Howdy Doody Is Creepy.

I purchased some Howdy Doody DVDs as a joke for my 1 year old nephew. Don't ask why, it's a long story. I tried to watch the show and about 2 minutes in I realized how creepy this puppet is. I can imagine a new potential Childs Play series based off of Howdy Doody. Am I the only one who finds this smiling cowboy a little odd?

Goon: Perfect Netflix Clutter

You know when you’re putzing through Netflix and see more shit than you know what to do with, but then you watch something and it reminds you that you’re getting a bargain by only paying 7.99 – that reminder is Goon.

I should note that Netflix streaming has always been a source of clutter and total randomness for me. One day I go to my home screen and it’s promoting Felicity and the next day it’s showing Mission Impossible as a new release. I think they need a better organization system, especially when their “new release” was released to the world in the 90’s.

The clutter that is Netflix steered me to the film starring Sean William Scott and Jake Baruchel. It reminded me to trust Netflix and their options (unless they change their name to Qwikster) and it also reminded me that Netflix is more than just TV series and random reality shows – for now.

The best way I can describe Goon is … shit … that’s the thing - I can’t describe this movie. Maybe that’s why I like it so much. Is it Rocky meets Miracle? Eh, sort of. The film follows William Scott, the insanely nice and self describe “stupid” bouncer whom hangs with Baruchel (also the writer of the film). Baruchel takes William Scott to a hockey game where one of the players rushes the stands and attempts to kick Baruchel’s ass. William Scott steps in and drops this guy in seconds – unleashing his talent: Kicking ass.

The ass kicking capabilities of William Scott gets him a job on the hockey team. His sole purpose is to fight and protect his players, which he does aka a “Goon.” Many fights later he’s brought up to a semi pro team to serve the same purpose. However, William Scott isn’t the only person in the world who serves this exact purpose. A crafty vet played by Liev Schreiber is currently positioned in the semi-pro league and he’s a legend. He’s also probably the best part about this film (more on that later).

As William Scott unknowingly makes his team better and forms bonds with his teammates we build to the inevitable conclusion of Liev (not using his last name because I like his first name so much) and him meeting in a “who gets into the playoffs” game where the two are destined to face off in one historic fight… And they do.

I’ll avoid the spoilers, but what you need to know about this film is that it somehow is filled with a heartbeat. William Scott carried this film. I would argue that aside from playing “Kar” in Bulletproof Monk this might be his best film. No, but seriously, this is his best film.

Liev kind of killed it as the old man who has seen everything but is still fighting to fight. As I was watching I kind of forgot how much I liked him as an actor. Aside from the performances, it was funny, fast, to the point, and was quite possibly the perfect Netflix movie.

Having said all of that I should probably note that there are some definite flaws in the movie, but I don’t want to dive into them because it’s not exactly a movie that you’d try to tear apart, you just enjoy it. Also, I kind of like trusting Netflix…

See Goon.

Stooges

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What happened? What happened to my (former) favorite comedy brothers Peter and Bobby Farrelly akaThe Farrelly brothers? These two guys served the world two of the greatest comedies in the span of 5 years: Dumb & Dumber and There’s Something About Mary. They made slapstick comedy funny, they sort of defined Ben Stiller, they added fuel to the Jim Carrey fire, and they officially put Cameron Diaz on the map… okay not officially, The Mask did, but at least we knew she was funny.

It took me a minute to realize that they have another movie coming out tomorrow: The Three Stooges. I reminded myself the brothers were the guys behind Stooges and I felt bad for them. I’m never one to just dismiss someone’s work and judge something before I see it but my initial feeling is that this doesn’t look…err… good.

Anyone I’ve talked to is utterly confused about the Stooges reboot and the truth is, it’s getting harder to defend the Farrelly’s. I’m getting worried their time has come and gone, and it’s starting to seem as though people have lost faith in them. As I write this I’m well aware that I’m being very kind and I know people have lost faith in them, but I always want to defend them, I MUST, they fucking created Dumb & Dumber!

I don’t know if it’s easy to pinpoint the exact moment their movies took a turn for the worse. I feel that everyone kind of has an idea of when it happened but lets look back on the movies of the Farrelly’s. We’re going to start with awesome and work our way to current day…

The Farrelly Status:

1994: Dumb & Dumber – How awesome could this script have been to get Jim Carrey attached. At the time Carrey was coming off Ace Ventura and The Mask, and this movie just pushed him over the edge to be the first actor ever paid 20 million for a movie. I don’t need to talk about this movie any more.

