list http://www.spout.com/ Recent community activity around Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back on Spout Copyright 2005-9 Spout, LLC Spout RSS http://www.spout.com/images/SpoutLogoRSS.jpg http://www.spout.com/ 136 30 http://www.spout.com/films/Jay_and_Silent_Bob_Strike_Back/196785/default.aspx Title: Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back
Year: 2001
Director: Kevin Smith
Plot: The frequently recurring title characters, employed by writer and director Kevin Smith as supporting players in several of his films, are put to rest with this comedy that focuses on them exclusively. Jay (Jason Mews) and Silent Bob (Smith) are a pair of stoned New Jersey slackers who have long been used as the templates for a pair of popular comic book heroes, Bluntman and Chronic. When they learn that their alter egos are to be turned into a major motion picture without their consent or compensation, the pair sets off for Hollywood to sabotage the production. Along the way, they encounter an ape, a nun (Carrie Fisher), the cast of Scooby-Doo, a Charlie's Angels-style band of sexy women who use them as stool pigeons in a diamond heist, and an unhinged wildlife ranger (Will Ferrell). They also meet up with some regulars from the Smith canon, including Alyssa Jones (Joey Lauren Adams), Brian O'Halloran as Dante Hicks, Jason Lee as Banky Edwards, Alanis Morissette as God, and actors Ben Affleck and Matt Damon in dual roles as themselves and two other familiar characters. Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back co-stars numerous other recognizable performers in roles of various sizes, including Shannen Doherty, Jason Biggs, James Van Der Beek, Shannon Elizabeth, Tracy Morgan, Judd Nelson, Chris Rock, and George Carlin, among others. ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide
Times Tagged: 22
Number of Lists: 63
Number of blog posts: 8
Number of discussion threads: 3
SpoutRating: 3
]]>Tue, 12 May 2009 01:58:09 GMTJay and Silent Bob Strike Back2001Kevin SmithThe frequently recurring title characters, employed by writer and director <a href="/players/P___111916/default.aspx" style='text-decoration:underline'>Kevin Smith</a> as supporting players in several of his films, are put to rest with this comedy that focuses on them exclusively. Jay (Jason Mews) and Silent Bob (Smith) are a pair of stoned New Jersey slackers who have long been used as the templates for a pair of popular comic book heroes, Bluntman and Chronic. When they learn that their alter egos are to be turned into a major motion picture without their consent or compensation, the pair sets off for Hollywood to sabotage the production. Along the way, they encounter an ape, a nun (<a href="/players/P____89886/default.aspx" style='text-decoration:underline'>Carrie Fisher</a>), the cast of <a href=/films/205629/default.aspx style='text-decoration:underline'>Scooby-Doo</a>, a <a href=/films/165459/default.aspx style='text-decoration:underline'>Charlie's Angels</a>-style band of sexy women who use them as stool pigeons in a diamond heist, and an unhinged wildlife ranger (<a href="/players/P___224449/default.aspx" style='text-decoration:underline'>Will Ferrell</a>). They also meet up with some regulars from the Smith canon, including Alyssa Jones (<a href="/players/P___124429/default.aspx" style='text-decoration:underline'>Joey Lauren Adams</a>), <a href="/players/P___200557/default.aspx" style='text-decoration:underline'>Brian O'Halloran</a> as Dante Hicks, <a href="/players/P___215686/default.aspx" style='text-decoration:underline'>Jason Lee</a> as Banky Edwards, <a href="/players/P___270229/default.aspx" style='text-decoration:underline'>Alanis Morissette</a> as God, and actors <a href="/players/P______426/default.aspx" style='text-decoration:underline'>Ben Affleck</a> and <a href="/players/P____16762/default.aspx" style='text-decoration:underline'>Matt Damon</a> in dual roles as themselves and two other familiar characters. Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back co-stars numerous other recognizable performers in roles of various sizes, including <a href="/players/P____19482/default.aspx" style='text-decoration:underline'>Shannen Doherty</a>, <a href="/players/P_____6156/default.aspx" style='text-decoration:underline'>Jason Biggs</a>, <a href="/players/P___200937/default.aspx" style='text-decoration:underline'>James Van Der Beek</a>, <a href="/players/P___240643/default.aspx" style='text-decoration:underline'>Shannon Elizabeth</a>, Tracy Morgan, <a href="/players/P____52196/default.aspx" style='text-decoration:underline'>Judd Nelson</a>, <a href="/players/P____60918/default.aspx" style='text-decoration:underline'>Chris Rock</a>, and <a href="/players/P____10949/default.aspx" style='text-decoration:underline'>George Carlin</a>, among others. ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide22Tag Target (>10)63833http://www.spout.com/ProductImages/t84796a8hbt.jpghttp://www.spout.com/films/Jay_and_Silent_Bob_Strike_Back/196785/default.aspxFilm http://www.spout.com/groups/Movie_Polls/Re_Which_of_these_films_that_excessively_use_the_w/657/41710/1/ShowPost.aspx Post By: Risselada
Post To: Movie Polls
Post Date: 4/23/2009 11:05:44 AM
Body: [quote user="Phantasma-gore-ia"] Was there some unknown problem with Pulp Fiction and it's close to 300 uses of the said word? Or is it just me? [/quote] What do you mean by an "unknown problem"?? If you are asking why Pulp Fiction didn't make the poll I can kind of go through my procedure for picking. I found this link on wikipedia first of all: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_films_that_most_frequently_use_the_word_%22fuck%22 According to that link Pulp Fiction uses the word a notable 265 times. But I was looking at movies that used the word the most frequently rather than the most overall. So although the film uses the word nearly as many times as the other movies listed, it has an over 2 and a half hour running time which is fairly long, so the number of uses per minute is 1.72 which doesn't quite measure up to the other films on the list. Some other notable films that actually use the word more requently than Pulp Fiction: Jay and Silent Bob Strike BackMenace II SocietyCasinoSummer of SamThe Big LebowskiThe Boondock SaintsGoodfellasSpunTrue Romance (another penned by Tarantino)American History XThe Blair Witch ProjectBad Santa
]]>Thu, 23 Apr 2009 15:05:44 GMTRisseladaMovie Polls4/23/2009 11:05:44 AM[quote user="Phantasma-gore-ia"] Was there some unknown problem with Pulp Fiction and it's close to 300 uses of the said word? Or is it just me? [/quote] What do you mean by an "unknown problem"?? If you are asking why Pulp Fiction didn't make the poll I can kind of go through my procedure for picking. I found this link on wikipedia first of all: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_films_that_most_frequently_use_the_word_%22fuck%22 According to that link Pulp Fiction uses the word a notable 265 times. But I was looking at movies that used the word the most frequently rather than the most overall. So although the film uses the word nearly as many times as the other movies listed, it has an over 2 and a half hour running time which is fairly long, so the number of uses per minute is 1.72 which doesn't quite measure up to the other films on the list. Some other notable films that actually use the word more requently than Pulp Fiction: Jay and Silent Bob Strike BackMenace II SocietyCasinoSummer of SamThe Big LebowskiThe Boondock SaintsGoodfellasSpunTrue Romance (another penned by Tarantino)American History XThe Blair Witch ProjectBad Santa http://www.spout.com/blogs/spoutblog/archive/2009/2/27/40720.aspx Post By: SpoutBlog
Post To: SpoutBlog on spout.com
Post Date: 2/27/2009 6:02:11 PM
Body: If Tyler Perry gets an Oscar nomination for his acting in Madea Goes to Jail, can a washed-up actress scold him for taking away female roles? Actually, could it just be Cuba Gooding Jr. in drag, a la Boat Trip? Seriously, though, Madea won’t be up for any Academy Awards next year, but damn is Perry’s character popular. Enough that the sassy matriarch has now evolved from a supporting character into the star of her own vehicle (which gave the filmmaker his biggest opening yet this past weekend). Yes, it’s true that Madea is a central figure in most of Perry’s films and has previously been the main protagonist in his plays (including the one Madea Goes to Jail is based on), but in the movie world she was introduced as a secondary role in Diary of a Mad Black Woman. So, now she belongs in that small club of supporting characters who’ve earned their own film(s); other members of which include Jay and Silent Bob, Bruce and Lloyd, Cousin Eddie, Marshal Samuel Gerard, the Scorpion King and Wolverine. And Madea is one of the very few female characters to belong to the club, which is another good reason for an actress to scold Perry. But the problem also lies with the people who write woman characters, apparently, since in coming up with ten other supporting characters who deserve their own spin off, we managed to only include two females on our list. Perhaps if we’d permitted classic film characters there’d be more to choose from — though even then we might be more likely to include a Peter Lorre or a William Demarest role than a Thelma Ritter or Eve Arden. Rev. Gustav Briegleb (John Malkovich), from Changeling Angelina Jolie got the entire spotlight for this film, earning an undeserved Oscar nomination among other things, but the only person truly worth watching in Clint Eastwood’s period piece is John Malkovich. He’s not exactly good in the role, but he looks amazing (and more creepy than ever) with his Marcel Wave hairdo and little mustache. The radio reverend could continue in a series of films in which he helps out other characters with their problems while constantly going up against the corrupt LAPD. Bust-Ass (Danny McBride), from All the Real Girls Danny McBride is starting to become a household name thanks to scene-stealing roles in last year’s Pineapple Express and Tropic Thunder and his new HBO series Eastbound & Down, which he co-created with his Foot Fist Way collaborators Jody Hill and Ben Best. Yet his funniest performance is still arguably as Bust-Ass in All the Real Girls. So, even though that films’ director, David Gordon Green, has helmed episodes of Eastbound, we’d actually prefer the filmmaker go back and make a spin off to All the Real Girls starring the parka-wearing putz. Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem), from No Country for Old Men We could probably select just about any supporting character from a Coen brothers film (here’s a related list, to get some ideas); most would be good for a spin off of their own. But the character that won Javier Bardem an Oscar seems the most easily appropriated to any number of new situations. While Hollywood might prefer to be consistent by ruining the character’s mystique with a prequel explaining Anton Chigurh’s background, we think it’d be more fun to see any one (or number) of the following unconnected tales: Anton Goes to Jail; Anton Saves Christmas; Anton Takes Manhattan. John Givings (Michael Shannon), from Revolutionary Road John Givings functions perfectly as a minor plot device for the Wheeler’s story in Revolutionary Road, and he probably wouldn’t work as well at feature-length capacity in a film all of his own. But he could at least serve the same purpose in other stories, the way that Silent Bob functioned similarly throughout a number of Kevin Smith’s films. Then, maybe after a few more titles in which he’s still merely a supporting character he can finally get his own co-spin off, which will costar an also-deserving Kathy Bates. Currently, we like the title John Givings and His Mom Strike Back. Jeffrey Goines (Brad Pitt), from 12 Monkeys Like Danny McBride, Brad Pitt needs to go back to his greatest performance, which was undoubtedly as the loony Jeffrey Goines, from Terry Gilliam’s underrated sci-fi masterpiece. A spin off (or franchise) would have to do away with the original film’s time travel angle, but it would still be interesting following Goines on other crazed adventures in animal activism. Plus, for Pitt it would mean another chance at winning an Oscar for his most deserved role, yet this time it could be for Best Actor (actually a number of actors on this list could do the Al Pacino-as-Michael Corleone Oscar promotion). Originally posted on:SpoutBlog
]]>Fri, 27 Feb 2009 23:02:11 GMTSpoutBlogSpoutBlog on spout.com2/27/2009 6:02:11 PMIf Tyler Perry gets an Oscar nomination for his acting in Madea Goes to Jail, can a washed-up actress scold him for taking away female roles? Actually, could it just be Cuba Gooding Jr. in drag, a la Boat Trip? Seriously, though, Madea won’t be up for any Academy Awards next year, but damn is Perry’s character popular. Enough that the sassy matriarch has now evolved from a supporting character into the star of her own vehicle (which gave the filmmaker his biggest opening yet this past weekend). Yes, it’s true that Madea is a central figure in most of Perry’s films and has previously been the main protagonist in his plays (including the one Madea Goes to Jail is based on), but in the movie world she was introduced as a secondary role in Diary of a Mad Black Woman. So, now she belongs in that small club of supporting characters who’ve earned their own film(s); other members of which include Jay and Silent Bob, Bruce and Lloyd, Cousin Eddie, Marshal Samuel Gerard, the Scorpion King and Wolverine. And Madea is one of the very few female characters to belong to the club, which is another good reason for an actress to scold Perry. But the problem also lies with the people who write woman characters, apparently, since in coming up with ten other supporting characters who deserve their own spin off, we managed to only include two females on our list. Perhaps if we’d permitted classic film characters there’d be more to choose from — though even then we might be more likely to include a Peter Lorre or a William Demarest role than a Thelma Ritter or Eve Arden. Rev. Gustav Briegleb (John Malkovich), from Changeling Angelina Jolie got the entire spotlight for this film, earning an undeserved Oscar nomination among other things, but the only person truly worth watching in Clint Eastwood’s period piece is John Malkovich. He’s not exactly good in the role, but he looks amazing (and more creepy than ever) with his Marcel Wave hairdo and little mustache. The radio reverend could continue in a series of films in which he helps out other characters with their problems while constantly going up against the corrupt LAPD. Bust-Ass (Danny McBride), from All the Real Girls Danny McBride is starting to become a household name thanks to scene-stealing roles in last year’s Pineapple Express and Tropic Thunder and his new HBO series Eastbound & Down, which he co-created with his Foot Fist Way collaborators Jody Hill and Ben Best. Yet his funniest performance is still arguably as Bust-Ass in All the Real Girls. So, even though that films’ director, David Gordon Green, has helmed episodes of Eastbound, we’d actually prefer the filmmaker go back and make a spin off to All the Real Girls starring the parka-wearing putz. Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem), from No Country for Old Men We could probably select just about any supporting character from a Coen brothers film (here’s a related list, to get some ideas); most would be good for a spin off of their own. But the character that won Javier Bardem an Oscar seems the most easily appropriated to any number of new situations. While Hollywood might prefer to be consistent by ruining the character’s mystique with a prequel explaining Anton Chigurh’s background, we think it’d be more fun to see any one (or number) of the following unconnected tales: Anton Goes to Jail; Anton Saves Christmas; Anton Takes Manhattan. John Givings (Michael Shannon), from Revolutionary Road John Givings functions perfectly as a minor plot device for the Wheeler’s story in Revolutionary Road, and he probably wouldn’t work as well at feature-length capacity in a film all of his own. But he could at least serve the same purpose in other stories, the way that Silent Bob functioned similarly throughout a number of Kevin Smith’s films. Then, maybe after a few more titles in which he’s still merely a supporting character he can finally get his own co-spin off, which will costar an also-deserving Kathy Bates. Currently, we like the title John Givings and His Mom Strike Back. Jeffrey Goines (Brad Pitt), from 12 Monkeys Like Danny McBride, Brad Pitt needs to go back to his greatest performance, which was undoubtedly as the loony Jeffrey Goines, from Terry Gilliam’s underrated sci-fi masterpiece. A spin off (or franchise) would have to do away with the original film’s time travel angle, but it would still be interesting following Goines on other crazed adventures in animal activism. Plus, for Pitt it would mean another chance at winning an Oscar for his most deserved role, yet this time it could be for Best Actor (actually a number of actors on this list could do the Al Pacino-as-Michael Corleone Oscar promotion). Originally posted on:SpoutBlog http://www.spout.com/blogs/spoutblog/archive/2008/11/20/37498.aspx Post By: SpoutBlog
Post To: SpoutBlog on spout.com
Post Date: 11/20/2008 3:01:46 PM
