Are you ready? Are you ready for the Peverett Phile, the web's most updated blog, brought to you by Alzheimer's Patients For 9/11: We Will Occasionally Forget. So, we have another Tropical Storm coming. Hannah. Man, the kid's are going to love that, a storm named after Hannah Montana. I think the storm is sponsored my Disney. Coincicentally, the J storm will be called Jonas. Hey, that joke is one hundred percent original by the way. The Olympics are over at last. My DVR will no longer be full. During the closing ceremonies, Michael Phelps won two more gold medals. How about that Michael Phelps? Eight Olympic gold medals. To me, that’s not the most impressive thing. The guy is actually swimming home from China. From the Olympics on to the Democratic Convention in Denver. The theme of this year’s convention is unity. Unfortunately they can’t agree on how it works . . . Joe Biden is Barack Obama’s running mate. Nothing says change like a guy who’s been in the Senate for 35 years. After all the naming problems this campaign has had, why Obama would pick a running mate with the last name Biden is beyond me. Obama-Biden — it’s like they’re trying to sound as much like Osama bin Laden as possible. They found the two guys in America that sound most closely with the person we hate more than anyone in the world. I would have gone with an Obama-Valderrama ticket. The inside word is that Obama went back and forth with Biden and Virginia Gov. Tim Kane. Ultimately, it came down to a game of Barack-paper-scissors. This week, Barack Obama is going to give his acceptance speech, and reportedly, it will include performances by Bon Jovi and Bruce Springsteen . . . and they say Obama isn’t black enough. Hey, Jen, Bon Jovi is an Obama supporter! To show support of Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton gave a speech. Hillary’s speech was entitled, “Forget All Those Things I Said During the Primaries.” The current issue of Newsweek magazine has a picture of President Bush on the cover with the headline, “What Bush Got Right.” Newsweek says “What Bush Got Right” is the shortest cover story since January’s issue on famous Korean rabbis. It was so nice today in Florida, John McCain is buying a house here. Michelle Obama gave a great speech at the Democratic Convention. She said shehas been in love with Barack Obama ever since he took her on their first date and bought her ice cream. Meanwhile, John McCain’s wife Cindy says she’s been in love with John McCain ever since he hit her over the head with a club and dragged her back to his cave. Trojan Condoms has set up a pavilion where they are giving out thousands of free condoms. They’re doing it in case John Edwards shows up. The Republican Convention starts next week. John McCain’s campaign told President Bush that despite his low popularity, he will be allowed to speak at the first night of the convention. They told Bush that the convention starts in December. Hey, I just had a thought: since this is the first DNC to feature an African-American candidate, they should call it the Run-DNC. The publisher Simon & Schuster came out with a children’s book about Barack Obama. They also came out with a book about John McCain — “Horton Gets a Hearing Aid.” A woman in Illinois discovered that her Jeep Cherokee used to be owned by Barack Obama. She could tell it used to be Obama’s because Hillary keeps trying to get into the driver’s seat. One more thing, I am gonna miss watching Misty and Kerri.
THE PEVERETT PHILE TOP TEN LIST
From the home office in Groveland, Florida, here is this week's top ten list...
Top Ten Least Popular Summer Olympic Sports
10. Stationary Bicycle Racing
9. Pomel Horse Riding
8. Border Jumping
7. Synchronized Sweating
6. Rythmic Waterboarding
5. Costas Throwing
4. Javelin Catching
3. The Andy Dick-athlon
2. Greco-Roman Snuggling
And the number one least popular Summer Olympic sport...
1. The Madonna Four Man Relay
And now I am officially done with the Olympics.
I WENT TO THE MOVIES
Tropic Thunder
A group of ego-tastic Hollywood douche bags—the aging action hero (Ben Stiller), the coked-up comedian (Jack Black), the ultra–Method actor (Robert Downey Jr.), the rapper-turned-actor (Brandon T. Jackson), and the earnest newbie (Jay Baruchel)—find themselves inadvertently caught in a real war zone while filming a war movie.
Stiller is at his best when he has a specific target in mind, and he lets go full blast on Hollywood. From the fake movie trailers (brilliant way to introduce each character, by the way) to the way the movie captures the so-far-up-their-own-assness of everyone in the film business, Tropic is not only hilarious, but it has some bite, too. A lot of the good jokes are spoiled by the trailers. If you haven't watched them, don't. But Tom Cruise is not only funny as a bloated studio head, he may have one of my favorite lines of the summer: "You take a step back—and fuck your own face!" Go see it. We're in the midst of a pretty good comedy winning streak here, so enjoy it. And the fact that Downey Jr. can bookend the summer with this and Iron Man is just amazing. From 1 to 10, I give it a 10.
