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Posted
8:55pm,
Thursday, July 25, 2002
That's
Entertainment
Damn,
Hollywood is slow. Two years ago, Ben Stiller, Robert DeNiro
and director Jay Roach scored a hit with "Meet the Parents."
This year, we’re finally seeing the expected retreads.
Let the recycling begin.
These
rip-offs are beating the actual sequel to the punch. It wouldn’t
be so disturbing if they cashed in immediately. Like that direct-to-video
company that releases sound alike cartoons as soon as Disney
releases them. After all, Disney doesn’t exactly own the
name "Pocahontas."
First
out of the box (if you can call it that) is the fascinating
NBC reality program, "Meet My Folks." The premise
of the show is that three guys spend a weekend at a woman’s
parent’s home, each vying for their approval. A candidate
is eliminated each night and on Sunday evening, the parents
decide which suitor will win a weeklong vacation with their
daughter.
This
show is interesting if for no other reason than seeing these
guys humiliated. The producers pull every skeleton out of these
guys’ closets… old teachers, former girlfriends,
and beer buddy stories. Some sample embarrassments from the
pilot episode: one of the men slept with his girlfriend’s
mom; another ex-girlfriend revealed a candidates fetish for
spanking and the third man was exposed as a cheater on his SATs.
Not exactly point scorers for these guys.
The
woman’s father grew more and more worried. By the end
of Friday evening, he wanted to get three new guys in there
and start over. Sunday night, the reluctantly selected the guy
who slept with his girlfriend’s mother and cheated on
his last girlfriend. What a winner!
Last
night's episode included champs like the guy who wrote bad checks
for a month to ditch creditors and one man who got his best
friend drunk so he could sleep with the guy's sister. Where
is NBC digging up these jerks?
NBC
is running promos for their Fall schedule, which include their
second "Parents" rip-off, "In-Laws." The
commercials painfully
replace the lyrics in "Macarena" with their own. Instead
of "Hey… Macarena," we are tortured with "Dennis
Fa-Ri-Na!"
From
the NBC website:
Newlywed Matt (Comedian Elon Gold), with the support of his
wife Alex (Bonnie Somerville), has quit his job to go to culinary
school. But in order to make ends meet in the meantime, they've
grudgingly moved in with Alex's parents, Victor (Dennis Farina)
and Marlene (Jean Smart). Since Marlene is caught up in her
real estate job and Alex is busy working double shifts, Victor
and Matt have plenty of "alone" time. Unfortunately,
Matt is terrified of Victor and Victor isn't thrilled to have
an "outsider" on his turf. Luckily, Matt and Victor
have one thing in common that just might make this awkward
situation work: their love for Alex.
My
God, this sounds terrible.
Is anyone else sick of Austin Powers? The original was a bomb
at the box office, getting resurrected only after a healthy
video store life. I enjoyed it, but hardly thought it worthy
of a sequel, let alone two.
Sitting
through "Austin Powers II: The Spy Who Shagged Me"
was an exercise in tedium. The same jokes rehashed, almost exactly
as they appeared in the first movie… much to the delight
of the opening night audience. As I sat there cringing at every
old bit, they howled with laughter, nearly wetting themselves.
You
have to wonder about Mike Myers abilities as a comedian. He’s
only had two hits in his career. The first "Wayne’s
World" movie and the second "Austin Powers."
In both cases, he felt the need to milk their success for all
they were worth. In the last eight years, Myers has only starred
in three movies; all of them start with the title, "Austin
Powers." Somehow, moviegoers knew to steer clear of the
second "Wayne’s World," but why do I suspect
that the third "Austin Powers" film will break box
office records?
When
is Myers going to show us what else he’s got? He took
a step in the right direction when he played a small part as
Steve Rubell in "54." Myers needs to do more of that,
more drama. When can we expect that Myers to reappear?
