http://rambo-4-trailer.blogspot.com/

Looks good to me.

There are certain staples of American pop culture that I’ve somehow missed out on. Throughout the years, I’ve seen hundreds of movies, listened to thousands of songs, and read… well I’ve read a few books.

There are some that are considered essential in American culture - entertainment that it seems like everyone has experienced. And yet I’m not always in that group of “everyone”. Here are a few titles I’ve missed. I have had little to no exposure to the following:

Music

• The Beach Boys - Pet Sounds
• The Beatles - Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band
• Led Zeppelin - IV

Movies

• Citizen Cane
• Midnight Cowboy
• Dr. Strangelove

Books

• The Da Vinci Code
• Harry Potter (any of them)
• The Bible

Yes, I’m referring to the Bible as pop culture. It’s a story, people.

Okay - so what pop culture you missed out on?

Guess the movie. Or don’t. Whatever. But no cheating (Google, IMDB, etc).

Customer at a diner: “I want a plain omelette, forget the tomatoes, don’t put potatoes on the plate, and give me a side of wheat toast and a cup of coffee.”

Waitress: “I’m sorry, we don’t have side orders of toast. I can give you an English muffin or a coffee roll.”

Customer: “What do you mean, you don’t have side orders of toast? You make sandwiches, don’t you?”

Waitress: “Would you like to talk to the manager?”

Customer: “You have bread, don’t you, and a toaster of some kind?”

Waitress: “I don’t make the rules.”

Customer: “Okay, I’ll make it as easy for you as I can. Give me an omelette, plain, and a chicken salad sandwich on wheat toast — no butter, no mayonnaise, no lettuce — and a cup of coffee.”

Waitress: “One Number Two, and a chicken sal san — hold the butter, the mayo, the lettuce — and a cup of coffee… Anything else?”

Customer: “Now all you have to do is hold the chicken, bring me the toast, charge me for the sandwich, and you haven’t broken any rules.”

Waitress: “You want me to hold the chicken?”

Customer: “Yeah. I want you to hold it between your knees.”

Remember that dude from The Goonies? You know, the kid who played Chunk? I was wondering what happened to that dude, so I did a little digging. Turns out he’s an entertainment lawyer. His name is Jeff Cohen. This is a relatively recent picture of him from Global Talent Associates. I would have done a little more research, but I guess he’s already got his fair share of stalkers. So instead, I’ll just sit back and bask in the glory that is the Truffle Shuffle. Enjoy:

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Looks like the hype paid off for Borat. The movie has already made a profit - in one weekend - at only 837 theaters. The internet hype machine failed Snakes on a Plane, but it lifted Borat to a $26 million pay day. Is this proof that America actually has a sense of humor? Or is it possible the theaters were simply crowded with sexist anti-Semites laughing their asses off?

I guess it doesn’t really matter. This thing’s going national - to 2,500 theaters. And it makes sense. Just look at the sexy package that guy’s dangling in the picture on the left from the Cannes Film Fest. Who wouldn’t want to watch that shit in action for an hour and a half? I’m sure the red-staters are going to love him.

For more Borat, check out his interview with Opie and Anthony.

I’ve been reading Oracle Night by Paul Auster. Among other themes, the author discusses the notion of instant change - the idea of a person taking their own life in a different direction, suddenly and unexpectedly. You’ll find this theme throughout American fiction, specifically in cinema.

• American Beauty is a classic example. Kevin Spacey’s character finds out he’s losing his job, and instead of moving forward with life, he turns his whole world upside down.
• Another example you’ll recognize is Office Space. Ron Livingston’s character is under hypnosis when the hypnotist suddenly collapses in front of him and dies. Nothing is the same after that.
• And finally - consider Falling Down. In this example, there’s hardly a catalyst. The moment when Michael Douglas’ character decides to quit his life, he happens to be sitting in traffic. Within moments, he has left his car idling on the freeway and soon he’s stomping through the city waving around a baseball bat.

In Oracle Night, Auster references a sub plot in Dashiell Hammett’s The Maltese Falcon, which of course was later made into one of the most well known examples of film noir, starring Humphrey Bogart as Sam Spade. In the novel, the sub-plot gets a little more attention than in the film, which allows the story only a few minutes in a Bogart monologue. Nevertheless, it is pivotal to the overall story.

This example is familiar enough to bookworms and film buffs, that later examples of the theme are compared to it. They call it the Flitcraft Episode or the Flitcraft Parable.

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 vs

Such a difficult decision: 
Go to the theater to see the best muthafuckin’ movie of all muthafuckin’ time - or rent a shitty knockoff at Blockbuster?

Not convinced that SoaP is the best movie ever?  Check out this user comment I found on IMDb (after the jump):
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Snakes on a muthafuckin’ plane!

(Hat tip: McNuggett)

I can’t figure it out. Someone made a feature length documentary covering dozens of alternative hypotheses about the events of September 11, 2001, and the movie’s not even listed on IMDB. Maybe there’s some kind of conspiracy against the filmmakers.

The movie is Loose Change 2nd Edition. You can watch it on Google Video. Among other theories, the film suggests:

• Commercial jets didn’t hit the twin towers. Unmanned US military planes did.
• The towers didn’t fall because of the planes. They fell because of carefully placed demolition charges.
• A plane did not hit the Pentagon. A US cruise missle did.
• Flight 93 didn’t crash in Pennsylvania. It landed safely in Cleveland.
• The cell phone calls from scared passengers were faked.

