Ricky Gervais + Microsoft = Hilarious?

Somebody else watch these two videos and tell me if they're worth sitting through the 20 minutes (each). It's Ricky Gervais playing his character from The Office in a faux-training video for Microsoft. I don't have the time. For proof, I'm only linking to these videos and not embedding them...yeah, I'm that lazy.

I would have just sent you to YouTube, but they took them down due to "copyright infringement."

Dear Diary, BRAINS...

Romero just can't get enough of the zombies. They've had a night, a dawn, a day, and a land, and now we welcome the Diary of the Dead. Yes, that's right...the dead now have a diary. Scary, isn't it? There's no news on how the title actually plays into the movie, but I trust that Romero can get his shit together and make yet another fantastic movie about the flesh craving undead. But, seriously, I can just imagine some fantastic zombie voiceovers as the diaries are read:

Dear Diary,
UUuuuuunnnghhhhh...braaaaaains...

strippers in black

Remember that last funeral you went to? Which stripper do you think was the best? Personally I liked Angel's poll work the best, but Porsche had nice eyes. What, strippers at funeral you must think I'm crazy. No, I'm not, but again the Chinese are (remember when they killed all their dogs?). Apparently in China the more people you have attend your funeral the more you are honored, so grieving relatives believed the best way to bring in a crowd was to hire strippers. According to this article "Wealthy families often employed two troupes of performers to attract a crowd". Five strippers have been attested and there is now a hotline where you can report "funeral misdeeds". One question...do you have to tip funeral strippers?

Who?... Us?... Drunk?... No way!

Forbes recently posted a report on the top 35 drunkest cities in the US, and wouldn't you know it, the Midwest has 5 cities in the top 7. Within the last couple of years Mpls/St. Paul has been racking up #1 awards for things like Most Fun City and Most Technologically Advanced but this time around we have to ride shoot-gun to the great city of Milwaukee. But that’s not all that surprising, after all this is about drinking, and Milwaukee is in Wisconsin. What is surprising to me is that Mpls/St. Paul took second. I mean we beat out places like Chitown(6), Seattle(12) and Vegas(14). The other surprise was that cities like New Orleans(24), NY(32) and Miami(33) all ranked pretty low.

To save you the trouble of trying to figure out how all this works, and the hassle of flipping through the shitty slide show, below is a brief explanation of the criteria used to rank the cities and the order in which they ranked.

State Laws: Cities were ranked on a scale of 1 to 8, based on the state laws affecting alcohol sales and consumption in the area, where a city ranked #1 has the least restrictive policies.

Drinkers: Cities were ranked 1 to 35, based on the number of adults who reported having had at least one drink of alcohol within the past 30 days.

Heavy Drinkers: Cities were ranked 1 to 35, based on the number of adult men who reported having had more than two drinks per day, and adult women having had more than one drink per day.

Binge Drinkers: Cities were ranked 1 to 35, based on the number of adults who reported having had five or more drinks on one occasion.

Alcoholism: Cities were ranked based on the number of Alcoholics Anonymous meetings held in the area, as a proportion of the number of residents over the legal drinking age. Higher-ranking cities reported more meetings per capita.

Cities of Note:
Milwaukee – SL: 4, D: 1, HD: 3, BD: 1, A: 3
Minneapolis- SL: 7, D: 2, HD: 12, BD: 3, A: 4
Boston – had a low score of 1 for State Laws.
San Antonio – ranked number 1 in Heavy Drinkers.
Kansas City – ranked number 1 in Alcoholism.
Seattle – SL: 6, D: 5, HD: 18, BD: 21, A: 11
Complete list:
1. Milwaukee, WI
2. Minneapolis/St. Paul, MN
3. Columbus, OH
4. Boston, MA
5. Austin, TX
6. Chicago, IL
7. Cleveland, OH
8. Pittsburgh, PA
9. Philadelphia, PA
10. Providence, RI
11. St. Louis, MO
12. San Antonio, TX
12. Seattle, WA
14. Las Vegas, NV
15. Denver/Boulder, CO
16. Cincinnati, OH
16. Kansas City, MO
18. Houston, TX
19. Portland, OR
20. San Francisco/Oakland, CA
21. Washington/Baltimore, MD
22. Phoenix, AZ
23. Los Angeles, CA
24. New Orleans, LA
24. Tampa, FL
26. Norfolk, VA
27. Dallas/Fort Worth, TX
28. Atlanta, GA
28. Detroit, MI
30. Indianapolis, IN
31. Orlando, FL
32. New York, NY
33. Miami, FL
34. Charlotte, NC
35. Nashville, TN

