The word ‘cop’ isn’t written all over him – something more puzzling is.
This was the tagline of one of the great cop movies ever, Bullitt. It’s also one of the great tag lines ever; how can this movie not be good with a tag line like
that. Steve McQueen plays bad ass San Francisco cop, Bullitt. His job here is to guard a witness. When that witness is blasted, Bullitt must keep the body under wraps until he finds out what the hell is going on. There are twists and turns and the story doesn’t stray too much like most cop movies do. That being said, it’s not the story that makes this such a great movie. It’s McQueen. He’s always been regarded as one of the “coolest” actors ever in Hollywood and he plays that persona to perfection here. Bullitt is a rebel on the force and while a thorn in the side for his higher ups, he’ll do whatever it takes to get the job done. Jacqueline Bisset is the love interest eye candy in this movie. Her character is basically pointless, but she’s hot and doesn’t take enough away from the movie to care if she’s there or not. Read the rest of this entry »
I had Frost/Nixon as one of my top 3 movies from last year. I’m usually not huge on Ron Howard fan unless he’s hanging out at Al’s with Ralph and Potsie, but this was one of his best. With that said, it’s not the best movie I have ever seen about Richard Nixon. No, Oliver Stone’s Nixon isn’t either. The best one doesn’t even really have Nixon as a character. The lead characters in the best Nixon movie I have ever seen, All The President’s Men are the guys who brought him down.
The men who broke the story that eventually led to Nixon’s resignation are 
the now famous Woodward and Bernstein, played by Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman. What’s great about this movie is there is no fluff. They don’t dwell on if one of the main characters had a drinking problem or if one had relationship issues. It doesn’t matter. That’s not what this movie is about. It’s about the facts. How the story broke, who was involved and what was the outcome. That’s what we get. Director Alan Pakula puts us in the news room and on the streets of Washington DC and shows us how the biggest political scandal in the nation’s history unfolded. The acting is great from top to bottom. There is no over-acting, what actually happened is interesting and suspenseful enough. This is how true stories should be done. If you’re interested in American History and this particular time in the history, this is a can’t miss.
Ok, so I guess I should get my facts straight. I took a guess on my earlier post today that both Miss Californias were from Orange County. My friend Jeff who lives in the OC was offended by this and pointed out that the first one was from Malibu and the new one is from San Diego. So there you go. I stand corrected. Doesn’t this kind of prove my point though? Orange County, Malibu and San Diego are sort of the same thing. I am assuming that these three places all had similar voting records on Prop 8. Now if you told me one of then was from San Francisco or Berkley I would owe a big apology. Also, I hinted that the only “skill” these girls had was being hot. I guess I was being a little short sited there too. The other skill I am assuming that they both have is rich daddies who pay for the tanning booths, plastic surgeries and have huge crushes on Sarah Palin. Just a hunch.
Paramount, the studio making Iron Man 2 has released a photo of Mickey Rourke as the film’s villain, Whiplash. Nothing really spectacular about that, but his casting did get me thinking. Robert Downey Jr and Mickey Rourke in the same movie is kind of hilarious. Think of how much blow this cast snorted during the 80’s. Speaking of Paramount, you know that mountain 
they use in their logo? If you took all of the blow that Rourke and Downey went through combined, it’s probably taller than that mountain. They made a casting change from the first Iron Man to the second. Terrance Howard played military guy Rhodey in the first. For part 2, they replaced him with Don Cheadle. I think they should have stuck with the theme here and replaced Howard with Dwight Gooden.
Is there anyone out there that is supposed to be sexy that is uglier than 
Fergie from the Black Eyed Peas? Her face looks like an old lady who just smelled a fart and I am pretty certain that she could kick my ass.
