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April 30, 2004
Batman Returns
discuss.
Posted by LYT at 6:19 PM | Comments (1)
More LYT on DVD
It recently came to my attention that I'm on another DVD. The 3-D porn BLONDE EMMANUELLE (made about the same time as M-3D, the 3-D porno that features my commentary on its disc) features, as an extra, a short documentary on star Bill Margold. Between interviews with Bill, English madman Douglas Dunning and I go around talking to naked chicks (some hotties, some kinda ugly).
LYT and hooters -- always a good combo. I don't have any free copies to give away, but the disc is available to buy or rent (we'll add an Amazon link on the merchandise page soon).
Posted by LYT at 2:46 PM | Comments (0)
Stuff happens to other people sometimes
Many congrats to LYTrules webmaster #2, Brian, whose wife just gave birth to their second child, a girl named Brianna Tatevik Phoenix Gaughan.
Now Brian needs a bigger house. But he knows that.
Posted by LYT at 2:23 PM | Comments (1)
April 27, 2004
Hoot 'n' Holler
I've been trying to live the high life lately. Probably not succeeding, but what the hell.
Saturday night I attended a birthday party for Todd Williams, a friend I made at the WrestleMania party. Because of the celebration at hand, I got on the list for a Hollywood club called Iver. This is not the sort of place I'd think to go to offhand, but that may have to change. Because I've realized that many, many beautiful ladies who would never hang out in bars for free will pay good money to go to clubs.
I figured since I was on the list, many more folks would be there for Todd, but it didn't seem like that many showed up. Todd's a good guy -- I haven't known him that long, but we bonded on many things -- so I can honestly say that if you were invited but didn't show up, WHAT'S WRONG WITH YOU?
Todd's friend Liz danced with me, which was cool. And while I was hitting the floor, two other girls dragged me into a threesome dance, then let me go. This scene might work for me. The female bartender was surprisingly impressed by my vintage WWF T-shirt.
For some reason, I've been dying to get with a black woman for a while now. Not sure why, but I trace it back to my viewing of NEVER DIE ALONE. Ladies, if you're a person of color, now is the time to take advantage of me. i'm just sayin'. I even had a sexy dream about Beyonce the other night, and I've always maintained that she is quite likely a seriously fucked up human being (her dad being her manager and all).
What I don't quite get -- this is L.A., and it's considered cool to show up late. Yet everything closes at 2 a.m. Why not come earlier, and get the bang for your buck?
Sunday I went to a party at the residence of one Jim Myron, who apprently owns several Hollywood clubs. I was harassed at the gate about the dress code (second time this week, though I was dressed nicely in a black shirt with scorpion print). The gatekeeper told me I'd have to leave if the owner of the house said so.
Inside, I saw many people worse dressed than I.
I was there as a producer, a hyphenate not yet on my business cards, yet it's true (DOGSAUCE BROTHERS is produced by me, and I'm also co-producer on Greg Hatanaka's Bill Margold documentary). Most of the other guests were sad-looking hangers-on, though I should certainly note the presence of Donald F. Glut (author of the "Empire Strikes Back" novelization) and Douglas Dunning (acting genius).
Host Myron kept the beer to himself, offering white wine and soda to the guests. Though I liked white wine early in my drinking career, if ind it hurts my digestion these days.
I left early, and went home to grab some real cocktails. Note to self -- more generic dress shirt next time.
Quick review of MEAN GIRLS: Lindsay Lohan gots big hooters!
Posted by LYT at 3:36 AM | Comments (0)
April 24, 2004
Vague-Ass: The Wandering Nerd, part 3
Headline joke that maybe one person will actually get, but anyway.
When last we left our hero (me), it was around 2 a.m. in Las Vegas, on the strip.
Changes since last I was here: Many of the slot machines no longer dispense coins, but rather print out receipts. I understand why, from a profit perspective -- as long as cash is not actually being poured into your hands, the credits feel less like "real money" and more like play money to keep gambling till it's gone. Still, the psychological joy of coins clunking out the bottom of the machine should not be discounted. I envision some hardcore gamers only using the old-style devices.
I won $5.50. Probably lost that much in loose change too.
I wish to call fraud on the so-called "Penny Slots," as they do not in fact accept pennies. Look, it's one thing to call them "one-cent" slots, allowing one cent to equal one credit but requiring the purchase of more than one credit. But as I understand it (and I know certain people will be very swift to accuse me of wacky illiteracy if I'm wrong), the word "penny" as used in American currency refers to the actual coin itself. Thus, if the slot does not take the coin itself, it is fraudulent to call the machine a penny slot.
Pennies are the Mexicans of the currency world. The big bad corporate [vending] machines won't accept them, and the average passerby will ignore one if he sees it on the street. But get a whole lot of them together, and you've got some purchasing power, by golly. I read somewhere that several millions of dollars worth of pennies are dropped on the streets every day.
Most disturbing merchandise item. At the Mirage (home to Siegfried and Roy), a plush white tiger with the face of a human baby.
There aren't many places to sit down in the casinos without paying for something or other, so I made my first rest stop in the Mirage, to buy a frozen margarita. It was $7.50, and it sucked. Airport bars can do better. It was amusing listening to a drunk tourist try to bargain with the hooker two seats down from me, though. She wanted $100, and he somehow thought $40 should suffice.
The Bellagio's indoor garden and butterfly tent is pretty nice, especially with no people around. Best low-key free attraction, I think, though the lion enclosure at MGM Grand is good too. Alas, the shark tank at Mandalay requires admission and daytime hours.
One of the cheaper casinos, called Boardwalk (I think) had dollar margaritas -- aptly named because one could in fact pay for them with the standardized unit of paper currency known as a dollar -- and they were better than the 7.50 one. Sweet and syrupy, sure, but better than the crunchy, watery Mirage version.
The two 'ritas were the only two drinks I had on the strip. Take a moment to express your surprise. See, drunkenness for me is often a result of boredom or paranoia in familiar settings. Getting trashed when there's a lot of new shit to look at seems like a waste, because it keeps you from taking it all in. I drink a lot less on vacation, generally.
At the Venetian, a movie was being filmed. No stars visible; all I know for sure is it was a Castle Rock production, so probably a pretty big deal.
At about five, I headed back towards the Motel 6, off the strip. '80s songs blared from speakers outside the big hotels ("Walking on Sunshine"). At the Golden Palm, I decided to indulge in the luxury of ordering a cocktail at 5 in the morning, so I had a Jack and Coke. $3.50. Had steak and eggs at the IHOP next door -- two dollars (specials like this can be had many places between 11 a.m. and 5 or 6 or so; needless to say, the family crowd again misses out). Despite Jim Ross' catchphrase "He's tougher'n'a two dollar steak!" the steak wasn't tough at all, just low quality. Fair enough, with a hamburger-like flavor. If I lived in Vegas, I'd eat this special all the time. Of course, judging by what I saw off the strip, if I lived in Vegas I'd have leathery skin and be missing many teeth.
Walked back into our motel room at 6, and caught a bit of rest for about an hour.
Paul decided he wanted to go back to NAB to buy some stuff, and I opted to wait in the car, thinking I'd catch some nap time. No go. The parking security guys won't let you do that -- they claim it's for your protection, because there are dangerous people around. So I wasn't asleep 15 minutes before one of these a-holes starts knocking on the window "to make sure I'm OK." What they really mean to say is more like "Yo, parking is free so pay for a fuckin' room if you wanna sleep." A fair comment, except I had paid for a frickin' room, and just wanted a nap while I waited. Paul remembered that the same thing had happened to him and his star when he came to Vegas to film his last movie.
While Paul was gone, his cellphone went off [side tangent: Paul's a former cellphone avoider, but now that he has one I swear he calls his significant other at least once every two hours. He doesn't always hear it ring, though.]. I picked up, and it was some charity or other asking to arrange a pickup of the car. Except that a guy had already shown up to schedule a pickup. When Paul came back, he naturally wanted to know all the details, and then wanted me to call the guy back, but I made it pretty clear that that was his job, not mine. We drove past the motel again just to be sure the car had been taken, and sure enough, it had. On the road again. With the car finally taken care of, Paul got back to his old self, and was cracking jokes and being free-spirited in a way that wasn't possible over the weekend.
Final stop en route home was at a casino shaped like a riverboat. Paul has some strange affection for crappy Vegas buffets, and saw that they had a two for one deal. We stopped, we ate, the food was crappy but abundant. Paul prepared to start a diet the following day.
