Just a couple of things while I'm thinking of it ...
-- Well, blog fever has now infected our site. I've got a few thoughts about it that I'll keep off here for now.
-- Sometimes you have to watch a movie in a reasonably crowded theater to get the full effect, and that's how I felt about Dodgeball. You need a bunch of people laughing at some of the silly stuff, and then it all connects from there -- especially when some of the cameos come up.
Couple of other Dodgeball notes: Does Christine Taylor now only work with Ben Stiller? I know they're married and all, but I thought I remember hearing a joke when the two were on Curb Your Enthusiasm that Ben accepted the job so her wife could have some work. And who knew he could milk the Warren Cheswick character for an entire movie?
Friday, June 25, 2004
Sunday, June 20, 2004
For those of you looking for more on Last Comic Standing, Jim Norton has blogged about his elimination from the show.
Back in blog
OK, time to dust off the blogging hat and get back to business. (No real reason for the hiatus -- just didn't feel like doing it for a bit.)
Went to see a handful of movies during the hiatus:
-- Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban: I thought it was a very well done film on its own merits, having never read the books. That might be an advantage to me since I'm not looking out for what's missing or comparing Cuaron's storytelling to Rowling's, etc., etc.
-- Saved!: At times it felt like a Christian-school version of Mean Girls (although Mandy Moore is hilarious as the queen bitch), but in all, it was a well-acted and funny satire. I've been a fan of Jena Malone's for a while, and she's solid again, but I was surprised by Macaulay Culkin's performance -- even if he looks like a taller of version of his Home Alone persona. I also came to the realization how much Heather Matarazzo looks like one of my friends.
-- Imelda: I caught it as part of the Atlanta Film Festival, although it wasn't one of the hottest tickets in town. It was a decent documentary, which was part a profile/history of Imelda and part a history lesson of the Marcos' rise and fall. I was surprised by the access that Imelda granted, and she was rather candid with some of her controversial views, although she also came off as a kook at times with some of her "new age" philosophies. And yes, there were shoes involved, including a trip to the shoe museum. As a history lesson, it was pretty straightforward, and as a profile, you got to see a lot of her personal side. But in the end, the film played it down the middle as to whether she was corrupted by power or she was what she was.
Other observations:
-- While watching this old episode of SNL on the NBC All-Night feed, one of the backup musicians for Mariah Carey was this dawg.
-- I'm still thrown off by seeing Bill Clement doing commercials for mosquito spray.
-- Were the Last Comic Standing producers compelled to show Brett Butler and Drew Carey get pissed off because they could or because they had to since word of their blowup had been swirling ever since the show taped. While I'll still watch the show, it's disappointing that they've turned the show more into Big Brother than American Idol and thus picked the housemates as much on building conflict than actual talent.
-- I guess I can be an SI jinx as well, at least in an opposite way. That was going through my mind when I went to this game with a surprising amount of Royals fans around me, besides the one who joined me for the afternoon.
OK, time to dust off the blogging hat and get back to business. (No real reason for the hiatus -- just didn't feel like doing it for a bit.)
Went to see a handful of movies during the hiatus:
-- Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban: I thought it was a very well done film on its own merits, having never read the books. That might be an advantage to me since I'm not looking out for what's missing or comparing Cuaron's storytelling to Rowling's, etc., etc.
-- Saved!: At times it felt like a Christian-school version of Mean Girls (although Mandy Moore is hilarious as the queen bitch), but in all, it was a well-acted and funny satire. I've been a fan of Jena Malone's for a while, and she's solid again, but I was surprised by Macaulay Culkin's performance -- even if he looks like a taller of version of his Home Alone persona. I also came to the realization how much Heather Matarazzo looks like one of my friends.
-- Imelda: I caught it as part of the Atlanta Film Festival, although it wasn't one of the hottest tickets in town. It was a decent documentary, which was part a profile/history of Imelda and part a history lesson of the Marcos' rise and fall. I was surprised by the access that Imelda granted, and she was rather candid with some of her controversial views, although she also came off as a kook at times with some of her "new age" philosophies. And yes, there were shoes involved, including a trip to the shoe museum. As a history lesson, it was pretty straightforward, and as a profile, you got to see a lot of her personal side. But in the end, the film played it down the middle as to whether she was corrupted by power or she was what she was.
