A wacky day of TV: An inexplicable Mel Gibson mini-marathon and the real Buffy

This always hilarious photo is from here.

- Yesterday, for some reason, they were showing several Mel Gibson movies on TNT. At 2:15, they played Payback, followed by Braveheart. I'm not sure if they had planned this for months and couldn't change the line-up, or if they actually thought the movies would be more in demand because of Mel's... problems.

I will say that I actually enjoy Payback, and it reminds me of why Mel has gotten so many chances in Hollywood. The dude can act, even if he is a horrible alcoholic and racist. He basically plays a bad, clever motherfucker in Payback, and he's the good guy. It predates stuff like Sin City and Kill Bill by a couple years, but it's a gritty, not-as-good "revenge" movie in that same vein. Mel and some of the supporting characters (James Coburn and Kris Kristofferson and vampy Maria Bello) in the movie have some really strong performances, as he is trying to get back the $130,000 $70,000 owed him.

More importantly, it is the perfect sort of movie for a lazy Saturday afternoon. It has lots of violence and explosions, and enough decent acting to keep you interested; it follows firmly in the footsteps of fare like Falling Down with Michael Douglas and Roadhouse with Patrick Swayze. (Also, Ebert is a big fan, if that helps persuade anyone.)

- Also on Saturday was the original Buffy the Vampire Slayer, of which I am the only remaining fan of. While the WB / UPN / whatever show has many, many more fans, especially among people who write fan fiction, I like the original movie for a couple reasons.

First, it doesn't take itself nearly as seriously as the series does. Kristy Swanson is goofier than Sarah Michelle Gellar, and the movie as a whole is very tongue in cheek. It's like the difference between Gremlins and Gremlins 2, with the movie Buffy being more of a spoof and exaggeration of horror movies. It was pretty odd for the time, considering that Buffy came out in 1992, four years before Scream.

Second, Swanson is much, much hotter than Gellar. I realize this is a scandalous statement to some, but take a look at that picture of her doing gymnastics and try to argue otherwise. Sure, she fell off the cliff into the Abyss of Non-Celebrity almost immediately after Buffy, but her peak is much, much higher than Gellar's. Although Gellar is undeniably cute, I never really viewed her as a major sex symbol like Swanson, Jennifer Love Hewitt, Denise Richards or Neve Campbell.

For those reasons, I was quite glad to see Buffy The Vampire Slayer pop up on VH1 Saturday afternoon. Congrats!

- And finally, ESPN's programming is just odd sometimes. Instead of showing any number of Major League Baseball games, they instead showed... a men's softball championship. Seriously, ESPN? Sigh.

News - Saturday, March 21, 2009

Looking around the web for bizarre, fun or interesting news...

- The job fair at the Foxy Lady is getting way too much publicity, but then again, I suppose I'm not helping by linking and commenting. I really doubt that anyone who had never, ever considered stripping before would suddenly change their mind because they were laid off; I imagine those who had considered it before simply decided to show up because of the job fair. And, if you do want that job, you're absolutely nuts. I also don't believe this article that claims some strip clubs are trying to revamp their image into something more fitness-orientated.

- Speaking of strippers (kinda), former New York governor Eliot Spitzer is now a contributor for Slate.com, which seems kind of odd to me. I don't think he's ever done an article for them explaining his actions either, which is doubly-odd to me. What's next, golfing correspondent O.J. Simpson? Anyway, his latest article on how governors will have a rough job balancing budgets in the current economic climate is pretty good, but more importantly, mentioning him gives me an excuse to run a photo of the foxy escort he was caught with, Ashley Alexandra Dupre (left). Also worth reading on Slate is an article about how the creator of lolcats is now making a bunch of money. Or, in lolcat terminology, "i can haz money?"

- Facebook blames an automated sagfeguard on the temporary halt in popularity of an application lambasting their new design changes. For the record, I'm also against the crappy redesign, which makes Facebook look like Twitter.

- Polar bears are shrinking and resorting to cannibalism because of global warming. Aww.

- If I had $300,000, I would definitely buy this dinosaur skeleton. What would be cooler than that? At the risk of sounding too much like Dane Cook right now, I think it would be the greatest pick-up line ever, if you could get the person to believe you. "Hey, want to come back to my apartment and check out my complete dinosaur fossil???"