Farrelly Status: These guys are on top of the world.

1996: Kingpin – Woody Harrelson and Bill Murray. Who really needs anything else in a movie? This movie coined a term I break out only to the worthy “Munsoned.” Was this movie as good as D&D, no, but this is still a pretty damn good follow up.

Farrelly Status: Still on top of the world.

1998: There’s Something About Mary – What an amazing movie. My buddy talked to me about how this is a perfect comedy and perfect script, he argued that this should have been nominated for an Oscar, and I think he’s right. This was such a hilarious film it blew up Ben Stiller and Cameron Diaz. I would argue that this was the start of the whole Ben Stiller vibe - unassuming guy put in a really shitty situation. This was better than Kingping and made more money than D&D.

Farrelly Status: On the way way top of the world.

2000: Me Myself and Irene – I saw this movie with my friend Gerald and we laughed our asses off. Jim Carrey was back and he was as funny as ever, but a weird thing happened when this movie came out – It wasn’t the highest grossing comedy of the year, which everyone thought it would be, Scary Movie was. The Wayans outshined the Farrelly’s and Jim Carrey. For whatever reason this movie didn’t click like the others. One could argue this was the slight decline of the Farrelly’s… and maybe even Jim Carrey.

Farrelly Status: At this moment they’re not on top of the world anymore, just in the clouds.

2001: Osmosis Jones – Osmosis Jones!? Oh yeah, they did an animated movie. The movie BOMBED, but you have to wonder if you can blame them because it was animated. I feel that all directors who don’t specialize in animated films should sort of get a pass when they fuck up their first one; it’s the second one you have to worry about.

Farrelly Status: They’re falling below the clouds right now… but maybe it was the animation!

2001: Shallow Hal – Shallow Jack Black gets Tony Robbins-ed and sees women in a different light, specifically Gwyneth Paltrow. There was a backlash to this movie, due to the insensitive nature - it also wasn’t incredibly funny. Maybe it was Jack Black or the general idea of the movie, but something was off.

Farrelly Status: The guys are coming back down to earth right now but it’s difficult to get a gauge on them because their movies are so out there (in a good way).

2003: Stuck on You – Wait… Matt Damon and Greg Kinnear did a movie and the premise was “Conjoined twins from Martha’s Vineyard move to Los Angeles so that one of them can pursue an acting career.” WHAT!? This is where it changed for me. I remember wanting to like this movie but I just couldn’t. Bad movie that wasn’t well received.

Farrelly Status: The Farrelly’s are officially back down to earth (but still give them some credit for being out there! Right?)

Quick side note about this movie: This says a lot about the faith actors had in the Farrelley’s. It’s not as though Damon and Kinnear were unknown.

2005: Fever Pitch – And then there was this movie. Somewhat of an anomaly because they had to change the entire script midway through because the Boston Red Sox were about to win the World Series and this premise somehow hinged on the Sox.

The good thing about this movie: It was back to somewhat of a grounded tone but the bad is that it wasn’t well received. I feel that there was this lingering question that mayyybe this movie could have been better if the whole Red Sox thing didn’t screw things up, could it be? All I know is that young Jimmy Fallon and Drew Barrymore were in this and I don’t know if they had any chemistry. It was a good try.

Farrelly Status: The Farrelly’s haven’t moved from being back down to earth, they’re just walking around now.

2007: The Heartbreak Kid – Remember this movie? Ben Stiller and Malin Ackerman. It’s about a guy who essentially shacks up with the wrong girl and realizes it on his honeymoon. Truthfully, I vaguely remember liking this movie and I kind of wish it did better. I feel that at this moment in time the Farrelly’s had been beaten around and realized they kind of needed to get their groove back, so they went back to Stiller in a Romantic Comedy.

Although this movie wasn’t bad it didn’t do well at the box office which tell us that either a) I’m an idiot and the movie sucked or b) the Farrelly’s lost their mojo entirely. I’m going to go with letter b because it made over $100 million worldwide.

Farrelly Status: The brothers are officially searching for a hit, still on the ground and have been surpassed time and time again by other comedic directors.