Other observations:
-- While watching this old episode of SNL on the NBC All-Night feed, one of the backup musicians for Mariah Carey was this dawg.
-- I'm still thrown off by seeing Bill Clement doing commercials for mosquito spray.
-- Were the Last Comic Standing producers compelled to show Brett Butler and Drew Carey get pissed off because they could or because they had to since word of their blowup had been swirling ever since the show taped. While I'll still watch the show, it's disappointing that they've turned the show more into Big Brother than American Idol and thus picked the housemates as much on building conflict than actual talent.
-- I guess I can be an SI jinx as well, at least in an opposite way. That was going through my mind when I went to this game with a surprising amount of Royals fans around me, besides the one who joined me for the afternoon.
Thursday, June 10, 2004
It seems strange to think that Beavis and Butt-head feels really dated while I'm watching it on MTV2, even though it really has inspired today's kids, whether they know it or not. However, I thought it was all to fitting that this compilation was being advertised during the show, given the time frame, although this collection might've been more appropriate.
Ha-ha!
OK, so Durst, Santorelli and Cotter were all eliminated in the semifinals of Last Comic Standing, while Norton and Sue Costello, who had a short-lived Fox sitcom about six years ago, advanced. But for the most part, it seemed like there was a lot of fresh if somewhat experienced blood that advanced to the finals. It did seem like the first group of semifinalists was full of very experienced folks, while many of the more interesting characters (but not necessarily talented or experienced) were in the second group. At this point, a lot of the folks run together, which may or may not be a good thing. Besides Durst and Santorelli, we're without the stripper, the Siamese Dream-era Billy Corgan lookalike and a really funny, young East Asian kid (although the Iranian kid who passed up med school for comedy did advance).
The credits mentioned it briefly, but I wonder how they really dealt with the fact that two of the judges, Colin Quinn and Rich Vos, know a few of the folks from Tough Crowd. We probably won't have as much of the familiarity of the contestants in the next round, but there are already rumblings that Brett Butler and Drew Carey were upset with the eventual choices to join the house and that their input was largely ignored.
OK, so Durst, Santorelli and Cotter were all eliminated in the semifinals of Last Comic Standing, while Norton and Sue Costello, who had a short-lived Fox sitcom about six years ago, advanced. But for the most part, it seemed like there was a lot of fresh if somewhat experienced blood that advanced to the finals. It did seem like the first group of semifinalists was full of very experienced folks, while many of the more interesting characters (but not necessarily talented or experienced) were in the second group. At this point, a lot of the folks run together, which may or may not be a good thing. Besides Durst and Santorelli, we're without the stripper, the Siamese Dream-era Billy Corgan lookalike and a really funny, young East Asian kid (although the Iranian kid who passed up med school for comedy did advance).
The credits mentioned it briefly, but I wonder how they really dealt with the fact that two of the judges, Colin Quinn and Rich Vos, know a few of the folks from Tough Crowd. We probably won't have as much of the familiarity of the contestants in the next round, but there are already rumblings that Brett Butler and Drew Carey were upset with the eventual choices to join the house and that their input was largely ignored.
Wednesday, June 09, 2004
Who's laughing now?
So another season of Last Comic Standing has started, and I can't help but think that for as much as this is an American Idol for comedians, why am I recognizing a number of the contestants from when standup was all over TV?
Last year's winner, Dat Phan (who I met briefly last year before he performed at the AAJA convention), was a relative unknown, as was runner-up Ralphie May. While there were seasoned vets like Dave Mordal and Rich Vos, I wasn't that familiar with them.
This year, among those who have advanced to the semifinals include Will Durst, who I've seen do standup since the now-departed Ronald Reagan was president. He's even done an HBO One Night Stand back in the day, and he even got back on the radar briefly during one of the first runs of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? when, as a phone-a-friend, blew the $500,000 question. I like his stuff, but what in the world is he doing on the show?