Kill 'em all

You know how 90% of historical movies are complete bullshit. Well finally someone grew a pair a took responsibility for their actions. David Ayer, who wrote the 2000 movie U-571, apologized for being a bitch. He said "It was a distortion... a mercenary decision to create this parallel history in order to drive the movie for an American audience". Turns out he had the Americans do something the British really did or whatever, I couldn't care less. The point is we should make everybody who has distorted history to sell something apologize and be publicly humiliated- unless whatever they made was better than the actually history, such as History of the World Part 1, Life of Brian, or the upcoming Frank Miller film 300- Anyway go watch the trailer for Bug.

scream

Do you remember when the Stormtrooper falls in A New Hope and screams? Of course you do. If you are like me that scream has reminded you of tons of other screams in other movies. Well I found out today that it is actually the exact same scream. It seams that the scream was recorded in 1951 for the movie Distant Drums. It became known as the "Wilhelm Scream". It became a sound-man inside joke and has been used in some 150ish movies including, but not limited to: Swiss Family Robinson, Mad Max, Star Wars, all 3 Lord of the Rings, all 3 Indiana Jones, Willow, Swamp Thing, Aladdin, Batman Returns, Broken Arrow, The Fifth Element, A Goofy Movie, Reservoir Dogs, Family Guy(TV), Hellboy, Kill Bill 1, Anchorman, Sin City and many many more. See full list and read more here...

I thought this was pretty cool. Make sure to watch VotW.

Speaking of screaming here is the ad for the new supersoaker. What "comes" to mind?

Dumbass makes Illinois pay

Taxpayers in the state of Illinois are now fronting the bill ($510,528.64 to be exact) for a dumbass (Gov. Rod Blagojevich) who wanted to regulate the sale of "violent" videogames. The bill, rightfully so, was turned down and deemed unconstitutional. Ign explains the bill thusly:

The Safe Games Illinois Act would have required retailers to use warning labels in addition to the existing Entertainment Software Ratings Board labels. It also would have forced retailers to post signs within stores explaining the ESRB rating system.

When will these people learn that violent society existed before videogames? I mean, sure, the Inquisition can be blamed on Grand Theft Auto, but the Crusades? Seriously, that was all because of violent movies.

P.K.Dick

Wow, Philip K Dick is everywhere these days...or it seems that way. A Scanner Darkly and Southland Tales are both Dick based. I also, on my way out west, had Paul Giamatti read A Scanner Darkly to me (which was awesome) and I also just read Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (I liked it...thanks Dan.), which Blade Runner was based on. Now it looks like the next Gilliam film is going to be "blending a biopic of Phillip K. Dick with an adaptation of his last, unfinished work". It is going to be called The Owl in the Daylight.

Film Ick aslo says this about his future work "As for all of the other next Terry Gilliam films, it seems that funding for both Good Omens and Anything For Billy is provisional, and that circumstances, sadly cannot provide the necessary; The Man Who Killed Don Quixote is at arm's length, though likely to go into production for Jeremy Thomas later in 2007; The Defective Detective is getting a rewrite, to distance it from Tideland, by Fisher King writer Richard LaGravenese." more here...

Thats all I know for now...

Must see trailers

If you're like me, then you probably sit at home on the Internets, watching every film trailer that has been released to the public. If you're not like me, here's a list of trailers you need to watch:

The Departed: New flick by our pal Martin Scorsese. I was apprehensive about what crazy Scorsese was up to now, but after viewing this, I think that he may be officially "back." (Not to mention that Jack Nicholson is just so damn cool.)

The Fountain: Darren Aronofsky hasn't done anything since Requiem for a Dream, and this certainly looks more epic than his previous two films, but dear god, it just...looks...well, go watch the trailer.

The Science of Sleep: Judging from this trailer, it's apparent to me that Michel Gondry doesn't actually need Charlie Kaufman to make a bizarre, fascinating movie. This is definitely on my "most excited to see" list.

The Prestige: Christopher Nolan's idea of dueling magicians, not to be confused with The Illusionist, which looks like the same thing but worse.

Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles: Zhang Yimou returning to his roots (i.e., not Hero or House of Flying Daggers) for a slowly paced drama. Definitely not to everybody's liking, but definitely to mine.

Children of Men: Sam mentioned this the comments not too long ago, but I thought I'd put it up on the front page. As he said, "It looks like it might be cool...fun idea anyway." I actually couldn't think of a better way to describe it.

