Archive for August, 2006

By Guest Reviewer: Billy Gordon

As always, Improv Everywhere agents received a somewhat cryptic e-mail a week before the mission, which simply stated the meet up point and time, and what items were required for participation. For this mission we would meet up at the monument in Madison Square Park and needed to bring watches. A little after 3:30 the mysterious figure known only as “Charlie” announced that we would be infiltrating the nearby Home Depot on 23rd St. between 5th and 6th.

He then divided up the group according to our birthdays, planning to station half the people on the ground floor and half the people in the basement. He then further divided us to which street we would approach Home Depot from, and told us to scatter our entrances, so we would not be a giant mass of people approaching all at once. Our mission was to enter Home Depot and pretend to be normal shoppers until 4:15, when we would all shop in slow motion for 5 minutes, then at 4:20 return to normal. Then at 4:25 we would all completely freeze for 5 minutes. We synchronized our watches, and were sent on our way.

I entered the building, and made my way to the basement scouting out an ideal location to do some fake shopping. After settling on the welding section, I patiently waited around for a few minutes, trying not to catch the attention of the Home Depot employees. At 4:15 every agent began moving in slow motion, I was in a somewhat abandoned isle so my view of the big picture was limited, however I did notice the other agents slowly reaching out for tools and other items. At 4:20 everything returned to normal except for the somewhat weirded out employees.

At 4:25 the real fun began. My watch was a few seconds behind, but as soon as I noticed a frozen agent to my left I also froze in position. A few minutes went by, with almost no activity in my isle, then at around 4:28 a Home Depot employee began calling out to me. Our instructions were very specific, don’t break character and stay as motionless as possible, so I tried to think of the best way to react to him calling me. I stayed motionless for about another 7 seconds while he was calling “Excuse me sir, sir, do you need help with anything, sir are you alright, sir, sir, is everything OK?”. I then turned to him, moving only my head, and stared at him for a second, before giving a slow nod (while never taking my eyes off him), and then slowly turned my head back to its original position, freezing again. In the second before I turned my head back, I noticed the somewhat creeped out look on his face. I suppose it would have been strange for him to not be creeped out, working in a somewhat busy store, when all of a sudden the majority of customers became mannequins.

At 4:30 everyone unfroze, and began filtering out of the store over the next ten minutes. We then met up back at Madison square park for interviews and sharing our stories.

Admit it. You can’t think of any better place to spend a mild summer weekend than at…the Meadowlands? Surrounded by 10,000 people belting out off-key renditions of Alicia Keys? Sounds like a nightmare.

Photo from AP

That was my first thought when my brother, Gerald, jazzed up from deejaying, barged into my place at 3:30 a.m.: that I was dreaming.

“Let’s go,” he said. “Oh, and you’re driving.”

The keys hit my comforter. No, this was not a dream, I was wide-awake.

It is a well-known fact amongst my friends and family that I wake up very early most days.

But 3:30 a.m. is obscene. Ungodly. In New York City, the night is young. 3:30 a.m. is just a natural continuation of the evening. It’s unnatural to be rising then.

Even the coffee machine seemed surprised that I was up.

There was a chill in the air and dew on the car windshield. We tossed blankets in the trunk and began our trek.

Gerald asked if I wouldn’t mind stopping at a gas station. “Coffee and cigarettes,” he said, by way of explanation.

“Don’t smoke cigarettes in my car,” I said.

“I think, technically, this is my car.”

“Whatever. And I made coffee.”

“I don’t like it,” he said.

Yesterday’s phone conversation with Gerald flashed through my mind.

“Hey, it’s me,” he began. “Would you mind picking up a copy of the New York Post? It’s got an American Idol article in it. Oh, and some snacks from Trader Joe’s would be good. And listen, we’re going to be leaving pretty early, so you might as well load up the car with gas tonight.”

Read the rest of this entry »

Looks like I dropped the ball on this one. Deadline to sign up is TODAY! But I just sent in my info and you should too:

*****UPDATE******

The game has been postponed in order to get more people involved, so it’s not too late. You get a ‘target’ and you’ve got three weeks to find them and shoot them with a water gun - but in the meantime somebody is coming after you. Whoever shoots the most people in three weeks wins. AWESOME! I’ve already signed up.
Send your info in now. And maybe you’ll get a chance to shoot an UNCOOLKID!!!!!

*****************

“ASSASSIN

Object Of The Game:
In this game everyone that joins will be given a target to kill(A.K.A contract)(this target will be another player of the game). As an assassin your job is to search the city with the provided information of your contract and kill him or her. When a clean kill is done your (now dead) target must give up his or her contract to you and now you must seek out and kill the your new target. The assassin with the most kills at the end of the game will be declared the winner.

How To Kill:
In the Real world assassins woudl use guns, however we dont want anyone really dead on our hands. so we will use water. which means any of the following may be used:
a)really fake water gun~~~> nothing that looks even remotely real… so we suggest using something along the line of a super soaker
b)water Ballons
c)Bucket of water
d)Water hoses
e)Bottle of water
…this does not include holding water in your mouth and spitting it at someone…be nice we dont want any problems.

once a target is wet he or she is now dead and must hand over their contract.A player may defend him or herself by spotting and wetting there assassin first. By doing this two things happen. 1) your assassin may not harm you for an hour which gives time to run. 2) You now Know who Your assassin is, so from now on be on the look out!

Read the rest of this entry »

Hey everybody check out the UNCOOLKIDS interview at The Blog Reader.

Obligatory hack critic blurb: It takes the checkered flag…for laughs!

