Fangoria!

Ray Bradbury, object of lust.

I find this amusing to the nth degree.  Brilliant comedy. 

Strangely, just a few days ago I went out looking for the DVD of Something Wicked This Way Comes.  I’ve been browsing some Bradbury looks recently and then I came across this video.  Pun intended.

Fuck Me, Ray Bradbury	UCBcomedy.com
Watch more comedy videos from the twisted minds of the UCB Theatre at UCBcomedy.com

Forgot

I made an agregious error in leaving three films off of the below list of Best Films of the 2000′s:  Moulin Rouge, The Proposition, and Road to Perdition. There are probably others, too, but I just watched these three again and… damn.

Worst of the 2000′s – sort of, the end.

I decided there was just too much that sucked about the last decade to keep going with my lists.  It was really bringing me down, thinking about just much has sucked in the last ten years.  It’s a wonder we, the human race, made it through.

To make myself feel better, let’s think pleasant thoughts now, looking back on some high points of 2000-2009.   Sadly I’m cutting this little project short; I’ve got too many fires burning right now and should just put a cap on this one.  Let’s finish then, with one topic we know and love…

TOP FILMS OF THE LAST DECADE:

No need to add little blurbs here.  If you haven’t seen every single one of these, shame on you.  You should remedy that as soon as possible.

In no particular order whatsoever:

Blackhawk Down (2001) dir. Ridley Scott

Lord of the Rings (2001-2003) dir. Peter Jackson

King Kong (2005) dir. Peter Jackson

No Country For Old Men (2007) dir. Joel and Ethan Coen.  For my money, this was the best film of the decade.

The Departed (2006) dir. Martin Scorsese

Observe and Report (2009) dir. Jody Hill.  Funniest movie of the decade.

Munich (2005) dir. Steven Spielberg

Mulholland Drive (2001) dir. David Lynch

The Man Who Wasn’t There (2001) dir. Joel and Ethan Coen

Pan’s Labyrinth (2006) dir. Guillermo Del Toro

Adaptation (2002) dir. Spike Jonze

A History of Violence (2005) dir. David Cronenberg

Confessions of a Dangerous Mind (2002) dir. George Clooney

The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford  (2007) dir. Andrew Dominik.  The most underrated movie of the decade.

Worst of the 2000′s – Entertainment, Part 1

Sports down.  Now we move on to the world of Entertainment.  What really sucked in movies, music, books, television, and other such entertaining things over the last ten years?  Let’s get started with the first of what will be several entries on this topic:

It became fashionable to refer to our favorite sports as “entertainment” and “product.”  That sucked!

I absolutely cannot stand this.  Sports are sports.  Athletes are not in the entertainment business, no matter how entertaining they might be; athletes are in the sports business.  Just play the games.  Fans  care about games, about the winners and losers, and that’s all they’re tuning in for.  Don’t need impressionists, don’t need leggy weather reporters, don’t need robots and lasers.  Seemed to me that televised sports did just fine without all the eighteen hour pregame shows, loud — er, “opinionated” studio folk — and fancy computer graphics taking up more of the screen that game itself.  I realize Pandora already opened the box out of the bottle on this one and maybe I sound like a grumpy old fart, but there are some netwroks — lookin’ at you, Fox — on which I just can’t stand to watch sports anymore.

***

MTV no longer shows any interest in music videos.  The channel sucks even worse now!

Then again, do they really show any interest in music, either?  Does MTV even stand for “Music Television” anymore?

***

Reality television has taken over our lives.  Suck!

I get it, I really do.  I understand that reality television shows are much cheaper to produce than scripted television or drama.  I also understand that sometimes, real life is the most compelling story out there.  One other thing I know – reality TV, by and large, sucks ass.  How many sex fiends, or drug addicts, or wife swappers, or weight losses, or makeovers, or dance contests, or talent shows, or no-talent shows, or game shows, or survivor shows, or what-will-they-come-up-with-next shows, can the human race really stand at this point?  Isn’t the universe stuffed to the gills at this point?  Can’t somebody just MAKE THIS SHIT STOP?

***

American Idol sucks.

Doesn’t the ride have to end, sooner or later?

***

Harry Potter is considered a promoter of  ”witchcraft” by a certain, uh, uninformed segment of the population.  These are people who suck!

You know who you are.  Aren’t you ashamed of yourself?  I’m not talking about this any more.

***

Stan Winston died.  You don’t know how much that sucked.

The man was an undeniable filmmaking legend.  If you don’t know his name, trust me, you have seen and loved his work.   Just off the top of my head, here are some Stan Winston creations: The Terminator.  The dinosaurs from Jurassic Park.  The Queen Alien.  Pumpkinhead.  Predator.  Edward Scissorhands.  Iron Man.  Hulk.  The list could go on and on, and it would be hard to overstate his impact on movies as we know them today.  I would say that along with Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, Clint Eastwood, and Martin Scorsese, Stan Winston is one of the artists whose work got to love film in the first place.   What can I say, I’m a big Hollywood fantasy kind of guy.

(Yes, those of you who are paying attention, I just re-printed exactly what I wrote in June, 2008.)

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The decade of the 2000′s will go down as the decade in which well over half of the scripted dramas on television were essentially the same show.  Start with the crime of the week, throw on some detective procedural, add a bit of courtroom drama, and garnish everything with graphic violence and rapid-fire editing, and voila, we got us a TV show, boys!   And if the networks won’t take, let’s try cable, ooh they try to be edgy there!

***

Like James Dean, Janis Joplin, and Jimi Hendrix, brilliance burst forth in a supernova and then vanished far too quickly, leaving us yearning for ghosts and memories.  I miss MONSTERS HD.  It didn’t suck at all, but now it’s gone.

MONSTERS HD was the single greatest television channel ever created.  It was nothing but horror movies, uncut, unaltered, unedited for the kiddies, in glorious full 1080p.  Everything from pop horror to obscure classics, from every filmmaking period.  It was the only reason I paid for Dish Network’s HD package, and then approximately 2 months after we signed up, those bastards dropped it without warning.  Dammit!

Now, Monsters HD has folded entirely.  It’s gone.  Kaput.  Sadly, when I wrote Dish Network to complain, they sent me back an e-mail alerting that although they had indeed dropped Monsters HD, I should be glad to note that they had added Food Network HD, Outdoors HD, New England Sports Network HD, and Bay Area Sports HD.  I lived in western Tennessee at that time.

***

World of Warcraft took over my friends’ lives.

World of Warcraft is not just a web-based role playing game, it is also an eater of souls.  Several people have told me that, much like NASCAR, if I just gave WoW a shot, I’d love it.  Um, yeah, okay — and that’s what scares me the most.  Think I’ll pass on the mohawk grenades for now.  Alt B down up CTRL C CTRL A+L semicolon BEGIN RAID colon colon backslash backslash YOU ARE A DEMON MAGE, EXTRA CUNNING.  +92 GOLD.  RESURRECTION SPELL!  HOOTENANNY!

Or something like that.

TO BE CONTINUED TOMORROW.