Body: The soundtrack to Twilight is currently the number one album in the U.S., and a band called Paramore is experiencing great success by association. They have two songs featured on the soundtrack, one of which, “Decode,” has been released as the album’s lead single. Though Paramore have been around for some time and were even nominated for a Grammy earlier this year, they have never charted quite as well on the Billboard Hot 100 as they currently are through this Twilight connection. And chances are they’ll never have quite as big a hit again. Countless other artists have had their biggest break with a song prominently featured on or released through a movie soundtrack, and many of these artists disappeared into obscurity afterwards. Or, at best, they maintained a modest career, never achieving the kind of chart-topping high they once received courtesy of a hit film. SpoutBlog has compiled a list of ten such “one-hit wonders,” though we made some rules and exceptions in order to both narrow things down (no themes or plot songs) and include a few significant tracks that aren’t technically the only hits from their respective performers. Basically, we’re presenting ten artists who would be a lot less famous had they not licensed a single to a soundtrack and who shall forever be best known for that one song from that one movie. Song: “Lookin’ for Love” Artist: Johnny Lee Movie: Urban Cowboy (1980) Soundtracks have a way of making crossover hits for artists who otherwise have decent careers in specific genres. Johnny Lee is hardly a one-hit wonder when it comes to the country music charts, but it was only thanks to the popular film Urban Cowboy that he reached #5 on the Billboard Top 100. And it was likely only thanks to that achievement that Eddie Murphy would later pay homage with his Buckwheat version, “Wookin’ Pa Nub” Song: “Iko Iko” Artist: The Belle Stars Movie: Rain Man (1988) Fans of 2-Tone ska may have already been hip to this reformation of members from The Bodysnatchers, but most of the world paid them notice only once, when their 1982 version of an old New Orleans folk song called “Jock-a-Mo” accompanied Tom Cruise and Dustin Hoffman (who was a fan of the tune) on the big screen. Finally, in 1989, the band and the song reached #14 on the Top 100. Unfortunately, The Belle Stars had already been broken up for nearly four years when it happened. Song: “King of Wishful Thinking” Artist: Go West Movie: Pretty Woman (1990) Not only did this blockbuster romantic comedy make a revival hit out of the Roy Orbison classic that lent its name to the film’s title, it also made a huge success out of the English pop duo known as Go West. Technically they aren’t a one-hit wonder, though, because they’d already been in the Top 40 three years earlier and they’d chart fairly high again two years later. However, when you’re best remembered for a Top 10 single from a film as big as Pretty Woman, every other achievement (even a menial #14) looks like a failure in comparison. Song: “Wicked Game” Artist: Chris Isaak Movie: Wild at Heart (1990) Initially released in 1989 as a single off Isaak’s third album, Heart Shaped World, this song didn’t become a hit until it was featured on the soundtrack to Wild at Heart. Apparently, the success is all thanks to one David Lynch fan at a radio station in Atlanta, who started a trend that eventually got the song to reach #6 on the Hot 100. Isaak hasn’t exactly disappeared since, and he’s even found additional fame acting in movies, but he’s never hit as big musically as he did with this twangy, Orbison-esque number. Song: “It’s Gonna Be a Lovely Day” Artist: The S.O.U.L. S.Y.S.T.E.M. Movie: The Bodyguard (1992) It’s still one of the best-selling soundtracks of all time, primarily thanks to Whitney Houston and her cover of Dolly Parton’s “I Will Always Love You.” But this rap version of Bill Withers’ “Lovely Day” was another hit single from the film, and it made a definite one-hit wonder out of the annoying-to-type group The S.O.U.L. S.Y.S.T.E.M. In their defense, though, this was merely a side project of members of C&C Music Factory, who continued to be successful throughout the early ‘90s. [Aside: did anyone else think this song was actually performed by P.M. Dawn?] Song: “I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles)” Artist: The Proclaimers Movie: Benny & Joon (1993) This song was five years old when it was featured in the movie Benny & Joon, having been originally released on The Proclaimers’ 1988 album Sunshine on Leith. It had even previously been a big deal in the UK. Yet it took a movie starring Johnny Depp as a loony fan of Chaplin and Keaton to rocket the song through the roof in the U.S. Benny & Joon didn’t even do very well at the box office, and its soundtrack, which included only the one non-score track, didn’t have much appeal on its own, either. But somehow thanks to the movie, The Proclaimers will continually be most celebrated and mocked for this tune. Song: “New Age Girl” Artist: Deadeye Dick Movie: Dumb and Dumber (1994) Is it better to have charted and broken up than to never have charted at all? That might be a question for this Vonnegut-inspired band, which only broke out after this tune, originally off their debut album, was included on the Dumb & Dumber soundtrack. A year later, when their follow-up album produced no similar high, Deadye Dick disbanded. Yet the group’s singer and lead guitarist, Caleb Guillotte has found other film-related success working in the art department for such recent films as Déjà vu and Bug. Song: “Stay (I Missed You)” Artist: Lisa Loeb (& Nine Stories) Movie: Reality Bites (1994) The story of Loeb’s big break is possibly better remembered than the plot to the movie that made her a star. She lived across the street from Ethan Hawke, who became a fan. He slipped a tape of this song to Ben Stiller, who directed Reality Bites and was permitted to choose its music. When the film’s aggressively marketed soundtrack became a success, also making a one-hit wonder out of reggae group Big Mountain and a revival hit out of The Knack’s “My Sharona,” Loeb became the first artist to have a number one single before being signed to a major label. Since then, she’s had some significant chart placement, but she’ll always be best remembered as that girl with the cat-eye glasses who was the epitome of the cliché about showbiz success being all about who you know. And she’ll also be remembered for failing to ever prove herself deserving of that advantageous shot. Len - New Music - More Music Videos Song: “Steal My Sunshine” Artist: Len Movie: Go (1999) Thanks to Len’s inclusion on the soundtrack to Go, this song was a surprise hit in the Spring of 1999, prompting the band’s label to push up the release of their third album, You Can’t Stop the Bum Rush, by a few weeks. In November of that year, the single peaked at #9 on the Top 100, and the band has never had similar success since. Song: “Because I Got High” Artist: Afroman Movie: Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back (2001) It’s not uncommon for a silly novelty song to be the sole success of an artist. So, it’s not surprising that Afroman hasn’t achieved much notice since 2001, when this goofy song reached #13 on the Hot 100. He’s been around since, sure, and he’s probably got some kind of cult fame within the stoner community, but it would take another music video shot by Kevin Smith to garner him the same level of mainstream attention he got seven years ago. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog
]]>Thu, 20 Nov 2008 20:01:46 GMTSpoutBlogSpoutBlog on spout.com11/20/2008 3:01:46 PMThe soundtrack to Twilight is currently the number one album in the U.S., and a band called Paramore is experiencing great success by association. They have two songs featured on the soundtrack, one of which, “Decode,” has been released as the album’s lead single. Though Paramore have been around for some time and were even nominated for a Grammy earlier this year, they have never charted quite as well on the Billboard Hot 100 as they currently are through this Twilight connection. And chances are they’ll never have quite as big a hit again. Countless other artists have had their biggest break with a song prominently featured on or released through a movie soundtrack, and many of these artists disappeared into obscurity afterwards. Or, at best, they maintained a modest career, never achieving the kind of chart-topping high they once received courtesy of a hit film. SpoutBlog has compiled a list of ten such “one-hit wonders,” though we made some rules and exceptions in order to both narrow things down (no themes or plot songs) and include a few significant tracks that aren’t technically the only hits from their respective performers. Basically, we’re presenting ten artists who would be a lot less famous had they not licensed a single to a soundtrack and who shall forever be best known for that one song from that one movie. Song: “Lookin’ for Love” Artist: Johnny Lee Movie: Urban Cowboy (1980) Soundtracks have a way of making crossover hits for artists who otherwise have decent careers in specific genres. Johnny Lee is hardly a one-hit wonder when it comes to the country music charts, but it was only thanks to the popular film Urban Cowboy that he reached #5 on the Billboard Top 100. And it was likely only thanks to that achievement that Eddie Murphy would later pay homage with his Buckwheat version, “Wookin’ Pa Nub” Song: “Iko Iko” Artist: The Belle Stars Movie: Rain Man (1988) Fans of 2-Tone ska may have already been hip to this reformation of members from The Bodysnatchers, but most of the world paid them notice only once, when their 1982 version of an old New Orleans folk song called “Jock-a-Mo” accompanied Tom Cruise and Dustin Hoffman (who was a fan of the tune) on the big screen. Finally, in 1989, the band and the song reached #14 on the Top 100. Unfortunately, The Belle Stars had already been broken up for nearly four years when it happened. Song: “King of Wishful Thinking” Artist: Go West Movie: Pretty Woman (1990) Not only did this blockbuster romantic comedy make a revival hit out of the Roy Orbison classic that lent its name to the film’s title, it also made a huge success out of the English pop duo known as Go West. Technically they aren’t a one-hit wonder, though, because they’d already been in the Top 40 three years earlier and they’d chart fairly high again two years later. However, when you’re best remembered for a Top 10 single from a film as big as Pretty Woman, every other achievement (even a menial #14) looks like a failure in comparison. Song: “Wicked Game” Artist: Chris Isaak Movie: Wild at Heart (1990) Initially released in 1989 as a single off Isaak’s third album, Heart Shaped World, this song didn’t become a hit until it was featured on the soundtrack to Wild at Heart. Apparently, the success is all thanks to one David Lynch fan at a radio station in Atlanta, who started a trend that eventually got the song to reach #6 on the Hot 100. Isaak hasn’t exactly disappeared since, and he’s even found additional fame acting in movies, but he’s never hit as big musically as he did with this twangy, Orbison-esque number. Song: “It’s Gonna Be a Lovely Day” Artist: The S.O.U.L. S.Y.S.T.E.M. Movie: The Bodyguard (1992) It’s still one of the best-selling soundtracks of all time, primarily thanks to Whitney Houston and her cover of Dolly Parton’s “I Will Always Love You.” But this rap version of Bill Withers’ “Lovely Day” was another hit single from the film, and it made a definite one-hit wonder out of the annoying-to-type group The S.O.U.L. S.Y.S.T.E.M. In their defense, though, this was merely a side project of members of C&C Music Factory, who continued to be successful throughout the early ‘90s. [Aside: did anyone else think this song was actually performed by P.M. Dawn?] Song: “I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles)” Artist: The Proclaimers Movie: Benny & Joon (1993) This song was five years old when it was featured in the movie Benny & Joon, having been originally released on The Proclaimers’ 1988 album Sunshine on Leith. It had even previously been a big deal in the UK. Yet it took a movie starring Johnny Depp as a loony fan of Chaplin and Keaton to rocket the song through the roof in the U.S. Benny & Joon didn’t even do very well at the box office, and its soundtrack, which included only the one non-score track, didn’t have much appeal on its own, either. But somehow thanks to the movie, The Proclaimers will continually be most celebrated and mocked for this tune. Song: “New Age Girl” Artist: Deadeye Dick Movie: Dumb and Dumber (1994) Is it better to have charted and broken up than to never have charted at all? That might be a question for this Vonnegut-inspired band, which only broke out after this tune, originally off their debut album, was included on the Dumb & Dumber soundtrack. A year later, when their follow-up album produced no similar high, Deadye Dick disbanded. Yet the group’s singer and lead guitarist, Caleb Guillotte has found other film-related success working in the art department for such recent films as Déjà vu and Bug. Song: “Stay (I Missed You)” Artist: Lisa Loeb (& Nine Stories) Movie: Reality Bites (1994) The story of Loeb’s big break is possibly better remembered than the plot to the movie that made her a star. She lived across the street from Ethan Hawke, who became a fan. He slipped a tape of this song to Ben Stiller, who directed Reality Bites and was permitted to choose its music. When the film’s aggressively marketed soundtrack became a success, also making a one-hit wonder out of reggae group Big Mountain and a revival hit out of The Knack’s “My Sharona,” Loeb became the first artist to have a number one single before being signed to a major label. Since then, she’s had some significant chart placement, but she’ll always be best remembered as that girl with the cat-eye glasses who was the epitome of the cliché about showbiz success being all about who you know. And she’ll also be remembered for failing to ever prove herself deserving of that advantageous shot. Len - New Music - More Music Videos Song: “Steal My Sunshine” Artist: Len Movie: Go (1999) Thanks to Len’s inclusion on the soundtrack to Go, this song was a surprise hit in the Spring of 1999, prompting the band’s label to push up the release of their third album, You Can’t Stop the Bum Rush, by a few weeks. In November of that year, the single peaked at #9 on the Top 100, and the band has never had similar success since. Song: “Because I Got High” Artist: Afroman Movie: Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back (2001) It’s not uncommon for a silly novelty song to be the sole success of an artist. So, it’s not surprising that Afroman hasn’t achieved much notice since 2001, when this goofy song reached #13 on the Hot 100. He’s been around since, sure, and he’s probably got some kind of cult fame within the stoner community, but it would take another music video shot by Kevin Smith to garner him the same level of mainstream attention he got seven years ago. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog http://www.spout.com/blogs/usesoap/archive/2008/11/3/36920.aspx Post By: usesoap
Post To: usesoap Blog
Post Date: 11/3/2008 9:43:48 PM
Body: Kevin Smith has a right to be pretty bitter right now. For years, he's been blending raunch and romance with equal measure, to middling box office results. From his grungy little breakthrough, “Clerks,” in 1994, to the polished “Chasing Amy” to the not-as-bad-as-it's-rumored-to-be “Jersey Girl,” Smith has never shied from the messy sexual side of relationships in dialogue that some of the closest couples dare not discuss. Meanwhile, writer/director Judd Apatow snuck into the kingdom and stole the crown, basically covering the very same turf in films such as “The 40-Year-Old Virgin,” “Knocked Up” and “Forgetting Sarah Marshall.” Yet again, sex and sentimentality collide with generally hilarious, heartfelt results in his latest “Zack and Miri Make a Porno,” which takes the standard romantic comedy and tarts it up with g-strings, thigh highs and body glitter. Apatow mainstay Seth Rogan plays Zack and “W.'s” Elizabeth Banks is his platonic roommate Miri, two 20-something slackers who are reminded at their 10-year high school reunion just how little they have to offer the world a decade after their departure. And if the hysterical humiliations they suffer during the reunion don't drive the point home to them, then the return to their dingy Monroeville, Pennsylvania apartment – where the heat, electricity and water have just been shut off – should do the trick. In an act of desperation they embark on the eponymous mission (in a plot very similar to last year's Jeff Bridges film, “The Amateurs”) in order to cough up the cash needed to keep them off the streets. As typical of a Kevin Smith comedy, the film comes from a very personal place and it's not long before the smut is swept up in sentimentality. Just as “Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back” was really a travelogue of his brush with mainstream Hollywood, “Zack and Miri” (as it's been advertised for our prurient television audiences) is Smith's love letter to making movies. It just happens that the movies in this feature typically end with a money shot. But just as Smith assembled the cast of “Clerks” with his pals from his Jersey neighborhood, Zack and Miri enlist a number of participants from their inner circle to help bring their bump-and-grind opus to life. Included in the cast are Smith standbys Jason Mewes (who boldly pulls a full monty and who always brings the funny) and original “Clerk” Jeff Anderson. Smith also has the smarts to include scene-stealing “Office” mate Craig Robinson, rehabbed porn princess Traci Lords and Katie Morgan, who you may remember from such memorable turns in “Big Bottom Sadie,” “Whore of the Rings” and “Busty Beauties 20” (and about 200 other similarly titled films...if you care to “research” them). Smith also nabbed Justin Long, another go-to laugh-getter, whose cameo in the film will forever erase any annoying Mac ad image you may have of him. It will come as little surprise that our two leads become romantically involved when called upon to perform their climactic scene (meant in every sense of the word). And the final act of the film deals with the awkwardness that can follow that moment where friends decide to take their relationship one step further (normally, though, it's not done in front of a handful of onlookers and a rolling video camera... unless you're a Hilton). And this is where Smith – and Apatow, and John Hughes, for that matter – typically falter. For the male leads, there are plenty of bulls-eye masculine observations, while leaving the women with very little room to move outside their scripted confines. It's not that Banks does not try, she radiates much the same way Rosario Dawson did in “Clerks II.” But Smith's more comfortable giving his gals equally foul-mouthed dialogue that makes them “just one of the guys,” and then turning them into jealous emotional Jello when more complex matters arise. The entire plot itself is based nowhere close to reality, even given the current Warhol-intuited “15 minutes of fame” culture in which we live, and Miri just seems way too together to fall for such a slovenly mess such as Zack, much less agree to let herself be filmed having sex with him to be mass marketed. And honestly, with porn so easily accessible online, do they really think their little homegrown DVD is going to be their financial salvation? But those minor grievances aside, “Zack and Miri” has just enough cheer to overcome its more flaccid moments. And if he can enlist a female writer for his next feature that could solidify his lady characters of his next film, Smith may be able to not only satisfy his audience throughout, but also provide them with, appropriately, a happy ending.
