*in my humble opinion

Like many people, especially of my age, I have to say that my favorite Christmas movie is A Christmas Story which is about Ralphie and his quest for a “carbine action two-hundred shot range model air rifle with a compass in the stock and this thing that tells time” that will shoot his eye out. This movie, with its sweet dysfunction, really holds up over the course of time. Whether it was his cruse filled father or his gut wrenching desire for that perfect gift, I could relate to Ralphie a lot.

But over the Holidays I began to think what other Holiday movies do I still love? I, of course, still love Charlie Brown and his pathetic tree, and Rudolph with his nose so bright, but those aren’t movies; they are specials. Most  “Christmas” movies are for kids and aren’t that great. Some are just awful (see Dudley Moore’s “Santa Claus the Movie”). Most of the Holiday movies I do still love are just “kind of holiday movies” as they really could take place at anytime of year. But Christmas makes a nice backdrop, and the movie studios love to release films at Christmas time when all the kids are off.
 
So here are my Top 4 favorite (kind of) Christmas Movies:

4) Home Alone 2; Lost in New York
Ok. I know what you are saying, “Why not Home Alone 1?” Well, Home Alone 1 is still a sweet family movie and a holiday favorite of everyone. Home Alone 2 I now enjoy on a different level. Home Alone 2 shows us what a truly demented sociopath Kevin Macalister really is. This time he’s not defending his home and himself from dangerous criminals; this time, he’s conning his way into the Plaza Hotel, purposely baiting the criminals to follow him so that they can fall into numerous traps that are skull-smashing and brutally violent. All in good fun, but had this been reality and not a Tom and Jerry inspired fun family romp, he’d basically be facing serious jail time and most likely manslaughter charges as numerous concussive blows to a head will actually kill a man. [Read more →]

I don’t follow politics as much as I should, so when trying to wrap my head around it I often relate it to things I have a much better understanding of. Here’s my interpretation of Senator Arlen Spector’s defection from Republican to Democrat:

 It was quite a scene the other night as the Senate met for a sold out crowd at New York’s historic Madison Square Garden. Crowds from all sides held up signs some with jeers like; “McCain in the Ass” and “Biden’s Nuts!” but all in all it was a calm and everyone ready for a entertaining night of good ole fashion politicking.
 
Everyone was pumped for the night, but nobody was expecting the curveball Senator “The Spectacular” Arlen Spector had coming later that evening. During a Lumberjack Match between Harry Reid “My Fists” and Mitch “Machismo” McConnell, Spector interceded with a hand full of salt apparently blinding McConnell by accident.
 
After the match as Machismo verbally berated Spector in front of a sold out crowd slapping him across the face, then turned to walk away. As he did Spector became enraged and locked in his famous “Spectator” sleeper hold. As the rest of the G.O.P. attempted to stomp Spector off “Mad Man” Biden lowered from the rafters wearing his face war paint and proceeded to save Spector with the help of his Louisville Slugger.

[Read more →]

I was watching TV (as I’m known to do on occasion) and I saw commercial for the Schick Quattro For Women Trimstyle. For those of you who don’t know what it is it a razor that also has a trimmer on the other end of it. Now while this is marketed for Men as a beard trimmer, when marketed to women they call it a “bikini trimmer”.

(The actual hedge and bush trimming in the commercials as empowered attractive women walk by is hysterical watch it again incase you missed it)

While I’m all for bikini trimming, it just made me think how far we have come and what television is willing to advertise now. Not to sound old but I remember when the first condom commercial aired on TV, or at least I remember it being controversial if I didn’t exactly see it. Which according to the internets was in 1991 by the Fox Network. Since then Condom ads are pretty common although Fox, the ones who broke the original barrier (no pun intended), recently opposed a commercial by Trojan for thier “Evolve” campaign depicting men as pigs, unless they are willing to use a condom. Fox opposed this commercial because they say it had nothing to do with the health benefits of condoms. I can’t help but think it also has something to do with the fact that since 1991 they’ve created a niche market as the voice of Conservative America (see Also Fox News).; More can be read on that particular commercial here in a NY Times Article

and the commercial can be seen here;
[Read more →]

District 9 won last weekend’s box office over G.I. Joe AND the Time Traveler’s Wife (who could imagine?)
I saw it this week, I went in with a lot of expectations and preconceived notions about what it would be like and what it was about. Aliens come to Earth not as invaders but as refugees, “Yawn” right? I mean we all saw Alien-Nation. I kind of expected a hodgepodge of sci-fi Alien films I’ve seen before; E.T. with a bit of Starship Troopers thrown in for good measure. All of those notions and expectations were blown away.

The movie centers around the refugee camp of Aliens in Johannesburg South Africa. The locals call the aliens Prawns because well they resemble prawns, but they are also seen as bottom feeders and treated as such. The camp after 20 some odd years is starting to be relocated away from the urban populace of Johannesburg to a “safer” and “more comfortable” location for the Aliens (read “away from humans”). Of course things get complicated from there, as a safe and orderly relocation would make one boring ass movie.

