Review: Meet Dave
Meet Dave
Eddie Murphy plays the dual role of "this generations greatest captain" and "the ship itself" in this Sci-Fi comedy about a crew of 3 inch tall aliens in persuit of a secret weapon designed to steal all of the Salt Water on earth.
Much has been made of how bad "Meet Dave" is, and like "Norbit" before it, most of the problems people have with it can be traced to the easy familiarity of the movie and not to any other quantitive problem. It's trite and lazy; the plot is obvious and cookie-cutter easy. Aliens come to Earth and take on the attributes of humans, some get into rap, some go crazy and the ostensibly toughest guy on board is a flaming stereotype. Sigh, yawn, seen it before. There are no surprises here. The guy with a stick up his butt goes crazy, takes over the ship an alienates the "kid". Yawn.
My rating: stars
The fish out of water story has been done to death, even by Eddie Murphy himself. This movie might even be best described as a family-friendly "Coming to America" with Arsenio Hall replaced with Gabrielle Union. It's pretty much the same movie. Eddie Murphy's character tries to blend in with the Humans, fails, falls for a local girl and finds love. It's the same basic movie, without James Earl Jones and Sexual Chocolate.
Once again, we have a long-time movie comedian going back to the well for more of the same, hoping to win over his core audience, only to find out that his core audience has grown tired of his work and moved on to dirtier pastures. When Eddie Murphy tried to go back to dirtier roots (Norbit) they weren't interested in that either. Which is a shame, because like Mike Myers' "The Love Guru", "Meet Dave" isn't a bad comedy. I laughed at the predictable jokes and liked the ending. Yes, I saw it all coming when I saw the poster, but it didn't make the ride any worse.
Audiences will go on the same Roller Coaster over and over again, hit the same drops and loops over and over and keep going back, why don't they do the same for movies by established celebreties? They see the same stories over and over, the same themes. It's not to say that "Meet Dave" is great, but it wasn't as bad as one would have imagined. Eddie Murphy was funny, the relationship with the kid was "hearwarming" and the plot was straightforward. What more can one say about a family-friendly movie?
Popularity: unranked [?]
I laughed so very hard at this complaint
Complaint #211
“Finish this list for me, Dan Brown: Angels and Demons, The DaVinci Code, and _______. Don’t think your fans have forgotten that you owe us a third book. We’re waiting.â€
-Whine by Toby Glenn
You can almost hear the prissy voice behind this one saying "get to work MISTER BROWN, I don't have enough religious intrigue in my life right now!"
Former disgruntled Alter Server?
Seminary student gone bad?
Middle aged and bored with all the high-end prose on the Oprah book club list?
We may never know.
Popularity: unranked [?]
Ed Kruk Loves America Like Hong Kong Loves tibet
My name is Ed Kuck and I am the web master of this website that has received so much attention in recent days. I am 70 years old and a veteran with more than 20 years of service in the United States Air Force. I have been married to my lovely wife, Rumpa, for 35 years. Rumpa was born and raised in Thailand and became a United States citizen after we were married. Together we have two bi-racial children of which we are very proud. One is honorably serving our country while our youngest is still in high school.
Hey Ed, from my count, you married Rumpa when you were 35. From age 18-35 you had ever opportunity to marry an American Woman! What was wrong with America then? Huh? 35 years ago, A Thai woman? Probably met during that long forgotten conflict in Asia? Why were you in Thailand? And why did she leave when democracy came to Thailand? Don't you love Democracy? Ed? Do you REALLY love America, or do you just live there for tax purposes?
According you Ed, this isn't Racist: "Obama loves America like O.J. loved Nicole"
When I put up the controversial slogan on my website, it didn’t even dawn on me that the comment could be perceived as racist. When I first saw the slogan, the thought that immediately came to mind was that this was a statement about love and hate. I found that icon during a time when I was watching Reverend “God Damn America†Wright on television. I was angry that a Presidential candidate who professes his love for America had been sitting through 20 years of sermons by a man who said, “the United States brought on the 9-11 attacks with its own terrorism,†“America’s chickens have come home to roost,†and “the government lied about inventing the HIV virus as a means of genocide against people of color.†How could you love America and sit through that garbage? I love America, and darn it, I would have stood up and walked out! Obama refused to denounce his Pastor until his polling numbers started to take a nose-dive.