Other veteran comics with plenty of TV experience who have advanced to the semifinals include Tom Cotter, Frank Santorelli (looking much bigger than when I'd see him on the old Short Attention Span Theater on Comedy Central) and Jim Norton, the short, almost bald comic on
Tough Crowd. In fact, if you've appeared on that show, it means you have at least a little cachet in the business, right?
While it's not really the same thing (since AI has stipulations on being "real" amateurs), this setup is somewhat like bringing Edie Brickell, Meredith Brooks or Montell Jordan to compete on AI for a chance to revive their careers.
I won't argue that the added exposure helped out even the veterans -- a bunch of the comics did an AI-like tour of comedy clubs after the show, but in the end, most of them are still doing decent work in the clubs and Colin Quinn's show, which probably wouldn't have been much different with or without the show. Still, I guess it's not a bad idea of getting more season vets on the show, given how bad and unprepared some of the comics featured in the early cutdowns were. (And then there was Buck Star, who appeared at all eight tryouts -- LA, SF, Dallas, New York, Boston, Nashville, Chicago and Tampa, finally getting one callback on the last stop in Tampa, only to be denied a chance at the semifinals. He had potential but definitely wasn't there yet.)
I'll keep watching if I'm around for it, but I won't feel so empty if I miss it. Besides, Comedy Central is doing the quick reruns of it a few days later.
So another season of Last Comic Standing has started, and I can't help but think that for as much as this is an American Idol for comedians, why am I recognizing a number of the contestants from when standup was all over TV?
Last year's winner, Dat Phan (who I met briefly last year before he performed at the AAJA convention), was a relative unknown, as was runner-up Ralphie May. While there were seasoned vets like Dave Mordal and Rich Vos, I wasn't that familiar with them.
This year, among those who have advanced to the semifinals include Will Durst, who I've seen do standup since the now-departed Ronald Reagan was president. He's even done an HBO One Night Stand back in the day, and he even got back on the radar briefly during one of the first runs of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? when, as a phone-a-friend, blew the $500,000 question. I like his stuff, but what in the world is he doing on the show?
Other veteran comics with plenty of TV experience who have advanced to the semifinals include Tom Cotter, Frank Santorelli (looking much bigger than when I'd see him on the old Short Attention Span Theater on Comedy Central) and Jim Norton, the short, almost bald comic on
Tough Crowd. In fact, if you've appeared on that show, it means you have at least a little cachet in the business, right?
While it's not really the same thing (since AI has stipulations on being "real" amateurs), this setup is somewhat like bringing Edie Brickell, Meredith Brooks or Montell Jordan to compete on AI for a chance to revive their careers.
I won't argue that the added exposure helped out even the veterans -- a bunch of the comics did an AI-like tour of comedy clubs after the show, but in the end, most of them are still doing decent work in the clubs and Colin Quinn's show, which probably wouldn't have been much different with or without the show. Still, I guess it's not a bad idea of getting more season vets on the show, given how bad and unprepared some of the comics featured in the early cutdowns were. (And then there was Buck Star, who appeared at all eight tryouts -- LA, SF, Dallas, New York, Boston, Nashville, Chicago and Tampa, finally getting one callback on the last stop in Tampa, only to be denied a chance at the semifinals. He had potential but definitely wasn't there yet.)
I'll keep watching if I'm around for it, but I won't feel so empty if I miss it. Besides, Comedy Central is doing the quick reruns of it a few days later.
Monday, June 07, 2004
If you need another reason to feel old, VH-1 Classic has officially entered the '90s with a block featuring Blind Melon ("Tones of Home" -- i.e. the video that's not "No Rain"), Alice In Chains ("Them Bones") and Pearl Jam ("Jeremy"). And it looks like the day before, they did Bell Biv Devoe ("Poison"), Duran Duran ("Ordinary World"), The Cranberries ("Dreams"), Matthew Sweet ("Girlfriend"). I guess it's a good way to get people prepared for I Love the '90s, but are videos from the early '90s "classic" yet?