Christian rock radio sucks. Not because it's Christian (I like P.O.D.'s "Satellite" album) but because it honestly seems like these bands weren't good enough to make it on their own, but knew that by adding God into the lyrics they had a built-in audience desperate for hard rock that parents will allow.
I went to bed early when I got home, and awoke to food poisoning, a true symphony of pain -- I dub it thus because the pain didn't stay in any one area. First right under the ribs, then to the lower abs, then the mid abs, then back around. I either got it from the buffet or my own home-cooking. I suspect my cheese-grater wasn't sufficiently clean.
Only way to deal with such pain is to ride it out. By the time you feel it, it's too late to purge, and no antacid will help. I find the only way to deal is with (over-the-counter) sleeping pills -- in this instance I took three rather than the standard two. This is not recommended per se, but I know a person who once did same by accident and called a poison control center, where they just laughed and said he'd be fine. They take a while to kick in, but the more you can sleep through the pain phase, the better. You know the process is mostly done when the pain has calmed down into the sensation of a dull stab-wound in your lower right abs (I've had surgery in that area, so I know what a stab wound feels like). I know you all were dying to hear about this, but it may explain why I haven't been communicative, or bowed out of certain things I was supposed to attend.
In summary, a couple of Vegas tips learned the hard way:
1. If you break down on the way to Vegas, go the fuck home (based on what the tow truck guys and mechanics told us, many people break down and junk their cars, hence the extortion prices to "donate" them).
2. Don't order margaritas at casino bars unless they're a buck.
3. Try to eat at least one meal between the hours of 11 and 6, because you can find 'em dirt cheap.
4. After walking through a casino, grab a metal object firmly and quickly to disperse the static charge without shocking yourself.
5. WWE pay-per-views free at Olympic Gardens, but forget about Raw the next night.
6. Book a room at Motel 6 in advance.
One of these days, I'll go back and all things will go right. Next pay-per-view, maybe. No, wait, next PPV's in L.A. After that.
Posted by LYT at 3:11 PM | Comments (2)
April 23, 2004
Review quick takes
a brief look at Tamala 2010: A Punk Cat in Space
Mormons go to Holland in The Best Two Years
CityBeat review of Lana's Rain:
When beautiful Lana (Oksana Orlenko) reunites with long-lost brother Darko (Nickolai Sroilov) amid the carnage of war-torn Bosnia-Herzegovina, he invites her to be smuggled alongside him on a cargo ship to America. What she doesn’t know is that Darko happens to be the most-wanted war criminal in Europe (the eyepatch, dark glasses, and lack of a clean shave oughta be a dead giveaway that he’s a baddie, no?).
Stupidly falling asleep in a public park in Chicago, Lana awakens to find her luggage and money stolen; Darko decides the best way to remedy that situation is to pimp his sister out. Meanwhile, European law enforcement and fellow criminals are seeking Darko out, and to make matters even more complicated, Lana falls in love with a Chinese sculptor (Louyong Wang).
At heart, this is a potentially compelling story, and Sroilov and Orlenko have a good love-hate chemistry. Unfortunately, writer/director/editor Michael S. Ojeda, making his feature debut, veers too often into risible bombast. A chainsaw-wielding villain would be more appropriate in a Guy Ritchie caper, for instance, and Sroilov occasionally behaves like Dave Chappelle’s Rick James. Ojeda could stand to learn some restraint of technique as well -- we don’t need so much slo-mo, freeze frame, or ersatz-poetic voice over narration. The film’s never boring, but it would play better as either pared-down drama or more-overblown camp. (Luke Y. Thompson)
Posted by LYT at 7:28 PM | Comments (0)
Beer and Bloating in Lost Vagus, continued
[note to readers: if you haven't read the previous post, do so first.]
[note to attendees of the LA Weekly party earlier tonight: I'm gonna leave the rest of you guys to blog about it, because I have to finish the Las Vegas story]
Okay, so: Car is kaput. Paul has to pay money for the privilege of giving it away. What are our options?
Greyhound is brought up, but this would lead to one significant problem: there are two items in Paul's possession that are not easily transported. One is a Singapore cane wrapped in barbed wire. The other is a baseball bat wrapped in barbed wire. If you know Paul, you'll understand why these are of such importance.
Eventually it is determined that a one-way car rental won't be too heinously expensive. But we will have to transfer everything from Paul's dead car to the rental. Does anyone remember my last car, and how full of stuff it always was? Paul's was more so. It felt a bit like we were moving house. And there were some surprises in the old vehicle, a glove compartment filled with loose thumb tacks for one.
I was tired from awakening early that day, so I made an unusual decision. Nap now, and then stay up all night. We had been so concerned with car trouble and convention and getting to the strip club on time and so on that I wanted at least one block of time where I didn't have to be anywhere, or do anything, and I could buy a drink at some ungodly hour, or wander around without worrying that I was exiting the designated bar area, since everywhere in a Vegas casino is OK to drink at.
I was supposed to meet Paul at 11, but we got our signals crossed -- he came to meet me at the motel, while I was looking for him at the Luxor. I waited around a bit, then headed out to explore. I hadn't expected that some things would close early, but they did -- I narrowly missed the chance to purchase a yard-high margarita at La Salsa.
I don't exactly remember the order in which I proceeded to the rest of the hotels and casinos on the strip, but it was an all-night odyssey. Grabbed dinner at the House of Blues (in Mandalay Bay, I think) just before it closed -- OK barbecue sandwich with stale fries, made barely palatable by a sprinkling of garlic salt.
While in New York New York (the coolest overall of all the big places, I think, though Luxor's close), I heard a band in one of the pubs doing a Guns N Roses cover, and thought "bad idea."
Round about two, most of the major operations shut down. The cleaning crew and security guys become more visible, and you can still walk most anywhere, just most of it's closed. The casinos remain open 24-7, and there's usually at least one functional bar in each at all hours.
Last time I was in Vegas was with my family, and it's a different experience when you're with teenagers. Because of the way things are set up, you can't avoid walking through casinos, but because of gaming laws, you cannot stop, even for a second, if you're with "minors." You must walk quickly through the den of vice, that they may not even take in the sights and sounds to too great a degree.
This time, things were less hectic, and as a result, the casinos become less confusing to navigate, because you are allowed to stop and get your bearings. One thign that really impressed me this time around: the casinos are very good at eliminating the smell of secondhand smoke. Everything in Vegas has the same kinda perfumy smell, from the casinos to the strippers' body make-up. It probably goes into the oxygen they allegedly pipe in -- incidentally, I saw more "oxygen bars" here than I've ever seen in L.A.
One annoyance -- the carpets all cause static build-up, so the metal door handles will shock you 90% of the time.
still more to come later...
Posted by LYT at 12:10 AM | Comments (2)
April 22, 2004
Luke and Paul's Bogus Journey, part one
I've been in Vegas for the past couple of days. This was my second time, and much like the first, things didn't quite go as planned. At least no-one died this time.
The plan for the Vegas trip was as follows: Paul and two friends wished to attend the National Association of Broadcasters convention. They had also, on a previous journey, discovered a strip club with no cover charge that shows WWE pay-per-views while selling "buckets" of beer for $12. Thus the plan was to leave early Sunday, get to the club by the start of the WWE show, then hit NAB the next coupla days (we found a way to get free credentials). Paul figured I'd be into this kinda thing, and kindly invited me along too.
Both Paul's other friends had to bow out due to previous commitments. So it was me and him, in his car. He had expressed doubts about his car's ability to make long journeys, but I figured that meant something like my own situation, where my car makes an odd noise I can't identify, but runs basically OK. No, Paul's shakes, rattles, and stutters.
Round about Baker (a desert town in CA), the shaking and stalling got scarily bad. We stopped at one service station off an exit called Rasor Road (the station has a sign that reads: "Rasor Road, population 12"), but Paul was getting a real Texas Chainsaw Massacre-type vibe from the grizzled mechanics there, and we headed onward to Baker, where we found a place, but they said they wouldn't get to us for a couple of hours.
About then, I ascertained that we were less than 100 miles from Vegas, so we could use my Triple-A plus to get a tow all the way there. This we did. But when we got to Vegas, the motel we had decided upon, which advertises "19.99 and up" rooms, proved to be way up --- to 129.99. We tried another -- 109.99. Finally, the Motel 6. It was full, but Paul did an amazing job of talking his way in, and we got one single room.