Babel: From the director of Amores Perros and 21 Grams. It seems that he's up to the same old "one thing affects everything" theories, but that never stopped Tom Tykwer, so why should it stop him?

Hollywoodland:From first time silver screen director Allen Coulter. His previous work has included HBO hits Sopranos, Six Feet Under, Sex and the City and Rome. This could work out well for him seeing that it is a movie based on the death of TV Superman star George Reeves.

Beerfest: From the guys that brought us Super Troopers comes a movie about drinking lots of beer and acting like idiots. In other words, its the perfect movie for us guys that run this blog. Also I am really hoping that they were actually drunk for most of the shooting of this film.

Renaissance: I don't really know what to say about this one. It looks really well done, and could easily be a great movie. At the same time it could easily be a re-working of a bunch of other films that have come out lately.

And if you haven't seen trailers for The Transformers, TMNT, Marie Antoinette, Fearless, or Spider-Man III you're probably dead or don't care as much as I do, which means you may as well be dead.

Dieter needs to fly

This year at the Toronto International Film Festival they will be featuring Herzog's Rescue Dawn (which I can't wait for) and Hal Hartley's Fay Grim-the follow up to Henry Fool (which I'm sure Dan can't wait for). Now how long is it going to be till us average folk get to see these movies? I hope soon. Read here...

You're a non-restrictive clause

Neil Gaiman linked to this article, but I feel the need to reiterate it here. This is for all of you (*cough*...*cough*...Sam) that make fun of me for actually knowing how to use the English language. A misused comma is forcing Rogers Communications Inc. to pay $2.13 million more than the company had expected. It all comes from this sentence:

The agreement “shall continue in force for a period of five years from the date it is made, and thereafter for successive five year terms, unless and until terminated by one year prior notice in writing by either party.”

If you haven't figured it out, the second comma turns the phrase, "and thereafter for successive five year terms" into a non-restrictive clause, thus rendering it a non-essential part of the sentence. In grammatical rules, the phrase could be eliminated without change to the sentence, essentially making it read:

The agreement “shall continue in force for a period of five years from the date it is made, unless and until terminated by one year prior notice in writing by either party.”

Whoops. The company with whom Rogers had a contract (Aliant Inc.) discovered this grammatical blunder and is working to exploit it to bail on the contract earlier than Rogers thought they had agreed upon.

And while I almost feel bad for Rogers, kudos to the lawyer of Aliant that discovered the mistake and pursued its exploitation. It really can pay to be a geek.

YOU need this

Have you ever drank a little to much (I personally don't believe there is such a thing) and drunk dialed someone you shouldn't have...maybe an ex, or parent or friend at bar close on a tuesday when you are unemployed and they are not and didn't remember there was a time change? Have you ever driven just over the limit...say a .10 and thought you were fine, but ended up getting busted? Don't you wish there was something to stop all this? Well now there is. LG has created the LP4100- a phone with a built in breathalyzer. You can use it as just a plain old breathalyzer or you can program it to not let you call certain numbers in your phone book after you have reached a predetermined level of intoxication. This is an advancement in phone technology I did not see coming, but I like it. I never drunk dial or drive after drinking or anything like that, but it might be fun to be out and see who could blow the highest. What will they think of next? Article here...

668

It looks like the next movie Gilliam is going to make will be Good Omens. I hope this time things work out I would bet on something going wrong. Read here.
It might start filming this winter which means that Depp wont be able to be in it (he's busy I guess), which would be to bad. Robin Williams and Johnny Depp as Aziraphale and Crowley would kick ass. Read here.

Here are little sections from Neils last few posts on his blog.
8-1 "...and I'm off working with a friend on a project we've tried to get off the ground since 1998, and he's busy and I'm busy, but this week it's happening, or at least starting. And I'm being much too secretive about it right now, but one day, or at least when it's a bit further along, I won't be. (And I'm pretty sure I've talked about it somewhere on this blog already.)"

8-2 "The Mystery Project is going just fine, thank you."

8-4 "The work goes well. I'm enjoying it. At the end of yesterday we realised that after three days of reading and scribbling we had actually done some work, and that this was good. Now comes the hard bit of writing together and seeing what happens. Wish me luck."

...Good Omens II?

why isn't it americas past time?

Chinese county clubs to death 50,000 dogs.
"Dogs being walked were seized from their owners and beaten to death on the spot."
"Owners were offered 63 cents per animal to kill their own dogs before the teams were sent in"
"killing teams entered villages at night creating noise to get dogs barking, then beat the animals to death"

Pictures and rest of article here.

why is it americas past time?

I think this might be why...