tough to top it tonight. But I’m sure that my TV will not let me down. Drama, excitement, a few laughs. This is what it’s all about.
Since the baseball season’s over and the NBA hasn’t started yet, and most of the network shows are taking a nap until sweeps starts next Thursday, there isn’t much on. So I got caught up on my movie watching.
If you’re like me (and if you are…I’m truly sorry) you can’t get out of Best Buy without a DVD. It doesn’t matter what I go in there to buy, when I leave I will have at least one movie in my bag that costs either $14.99 or $9.99. Those damn things are like crack.
Sometimes, I don’t even get around to watching them right away. Granted, I’ve seen most of the movies already, that’s how I knew to buy them in the first place. But obviously they were purchased with the intent of watching them.
The other night I was looking at my DVDs and realized I have a few that I haven’t watched since I bought them. So with nothing on TV last night, I decided to get caught up. Well, that was the plan, until TiVo went and f#$%ed it up for me. But, I’ll get to that.
A couple of months ago I picked up the 26th Anniversary Edition of The Jerk. One of the greatest comedies ever made, I have somehow found a way to use the following Navin R. Johnson phrases in my everyday life with a frequency that would shock you.
“So, it’s a profit deal! That takes the pressure off!”
“The new phone books are here! The new phone books are here!”
“Wow! You tattooed my name on your ass! First the phone book, now your ass! You know, I’ll bet more people see your ass than the phone book!”
“I’m gonna buy you a ring so big, it’ll make you puke!”
“You would think, in a fancy restaurant like this, you could keep the snails off the food! Now take this away and bring us those toasted cheese sandwich appetizers you talked us out of.”
“I got him! (Pause) The guy who stole Mrs. Nussbaum’s credit card!”
“Lord loves the working man. Don’t trust whitey. If you get it, see a doctor and get rid of it.”
“I’m picking out a thermos for you!
Not an ordinary thermos will do!
But the extra best thermos, that you can buy
With vinyl, and stripes, and a cup built right in!”
And yes, I could literally go on for days.
So I watched it again last night, for about the 47th time ever, but the first time in it’s fully restored, Dolby Surround Soundedness and found myself in hysterics over the scene where he hops out of the bath tub to try to catch Bernadette Peters before she can leave, holding only his dog (Shithead) to cover himself. He then bends over and picks up a smaller dog so that he can turn around and have his arse covered. I’ve seen it before, I knew it was coming, but what can I say, I’m a sucker for sophisticated comedy.
So after watching the movie and the sparse DVD extras (the highlight is the lost footage from Father Carlos Las Vegas de Cordova’s film reel–we saw the cat juggling, but there’s so much more) it was time to grab another movie. After all, “My Name is Earl” was a re-run and “The Office” wasn’t on.
But I made a mistake. I checked my TiVo to see what it had in store for me. So I ended up not grabbing another Lost Treasure out of my DVD collection, but instead watching “A Few Good Men” (which is in the DVD collection, but has been watched) and the very underrated “A Time To Kill.”
On Saturday morning, TNT showed “Malice”, the Nicole Kidman-Alec Baldwin-Bill Pullman movie where Nicole and Alec pull a scam on poor, witless Bill (and Lillith Sternin-Crane is in it, too, playing a tough cop). What I noticed was that Aaron Sorkin co-wrote it (I think I knew that) and so early on when Josh Malina walks in to a room as a surgical intern and has one line, I thought “Damn, has he ever been in anything Sorkin didn’t write?”
So imagine my glee when in the very first scene in “A Few Good Men” (also written by Sorkin) the door pops open and who should come in, but a young Marine played by Josh Malina who has one line.
Malina was also on Sports Nite, written by Sorkin and is now on The West Wing (where he just got “promoted” to White House Communications Director), which was created by Sorkin.
The Sorkin-Malina thing reminds me of a joke involving Greek men and a shoehorn, but I’ll pass.
Like every old Tom Cruise movie now, you look at “A Few Good Men” and first, you’re astonished that Cruise has always been able to act. He’s not exactly the 1970s Al Pacino, but he’s good, and you can almost trick yourself into forgetting what a very strange man he’s become.
