Hello, and welcome to the Peverett Phile, I am your host, Jason, the Prince of Dorkness. So, did you miss the Phile last week? I was in Washington D.C. and Pa. on vacation where I licked the Washington Monument and pissed in the woods in Gettysburg. So, we landed in Dulles Airport, or as I like to call it Dull-Ass. On the way to the hotel we went through Georgetown, a rich surburb on D.C. In
January it'll have to change it's name to Baracktown. At that same time the White House
will become the Black House and whoever becomes the Vice-President, his initials will take place of Dick Cheney's initials in Washington D.C. As I mentioned I licked the Washington Monument and just for the record, it tasted nothing like sugar. It's so cool that thy named the large river going through D.C. after Apples first computer, the Poto-Mac. In Union Station everyone was called brother or sister, which I didn't
understand at all. The worse part of the trip was going down the Hershey Highway to Pennsylvania, but that's what I get for licking the world's biggest phallic symbol. It was Spring time in Washington, and construction workers were giving the Lincoln Memorial a bikini wax. Just a few days away from tax time. The governor and Mrs. McGreevey had a four way with H&R Block. The Clintons just released their tax returns. Over the past eight years, they’ve donated over $10 million to charity. When they asked Bill Clinton why he gave so much money to charity, he said, “She’s a really good dancer.” Barack Obama is narrowing the gap in Pennsylvania. His campaign is pulling out all the stops. His campaign office is giving away tickets to Dave Matthews concerts. Apparently, this is Barack Obama’s attempt to win over really white voters. President Bush wasn't in D.C. when we were there, he was in Europe. He had a meeting with Romanian Prime Minister Popescu Tariceanu. Or, as Bush calls him, Pop Tart. John McCain says he has 20 names on a list of possible vice president candidates. Unfortunately, most of the names on the list are characters on “Matlock.” There was a letter found written by Abraham Lincoln. It’s dated 1864. Very beautifully written. It starts out, “Dear John McCain . . .” Barack Obama has announced that his campaign raised $40 million in March. Also this week he got the endorsement of Jane Fonda. You win some, you lose some. The Rolling Stones have a new movie out. It’s at some IMAX theatres. Keith Richards runs that band. He says that’s all he ever wanted to do: play guitar. He has music in his blood . . . along with a bunch of other things. Naomi Campbell is in trouble again. She was arrested at Heathrow Airport for spitting at a police officer. I guess that two-day anger management course she took last year really paid off. Bobby Brown is writing an autobiography in which he says he never used cocaine before he met Whitney, which is weird because the title of the book is “I Used Cocaine Before I Met Whitney.” According to a new poll, 81 percent of Americans think the country is on the wrong track. The other 19 percent own gas stations. Canada just announced they may boycott the summer Olympics, because of China’s treatment of Tibet. When asked about the boycott, Canada’s prime minister said, “I’m very angry at China — plus we suck at summer sports.” Jay-Z and Beyonce — it has been confirmed: they finally tied the knot. They got married. If you want get them something, they are registered at “Bed, Bath, & Booty.” Last night, all three presidential candidates appeared on “American Idol.” Randy Jackson, Paula Abdul and Simon Cowell, looked at them and said, “Wait — there’s a black guy, a white woman, and a cranky guy. You stole our formula.” This week Madonna announced that she’s going to adopt a child from India. She already has one from Africa. When she heard about it, Angelina Jolie called Madonna and said, “I’ll see your India and raise you a Thailand.”
THE PEVERETT PHILE TOP TEN LIST
From the home office in Groveland, Florida here is this week's top ten list.
Top Ten Circus Clown Pick-Up Lines
10. "My nose isn't the only thing that is oversized"
9. "The shoes are the only thing that's floppy"
8. "Would you like to put your pie in my face?"
7. "The human body has two funny bones, want another?"
6. "Your tent or mine?"
5. "Can I peek under your Big Top?"
4. "Ever been 'stuffed' in a clown car?"
3. "You're the most beautiful woman without a beard I have ever seen"
2. "My flower isn't the only thing that squirts"
And the number one circus clown pick-up line
1. "Give me three minutes and I'll give you the Greatest Show on Earth"
APRIL 10TH IN HISTORY
1848
250 people die in a bridge collapse in Yarmouth, England. They had gathered on the suspension bridge to watch a clown boat be pulled by a flock of geese.
1917
133 people are killed in an explosion at the Eddystone ammunition factory in Chester, PA. Satan is immediately implicated, with one official declaring the blast to be "the result of a diabolical plot conceived in the degenerate brain of a demon in human guise." It later turns out to have been caused by poorly-maintained powder loading machinery.
