Sometimes I go to Starbucks and get a piece of coffee cake. Often they have two varieties, regular and Portland. I get the Portland kind, and every time I get it, I ask, “What makes it Portland-y?” And then I always answer my own question with a joke along the lines of, “Does it taste like hippies?” or “Is it made from vegetarians?” I try to keep it fresh by mentioning something different every time, just in case it’s the same cashier that I’ve made the joke with before. But the other day I realized that I’ve never actually listened to the answer, which means I still don’t actually know what the difference is between Portland coffee cake and regular coffee cake. So maybe instead of cracking jokes I should shut up and listen? Is that the lesson here? Was my dad was right all along?

[Photo taken this afternoon in a Portland grocery store parking lot.]

“All right, ladies, let’s go to the grocery store!”

“OK! Let me just put on my too-tight low-rise jeans that leave the back side of my muffin top exposed!”

“And should I change out of my pajamas?”

“Nah, don’t worry about it. I’m wearing the pants that only come up to the bottom of my butt.”

“What if we get to the store and discover we’re out of wiper fluid?”

“Don’t worry, I’ll bring this jug of moonshine just in case.”

“OK, we’re ready!”

“Let’s go!”

“Don’t forget to lock the double-wide!”

Hope you weren’t planning to sleep anytime soon! Or ever!

[YouTube]

Adjectives Actually Used to Describe Wine in the New Film “Bottle Shock”:

round
woolly
chewy
unctuous

Adjectives That Should Also Be Acceptable to Describe Wine, Then, If Those Are OK:

blasphemous
pouty
ambidextrous
runny
bow-legged
pentagonal
quixotic
digital
off-Broadway
unverified
bi-curious
hirsute
circumcised
surreal
unmarried
ergonomic

Earlier this month, a very sad thing happened: Utah Valley State College became Utah Valley University.

Longtime readers will recall that when I lived in Utah Valley (i.e., the Provo/Orem area) and worked for a newspaper there, UVSC was one of my favorite things to make fun of. In fact, it was a favorite thing for many people in that region to make fun of. I wrote several “Snide Remarks” columns for the sole purpose of mocking UVSC, and mocked it in passing in several others. (Search for “UVSC” on this site and you’ll get plenty of hits.)

Becoming a university instead of a state college doesn’t automatically mean it’s now a really awesome center of learning, of course. It may be on the right track, but it still has open enrollment, which means you can go there no matter how stupid you are. I will continue to childishly poke fun at the place regardless of what it’s called.

So why is the switch from UVSC to UVU sad for me? Because it invalidates my song “UVSC,” which was a parody of “Under the Sea” and cannot survive a change in lyrics. I’d have to write a whole new song. And if you’ve heard “UVSC” — which you can do for free here, or download it for 99 cents here — you know that it’s a thing of beauty that can never be duplicated. Not that I do a lot of shows in Provo (the only place the song is funny) anyway, but still. It’s the end of an era.

Farewell, UVSC! I shall always remember you and laugh. (At you, not with you.)

So I was in the shower Wednesday morning, and I was thinking about the Rotten Tomatoes users’ unusually vicious responses to negative reviews of “The Dark Knight,” and you know me, I’m always looking for a little fun, so I thought, “I should post a negative quote on Rotten Tomatoes just to see if they wish fiery death upon me, too.”

And so I did. I wrote a “review” of the film that simply said this:

This is easily the worst Batman film so far, and I include “Batman & Robin” in that statement.

Just kidding. It’s fantastic. My real review will be posted Thursday. I just wanted to see if a negative quote on Rotten Tomatoes would get me the same kind of psychopathic comments that other negative reviews have gotten. If it does, I guess that means those idiots really are just going by the one-sentence quotes, and not actually clicking over to read the whole review.

At Rotten Tomatoes, I gave it a “Rotten” rating and posted the first sentence as my quote: “Easily the worst Batman film so far, and I include ‘Batman & Robin’ in that statement.”