Believe me, I’m not saying I buy into all of this (or any of it). I don’t typically buy into conspiracy theories anyway, and I won’t accept any of the film’s ideas without further investigation. But it is incredibly interesting and I do hope the case isn’t offically closed regarding September eleventh. In 20, 50, or 100 years, what will the history books say about 9/11? Will the current government endorsed answers continue to be accepted? Will someone investigate the hypotheses brought up in this film? Will any or all of these theories prove to be true?

I’m posting this as a service to The Churning Loyalists. Follow the jump for a list of this year’s Oscar nominees.

And tell me… Which movies are you rooting for?
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I mentioned to my co-workers that My Lady and I saw Brokeback Mountain last night. A couple of people seemed interested, but one lady said, “There’s no way I’d see that movie.”
“Okay…”
“Yeah, I saw Alexander at the theater and I couldn’t believe it! It ruined the movie for me.”

I assume the “it” she referred to is some kind of homosexual love scene, or two dudes kissing, or a gay relationship. I have no idea, I didn’t see Alexander. My guess is she would hate Brokeback.

Seems like most critics have been quick to note that Brokeback is a love story, not a “gay movie.” Honestly I don’t get it. Middle America’s not ready for a love story that happens to involve two dudes. Tell them it’s a gay movie. We don’t want them to be confused. Critics write reviews for the masses. For the rest of us - trust me, this is not what you’d expect from a “gay movie.”

Last night at the theater, most people seemed to know what they were getting themselves into. Even so, there were a few gasps from the audience at certain points. Let me just say, gasping at two dudes kissing is completely moronic. You brought your wife to see the “gay cowboy movie.” What the fuck did you expect? Man up, you pussy.

Just in case you’re undecided about the film based on your own level of potential discomfort, I’ll break it down for you. Here’s what you’ll see:

• Heath Ledger’s ass for a couple of seconds - not in a sex scene
• Non-nude man on man sex. This is obviously the most “shocking scene,” but they’re not naked and the scene fades out after a maybe 30 seconds.
• Two naked dudes jumping into a lake, shot from a distance. If you buy the DVD, pause it, and zoom in, you might see Ledger’s cock.
• Two dudes making out. There are several scenes where Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal swap spit. Maybe five minutes total.
• Gyllenhaal boning Anne Hathaway - and her tits are completely exposed (Yep, the clean-cut girl from the Princess diaries movies).
• Ledger boning Michelle Williams - she’s topless too (uh huh, she’s the hottie from Dawson’s Creek).
• Fistfights. Several of them.
• Drinking. Lots and lots.
• Oh yeah - and Randy Quaid’s in it.

I guess my point is this: To anyone who is sexually self-confident, this is not a “gay movie.” There are more bare funbags in this flick than man asses. The most graphic gay sex scene is short and non-nude. The main characters drink heavily and know how to throw a punch.

Don’t avoid it because you’re freaked out by the whole gay thing. If you want a good excuse to get out of seeing it, just say you’re gay and you’re afraid that seeing Hathaway’s perfect cans might turn you straight.

Recycling poop is probably a bad idea.

I just saw the movie, Me and You and Everyone We Know. It’s totally surreal. In one scene, two brothers are IM’ing some lady they met in a chatroom. She thinks she’s chatting with a sex obsessed adult, but she’s actually having a conversation with two kids.

The boys are trying to think of something sexy to say and this is what they come up with:

Boy: What should we write? “I have a big wiener?”

Little Brother: I want to poop back and forth.

Boy: What? What does that mean?

Little Brother: Like, I’ll poop into her butt hole and then she’ll poop it back into my butt hole. And then we’ll just keep doing it back and forth with the same poop.

Boy: Oh, my God. I’m going to put that! “I want to poop back and forth.” Oh, God. She’s gonna think we’re a crazy, perverted person. Ooh! She thinks we’re crazy!

Little Brother: No, tell her like how I said it.

Boy: No, she’ll never write back. We have to sound like we’re a man, you know? That’s just lame. It’s stupid.

Little Brother: But you said I could do half, and you’ve done all of them before this.

Boy: Whatever. We’re probably gonna get arrested. What do you want me to put?

Little Brother: Like how I said it. “I’ll poop in your butt hole… and then you will poop it back… into my butt… and we will keep doing it. Back… And forth… With the same poop…. Forever.”

Later in the movie, the little brother was IM’ing the lady again and he typed a picture of pooping back and forth. It looks like this: ))<>((

Seems like a bad idea to me. Who would want someone else’s shit inside their ass? It’s like an internal Cleveland steamer.

My Special Lady and I saw the movie Palindromes last night at the Philly Film Fest. The director, Todd Solondz, was there for a Q&A after the movie. This guy also directed another oddly entertaining movie, Welcome to the Dollhouse.

So Palindromes is pretty artsy. The main character Aviva (her name’s a palindrome) is played by 8 different actresses, including a pre-teen redhead, an overweight African-American woman, and 43-year-old Jennifer Jason Leigh. Strange? Yes.

The audience asked some pretty obvious questions, but one struck me as a little antagonistic. A lady shouted, “So, what’s with your preoccupation with pedophilia?” Solondz stammered and stumbled Woody Allen style as he answered every question, but he stammered a bit more with this one. His answer was something along the lines of, “I wouldn’t say I’m preoccupied. Pedophilia, by definition, is the love of children. I’m not condoning it, but in this case, the child is the aggressor in the relationship. She just wants to be a mom, which also is a palindrome… blah blah blah, etc.”

I was thinking that the question was a little crude. This movie is about a whole lot more than pedophilia. It covers territory like abortion, Jesus freaks, deformity, mental retardation, murder, etc. The director is not obsessed with pedophilia. He’s just interested in bringing taboo topics out into the open. Pedophilia happens to be one of the many taboos in this film. Maybe that lady just wasn’t paying attention.