On the surface District -9 is about Aliens and spaceships and explosions. But when you dig deeper it’s really about humanity. It’s about how we have a nasty habit of treating other people as less than human, and if these people happen to not be human it would be even easier. I couldn’t help but think about a recent read of mine the book “What is the What?” by Dave Eggers about a Sudanese refugee (Valentino Achak Deng) and his trials and tribulations. He and his people are basically chased from their homes and forced to live in camps in another country, and eventually even chased from there to another camp. He’s a “Lost Boy”, he’s a lone boy with no family to speak of walking across the desert. Many people treat him and his fellow “Lost Boys” as the lowest of the low. Like many displaced people cross the world people might want to help them, just as long as they don’t have to deal with them. The similarities between the Aliens and human refugees all around the world is hardly accidental by any means, but I never expected it to be so powerful.

The acting is good, the effects are superb (as you may expect from any movie produced by Peter Jackson) and the story is magnificent. It flows back and forth between Docu-style story telling and traditional movie narrative. It may possibly be the best movie I’ve seen this year and I can’t recommend it more.

For more info see: http://www.d-9.com

Let me tell you a story about a friend of mine from when I was a kid. He always dressed in black and never spoke he had a white wolf, and one of his best friends was a sailor with a parrot. No this wasn’t my imaginary friend this was Snake Eyes from GI Joe.

Ok so the year is 1984, maybe 85.
I’m your average kid, watching TV everyday after school (and before) and I have to say my favorite show is G.I. Joe; A Real American Hero. While the show is filled with awesome characters like Roadblock, Duke, Flint, even the villains were cool like Despro and Tomax and Xamot. My all time favorite Joe was (and Is) Snake Eyes.

So this was the 1980s and nothing was cooler than ninjas! Years before the teenaged amphibian ones would come roaring into popular culture Snake Eyes existed every day on my TV, and did I mention he was really awesome? Snake Eyes was Badass! He was mute and dressed in all black (like Darth Vader), wore a grenade bandoleer and a visor. He had a pet wolf named Timber and was very handy with a sword (as ALL ninjas should be).

So as many of you know G.I. Joe was more than a cartoon show, it was essentially a 30 minute commercial for a Hasbro line of toys. Since it was a commercial I basically watched religiously I have to say I loved the toys. I NEEDED them like those poor Sally Struthers’ kids needed 80 cents worth of rice a day. Since Snake Eyes was my favorite of course I desired him the most!

[Read more →]

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I was recently reading the book “Motherless Brooklyn” by Jonathan Lethem. It’s a great book that I highly recommend, but that’s not the point of this entry. During the course of the book some of the characters mention radio ads on during a Mets game for Garden State Brick Face and Stucco. This brought back a lot of memories to me.

As a kid I’d watch obscene amounts of TV and before we got wired for cable this meant watching a lot of WNYW and WPIX the two local independent stations (which later became Fox and WB/CW respectively). So on the joyous days I was home sick from school, or just had presidents day off I’d sit around in my Ghostbusters jammies and watch I Love Lucy reruns. During which they would always advertise Garden State Brick Face and Stucco. Reading those words elicited a warm feeling in me of more carefree times. [Read more →]

Every summer the Big Movie releases have endorsements and tie-ins. My favorite of all time was probably 711 remodeling a bunch of their stores to look like Qwik E Marts for the Simpson’s movie. The lamest was probably the “Dark Knight Pizza” from Papa Johns with Extra pepperoni to make the pizza darker (I’m not kidding).

This year of course has similar tie-ins Terminator: Salvation has a tie-in with 711 for an “Apocalyptic Ice” Slurpee (not a joke either, that’s real). X-Men Origins: Wolverine had a Papa John’s Pizza tie-in with “X-tra Cheese”. But what comes next? There are quite a few movies coming out this summer ripe for tie-ins like:

The Angels and Demons Pizza Hut “Papal Pizza” with extra Mushrooms and Pepperoni

Where the Wild Things Are and Duracell batteries in child locators

Drag Me to Hell and Verizon Wireless; “Can You Hear Me Now?” “Yes” “AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH”

Inglorious Bastards 711 tie-in with a “Bastardly Berry” Slurpee

Public Enemies Orbitz flavor “Tommy Gum” mmm taste the gun oil and whiskey

Year One giant “Mammoth Burger” from Burger King (this one sounds like it could be legit)

and of course

2012 “End of the World” Sandwich “7 layers of bacon and cheese wrapped in roast beef and served in a bucket of ranch dressing”.

I should work in Movie Marketing I’m a Genius!!

We all have our favorite movies; some of us love these movies so much that we can’t let go. I am one of those people. To deal with my inability to deal with letting go of my favorite characters and stories I’m creating a reoccurring feature here called “Sequels that don’t exist, YET”

The first of these soon to be theatrical gems is “Back to the Future IV; The Future is Now!” directed by Darren Aronofsky produced by Michael Bay [Read more →]

Check out our new “Living Well Page” from all of us at Still Good News.com

Every month or so, we’ll be putting up a major feature page full of links, videos, articles and reviews. They’ll be about everything from health to entertainment.

This month - we’re hoping you want to learn more about Yoga. (no we’re not asking you to do it, just read about it…and maybe do it, too, for like…a minute or so….)

We’ve all found a lot of serenity in yoga, and even the cynical side of us has to admit it’s a good thing. For articles about “Online Yoga at Home”, “Laughing Yoga Videos”, “Finding Serenity in Yoga” and more- head to our Living Well Tab (or click here if you forgot your glasses and can’t see it next to “About”).