They want the communists ... er ... terrorists to win!

Over the weekend, I watched a film my father has recommended to me numerous times: On the Beach. The story begins a month or so after a nuclear holocaust has destroyed all the nations of the earth except Australia. Unfortunately, a radioactive cloud is slowly drifting to that country and everyone is coming to terms with their eventual deaths ... and the death of the human race as a whole.

It's quite a film, and must have been rather daring when it was released in 1959. Instead of laying blame on a specific superpower, the film is more a general cautionary note against the nuclear arms race. Apparently, this was still too radical for some during the height of the Cold War. The New York Daily News took a swipe at the film in it's review:

"This is a would-be shocker which plays right up the alley of a) the Kremlin and b) the Western defeatists and/or traitors who yelp for the scrapping of the H-bomb. ... See this picture if you must (it seems bound to be much talked about), but keep in mind that the thinking it represents points the way toward eventual Communist enslavement of the entire human race."

Reading this was reassuring in a way. It shows that the language of the radical and dangerous right wing hasn't changed a hell of a lot in almost fifty years. It makes the shmucks easier to spot.

We'll throw in all nine seasons of Family Matters if you promise not to give them back

Uh ... er ... what?!?! (Via CNN):

Russia is out to find its own Brooke Shields to star in a new, local-language version of the sitcom "Suddenly Susan."

The Russian reincarnation of NBC's 1996-2000 series, which starred Shields in the title role as a San Francisco columnist, is part of a big move by the show's producer, Warner Bros., to develop foreign versions of old U.S. sitcoms, such as "Perfect Strangers," "Step by Step" and "Full House." (Warner Bros., like CNN, is a unit of Time Warner.)

"Susan" is being produced in conjunction with a Russian broadcaster, CTC, which will shoot 40 episodes of the series. CTC has also committed to 40 episodes of "Step by Step" and 20 episodes of "Full House."

Meanwhile, the first episode of the Russian version of "Perfect Strangers" debuted a week ago on Ren TV. Mismatched roommates Larry and Balki have become Ivan (Artem Semakin) and Andrei (Anton Eldarov). Andrei arrives from his remote ex-Soviet republic and moves straight into the flat of his Moscow cousin, Ivan, where cultures clash between the two dissimilar characters.

I know there is still some pent up anger on the part of Americans for the now-defunct evil empire, but this is just cruel!

The "Not - Ready - To - Spend - Any - Money - On - The - Chris - Kattan - Years"

Recent news from Digital Bits informs us that, after being bombarded with a slew of single disc DVD's that focus on individual performers and themes, NBC is going to finally give us all of it.

They're giving us the whole. damn. thing.



Now think about this for a moment. SNL is currently in it's thirty-second season. It's logical to assume that they aren't going to stop at season one or even season five (though, if I ever have the inclination to buy any of these gargantuan sets, my purchases won't likely go past this point). According to the episode guide, there was a total of 604 episodes in seasons one to thirty-one. At 70 minutes an episode (90 minutes minus commercials), that means a complete set of box sets of the past 31 seasons will come to just over 704 hours of material. Watching this at a rate of, say, 16 hours a day would mean you could complete it in a month and a half.

Damn.

I can't imagine anyone who would want to do this, myself very much included. All the number crunching I did is just to demonstrate what a friggin huge amount of material this is. And a great deal of it, sorry to say, sucks.

But as I said, I may be tempted to grab at least Season One. If nothing else, it would be a great time capsule. When George Carlin took the stage as host of the premier episode on October 11, 1975, I was one day shy of my second birthday. I obviously don't remember watching it during that first run, but I did catch the truncated episodes they showed on Nick at Nite When I was in High School.

Those are good memories. Perhaps even good enough to blow eighty dollars on Season One.

"Eat you some of that puddin'. It's good for ya."

Having nothing else to post really, I present to you one of the most entertaining extras I've seen on a DVD since the 60's cartoon on The Incredibles.

This clip is from The Ice Harvest and has Billy Bob Thornton doing some Slingblade improv during one of his scenes with John Cusack. It's even funnier if you've seen both Slingblade and Ice Harvest, but it's still pretty damn funny on it's own.

"Yeeeeaaaaaah, boyyyyyyy!"

In commemoration of my birthday today, here's a generation-specific article from The Onion last Tuesday:

With recruitment down sharply, and the prospect of being held back by the nation of millions appearing once again likely, top-ranking Public Enemy officials issued an order Monday for all retired Security Of The First World personnel to return to active duty.

"In order to come to the aid of the hip-hop nation, we must regrettably ask those men who heroically served the Black Planet to once again don their fatigues and take up their plastic arms," S1W Chief and Public Enemy Minister Of Information Professor Griff said. "We have no more options. It's not as though we can simply call 911. That would be a joke."

"Some see this as a sign of defeat," Griff added. "Don't believe the hype: We will come out triumphant in this Mess Age."

S1W comprised the paramilitary security wing of the Public Enemy forces from the late 1980s to the mid-1990s. Their intimidating martial presence and synchronized dance steps routinely struck fear in the hearts of concertgoers hoping to enjoy a Beastie Boys or Big Audio Dynamite performance.

Personally, I'd love to see a cage match with the entire Public Enemy group vs. about a dozen of the biggest Gansta Rappers out there today. It wouldn't even be a contest.

Where's Chuck D when you need him?

And featuring Danny Trejo as "Machete" ... again

Would you like to know what the best part of Kill Bill: Volume 1 was? Before the movie even started, a vintage animation card comes up with the words "Feature Presentation" on it. It was the very same card and very same music I remember seeing before some films in my early childhood. It is the absolute perfect device to start Tarantino's homage to Seventies revenge films.

I mention this because the trailer for his next film Grindhouse (which can be found at ComingSoon.net) seems to be even more evocative of the period than the Kill Bill films were. It's NSFW, so check it out when you get home.