CANNED LAUGHTER
A mild-mannered man was tired of his wife always bossing him around, so he went to a psychiatrist. The doctor told him he had to develop self-esteem and gave him a booklet on assertiveness training, which the man read on his way home. When he walked through the door and his wife came to greet him he told her, “From now on I’m the man of this house and my word is law. When I come home from work, I want my dinner on the table. Now go upstairs and lay me some clothes on the bed, because I’m going out with the boys tonight. Then draw my bath. When I get out of the tub, guess who’s going to dress me and comb my hair?” “The undertaker,” she replied.
R.I.P.
Cartoonist Lynn Johnston can't bring herself to abandon her fictional family. For years, the "For Better or for Worse" creator mulled retirement, then lightened her workload by creating flashbacks and repurposing the archives of her popular comic. Finally, she knew she needed to conclude the Patterson family's 29-year saga. This Sunday's cartoon is an adieu of sorts to readers, but not a final farewell. She announced this month that she would retell her strip's narrative, beginning Monday, by taking her continually aging characters back to 1979, but creating new artwork and some dialogue. Her syndicate says it's the first time a mainstream cartoonist has set out to tell the same story twice. What the reflective Johnston, 60, realized was that after decades of her identity and creativity and livelihood being linked to a comic strip, she wasn't ready to give it up. Which is why, on Sunday, the strip's fans will read Johnston's heartfelt salute as she comes to the endpoint of her characters' lives. (In the final chapter, for example, the original Patterson kids, Michael and Elizabeth, will forever remain grown and married.) And which is why, on Monday, the strip will time-travel back to 1979 and do it all over again, but with new drawings, new conversations, new wrinkles. (And in some cases, fewer wrinkles -- John and Elly Patterson will return to parenting tykes.) "It's going back to the beginning when Michael and Elizabeth were very young," Johnston says of the approach, which she is dubbing "new-runs." "I'm going back to do it how it should have been done. . . . I'm beginning with all this knowledge, so it's a much more comprehensive beginning. I only have an insular world of characters [from 1979] to work with." As far as Johnston knows, "new-runs" -- in which a strip's continual story line is retold -- have never been attempted by a syndicated cartoonist ("Nobody has done it before -- most people die or the strip ends," she says).
AUGUST 28TH IN HISTORY
1968
U.S. Ambassador to Guatemala John Gordon Mein is shot to death after guerrillas force his car off the road in Guatemala City. It is the first assassination of a U.S. Ambassador in the line of duty.
1988
Three Italian fighter jets from the precision flight team Frecce Tricolori collide while attempting their "Pierced Heart" stunt during an air show at Ramstein Air Base in West Germany. The wreckage of one plane tumbles into the crowd and explodes, killing 40 spectators and seriously injuring hundreds more. The death toll reaches 69 two months later.
1995
Calvin Klein withdraws an ad campaign after drawing wide criticism for mimicking the look and feel of child pornography. Although all the underwear models were legal adults, they appeared to be adolescents photographed in a sleazy motel room.
GEEK TALK
Variety reports that Kristen Bell has signed to voice the female lead in the feature film adaptation of "Astro Boy". If you know your Astro Boy, you probably don't remember many female leads in the story, but hey, count your blessings if this is the only change in store for the classic manga tale. "Astro Boy" was written by Timothy Harris, and is the story of a boy robot who is abandoned by his creator and left to fend for himself in the wilds of Metro City. The robotic Pinocchio tale had it all, absent father figures, betrayal, and robot gladiators, you know, just your usual kid's story. Bell will be joining Nicholas Cage, Freddie Highmore, Nathan Lane, and Bill Nighy in Imagi Studios 3-D update of the classic manga. So while she may not be Harley Quinn (but I guess it doesn't hurt to fantasize), Bell has three other projects in various stages of production. Unfortunately, they seem to be the usual run of the mill romantic comedies that all young actresses seem to have to make at some point in their career. Bell will also be making a reappearance on TV's "Heroes" this season as the electrifying baddie, Elle Bishop. But none of these projects will get Bell fans hyped like the rumored "Veronica Mars" flick -- no matter how misguided that idea might be.
Astro Boy is scheduled to arrive in theaters in 2009. And if it's 3-D, I won't be seeing it.
Well, that's it for the Phile this week. Next week the Phile will be updated on Thursday again. I still want to hit 5000 views by Thanksgiving, and I really think we'll get there. Tomorrow I have to get up early to go get my eyes checked, as right now I am pretty much seeing a blurry screen. Anyway, until next week, spread the word, not the turd, and thanks for reading. Peace.
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