]]>Tue, 04 Nov 2008 02:43:48 GMTusesoapusesoap Blog11/3/2008 9:43:48 PMKevin Smith has a right to be pretty bitter right now. For years, he's been blending raunch and romance with equal measure, to middling box office results. From his grungy little breakthrough, &ldquo;Clerks,&rdquo; in 1994, to the polished &ldquo;Chasing Amy&rdquo; to the not-as-bad-as-it's-rumored-to-be &ldquo;Jersey Girl,&rdquo; Smith has never shied from the messy sexual side of relationships in dialogue that some of the closest couples dare not discuss. Meanwhile, writer/director Judd Apatow snuck into the kingdom and stole the crown, basically covering the very same turf in films such as &ldquo;The 40-Year-Old Virgin,&rdquo; &ldquo;Knocked Up&rdquo; and &ldquo;Forgetting Sarah Marshall.&rdquo; Yet again, sex and sentimentality collide with generally hilarious, heartfelt results in his latest &ldquo;Zack and Miri Make a Porno,&rdquo; which takes the standard romantic comedy and tarts it up with g-strings, thigh highs and body glitter. Apatow mainstay Seth Rogan plays Zack and &ldquo;W.'s&rdquo; Elizabeth Banks is his platonic roommate Miri, two 20-something slackers who are reminded at their 10-year high school reunion just how little they have to offer the world a decade after their departure. And if the hysterical humiliations they suffer during the reunion don't drive the point home to them, then the return to their dingy Monroeville, Pennsylvania apartment &ndash; where the heat, electricity and water have just been shut off &ndash; should do the trick. In an act of desperation they embark on the eponymous mission (in a plot very similar to last year's Jeff Bridges film, &ldquo;The Amateurs&rdquo;) in order to cough up the cash needed to keep them off the streets. As typical of a Kevin Smith comedy, the film comes from a very personal place and it's not long before the smut is swept up in sentimentality. Just as &ldquo;Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back&rdquo; was really a travelogue of his brush with mainstream Hollywood, &ldquo;Zack and Miri&rdquo; (as it's been advertised for our prurient television audiences) is Smith's love letter to making movies. It just happens that the movies in this feature typically end with a money shot. But just as Smith assembled the cast of &ldquo;Clerks&rdquo; with his pals from his Jersey neighborhood, Zack and Miri enlist a number of participants from their inner circle to help bring their bump-and-grind opus to life. Included in the cast are Smith standbys Jason Mewes (who boldly pulls a full monty and who always brings the funny) and original &ldquo;Clerk&rdquo; Jeff Anderson. Smith also has the smarts to include scene-stealing &ldquo;Office&rdquo; mate Craig Robinson, rehabbed porn princess Traci Lords and Katie Morgan, who you may remember from such memorable turns in &ldquo;Big Bottom Sadie,&rdquo; &ldquo;Whore of the Rings&rdquo; and &ldquo;Busty Beauties 20&rdquo; (and about 200 other similarly titled films...if you care to &ldquo;research&rdquo; them). Smith also nabbed Justin Long, another go-to laugh-getter, whose cameo in the film will forever erase any annoying Mac ad image you may have of him. It will come as little surprise that our two leads become romantically involved when called upon to perform their climactic scene (meant in every sense of the word). And the final act of the film deals with the awkwardness that can follow that moment where friends decide to take their relationship one step further (normally, though, it's not done in front of a handful of onlookers and a rolling video camera... unless you're a Hilton). And this is where Smith &ndash; and Apatow, and John Hughes, for that matter &ndash; typically falter. For the male leads, there are plenty of bulls-eye masculine observations, while leaving the women with very little room to move outside their scripted confines. It's not that Banks does not try, she radiates much the same way Rosario Dawson did in &ldquo;Clerks II.&rdquo; But Smith's more comfortable giving his gals equally foul-mouthed dialogue that makes them &ldquo;just one of the guys,&rdquo; and then turning them into jealous emotional Jello when more complex matters arise. The entire plot itself is based nowhere close to reality, even given the current Warhol-intuited &ldquo;15 minutes of fame&rdquo; culture in which we live, and Miri just seems way too together to fall for such a slovenly mess such as Zack, much less agree to let herself be filmed having sex with him to be mass marketed. And honestly, with porn so easily accessible online, do they really think their little homegrown DVD is going to be their financial salvation? But those minor grievances aside, &ldquo;Zack and Miri&rdquo; has just enough cheer to overcome its more flaccid moments. And if he can enlist a female writer for his next feature that could solidify his lady characters of his next film, Smith may be able to not only satisfy his audience throughout, but also provide them with, appropriately, a happy ending. http://www.spout.com/blogs/spoutblog/archive/2008/8/11/33867.aspx Post By: SpoutBlog
Post To: SpoutBlog on spout.com
Post Date: 8/11/2008 4:00:43 PM
Body: Lists of movies within movies are fairly common on the internet, enough that I now realize I need to finally see Bowfinger simply because I’ve counted about a million list makers in love with something titled “Chubby Rain.” And the lists are likely to keep on coming thanks to this week’s hot release, Tropic Thunder, which actually features two movies within (the Vietnam War film “Tropic Thunder” and the festival-winning making-of documentary “Rain of Madness”), as well as the upcoming How to Lose Friends and Alienate People, which has spawned a popular fake movie trailer for an NC-17 film titled “Mother Theresa: The Making of a Saint” (previewed above). Yet until someone makes a Wikipedia page for “List of Fictional Films,” these blogged and forumed lists are necessary to keep us movie fans remembering those non-existent movies we wish existed. Narrowing down to ten seemed to be difficult — fictional films have been at least nominally been created for tons of films about filmmaking, otherwise reflexive films, sketch comedies, spoofs, etc. — until I realized that a lot of these films within films are appropriately nominal or trailer- or clip-sized gags and would in reality be terrible (imagine actually watching the entirety of “Asses of Fire” from South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut). Even “Je Vous Présente Paméla” (”Meet Pamela”) from Day for Night and the sci-fi film being made in 8½ would probably be major disappointments in actuality if you expected from them the work of Truffaut and Fellini, respectively. So, I went mostly with fictional films that would probably be bad, but would at least be amusingly bad — though I purposefully avoided fictional porns, including those from Boogie Nights and The Big Lebowski, of which there are literally thousands: “Gandhi II” from UHF - There’s just something about watching good people gone bad. But while the idea of the Good Will Hunting sequel, subtitled “Hunting Season”, thought up for Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back is pretty ingenious, it just doesn’t have the same level of ludicrous exaggeration that a bloodletting follow-up to the Oscar-winning Gandhi has. Dude drives a Ferrari, can punch completely through a guy’s abdomen, and of course he knows how to party. He even eats meat, now. It’s not only funny because it’s the antithesis of what the Indian leader was all about, it’s also funny because it reminds me of all those straight-edge and vegetarian kids you knew in high school who now drink way too much (oh, yeah, I’m one of them). “Odyssey” from Contempt - When Fritz Lang showed up as himself in Jean-Luc Godard’s Contempt, he’d already given the world his final film as a director (The 1,000 Eyes of Dr. Mabuse). If only he’d really given us this one additional adaptation of Homer’s epic poem. Either as an art film, as Lang originally intends, or as a more commercial picture, as desired by the American producer played by Jack Palance. “Ants in Your Pants 1938″ from Sullivan’s Travels - The other famously named film within this film, “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” was, at least in title, already made by the Coen brothers (see the side-by-side comparison in the video above — interestingly enough, their O Brother, Where Art Thou? is also an adaptation of Homer’s “Odyssey”, uniting #2 and #3 of this list). But I always try to imagine what a film titled “Ants in Your Pants 1938″ would have looked like. I always picture a cross between the Marx Brothers and Busby Berkeley, yet it’s got to be more shallow than that, according to how it’s referenced in Preston Sturges’ movie. “Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure” from Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure - What fan of the real Big Adventure wouldn’t like to watch it all over again as an action picture starring James Brolin and Morgan Fairchild? Maybe it wouldn’t be as good, but it does have ninjas. Anyway, because I love to relate seemingly unrelated movies via lists, let it be known that an episode of Pee-Wee’s Playhouse was titled “Ants in Your Pants”. And now that I think about it, that show was kinda like a cross between the Marx Brothers and Busby Berkeley. Kinda. “Habeas Corpus” from The Player - It’s a common staple for lists like this, and pretty much all Bruce Willis movies from the first half of the ’90s were awful (obviously Pulp Fiction is an exception), but I’d definitely watch the whole of this fake film, even though I’ve already seen how it ends. As with Fritz Lang’s “Odyssey”, I’d be curious to see both the originally planned version and the commercialized final version. “Crossed Sabres of Truth” from The Big Picture - Forget “Home for Purim”, that lame movie within a movie from Christopher Guest’s For Your Consideration. This earlier satire of Hollywood from Guest had far greater fake films, most of them fake student films, such as this one, made by the full-of-himself character played by Dan Schneider. It may not have starred Elliott Gould (as does “The Trial of Janet Kingsley”), or been an overly avant-garde work titled “Afterbirth of a Notion” (which reminds me of the opening to Pee-Wee’s Playhouse), or the actual winner of the National Film Institute’s student film award (that would be Kevin Bacon’s character’s “First Date”), but it has the fat kid from Head of the Class and Better Off Dead riding a horse in a 19th century war movie. How could you not want to see