I have a lot of friends and know a lot of people at work who have recently had kids. I am happy for each and every one of them. One thing though, should you really be complaining about the lack of sleep that your baby is causing you? You sort of knew that was part of the deal, right? It’s the same thing as me ordering a Double Quarter Pounder, Chicken McNuggets and large french fries at McDonalds and complaining that my stomach hurts. Comes with the territory. I am sure that I would complain about it too, but I am just saying…
Take a look at this article. Dethroned Miss California Carrie Prejean was notoriously against gay marriage. She was probably in the news way too much and lost her title for various reasons. She was replaced by first runner up Tami Farrell who is apparently also against gay marriage. Doesn’t this kind of show you what type of people compete for these beauty pageant competitions? Can we please have a more liberal and level headed girl represent out great state of California please? I think only girls from Orange County compete in this trash. Ladies, do everyone and yourselves a favor a stick to what you do best. Walk around in your bathing suites and perform below average dance numbers or sing songs with your mediocre voices. Keep your ignorant social views between yourselves and the rest of the dimwits who belong to your mega church. You were blessed with great body and pretty face; don’t ruin those with your mouth. We were already pretty sure you were an idiot before you opened it, don’t prove us all right. Now go put the only real skill you have to good use and give Hugh Hefner a call.
And lastly a big congrats to the Giants for the sweep of the Oakland A’s this weekend. Got to love seeing them beat up on the boys from the least bay and taking over the lead in the National League Wild Card standings. I have to give my friend Rob some credit. He had more faith in them than me at the beginning of the year than I did and was saying all along that they had a shot at the post season. It’s still really early, but with Tim Lincecum and Matt Cain pitching the way they are I am starting to become a believer. I just really hope that GM Brian Sabean doesn’t do something crazy and trade one of them or any of our top prospects for some veteran hitter like Jermaine Dye who won’t be worth a bag a balls in a year or two.
One more thing. I saw Away We Go this weekend directed by Sam Mendes. It’s very funny at times and also has some sad moments. It takes a good look at some real life issues that real life couples deal with. Everyone keeps talking about The Hangover and I am sure it’s hilarious; but if you want to see a funny movie with substance, check out Away We Go. John Krasinski from The Office and Maya Rudolph from Saturday Night Live both give great performances. I have really only seen both of them do comedy before this and they both, Rudolph especially look like they can be great actors aside from just being funny.
Christopher Guest is the master of the mockumentary. There isn’t anyone else who is close. A Mighty Wind is the first of three mock docs written and directed by Guest on my list. This Is Spinal Tap is actually not one of them. It just missed. Maybe what puts it a notch below the three that did is it was only written by Guest. Rob Reiner directed it. I don’t want to take anything away from Reiner, he’s done some great work; Guest just gets it more than anyone else. Anyway, to the movie…
A Mighty Wind is the story about a beloved folk music promoter from the 60’s who passed away and his children (mostly his son played neurotically brilliant by Bob Balaban) want to put on a memorial concert for him starring a few of the acts that he helped make (relatively) famous. All of these groups have obviously disbanded since their hey day of the mid 60’s so this mockumentary gives a brief history of each group, what they are currently doing, their reunions, first rehearsals in years and at last the big performance. I was not around yet when the groups that these pseudo groups are mimicking, but from old TV shows and documentaries I have seen they all seem like dead on impersonations.
The three groups are The Folksmen, The New Main Street Singers and the headliners Mitch and Mickey. The Folksmen include the three main actors who played Spinal Tap making it a reunion in reality as well as in the movie. The New Main Street Singers are a hilariously cheesy tribute band for the original Main Street Singers. They probably brought me the biggest laughs of the movie, especially because they are managed by a has-been TV personality who never really was played by one of the funniest people on Earth, Fred Willard. I can go on about him, but will have plenty of time to do that in future reviews. Mitch, played by Eugene Levy and Mickey, played by Catherine O’Hara were once young lovers who had a couple of hit records together. Their relationship ended badly and left Mitch a confused and depressed shadow of his formal self. (Check these links for a few clips from the movie)
While utterly hilarious and filled with great original music, I think what keeps this from being quite as good as Guest’s initial mock docs is that it isn’t quite as mean to its characters. The laughs are a tad more good natured. Also the movie revolves maybe a little too much on the relationship between Mitch and Mickey whose story is a little more sad than funny. There is actually some drama there which at points kills the good mood. That’s not to say they aren’t interesting or funny. Levy especially has some moments that will have you on the floor. Some of their parts just give you too long of a break between laughs. None the less, the ensemble cast filled with Guest’s regulars are all pitch perfect hysterical and overall you will have hard time finding a movie that makes you laugh this hard and this often… Unless you keep reading of course; because I do have some more for you as the list keeps going.
