Man this has been a couple of sad months for great people dying. Fuck that shit.
Saying George Carlin is funny is like saying… I don’t know… Something lame. I can’t even come up with a joke. But there was a period where Carlin was THE GUY in the standup world. To many (and a great deal of comedians), he still is.
The worst part of it is that he was still doing good work. He’s done three “really late age” comedy specials and the first two were “meh” but his last one was absolutely fantastic. He really dug into the subjects involved with being an old person and how nice it can be (”we got to go, grandpa’s tired”).
Something tells me he’s excited that his friends will give him the proper amount of respect and cross his name out of the address books in 3 months.
Those of you who already know who he is, are more than likely incredibly saddened by this news.
To those of you who don’t know who he is, here ya go:
Stan Winston was THE BEST practical effects guy in modern Hollywood. What’s that actually mean? It means he was the guy responsible invention and creation for all those amazing images that you know and love? Don’t believe me?
This guy had his hand in EVERYTHING. His speciality was make/up and creatures and worked on every single Tim Burton movie (meaning he designed: Edward Scissorhands and the Batman suit). He worked on every single James Cameron movie (designing The Terminator, Aliens, and in the upcoming Avatar). He did all of Speilberg’s creature stuff (Jurassic Park, AI, etc). He designed The Predator from Predator for pete’s sake. He did a lot of workman-like stuff too with Consantine (the only good part of the movie). Most recently, he even did the incredibly awesome Iron Man suit.
Apparently he’s just the nicest guy, who happened to be the most enthusiastic worker too.
It’s really sad.
One comment on a me-fi thread (props to Kevin for this)
This may sound inanely stupid, but I’ve actually rediscovered a sense of respect for police officers.
Many people have grown up with that sense of respect, but a good deal more fall into juvenile sentiment I Illustrated in the post below. It’s the typical suburban thing where they don’t see the actual service that Police provide the community. Kids just see annoying old jerks who are trying stop them from having fun. These kids also don’t see that they’re pretty lame… Of course, I was once one of those kids.
The other thing is we’ve lost what it truly means to be a police officer in the myriad of bullshit cop shows where you have to be psychic, or a genius, or a complete antagonistic retard, or David Caruso. They are all fake identities that has no bearing on real life and give no insight into what it means to be a good police officer. And people look at real gen-u-ine police and see them as not measuring up.
Being a true police officer, is a dignified position if there ever was one. It’s a genuine public service and one that suburban America has completely forgotten about.
Of course, the distractions for police officers are well-documented: the shift of focus from service to stat busting, bullshit drug rips, career-first thinking, racism, etc (and that’s what they are, distractions from doing the job right). The corruption of urban police forces is indeed a reality, but one that is vastly over-represented and over-suspected within the community. A suspicion that often can overshadow and even put limits on the effectiveness of said Police. (quick note, statistically/IA, the best police officers are African-American).
But to all the Gen-u-ine POlice who protect and serve and do their jobs to the best of their abilities, I thank ya kindly.
I’m sorry something just rubs me wrong about this guy.
I mean, sure, he’s responsible for Saturday Night Live and ushering in most of the good comedic talent to come out of this country (and Canada). Sure, he’s probably a good guy and all. Sure he produced Kids in the Hall. Sure he produces one of my favorite current sitcoms, 30 Rock.
But doesn’t something just seem off about him?
Maybe it’s the fact that Dr. Evil was based on him. Maybe it’s cause he seems like the annoying, glum, stubborn straight man in a room full of lovably entertaining goofballs. Maybe it’s cause he’s obsessive with the timing of the show (SNL). Maybe it’s because he’s supposed to be an odd control freak in the least-control-freak-friendly-environment imaginable. Maybe it’s because I’ve never found his dry humor all that funny. Maybe it’s because I have no idea what the hell I’m talking about.
But he just seems like a dick.
/Oh yeah and he keeps rejecting my SNL sketches I send in about how men are like this and women are like this
//and by send in, I mean leave crudely written sketches on his front door
///and by leave on his front door I mean put in his shirt pocket while he sleeps
To all the doubters, I’ve strained my knee before like that. It’s a scary moment because you feel little pop/tear and freaks the shit out of you. You think the worst. And then it can either be A) the worst B) Just a little pull.
I cowered on the ground hoping it would be B… and it was.
Paul Pierce not only came back to the floor, he walked right past Doc Rivers checking himself into the game. Then he launched two crucial threes to help pad the lead and complete dominate the quarter.
THIS is the shit the NBA finals are built on.
And better yet, that’s the shit that makes you a Celtics legend.
Paul Pierce, bitches.
Oh yeah, and the game was great too. Celts were swarming all over Kobe. Ever shot was off-balance and two guys in his face. Sure he’s so good he can hit a lot of those, but still. Celts were making it damn HARD for him. And Pau Gasol continues to impress everyone with his incredible length and quickness to the basket. Odom got in foul trouble but his size was giving us problems. Doc is still playing Cassell for some god forsaken reason. Yeah he had three big opening shots, but then he bricked the next 5. BRING IN EDDIE HOUSE! And also for all the lakers fans out her complaining about the Lakers’s shooting, let’s not forget this was a game were Garnett missed 9 straight shots. This is going to be an AMAZING series.
