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Jan 1, 2005
By Timothy R. Butler | Posted at 22:49:57
I watched Johnny English tonight (with Rowan Atkinson of “Mr. Bean”). It was quite a bit like I expected — completely ridiculous.
Sometimes that's exactly the kind of film you need to see, ya know? Don't expect a long blog post on this — there isn't all that much significance to it. But, if you like Atkinson's brand of humor, you'll enjoy this film. I know Christopher posted on this film in 2003, but I cannot seem to locate that post. At any rate, it was a good movie for ninety-nine cents at the drug store. I made my throat hurt from laughing.
Nov 6, 2004
By | Posted at 18:57:50
I found out I could see HBO and Showtime for free this weekend. My cousin had given a good review to “the Italian Job” back when it was in theaters, so I decided to watch it tonight. It was action packed, exciting and fairly clean fun. A good gold heist always makes for a good story.
It wasn't exactly what I should have been doing with my time tonight (see my note from yesterday), but hey, it was a nice break.
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Oct 28, 2004
By | Posted at 18:46:53
The Last Sports Announcement of the Year? OK. So we lost. I'll concede the guys in Boston deserved a win; while the Cards have won numerous times in the last few decades, the Soxs have not won since right after World War I. At least it wasn't the Yankees that beat us, that would have hurt. Next year, however, we'll be back. And win. So be prepared Boston.
Taking Up Arms Like the better part of 400 tons that are missing and have been missing since before the war. I am glad to see since the last time I talked about this that the President has hit back at Very Scary Kerry who has been trying to use this to his political advantage while his strategists admit they do not have the facts to do so in an informed manner. If we had found 380 tons of this stuff since arriving, would we not have hailed it as weapons of mass destruction? Trust me, we would have.
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Oct 26, 2004
By | Posted at 18:43:10
Well, let's just say it isn't going so well, and leave it at that, eh? I'm hoping the Cards were just trying to be good hosts tonight by letting the Red Sox win, but I'm not so sure about that. St. Louis is the baseball town, so we must win. The Cardinals have never lost a World Series to the Red Sox, I'd hate to see it happen now.
If you are wondering, yes, your assumption was true if you thought I was not a sports fan, but I am loyal to the home teams — and I've always been partial to the Cardinals. I like the see the Rams win just like the next guy, but baseball and the Cardinals are just special. It is, after all, the all-American sport.
Anyone else following the series? It started somewhat humorously, at least, with a bunch of fans holding “Cardinals: Slam-a-lama-ding-dong” signs. If you didn't get it, you really need to see Joe Buck's new commercial for Anheuser-Busch (which, if you didn't know it, is a St. Louis company, hence Busch Stadium).
I'll probably slaughter it, but here's the “plot” of the commercial: Joe Buck, Fox's MLB and NFL broadcaster and son of late great KMOX sports broadcaster Jack Buck, is sitting in the baseball broadcasting booth when his agent comes in. The agent tells him he needs a catch phrase to say, when someone makes a good play, like other broadcasters have. Buck asks why he would lower the quality of the broadcasts for his audience just to have a catch phrase. The agent responds “licensing opportunities.” Camera cuts away to someone hitting a home run, then cuts back to Joe Buck's head. He starts off sounding normally, but then (as the camera zooms out and shows him in a bright yellow t-shirt) says slam-a-lama (hits a gong) ding-dong. He reaches back to give the agent “five” while the camera shows everyone in the room is wearing yellow slam-a-lama-ding-dong t-shirts.
That's rather humorous, I think, but the real humor is in the fact that people are actually now using the phrase. Intentionally or not, perhaps Joe Buck will end up with the slam-a-lama-ding-dong catch phrase in real life.
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Oct 2, 2004
By | Posted at 18:24:12
A friend at church lent me a DVD of the Princess Bride (1987) to watch. It is hard to describe it, but it had a lot of really good laughs in it. Billy Crystal made a great magician in it and everyone did a good job of fitting into their often ridiculous roles. If you haven't managed to see it in the seventeen years it has been out, you should rent a copy. Not the best movie I've seen, but it was quite enjoyable and offered an interesting mix of genres.
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Aug 1, 2004
By | Posted at 12:29:11
As I said before, The Music Man at the Muny was really quite a show. The performances given by the actors and actresses were superb and, I would say, flawless. From Harold's singing, conniving and tap dancing to the Board of Education's excellent barbershop quartet — everything was delightful. The sets were also great. I especially liked the neighborhood set with the Paroos' house. It was all painted on, but when the play got to the part where Marion is giving Amaryllis a piano lesson, the set folded open and revealed the living room of the Paroos' house.
Since the Muny is all outdoors (being the largest [big enough for broadway plays] and oldest outdoor theater in the U.S.), it has a unique feature: large trees growing behind the stage. In the outdoor scenes, the bottoms of the trees were allowed to be visible behind the sets, providing the look of a woods behind the town. A nice added touch to the set.
It's a very touching plot, for those who haven't seen any version of the Music Man. I've included a summary below, but realize the summary is a “spoiler,” so if it happens to be coming to your town ignore the rest of this post and go see the real thing.
Rating: ***** Read more...
Jun 24, 2004
By | Posted at 19:26:12
Jared at Mysterium Tremendum picked out which movies from the top 100 (by gross profits) he had seen and made them bold. I did the same below, although I also italicized the few that I had seen the in theater (most recent being Shrek 2, preceded by The Passion). Feel free to post the ones you've seen in the comments (keep in mind HTML doesn't work in the comments, so you will need to denote the ones you've seen in some other fashion).
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Dec 12, 2003
By | Posted at 19:46:20
Here's something for any and all Mac or Windows users who read this blog (just curious: how many Mac users read this blog anyway — I know there's Kevin…). Anyway, here's what I found: the publisher of Glider, that classic of classic games, has gone out of business. The program's other has decided to give the current versions away.
Glider Pro X is the latest version and works on Mac OS X 10.x. I actually bought a copy of this a few months ago and never got around to installing it (I was planning to do it this weekend). There is also an old copy of Glider 4.0 for Windows and Mac OS available if you don't have OS X.
If you aren't familiar with Glider, it's an amazingly fun little game where you attempt to fly a paper airplane around the dangers of a house. Hazards include paper shredders, flat surfaces and flying thumb tacks. As stupid as that might sound, the game's simple concept makes it very playable and as enjoyable today as it was a decade ago. If you haven't played it before, go download it and give it a try — it's worth a few minutes of time. Now if only there was a GNU/Linux version.
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Aug 22, 2003
By | Posted at 19:23:18
The Thinklings, by way of What in Tarnation!?!?!?!, asks: What are your top five sitcoms?
Well, I'm not a big TV watcher, but I've pondered this and included my picks below. What are yours?
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Aug 9, 2003
By | Posted at 15:20:48
After bringing up the I Dream of Jeannie poll this week, I thought this might be a good thing to note: If you haven't seen I Dream of Jeannie before or would like to see it again, TV Land has gone back to the early episodes of the series.
The first ~ 30 episodes are in Black & White (originally aired in 1965-66), but that hardly damages their light hearted comedy. I Dream of Jeannie airs several times a day, with a primetime slot at 10:30 central time (right after I Love Lucy). If you get a chance, go ahead and blink on your TV set at that time. An “executive Jeannie summary” is below to help you get started.
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