Earlier, we had made the bold claim that we would be on time for the WWE show (both of us, for different reasons, had arrived late to our respective WrestleMania parties). We got there about 7 minutes late. The buckets of beer were simply little ice buckets with four bottles in them, but oh well. We enjoyed the show, drank beer, and Paul paid for me to get a lapdance afterward (not from him, just so we're clear).
We had been hoping that the strip club would show WWE Raw on Monday night, but no. I asked the guy there, and he was clearly fucking clueless. My question was "Hey, are you guys gonna show Raw tomorrow?" and he goes "I'll ask." Comes back, and replies "No, we only do WWF." I say "Raw IS WWF [actually WWE now, but why confuse the poor fellow with a correction]". "Sorry" he responds.
I borrowed the upper comforter from the bed and slept on the floor that night, not so much because of any kind of gay panic but rather that I'm not used to sharing a bed with anyone. In the last 17 years or so, I have only ever shared a bed for the entire night with one other person, and that was on maybe three or four occasions only. (prior to that, occasionally with one or other parent when accomodations were tight, so don't go thinking foul thoughts.) And needless to say, Motel 6 mattresses are not the kind you see advertised on TV where you can balance a glass of wine on one side when your partner's tossing and turning on the other.
All I'll say about the floor is, it makes you painfully aware of just how many times you turn over in the night. Both Paul and I snore, but neither to an extent that bothers the other.
The next day we had to get the car to a garage, and then hit NAB. Paul, however, didn't know where NAB actually was...the planning had been left in the hands of one of the friends who was no longer attending. We figured it out eventually, but couldn't quite determine where the free shuttle buses were to be found, and took a cab.
At first, the convention seemed utterly irrelevant to me -- lots of satellite dishes and camera vans and such for affluent news organizations. But when I finally found the digital media room, there was cool stuff -- special effects demonstrations, stock footage sequences for sale, and a program that does automatic rotoscoping animation (drawing over photography, a la A-Ha's "Take on me" video). Could be useful for Dogsauce if I go the animated route.
The first call Paul got from the garage said they could find nothing wrong with the car -- an absurd lie, given that the thing was almost utterly undrivable at this point. He had to keep calling during the day, and eventually they said it was some kind of computer chip that was no longer being made and could cost anywhere up to a thousand bucks.
Given the cost, the knowledge that his car was not long for the road anyway, and the urgency of his having to get back home, the decisions was made to donate the vehicle to charity.
There was, of course, a catch to that as well. One company basically handles all the charity car donations in Vegas (to the Red Cross, Goodwill, what have you) and they insisted on being PAID to accept this donation. I suspect they know they have a monopoly on stranded tourists with broke-down cars.
more to this story later...
Posted by LYT at 3:30 PM | Comments (0)
April 20, 2004
AND THE WINNER IS...
The poll has now closed. The winner is ReJeKt, for his entry "Miramax buys Dogsauce Brothers."
The authors of the other entries:
"Generic Press Club Party," yes, I wrote that one myself.
"Cindy Margolis Party," ghostboy
"Lucky McKee Retrospective," visquene007
"Mello Yello and Beer," vivaknievel
"Terrible Reviews," Mike Greenwaldt.
I think most of you were too easy on me, frankly.
Thank you everyone for entering -- there'll be another DVD contest soon.
Posted by LYT at 7:24 PM | Comments (7)
April 17, 2004
MUST-READ
If THIS ARTICLE is in any way true, we must hold our government accountable and not let them get away with it.
Posted by LYT at 8:15 PM | Comments (1)
Punk'd Prez
If THIS SHIRT were available in black, i'd buy it.
Posted by LYT at 4:32 PM | Comments (3)
April 16, 2004
The Punishment
Dear god, The Punisher is atrociously bad. As bad as you may expect it to be, it's worse.
I'll give it credit on a couple of fronts before I damn it -- Tom Jane does look the part, though the black hair is pretty blatantly a dye job. Going for a dark brown would have been better. He has the physique, though, and he looks like an action figure, which is just as well since he will be one (or two) in stores near you very soon).
There's a sequence somewhere in the middle of the film that I really like. While the Punisher's goofy neighbors (Rebecca Romijn, Ben Foster, and Token Stupid Fat Guy) make dessert and dance to "La Donna e Mobile" (the most cinematically overused piece of opera after "Carmina Burana"), a giant Russian dressed like Popeye (and played by wrestler Kevin Nash) starts throwing our hero through walls, floors, and everything else. I know all of you are gonna think I like this part just because Nash is a wrestler, but the main thin I like about it (and wrestling, come to think of it) is that this fight is the one part of the movie that feels like a comic book battle. Our superhero, who looks huge next to regular folks, finally locks horns with an unfeasibly huge and indestructible guy twice his size, and we have no idea how he will prevail. The sequence is staged like a cartoon fight, and plays like one. At one point, Nash gets a faceful of boiling water and the skin on his face almost instantaneously turns into oatmeal.
That's the good stuff. Where to even begin on the bad?
Perhaps by comparing to the original 1990 direct-to-video Punisher movie starring Dolph Lundgren, which everyone loves to mock but is actually pretty good. In that movie, Dolph is the Punisher as the movie begins, and later on we get a quick flashback to explain him.
Here, we have some 40 minutes of endless build-up before Frank Castle becomes the Punisher. We have to suffer through a fake drug bust wherein Frank wears a blond wig and affects a South African accent, then some scenes with his wife (poor Samanthis Mathis) and kid (who cares) just to show us that they're real people, so when they get machine-gunned to death at long last, we care, or something.
About that: the whole point of the Punisher in the comics is that his family were killed in a crossfire, representing the random deaths of innocents, thus Punisher vows not to stop until all potential crossfire-creators are wiped out. Here, the family is a speciifc target because Castle killed John Travolta's kid. So if he gets Travolta, and perhaps all of Travolta's family for good measure, why not stop there?
Now, did you ever wonder where the Punisher gets his skull logo from? Probably not -- it seems a no-brainer to assume that, since he likes to kill people, a skull is the most obvious symbol of such. But that isn't good enough for the film-makers. Here's how the movie does it: Frank is chilling with wife and kid. Kid tells him about his day. Then the kid suddenly delivers a whopper of a line of dialogue, roughly paraphrased thusly:
"Hey dad, I was at the stores today and I went into this T-shirt store and the T-shirts were all neat but there was this one that was really cool because it was scary and I asked the guy at the store what it was and he said it was to help ward off evil spirits and so I bought it for you and isn't it cool?"
Kid hands dad a package. dad opens it to reveal a Punisher logo shirt. Stares at it portentously.
Dad: "Yeah, that is pretty cool."
Later, once Dad has been shot in the chest at point blank range and thrown into the sea by the shockwave from an explosion, he will swim to shore utterly unharmed and somehow find this shirt washed up on the beach. Apprently the baddies found the time to rummage through his stuff, and specifically picked that shirt to toss into the surf. As he walks away, a local wishes him "Vaya con dios!" But because the film-makers think we're fucking morons, he has to repeat that in English as well. Frank responds "Oh, God's gonna sit this one out."
This is one of several horrible lines poor Tom Jane has to deliver in a low hiss similar to that of his elder doppelganger Christopher Lambert. Later, he tells someone he has work to do, and if she checks the newspaper, she'll understand.
There's a dramatic beat.
She: "Which section?"
another dramatic beat
He: "THE OBITUARIES"
Ba-dump bump.
The less said about the closing monologue which ends with "Call me...THE PUNISHER!", the better.
[Compare any of this to Dolph's best line in the original movie. After he's been captured by the police, ex-partner Louis Gossett Jr. demands to know why Dolph's gone nuts. Reciting the huge body count his former friend is responsible for, Louis asks "What the hell do you call that?" Dolph responds, dryly, "Work in progress."]
As for the villainous Travolta...I'm gonna guess he didn't get much direction. One of the things he does is to smoke a pipe. The pipe is clearly loaded with tobacco, yet it isn't lit, ever, though Travolta acts like he's smoking it. I'm guessing Travolta himself probably came up with this "bit of business," since it's the sort of thing insane actors love to do. It looks stupid. At least you can sympathize with the Punisher somewhat -- wanting Travolta dead is an easy emotion to come by. In a sign of ludicrously self-important screenwriting (credit director Jonathan Hensleigh, who used to write for Michael Bay, and co-writer Michael France, who did Cliffhanger), Travolta's subplot references Macbeth, Othello, and Julius Caesar, and even has him revive the ancient cliche of putting a woman on the train tracks to die.
