"Stay Cool, Mr. B."

Okay so yesterday I took a turn for the political in this blog, but I did and still do feel very strongly about this situation in Israel. In college I wrote a number of columns for Boston University's Daily Free Press about the Middle-East tensions going on at the time, and back then it was really amazing how those columns ignited such fierce debate on campus. It was a very interesting time, as it was exciting to see how many people responded in one way or another to my writing, but also shocking to see how many letters came in to the Free Press that were anti-Israel, anti-semetic, or just plain hateful. But because I realized how knowledgable and passionate many people were about the Middle East, I made sure that my follow-up article was heavily researched, something I never usually did for my mostly humor-oriented columns. Yesterday's blog was more just an insta-reaction to the day's news than a real editorial or anything, but hey that's the beauty of blogging ... still, check it out below or HERE and let me know what you think ...

- Otherwise, I am currently BEAT after a late night last night. Some friends and I went to see a show at the Laugh Factory comedy club in Hollywood, where it was "Hollywood Assistant Night." Oddly though, Thursdays are also usually college nights at the Laugh Factory. So you had a mostly entry-level assistant crowd, weary from a long day and dreading waking up early the next morning, at a long, drawn-out comedy show that didn't even begin until after 10:30 pm, and went until almost 1 am. Man, around Hollywood there's going to be a lot of bleary eyes and sluggishness today. The show itself was a mixed bag. It was free, for one thing, though that is kinda offset by the two drink minimum. I mean, who really wants two drinks at a comedy show on a Thursday? Especially a free one where a large part of the appeal is the lack of money being spent on the show. Stupid money-grubbing comedy clubs. Anyways ...

The comedians themselves were decent. The highlight, overall, was probably Jim Gaffigan, of Broken Lizard / Super Troppers fame, who did a kind of Will Ferrell-lite act where he talked to himself throughout the act, responding to his own jokes with a running inner monologue. Pretty funny. A few younger comedians that performed were a mix of promising new talent with a few kind of lame, poser-ish types. Randomly, we also got the old Indian guy from 40 Year Old Virgin, who was so odd in his thickly-accented delivery that I found him friggin' hilarious, even if his jokes sounded like he was reading them out of a "Truly Tasteless" joke book or something. This one other comedian, Robert (?) Rodriguez I believe (not the director of the same name) was hit and miss, and then this other guy from Last Comic Standing had a kind of New Jersey macho asshole type of humor that was kind of grating after a while. Otherwise, the surprise of the night was a special guest cameo appearance by Dennis Haskens, aka Mr. Belding himself! I've actually run into the guy a few times since he is a common visitor at NBC in Burbank for whatever reason, but still - Mr. F'N Belding! He got on stage, gave us a little SBTB humor, and promted the whole audience to sing the Saved By The Bell themesong! Daaaaaaaaaaaaaamn!

Overall a fun night of comedy - but sooo long! I'm totally drained now and will likely spend my Friday evening in various states of sleep / immobility, unless I can somehow get home early and get in a nap!

PS - the traffic / parking in Hollywood freaking sucks! I've been there twice this week now, and both times it was a nightmare to find parking. Every day some new road is closed or blocked off, and almost every side road has permit parking only. Seriously, where the hell are you supposed to park when you got to someplace like the Laugh Factory? WHERE, I ask you? My friends and I ended up in a giant, maze-like underground garage (par for the course in LA, I guess) in a shopping complex down the street, which cost me $12 since I didn't get my parking validated. Dayum!

And it's been a while, but ...

TV REVIEWS:

I've barely watched any TV over the summer except occasional cable news and small doses of the Colbert Report or whatnot. Instead I've been catching up on my collection of unfinished PS2 games, reading, and getting out a lot more during the week, which is great. But one summer program really caught my attention, as I love sci-fi anthology type shows when they are done well, and of course The Twilight Zone is one of my all time faves. So I was very curious for Stephen King's Nightmares and Dreamscapes on TNT - a 4 week horror anthology event that seemed to be just what the TV doctor ordered.

