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::Saturday, August 03, 2002::

DEFINITELY NOT THE MASTER - It's late and I'm tired so I had to shake my head three times when I saw what rotten tomatoes chronciled concerning Master of Disguise. If you weren't aware rottentomatoes.com is a very cool site that collect the reviews of critics from all over the country and compiles them for each movie. Each movie is then given a rating (out of a 100%) based on how many of the critic’s reviews is positive. If you are thinking at all about going to see Dana Carvey's, who I actually enjoy very much, new flick then I suggest you look at the about Rotten Tomatoes page for Master of Disguise. I've never seen anything like it before.

I personally have not seen the movie yet (Though a number of my co-workers did and they said it waste of their time, short as that was, but it was still an unneeded waste of time). *I* can only imagine what the film is like. But Ebert gave the film a rather pathetic one * and I haven't heard him trash a movie this bad since Freddy Got Fingered when he uttered my favorite lines of his, (concerning FGF) "This movie doesn't scrape the bottom of the barrel. This movie isn't the bottom of the barrel. This movie isn't below the bottom of the barrel. This movie doesn't deserve to be mentioned in the same sentence with barrels.

I do know that The Master of Disguise, the movie itself, is only 65 minutes (and does not contain any barrels). For most people who have to pay 8 dollars to see a movie that should be a pretty stinkin' enterting 65 minutes. But don't worry about that! Revolution Studios has stretched out the credits to an astonishing 15 minutes! The credits are full of outtakes, deleted scenes, flubbed lines and on set shenanigans. Basically all the stuff you would normally find on the DVD minus the audio commentary which you can provide yourself (it will likely be more interesting) So maybe the 8 dollars is worth as it'll save you the price of buying that DVD (like anyone actually would after seeing this movie I suspect). Still even though it sounds, looks and has created horrible responses I want to see the movie because of these reasons. Can it really be that bad, I wonder aloud? (Well Battleship Earth was so why not?)
:: Posted by Citizen Ryan | 3:58:55 AM| Link This ::

MY BETTER HALF -

50 %

My weblog owns 50 % of me.
Does your weblog own you?

Got the tip on this quiz from the very cool wannbegirl.org. Check out her site, it's worth the journey...she's one of the orginal webloggers.
:: Posted by Citizen Ryan | 8:15:56 PM| Link This ::

ONE SHORT OF PERFECTION - I just took the Sports IQ test over at ESPN.com. I'm proud to say that I scored 95% (19 out of 20). Now this is no easy test (though I assure you if you know who Rich Garces is you will know that he is not the world's fastest human). The only question I did got wrong had nothing to do with actually sports. It asked what actor played the pitching coah in Bull Durham (that's a movie, not sports!). I guess I do now what I'm talking about (when it comes to sports). You can compare your score to mine by clicking here to take the test then going here to see my answers.
:: Posted by Citizen Ryan | 1:18:39 AM| Link This ::

HARWELL IS THE BEST - Can you imagine a player being traded for an announcer? Well it happened, once, to the great Ernie Harwell who now calls game for the Detriot Tigers and who when this, his 55th year in the booth, concludes he will retire at the young age of 84. If you've ever heard Harwell's sweet Georgia voice you'll know what I'm talking about. He has one of those voices that was born to broadcast sporting events. As soon as you hear it, you know it's him. ESPN's Jim Caple has a great article this week about how he spent a game with Harwell. Notice the way that Harwell mixs information and humor in the same thought. He's done this game of baseball so long that it's like a brother to him.

Fox should do a smart thing this fall and tell Jack Buck and especially Tim McGarver that they cannot call the World Series (if there is one). They should tell them that their over the top sarcastic tone is not worthy of baseball's fall classic. They need to learn there there complete distaste for the statistics and character of baseball in exchange for the "big call" or close relationships with players is not what baseball needs. All the gimics and sound effects that FOX tries to through into their broadcast makes watching the World Series like watching WWE event. Let the game bring the people. Baseball does not need McGarver and Buck. What it needs is a unqiue voice. One that speaks with reason and from experience. What baseball needs is more Ernie Harwell.
:: Posted by Citizen Ryan | 1:06:01 AM| Link This ::

MORE STREAMING MOVIE REVIEWS - Figured I would catch up on reviewing some of the movies I've seen over the past month in the fastest and funniest way I know how...by writing in stream of conciousness.

Lilo and Stitch - I loved this movie. It made be feel good to be a movie fan. Disney has done it again. Come to think of it when has Disney ever really failed when it comes to making animated features? They really haven't made a "bad" animated movie in sometime. Maybe this is because of all the focus it takes to make the movie. They are quite literally going through the movie frame by stickin frame. That's a pretty meticilous way to go about things. But it appears that it generates a kind of deeper focus on the story and the characters of the movie. Lilo and Stitch has all of these. It's also great to see Disney get back to making some orginal cartoons and not taking the idea of long dead authors and making a movie about them. Stitch is the best. I want one of him.