Also, Travolta has a nerdy assistant played by Eddie Jemison (Ocean's 11) who gets several goofy double-takes, and there's this one truly bizarre and redundant scene where Frank's eating in a restaurant, and a Johnny Cash lookalike named Harry Heck (Mark Collie) walks in and plays him a song about how he's going to kill him. Then he leaves. No fighting, nothing. Later, he does try to kill Frank, but Frank's rigged up his own car to be like one of those last minute welding projects that the A-Team used to use to defeat the bad guys at the end.
Hensleigh's direction is heinous. He even stoops to having thunder and lightning crash at the exact moment a dramatic point is being hammered home. It's all so disheartening knowing that a talented screenwriter friend of mine was up for the rewrite gig on this flick, and didn't get it.
And Rebecca Rom-jin? Not only does she look way too good for the character she plays, but you can't have here! She's already in the cinematic Marvel Comics universe, as Mystique! Her acting is fine, but this project is not for her.
It's unconscionable that the Punisher got screwed up this badly. Avi Arad was supposed to be the guy who takes care of his characters. He must have been asleep this time. Unless he actually said to somebody, "Hey that bit in Queerdevil where Ben Assfuck's DD logo showed up in flames was cool -- let's do the same thing with the Punisher, but bigger and more intense! What? It was already a rip-off of The Crow? That was ten years ago, no-one remembers that far. Why else do you think we can get away with doing another Punisher movie so soon?"
Pay attention, Avi. All that fanboy love you got for X-Men and Spider-Man can very quickly turn to loathing.
[Due to excessive spam, comments are now closed on this entry. Any legitimate feedback is welcome on the message board]
Posted by LYT at 6:06 PM | Comments (4)
April 15, 2004
VOTE NOW
You see the work of six satirists below -- vote for your favorite two. I will remove the poll some time Tuesday night.
(Note that voting is open to all readers of this site, registered or not, known to me or not. Please vote.)
Posted by LYT at 12:32 PM | Comments (0)
LYT PARODY CONTEST ENTRIES
[The contest is over -- here are the worthy entries]
[Entry #1 knows my taste in beverages well]
APRIL 1, 2006
Lip-Smacking Smackdown
Many of you have undoubtedly have noticed the large billboards around a town near you - I now have my own official drink.
A few months ago, Mello Yello recently approached me about creating and marketing a unique, new beverage in tribute to a unique individual. That is, yours truly, LYT. Behind the scenes, I'd been working with Mello Yello on various prototypes, trials and errors. Due to a confidentiality agreement and security issues, I hadn't been permitted to release any details until now.
The new drink, Spot LYTe Brew Ha-Ha, is a tasty combination of two of my favorite drinks: Mello Yello and Beer. I questioned the suggestion at first, but after a series of trial taste tests, we finally arrived a great (ahem, secret) recipe that I feel represents the integrity of my good name, as well as my legacy. Even though beer is one of the key ingredients, there are also samples of my own DNA (yeah, I'd like to see Budweiser try to duplicate our brew!) in every can, which ensures that Spot LYTe not only has the best, tangiest taste of any drink in the past two centuries, but that it has its very own Artificial Intelligence, which controls the level of alcohol with every sip.
Yes, that's right -- not only can adults drink it and get as hammered as they'd like, but Spot LYTe, also mimicks my intelligence and "knows" when it is in the body of a minor, hillbilly, prudish film critic, or extreme right-wing Conservatives. It is then, that the brew reduces its own alcohol content level to prevent child corruption, incest, reproduction of the cognitively challenged, and so on. That's right - Spot LYTe Brew Ha-Ha *is* responsible drinking... because it assumes responsibility even for people who are retards-by-choice, by giving them at least a few necessary nutrients and strains of intelligence that they would otherwise lack.
The folks at Mello Yello vetoed my choice of bare hooters as the graphic logo, and legal issues prevented using Natalie Portman... and Bea Arthur's too much of a prude to get nekkid in her movies now, after winning her 1st Oscar for her star turn in the one-woman drama directed by Lars Von Trier "My Wooly Pachina, My Friend" (see my review by clicking on this archive link). However, Vince McMahon, of the WWE, wanted to share the Spot LYTe after finding out about my rasslin' fascination. Yes, we now have a partnership with the top Wrestling organization in the world. That's why you've been seeing photos of The Rock, Gold Dust, Joey, Matthew and Andrew Lawrence, The Undertaker, Sean Michaels, Ernest Borgnine, and the late Fred 'Rerun' Berry of "What's Happenin!" fame et, al, emblazoning the new drink of choice.
I'm pretty stoked also, because all those chicks who didn't get my DNA by other means, when it was free, will now have to pay for the pleasure and honor. Especially since the drink's been doing so well that I'm super rich and famous... and giving it away to some gold-digging skanks, is no longer a priority.
We will now embark on a World Tour, with some top notch wrestling matches, live bands, Ostrich chili, free Spot LYTe giveaways, and of course, the opportunity for you to get your very own can signed by me and/or your picture taken with me, for a limited time. See you there...
In the meantime... keep buying Spot LYTe: The drink that thinks.
posted by LYT 11:00 pm
[entry #2 is the most vicious of the bunch]
Generic LYT Press Club Party write-up
{Headline, probably a lame-ass pun involving “press” or “club”}
As I’d been doing shots of Jack Daniels since 11 a.m., three hours before I even moved my lazy ass out of bed, I took the bus to the latest press club party, a celebration of {Centrist author I will accuse of being a “radical right winger” for daring to suggest that George W. Bush is not a demon from hell}
{Altogether too-long paragraph describing what it’s like to ride on the bus, like none of us know what THAT’s like}
{description of someone on the bus who was talking loudly -- cruel mockery of that person by describing them as “insane”}
I got to the party an hour early and ordered a drink. It was too expensive, but I bought it anyway. Why doesn’t Cathy Seipp buy me drinks? I’m LYT, dammit.
I wore a T-shirt that said {wrestling catchphrase and/or obnoxious left-wing political statement}. The homeless people on the street liked it, but {Republican-voting journalist} did not. Fuck him/her.
Finally, other people started showing up. Cathy Seipp told me {helpful statement designed to improve social skills and standing}. I responded {smart-ass remark denigrating anyone’s opinion that isn’t my own}.
Martin Devon was in attendance, and since he’s fair-minded for a right-winger, I pointed out to him that he surely must agree with me on {something liberal}. He politely demurred. I drank more Jack Daniels
Luke Ford said {something about being morally pious}. I shot back that {there was some sort of ironic double-standard to his words}. He was wearing {something a stereotypical Orthodox Jew might not be expected to wear}.
Also in attendance: {one of the very few “bloggers” who’s actually read by non-journalists}, {person who thinks they’re important for having a website, even though no-one reads it}, {someone who may have worked at New Times once, not that anyone cares except other former New Times writers}, {right-wing zealot, which is to say anyone to the right of Howard Dean}, {libertarian of sorts}, {liberal I’m gonna be derisive towards because he or she is not as liberal as me, LYT dammit!}, and of course {hot chick}.
I saw {hot chick} smoking, which gave me a convenient excuse not to even try talking to her, because why bother dating anyone who might have an unpleasant addiction? Then I downed two mai-tais in ten minutes.
The food was {crap if it was anything other than cold raw tuna}. There also wasn’t enough of it.
{The guest of honor} finally spoke, and seemed like a nice person. Too bad he or she is a horrible bigoted right-winger who dances on the graves of dead Iraqis.
I finally weaseled a ride home from {some poor soul who couldn’t run away from me in time}. Glad I didn’t have to take the bus. {condescending hypocritical sentence about homeless people who ride the bus; typical liberal double-standards}
Then I watched my videotape of wrestling. Drank some more. I’m such a badass for drinking so much. And for loving wrestling. Wrestling is cool.
[entry #3 had some fun with links; be sure to use them for the full experience]
April 15, 2010
Lucky Me
The screening of Lucky McKee’s early works All Cheerleaders Die, May and Dogsauce Brothers was yesterday at the Sunset Five in honor of his new film opening in a month. Getting to the theater sucked. Blah blah blah.