Friday, June 04, 2004
D-U-M-B-A-S-S
Both Mike and Craig have interesting commentary on yesterday's National Spelling Bee and how it's lost a lot of relevancy despite its live coverage on ESPN (which even the French Open couldn't get).
Competitions like the spelling bee as well as many of the academic competitions that many of the people on the blogroll are part of have seen their difficulties rise exponentially in recent years. In a way, it seems like a rather organic process, but not necessarily a good one.
In either case, there's a rather fixed knowledge base, and back in the day, there was a certain baseline of difficulty developed that seemed fair at the time. Over time, though, the words or clues used would start feeling a bit overused. So to shake things up and make things seem more interesting (at least for organizers and hard-core players), the only way to go was dig deeper into that knowledge base and in effect ratcheting up the difficulty. There isn't enough "new" stuff added to the knowledge base over the years to keep the difficulty the same without repeating what's been asked before.
In the bee's case, you plumb further and further into bigger and bigger dictionaries to find more and more obscure words. In quizbowl's case (at least the types of competitions I'm used to seeing), you dig into deeper and more advanced texts to find more and more obscure clues and/or answers.
The unfortunate side effect is that some of these competitions get so hard that you can only watch these things in awe without even trying to find out how this stuff should be relevant. It becomes like a brainier version of Fear Factor. Honestly, what is the difference between watching some kid pass out, get up and spell a word that'll be used in .0005 percent of people's vocabularies and some guy or girl pass out while trying to eat 100 cockroaches in a minute?
In some ways, it mimics the evolution of today's athlete. As the accomplishments get more and more impressive, the types of athletes who can perform them become less diverse. NFL lineman have to be 300 pounds to succeed. Baseball pitchers don't have to be Randy Johnson's height, but they have to be in the 6-2, 6-3 range at least. The average 40 time, vertical leap, etc. of today's athlete is often superior to just 15-20 years ago. There are more advance training methods to get that way, just as there are more advanced and sophisticated ways and resources to train for a spelling bee.
Maybe it's only fitting that ESPN covered the Spelling Bee live and included it on SportsCenter. It's just another way to marvel at ridiculous feats that supposedly seem easy to the competitors but in no way can the average schmoe even fathom of doing.
Both Mike and Craig have interesting commentary on yesterday's National Spelling Bee and how it's lost a lot of relevancy despite its live coverage on ESPN (which even the French Open couldn't get).
Competitions like the spelling bee as well as many of the academic competitions that many of the people on the blogroll are part of have seen their difficulties rise exponentially in recent years. In a way, it seems like a rather organic process, but not necessarily a good one.
In either case, there's a rather fixed knowledge base, and back in the day, there was a certain baseline of difficulty developed that seemed fair at the time. Over time, though, the words or clues used would start feeling a bit overused. So to shake things up and make things seem more interesting (at least for organizers and hard-core players), the only way to go was dig deeper into that knowledge base and in effect ratcheting up the difficulty. There isn't enough "new" stuff added to the knowledge base over the years to keep the difficulty the same without repeating what's been asked before.
In the bee's case, you plumb further and further into bigger and bigger dictionaries to find more and more obscure words. In quizbowl's case (at least the types of competitions I'm used to seeing), you dig into deeper and more advanced texts to find more and more obscure clues and/or answers.
The unfortunate side effect is that some of these competitions get so hard that you can only watch these things in awe without even trying to find out how this stuff should be relevant. It becomes like a brainier version of Fear Factor. Honestly, what is the difference between watching some kid pass out, get up and spell a word that'll be used in .0005 percent of people's vocabularies and some guy or girl pass out while trying to eat 100 cockroaches in a minute?
In some ways, it mimics the evolution of today's athlete. As the accomplishments get more and more impressive, the types of athletes who can perform them become less diverse. NFL lineman have to be 300 pounds to succeed. Baseball pitchers don't have to be Randy Johnson's height, but they have to be in the 6-2, 6-3 range at least. The average 40 time, vertical leap, etc. of today's athlete is often superior to just 15-20 years ago. There are more advance training methods to get that way, just as there are more advanced and sophisticated ways and resources to train for a spelling bee.
