the email sending this link to me had the subject line "Japanese people are so mean to each other with their pranks!". it was not kidding. the friend who sent me this showed me another video from this show that was so cruel it couldn't even be deemed funny (it involved people getting shot). but this video had me laughing out loud and hopefully will do the same for you. great stuff.
john candy is driving the car the wrong way on the highway. steve martin just woke up form a nap. martin straightens around trying to orient where he is and notices people on the other side of the highway median yelling and waving at them. martin rolls down his window to see what they're saying. he turns to john candy and tells him that the people over there are saying we're going the wrong way. john candy casually dismisses the accusation with a shrug saying, "how do they know where we're going." you see martin think on this for a moment and then you see candy's logic wash over his groggy face. he then turns and waves a polite thank you in the other cars direction while john candy is in the background making wild drinking gestures their way.
2. rushmore
a major thread of this movie chronicles a crush jason schwartzman (lead role, student) has on one of his young female prep school teachers. in this scene he is having dinner with the teacher and her boyfriend. miffed at his presence schwartzman works to insult the boyfriend. in one swipe he mocks the man's hospital scrubs (and i'm working from memory here):
SCHWARTZMAN
i like your nurse's uniform.
BOYFRIEND
these are O.R. scrubs
SCHWARTZMAN (sarcastically and slowly)
OH ARE they? [spoken "O.R. they?]
3. true lies
when arnold schwarzenegger learns that bill paxton is having an affair with his wife, jaime lee curtis, schwarzenegger goes to the car dealership where paxton works. while test driving a car, schwarzenegger gets paxton to talk about having affairs with women and specifically his wife. paxton is more than eager to talk about his exaggerated skills at wooing the lonely wives of over-working men. paxton then lights into a long-winded description of how beautiful the woman he was currently working on was. in the midst of his long description on her features, one of the lines slipped in the middle was, "she's got an ass like a ten year old boy."
i to this day still remember sitting dumbfounded in the audience at this unorthodox, unconventional, and unexpected description of a beautiful woman.
i almost added a line from zombieland to the list but i just watched it for the first time while in chicago and i need to let it steep awhile to see if it sticks in my head as much as the above lines do.
marty and i finished watching lost last night. it only took us all summer to watch the final two seasons and we didn't finish a day to soon as the kids return to school on monday.
i was able to duck all the series-ending debriefs that happened when the show ended for real but i imagine there were plenty of groaning folks out there who were full of piss, vinegar and angst. i thought the series was exceptionally entertaining and other than when they started the time schism business looking a bit like the Lost version of new caprica, i'd say it is one of the higher caliber dramas ever produced for television. it earned, obviously, huge style points, was way big on creativity and mystery, and developed great, great characters and was just simply good, vibrant storytelling. but for all its mastery and reliability, the one area they proved most reliable and never wavered on was sawyer and his edgy nicknames. i can't recall how many of his quick quips earned a chortle from me but there were several.
and the intertubes, which is surely as reliable as an unsavory sawyer moniker, was good for an homage honoring sawyer's delivery and the writer's creativity.
that's how you do more than just tv mr fitzsimmons
i'm not mad at jay that he went to 10:00. i'm mad at the guy that runs nbc that decided to take prime real estate that puts thousands of people to work and said we crunched the numbers ... you don't crunch numbers in entertainment ... you have balls ... you have a soul. guys like brandon tartikoff that used to exist. they would look at shows and they had a vision and they believed in talent. hbo, when they looked at larry sanders and said, you know what larry, do a show, here's the keys, lockup when you're done. do twelve episodes. if it's good we'll do another season. that's how you do tv.
comedy writer, greg fitzsimmons, speaking in an interview on the recent-ish late night host debacle (and the state of television in general)
ENTERTAINMENT, FAMILY, FRIENDS, LIFE, TECHNOLOGY, WEB
2010-04-06
no smoking food or drink!
most guys obsess about fried food, hollywood starlets, first-person shooter games, fast cars and/or fantasy football. i used to work with a guy who obsessed about grammar, or more accurately, broken grammar. for this guy my site and its quickly penned material was like porn of the highest caliber. most correspondence i receive from him contains a bulleted list of errors he's found in my ramblings. that said, the latest message i received from him surprisingly did not contain a litany of my blunders.
I saw something that, for reasons I can't figure out, reminded me of you... or at least struck me as something you'd have liked. It was a SUPERB example of the importance of punctuation, particularly commas (the prime example is "Let's eat Grandma!" vs "Let's eat, Grandma!". It was on a blog (a technical forum, not that it matters). There had been some good-natured back and forth banter and one person had thought the level of ribbing was not up to par, so he posted "C'mon! We can do better guys". And not two minutes later someone else posted "What's wrong with the guys you're doing now?"
first off, he's going to have a hard time convincing me he didn't pen that retort. and secondly, i for the life of me can't imagine why that banter would lead him to me.
a memorable moment from each of the kids over the last few weeks.
everytime we drove by a nativity scene, anthony would call out, "hey! baby genius! baby genius!"
and during our christmas meal thank-yous at my parents house alex led off with "i'm thankful we have food to eat and that none of us died before this christmas day."
and while driving home from visiting friends bella enlightened the family with the following bit of wisdom:
BELLA
don't ever say 'sitting' while holding your tongue.
TROY (after thinking it through)
where'd you learn that?
BELLA
school.
TROY
from who?
BELLA
i don't remember. but they taught a bunch of people by telling them to all say "i was sitting on the toilet the other day" while holding their tongues.
i hope your break was equally irreverent, insightful, and educational.
i just found out brian regan is coming to town september 12. i became smitten with him after someone (sa) told me about this eye doctor bit which used to not be on youtube but is now.
if any local folks are going to the show, let me know so i can keep an eye out for you.
i received several comments on the awkward family photos site i linked to a few weeks back. one person (thx dionna) even sent me a link to another, similar site.
i find the key factor to success for funny picture sites is not just the picture itself but the commentary the host attaches to a photograph. without the proper wit, the full potential is not met. here's an image/caption example from the site dionna sent my way:
It's a vagina, madam, not a clown car.
i don't know that you're going to do any better than that. if this were the olympics, that would be a solid 10.0. check out his other work.