Ever since I made an offhand reference to Lt. Frank Drebin to my friend Puddy and he informed me how Police Squad! Is his favorite TV Show, I’ve been going back and watching clips episodes constantly. I’m amazed how well it still holds up.
Sure the show is mostly gags and 1/2 of them are pretty lame but in Puddy’s words “when they work they work so well.” The dude’s right. The show is freaking hilarious. To be fair, there’s a part of me that will always love the absurdist, lead age comedy of Marx Brothers on down. But you can totally see how Police Squad! has inspired a lot of stuff that has came since. I’m NOT talking about about the Epic Movie spoof nonsense. I’m talking about the goods: The Simpsons, Adult Swim, Arrested Development, Family Guy, 30 Rock.
Fox News is ALREADY pimping out the info about an alleged tape in which Michelle Obama said: “Whitey cut Medicare, Whitey put us in Iraq for no reason, Whitey do nothing about Katrina!”
This is hilarious. A bunch of bloggers, using a simple search for quotes on the internet revealed that this was in fact her talking about Bush and saying: “Why’d he cut Medicare? Why’d he put us in Iraq for no reason? Why’d he do nothing about Katrina?”
Way to go, misunderstanding the way people talk! Yeah, that’s right I used misunderstanding the way people talk as a noun. Deal with it.
The Sex And The City movie comes out tomorrow. As such, the influx of advertising has caused a tensing up in the sphincters of good ole’ American Boys across the country. Just on the radio yesterday I heard a series of dreadfully stupid guys tearing the entire thing a new one. The internet is lashing into this fucker like a sadistic prick that it is (yes I just called the Internet a sadistic prick). The conversations are everywhere. I’ve had a few interesting ones on the merits of the series/image/culture of SATC with some male friends, but mostly I’ve been listening to a non-stop parade of asshats make fun of it.
Why does the entire idea of a movie about fashion, dating, and older women make you want to be a colossal jerkass? Who cares? It’s just a movie and you don’t have to see it. Do you know how many movies are aimed at our (men’s) interests? About 88%. And most of those interests are borderline retarded. The other 11% of movies aimed at women are pandering romantic comedies that work so poorly that they make me want to dig up Charles Lederer’s corpse so he can start scripts again. And that leaves a measly 1% of movies that are for women and have a decent shot of being somewhat interesting. Sex and the City has a good shot at being in that 1% so what’s the big problem?
I’ve actually heard the movie isn’t that good, but that’s kind of irrelevant. What’s may be more relevant is my defensive stance probably comes from the fact that I enjoyed the show. I’ve seen every episode and once I let down my guard I realized the series has a a nice absorbing nature to it. Most of the time, it’s genuinely funny. The writing is cute but undoubtedly sharp. My favorite aspect is how brave the actresses are. This may sound lame, but it’s not. They’re completely unafraid to make themselves look silly/unglamourous (rather interesting for a show perceived as glamorous) and they realize that playing it straight is the way to go. Sure the show’s run has had some problems, but they’ve hardly been dehabilitating. While I don’t think the 1/2 hour format will lend well to a movie, none of that really matters. Mostly because there’s a lot of assumptions being tossed about and most of them aren’t really that accurate. SATC is not shallow. Sometimes they do deal with a shallow world/setting, but often it’s about the reality of those situations.
There’s also a lot of people bitching about how Sarah Jessica Park is ugly. This I don’t understand. She’s not ugly. Yeah, her face is a little weird, or unique depending on your view (the NYTimes called it “cubist”)… But that’s it. And most of the time she’s lighted fine on the show so it’s a completely non-issue. She happens to be a good actress who totally sells her part. Put in whatever dumbass girl you think is hot in the role (jessica alba for example) and it would fail… miserably. And even if you do think SJP’s ugly, what the hell does that have to with SATC being the hellspawn of satan? The best part of this is the majority of the negative reaction is largely confined to geek movie internet sites, where I can only guess they’ve never even conversed with someone as attractive as SJP in their entire lives.
The whole thing is adding up to this weird contrarian/backlash/sexist reaction that comes off as pretty asinine.
Look, I’m not above making fun anything. EVERYTHING is fair game. Just realize there’s an art to making fun of things that will reflect your maturity/personality. The funniest comment about SATC actually comes from Family Guy where they say “So this show is about three hookers and their mom?” That’s hilarious.
Comparing SJP to Mr. Ed and talking about how that movie must suck cause they’re old whores who like fashion is not. The “Ewww! It’s a girl movie!” shit has got to stop.
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comedy, don't like, language, television | Tagged: comedy, Death, Fuck you, George Carlin, HBO, HBO Comedy Specials, Sadness, seven words you can't say on television | 
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