My ride must have come by, but the call box was broken and I didn’t hear my phone, so they left without me. My car is still nonfunctional so I took the bus to Venice to pick up my date. I arrived forty five minutes late. She was gone. Too bad, it was the infamous third date. Save for the person who introduced us, most of you do not know her yet. After going all the way to Venice, I took the bus back to the Sunset Five. A woman with three kids in tow nearly ran me over as I got off the bus. Somehow an entire cone of strawberry ice cream ended up on my pants. Blah blah blah.
I missed All Cheerleaders Die, but got into the theater as Angela Bettis took a bite out of Jeremy Sisto. Dogsauce Brothers was exactly what I imagined it would be, and I’m glad it didn’t get picked up by studios. It still has that independent feel I had hoped for and a great cult classic appeal. The after-party was a great mix of old and new friends, blah blah blah.
The open bar was appreciated. Around four in the morning I made my way to the bus stop in hopes of getting home. Forty minutes later there was still no bus and I had sobered up slightly, so I walked home. There was a scathing message on my answering machine from my date that guaranteed there would not be another third date. Lucky me.
posted by Luke Y. Thompson @ 7:15 AM PST [Link] [4 Back-talkers] [Message Board]
[entry #4 took a different tack, and decided to parody my Truly Terrible Reviews]
LATTER DAYS
You could skip it in theaters or see it. I'd recommend the Latter, because it will be Days before it's out on video.
JAPANESE STORY
I was turning Japanese for this Story.
CHEAPER BY THE DOZEN
Take the whole family, because it's Cheaper By The Dozen.
WILBUR WANTS TO KILL HIMSELF
Even if Wilbur Wants To Kill Himself, you'll want to live if you see this movie.
GINGER SNAPS
Ginger Snaps, crackles, and pops!
THE PUNISHER
Missing it would be Punishment.
BROTHER BEAR
Even if you don't have a Brother to take, you'll be em-Bear-assed if you don't check it out.
KISSING JESSICA STEIN
You'll love Kissing Jessica Stein! At least more than Kissing Ben Stein.
[entry #5 speculates on a party that sounds much cooler than the ones I actually attend]
Regular readers will be pleased to learn that while posts concerning steady employment and sushi may be intermittent at best, those dealing with social functions will not. At least not today.
Last night was the official pre-release party for (I shit you not) Cindy Margolis' s (remember her?) new reality show, which is to be (I shit you not again) broadcast in one minute segments to cell phone users. To view it, I imagine you need one of those phones that's essentially a home entertainment system. I remember when The Matrix came out and everyone went crazy over the possibility of a phone with a flip-down mouthpiece. Good times.
Anyway, I wasn't invited to this party, but certain friends, who shall remain nameless and whose devotion to the hostess know no bounds (their phones are signed up and ready), dragged me along to get my drink on. Food? Veggies and silver trays of stuff that could be described as Wingstop a la flambe. The bar? Open.
The bartender seemed to recognize me from something; maybe he reads the site (do you?) or maybe he's served me at these things before. Either way, he catered to my interests, and thus the remainder of my account will consist of what Jack Handey so elegantly described as 'fuzzy memories.'
I recall explaining to someone the results of leaving hair bleach in too long, I remember standing on the porch for fresh air (the party was at some loft -- a producer's, I think -- and smoking was permitted) and watching someone vomit in the bushes and then noticing me and trying to explain his drunken state, as if I were his dad, and I also have a distinct impression that when I went to the bathroom, every magazine on the rack had Ms. Margolis either on the cover or profiled extensively on the inside -- in other words, they were all roughly three years old. In pretty good condition, too.
Oh yes, and the other Luke was there too, for whatever reason, and proudly touting a brand new accessory: one of those tiny miniDV camcorders with a ridiculously phallic microphone that's twice the size of the camera itself; you've seen low budget filmmakers carrying them, because the impressiveness of the microphone lends them a credibility that the camera does not. Anyway, I don't know why he had it or what he was documenting (a closeted fan of the hostess, perhaps?). Perhaps he's adding some multi-media content to his website, in which case I'm sure he'll be providing a much more detailed account of the evening than I am.
There were a lot of girls there, which leads me to my final anecdote. Rummaging through my pockets in the morning, I found a rubber pink boa, clearly made to fit some fashion doll (Bratz would be my guess), and had an immediate recollection of the girl at the party who gave it to me, along with a drunken hug. She insisted I take it and told me it was a scale model of a clitoris. I have no idea who this girl was, by the way, and now I can't decide whether to throw this thing away or adorn some lucky figure with it.
[which brings us to the final entry, less a parody of my style than a parody of what my future might be]
MIRAMAX BUYS DOGSAUCE BROTHERS SCRIPT
Hollywood- After three days of intense negotiation, Miramax representatives
have purchased a script entitled “The Dogsauce Brothers” for over three hundred
dollars. The author, described only as a “clown-haired hillbilly” relinquished
the rights with two addendums; that he be allowed to touch a pair of “hooters”
and that someone famous wear one of his shirts on television. Both conditions
finalized, he was quickly removed from the studio grounds and pepper-sprayed for
good measure.
The script itself has already been completely rewritten several times over by
professional screenwriters, who were dumbfounded by the poor quality of the
original. “Half this movie was set in a wrestling ring,” complained wordsmith
Joe Eszterhas, “The other half was a flipbook drawn in crayon of Natalie Portman
doing jumping jacks. I’ll admit that part’s good, and I won’t mind taking full
credit for it, but this guy is still a jerkoff.”
Friends and acquaintances of the unknown writer breathed a sigh of relief that
they would no longer be required to help him film the patchwork script himself.
Up and coming gadabout Lucky McKee, who was set to co-star in the unintentional
farce, was particularly thankful of the news. “I agreed to be in his stupid
movie because I was trashed, and the sonofabitch takes it serious. The more he
talked about that awful script, the surer I was that it was going to be as
painful to make as it would be to watch. I’ve seen some of the films he’s made
in the past, and let’s just say that he’s no me."
When questioned about the motivation behind acquiring such pointless tripe,
Miramax exec Rob Steinwein admitted “The title made my three year old son
giggle, so I got it for him. I was going to let him direct it, but he’s working
on a project with Leo. So I threw it to the doggz to see what they could do. Now
Ben Affleck is attached as the lead if we let him have the writing credit, and I
don’t think Jim Carey is doing anything for a while, so we can probably get him
too. In any case, keep an eye out for 'The Applesauce Brothers' sometime next
summer!”
[Read and enjoy. I'll add the poll later]
Posted by LYT at 1:23 AM | Comments (0)
April 14, 2004
All the things he said...
Some fun quotes from our so-called president at yesterday's press conference:
"I wish you'd have given me this written question ahead of time so I could plan for it."
"If I tried to fine-tune my messages based upon polls, I think I'd be pretty ineffective. I know I would be disappointed in myself."
"I don't want to sound like I have made no mistakes. I'm confident I have. I just haven't -- you just put me under the spot here, and maybe I'm not as quick on my feet as I should be in coming up with one."
"One year after the liberation of Iraq, the revenues of the oil stream is pretty darn significant."
On another topic, today's the last day to enter the DVD contest. Six submissions received at last count.
Posted by LYT at 4:17 PM | Comments (0)
Bill Me Later
Just came from seeing KILL BILL VOL. 2, and I have to say, this movie had everything part one lacked.
I was hard on part one, labeling it one of the four most overrated movies of last year. My main problem with it was that I didn't care about Uma, didn't see what had driven her to this point, and didn't find her killings justified. Part 2 added the crucial human element that was missing.
Lucky, who came to the movie with me, pointed out that Quentin deliberately flipped things, giving you the climax first, and then the build up. True enuff, but the climax minus build-up lost me. The character interaction here won me over again.
A big factor also is the fact that Michael Madsen, Daryl Hannah, and David Carradine are simply more fun to watch than Lucy Liu and Vivica A. Fox. I don't know many people who could argue otherwise.
But another key point in part two is that the enemies are a tangible threat. Uma was too invincible in part one, with only Go-go posing a significant challenge. Madsen, Hannah, Carradine, and Gordon Liu's Master Pai Mei all create a sense of jeopardy in #2.
I don't know if part 1 will be better viewing for me from here on out, but it might. Part 2 offers a tangible explanation as to why Uma was so cold and unrelatable in part 1.
