Stay classy, United States!

Well, hey, it's the Fourth of July. Therefore, this entry shall be short. I'm not a big Fourth of July guy, or of holidays in general - Check this entry here for why I'm not a huge fan.

The one really positive thing about holidays is that a lot of normal programming is abandoned, and some sweet movies are shown instead. Specifically, today TBS is airing Anchorman and Starsky and Hutch, Spike has a Star Wars marathon going on, and WGN is showing The Goonies, Beetlejuice and Batman. Holy smokes, that's some good movies!

Therefore, my night is pretty set. Tomorrow's entry will be about another game show I watched today, Baggage, which is insane...ly awesome! zing!

Joey, do you like movies about gladiators?

Joey, have you ever been in a... in a Turkish prison?

I was saddened to learn this week that classic Hollywood actor Peter Graves died this week at age 83. For more information on his life and movie roles, I think this obit story by Time magazine hits the notes pretty well. He was prolific as all heck, as his IMDB page lists 131 roles.

However, I will always remember Graves for a movie that oddly shaped my youth, considering it was released in 1980 - Airplane! I've exposed on my love for the sequel in the past on this blog, and the performance of Graves in both of the movies is understated and great. I first saw the movies when I was in my teens, along with other fare like Naked Gun, and I think they all shaped what I find funny and how I personally write. The Phantom Tollbooth and The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy were the literary versions of the Airplane, with characters playing everything completely serious and literal for laughs. All of this media just has a sort of light playfulness with language and words that makes them all wonderful.

Unfortunately, I find that this is a quality severely lacking in most current spoof movies. I have no idea who buys movie tickets for all of the Wayans' brothers crapfests now, since the last funny Scary Movie was the second installment, and this was primarily due to the presences of David Cross and Chris Elliott. I admit that I will sometimes be tempted by the trailer for one of their movies, only to find horrible reviews on the Internet, or worse, no reviews, which means that the studio barred critics from attending the turd bomb.

This wasn't always the case. Using my standard critic bar, Roger Ebert loved the original Airplane, and all of the Naked Gun movies.

What's the difference? While Airplane used its cast to play against type - such as the aforementioned Graves as not a stoic hero, but a pilot vaguely interested in pedophilia - the new spoof movies use their cast to film B-movie versions of existing movies. There is always an undercurrent of "aren't we so funny for making fun of this?" during the later Scary Movie movies, and it is even worse in tripe like Date Movie and Epic Movie. The characters of Airplane were never, ever in on the joke, which probably helps to explain why everything is actually funny.

Rumack (Leslie Neilsen): Captain, how soon can you land?
Captain Oveur (Graves): I can't tell.
Rumack: You can tell me. I'm a doctor.
Captain Oveur: No. I mean I'm just not sure.
Rumack: Well, can't you take a guess?
Captain Oveur: Well, not for another two hours.
Rumack: You can't take a guess for another two hours?

The cool, signed picture from Airplane! is from this dude's blog.

On attraction, romantic comedies and Valentine's Day

Nobody puts Baby in the corner.

I generally don't like to do personal posts on this blog. Because of a horrible, stupid past experience on my part, I realize how harmful it can be to get really personal on a blog read by everybody. I can't even read features like "Modern Love" at The New York Post, because they make me squirm way too much. While I consider myself a relatively open person, I definitely wouldn't want to reveal everything, like many of those letters.

That being said, I thought I'd talk a bit about romantic comedies and the new movie Valentine's Day. Basically, a couple of friends have noted that they think romantic comedies suck because they aren't reflective of real-life. I agree with them - Most feature somewhat dweeby guys getting with women way out of their league, or someone pining for their best friend. In most real-life situations, someone would have made a move at some point.

However, that being said... Some of the things in romantic comedies are correct. For example, I think (practically) everyone has 1) at least one friend that they have a crush on, that the friend is completely oblivious to and 2) are probably the object of someone's affection, and they have no idea that this is the case. For myself, #1 is true, and obviously, I don't know if #2 is also correct. If there was some way to take a poll on the matter, I could prove it, but I don't feel like doing such a thing.