Certainly
not in his next film, a big-screen adaptation of "The Cat
in the Hat." Sounds like more of Myers in prosthetic make-up,
hamming it up and overacting to the joy of mindless hordes.
Before that, he was considering a relaunch of the Pink Panther.
Hmmm. A detective who bumbles around wearing different costumes
and make-up… Myers really is stretching isn’t he?
Worse
yet, we’ll all have to endure the morons who run around
spewing Austinisms: "Oh behave!" and "Yeah baby!"
Remember: Dubya’s favorite movie is "The Spy Who
Shagged Me." He’s also rumored to love "Goldmember."
Kinda tells you why our country in this fucked-up state.
There’s nothing as frustrating to a real film-lover as
having to sit in an audience full of idiots. I’m talking
about when they show those high school photos of celebrities
during the intermissions
and invite you to guess who they are. Unless you’re a
total idiot, the answers are painfully obvious. These dunces
are the same ones who get Bill Paxton and Bill Pullman confused.
They fucking look nothing alike, you dumb shits!!!
::Permalink::
Posted
9:05pm,
Monday, July 22, 2002
Boxes
Being
born and raised here in San Francisco, I want to stay in the
city. My wife just wants space. When we happened to see the
sign for new homes that were going, we decided to take a look.
We were impressed with the size of the places and the amenities.
We decided to take the plunge.
First
up came the negotiating process. Even though the dot com bust
is in full swing, homes were being snatched up left and right
for people who had saved during the boom.
Remember,
the median home prices in the Bay Area are over $400,000. That’s
not a typo and remember, this is average. This was well above
average.
But
we knew theses models were moving slowly. We were gonna squeeze
the bastards. We worked a pretty good deal and with our decent
finances and zero debt, the loan approval was painless.
Then
we had to sign. There is no scarier feeling than signing papers
that will keep you in debt for the next twenty years.
The
move-in… one odd thing about moving. Moving from a one
bedroom apartment to a three bedroom house should provide you
ample space for all your stuff, right? Wrong.
As
we begin moving boxes to our new place, the fact that you have
too much stuff will become quickly apparent to you. Those of
you who have moved into bigger homes are chuckling to yourselves
right now. Where did all this shit come from and where are we
going to put it?
All
those piles of boxes that were piled up your old place are still
piles of boxes. Only now, they’re piles of boxes in your
new home. Your new home that you’re trying to decorate
tastefully. The home that you hope will give you space for all
that shit you’ve been saving for all those years. One
problem though: your beautiful new home doesn’t want your
crappy old shit around.
Thank
God for the two-car garage.
My copywriter left to go back to Chicago a few months ago. They’ve
teamed me with a good writer on a couple of projects, but for
the most part, I am writerless. Not that big a deal really;
I graduated from college as a writer. Still, the situation has
not been easy.
Make
no mistake, I am totally, 100% confident in my ability to
come through without a writer, but that’s not the point.
Being partnerless in an agency creative department is like showing
up without a wife at a swinger’s party. You could be the
greatest lover in the world, but pretty soon people are going
to start wondering what they need you for.
Whatever.
::Permalink::
Posted
2:00pm,
Monday, July 22, 2002
Welcome
back
Back
to work.
Welcome
to the inaugural edition of The World According To.
With
this new format, I hope to reclaim some of the venom and piss
I was full of in the early days of the web. Before I hit my
thirties and started making some real coin, I was a bitter,
angry youth.
I'm
not suggesting that this new page will remind you of WWE Raw
(WWE... will we ever get used to the "E"? Curse the
World Wildlife Fund!), but I am hoping for a bit of the old
vitriol to return. Maybe even get a bit more personal in the
columns.
I
have noticed that my writing gets a bit more interesting when
work sucks. Considering that my job has a bit of sameness to
it lately, this could be good news for you readers.
To new readers, allow me to introduce myself. I'm a married
man in my mid-thirties that has worked in the ad business for
thirteen years.
Fuck,
I'm getting old.