So, something some Pastor said justifies your attack on Obama, not anything Obama said or did. Just something his Pastor said. I imagine that your friends in the Republicans should be expected to expel you from the group now? I mean, you said bad stuff and married a foreigner, clearly they should publicly denounce you!
I have always had a diverse group of friends over the years and have never looked at them as black, white, red, yellow, green or any color of the rainbow. I have a good friend named Tom Inge. Tom is an African-American and a Pemberton Twp. Republican Councilman. Tom can’t get his restaurant open in our town because the Democratic Planning Board members are prejudiced against him. I don’t know whether it is because of his race or because he is a Republican, but I do know that he is both, and he is being screwed. Why doesn’t the press cover this story? Probably because he is a Republican.
Ah, the good old, "I have a black friend" defense. The corollary to "I'm friends with lots of black people" as if any of that proves that you are no racist. Why not be honest and sa:
"I thought it was funny, they are both black and I don't like either of them and I wanted to associate Obama with a murderer in the sense that I think he would murder america"
Instead we're treated to this shameful song and dance where you use your kids, your wife and your friend Tom as a kind of shield from criticism. You Coward. You weak 70-year-old coward. You weren't even infantry, you killed people from the sky. Now you're old and weak and looking for an out when you are caught making a shameful joke on behalf of your organization. Man up and admit to what you intended.
So while I do apologize for offending anyone by the icon, I am more sorry that my family and friends had to endure such a traumatic experience because the PC police assumed that I was a racist. This is why I thought it was best to call my Municipal Chairwoman yesterday and resign my post as a committee-member. I think too much of the good people in the GOP to let the Democrats smear them because of my mistake.
This website always was and will continue to remain my own personal website, and I will put on it whatever I please!
If you don't think your family and friends can take the heat, don't make inflammatory statements on their behalf. On that note, let me state that I am sure that I speak only for myself and not anyone else on this Blog. Unless otherwise noted, I'm the person in charge of the keyboard.
Who knows if this will remain up, but if it does here is the link to the Eds website:
Popularity: 1% [?]
Review: Love Guru
At the time of this writing "The Love Guru" is running at 15% at Rotten Tomatoes. I've written about how this movie is being held up as an example of Mike Myers' descent into mediocrity. I don't need to rehash any of what I said there about the man himself, but what to say about the movie?
In short, I laughed at it. It's juvenile, it's facile, but it's funny. The Character "Guru Pitka" is juvenile, it's what he does. He uses low-brow humor to put the people around him at ease. It's the depth of this character that the critics are missing, they are trying to find a tortured clown in there and missing the joyful clown that the character is. One can only admire a character who is so unbound by the world that they can punch a little person with no obvious regret or misgivings. Would that we would all feel so free, especially in the way the two forgave each other immediatley.
Yes, it was improbable and often insulting, but it was Comedy! Real comedy. One Liners, penis jokes, fart jokes, Elephants Making Love in the Air Canada Centre! Why are people down on this movie? It's a great "straight" comedy. No need for subtext or veneer, just obvious puns and slapstick, it's acceptable when "new" comedians do it, right?
Perhaps that is why this movie has failed at the box office, it isn't new. It's familiar like an old shoe and perhaps old shoes aren't what people want.
Popularity: unranked [?]
Hey Joe! What you doin' with my garbage?
I forgot what day it was last night, and put my garbage out on the curb. My big, 2 weeks old garbage bag. Full of chicken.
Get the picture?
Be glad I didn't take one, it was a disaster.
What is it about garbage that attracts the animals? Is it the rotting meat? Ewww!
Jen ended up having to re-bag a bunch of garbage, fighting clouds of flies and beating a raccoon to death no doubt, since I was at work already.
I'm firmly in the "I wish we had bag tags so that I could put out extra garbage" camp. I still don't have recycling containers and so have tons of garbage that needs to be dealt with and last week I ended up having to store garbage in the garage as we had too many bags out. If I could have paid to put out more bags, I would have.