Does this mean you'll ever end up together? Probably not. I mean, most people end up as friends for a reason. (The most prevalent one being that you don't ask a person out because you're pretty sure that they'll say no, so you settle for friendship.) Of my current friends, I know of one relationship that arose out of the pair being long-term friends first.

Now, to segue randomly to the movie Valentine's Day, I am a bit annoyed that they're defiling my birthday - my 26th, for the record - with what essentially seems to be a movie of romance vignettes featuring big name stars. That is the impression I got from the trailer and overloaded cast, and it is a sentiment shared by Ebert and Dana Stevens of Slate.com. In fact, a quote from Stevens' friend in her review - "Fine, mush your boring faces altogether already." - reminds me of something my friend and frequent blog commenter Danielle would say.

So really, if you're looking for a Steve-approved movie for Valentine's Day, don't see Valentine's Day. Just stick to my favorite romantic comedy ever: Say Anything.



Picture from this blog.

Dear Comedy Central, stop sucking

[Right] An image from Let's Bowl, the best dispute-settling bowling game ever broadcast on cable television.

Once upon a time, I remember when Comedy Central didn't suck. To be fair, they still do have some great shows. South Park, The Daily Show and The Colbert Report are all still awesome, and I am excited to check out more of Michael and Michael Have Issues, and Tosh.0.

But the rest of their shows and what they choose to show is severely lacking in originality or taste. For example, The Sarah Silverman Show varies wildly in quality; maybe I'm just tiring of her “I say offensive things!” schtick. There is still too much blue-collar comedy crap and iffy stand-up in general. I'll go months without seeing Mitch Hedburg or Zach Galifankis or Todd Barry.

However, there are two especially egregious things Comedy Central has indulged in lately – shitty movie selection and an inability to get creative with programming.

Speaking on the first point, I can do without Dane Cook's Employee of the Month being shown on weeknights. Employee of the Month is the type of dreck you convince yourself into renting from the local video store when you and your girlfriend want something on the background while you make out. Dane Cook is to college frat guys what Larry the Cable Guy is to rednecks. Whatever wit their acts originally possessed has been pimped out to relentless commercialism.

If you are Comedy Central, how are you not showing a bunch of classic, great comedies on loop? I'm not even talking about stuff like Duck Soup with Groucho Marx or Dr. Strangelove, which would be artsy and daring selections. I mean simple stuff like letting Caddyshack, Ghostbusters and Stripes slip to AMC, not showing This Is Spinal Tap and Best In Show and Waiting for Guffman, and letting VH1 and MTV show a bastardized version of Wayne's World. I just rattled off seven awesome comedies, and I can't remember seeing any of them on Comedy Central, and all of them are old enough that the viewing rights probably aren't that expensive to procure.

Lastly, I wish Comedy Central would take some more risks with what they do chose in terms of original programming. They have tried the talk show format about 50 million times, and unless it is The Daily Show or run by a former Daily Show staffer, it inevitably fails. If you blinked, you might have missed the shows hosted by David Alan Grier, D.L. Hughley, Adam Carolla, Lewis Black and Colin Quinn.

Back in the day, Comedy Central would at least attempt more original programming. An example would be Let's Bowl, a show that seemingly only I loved. It featured bowling matches between amateurs to settle petty disputes with snappy and snarky MXC-style commentary. It predated Dodgeball and MXC and Ninja Warrior, so I feel like it was a little ahead of its time.

Once upon a time, Comedy Central took a chance on a show that just had two robots and a human lost up in space commenting on shitty movies – It was called Mystery Science Theatre 3000. And another time, they greenlit a show with very mature elementary school students that cussed a lot – South Park. And another time, they let a guy who had a very popular cult movie about weed have his own show with almost no oversight – Chappelle's Show. These risks seemed to pay off quite a bit.