And anyone who doubted the casting of Carradine -- bow down. There is one moment where he says he' always been a fan of comic books, that I thought, "Oh god, fuckin' Quentin." It's a bit of a groaner, but Carradine damn near makes it work.
After Kill Bill, I got to see an early cut of THE WOODS. I'll be very curious to see how the masses react -- it isn't much like anything else out there, but I think teen girls will really get it. The very preliminary visual FX look great already.
No more spoilers, or I'll be in violation of confidence, but theatergoers will be in for a unique experience whether or not the cut I saw was anything like the final version.
Posted by LYT at 2:48 AM | Comments (1)
April 13, 2004
CONTEST UPDATE
I now have four entries. You still have all day tomorrow to submit. Sometime after midnight turns Wednesday into Thursday, I will post all the entries. The following day, I will post the poll, and you'll have until Tuesday the 20th to vote in it. I will cast a vote, but it will not be wieghted any higher than anyone else's.
I've decided to do away with the "no votes for yourself" rule, since a savvy computer person could easily mask his or her identity. Instead, I'm going to require that you vote for TWO. Thus, each entrant must vote for at least one other person's work. Anyone voting for more or less than two will have their vote deleted.
Whoever has the most votes come 4/20 wins. In the event of a tie, I will pick an independent judge to select the winner.
Posted by LYT at 6:02 PM | Comments (3)
April 12, 2004
REMINDER: CONTEST ENTRY DEADLINE IS WEDNESDAY
It's still a wide-open field, folks. I have received all of two. If anyone else enters, and they;re the only one, that's automatically a 33% chance of winning.
If you have something, but think it's not good enough, send it anyway.
Posted by LYT at 1:10 PM | Comments (0)
April 10, 2004
Famous people read this site sometimes
Louis C.K. responds to my post about his sitcom pilot, and ReJeKt's idea for an altered premise.
UPDATE: Louis blogs about the taping as he experienced it HERE
Posted by LYT at 12:22 PM | Comments (2)
Commie, commie commie commie, commie chameleon...
From Movieguide's review of The Girl Next Door...
"Finally, and perhaps worst of all, the 'safe sex' message in the movie is a good example of the influence that Cultural Marxism, the source of today’s left-wing political correctness, has had in today’s society. The goal of such political correctness is to undermine objective, absolute standards of moral behavior and replace them with subjective standards of “self-actualization” and behavioral modification. This is being done in order to usher in a new Communist Utopia, based on the tired socialist models of Western Europe.
Concerned individuals can fight the implementation of these terrible policies by focusing on the truths of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, who calls for personal spiritual regeneration, renewal, and purity, rather than Big Government policies and sexual deviancy."
I never knew that safe sex was Marxist. See what you learn by surfing the net?
Posted by LYT at 1:56 AM | Comments (4)
April 9, 2004
DVD CONTEST DEADLINE
I don't want this to stretch out too long, or the disc will be in wide release by the time we're done. So, as announced on killradio tonight, the deadline is Wednesday. Once Thursday begins at midnight, you're SOL. So get writing this weekend!
Posted by LYT at 10:37 PM | Comments (0)
Review Update
Dating a porn star is risky business in The Girl Next Door
CityBeat review of RECTUMA:
Talk about having a bad day: while vacationing in Mexico, Waldo Williams (Bill Devlin) gets raped by a poisonous toad, then tries to cure his subsequently diseased prostate by inserting a radioactive rod into his anus. The result, as if you didn’t know, is that his rear end develops a mind of its own, becoming both detachable and homicidal, before ultimately growing to Godzilla-like dimensions.
Yes, writer-director Mark Pirro (creator of such films as Nudist Colony of the Dead, a Super-8 musical that’s honest-to-God one of my favorite flicks of all time) is back in fine form, delivering the sort of disgusting Z-grade schlock that Troma used to know how to do. Pirro’s films aren’t exactly “so bad they’re good” -- rather, he seems to be trying to make bad movies, but doing so in such poor fashion that they somehow emerge with a sort of deranged brilliance. As is his trademark, there’s an insanely catchy song on the soundtrack, delivered by a pair of Japanese narrators named “Hi” and “Nee” (newcomers Rachel Morihoro and Hiromi Nishiyama). Occasionally, Pirro seems to accidentally hit on hot-button issues like race relations, but more often his jokes involve, for example, a terrorist named Summa Cum Lauden, or an obscene Silence of the Lambs spoof. Every ass joke you can imagine gets play herein, but the movie’s still an awful lot of fun if you’re in the right mood (i.e. drunk).
Friday and Saturday midnights at Laemmle’s Sunset 5. Not Rated.
Posted by LYT at 10:48 AM | Comments (3)
April 8, 2004
The DVD contest continues
I have two entries now. This means someone will win. As for the rest of you creative types, what's keeping you?
I'll be posting every entry, so it's your chance to get some actual readers.
Posted by LYT at 5:24 PM | Comments (2)
LYT IN THE MEDIA
This Friday, I will appear on killradio again as the guest, possibly alongside another guest who isn't 100% confirmed (not Lucky McKee). 8pm or thereabouts, listen at killradio.org
Also, Angelenoes -- I have two capsule film reviews in the current issue of CityBeat. No, I won't be doing long reviews there (Andy Klein is contracted to do all of those), but the capsules may be a semi-regular gig. These caps are not run on CityBeat's website, but as a freelancer, I have the rights to them after they're published, so I can reprint them here on the blog.
If you have a moment, drop a quick letter or email off to the editors of CityBeat to let them know how you feel about seeing my name in print in Los Angeles once again.
editor@lacitybeat.com
CityBeat, 5900 Wilshire Blvd., Suite 2211, Los Angeles, CA 90036
Posted by LYT at 4:28 PM | Comments (1)
Something to crow about
This new action figure set
UPDATE: I just noticed what many might consider a flaw in the set. If the two figures are supposed to be "mirror images" of each other, they ain't. Check out the hairdo, and the leg stance.
Obviously, some of the same parts were used for both, but they could have gotten past that by making the figure and stance more symmetrical.
It's still a cool set.
Posted by LYT at 2:59 PM | Comments (4)
The Passion of the Crockett
So I saw THE ALAMO, and it wasn't as boring as I thought it'd be. How's that for a quote, Disney? Okay, I'll give you another one: It's a bravura evil Mexican picture.
Jeffrey Wells of moviepoopshoot.com, was clearly bored. During the film's quieter moments, he opted to start slapping his thighs in an impromptu drum solo of sorts. He also put his feet up on the seat in front of him, which I consider a big faux pas, especially since someone right behind me was doing the same thing. And this after arriving some 10 minutes late.
Jeff, you owe yourself a slap. I think I'll call you "Slappy" from now on.
Anyway, there's one moment in this film that I really love, and the filmmakers clearly love too, because they repeat it again at the end. The Mexican army has been playing a death march called "Deguello" right before the shooting starts every night, and Davey Crockett (Billy Bob Thornton, with impressively yellowed teeth) has had it. So he breaks out his violin, and starts playing a different tune in harmony, grimacing in time to the music, and doing it all on the highest parapet so the opposition can see.
In this brief scene, what I love about this country is summed up. The in-your-face attitude, the disrespect shown to hypocritical propriety, the non-conformity...it can be easy to forget sometimes, but this is one of the few countries founded by vehement nonconformists. Rebellion and individuality are traits so endemic to our culture that both sides of the political aisle pay lip service to the notion even when their actions don't actually support it.
But back to the passion concept -- Davey takes a long long time to die, and it's brutal. And the Jews in Mel's Jesus flick got off easy compared to the Mexicans herein. I wouldn't be surprised if dumbass rednecks take to punching out Latinos and yelling "Remember the Alamo!" The final battle (a post-Alamo victory for whitey, to send the gringos home happy) does have a shot or two which imply that dead Mexicans make people sad, but it's not a great countermeasure given how evil General Santa Anna looks. Now, he may have been evil, I dunno. Don't wanna be anally PC here, but you may be mad at Taco Bell for a few days after seeing this.
By the way, we never get to see the basement.
Also, Jim Bowie (Jason Patric) never gets in a knife fight. My companion Matt was upset by that.
Dr. Ted Baehr was actually in the house for this one, as opposed to sending his creepy minion the way he usually does. Baehr always has an entourage and wears a suit; his slimy buddy is generally alone and unkempt. Since some of the characters pray in this, I imagine the violence will get a free pass. We'll find out Friday.