1919
Mexican revolutionary leader Emiliano Zapata and his bodyguards are shot to death after being lured to a meeting by army colonel Jesus Guajardo. For his deception, Guajardo collects a reward of 52,000 pesos and is promoted to the rank of general.
1942
Approximately 66,000 Filipino and 11,796 U.S. soldiers near the Philippine town of Mariveles surrender to Japanese forces. Unable to feed their wounded and starving POWs, the Japanese opt for the 61-mile "Bataan Death March" to mitigate the problem.
1945
Buchenwald death camp liberated by U.S. forces.
1947
Agents of the FBI pay a visit to Screen Actors Guild president Ronald Reagan and his wife, actress Jane Wyman. They accuse the couple of belonging to Communist front groups. Reagan quickly agrees to become a secret informer.
1992
Comedian Sam Kinison killed in a car accident.
1997
The Jerusalem Post reports that high rabbinical sources have confirmed the birth of a rare red heifer named Melody in a kibbutz near Haifa. The ashes from such a beast will be needed to ceremonially purify any Jews before they would be permitted to enter the former site of Solomon's Temple in Jerusalem. At present, the parcel is occupied by the Dome of the Rock mosque, which is located on the spot where Muslims believe that Mohammed rode his horse into Heaven. The goal here is to reconstruct the Hebrew temple, but this would necessitate tearing down the mosque, virtually guaranteeing outright war between Israel and the Arab world. Even more ominous, the construction project is a necessary prerequisite for the second coming of Christ, which itself involves all the End Times stuff in the book of Revelation. Melody is the first red heifer in 2,000 years, and quite possibly the last.
2003
FBI agents raid the Noonday, Texas home of avowed white supremacist William Joseph Krar. Upon searching the domicile and some rented storage units, the agents turn up an arsenal including briefcase bombs with remote-controlled detonators, full-auto machine guns, silencers, nearly 500,000 rounds of ammunition, a 1953 military land mine, more than 800 grams of sodium cyanide, and a copy of The Turner Diaries. Krar later receives 11 years for possession of a dangerous chemical weapon.
R.I.P.
Charlton Heston: Isn't that our cue to pry the rifle out of his hands? How cold do they have to be?
FLORIDA: AMERICA'S WANG
Most Florida residents would be allowed to take guns to work under a measure passed by Florida lawmakers on Wednesday. The bill, allowing workers to keep guns in their cars for self-protection, was approved by the Florida Senate by a vote of 26-13. It now goes to Republican Gov. Charlie Crist to sign into law. Backed by the National Rifle Association and some labor unions, the so-called "take-your-guns-to-work" measure would prohibit business owners from banning guns kept locked in motor vehicles on their private property. The measure applies to employees, customers and those invited to the business establishment as long as they have a permit to carry the weapon. Backers say the measure upholds the vision of the authors of the U.S. Constitution, who made the right to bear arms part of the Bill of Rights. "The second thing they wrote about in that constitution was the right to bear arms," said Sen. Durell Peaden, a Republican from Crestview, Florida. "It was what was dear in their hearts." The measure exempts a number of workplaces including nuclear power plants, prisons, schools and companies whose business involves homeland security. Critics say the measure usurps business owners' rights to determine what happens on their property and puts workers and managers at risk from disgruntled employees. Dozens of workplace shootings occur every year in the United States, and studies have shown that job sites where guns are permitted are more likely to suffer workplace homicides than those where guns are prohibited. "This is an attempt to trample upon the property rights of property owners and attempt to make it more difficult to protect the workers in a workplace and those who visit our retail establishments," said Sen. Ted Deutch, a Boca Raton Democrat. I have to say--what the fuck? I like my guns as much as the next guy--provided that guy isn't Ted Nugent, but bring your guns to work? Hells no!