Anyone in the London area know where I can buy recycling containers?
NiteMayr's helpful advice on raccoon fighting:
Raccoon combat is never pretty, it always seems to involve low blows and insults about one's mother. I will usually just toss some cat food off to the side and insult their love of "pussy food". Yes, it's a low blow, but it puts them off-balance for the final "yo mama's so furry that she has an entire page on Encyclopedia Dramatica" which sends them into a shame spiral. It's troubling that even racoons are familiar with ED, but that's the viral nature of the 'net for you!
--Nitemayr "Raccoon Combat"
Popularity: 1% [?]
I asked my dad, who knows everything
On George Carlin:
Hes average, personally i like Chris Rock, Eddy Murphy and Russel Peters most. Never heard of him until he died and i even asked my dad, who knows most bigger comedians and he had never heard of him.
Feel free to link me to some of his good stuff, his 7 swearwords stuff was pretty.... average.
Nobbeh - who is level 44
I know my Dad, he knows football (the good kind), nuclear maintainence, 60s and 70s rock and pop, safety regulations, union politics and a bit about almost every other subject. I wouldn't go posting on the internet about how I asked my dad (who is not a bona fide authority on anything) about said subject. I might say that I looked around some comedy blogs or science manuals or whatever, but not "I asked Dad, he says get stuffed".
I am a Dad too. I pretend to know everything sometimes too. However, I like to think that I'll admit when I'm stumped. I don't want my kids or neices and nephews to think they can use me as an authority on anything save what I'm an expert on, and even then I'd like to think they'd lie and use a euphamism like "I asked a professional asshole, and he says you're part of the club" or "I know an expert in social dissasspointment, he says that if you sucked any more at being in relationships you'd be looking to on Henry the 8th memoirs for advice"
Or something like that.
Popularity: unranked [?]
MUST. RESIST. TEMPTATION. TO. DEFEND. COMEDIAN
When Myers appeared on “The Daily Show,†the comedian seemed genuinely upset that Jon Stewart didn’t let him set up the unfunny clip of his film. There’s something so cloying about Myers these days — it’s as if he thinks if he repeats a joke often enough, he will wear down the audience into laughing. And his kind of movie — the silly, based-on-a-skit type — seems slightly archaic in the post-“Superbad,†“Knocked Up†world, which feature characters who feel real.
Ack! I want to defend Mike Myers so much. He's a big boy, so he can stand for himself I'm sure. I just hate when a comedian gets on the "not funny now" list like this. It would be different if this column hadn't pointed at Superbad and Knocked up as examples of with it comedy; then I'd have let this pass unmolested. But to point to Seth Rogan and Jonah Hill and say "THEY ARE THE FUTURE OF COMEDY" is just wrong.
Over ten years of Kevin Smith wrong.
I liked both of these movies, just like I liked a bunch of other foul-mouthed dick and fart joke movies. I like dick and fart jokes and can't deny it. I also like stupid accents and physical comedy. Mike Myers has embraced what makes him funny and people have decided "so what else is new?" Jim Carrey faced this when he tried to put his brand of humor into established places and failed (which made the whole cat in the hat thing kind of puzzling to me really) Mr. Carrey tried to turn what had made "Fire Marshal Bill" "My, Myself & Irene" funny into something that could pass from movie to movie; forgetting the humanity that the Characters were hapless losers that won out in the end.
Mr. Myers might want to stretch himself more in the future though, as it appears he is going to be castigated for doing what television sitcoms do for years on end, giving the audience more of the same with the same cast and so on. This afflicts a bunch of comedians, and kind of seperates the comedy fans from the deliatants, the die hards will accept more of the same if it is still funny and the masses just want something new and possibly shocking. Which is why "I don't want to offend you..." by Bobcat Goldwaith was a hit with standup fans and no more than a blip on the radar of the general public. It was more of the same, but the delivery and material was so great, who cares that you knew all the punchlines?
I like to think of great comedy like I think of great music, you can hear the same phrases and motions over and over and still enjoy it. Sometimes you can find new textures and flavours in it. I think that Mr. Myers has tried to put a new spin on an old act and found people don't want a new spin, they just want new.