more? “See You Next Wednesday” from The Kentucky Fried Movie - I’m probably a bigger fan of weird movie theater gimmicks than the average moviegoer, but that’s probably because I didn’t get a chance to live through things like Smell-O-Vision, which sound neat in theory but which were reportedly very obnoxious in reality (I recently wrote elsewhere about how the return of Smell-O-Vision in pre-show advertising sounds terrible). The joke about “See You Next Wednesday” (a fake movie title referenced in most of John Landis’ films) is that it’s in “feel-around”, a gimmick that’s clearly annoying to experience. I’d definitely be willing to try it out once, though. Especially if it’s the closest thing I could get to one of the Feelies (tactual motion pictures) from Huxley’s “Brave New World”. “MANT” from Matinee - Movie theater gimmicks also have me curious about experiencing the schlock horror film shown in Atomo-Vision and Rumble-Rama. This is one of those film within a films that you get to see more than enough footage of, but I want to actually suffer it as it’s intended to be seen. “Jews in Space” from History of the World, Part I - Mel Brooks eventually did make a Star Wars spoof, one that featured a lot of Jews in space (Spaceballs), but that doesn’t mean this earlier parody idea wouldn’t also be worth seeing. I’d even settle for seeing the apparently hilarious 2005 Argentine film Jews in Space Or Why Is This Night Different, which unfortunately doesn’t seem to actually take place in space nor, tragically, involve spaceships shaped like the Star of David. “Those Darn Amigos” from ¡Three Amigos! - Because the synopsis of Tropic Thunder reminds me of the plot to Three Amigos, I feel it appropriate to include one of the fake films from the underrated comedy. At the beginning of the movie, we see one of the silent movies starring the Three Amigos (see the clip above), but I’m more interested in the trio’s flop, which diverted from the usual premise to be about three wealthy Spanish landowners who take a little vacation in Manhattan. If it didn’t appeal to the masses, I’ll probably love it. I’d also settle for seeing one of the early shorts featuring Ned Nederlander (Martin Short) known as “Little Neddy’s Knickers.” Considering ¡Three Amigos! is set in 1916, and Short was in his mid-30s, I believe it impossible that Ned could have been a child star of any younger than 30, so I’m pretty curious. BONUS: “The Man Who Killed Don Quixote” from Lost in La Mancha - It isn’t a fake film, but it is technically a film within a film. And it’s so far non-existent, really. Terry Gilliam’s attempted loose adaptation of Cervantes was actually being made, with Johnny Depp in the lead. However, due to multiple complications, the production was canceled after shooting had begun, and all that remained was Keith Fulton and Louis Pepe’s depressing documentary Lost in La Mancha. Because sometimes the gods are good to us Gilliam fans, though, it was recently announced that the film is on being attempted again, reportedly still with Depp and possibly also starring Michael Palin. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog
]]>Mon, 11 Aug 2008 20:00:43 GMTSpoutBlogSpoutBlog on spout.com8/11/2008 4:00:43 PM Lists of movies within movies are fairly common on the internet, enough that I now realize I need to finally see Bowfinger simply because I’ve counted about a million list makers in love with something titled “Chubby Rain.” And the lists are likely to keep on coming thanks to this week’s hot release, Tropic Thunder, which actually features two movies within (the Vietnam War film “Tropic Thunder” and the festival-winning making-of documentary “Rain of Madness”), as well as the upcoming How to Lose Friends and Alienate People, which has spawned a popular fake movie trailer for an NC-17 film titled “Mother Theresa: The Making of a Saint” (previewed above). Yet until someone makes a Wikipedia page for “List of Fictional Films,” these blogged and forumed lists are necessary to keep us movie fans remembering those non-existent movies we wish existed. Narrowing down to ten seemed to be difficult — fictional films have been at least nominally been created for tons of films about filmmaking, otherwise reflexive films, sketch comedies, spoofs, etc. — until I realized that a lot of these films within films are appropriately nominal or trailer- or clip-sized gags and would in reality be terrible (imagine actually watching the entirety of “Asses of Fire” from South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut). Even “Je Vous Présente Paméla” (”Meet Pamela”) from Day for Night and the sci-fi film being made in 8½ would probably be major disappointments in actuality if you expected from them the work of Truffaut and Fellini, respectively. So, I went mostly with fictional films that would probably be bad, but would at least be amusingly bad — though I purposefully avoided fictional porns, including those from Boogie Nights and The Big Lebowski, of which there are literally thousands: “Gandhi II” from UHF - There’s just something about watching good people gone bad. But while the idea of the Good Will Hunting sequel, subtitled “Hunting Season”, thought up for Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back is pretty ingenious, it just doesn’t have the same level of ludicrous exaggeration that a bloodletting follow-up to the Oscar-winning Gandhi has. Dude drives a Ferrari, can punch completely through a guy’s abdomen, and of course he knows how to party. He even eats meat, now. It’s not only funny because it’s the antithesis of what the Indian leader was all about, it’s also funny because it reminds me of all those straight-edge and vegetarian kids you knew in high school who now drink way too much (oh, yeah, I’m one of them). “Odyssey” from Contempt - When Fritz Lang showed up as himself in Jean-Luc Godard’s Contempt, he’d already given the world his final film as a director (The 1,000 Eyes of Dr. Mabuse). If only he’d really given us this one additional adaptation of Homer’s epic poem. Either as an art film, as Lang originally intends, or as a more commercial picture, as desired by the American producer played by Jack Palance. “Ants in Your Pants 1938″ from Sullivan’s Travels - The other famously named film within this film, “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” was, at least in title, already made by the Coen brothers (see the side-by-side comparison in the video above — interestingly enough, their O Brother, Where Art Thou? is also an adaptation of Homer’s “Odyssey”, uniting #2 and #3 of this list). But I always try to imagine what a film titled “Ants in Your Pants 1938″ would have looked like. I always picture a cross between the Marx Brothers and Busby Berkeley, yet it’s got to be more shallow than that, according to how it’s referenced in Preston Sturges’ movie. “Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure” from Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure - What fan of the real Big Adventure wouldn’t like to watch it all over again as an action picture starring James Brolin and Morgan Fairchild? Maybe it wouldn’t be as good, but it does have ninjas. Anyway, because I love to relate seemingly unrelated movies via lists, let it be known that an episode of Pee-Wee’s Playhouse was titled “Ants in Your Pants”. And now that I think about it, that show was kinda like a cross between the Marx Brothers and Busby Berkeley. Kinda. “Habeas Corpus” from The Player - It’s a common staple for lists like this, and pretty much all Bruce Willis movies from the first half of the ’90s were awful (obviously Pulp Fiction is an exception), but I’d definitely watch the whole of this fake film, even though I’ve already seen how it ends. As with Fritz Lang’s “Odyssey”, I’d be curious to see both the originally planned version and the commercialized final version. “Crossed Sabres of Truth” from The Big Picture - Forget “Home for Purim”, that lame movie within a movie from Christopher Guest’s For Your Consideration. This earlier satire of Hollywood from Guest had far greater fake films, most of them fake student films, such as this one, made by the full-of-himself character played by Dan Schneider. It may not have starred Elliott Gould (as does “The Trial of Janet Kingsley”), or been an overly avant-garde work titled “Afterbirth of a Notion” (which reminds me of the opening to Pee-Wee’s Playhouse), or the actual winner of the National Film Institute’s student film award (that would be Kevin Bacon’s character’s “First Date”), but it has the fat kid from Head of the Class and Better Off Dead riding a horse in a 19th century war movie. How could you not want to see more? “See You Next Wednesday” from The Kentucky Fried Movie - I’m probably a bigger fan of weird movie theater gimmicks than the average moviegoer, but that’s probably because I didn’t get a chance to live through things like Smell-O-Vision, which sound neat in theory but which were reportedly very obnoxious in reality (I recently wrote elsewhere about how the return of Smell-O-Vision in pre-show advertising sounds terrible). The joke about “See You Next Wednesday” (a fake movie title referenced in most of John Landis’ films) is that it’s in “feel-around”, a gimmick that’s clearly annoying to experience. I’d definitely be willing to try it out once, though. Especially if it’s the closest thing I could get to one of the Feelies (tactual motion pictures) from Huxley’s “Brave New World”. “MANT” from Matinee - Movie theater gimmicks also have me curious about experiencing the schlock horror film shown in Atomo-Vision and Rumble-Rama. This is one of those film within a films that you get to see more than enough footage of, but I want to actually suffer it as it’s intended to be seen. “Jews in Space” from History of the World, Part I - Mel Brooks eventually did make a Star Wars spoof, one that featured a lot of Jews in space (Spaceballs), but that doesn’t mean this earlier parody idea wouldn’t also be worth seeing. I’d even settle for seeing the apparently hilarious 2005 Argentine film Jews in Space Or Why Is This Night Different, which unfortunately doesn’t seem to actually take place in space nor, tragically, involve spaceships shaped like the Star of David. “Those Darn Amigos” from ¡Three Amigos! - Because the synopsis of Tropic Thunder reminds me of the plot to Three Amigos, I feel it appropriate to include one of the fake films from the underrated comedy. At the beginning of the movie, we see one of the silent movies starring the Three Amigos (see the clip above), but I’m more interested in the trio’s flop, which diverted from the usual premise to be about three wealthy Spanish landowners who take a little vacation in Manhattan. If it didn’t appeal to the masses, I’ll probably love it. I’d also settle for seeing one of the early shorts featuring Ned Nederlander (Martin Short) known as “Little Neddy’s Knickers.” Considering ¡Three Amigos! is set in 1916, and Short was in his mid-30s, I believe it impossible that Ned could have been a child star of any younger than 30, so I’m pretty curious. BONUS: “The Man Who Killed Don Quixote” from Lost in La Mancha - It isn’t a fake film, but it is technically a film within a film. And it’s so far non-existent, really. Terry Gilliam’s attempted loose adaptation of Cervantes was actually being made, with Johnny Depp in the lead. However, due to multiple complications, the production was canceled after shooting had begun, and all that remained was Keith Fulton and Louis Pepe’s depressing documentary Lost in La Mancha. Because sometimes the gods are good to us Gilliam fans, though, it was recently announced that the film is on being attempted again, reportedly still with Depp and possibly also starring Michael Palin. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog http://www.spout.com/blogs/spoutblog/archive/2008/8/7/33699.aspx Post By: SpoutBlog