Something else to look out for. The final performance which is televised on a fictional public access channel is a spot on parody of the reunion concerts for old doo-wop and hippie groups from the sixties that currently air on PBS. If you ever happen to run across one of these shows while flipping through the channels you should stop and check it out. Not a lot of things that make me laugh harder than seeing these old bands singing songs about their long hair, smoking weed and fighting the man.
It’s a movie that you’ve all seen. There really isn’t anything I can tell you here that you don’t already know. Raiders of the Lost Ark is just fun. I think of it as sort of a B action movie made with A list talent. Spielberg has never been one of my favorite directors, but you can’t deny his ability to give you a good time at the theaters. Temple of Doom was actually my favorite of the series for a long time, but I think that quality wise, Raiders was the best. I haven’t seen the new one, I heard it was terrible. I guess I may eventually grab it on Netflix or something. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade with Connery is a little over-rated. I mean it was fine, but nothing special. They probably really should have made it his last crusade considering how bad this last one was supposed to be. Anyway, that’s all I am going to say on this one. Great movie and the most boring post I think I have ever written on this site.
Back at the end of April I wrote about some of the stats that I got from my blog and that I was able to see what searches some people made that got them to my site. I saw that one of the searches that got someone to my site was “hidden urinal camera pics of men” and this was so funny to me that I wanted to do a feature called Google Searches of the Week. I sort of forgot and this probably won’t be a weekly feature, but I’m just going to keep the name the same. Anyway, here they are. The Google searches that got random perverts/weirdoes to www.kduce.com this week.
- farmanimalporn
Yes, someone googled that, got to my site and was probably very disappointed. I like how they didn’t bother to put a space in between words.
- lubricated condoms bad
I personally think if you’re going to use one, you should probably go with the lubricated rather than the unlubricated, but I guess this is personal preference. I am wondering what this person was looking for though? At least with farmanimalporn you know what they were hoping to find. No imagination needed for that. This one just doesn’t make sense to me on any level.
- hidden urinal camera
Oh yeah. The people out there looking for hidden urinal camera pictures are being sent to my site in droves just because of a post I wrote about how someone wiped a booger on the wall next to the urinal in my work bathroom. I guess now, since I actually have the phrase written out I may get more of these freaks to my site. Sorry, no hidden urinal camera picture on my site. I just don’t think that’s the direction I want to go in.
I may do an experiment here and write a couple of off the wall type phrases and see if I can get some more perverts to my site and disappoint them. High flying dildo action. Teens farting. Ok, let’s see what we get with those. This is either going to be interesting, hilarious or a waste of time. Actually it’s a waste of time regardless, but I am immature and this makes me laugh. Considering though that the only people that read this are a couple of friends, myself and some very creepy people that get here by accident, I am not really all that concerned.
Thanks for stopping by www.kduce.com. Your Number 1 source for hidden urinal camera discussions. I really need to take a look in the mirror one of these days.
I am not a fan of Robin Williams. In fact, his shtick really gets under my skin. Even though he goes in to a couple of typical “Robin Williams” moments in this movie; he doesn’t do it enough to ruin The Fisher King. Terry Gilliam has proven that he is one of the masters of the modern fairy tale or just the flat out weird and he nails this one.
Jeff Bridges plays a Howard Stern like shock jock whose cruelty leads to one of listeners shooting up a restaurant and killing a woman. This leads Bridge’s character to depression and alcoholism. Williams plays Parry, a homeless man who saves Bridges from some thugs while he is on one of his benders. Parry has obviously lost his mind as he is on a search for the Holy Grail in New York City. The two become friends and Bridges joins him on his quest for the Grail.
There is a little bit of everything in this movie. Violence, romance, an elaborate dance sequence in Grand Central Station and some sort of evil knight on horse back that is trying to kill Parry. I call this a modern day fairy tale because it sort of weaves in and out of reality and fantasy even though most of the fantasy is probably just taking place in Parry’s imagination. There are beautiful shots of New York City throughout and it’s a great escapism movie. I highly recommend it even if Robin Williams tries to ruin it at times.