Kiefer Sutherland is in the movie in a relatively small, but important, role as a hillbilly Marine.
Kevin Bacon, is, of course in the movie, and this was the time in his career when he was taking movies full of other big stars (JFK was another example) just to get his “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon” game off the ground. I’m sure he started it in the early days of the current version of the Internet. Didn’t he? Seems like now would be a good time to wonder again, “I always forget, is Kyra Sedgwick his wife or his mother?”
Demi Moore has a major role, proving again that she can’t act, and that pre-boob job she was headed for the same career that her old pal Ally Sheedy has had. And what is with her hair in the movie? When she’s the only woman of any note in a film, you’d think they’d find a way to make her remotely attractive.
Kevin Pollack is a personal favorite, though I inevitably watch him act, just waiting for him to do his Columbo impression.
The guys who play the accused Marines are played by a black guy that you’re sure you’ve seen in something since that movie (probably a Burger King commercial), and the guy who was in “Gladiator” with Cuba Gooding, but who I’m sure now just tells chicks that he was in “Gladiator” hoping they’ll think he means the Russell Crowe one.
The movie is good, even if it’s hard to imagine that Cruise or Bacon could really be important cogs in any softball team, but it’s all just building up for the end in the courtroom with Jack Nicolson and Cruise.
Every time you watch it you think it’s going to get old, and that the impact won’t be there. Every time, you’re wrong. I watched it and instinctively thought, “Damn, that’s good stuff. Time to get Sorkin back on the ‘shrooms.”
I wasn’t going to watch “A Time to Kill.” I’d seen it on the TiVo menu one day while I was flipping around and gave it three thumbs up so it would record it sometime (I’m the same guy who set up a Season Pass to record “Seems Like Old Times” every time it’s on), but I was sitting there trying to remember how the movie started. I knew that Matthew McConaughey was trying to get Samuel L. Jackson off for murder, but why? So I decided to watch the beginning, and then I was going to pack it in for the night.
Two hours and 15 minutes later I was packing it in. I saw the movie when it came out in 1996 and remember I liked it, but I had forgotten how many stars were in it. I don’t just mean the main characters, but all through it.
It took me a minute at the beginning to figure out who raping-redneck #1 was, but even with the mullet, I recognized him as the teacher who brought a gun to school in “Boston Public”. He doesn’t count for the purpose of stars in the movie, since not only do I not remember his name, but I don’t even care enough to look him up on IMBD.com.
But the roster is impressive.
McConaughey in his first truly starring role and the one that took him from, “That’s the guy who played Wooderson” to Matthew McConaughey . The whole naked bongo thing a few years later would derail his career, but he’s always been a very entertaining actor. I still can’t figure out why “Sahara” wasn’t a bigger hit than “The Mummy” was. But, I digress.
Jackson has his own hair in the movie and you can see why he shaves his head. He’s beyond tremendous as Roy Lee, the father of a raped 10-year old girl, who “takes the law into his own hands” and kills the guys who raped her.
Ashley Judd is not only in the movie, but she’s blonde (and such a believable blonde that I remember seeing her with dark hair for the first time and wondering why she died her hair brown). She’s also at her all-time hottest and give director Joel Schumacher credit. He may have killed the ’90s Batman franchise, but the gay guy knows how much “fake sweat” to apply to Ashley’s cleavage at all times. Excellent job.
Oliver Platt plays the shady divorce lawyer buddy to McConaughey. Oliver Platt has never been bad in anything. At least nothing I’ve seen.
Sandra Bullock in the role that for some reason made her an icon to Lesbians everywhere. And in the spirit of Cheryl Swoopes shocking…well, nobody…by coming out of the closet today, I have a theory as to why this movie made Sandra Bullock a hero to Lesbians the world over.
She plays an ambitious, rich, law student who volunteers her time to help McConaughey out with the trial. Through a few contrivances (it was written by John Grisham after all) she finally convinces him to let her work for nothing and help him. Every man in the movie looks at her like she’s the hottest thing ever. It’s a major flaw in the casting, not because she’s not attractive, and not because she’s not good in the movie, but if you were married to Ashley Judd you would not have an affair with Sandra Bullock. You just wouldn’t. That’s like trading Carlos Zambrano for Gustavo Chacin. Or something. Where was I?