(Didja know that the RT staff doesn’t assign Fresh or Rotten or choose the quotes, but that the critics themselves usually do it? I suspect the big-time critics like Ebert have interns do it for them, or maybe the RT people give them special consideration. But most critics — particularly those of us on the lower rungs — provide our own quotes.)

I did all of this just before 10 a.m. Within 45 minutes, there were 67 comments posted. You can read them all here. To my great surprise, almost everyone did actually click the link to read the whole review before they posted, and thus saw the joke and laughed at it. In fact, the sudden massive influx of traffic clogged my site for several minutes.

Continue reading…

My friend and colleague Dave Cornelius is good with the Photoshop, and he likes to make parody movie posters. Sometimes I have ideas for posters that I think he should make, that I cannot make myself because the Photoshop, I am not so good with her. So here are three that I have suggested to Dave in recent weeks that he has obligingly produced. Admire their craftsmanship, if nothing else.

A couple of readers recently posted “WALL-E”-related questions that warrant attention…

I don’t know much about the Oscars, but are animated films eligible for best picture? (I’m thinking of “Wall-E” here obviously).

Yes, any type of film is eligible for Best Picture, including types for which there is also a special category, i.e., animated films, documentaries, and foreign films. Only one cartoon, “Beauty and the Beast,” has ever been nominated, though, and the addition in 2001 of the Best Animated Feature category kind of ghettoizes cartoons, in my opinion. Academy voters figure, “Oh, we don’t have to bother considering the animated films for the top honors, because they have their own special category over here.”

But the fact is, animated films are often among the very best movies of any kind in a given year, and there’s already talk that “WALL-E” might break through the barriers and get a Best Picture nomination. At any rate, it’ll definitely win the Best Animated Film category.

Can it be nominated in both categories? Yes.

Continue reading…

You know how sometimes it’s funny to insert yourself into the background of someone’s photograph and ruin it? And by “sometimes” I mean “always”? I guess someone decided that practice is called “photo bombing,” and they’ve compiled a collection of such pictures here. (Warning: Mooning and other mildly indecent acts are sometimes part of the photo bombing experience. The pics are rated PG.)

There was a flurry of wrong guesses last week, but only one commenter got it right: This week’s Bad Movie at Film.com is “Patch Adams,” a wretched, manipulative sham that stands as the supreme example of Movies That Make Us Want to Smack Robin Williams. So nice guessing, whoever it was!

Here is my anecdote concerning “Patch Adams.” In early January of 1999, I went with a friend to a theater in Salt Lake City for a screening of “A Civil Action.” I wasn’t really reviewing movies yet, but I’d gotten an invitation at the newspaper I worked for, so hey, why not. However, we arrived with just moments to spare before showtime, and the theater was already packed, so we couldn’t get in. Not wanting to waste the trip, we decided to see something that was also playing at this theater … and for some reason we chose “Patch Adams.” I don’t vividly recall my reaction, but I know it was not positive. Even with my critical skills still at a rudimentary level I saw through the film’s shameless fraudulence. Watching it again last week, I hated it rather passionately. There were a few times when I was yelling and gesticulating at the TV.

As for next week’s movie, it was going to be “My Giant,” starring Billy Crystal and a very tall man. But I sat down to watch it the other night and was dismayed to learn that it’s actually not all that bad. I’m not saying it’s good, just that it’s not terrible. More like a mediocre but good-natured sitcom. I had to turn it off after a half hour or so because I couldn’t afford to waste my time watching something that wasn’t excruciating. You see what my life has become.

So you get to guess on what the replacement film for next week is. (Don’t worry, I’ve watched it, and it’s appropriately awful.) Your clues are that it was released in the mid ’80s (think ‘84-’86); it was rated PG and generally aimed at families; it starred someone who had previously starred in a cult-favorite TV show; and though it was a box office flop, I think many people will recognize the title and basic premise. You might have even seen it on video.

Guess away! And in the meantime, enjoy my assessment of “Patch Adams.”