Lesson Up

Cause and effect [Coz ehnd ehfehkt]
n. and n.
1. Pretty self-explanatory

E.g. The PR machine for David Fincher's upcoming Facebook thriller, 'The Social Network', is in full force, at times painting its firebrand CEO Mark Zuckerberg in somewhat of an assclownish light. As it happens, this week Zuckerberg has announced his commitment to donate $100 million dollars to the Newark school system. Now that's some cause and effect ish right there.

(The real lesson here, of course, is that it is in the public's interest to make as many slanderous, unauthorized biopics about our most hyper-rich moneybags. Now go and be bad.)

69 Boy(girl)z

I grew up in a cable TV-less household. This left me with seven basic channels to choose from: CBS, NBC, ABC, FOX, UPN 9, WPIX and PBS.  There were probably several reasons why WPIX (which has since dropped the far-from-vestigal W in its name) was my favorite of the bunch, but all I can recall at this present moment is that it was the closest thing I had to a movie channel. What I remember most are the commercials they ran for their movies. Well actually just a little salient bit of each. For example there's the clip from 'Moonstruck' where Cher urges some guy to 'Snap out of it!' and, without fail, slaps him in the face. Another I can recall is for 'Tootsie' with the stars & stripes imagery shown in the picture above. I remember it so goddamn well. However I never saw either of these movies.

Now when my pizza guy demanded that I watch Tootsie the other week, I expected to see something along the lines of Dustin Hoffman as a woman marching and saluting the camera for two hours. I was wrong. It's more like Dustin Hoffman as Mrs. Doubtfire for two hours, but replace Sally Fields with steady employment.

Choice quote: 'Tell me what's wrong or I'll kill you.'

dumb or retarded

(the TCP has temporarily awakened from its REM sleep to participate in lucid screening's third annual white elephant blog-a-f*ck-i-just-watched-a-really-sh*tty-movie extravaganza)

assignment: DOA: Dead or Alive

i love trying new things. like this floating glass shelf i installed in my apartment during my leisure time. i'd never used a drill independently (powerful!). nor had i ever purchased screws at a hardware store before (15 cents each!). firsts are funnnn.

this axiom does not always hold true however. some firsts are horrible. like your first oral surgery procedure. or your first holocaust nightmare. or watching your first feature-length movie based on a mildly-popular xbox game by a company called mindfire. yea, some firsts aren't fun at all.

'coming soon to video' trailers: a movie called 'black sheep' that doesn't star chris farley, 'red line' which is impossibly not listed on imdb, and 'born to fight' which literally has no reason to exist except to meet the $2.99 price point at the waldbaum's checkout display.

i've never played DOA before so that may have hindered my overall viewing experience. so many questions! why would the DOA tournament knowingly invite a 'master thief' to compete? why would the passcode to the vault containing the $100 MM cash prize be 'hidden' on the neck of the founder's daughter? it's literally under her ponytail.

i did know going in about DOA Xtreme Beach Volleyball. so when the contestants organized their own beach volleyball game, i gave myself a high-five in my brain cuz i was totally in on it.

the movie itself is broken up into days, which is really cool because that's how time works.

kevin nash (above, acting) used to be a professional wrestler called kevin nash. in DOA he is asked to provide comic relief. hahaha! the star of DOA is eric roberts whose acting credits include the silver-haired lothario in the killers' mr. brightside video and the well-dressed lothario in mariah's we belong together video.

thank you to whoever suggested this piece of crap.
dead or alive? dead. definitely dead.

shhhh...

this blog is sleeping..

oh yea

i know i'm mad tardy on this one, but ALL criterion movies are 40% off on their website 'til this tuesday.

where she stops, somebody knows

comedic improv takes on many forms. literally! improv forms provide structure to an art form that otherwise is as structureless as a swedish jellyfish.

say for instance you and i are doing a scene where you play a fireman and i'm your incompetent, easily-distracted boss. our scene finds us speeding down a city block to put out a fire, but i want to stop and get a free cone at ben & jerry's because i happened to have voted earlier that morning. in an act of blind loyalty, you join me in line.

this scene could go on forever, of course, but what should happen is that it gets "edited" and a completely new scene starts (maybe at a zoo). now, depending on what kind of form we agreed on beforehand, another member of our group could initiate a scene where we revisit our established hapless fireman and child-like boss characters. and our group would be on the same page because the form called for it. so there you go. improv exposed (wipes hands clean, takes sip from ssips box).

la ronde (french for, the round) is an improv form inspired by the max olphus film from 1950. the movie consists, essentially, of two-person scenes where the first character to enter is the first to leave and a new character is introduced in a new scene with the second character from the first scene. this goes on for 1.5 hours where ultimately, things come full circle. you can see how this can be used in improv.

the table-mannered dog in the picture above is the only character not a part of the 'la ronde', though his scene with the boozed up count is most enjoyable. as for the rest of the movie, people come and people go, some you are happy to see exit where others you wish could stick around a bit longer. one of these is simon simone's chambermaid. straight fire.

wish this movie was funnier. but i guess that's not fair to mr. olhpus who never asked to be the founder of a comedic improv form.

america has finally listened.