I'm
in advertising because it's a cool, well-paid job where you
get to sit in a room and make stuff up in the name of commerce.
Some of the prerequisites for this job is that you watch a lot
of TV, see a lot of movies and listen to a lot of music.
You
absorb all this shit, distill it and regurgitate it all for
mass consumption in the name of selling stuff. Hopefully, it's
stuff you like or believe in. More often than not, you doing
it for something you have no interest in whatsoever.
You
get to work with some smart, interesting people. Sometimes,
you get to work with really talented directors and actors who
turn your ideas into reality. Occasionally, you'll hire a famous
person to appear in your ads, shake hands and take pictures
with them and sometimes, even eat a meal with them. A lot of
time, you meet assholes who delight in making your life a living
Hell.
If
you're fortunate, you'll not only get well paid for all your
efforts, you may even win awards. You'll ascend a stage, smile
and wave, perhaps say a few words and collect a cool statue
of some kind.
Or,
you could be a "hack." You'll produce shitty ads that
no one respects and that wins no awards. You'll work with hack
directors because none of the good guys will touch your crap
storyboards. Your co-workers will whisper about you and your
work behind your back.
However,
to the general public, you could be a hero: the guy who invented
the Tidy Bowl man. Or Mr. Whipple, or the Pillsbury Doughboy.
Maybe you'll write a memorable jingle, like "My bologna
has a first name." You could coin a phrase like "Nobody
doesn't like Sara Lee." You could be that guy... the one
who wrote the thing.
Sounds
pretty good either way huh?
Most
of all, I'm in advertising because I haven't yet convinced anyone
to buy my doodles or turned my half-assed ideas into a major
Hollywood motion picture and I'm man enough to admit that I'm
too lazy to do it myself.
Oh,
and I am an obsessive collector of all things Spider-man.
Someone
recently sent me a Quicktime clip of a Robert DeNiro outtake.
He shot a promo for a Tribeca Film Festival special that was
going to air on Fox. This clip epitomized everything that's
wrong with the advertising business. Witness the following exchange
between Robert DeNiro and the Fox promo producer:
DeNiro:
"When we created Tribeca, we wanted to capture all the
emotion, all the energy and all the power of a movie. See
for yourself, Tuesday on Fox….
…Do
another? Good?"
Producer:
"Can you try another one, just generally more energetic?"
DeNiro:
"I'm sorry.. I got... that's energetic. You don't know
what you're talking about. Yes, excuse me..."
Producer:
"Tuesday on Fox..."
DeNiro:
"No, sorry. I'm not selling cars, okay."
Ouch.
This
clip makes me feel ashamed and dirty. I think of all the times
I've had talent amp up the client’s name or price or phone
number. How many times have I asked an actor to "do it
with a bit more smile"? I've asked a lot of people to compromise
their art in the name of commerce over the last ten years.
And
this Fox producer... he was talking to Bobby fucking DeNiro
and he had the balls to tell him how to read the script! This
is the guy who was in Godfather II, Taxi Driver Raging Bull,
GoodFellas.
Bend
over.
Don't
all actors sell product?
Think
of feature films. They are there to make money for the movie
studios. These are Hollywood productions with multimillion-dollar
budgets. This isn't time for fucking around. This is business.
Don't
bring up indie films either. Those are not charities or non-profit
projects. If someone, somewhere didn't think they could "market"
a film, it would never get made. Some indie producer will always
be "shopping" your movie around. Yes, sadly, even
independent filmmaking is a commercial prospect.
I
once worked with a great, award-winning commercial director
who would do all his casting in fast forward. Which is to say,
he’d have a casting person tape the auditions, then watch
them in double speed. When he liked someone’s look, he’d
stop the tape and watch their performance. My copywriter and
I commented on what a harsh way of casting that was. His response?
"I
didn’t tell them to become an actor."
::Permalink::
©2002
Ron Lim unless noted
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