Day: August 12, 2010

MasterChugs Theater: ‘Dinner for Schmucks’

Dinner for Schmucks, directed by Jay Roach and based on a 12-year-old French movie known in English as The Dinner Game, is in some ways an exemplary modern Hollywood comedy. It treads a careful boundary between nasty and sweet, balancing the rude humor of humiliation with an affirming, tolerant, almost scolding final message: Be nice! It dabbles in sexual naughtiness without dreaming of going too far into complicated zones of lust and betrayal.

And, most of all, the film collects a cast of performers who know how to be funny. The success of this movie, following a formula upheld by just about any recent hit comedy you can name, lies as much with supporting players and plot-derailing set pieces as with the central story and characters. Jemaine Clement as a pompous, goatish artist; Zach Galifianakis as an I.R.S. flunky who believes he has the power to control other minds; Lucy Punch as a lovestruck stalker with no control over anything: these are the people who propel the movie on its meandering, offbeat path toward a madly farcical climax followed, inevitably and less happily, by a soft and sentimental dénouement. Continue reading MasterChugs Theater: ‘Dinner for Schmucks’

You know it’s a slow news day when …

You guys! The Wizard of Oz, an inanimate piece of film starring dead actors, turned 71 today!

Sure, it’s not a round number and it doesn’t even coincide with quarter centuries, but still! Here’s 71 facts about the movie! (Get it? One for each year? Eh?)

And you know what’s really weird? It’s also Hitler’s mother’s 150th birthday! So happy birthday, Wizard of Oz and History’s Greatest Human Embodiment of the Argument for Abortion Ever!

Yay!

This can only end in fantastic tears

We hesitate to to give any credence or credibility to Fox News, mainly because we don’t actually think they qualify as “news.” Why? Well, a news channel should probably give news, rather than just using scare tactics and fear-mongering.

The latest bit of news regarding the channel doesn’t exactly fix their image any.

Greg Gutfeld, host of Red Eye (the late night show on the channel), wants to open up a gay bar. Right beside the mosque that’s being built near Ground Zero. Oh, and the gay bar would cater to Islamic men. That’s not asking for trouble at all.

Of course, there’s no basis that this could actually happen, so don’t be surprised if this turns into non-news. We can only propose this: on the other side of the Islamic themed gay bar, a gay bar that caters to people of the Catholic denomination should be opened as well. Because after all, one good turn deserves another.

Colder than ice cold beer

“Hot enough out there for ya?” Now you can answer the douches who ask you that with a simple “No.”

Introducing the hopsicle, also known as a beer popsicle. Let me repeat that, the beer popsicle. It’s a can of beer you can lick. If you have tried to freeze beer, you know it ends in an explosion. A saloon in New York has found the answer. Simple syrup, lime juice a stick and a can of Tecate is all you need.

Some how they get it to freeze successfully. When it’s ready to serve, they slice off the bottom, now the top, of the can and hand it over. It’s like the push pop of your dreams.

[via Consumerist]