Popularity: 1% [?]
George Carlin was Alive and now He is Dead
"The whole problem with this idea of obscenity and indecency, and all of these things — bad language and whatever — it's all caused by one basic thing, and that is: religious superstition," Carlin told the AP in a 2004 interview
In a typical wry response, Carlin said: "Thank you Mr. Twain. Have your people call my people."
Carlin told The Associated Press this year he was "perversely kind of proud" to be "a footnote in American legal history."
Few Comedians will have the balls and chutzpah that George Carlin carried around in his pants, his stuff was portable and palatable. At times he seethed with loathing for the trappings of society, struggling to suffocate the failings of others in prosaic language and invective. Other times you could see that he wanted so much for us to understand his world view that he was a wits end trying to use crude language (crude in the sense of imprecise for the task, not crude as in vulgar) to express his point of view.
George Carlin was a man of the monologue, streaming hours of precise and cutting commentary or just sputtering vituperation at his audience. The only real tradgedy of Carlin's work is that the people who stood the gain the most from it, his targets, were likely to be the selfsame people who would ignore or overlook it as brash, uncooth or un-pc.
I think we might see, over the coming days a number of groups trying to claim Mr. Carlin's Corpse for their own, whatever stripe they may wear. They will look at his death as an opportunity to say that he was in in their Camp, shaman of their particular tribe as it were. I think George would have said it best, "go fuck yourself!" he was his own man and walked his own path, wearing only his own stripes and speaking only his own words.
Good-bye, you crazy hippy. May you rot in the earth and fertilize a lawn or two.
Popularity: unranked [?]
At least teh Graphs ar amozing
GameSpot:Video Games PC Xbox 360 PS3 Wii PSP DS PS2 PlayStation 2 GameCube GBA PlayStation 3
6 graphs, i wonder in what crappy pc and what vga he used as you can see in the screenshots the graphs are FAR better than brother in arms that came at the same date so tell me look at the screenshots and tell me which one looks better? hell this game got good physiques if you blow something up it will break , and boxes and corpses will fly on the air, juddgin by this game good perfomance and ageia physx high requirements fo the same physiques while i think those were amazing , eg brother in arms came out at th same time but it didnt even have physiques!, bulletholes are cool too!
Holy Cow, this anti-review needs a dramatic reading!
Shorthand for the literate reader:
graphs = graphics
vga = resolution
physiques = physics or perhaps "a physics engine"
Wow, this guy is serious. I thought at first he was some sort of sock puppet for the game's (Psychotoxic) producers. I think I am wrong, this is just an emphatic fan.
If I remember, I will have to sit down and record this as a dramatic reading; it's GOLD!
Popularity: unranked [?]
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Defending Eddie Murphy
That last quote contains the death knell that tolled for Eddie Murphy "Kid-friendly" now, that death-knell sounded out its dull "Bong" years ago. It was heard right in the middle of "Doctor Dolittle 2" for me, it may have been around the time "Beverly Hills Cop 3" came out I'm not sure. Yes, "Pluto Nash" was crap on film. Let me say that again, "Pluto Nash" was so bad it might have actually killed Randy Quaids career altogether. That movie was a horrible pox on the movie industry. "Norbit" was better than "Pluto Nash" do you know why? Eddie Murphy could curse in it.
I can sum up what makes Eddie Murphy funny by quoting Eddie Murphy in "The Absent Minded Professor": "Shit Locks!"
The whole Dave Chappelle sequence was AWESOME! Larry miller coming down on him in outrageous terms was great!
Eddie Murphy is failing the exact opposite reason Mike Myers if failing. Mike Myers is being bounced because he is still falling back on his punny, schticky humor and Eddie Murphy is failing because he stopped being filthy and started being startlingly kid focused. Even "Norbit" was all about kids, in a way.
In a word of advice to Mr. Murphy, no one under the age of 30 really remebers "Raw" or "Delirious". If you don't get out there and remind us of the filthy but genius Eddie Murphy we loved, you are going to be box office poison from now on.
Popularity: 1% [?]