NIGHTMARES AND DREAMSCAPES:

Episode 1 - Battleground:

Wow.

That was pretty damn cool. William Hurt against an army of living army men toys in a trippy, weird, funny, horrific, sadistic short-form horror story with ZERO spoken dialogue for the entire episode, directed by none other than BRIAN HENSON himself. Hurt freakin' ruled in this episode. I have been a huge fan of his from movies like Body Heat, Dark City, and recently, A History of Violence, and his acting here was totally captivating even without the benefit of any dialogue whatsoever. I also loved the f/x - the toys coming to life looked seamless, but also had this kind of exaggerated, creepy look that reminded me of something Jim Henson himself might have conjured up. I'm not sure what Brian Henson's been up to other than the occasional Muppet-related movie, but I'd LOVE to see him tackle something darker and bigger budget, as clearly, the man has a lot of his father's talent and imagination. This was definitely a lot of fun and a really great hour of TV.

My Grade: A

Episode 2 - Crouch End:

Talk about a tale of two episodes ... this one was awful! Somewhat interesting premise, even if it seemed almost like the backstory of the Rocky Horror Picture Show played straight or something ... but, man, the acting was just terrible. Look, I'll always have a softspot for Claire Forlani from Mallrats (hey I even briefly met her one time at NBC and she seemed great!), but I don't know, her acting can just be, um, well, questionable at times. Here she was just totally grating and over the top, as was the male lead, who was just terrible. I'll admit that I actually turned this one off a little over halfway through - I just couldn't tolerate the annoying characters.

My grade: D

Despite, the up and down nature of the Nightmares and Dreamscapes debut night, the first ep alone was enough to make me curious about future installments, esp. with some great character actors like William H Macy on deck. Should be interesting.

- Also caught the debut of PEE-WEE'S PLAYHOUSE on Adult Swim. Man, what a weird, trippy show. It really is even more odd watching it now as opposed to when I was little. It's so funny though - there is like some trace memory from that show that made me feel depressed. I think that when I watched it as a kid it was like the last show on Saturday mronings before it was time to get up and get dressed and stop watching TV or something ... but during Pee Wee's end-redits bicycle ride I had this weird "no, I don't wanna go to school!" feeling come over me. Any explanations from the peanut gallery? But yeah, the show is so random - that genie, man, scary looking dude - Mecha Lecha Hai indeed. Funny though, it def holds up and doesn't seem to dated, except for the oddity of Seeing Lawrence Fishbourne play a smiling cowboy. Yeah, weird ...

OTHER STUFF:

- Happy Birthday to the LJSurfer, aka Scott C. 23 - you've finally reached the big leagues. This weekend should be a fun time celebrating Scott's b-day, but next week, next week is going to be intense ...

- My parents are coming! Ahhhhh ... one whole week of family fun, Tuesday to Sunday. Matt will also be here Tuesday and Wednesday as his USY on Wheels bus rolls in. So, yeah, CRAZINESS. Oh god, I have some apt cleaning to do ... wake me up when it's next Sunday ...

- Free screening of You, Me, and Dupree at Universal this weekend. It looks pretty bad in my opinion, and those commercials are annoying as all hell, with the Movie Voice Guy stressing every syllable of "YOU ... ME! ... and .... DuPREE~!" Damn how annoying is that? Plus Owen Wilson is great when he does more quirky movies, but in standard buddy pictures (except Shanghai Noon and Knights, of course) he can be really annoying. But, hey, it's free.

- I love the fact that there was so much bad backlash to Lisa Schwartzbaum's EW review of Pirates 2, where she gave it a D+, that CNN.com had a whole article about it! The article tries to paint critics as having his big divide from popular opinion. Not really the point - it's more an issue of Lisa's review being downright terrible - no real reasoning for her negativity, as if she is just bashing the entire genre of blockbuster adventure movies and not even paying attention to the film at hand. I mean, the Onion gave Pirates a mediocre review, but their critiques were well-worded and actually made sense. Lisa's review was just a joke, and I think that the backlash is very justified.

- Still have more to say, but that's it for now. Keep reading, have a good weekend ...