2011: Hall Pass – I’m going to stand by this statement: Awesome premise but a shitty movie. When I heard about this and that it’s about husbands getting a “hall pass” from their wife, I though this was going to be awesome. Not to mention it had Owen Wilson and Jason Sudekis. But, it wasn’t awesome and the entire time I was watching I was hoping it would just get better.

This film was as though you could see the grown up Farrelly brothers. As if you could see the transformation of guys who probably have families now and are a tad bit out of touch with what made them so great in the first place.

Farrelly status: They’ve become the guys who we all hope that they remember what they’re capable of. But hey, at least they can only go up from here. Oh wait…

2012: The Three Stooges – At one point Jim Carrey, Benecio Del Toro, and Sean Penn were attached to this movie. Can you fucking imagine that!? I’ve got to hand it to the guys for sticking with this film after it went through developmental hell but if the trailers are any indication of what’s to come then I’m scared.

So, it’s the stooges with 1940’s sensibility stuck in 2012? They still poke people in the eyes? I want to shake the Farrelly’s and tell them that they were the guys who elevated slapstick in the 1990’s and now in 2012 they’re regressing! You can’t go backwards! This isn’t fashion! You gotta move forward man…forward!

The only other time I’ve felt so opposed to a film is when the Smurfs was released in 2011 … and it ended up making $560 million worldwide…

Farrelly Status: Rock. Fucking. Bottom.

2013: Dumb & Dumber part 2:

Dear Farrelly brothers,

I don’t care about the missteps you’ve had in the past. Honestly you’ve had a string of bad luck and maybe people don’t understand you, maybe you still are the duo that I thought you once were. Let me tell you something, next year you’re going to make a sequel to one of the top 10 comedies of all time and no matter what, I’m going to see it on opening weekend. If you put the movie in 3D and have a cameo from the Stooges I’m going to be sitting with my popcorn watching this movie.

I say this to you out of love: If you pull off this movie I will forgive you for everything, and so will everyone else. Yes, everything.

Truly yours,

Josh

Future Farrelly Status: Back on Top.

SNL: The Recap

Did anyone happen to catch Saturday Night Live this past Saturday? If you didn’t then you missed maybe one of the consistently funny episodes in a long time. I feel that there is this general understanding that SNL is funny for about 65 percent of it’s episode and the lackluster skits get pushed towards the backend – this past Saturday wasn’t the case.

Maya Rudolph was the host and apparently that meant to bring on everyone and anyone. Random surprise guests were: Justin Timberlake, Amy Poehler, Bill O’ Reilly, and Kate Upton (The Sports Illustrated Model).

Random side note: I honestly had watched “In Time” earlier in the night and wrote off Timberlake, then watched this episode and felt some minor redemption.

I first wrote this post with the intention of embedding each clip in this blog but for whatever reason HULU is stubborn and won’t let me. To try and make up for it I’ve included the link…

We have to start with the cold opening, this basically set the tone for me. Typically this is a political themed skit but this time it was a racially charged take on the Jeremy Lin scenario in NY:

LINK THAT I WISH WAS THE EMBEDDED VIDEO!

Jay-Z and Beyonce’s Baby: My God this was funny. Jay Pharoah is great, and I hope he continues to be more prominent on the show:

LINK THAT I WISH WAS THE EMBEDDED VIDEO!

Cosby Obama: This was a skit that was pushed towards the latter half of the show and I couldn’t believe it. I think this would have killed in the first 30 minutes. Basic premise…errr… The Obama’s as the Cosby Show.

LINK THAT I WISH WAS THE EMBEDDED VIDEO!

What’s Up With That - Presidents Day Edition: Remember Keenan from Keenan and Kel on Nickelodeon? I’m happy he’s still working in the comedy world, and this character is his stand out on the show. My initial reaction when seeing this –“What the hell is Bill O’ Reilly doing on SNL!?” and I loved every minute of it. Jason Sudeikis in his red jumpsuit is the stand out in these:

LINK THAT I WISH WAS THE EMBEDDED VIDEO!

Bronx Beat: Poehler was back and a special surprise from Timberlake. I typically don’t like women ranting back and forth by Rudolph and Poehler were great:

LINK THAT I WISH WAS THE EMBEDDED VIDEO!

Maya Angelou Prank Show: This was amazing:

LINK THAT I WISH WAS THE EMBEDDED VIDEO!