Oh, yes. Three different times, Bullock and McConaughey (damn, that’s a hard name to spell–what happened to old Hollywood when some studio would have made him change that?) almost kiss. Lesbians see that as Sandra choosing not to kiss the hunky lawyer, which feeds their belief that she’s gay. It makes no sense, considering he’s the one who keeps it from happening, but whatever. You pair that with the fact that every man in the movie (especially Platt’s character and the creepy guy from the Ole Miss nuthouse hospital) just oogles her non-stop and you have a pretty, but by no means gorgeous actress getting an unrealistic reaction out of all of the men in the movie. For the same reason she was popular with some men, her beloved honorary Lesbian status came out of the fact that she seemed attainable. Kind of like how fat guys think they could have a shot at Courtney-Thorne Smith because she’ s married to Jim Belushi on TV.
OK, it’s not a great theory, but I’m sticking with it.
Kevin Spacey plays the district attorney. He was at the height of his career, this would have been almost the same time as “The Usual Suspects”, “Seven” and “LA Confidential.” He was huge. Then, he made “K-Pax” and it was all over.
Donald Sutherland is in it playing a drunken, disbarred lawyer named Lucien who was McConaughey’s mentor. I kept waiting for the scene where McConaughey wanders into Bullock’s hotel room and Sutherland is reaching for the cereal wearing only a shirt. Actually, I’m really glad that wasn’t in the movie.
Keifer Sutherland is in the movie in a not so small, but important role as a hillbilly…uh, hillbilly.
Chris Cooper plays a cop (this was back when all he ever got to play were cops) who gets shot in Roy Lee’s shooting rampage. He’s tremendous, but when has he not been?
Charles S. Dutton plays the town sherriff and a former LA Ram. If only Fred Dryer were black, he’d have been perfect.
Then we get to the best casting of the whole movie. The two psychology experts. The whole case hinges on whether Roy Lee was temporarily insane at the time of the shooting.
The prosecution’s expert is played by Anthony Heald. Best known as Dr. Chilton from “Silence of the Lambs” and “Red Dragon.” He also was in Boston Public, but that’s not important to that. He plays the doctor in this, just as smarmy as Chilton. The only thing missing was Hannibal Lecter telling Clarice he was going to “have an old friend for dinner.”
The defense’s expert tied the whole night together. Unless a door had opened in McConaughey’s law practice and Josh Malina had stepped in, this was the perfect end to my night. Who played the esteemed (drunk) Dr. WT Bass? M. Emmett Walsh!
Who the hell is M. Emmett Walsh? Remember in The Jerk when Navin is so excited about being in the phone book that he says, “This is the kind of spontaneous publicity…your name in print… that gets you noticed! I am somebody!”
Then we see a guy holding a gun randomly picking a name out of the phone book to kill? (By the way, I always get a laugh out of Navin’s address in the phone book).
That’s M. Emmett Walsh. He’s the “die you random son of a bitch!” guy. Well, that made my night.
As you see. It doesn’t take much.
I’m also the proctologist whose work forced Fletch to ask if I was “using the whole fist there, Doc?”
But my best role ever was turned out in the early Coen Brothers’ low-budget flick “Blood Simple”. Now THAT is a must see flick.
I’m one of the finest American character actors ever. Brian Dennehy can’t hold my jock. Maybe, if JT Walsh (no relation) hadn’t had suddenly dropped dead, he’d have surpassed me, but JT has been taking a dirt nap for about 6 years now.
What was your name in Fletch, M. Emmett?
Dude, the baseball season was over for us in April.. Try Net Flix next year. Cheaper and you won’t have the DVD cases cluttering your box on lower Wacker like the rest of the unemployed Cub fans.
Ronnie Woo Woo has the fridge box next mine…….
That’s what happends when you do a movie with Kurt Russell, either your career dies, or you do. See Baldwin, Billy.