RIDICULOUS LIES YOU WERE TOLD IN HISTORY CLASS
Columbus Discovered the Earth is Round
The story we heard: In 1492, a Spanish ponce by the name of Christopher Columbus won his long-standing feud with the monarchy and the Catholic church to get funding for a voyage to East Asia. They were afraid that he would fail spectacularly, because everybody knew that the Earth was a flat disc, and the direction Columbus was sailing in would cause him to fall off the edge and into the mouth of the giant turtle that supported it. Columbus, as we were told, did fail to reach his destination, but not because the world was flat--it was because he crashed into the future greatest nation on Earth, baby! Thus, Columbus proved the world was round, discovered America, and a national holiday was born. The truth: In the 1400s, the flat-earth theory was taken about as seriously as the Time Cube theory is today, if not less so. The shape of the world has been pretty much settled since the orb theory was first proposed by the ancient Greek philosopher Pythagoras, around 2,000 years before the existence of Spain. In fact, the navigational techniques of Columbus' time were actually based on the fact that the Earth was a sphere. Trying to navigate the globe as if it was a flat plane would have fucked up the trip even more than it was. The Spanish government's reluctance to pay for Columbus' expeditions didn't have anything to do with their misconceptions about the shape of the world. Ironically, it was because Columbus himself severely underestimated the size of the Earth and everybody knew it. The distance he planned to travel wouldn't have taken him anywhere near Asia. Nevertheless, he eventually scraped together enough funds to embark on his ridiculous adventure, and the clusterfuck that was the Columbus voyage has been celebrated annually in the Americas and in Spain ever since. So where did the myth come from? It began with author and historical charlatan Washington Irving, who wrote a novel about Columbus in 1838. The novel was fiction, but some elements managed to creep into our history textbooks anyway, probably by some editors who wanted to spice it up a bit. Who's going to read a history book that's just filled with a bunch of boring shit anyway?
WHO WATCHES THE WATCHMEN?
Zack Snyder has released the first video journal for Watchmen, and it's airing exclusively over on ComingSoon.net. There are eleven more to come, each to be released on the 6th of each month, every glimpse bringing us that much closer to awesomeness or total despair. Journal #1 is all about the set construction and we get glimpses of everything from Doc Manhattan's lab to The Comedian's apartment. I'm honestly blown away by the level of detail they have achieved here. I think everyone was expecting Snyder to fill in with blue screen, as he did before, but everything has been constructed from scratch which fills my heart with joy. The CGI of Hot Gates may have been a grand sight, but there's just no replacing good old fashioned movie making. (I'm going to echo a friend of mine and say what a smart choice it was to hire Alex McDowell!) I'm really loving that one shot we get of The Comedian chilling in his apartment, chomping on his cigar. We all know what comes next, and it is just eerie to see it living and breathing. One of the reasons I really dig Snyder is that he always seems happy to include fans in his film making process. I loved every single video diary he released from 300 -- from how they made King Leonidas's horsehair crest, to watching grown men cry in building those eight packs. Not many of us get access to film sets, and I find it exciting to watch a film come together. I'm overjoyed that we get to do the same with Watchmen. Of course, the movie is already complete so you can only bite your nails, hoping this isn't just a bunch of whitewash. (On the geek forum I frequent, there already "But it's totally different than panel number . . ." Incidentally, for those still frustrated by the look of the character stills, Snyder has directed you all here for an explanation.) Watchmen opens March 6th, 2009. If he has screwed up the comic book adaptation of adaptations, Snyder will be going into hiding somewhere around 1:00pm that day.
GEEK TALK
It's been quiet on the X-Men Origins: Wolverine front -- too quiet. I demand a new publicity still! But since Hugh Jackman doesn't listen to me (and why should he?), this is all I've got for you. There's been a new casting addition. According to his personal website, British actor Scott Adkins has landed the role of Weapon 11. What a hodgepodge of comics this is going to be! Weapon 11 first showed up in Grant Morrison's New X-Men series, which turned the whole Weapon X story inside out. Turns out, Logan wasn't just Weapon X because it sounded cool -- he was the tenth in a long line of Weapon Plus experimental super soldiers. It caused a bit of controversy and still does, especially as various Marvel characters are revealed to be Weapon Gazillion in every other issue. The odd thing is, no one knows who Weapon 11 actually is. We just know he is a badass who has managed to beat Sabretooth senseless, which is no small feat. But now we know it was a guy named Scott Adkins. Mystery solved! Second, Marc Guggenheim has been added as a writer. I just saw this in an interview with Guggenheim about he and Jackman's Nowhere Man series, and thought it was old news. Apparently not! Lastly, if you're a Daniel Henney (who's playing Agent Zero) fan, a Carson City newspaper did a nice little feature on him and his upcoming role in Wolverine. It seems the casting decisions were just as rapid and unexpected to the actors as they were to us. Henney and his manager received the summons from Fox, and sat down with the casting director the next day. "We sat down and she explained the basic premise of the film to me. I had no idea at this point that the director, producers, including Hugh Jackman, and executives at Fox had already made a decision on me. They had somehow seen some of my past films and thought I'd be right for the role. So after having all that explained to me, and four coffees later, she said that the role was mine if I wanted it." This is going to be one busy movie. Weapon Plus, poker games, Silver Fox, Team X, Gambit, Beak . . . perhaps it will be a three hour epic. There's still Mariko Yashida and Madripoor for the sequel. X-Men Origins: Wolverine opens May 1st, 2009.