Post To: SpoutBlog on spout.com
Post Date: 8/7/2008 2:00:31 PM
Body: We’re less than a week away from the release of Tropic Thunder, and as the reviews and puff pieces make their way onto the web, there’s one thing clearly uniting the media’s coverage: talk of Tom Cruise’s appearance in a small role as a Hollywood studio boss. Everyone seems to agree that he steals the show and that his performance — or the joke surrounding it — is one of the comedy’s major highlights, if not the actual best part. Of course, we can expect a good cameo from Cruise every now and then. He showed up for a bit part in Young Guns and played himself as playing “Austin Powers” in Austin Powers in Goldmember. But from what it sounds like, his role in Tropic Thunder is featured for longer than might qualify as a cameo. Some are regardless referring to the performance as an “extended cameo”, and in theory it certainly fits in with the huge crop of so-called “ironic cameos” that have become popular in movies and TV in the last ten years. Still, despite my not having yet seen the movie, I’m thinking that Tom Cruise’s involvement in Tropic Thunder is more like the following list, which consists of merely small roles filled by big stars. You might consider some of them to be technically cameos, especially the ones that aren’t integral to the plot and/or call attention to themselves. But with each of the roles I’ve included, I consider them to be either the best part of their respective movies or at least a major highlight, which is how Cruise’s appearance is being touted. Anyway, forgive me for trying to come up with something different than simply a best cameo list, even if the focus here seems less than clear. 10. Marlon Brando as “Jor-El” in Superman - He was probably paid too much for the part, especially if all the trivia surrounding his involvement (reading his lines off baby Superman’s diaper; desiring that only his voice be used; demanding to be paid double if any footage was to be used in the sequel) is true, but it’s pretty cool having Brando appear at the beginning of what I still consider to be the best superhero comic book adaptation of all time (sorry Dark Knight fans). He’s not the best thing about the movie, but he’s an immediate highlight. As for his payment (reportedly $3.7 million), Warner Bros. has leveled out his worth a little by featuring him in the Donner cut of Superman II and in Bryan Singer’s Superman Returns — a movie that also creatively employs Brando’s On the Waterfront costar Eva Marie Saint appropriately as Superman’s adopted mother. 9. Drew Barrymore as “Casey Becker” in Scream - Having your biggest star killed in the opening scene is kinda like having your best action sequence at the head of the movie (a la Bad Boys II), but fortunately the rest of the first Scream is pretty good, and Barrymore’s (don’t call it a cameo) part doesn’t overshadow the movie too much. In a way, since this wasn’t a sequel yet the movie was a bit of a parody of all slasher movies, the familiarity of Becker’s face could be taken to be akin to how, often, horror sequels begin by killing off the heroine of the previous installment in the first few minutes. 8. Arnold Schwarzenegger as “Prince Hapi” in Around the World in 80 Days - There isn’t much to enjoy about Frank Coraci’s 2004 version of the Jules Verne tale, especially since there appears to be a lot of missed opportunities in terms of guest appearances (Wikipedia counts 45 “cameos” in the 1956 version; I count maybe 10 that could be considered “cameos” in the newer movie). Therefore, Schwarzenegger’s hilarious appearance as a lecherous Turkish prince — one of his last roles filmed before becoming Governor of California — is one of the few highlights, if not the sole highlight (personally, I enjoy Jackie Chan in anything, and I liked more of this movie than most people did). The role is especially funny and creepy if you’ve ever seen that old footage of Schwarzenegger being sleazy at Carnival in Rio. 7. Orson Welles as “Unicron” in Transformers: The Movie - Welles’ voice had been overpowering in films before — he had a good side career going throughout his life as a narrator — but considering this was ridiculously his final performance and considering he easily overshadowed his fellow celebrity voice lenders (including otherwise commanding vocal talents Leonard Nimoy, Robert Stack and Casey Kasem), his part completely dominates the movie, both diegetically and extradiegetically. 6. Bruce Willis as “Harry Rydell” in Fast Food Nation - Far and away the only good part of Richard Linklater’s botched attempt to dramatize Eric Schlosser’s non-fiction classic (I consider the book a kind of bible since it inspired me to give up fast food and subsequently lose 60lbs., so it pains me even more to think about Schlosser being a co-writer and producer of the movie), and not just because of his oft-quoted line about how we all have to eat a little shit from time to time. His whole characterization of the cynical meat supplier is brilliant, enough that he unfortunately makes the rest of the movie play even less interesting that it already is. 5. Charlie Sheen as “Charlie” in Being John Malkovich - I wanted to stay away from roles in which actors play themselves, mainly because that’s a big percentage of the ironic cameo stuff that’s so overused these days. However, Sheen’s part here is a little more than a mere cameo. And it’s kind of an ironic parody of the ironic cameo, even as it predates a lot of these cameos in Entourage and Extras and the like (by crediting the role as “Charlie” rather than “as himself”, it’s also a precursor to the more exaggerated than exaggerated “Neil Patrick Harris” character of the Harold and Kumar films). Perhaps intended to redirect the audience’s perspective on John Malkovich’s titular character, which is up until Sheen’s entrance possibly accepted as an authentic self-portrayal, the overstatement of the role raises the already ingeniously funny film up another notch to put it at the level of best comedies ever made. 4. Matt Damon as “Donny” in Eurotrip - I’ve actually never seen Eurotrip, but I hear there’s no reason to watch it other than to see Damon’s bit role as the singer of a pop punk band (the otherwise real Lustra). And I’ve seen that on YouTube, so I’m good. Even more than Cruise and some of the others, Damon seems to love doing guest stints in movies and on TV (he’s also given us the only reasons to ever watch Jimmy Kimmel). Some of his other small roles and cameos can be found in Youth Without Youth, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, Finding Forrester, Jersey Girl and The Majestic (the last in voice only). 3. Sean Connery as “King Richard” in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves - After making us suffer through Kevin Costner’s terrible performance in the lead role, the producers of this disappointing version of the classic legend actually rub it in how bad their casting choice was by sneaking Connery in at the last minute. Of course, despite the way his appearance increases our dissatisfaction with the rest of the movie, he’s still the highlight. Especially since he’s immediately followed by that awful Bryan Adams song playing over the credits. 2. Alec Baldwin as “Blake” in Glengarry Glen Ross - Sure, the rest of the film is really good, mostly because of the stellar cast filling out the rest of the ensemble, but the first thing you remember about this David Mamet adaptation is Baldwin’s monologue. It’s good enough that I almost also included on this list the Blake-inspired character from Boiler Room as played by Ben Affleck. But it’s also too good to actually accept Affleck’s ripoff as being in the same league. 1. Gene Hackman as “Blindman” in Young Frankenstein - I’m in the minority as far as my appreciation of Mel Brooks’ parody of James Whale’s Frankenstein films. I think it’s really funny, but I don’t think it’s one of the funniest movies I’ve ever seen. Yet the few minutes that Hackman is on screen always leave me in tears, enough that I wholeheartedly accept the movie’s status as one of the greatest comedies ever made. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog
]]>Thu, 07 Aug 2008 18:00:31 GMTSpoutBlogSpoutBlog on spout.com8/7/2008 2:00:31 PMWe’re less than a week away from the release of Tropic Thunder, and as the reviews and puff pieces make their way onto the web, there’s one thing clearly uniting the media’s coverage: talk of Tom Cruise’s appearance in a small role as a Hollywood studio boss. Everyone seems to agree that he steals the show and that his performance — or the joke surrounding it — is one of the comedy’s major highlights, if not the actual best part. Of course, we can expect a good cameo from Cruise every now and then. He showed up for a bit part in Young Guns and played himself as playing “Austin Powers” in Austin Powers in Goldmember. But from what it sounds like, his role in Tropic Thunder is featured for longer than might qualify as a cameo. Some are regardless referring to the performance as an “extended cameo”, and in theory it certainly fits in with the huge crop of so-called “ironic cameos” that have become popular in movies and TV in the last ten years. Still, despite my not having yet seen the movie, I’m thinking that Tom Cruise’s involvement in Tropic Thunder is more like the following list, which consists of merely small roles filled by big stars. You might consider some of them to be technically cameos, especially the ones that aren’t integral to the plot and/or call attention to themselves. But with each of the roles I’ve included, I consider them to be either the best part of their respective movies or at least a major highlight, which is how Cruise’s appearance is being touted. Anyway, forgive me for trying to come up with something different than simply a best cameo list, even if the focus here seems less than clear. 10. Marlon Brando as “Jor-El” in Superman - He was probably paid too much for the part, especially if all the trivia surrounding his involvement (reading his lines off baby Superman’s diaper; desiring that only his voice be used; demanding to be paid double if any footage was to be used in the sequel) is true, but it’s pretty cool having Brando appear at the beginning of what I still consider to be the best superhero comic book adaptation of all time (sorry Dark Knight fans). He’s not the best thing about the movie, but he’s an immediate highlight. As for his payment (reportedly $3.7 million), Warner Bros. has leveled out his worth a little by featuring him in the Donner cut of Superman II and in Bryan Singer’s Superman Returns — a movie that also creatively employs Brando’s On the Waterfront costar Eva Marie Saint appropriately as Superman’s adopted mother. 9. Drew Barrymore as “Casey Becker” in Scream - Having your biggest star killed in the opening scene is kinda like having your best action sequence at the head of the movie (a la Bad Boys II), but fortunately the rest of the first Scream is pretty good, and Barrymore’s (don’t call it a cameo) part doesn’t overshadow the movie too much. In a way, since this wasn’t a sequel yet the movie was a bit of a parody of all slasher movies, the familiarity of Becker’s face could be taken to be akin to how, often, horror sequels begin by killing off the heroine of the previous installment in the first few minutes. 8. Arnold Schwarzenegger as “Prince Hapi” in Around the World in 80 Days - There isn’t much to enjoy about Frank Coraci’s 2004 version of the Jules Verne tale, especially since there appears to be a lot of missed opportunities in terms of guest appearances (Wikipedia counts 45 “cameos” in the 1956 version; I count maybe 10 that could be considered “cameos” in the newer movie). Therefore, Schwarzenegger’s hilarious appearance as a lecherous Turkish prince — one of his last roles filmed before becoming Governor of California — is one of the few highlights, if not the sole highlight (personally, I enjoy Jackie Chan in anything, and I liked more of this movie than most people did). The role is especially funny and creepy if you’ve ever seen that old footage of Schwarzenegger being sleazy at Carnival in Rio. 7. Orson Welles as “Unicron” in Transformers: The Movie - Welles’ voice had been overpowering in films before — he had a good side career going throughout his life as a narrator — but considering this was ridiculously his final performance and considering he easily overshadowed his fellow celebrity voice lenders (including otherwise commanding vocal talents Leonard Nimoy, Robert Stack and Casey Kasem), his part completely dominates the movie, both diegetically and extradiegetically. 6. Bruce Willis as “Harry Rydell” in Fast Food Nation - Far and away the only good part of Richard Linklater’s botched attempt to dramatize Eric Schlosser’s non-fiction classic (I consider the book a kind of bible since it inspired me to give up fast food and subsequently lose 60lbs., so it pains me even more to think about Schlosser being a co-writer and producer of the movie), and not just because of his oft-quoted line about how we all have to eat a little shit from time to time. His whole characterization of the cynical meat supplier is brilliant, enough that he unfortunately makes the rest of the movie play even less interesting that it already is. 5. Charlie Sheen as “Charlie” in Being John Malkovich - I wanted to stay away from roles in which actors play themselves, mainly because that’s a big percentage of the ironic cameo stuff that’s so overused these days. However, Sheen’s part here is a little more than a mere cameo. And it’s kind of an ironic parody of the ironic cameo, even as it predates a lot of these cameos in Entourage and Extras and the like (by crediting the role as “Charlie” rather than “as himself”, it’s also a precursor to the more exaggerated than exaggerated “Neil Patrick Harris” character of the Harold and Kumar films). Perhaps intended to redirect the audience’s perspective on John Malkovich’s titular character, which is up until Sheen’s entrance possibly accepted as an authentic self-portrayal, the overstatement of the role raises the already ingeniously funny film up another notch to put it at the level of best comedies ever made. 4. Matt Damon as “Donny” in Eurotrip - I’ve actually never seen Eurotrip, but I hear there’s no reason to watch it other than to see Damon’s bit role as the singer of a pop punk band (the otherwise real Lustra). And I’ve seen that on YouTube, so I’m good. Even more than Cruise and some of the others, Damon seems to love doing guest stints in movies and on TV (he’s also given us the only reasons to ever watch Jimmy Kimmel). Some of his other small roles and cameos can be found in Youth Without Youth, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, Finding Forrester, Jersey Girl and The Majestic (the last in voice only). 3. Sean Connery as “King Richard” in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves - After making us suffer through Kevin Costner’s terrible performance in the lead role, the producers of this disappointing version of the classic legend actually rub it in how bad their casting choice was by sneaking Connery in at the last minute. Of course, despite the way his appearance increases our dissatisfaction with the rest of the movie, he’s still the highlight. Especially since he’s immediately followed by that awful Bryan Adams song playing over the credits. 2. Alec Baldwin as “Blake” in Glengarry Glen Ross - Sure, the rest of the film is really good, mostly because of the stellar cast filling out the rest of the ensemble, but the first thing you remember about this David Mamet adaptation is Baldwin’s monologue. It’s good enough that I almost also included on this list the Blake-inspired character from Boiler Room as played by Ben Affleck. But it’s also too good to actually accept Affleck’s ripoff as being in the same league. 1. Gene Hackman as “Blindman” in Young Frankenstein - I’m in the minority as far as my appreciation of Mel Brooks’ parody of James Whale’s Frankenstein films. I think it’s really funny, but I don’t think it’s one of the funniest movies I’ve ever seen. Yet the few minutes that Hackman is on screen always leave me in tears, enough that I wholeheartedly accept the movie’s status as one of the greatest comedies ever made. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog http://www.spout.com/groups/Movie_Games/Re_Six_Degrees_of_Separation_1/598/32706/1/ShowPost.aspx Post By: scswngr
Post To: Movie Games
Post Date: 7/18/2008 6:26:37 AM
Body: You can also do it in two using this: Judi Dench to Jon Stewart in Doogal. Jon Stewart to Seann William Scott in Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back.
]]>Fri, 18 Jul 2008 10:26:37 GMTscswngrMovie Games7/18/2008 6:26:37 AMYou can also do it in two using this: Judi Dench to Jon Stewart in Doogal. Jon Stewart to Seann William Scott in Jay &amp; Silent Bob Strike Back. http://www.spout.com/groups/Five_for_Five/Re_Let_me_know/255/28029/1/ShowPost.aspx Post By: leeroy711
Post To: Five for Five
Post Date: 4/30/2008 6:29:55 PM
Body: How about Kevin Smith films one star - Jersey Girl two stars - Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back three stars - Clerks 2 four stars - Dogma five stars - Mallrats
]]>Wed, 30 Apr 2008 22:29:55 GMTleeroy711Five for Five4/30/2008 6:29:55 PMHow about Kevin Smith films one star - Jersey Girl two stars - Jay &amp; Silent Bob Strike Back three stars - Clerks 2 four stars - Dogma five stars - Mallrats http://www.spout.com/blogs/clownman70360/archive/2008/1/19/24079.aspx Post By: clownman70360
Post To: clownman70360 Blog
Post Date: 1/19/2008 4:20:52 PM
Body: Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back was a good movie ever,it was slamming,my favorite Kevin Smith's movie is Clerks 2,i gonna write the next upcoming comedy film for Kevin Smith called:Where Do We Go From Here,it's Road Trip meets Wild Hogs meets National Lampoon's Vacation meets Harold and Kumar go to White Castle meets Wedding Crashers meets Without The Paddle meets meets Crossroads,about New Jersey lifelong,childhood friends are leaving their families and their jobs,taking a rocky road trip across america,it's a road trip comedy film.
]]>Sat, 19 Jan 2008 21:20:52 GMTclownman70360clownman70360 Blog1/19/2008 4:20:52 PMJay and Silent Bob Strike Back was a good movie ever,it was slamming,my favorite Kevin Smith&#39;s movie is Clerks 2,i gonna write the next upcoming comedy film for Kevin Smith called:Where Do We Go From Here,it&#39;s Road Trip meets Wild Hogs meets National Lampoon&#39;s Vacation meets Harold and Kumar go to White Castle meets Wedding Crashers meets Without The Paddle meets meets Crossroads,about New Jersey lifelong,childhood friends are leaving their families and their jobs,taking a rocky road trip across america,it&#39;s a road trip comedy film. http://www.spout.com/blogs/alienlazer/archive/2007/8/15/18158.aspx Post By: AlienLazer
Post To: AlienLazer Blog
Post Date: 8/15/2007 4:34:24 PM
Body: I want to hear more of Jason Mews singing. Right there in the beining... that was wack! hee hee... I can't believe Kevin Smith was still able to bring all the old cast together and on top of that cast his own daughter as himself (the kid version) and have his wife in this crazy movie.
]]>Wed, 15 Aug 2007 20:34:24 GMTAlienLazerAlienLazer Blog8/15/2007 4:34:24 PMI want to hear more of Jason Mews singing. Right there in the beining... that was wack! hee hee... I can&#39;t believe Kevin Smith was still able to bring all the old cast together and on top of that cast his own daughter as himself (the kid version) and have his wife in this crazy movie. http://www.spout.com/members/0/tags/funny/MemberTagFilms.aspxfunny
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]]>Wed, 08 Apr 2009 01:59:41 GMT181422Tag http://www.spout.com/members/0/tags/Jay-and-Silent-Bob/MemberTagFilms.aspxJay-and-Silent-Bob
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