I used the word 'ass' on my facebook. Within 15 minutes my mom texted me asking why I was cursing on the page. I thought I was an adult as well. I ignored the text. So George must have been celebrating his new show at the casino the other night: Spoiler
Every now and then, if I hear some bits of George Lopez's standup on a comedy station, it will make me chuckle. But, generally, I don't find his stuff that funny. But, in real life? He's hilarious! Stop me if you've heard this one: There's this guy who ends up with complete kidney failure. Without a transplant, he will die. His wife of 12 years, his true love, offers to donate one of her kidneys to save his life. She does and the surgery is successful. What a gift! The guy is so grateful for the gift and the second chance at life, that he gives up over-drinking and poor life choices, professes his undying love to his wife and they live happily ever after. Ha ha! That last part is the punchline! Because, he actually doesn't do that - instead, he divorces his wife, the life-saving kidney donator, and drinks to excess, such that he passes out in public on the floor in a Canadian Casino. The Aristocrats!
HAHAHA, my girlfriend just fucking said this. She just blew through the first 6 episodes of True Detective in the last like 3 days. Then she stopped and was like "Can you fucking believe he made Failure to Launch? Is this even the same guy?" But holy hell, he has acted his ass off in True Detective. I think he should be retroactively awarded Oscars for every category he's been nominated in, and have the winners present it to him in a televised event.
You would think it could always work that way. But it doesn't. Let's go back: "Yo, I have a script. Its one of the best novels of the 80's. Brian DePalma directing. Starring Tom Hanks, Bruce Willis and Morgan Freeman. It's called Bonfire of the Vanities and it can't miss!" WRONG. That "can't miss" re-wrote the book on how to shit the bed completely producing a movie. Just a complete fucking disgrace.
Note where I said "Don't fuck it up." They fucked it up. Apparently they missed every point of substance and message the book offered. Christ, who gives a shit about Tom Wolfe anyway? He is the epitome of pompous writer. At least Gore Vidal knew how to party. I'm reading the notes on that flick. They replaced Mike Nichols with Brian DePalma. What the fuck? Fun fact: Wolfe wrote Almost Heroes. Yeah, the Chris Farley explorer movie. It's by far Wolfe's best work.
Cause he spent a large portion of his career giving no fucks and having fun which makes it all the more interesting that he's had this skill in him all along. Not everyone is looking for brooding, heavy character roles in Oscar bait films early in their career. Cause he tells great stories. Yeah its heavy handed and he can take up 3 pages describing a room, but the man can paint a picture. I think that's part of the reason that Bonfire sucked so hard, was because that book was so descriptive, people had this unified mental picture of alot of it, and it just completely missed the boat. Melanie Griffith was just a horrific miscast as well. He's one of my favorite writers, at least his novels. "A Man in Full" and "I Am Charlotte Simmons" are both great fucking books, though Back to Blood was disappointing. His articles/non-fiction are hit or miss.
The big problem I think was trying to make Sherman McCoy likeable when he is clearly NOT likeable. Plus, they made a drama into a heavy-handed "comedy" and turned all the characters into caricatures, save for Freeman as the judge who is excellent. But this pisses all over the source material in a way only Starship Troopers could compare.
I have not seen a non-sucky version of Lord of the Flies, or Huckleberry Finn. Honestly, I thought Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil sucked waaay harder than Bonfire. And, don't get me started on The Cat in the Hat.
Michael Crichton books for the most part have been cinematic abortions with the exception of Jurassic Park. Even that movie was way far off from the book as far as some of the action sequences go, but it was still a well made movie. Everything else was terrible. Most notably for me was "Timeline". Its one of my favorite stories from him. A crazy story going all the way back to medieval times with great scientific theories to keep you entertained with enough subtle commentary on the dangers of the type of science he describes. Then, they made the movie. I was so excited about it. I read that book twice and said to myself everytime, "This would be such an awesome movie as long as they don't fuck it up." But they did, and in a big way. They glossed over all the really important parts. Left much of the particle physics that made the story possible out of the movie completely. Shitty acting. Forgettable storyline. I was so let down.
I hope whatever Hollywood executive decided Gerard Butler was a good actor is out of a job. That guy sucks.
Funny because I was in a Science Fiction class in high school when it came out. My teacher dogged on it because there is one line of explanation on how time travel works and it was basically, "Well we were trying to test teleporting objects across the USA through phone lines, LIKE A FAX, and found out time travel was a side effect!" He was cracking on that and the visual effect they came up with to represent time travel was hitting the actors with bright lights and having them grimace like they were taking a shit. What a shitty movie for the talent behind it, Chrichton, Donner, and the acting powerhouse Paul Walker, may he rest in peace.
The science was definitely not good. Not at all. But it was the only thing that made the story happen at all. And they didn't even give a shit. Remember in Jurassic Park, the whole scene where they are being given a crash course in DNA from that little talking DNA strand. That was everything behind the entire park's existence. It was a quick scene but vital to the whole story. Timeline just used Crichton's book as toilet paper and then released it.
I actually thought 13th Warrior was better than Eaters of the Dead, but that is a rare exception and I think one of his earliest books.
I remember thinking The Andromeda Strain was great in high school. But what the hell did I know about science or literature in high school.