MOVIE BUZZ
The Spirit
Test photos have popped up showing off Scarlett Johansson in a sexy nurse outfit. She's a terrible caregiver though. For every male patient she administers aid to, she can't figure out why they all have high blood pressure.
Quantum of Solace
There's a whole slew of new promo photos, including ones where Daniel Craig appears to tower over his co-star Mathieu Amalric, who plays the lead baddie. They have such a difference in height that the climactic fight scene will include a lot of scenes of the nefarious villain trying to kick James Bond in the shins.
Iron Man
The promotional train keeps on rolling for the superhero flick, and this week we've seen both a ton of new photos and a clip of Robert Downey Jr. flying in his armor for the first time. I think at this point if you strung together all the trailers, TV spots, clips and pictures that have been released so far, you could recreate the entire movie, like Tony Stark welding his iron alter ego together.
Where the Wild Things Are
Kanye West stopped by the Jim Henson studio and snapped some pictures. Then, Kanye went on a tirade screaming about how he's more famous than the Muppets and that he deserves to have a Muppet more than anybody else. So, he grabbed the fuzzy monster and stormed out.
The Dark Knight
In character as Rachel Dawes, Maggie Gyllenhaal gives a speech in support of Harvey Dent in an odd viral video. The only thing more surreal than this fake campaign video was when Chuck Norris was campaigning for Mike Huckabee for real.
The Incredible Hulk
A new "first look" featurette includes an interview with director Louis Leterrier where he talks about how much he was inspired by the '70s TV show. He was so inspired, he originally wanted to make the film using a bodybuilder in a bad green toupee who left green makeup stains on everything he touched, but the producers eventually talked him out of it.
Emme
The name's slightly different, but there's going to be yet another adaptation of Jane Austen's classic novel. This time the action will be set in an "urban" environment and the movie will be filled with an astounding 15 music-and-dance sequences. When asked what originally attracted them to Austen's story, the producers said, "The book has a story?"
Triage
While doing research for his new film in which he plays a war photographer, Colin Farrell said he was "sickened" by a trip to Bosnia. He said he hadn't seen the horrible effects of such chaos and devastation since he was on the set of Miami Vice.
Tokyo Gore Police
This over-the-top Japanese film doesn't have a U.S. distributor yet, but it does have a really gross, totally NSFW trailer that has over five minutes of extreme bloodletting. There's so much blood and goop flowing out of people's faces in it, the trailer's only slightly less gruesome than the mornings I spent as a teenager popping zits in the mirror.
LOGAN AND I GO TO THE MOVIES
Right before I went on vacation Logan and I went to see Superhero Movie, starring one of Logan's favorite celebrities Drake Bell, and Sara Paxton, Christopher McDonald, Leslie Nielsen, Kevin Hart, Marion Ross, Brent Spiner, Jeffrey Tambor, Robert Hays, Tracy Morgan, Regina Hall, Craig Bierko, and Pamela Anderson.
So, I've grown to despise the word "spoof." All it means now is someone doing a Johnny Depp-as-pirate impersonation or making fun of Tom Cruise jumping on a couch. In this movie, it means sending up straightforward superhero movies with tired jokes. It also means more Cruise gags. And some farting. OK, lots of farting. It no longer matters that the guys behind this have a somewhat classier pedigree (Scary Movie) and aren't the same culture criminals that belched forth Meet the Spartans, Epic Movie and Date Movie. The template is nearly the same and the jokes are just as weak, if slightly less insultingly stupid. Logan loved it where people were bonked on the head. That's pretty much the bulk of the comedy here. In fact, nearly every scene features someone being injured, which is — see credits above — a minor comedic step-up from the Meet the Spartans approach of "Hey look, it's that guy from Borat!"
I liked Anderson but she's got about one minute of screen time. And she's the Invisible Woman. The first three minutes of the movie I wanted to hang myself, but Logan and everyone else in the theater laughed their heads off. From 1 to 10, I give it a 2. Logan gives it a 10 and cannot wait for it to come out on DVD.
There, kids, a long Phile. Hope you missed it last week. The next entry will be on the 17th, unless I get thrown in jail. I have to go to court on that day and fight my speeding ticket I got on Jan. 1st. In the meantime, check out the Myspace.com/peverettphile page that has almost 200 pictures from the trip to D.C. and Pa. Until next week, spread the word, not the turd, and remember... don't say a prayer for me now,
save it 'til the morning after. No, don't say a prayer for me now, save it 'til the morning after.
No comments:
Post a Comment