Posted by LYT at 3:02 AM | Comments (0)
Calling All Spies
THE WOODS just had its first test screening recently. If you were there, I'd love to hear your report. Forget Harry Knowles -- remember who it was who broke the first set photos from the flick. That's right, me, courtesy of my pal "Pierre."
I want details -- I have not yet seen a full cut.
Posted by LYT at 2:45 AM | Comments (0)
April 7, 2004
La da dee, la dah
It's about 4 a.m., and I just got a call from a friend who's homeless. Says he's about ready to kill himself, and wanted me to put him up.
I told him I couldn't handle it right now. I've put him up twice before, and he didn't try to get a job those two times -- mostly just sat on my couch watching the History Channel and exhaling loudly.
I feel bad, but at the same time, if he's going to try to play me like my charity's the only thing between him and suicide, that just don't work. I've been his lifeline twice before, so far this year.
It was easy for Jesus to be charitable because he didn't own anything. It's harder for the rest of us.
I'm out of a salary, and rent is not cheap. Am I bad?
Posted by LYT at 4:11 AM | Comments (6)
April 6, 2004
Angry Chairman
I just read on another site that lead singer of Alice in Chains, Layne Staley, died on the same day as Kurt Cobain, but in 2002.
I remember no-one caring about that. Except Matt, who I knew would. I called him that day because I didn't think anyone else would get it. I knew he'd understand.
Layne wasn't as much of a surprise. He was more famously a junkie than Kurt ever was. Rumor had it at one point that he had to amputate his arms because of his excessive heroin use.
"Dirt" is quite possibly the greatest rock album ever, period. Yes, better even than Nirvana. Guns N' Roses' "Appetite for Destruction" is to me the only album that even competes with it.
Yet Layne's death was really a foregone conclusion. He'd been in seclusion (and a notable addict) for some years. Unlike Kurt, he created his own failure for a few years before leaving this world.
I was sad when he died, but most of the rest of the world seemed to shrug.
Posted by LYT at 11:55 PM | Comments (2)
The Cobain Head Trip
The ten year marker is what's most mind-blowing about the whole thing. Not that college was so long ago -- I reconciled myself to that a while back. The long periods of nothingness, followed by two years at the Sunset 5, make that time seem less substantial in hindsight.
But what is a trip is this: 10 years ago I was in college, somewhat different from who I am today but not by a huge amount.
10 years before that, however, I was NINE.
The Soviet Union had recently shot down that Korean airliner. The Day After was on TV (and in theaters in Europe). My parents were living apart, but it was still partially under the pretext that work was distracting my dad, and he'd be home when the Ph.d was done.
I was in fifth class at St. Brigid's school in the small, staunchly pro-IRA town of Straffan, County Kildare, Ireland. The teacher was a short and skinny power-tripping young woman named Mrs. Toolan, who, among other things, told us that the stars couldn't be boiling hot because they're too far away from the sun.
Anyway, time's speeding up, and that's scary. Ever since I went freelance, I've been having vivid nightmares.
In a way it's like 1997 again.
Posted by LYT at 1:44 PM | Comments (4)
April 5, 2004
Two Great Tastes?
McFarlane Toys has some really odd action figure pairings coming out this year.
(no, this is not a joke or a custom)
Posted by LYT at 11:38 PM | Comments (1)
Happy death-day, dear Kurt
10 years now, wow.
I was living with Greg Crum and Omar Josef Savoy in an off-campus apartment at USC. Got the phone call from my best friend at the time, Colin. Unrelated, but at the last minute he mentioned the radio show we were going to do that night. "I assume we'll be doing a Nirvana tribute?" I asked him why we would. He told me Kurt was dead.
I went to lunch. Ran into Frank "Featherhead" Moody, and told him. He simply went "Oh, he's dead now?" Remember that ther had been that suicide attempt a couple weeks before, that they tried to cover up as an accident, but turned out to really be a suicide attempt.
Colin and I ended up in Westwood -- I only had "Bleach" on tape, and needed the CD for the radio show (cassettes are a bitch on the air, cuz they're hard to cue up). Most every Nirvana Cd was selling out fast at every store -- funny how that is. The record store clerk at Wherehouse chided me for not having owned the disc previously (Hey, I had only just started converting to CDs!), then wondered aloud why it couldn't have been Eddie Vedder -- I believe that was Courtney Love's reaction too. Her album had just come out and everyone was digging it, but after Kurt died, she went even further off the deep end.
Nirvana had been supposed to headline Lollapalooza that year, but bowed out around the time of the suicide attempt. That ended up being the first year I actually made it to Lolla, now headlined by Smashing Pumpkins and The Beastie Boys, neither of whom I was hugely enamored of, but live the Pumpkins won me over and the Beasties convinced me I'd never like them.
I remember Rush Limbaugh bashing the late Cobain for being a drug addict.
We did the tribute show that night, kicking off with Tori Amos' Teen Spirit cover, and ending by mixing the original Teen Spirit with Weird Al's parody.
Kurt had been one of us -- the picked-on high school kid who didn't want asshole jocks to be his fans now that he was famous. He wore dresses just to piss off the conservatives and the more macho metalheads. He had made mention of walking away from fame and making low-key music with Michael Stipe.
My dad understood the impact of Kurt's death. My mom did not, dismissing it with some toss-off line like, "Well, don't kill yourself too, will you?"
I don't know if it's coincidence that I began one of my deepest depressions later that year.
The alternative music scene, though we didn't know it yet, was beginning its gradual death after that. When hard rock station KNAC folded, and KROQ started playing Metallica to compensate, that was one symptom. I think the success of the Spice Girls and Hanson was the final death knell, ushering in the Barbie/Ken doll pop era we're still in.
Anyway, discuss amongst yourselves.
Posted by LYT at 4:45 PM | Comments (8)
Just so's ya know...
I have received the first entry in the DVD contest. One more will make things competitive.
Posted by LYT at 12:50 AM | Comments (0)
April 4, 2004
PSA
For those of you who link directly to the blog or the main page, the photo of me and The Rock is now up on the site's front page...
you know....
lytrules.com
no, I'm not gonna link to it. Make the effort.
Posted by LYT at 5:01 AM | Comments (5)
April 3, 2004
WIN A "MONSTER CLUB" DVD
THE MONSTER CLUB doesn't officially get released until April 20, but you can win one now. (Note to D. Senior and B. Monteavaro -- you guys have earned freebies, and I will send those soon).
THE MONSTER CLUB is a campy/creepy horror anthology flick from 1980, starring Vincent Price, John Carradine, Donald Plesence and more. It opens with a vampire inviting a famous author to join him at a club for monsters (i.e. people in really cheesy masks) where bad '80s music is played (including UB40). There, three stories are told:
-one about a lonely monster who falls for a sexy con artist
-one, played for laughs, about a bullied schoolboy whose father is a certain Transylvanian Count
-and finally, one about a film director who stumbles upon a village of ghouls
DVD extras include the complete playable soundtrack, full-length commentary by my good self and Gregory Weinkauf, and a hidden extra short film in which I interview weapons coordinator Sean Barry-Weske, then go out to the beach to use the slingshot with him. (if you can't find this extra, ask me how)
Now, the contest:
Write your very best LYT parody, based either on the blog or my reviewing style. If you're new to this site, there's over a year's worth of archives for reference.
THE RULES:
1. Must be more than a paragraph, i.e. an entry reading "Review Update: Chicks show their hooters in the movie CHICKS WITH HOOTERS" will not be sufficient.
2. Only one entry per person.
3. Entries will be judged not by me, but by you, the readers. When all have been received, I will post them on the site without naming the authors. You will then vote by minipoll on the message board (anyone I catch voting for themselves will have their vote invalidated)
4. You will not necessarily remain anonymous -- if your post somehow directly offends any friend of mine, and they ask who wrote it, I will tell them.
5. My immediate family is off-limits for parody, unless you're a member of it.
6. Deadline for entries will be arbitrarily and capriciously decided by me. Email all entries to contests at lytrules dot com.
7. More than one person has to enter to make this a contest.
Posted by LYT at 6:18 PM | Comments (5)
Sit(and sit and sit and sit some more)-com
Thursday, I went to my first ever sitcom TV taping, for the pilot episode of my man Louis C.K.'s "Saint Louie."