The whole Sorkin/Molina thing has reminded me of something. I’m watching the Undeclared DVDs now, and Seth Rogan hasn’t been in one thing Judd Apatow hasn’t produced or written. And all of the characters have been pretty much the same. I’m not saying that’s a bad thing, I’m just saying.
And put “The Hebrew Hammer” on your list if you haven’t seen it yet.
This is a sports site, right?
The whole Sorkin/Molina thing has reminded me of something. I’m watching the Undeclared DVDs now, and Seth Rogan hasn’t been in one thing Judd Apatow hasn’t produced or written. And all of the characters have been pretty much the same. I’m not saying that’s a bad thing, I’m just saying.
And put “The Hebrew Hammer” on your list if you haven’t seen it yet.
This is a sports site, right?
“[I] was huge. Then, [I] made ‘K-Pax’ and it was all over.”
Naw naw, it was over before then. There are pieces of shit, and then there are pieces of shit with kernels of Jay Mohr lodged in them. Pay It Forward, my ass. My career paid for it every which goddamn way.
Fortunately, my singing and dancing career took off immediately and never looked back. Pure Spacey.
I got name dropped twice on the same role in this article, just for heads-up sake.
A Desipio Media Venture has made Wikipedia! (Click my name and scroll down)
Did they contact ju, Andy, or just print it?
Molina, when he is not appearing in everything Sorkin does, is a producer for Bravo’s Celebrity Poker Showdown.
Which, of course, had a West Wing edition in its first season.
Let’s do this…
Kevin Bacon was in “A Few Good Men”, which also had Jack Nicholson in it. Nicholson appeared in the underrated “Mars Attacks!”, which had Sarah Jessica Parker in it. She is married to Matthew Broderick, who was in “War Games”, which had John Spencer at the very start of the movie. Spencer, of course, plays Leo on “The West Wing”, which is a show that Molina is currently on. And I didn’t even need all six degrees.
Special FYI: Spencer played another “Leo”, Leo Crasky, in the horrible movie “Cop Land” in 1997. Janeane Garofalo, who is currently in a guest spot on “The West Wing”, was also in that movie.
Dang Hank, can I borrow your press agent sometime???
“Blanco is currently one of the best defensive catchers in baseball. He is a good handler of pitchers and game caller, and he is quick behind the plate and no one blocks in the dirt better, but his rifle arm is what brought him to the major leagues. Throughout his career, he’d tossed out more than 40 percent of his opposing base stealers, a significant number since he caught mostly for Greg Maddux, who virtually ignores the runners on base.
In the batter’s box, Blanco is an extreme pull hitter who has a modest contact but hit for extrabases (a 39% career). At 224 pounds, he looks the typical conservative catcher-runner. His defense is so solid that it can compensate for most of his offensive shortcomings.”
I thought K-Pax was before Pay it Forward? I think Pay it Forward killed everybody’s careers, except Jesus Caviezel.
I had the order wrong.
And as for Hank, I had no idea. Somebody sent me a link once to Rob Neyer’s and wondered if I wrote the crack about Rob Neyer at the end of his. And I was accused of roughing up Chip Caray’s, but when I saw it, it was very tame.
Hey, Hank, it looks like a couple of my fanclubs are linked on my entry too!
Holy shit, Chuck. Kudos. Your three-year Patterson drum-beating has gotten Ivy Chat recognized as a “Cubs-oriented blog extremely critical of Patterson”
Nice.
How sad is it that I’m for real?
Boy, Desipiots could spend a whole day at a site like me, mining all sorts of material.
I’ve got 3 more years in me if you do, Chuckie.
I could’ve been written by Chuck himself:
“. Whether leading off or hitting in the middle of the order, Corey shows excellent power, but also a tendency to overswing and go after bad pitches. As a result, he has earned the nickname, “Korey,” due to his high rate of strike-outs and the use of the letter “K” to designate strikeouts in baseball scorecards.