The Weekend Update: Poehler was back with Seth Meyers, and once again very funny. I kind of miss Poehler on SNL:

LINK THAT I WISH WAS THE EMBEDDED VIDEO!

There are still a few skits out there that almost made the cut, but I couldn’t put the entire episode on here… although I almost did. I think it’s great that various cast members are really starting to hit their stride and it’s amazing how SNL can continue to evolve. Rudolph brought it, this was a great episode, and sometimes I forget how funny SNL is.

Tower Heist ... You Almost Had Us At $60.

If you didn’t know, last week Universal announced that their film, Tower Heist, which opens in theaters on November 4th would be released to VOD (Video On Demand aka Pay tv) 3 weeks later for the measly price of $59.99. For the sake of things lets just say $60 dollars… they’re not fooling anyone.

When this was first reported a few things happened:

First – People were confused that anyone would pay $60 for a movie 3 weeks later.

Second – People started to wonder how this would change things down the road with releases post-theater run. It’s interesting because there isn’t nor has there ever been some magical number that says when a movie comes out after it’s theater run. It seems to always change. For instance, I want to know why X-Men: First Class is on DVD but Super 8 is nowhere to be found. Weren’t they in the theater at the same time? Give me my F’n JJ / Spielberg film.

Third – This started the inevitable process of people never having to leave their living rooms and drastically altering the movie going experience. This is a whole other can of worms… we’ll just stick to Tower Heist.

Earlier this week exhibitors (theater owners) went bat shit crazy and strong-armed Universal by saying “You release this 3 weeks later, then we’ll boycott this film.” Universal took note and pulled the 3 weeks later release date, which probably felt awfully gratifying for a lot of theater owners but we all know they’ll lose this war in the long term.

When this all went down nobody seemed to care, in fact I think people were happy because when you put the words MOVIE and 60 DOLLARS together we black out due to not being able to comprehend the concept. With nobody getting behind the VOD release Universal basically lost early on. All the talk was “Who the fuck would pay $60?” as opposed to “Hmmm, I might pay that.”

This is what Universal did wrong in their little experiment… And how they could have made this work, and like always – it’s a money thing:

First off $60 is insane for this movie… Or is it? The argument is – “If you and your wife take your kids to the movie it can come to just as much” which is actually kind of true. Quick financial breakdown:

Husband and Wife with 2 kids at $10 a ticket on a Friday night: $40.

Popcorn: $6

Drinks: $8

Candy: $4

Grand Total: $58

Not to mention any variables of paying for parking… extra candy for the bitching kid… more drinks. You may actually top $60 dollars going to see a 2 hour movie.

What they should have done was start much lower… say… $39.99, ahem, $40. Sure, lower is better when it comes to spending but Tower Heist is sort of a perfect storm in a few ways from the outside looking in. It has early positive reviews, an apparent resurgence from Eddie Murphy (for the 18th time), and Ben Stiller.

The marquee stars are interesting because they appeal to such a wide audience. People can choose to remember Eddie Murphy as the guy who did kick ass stand up, Coming to America, SNL, and The Nutty Professor… And then happily forget about Pluto Nash and Bowfinger. Then you have Stiller who’s still appealing to the crowd who remembers him from Something about Mary and the younger generation who knows him from A Night at The Museum. OHHH not to mention one is black and the other is white which equals… BIG AUDIENCE! For the sake of talking about cast lets not forget that Ferris Bueller is in this movie and so is Michael Pena. Man, this movie is covering all it’s race angles.

If you start low with your initial price when dealing with this movie people will want it and it starts to look like a good deal, I’m not totally sure people have accepted they’re blowing so much money at the movies quite yet. Once people start to want it then you get people on your side with every social media outlet known to mankind. Suddenly we want to watch Tower Heist and every other movie in 3 weeks… or else.

Universal dropped the ball here by about 20 bucks. They could have seriously started to alter things if not by a lot then juuust a little. A little nudge if you would. It seems like all Universal did was let the public side with the exhibitors.

If nothing else the door has been cracked opened. This was the first major studio film to really test these waters like it did. If Tower Heist doesn’t manage to CPR Eddie Murphy’s career then we can look back at it as the movie that attempted the inevitable paradigm shift that’s slowly taking place.

…And it made us realize that it’s fucking expensive for a night at the movies.