Back when I was in college and started taking film classes I began to gain an appreciation for the classic movies of the past. I started renting older movies and while many of my friends didn’t have much interest in watching them with me, I couldn’t get enough. One of the first movies I rented during this period was The Hustler, which is now ranked way up toward the top of my all time favorite movies. The Hustler of course starred Paul Newman as Fast Eddie Felson. The movie mesmerized me. In fact, it along with a couple of other movies are what really forced me to keep going and watch as many of these old movies as possible. I had never seen anyone on the screen as cool as him. The way that he effortlessly went from owning that pool table and the room to a completely broken shell of person in one scene was astonishing. From there, I went to Hud and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, then to Cool Hand Luke. Then the two classics he did with Redford; Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and The Sting. In 1966 he starred in one of my all time favorite private eye movies Harper, where the tagline was, “This is a different kind of cat named Harper… and excitement clings to him like a dame!” These characters were cool, they were rebellious and most important they were all flawed and completely human. Writers can only write a character so well, the actor needs to bring these elements with them to the set and Newman never mailed it in. All in all, Newman has seven movies in my top 100. Read the rest of this entry »
An AP poll just came out saying that more Americans would rather sit down and watch a football game with Obama than McCain. It was close, but Obama edged McCain out 50% to 47%. The other 3% opted for Sarah Palin because she supposedly makes a killer seven layer dip. Polls like this have always been a little silly to me, but they do tend to give an idea as to how people are going to vote. I think George W. Bush won the, who would you rather have a beer with poll in 2000 and 2004. It’s too bad they didn’t run a, who would you rather have as your president in the case of a major hurricane poll. It’s not shocking to me that more people would rather watch a football game with Obama, considering he probably wouldn’t fall asleep by the second quarter on the recliner like the other option. The one thing McCain has going for him on this is his wife would probably be able to hook up plenty of free Budweiser. Although Obama came out ahead, I still think polls like this distract from the real issues, which is a good thing for the McCain campaign. When the campaigns have been talking about real issues like the economy, Obama has had the edge. When the campaigns have veered towards lipstick on farm animals, McCain has had the slight edge. But I guess while we’re talking about it I thought I would come up with a few imaginary polls and see how the candidates fared.
Which candidate would you rather date your daughter?
Obama did overwhelmingly better than McCain on this. 90% to 9.999%. The only place Obama had issues here was with Southern whites and the only place McCain did really well was with parents over the age of 100. The .001% choosing neither was Vice President Dick Cheney who chose Sarah Palin.
Which candidate would you rather have as your boss?
This one was somewhat split. McCain came out on top 55% to 45%. What won it for McCain was the corporate and white collar workers who thought that if Obama was their boss they would actually have to work while it would be much easier to slack off and surf the internet all day under McCain’s watch. The people working blue collar and lower income jobs chose Obama because they thought it would give them a better chance of getting some kind of health care and they may get salary bumps allowing them to afford something more nutritious than Spam and Hot Pockets for lunch.
Which candidate would you rather wrestle?
60% would rather wrestle McCain considering he is quite older and would probably be much easier to catch and pin down. 39.999% chose Obama fearing any crazy death grips McCain may remember from his old military days. The .001% that wrote in his own vote was former President Bill Clinton choosing Sarah Palin.
If you were in a public restroom and ran out of toilet paper; which candidate would you rather have in the stall next to you to loan you a few sheets of their’s?
Obama won here in a landslide 90% to9.999%. McCain only did well with the CEOs and Wall Street guys who figured McCain probably had a ton extra because he had taken all of the toilet paper from the public restrooms in the poorer areas to make sure he had plenty to hand out to the people who should already easily be able to afford their own. Obama did well with everyone else. The middle class, the blue collar workers and union workers who understand that Obama took the extra toilet paper from the people who have a surplus to make sure that all of America gets to wipe their ass. That and they figured his hands would be cleaner when handing it over because there is far less of a chance of him messing his pants. The .001% that chose someone else was Republican Senator Larry Craig from Idaho who chose George Michael.
I wish they would stop giving Dane Cook more chances. Employee of the Month, Good Luck Chuck and now My Best Friend’s Girl comes out this weekend. I am yet to see any of his movies, but I still feel like I can say without hesitation that they are all terrible and if I did see them they would all be top 25 material for my Worst 100 Movies list. Watch five minutes of his standup and you’ll know why I avoid his movies. He isn’t funny. Can you get a job as a fireman if you don’t know how to turn on a hose? How does he keep landing movies? Apparently, he plays a guy who gets hired by nice guys who get dumped to get their girlfriends, to help get their girlfriends back. He does this by dating the girls and being such an ass that the girls go running back to their nice guy ex-boyfriends. I don’t know if I’ve ever heard of a worse premise for a movie. I can say that with all honesty. And since when was Dane Cook a stud? Does he really get the ladies smitten? This co-stars Jason Biggs and Kate Hudson. Sorry, Jason Biggs is not going to save this one. Is his resume worse than Dane’s? Read the rest of this entry »
As Election Day grows closer and the debates coming up I couldn’t help but think of that old Saturday Night Live sketch where Dana Carvy was playing Bush Sr. debating Michael Dukakis being played by John Lovitz. Bush had very little to say in his closing statement and every time he finished, the moderator would say that he had one more minute or thirty more seconds and so on. He would keep repeating, “a thousand points of light, stay the course, no new taxes” and other catch phrases that he used during the 1988 campaign. When he did finish, the moderator asked Dukakis if he had a rebuttal. All he answered was, “I can’t believe I’m losing to this guy”. I sort of feel the same way now even though this race is essentially tied. How is McCain even close? Let’s forget for a second that his campaign has been called one of the most dishonest in history and that his commercials are oozing with sleaze. We will also forget that even Karl Rove says that McCain has gone too far. As our economy sinks into what Alan Greenspan just called a “once in a century crisis”, John McCain yesterday said that the fundamentals of our economy are strong. This same quote was supposedly also said by President Herbert Hoover right before The Great Depression. We all know how that went. Later in the day McCain said he by fundamentals, he meant people; thus meaning the American workers are strong and insisted that the United States is in an economic crisis. He also said that when Obama said the fundamentals of the economy are not strong, he was talking about the American workers, which of course is complete bullshit. I can give McCain the benefit of the doubt. He may have just misspoke, or got confused or flat out goofed when he was talking about the economic fundamentals but that’s not what I believe. I believe that it’s not his area of expertise and it’s a good thing that he has an economic advisor. Well, it would be a good thing if his advisor was someone other than Phil Gramm who said that our recession was merely mental, and the US is a nation of whiners. It’s just going to get more interesting from here folks. We’ll see if he can clean up the mess he made yesterday, but so far it doesn’t sound like McCain is doing any better today. Read the rest of this entry »
Before you start to think that I made a goof and rated two movies #94 in a row, there has been an addition made to the list. So while at one point this was #93, it has been moved to #94 and The Departed (which was #100) has been officially knocked off of the list. Sorry Marty, although I am sure that you aren’t too insulted. Now on to the review…
You probably aren’t going to find too many sappy love stories in my top 100, and this may actually be the only one. For whatever reason, Love with the Proper Stranger is one of my all time favorites. I suppose that much if it has to do with the lead actors, Natalie Wood and Steve McQueen. To this day I say that Natalie Wood is the hottest actress ever. She may not have been the best actress out there but she charms the pants off of you in every role she plays. Twenty eight years after his death, McQueen is still considered the model of what cool is and actors continue to attempt and mostly fail to copy his persona. Read the rest of this entry »