A movie like Talladega Nights: The Legend of Ricky Bobby can be troublesome to review, mostly because it’s so blissfully stupid that it’s hard to get 600 words out of it, unless you want a recap of funny scenes or the wonder of John C. Reilly’s facial hair. The movie is a reason why a lot of people hate movie reviewers: We’re too busy deconstructing and analyzing to realize how funny something is.

That’s not entirely true. There’s good stupid funny and bad stupid funny. Bad stupid funny is just plain stupid. To paraphrase ace movie critic Jeremiah Kipp, it takes a brain to be entertained. The atrocious Date Movie was a prime example of that not happening, an uncreative and painfully unfunny movie that wasn’t so much a parody as a thoughtless compilation of romantic comedy’s greatest hits. Instead of parodying a formula, the geniuses behind the movie took scenes from roughly 30 movies (I’m not kidding), upped the disgusting factor, looked for easy targets, and passed it off as something original. If Date Movie not the worst movie of 2006, whatever is will probably kill me.

Talladega Nights is good stupid funny for a few reasons. First, Will Ferrell is in it, who masterfully straddles the line between goofy and ironic. As the title character, a reckless NASCAR driver whose desire to win at all costs sends his career into a tailspin, Ferrell again proves his mettle as a comedic heavyweight. Second, like in Anchorman, he’s surrounded by a great supporting cast that doesn’t try to outdo him. Everyone gets to carve out their own country-fried niche, especially Reilly as Ricky’s best friend and teammate, who is so attached to his friend’s life, that Ricky’s family is his family. Literally. And Gary Cole, playing Ricky’s white trash daddy, lends the same sense of comedic restraint that made his Office Space bossman so damned funny.

The true sign of a good stupid movie like Talladega Nights is the screenplay, which spoofs the sweeping, inspirational tones of bad sports movies with gusto–witness the hyperbolic speech Ricky Bobby’s former assistant (Amy Adams, terrific in her brief screen time) gives her broken-down former employer. More importantly, you can quote the hell out of it. Have a discussion on movies with most guys in their twenties or early thirties these days and you won’t escape without hearing lines from Anchorman and The 40-Year-Old Virgin. Talladega Nights is going to have that same effect. Walk through bars and cafeterias over the next few months, and you’re bound to hear lines like: “I’m jacked up on Mountain Dew;” “Please don’t let the invisible fire burn my friend;” “You made that grace your bitch;” and my favorite exchange, which masquerades as a tender moment:

“I’m his lady. I painted the car and we had sex.”

“I wish I could have been there.”

Talladega Nights has a few flaws. Playing a lisping, gay Frenchman and Ricky Bobby’s racing rival, Sacha Baron Cohen (TV’s Ali G.) wastes his considerable comedic talents, which should be on better display in the upcoming Borat movie. And like Anchorman, which was also written by Ferrell and director Adam McKay, some bits (the rehabilitation of Ricky’s awful kids) just don’t work with repeat tries. That’s irrelevant critic talk. You’ll laugh, you’ll laugh hard, and you’ll never think of “Baby Jesus” in quite the same way again.

MPAA Rating: PG-13

Rating: *** (out of 4)

When I heard Woody Allen and Scarlett Johansson were teaming up for two movies, I was elated. Maybe using one of America’s best young actresses (with a downright charismatic screen presence to boot) would help revive Allen’s creaky filmmaking. So, two movies have come and gone. What’s the final score?

First, there was Match Point. Despite its staggering praise, it was a plodding retelling of the superior Crimes and Misdemeanors. Now we have Scoop starring Johansson as an American journalism student who investigates a murder in London, acting on the tip of a deceased journalist (Ian McShane, TV’s Deadwood). Allen plays a third-rate magician who helps Johansson get closer to the hunky British aristocrat (Hugh Jackman) she suspects of murdering numerous prostitutes.

Scoop resembles earlier Allen movies like Manhattan Murder Mystery and Small Time Crooks–breezy, amiable fare long on scenic urban locales but short on belly laughs. Allen still gives you a time-worn formula and expects you to be thrilled by association, whether it’s a brownstone crisis among uptown denizens or literate tomfoolery. (Forget about slapstick; that went out with disco.) Allen does nothing fresh with these scenarios, like how Oscar-winning screenwriter Charlie Kaufman and Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Richard Russo continually re-invent the plights of broken-hearted guys and small-town losers, respectively.

Johansson is the victim of bad timing and maybe bad advice. Her buoyant personality and smoky charm are bottled in favor of nervous mannerisms reminiscent of Allen’s former lover and co-star Mia Farrow, which wouldn’t be a bad thing if Farrow wasn’t in her late thirties when she began her long-running gig. Allen does his famous stammering routine, only here it’s so pronounced that it sounds like he’s having trouble recalling his lines. Also, his cheesy entertainer act runs very thin very quickly. Jackman, sans killer sideburns, and McShane, sans expletives and cool mustache, do provide able support.

Scoop is a pleasant diversion, but it’s an annoying one if you’ve seen Allen’s movies; it feels like more of the same thing only set in London. The constant presence of Johansson also makes you realize the squandered possibilities. She was born too late, while Allen’s last chance for cinematic rejuvenation may have passed him by.

Note: For those interested in finding out why Woody Allen is considered one of the best American directors ever, check out any of these movies:Annie Hall, Manhattan, Crimes and Misdemeanors, Everything You Wanted to Know About Sex, but Were Afraid to Ask, Bananas, Love and Death, Husbands and Wives, Hannah and Her Sisters.

Rating: **1/2 (out of four)

MPAA Rating: PG-13