Maybe it's only fitting that ESPN covered the Spelling Bee live and included it on SportsCenter. It's just another way to marvel at ridiculous feats that supposedly seem easy to the competitors but in no way can the average schmoe even fathom of doing.
Garden party
I guess I've known about it for a while, but New Jersey does have a strange mythology unlike any other place, currently embodied by The Sopranos but also created by a number of sources besides Bruce Springsteen. What's intriguing is that Jersey is often considered such a low-brow type of place, yet it's not hard to find fellow Garden Staters no matter where I go (or at least find people at least familiar with where I grew up). But I guess we all just escaped to everywhere else.
I guess I've known about it for a while, but New Jersey does have a strange mythology unlike any other place, currently embodied by The Sopranos but also created by a number of sources besides Bruce Springsteen. What's intriguing is that Jersey is often considered such a low-brow type of place, yet it's not hard to find fellow Garden Staters no matter where I go (or at least find people at least familiar with where I grew up). But I guess we all just escaped to everywhere else.
Thursday, June 03, 2004
Oh yeah, I forgot to mention I was part of the clusterf*** at Hartsfield-Jackson when flying up to Chicago on Tuesday morning. It's ridiculous when the line for security winds outside. I'm surprised I'm not in any of the photos in the story.
The sad part is that I knew this was going to happen, given that it happened a few weeks ago and that even the local news was predicting it the night before. I left earlier than usual and I got to the airport about 7:50 a.m. for a 9:40 a.m. flight. I got to the gate about 9:15 a.m. It's not good when the people allegedly helping you out keep directing you to the wrong line.
Look, when a bunch of people in a row are carrying small bags, there's a good chance that they've checked in and are trying to find security. Don't direct me in the same direction with the folks with four giant suitcases, OK?
While I got there early, my co-worker who was joining me on the flight didn't realize this was going to happen. Thankfully our flight was delayed for about 30 minutes, or else he would've missed the flight as he got to the gate about 9:45.
Atlanta's setup just asks for trouble -- 18 checkpoints for the entire friggin' airport all in one place. It's a bottleneck waiting to happen. Oddly enough, it seemed like the line was moving reasonably quickly once I figured out where to pick up the line, but just trying to figure that out cost me about 10-20 minutes.
The sad part is that I knew this was going to happen, given that it happened a few weeks ago and that even the local news was predicting it the night before. I left earlier than usual and I got to the airport about 7:50 a.m. for a 9:40 a.m. flight. I got to the gate about 9:15 a.m. It's not good when the people allegedly helping you out keep directing you to the wrong line.
Look, when a bunch of people in a row are carrying small bags, there's a good chance that they've checked in and are trying to find security. Don't direct me in the same direction with the folks with four giant suitcases, OK?
While I got there early, my co-worker who was joining me on the flight didn't realize this was going to happen. Thankfully our flight was delayed for about 30 minutes, or else he would've missed the flight as he got to the gate about 9:45.
Atlanta's setup just asks for trouble -- 18 checkpoints for the entire friggin' airport all in one place. It's a bottleneck waiting to happen. Oddly enough, it seemed like the line was moving reasonably quickly once I figured out where to pick up the line, but just trying to figure that out cost me about 10-20 minutes.
Wednesday, June 02, 2004
I'm in Chicago for a couple of days, and I get another chance to see a Cubs game, this time the Astros are in town (and probably at the hotel I'm staying at). So, with the wealth of starting pitching on both sides, what matchup do I get?
Brandon Duckworth vs. Glendon Rusch.
Thankfully, there was lots of beer involved to keep us away from grasping the sheer inanity of the game, which included the game-winning hit from Mike Lamb, also known as the official acquired stopgap at third base for the Yankees after Aaron Boone got hurt and before they got that A-Rod guy.
Brandon Duckworth vs. Glendon Rusch.
Thankfully, there was lots of beer involved to keep us away from grasping the sheer inanity of the game, which included the game-winning hit from Mike Lamb, also known as the official acquired stopgap at third base for the Yankees after Aaron Boone got hurt and before they got that A-Rod guy.
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