Getting there was a pain. Oh, not the drive over the Cahuenga Pass, which did indeed suck. Just that after I parked and went to the usual Warner Bros. studio gate, I was told to go to a different gate. Before I could make it there, a slightly slow-witted fellow also going to the taping (for money, in his case; I was there for free) told me he had been to that gate, and that it wasn't the one. Instead, we were supposed to go to gate 5.
The guy at gate 5 was very surprised to see us, since no-one usually even tries to enter there. For that reason, he isn't given any information on what folks like us might actually want to know, and sent us back. Back to gate 4.
I ditched the slow-witted guy and ran back to gate 3 (these gates aren't exactly close to one another). There, I heard a different story -- the slow-witted fellow had not actually been told that it was not there, rather, he had told the guard a wrong street address and the guard had denied it. I was sent to a place called the visitor's center.
At the visitor's center, I noticed a gay guy from Audiences Unlimited, and I asked him the deal. He said I had to go all the way back to a big empty lot near where my car was parked (near gate 4) and board a bus there. So I did. Finally found the big parking lot wherein I was supposed to board a shuttle bus, and I did...this bus drove me right back to the visitor's center and the gay guy. Only this time, because I had validated my identity back at the big parking lot, I was allowed to go in. All of this crap took about an hour.
To enter the WB lot, one must go through metal detectors. Once on the lot, to enter any other building, one must go through another metal detector. Finally we got inside a soundstage, and sat upon bleachers made from old parts of Monica's bedroom on "Friends."
The set-up for sitcoms is interesting -- each set needed is layed out in a row, all side-by-side. Because of the live audience, the show must be shot in sequence, unlike a film set, where you'd simply set up to shoot in the bedroom and then shoot all the bedroom scenes. Here, we began the story in the bedroom, and ultimately ended up there too, and the camera crew had to re-set up each time.
Meanwhile, in the bleachers, we are kept "amused" by an obnoxious stand-up comedian. Sample joke: "Hey, did you hear Kentucky Fried Chicken's doing a Hillary Clinton meal? Two large thighs, two small breasts, and one LEFT WING!" Also, lots of "Hey, where you from?" type humor. He gives out prizes after each take for the person who laughs the hardest. This encourages much forced laughter.
Most every scene requires more than one take, and it's interesting to see how jokes get bigger laughs once they're familiar. Other jokes get changed -- a reference to Condoleeza Rice wasn't that funny, but when changed to a joke about Ryan Seacrest, it was funnier.
Louis hasn't acted in much before, but has apparently decided that his first starring role should be extra challenging -- he's working with children AND animals. All of the scenes that required very specific acting from the animal or the 2-year-old child (played by twins) had already been shot, as had one involving fire.
For someone as weird as Louis, the sitcom's surprisingly standard in premise: Louis plays a new father (named Louie) who's mildly disgruntled by how much having a baby has changed his life. His wife is the sister of his wacky best friend (who resembles a fatter version of LA Weekly film critic Chuck Wilson), who is also his coworker, and married (with, yes, a young child) to an equally wacky lady.
The one aspect of the show that does reflect Louis' natural weird sensibility is his character's job, but I won't spoil that in case this show takes off (CBS has not yet committed).
When our obnoxious stand-up host actually got around to juggling, he turned out to be quite impressive. At one point, he even juggled while balancing a ladder on his chin.
At about the third hour in, we got a slice of pizza and a bottle of water. It took about five hours before we got out of there. It's a half-hour show.
You feel like part of the crew when it's over, like you've put in some work. Being in the audience is fun, but grueling, especially if you're trying to keep up the heavy laughter each take in the hope of winning a prize. My friend ReJeKt managed to win a "Los Angeles" T-shirt for consistently maintaining his trademark "Ah hee hee...ahhhh, boy."
Anyway: Louis has a likable screen presence, and this show could be the "gateway drug" mainstream America needs in order to segue to his weirder stuff. I hope it doesn't keep him from making another film.
Posted by LYT at 5:59 PM | Comments (12)
April 2, 2004
Illiberal Education
You've probably heard the likes of David Horowitz and Larry Elder go on and on about how horribly liberally biased college campuses are these days.
Speaking from my own experience at USC, there was much whining about leftist bias even then, by many of the editorialists at the school paper, some of the guest speakers on campus like Oliver North, and the largest student groups on campus -- Campus Crusade for Christ and College Republicans. Yep, it sure was tough to be a conservative.
Here's another view.
Posted by LYT at 11:11 PM | Comments (0)
Review Update
You read the interview (I hope) with Rocky, now read the review of his movie Walking Tall
Quick Takes:
Games People Play: New York and The Return
Posted by LYT at 6:54 PM | Comments (0)
Damn Liberals!
The new Air America liberal radio network has been launched. Here in L.A., it's at 1580 AM.
The problem? My digital car radio doesn't go that far on the dial!
I guess conservatives are right, the Left really has fallen off the edge.
UPDATED: I've been listening to the station online, and am liking most of it so far, not least of all because it has relatively few commercials thus far. Janeane Garofalo's show is the one that I most often hear (there's some other one after her with a more strident female host who isn't that entertaining). Janeane's really taking to the format well -- I don't think her ideological opponents will be able to dismiss her as "just a comedian" for much longer, as they can (with some justification) with Al Franken still. As much as Al amuses me, his last book really has a split personality between trying to score serious political points, and trying to be funny with silly exaggerations.
I think the distinction may be that Janeane's comedy has always been somewhat political, and Al's never used to be until he became obsessed with Rush Limbaugh. He's still funnier doing Stuart Smalley than he is writing satirical fiction about Limbaugh and O'Reilly in Vietnam.
Air America's promos are also appealing, among them, "The laughingstock of talk radio, " and "Treason was never this much fun." The hosts need to start taking calls, though -- the essence of talk radio's success is that it makes the listeners feel like they have a voice. Janeane just said she didn't want to talk to right-wingers on the phone when she can do that on the street, but sorry, that's the nature of the job.
Right now as I listen, there's an endless music break -- they need better engineers on this station.
And now a snippet of Al Franken, out of context -- quickly yanked and replaced by dead air. Some growing pains are to be expected, but this is not a good start.
Posted by LYT at 4:05 PM | Comments (0)
April 1, 2004
“Moral Leader” beats degenerate in battle over rights to Biblical name
HOLLYWOOD -- Luke Ford, best known for his efforts to protect the Orthodox Jew and other endangered species, won his court battle Friday against Luke Y. Thompson over the use of the name Luke.
Justice Catherine Seipp ruled that the rainbow-headed whacko had breached a 1994 agreement between the two sides that limited his use of the name.
In a written judgment, Seipp said it was understandable the pious Australian blogger did not want to be associated with the movie-reviewing wrestling fan. "Some would say his (Thompson’s) glorification of polymorphous sexual perversity is somewhat unsavory," Seipp said.
Seipp acknowledged it might cost the movie critic, famous for lowbrow utterances such as “Hooters!” and “Fuck Bush!”, up to $50 million to change his name, but said some of his arguments in court had been "hopeless" or "astonishingly poor."
Mr. Ford argued that worldwide exposure for big hard-drinking social anarchists had increased due to television and the Internet, leading to more widespread use of the first name by Mr. Thompson. The two sides had almost identical online write-ups of L.A. Press Club parties.
Mr. Ford (www.lukeford.net) accused Mr. Thompson (www.lytrules.com) of breaking their agreement and filed a lawsuit seeking enforcement of his trademark rights.
Luke Ford, spokesman for himself -- known outside of the United States as the “Matt Drudge of Porn” -- said the judgment "means that my name and reputation is upheld."
Seipp said that Mr. Thompson, whose full corporate name is Doctor Sir Luke Yelasdi Herbert Walker Thompson Esquire, will be permitted a limited use of the name in the United States, but will no longer be able to use his Web site address.
The Hollywood, CA.-based wrestling fan expected the decision based on the judge's comments during oral arguments, said spokesman Matthew King.
"We're not surprised by today's ruling," King said. "But dude, we think it's totally bogus, and we intend to appeal."
King said he was not sure when the appeal would be filed. He was not sure what action, aside from heavy drinking, Mr. Thompson would take regarding his Web site, though it remained active Friday.
A further court session was set for October to determine costs and damages to be awarded. If he loses again, Mr. Thompson plans to change his first name to “Fuke” and promote the change with a line of T-shirts bearing the slogan “What the F...?”
(for the original story, click HERE)
Posted by LYT at 12:15 AM | Comments (7)