Rarely have the circumstances around Halloween and Election Day's convergence been so scary. But of course, one of the things we learned this week was that political bias is for grownups, and little kids occasionally need to remind us that we can vote however we like.
So with that, and heading into one of the tensest pre-Presidential-determining few days in American history, here's a largely lighthearted look at the top five things we learned this week from pop-culture land. See ya on Monday, and y'all come back now for a week of super-packed political coverage, ya hear?
5. If the media were half as vigilant on behalf of ordinary criminal tragedies as they were fumbling for tactful ways into covering the Jennifer Hudson nightmare, we might actually be able to spread out our police forces more effectively.
We've expended a lot of energy on this site telling you what Sucks, and an equivalent amount of our blogging brainpower ruminating the many facets of the presidential election. So as our loyal (read: super awesome, attractive and intelligent) readers try to exhume the spirits of the Bush administration once and for all this Halloween weekend, we felt it was important to offer a more hopeful message.
Or at least to rely on a bunch of pre-teens to stay positive and remind us what our nation's primary tenets are theoretically all about. If you haven't seen this clip of the kids from Ron Clark Academy reinterpreting T.I.'s "You Can Have Whatever You Like" as "You Can Vote However You Like," it more or less speaks, dances and raps for itself. (Although make sure not to miss the dorky white chubster in the back, cause he's kind of hilarious.)
Grown pop stars should arguably have more of a backbone to make partisan endorsements, rather than fulfill their civic duty and merely encourage voting in some glorified PSA. But educators should absolutely be imbuing their school kids with the principles of fairness and objectivity, and imploring them to look at all situations from both sides, so that by the time they grow up and can take ownership over the political process, they make decisions out of both heart and intellect.
So kudos, Ron Clark Academy, for reminding us that Democracy doesn't suck.
Welcome to NCDSUV's newest daily feature, where we acknowledge another turn of the calendar for a member of Hollywood land, even if it's a celebrity who often goes overlooked by the rest of the blogosphere, and regardless of whether we have a huge affinity for their body of work.
And while yesterday celebrated the big 5-5 for underrated screen nerd Charles Martin Smith, today we blow out the candles of more closely impending mortality for a man who brought irreplaceable support to both Alan Alda and Michael J. Fox.
To invoke the spirit of old MAD-mag style intros, my situation can best be described of late as being in a strange city with no job and little-to-no-responsibilities, so I’ve decided to open my mind to stimulation of all sorts. This includes watching a lot of basic cable, which fortunately has always had a home here on NCDSUV. And with that I bring you five prevailing questions that occurred to me during CMT's latest reality phenomenon, Hulk Hogan's Celebrity Championship Wrestling:
5. After a very promising career in music and film (hey, he was in four of the six Rocky movies), why must a talented individual like Frank Stallone subject himself to this kind of humiliation?
4. Does anyone remember Hulk Hogan’s Rock ‘n’ Wrestling cartoon? Even as a youngster I thought that shit was fake, 'cause every time the animated Hulkster fought some jobber in the ring he never bothered to take off the championship belt!
3. Is the viewing public so beaten down and battered from years of exposes and declarations of “sports entertainment” that they’ll accept losers who barely qualify as “celebrities” play fighting, if only because it kills a few hours during their visit to Universal Studios Florida? The aesthetic reeks of American Gladiators chic, the “wrestlers” don’t really bother to sell any of the moves, and there’s no sense of excitement that comes from watching the real pros engage in high-flying theatrics or bloody beatdowns.
Welcome back to one of NSCDUV's most beloved daily features, which takes aim at the most confounding, misleading or abruptly hysterical info-bar synopses of the day's cable programming. And while yesterday saw Brian De Palma get even more confusing than usual, today we flip the remote to Charlie Sheen's finest moment not involving accusations of adultery and prostitution.
Of course there’s Halloween, when cable is meant to bring out its big guns with respect to weird, wild, uncut movies. But then what? Does cable TV shut itself down from holiday overload? Especially when there’s a ton of great movies to air, and an increasingly fickle public is getting more adept at finding ways to watch them elsewhere? We’ll find out in this week’s Films From The Cable Afterlife. (All showtimes listed in EST.)
8. Man’s Best Friend (1993)
The Movie Channel, Saturday, November 1, 12am, 4:30am
Why not? Killer dog movie from the early ‘90s is what passed for horror back in such happy times. Lance Henriksen and Ally Sheedy star opposite “Max,” a genetically-tweaked Rottweiler that eats a cat and a mailman whole. (Seeing an actor pushing himself into a giant dog-sock while screaming and covered in gore is why you pay for cable. Beware.)
7. National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation (1989)
HBO Comedy, Friday, October 31, 11:30am; Cinemax (@MAX), Saturday, November 1, 12:10pm; Cinemax, Friday, November 7, 3:40am
This is the most cynical of any Griswold adventure, released during our last recession. Clark, Ellen and the ageless Audrey and Rusty (here played by Juliette Lewis and Johnny Galecki) stay home and let the chaos come to them. Chevy Chase’s delivery is damn near venomous as he doles out charity to Cousin Eddie and his clan, camped out in a rusting RV, while in-laws ridicule and the tacky yuppie neighbors (including a pre-Seinfeld Julia-Louis Dreyfus) suffer these fools. Hey, the stores are already pushing Christmas, so why can’t cable?
6. Electra Glide In Blue (1973)
Encore Action, Monday, November 3, 8:15am
Comedian Paul Mooney called Robert Blake “the white O.J. Simpson” on Howard Stern this week. See him in his Napoleonic prime in this offbeat cop thriller, where the diminutive officer spins his wheels dispensing traffic violations across the desert. Backed by Chicago manager James William Guercio, who also directed, this is maverick filmmaking before the term “maverick” became synonymous with “scared idiot.” Watch as Peter Cetera and Terry Kath get hassled by the fuzz.