Men in Black II - This movie was so stickin clever. I really enjoyed the writing in it. The humour always feels fresh and vibrant. A lot of people said it just repeated gags from the first one, but having never seen the first one I can't complain at all (surprise, surprise!). I like Will Smith when he's toned down like this, not over the top crazy like in ID4 or Bad Boys. The guy does have solid comic typing when he's givin good dialouge to deliver. And that dog he's great. I noticed the dog is used plenty in the first act of the movie but one Kay enteres the pictures we see much less of him. This was a wise idea seeing that a the talking dog could get old very fast and you don't want to muddle the story down with another lead character (at least in a movie of this type). Laura Flynn Boyle is very hot but what in the world was up with her character? This is a villain. There's nothing special about her at all. The giant worm named "Jeff" was more interesting then Serlena. What is with the recent trend in Hollywood with creating flat villians? Have all the good one's been used up? Where's Hannibal Lecter when you need him? - actually he'll be here October 4th in Red Dragon, all beit in a slightly smaller, but still creepy as hell, minor role.

Reign of Fire - This movie stunk! I was expecting a whole lot more from Rob Bowman. The best part about this movie was the poster, which showed modern day London under attack by fire breathing dragons. The movie instead takes place years after London and all major cities have been destroyed (what!). Now I thought this might be a good idea but wouldn't it be cooler to see todays armies and air forces taking on fire-breathing dragons in the skies about Paris, London, Miami? Yes I certainly think it would. Instead what we get is a hodgepodge of post-apocoliptic Mad Max grabage and an all too series Matthew McCongheay running around with a shaved head and cigar (what!) trying to use parachutes to kill dragons? Christian Bale was okay. His accent was so strong though that neither myself or the people I saw the movie with could much understand what he was saying. This movie had potentional but when nowhere fast.

Eight Legged Freaks - This movie stunk! Roland Emmerich and Dean Deviln produced this movie and I can't think of another producing team that has a worse string of decreasing success. Their last four movies have grossed the following totals: Independence Day - 300m, Godzilla - 160m, The Patriot - 100m, Eight Legged Freaks - 20m (est.). Now that's downhill. Freaks wasn't the campy B-Movie horror it was suppose to be. Kari Wuhrer is the wrong woman for this movie. She's made her money by showing her breasts in straight to video semi-porn (all T&A). I don't begruge he an attempt to make a serious career, not at all, but she doesn't appear to have the acting goods to make it. Arquette is the right guy for the his role. He's goofy and cheesy enough and the spider where a lot of fun. But the movie just didnt' have that all out sense of fun or doom to make it for me. The mix wasn't even very good. The problem here is that you can't really make a oldtime, cheesy, B-movie, horror/comedy if you know you are making an oldtime, cheesy B-movie, horror/comedy (especailly if you are using A-list Producers, or former A-list producers)

K-19: The Widowmaker - Harrison Ford speaking in a Russian accent....no...not working at all.
:: Posted by Citizen Ryan | 2:41:06 PM| Link This ::

IF YOU REALLY WANTED TO HURT ME, YOU SHOULD HAVE GOTTEN TO ME SOONER! - All these quizzes poppin' up around the internet are certainly starting to become a little annoying. Every single imaginable subject has to have it's own quiz (Which Colossal Death Robot Are You?). That's why I only bother to take the ones the quizzes which are unique or down right cool. For those reasons the follow quiz is posted below (it fit both qualifications):

Which John Cusack Are You?
:: Posted by Citizen Ryan | 4:58:00 AM| Link This ::

TAKE THAT PUNK - While we are on the subject of theater horror stories........

There use to be an 70 year old woman who worked at my theater. The joke was always that she had always been there and theater was built around her. She was a very nice lady and everyone enjoyed working with her. Because of her age she usually only did Box. Selling tickets and whatnot.

Now we have/had a policy of not allowing any shopping bags, backpacks, etc in the theater. One night a young teenager comes into the theater with a backpack on and tries to buy a ticket. The 70 year old woman informs the young kid that before she can sell him a ticket he must leave his backpack in his car or somewhere outside the front doors.

The young kid gets quite upset. He doesn't have a car and has no where to leave the backpack. The woman attempts to explain that it is the company's policy since 9/11 and she can not break it or make any exceptions. The kid finally loses it and begins cursing and culminates by calling the woman a Nazi.

The woman stares at the kid for a long second and then roles up her shirt sleeve revealing a faded number imprinted on her arm 58 years ago in the Holocaust.

The kid walks out of the theater and is never heard of again.
:: Posted by Citizen Ryan | 2:11:08 AM| Link This ::

PAGING LES MOONVES - Today's headline story of the nine Pa. coal miners who were safely rescued after being stuck in a collapsed mine shaft for 77 hours is an amazing story. Heck it's one of the true great and happy stories of recent memory...but a cyncial part of me wonders how long it will be till some TV exec wants to make a quick buck and turns this real life drama into hokey television melocrap?
:: Posted by Citizen Ryan | 6:57:08 PM| Link This ::

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