The 2005 season began slow for Corey and only got worse. On July 7, 2005, he was sent down to AAA Iowa during a season in which he struggled from the plate. The demotion came after the Cubs had lost a season-high eight games in a row. His future with the Cubs is in doubt, as the Cubs’ top prospect is a center fielder named Felix Pie (pronounced Pie-ay), who is expected to make his Major League debut in 2006. Published reports indicated that Pie was slated to be called up from AA West Tenn in July when Patterson was sent down. However, an ankle injury sidelined Pie and the Cubs called up Adam Greenberg instead.
Patterson was back up with the major league team on August 9, 2005 after his one-month stint in AAA. During the time in AAA, centerfielder Jerry Hairston Jr. injured his elbow diving for a flyball. Instead of calling up Patterson to regain his role as starting centerfielder, the Cubs activated three disabled players and started Jose Macias in center. Patterson was apparently angered by the snub, even though that decision came while he was mired in a slump in Des Moines. Following his return, Patterson’s hitting worsened. He also earned the derision of his peers for saying “It’s just a game.” after a game in Colorado where he stranded baserunners in key situations.”
Saw “Good Night and Good LucK” this weekend. Highly recommend it. There is no plot, just acting and character study. These were real people and real events. Those of us who lived through that era can relate to the realistic atmosphere captured in black and white.
Saw “Good Night and Good LucK” this weekend. Highly recommend it. There is no plot, just acting and character study. These were real people and real events. Those of us who lived through that era can relate to the realistic atmosphere captured in black and white.
movie was so good that I had to recommend it twice
or, as they say, “two thumbs up”
Hey Dolan, speaking of the Sorkin-Malina connection …
Malina was in the movie Bulworth (which is fucking fantastic, but pretty underrated), and Sorkin was an uncredited writer for that movie. Just thought I’d throw that one out there.
I actually played the flugelhorn solo in the Jerk.
Seriously.
I did write part of the Wiki entry on Korey. I was tipped to it by someone else. I did NOT create the link. I think I know who did. http://ivychat.blogspot.com/2005_08_01_ivychat_archive.html#112424279391571953
I thought it was a crowbar.
I am biting down on my cyanide tooth now. Y’all should do the same…
Ooh, my head. “Steambath” with Bill Bixby is out on DVD, by the way.
I, too, use the “gonna buy you a ring so big, you’ll puke” line in my daily vocabulary.
I’ve had LOTS of opportunity to use it, too.
anything worthy in the news today? … They released Civilization 4 yesterday and I still haven’t slept
Gonna get me a shotgun and kill all the whiteys I see…
Gonna get me a shotgun and kill all the whiteys I see…
When I kill me all the whiteys I see, whitey won’t be botherin’ me…
Gonna get me a shotgun and kill all the whiteys I see…
We’re all out of crying towels. Cyanide and other cyanide-tooth-related accessories can be found on the back wall of the Beyond department.
Where the hell did all of our ephedrine products go?!?!
I’m Nicky Katt. I played Clint, the asshole greaser, in Dazed and Confused. I also played a real asshole in the underrated Boiler Room. I guess I look the part.
#32…
I’m behind the counter, meth-head.
It’s my Corey Patterson website: http://www.coreypatterson.net. And yes, I am a big Corey Patterson fan. And yes, I know he sucks. And yes, I know you guys think I am the most pathetic person alive. But there is one thing I can say in my defense: I am the biggest Cubs fan I know and that has to count for something. So what if Corey is my favorite baseball player? All that proves is I am terrible at liking things that are good. Great site, Andy. One of my favorites.
See, the secret to starting a fan club is to pick a player who even when he is bad is funny. Then when they are good, like I was the second half of the season you just sit there and shake your head like “Where the f#$% did this come from?”
That’s why I, Hank White have started my very own fan club.
For Robbie Gould!
I call BS. It’s obvious from the Trivia page that the Corey site is a Scoop Jackson joint. Why else would (aptly) striking out on Corey trivia lead to this conclusion:
“0 of 10: You are either (a) racist or (b) hate freedom.”
Rishi spelled backward is Ocamelot! Sorry, lost my place. That’s Telemaco backward.
Rishi spelled backward is Irish! Hoo boy!
I am a joke, right? No one is that dumb…right?
got salad?