5. The Warriors (1979)
Turner Classic Movies, Friday, November 7, 3:15am
This one’s pretty commonplace, but you know what? A few years back, Walter Hill and the studio, high on the fumes of the video game and the still-MIA remake of this late ‘70s classic, decided to add new footage to The Warriors, and in the process delete the original version altogether. If you didn’t buy an earlier copy of the DVD, you might be S.O.L. … or you could settle for this uncut, letterboxed print from TCM. Unsettling even in its campier moments, this gritty tale of a Coney Island street gang’s difficult trek back home from the Bronx following a gangleader’s assassination still packs every bit of its initial punch, bolstered by intense performances by psycho-character actors James Remar (know of late as Richard Wright from Sex And The City) and David Patrick Kelly.
Notice that headline is phrased as a statement and not a question. Why, you inquire? Because we are not merely going to curiously probe the possibilities of what Jessica Simpson may be hiding in her much-gossiped-over belly. We are going to tell you. Because we all know that if her sperm-on-a-stick boyfriend/Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo (and no, I have no idea what sperm-on-a-stick means) is too sensitive to play football with a broken pinky, he's certainly not potent enough to knock up the singer/sort-of actress. Not to mention it's highly unlikely she'd go all in utero while in the midst of promoting a new album.
So, if in fact Simpson's belly is suffering from a bit of the bulge, here's the five different objects, maladies and possessed demonic spirits that could be inhabiting it:
5. Innumerable bags of salty, delicious Dallas Cowboys Northampton Peanuts. Although she's still probably absorbed less sacks than her paramour.
Ode on a Fecean Loeb
Oh woe is Loeb!
A man whose hands are ham and heavy
A meal for the fat of mind
Subtleties escape thee
But then are caught and slaughtered
Buried in a mass grave
Called Smallville
The less said about his comic career the better, but just to touch: Reputation has a slow decay rate. Let that be the lesson. Write a few things of worth and coast forever on the slipstream of goodwill and mis-remembrances past. His latest atrocities upon the comic-buying public are so Ultimately unspeakable as to be tantamount to grammatological genocide. We await the ICC's indictment.
To mention his comic writing serves a point: In the world of TV and films, it's difficult to discern who fucked the bug and later gave everyone West Nile during the gangbang. So many cooks, most of them with barely an understanding of how to butter bread, stick their sickly fingers in the mix that it's a surprise anything at all of interest ever makes it out of Hollywood.
Thus, to blame him for the terrible aspects of Smallville and Lost, both of which he wrote and produced episodes of, or Heroes, of which he is a co-executive producer, would seem specious... if there was not a more undiluted example of his doggerel. And that would be his comics, which are produced less by committee than the television his awkwardly paws in the backseat of his parents' car until he accidentally ejaculates while trying to remove his belt.
Last night, Barack Obama showed up Morgan Freeman and Dennis Haysbert with his performance as the President Of The United States in the greatest infomercial ever (to not feature Ron Popeil). With production values and cinematography rivaling Hollywood’s glitziest movie trailers, all that was missing from the donkey party’s visual pitch was a voiceover from that “In a world…” guy (R.I.P. Don LaFontaine).
Although a lot of Obama’s glorified PSA was blander than the Wonder Bread made from the wheat grown in those hallowed fields of that mystical place known as the “Heartland of America” (you know, where “real” Americans live, not in those awful cesspools of sin known as “cities”) that we’ve been hearing so much about, we did learn a few things from Democratic Party’s man of the hour.
1. Tinkling Acoustic Guitars Mean Business
Just like in the movies, whenever a soft acoustic guitar starts playing in the background, you know something poignant is going on. Every time an amber wave of grain or a slow pan of a lower middle-class family came across the screen, you could be sure that some watered down, Cat Stevens-style, geetar-pickin’ was a comin’. Grab your tissues folks, you’re being told to cry and better comply. And if that doesn’t grab you, the sweeping violins and soft piano licks will.
2. Barack Obama Likes Poor People
From the housewife with those stupid stick-figure family stickers on the back of her minivan, to the various laborers and good-old fashioned, hardworking folks peppered throughout Obama’s audiovisual stump speech, the fact was hammered home over and over again: Poor people rule. It’s always amazing to observe how much power the “little people” wield during election time and how quickly that perceived power evaporates once it’s over. The give and inevitable take between presidential candidates and the poor might be the most abusive, co-dependent, hillbilly relationship of all time.
3. Barack Obama Is The Only Person Who Could Play “Barack Obama”
Straight out of central casting, Obama is so good at playing himself, it seems like no one could ever do him justice if and when the biopic comes out. What actor could possibly pull off the inimitable blend of effortless salesmanship, charisma and smoothness of delivery like the man himself? Morgan Freeman? Too old. Wesley Snipes? He’s unavailable (and going to jail). Denzel Washington? Playing Malcolm X is one thing, but even Denzel couldn’t pull this off. Looks like Barack’s gonna have to go down the Babe Ruth/Howard Stern self-performance route.
Welcome to NCDSUV's newest daily feature, where we acknowledge another turn of the calendar for a member of Hollywood land, even if it's a celebrity who often goes overlooked by the rest of the blogosphere, and regardless of whether we have a huge affinity for their body of work.
We kick things off on this Halloween Eve (which, yes, is a bit redundant) with one of the screen's greatest underrated nerds not named Rick Moranis...
