Cam Bert

Now, I've never listened to the original album or Broadway recording, so I have a question for those that have. Is Che suppose to be funny? He's not funny all the time but he has some good solid funny lines here and there. No offensive to Antonio Banderas who was doing his best but he didn't real sell the humor of them. This lead me to wonder if they were suppose to be funny or am I just weird?

At least with Across the Universe you had CakeBug there to defend it with you. We miss you CakeBug.

This was written by Dame Sire Lord Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice following their success on Jesus Christ Superstar and that is never more evident than in a few numbers when that rockin' guitar kicks in. The thing that struck me most about the movie is how few parts there are really. You have Evita, Peron, Che, and the guitar guy and the chorus and that's about it.

She was good. She was was the Queen of Hearts so a lot of the "off with their heads" shtick. I liked her more than HBC but that's just my contempt for the Tim Burton Alice movies.

While I was watching this I was thinking what a bonkers cast this was. I mean it is a weird hodgepodge of singers, actors, and comedians. Why cast these people? Then it hit me. A lot of the actors were CBS contract players. Kojak, Dallas, Carol Burnett Show, Knots Landing, The Jeffersons, etc. were all CBS shows and stars of those shows all appear in this movie. However this theory is not completely sound because Merv Griffin, Steve Allen, Sid Caesar and others have strong ties to NBC. Also there are some Happy Days people in there which was ABC. So just when I thought I had this figured out it gets all confusing again.

Also you put a Beatle in your movie and you don't make him the walrus? That's straight up goo goo g'joob!

What I found is that I had no memory of the first part except the ending and lots of memories about the second part. When I first started watching the movie I was thinking that we had something else taped, but then the moment she got back to her house it started coming back to me. Then the more of the second part I watched I was like "Oh yes this, and that" Maybe I only liked part 2 and that's what I watched as a kid. I don't know. Either way, thanks for the trip down memory lane.

Now that you mention it YES!

I'm slowly waiting for the mini-sode thread to become the Jessica Jones thread. (I'm six episodes in)

Chester was finishing up his meal at his favourite greasy spoon diner. Like clockwork every day for lunch he'd come in and order a big bowl of chili, fries, bacon egg sandwich, and a steak which also came with a few extra eggs. Hey, there is no such as bad cholesterol he'd tell himself. He was finishing up his meal when the waitress walked by, "Hey Martha, tell the cook last time I saw something this greasy he worked for sanitation in Jersey." "Oh Mr. Chester and your jokes." She said assuming it was a joke from his hands up gesture and bug eyed expression. As English was her second language she just assumed it was funny and gave him a courtesy laugh. "Chester you still got it." He remarked to himself as he went back to finishing his coffee. When from across the dinner he heard a loud bang followed by the clanging of silverware on ceramic. A heated gnarled cry soon followed. "God dammit Bess," the mystery voice snarled, "For the last fucking time, I don't care about your or the boy. I ain't giving you a dime and won't ever. I'm done with this and I'm done with you." Then Chester heard the soft coo of a tired and weak voice crying out between sobs, "I thought if we did this in a public place you wouldn't make a scene. Please be reasonable." He turned to see what the commotion was about. At the other end of the dinner there was a toe headed woman with her head in her hands. She appeared to be maybe 20 years younger than Chester and while she wouldn't be gracing the covers of any magazines she had a certain charm to her look. Across from her a hard looking man. A barrel chested one man brute squad of a man with trucker cap, sleeveless flannel shirt, jeans that had seen a thousand miles, and tattered work boots. The man snatched at a pack of cigarettes from the table and put one in his mouth before standing up. He threw the pack back down at the table, but more so at the woman, and pointed directly at her. "Well you were never one for thinking were you? Don't you ever contact me again." He stormed off to the entrance of the diner, "Oh, and the coffee is on you Bess." He laughed to himself and was out the doors. The woman buried her face deeper into her palms and began to cry so loudly Chester could hear her from across the place. He squirmed his seat, thinking to himself what a jerk that guy was. That's no way to treat a lady. Soon the other people in the diner went about their regular business but the woman kept sobbing. Chester shifted in his seat some more. This wasn't right, he kept thinking. What could I do though? Then it hit him. "Martha, a slice of that pie for the lady. Make it two I'm joining her." He said as he got out of his seat and moved across the diner to the crying woman. Her head still down as he made his way over and nervously introduced himself. "Say, I know the timing is not great but you've got to try this pie. I mean every lousy joint has a lousy pie but I tell ya this one is the lousiest. It's so lousy I'm on doctors’ orders to have it three times a day so I will keel over and stop bothering him. It's so lousy they drop into warzones to end conflicts because nobody wants to go near it. I tell ya, you got to try it to see how lousy it is. Boy, that's what my mother use to tell all my dates." Then from the tears he heard a faint chuckle. "I think you're getting it now. I mean don't get me wrong this pie is the worst. I'm pretty sure eating it violates the Geneva Convention. It's cruel and unusual punishment then again that's what my ex-wife said being married to me was." Another chuckle. "I don't know your story lady and you don't know mine. I come home to my first wife packing bags. Are we going on vacation I asked and she said no I was. A one way ticket to an apartment in the city. It wasn't all bad until the rats called an exterminator to get rid of me. Then I meet this other lady, real nice lady, did a lot for charity namely marrying me. One day I tell her I want kids and she said so did she, just not ones with my looks. So here I am building my life up for the third time and just when I don't think thing could get any worse I eat this pie and I know, yes it can." The woman laughed a little and looked up at Chester and smiled, "That's quite the pitch for this pie. I think you might have sold me." "That's me. I can sell snow to an eskimo, open cars to the Kennedy's, dust to the dust bowl. In fact I'm off to a very important interview later at this company, Mullen something or another, who are looking for sales people. I don't know what they're selling but I can sale it." Martha came by and put two slices of pie down on the woman's table. The woman picked up a napkin and wiped away tears from her face. She motioned for Chester to sit and join her. She noticed the left behind pack of cigarettes. "You don't happen to smoke do you?" She asked. "Me? Nah, I'm yellow enough as is. I tell you, sometimes when I'm in a hurry people try to hail me. I once had mustard on my face for a whole day and nobody noticed. I'm so yellow I tell ya, that I make Robert Ford look good." "You're not that bad," the woman said as she took a bite of the pie, "Well not nearly as bad as this pie." "What did I tell ya, what did I tell ya. The only thing worse in this joint than me is the cooking. Hey chef I kid because I love but seriously the people of Guatemala want you back. Know what I mean?" The woman laughed aloud, "No. No I don't." "Tough crowd I see. At least you're laughing at my words and not at me." "No, it's... well... you didn’t have to do this for me." "Did for you? Lady this one is for me. A schlub like me and a great dame like you." "Ha, no sense on beating around the bush here. You practically heard everything. I'm in my late 30s with a son who's almost a teenager. I have a horrible ex, a not so profitable job, and a house with a steep mortgage. Who'd want any of that?" "That doesn't sound that bad. A horrible ex? I have two. Not so profitable job, I'm going in for an entry level sales position. A house? Great! I have a ten foot by ten foot painting that IS my place. Not to mention you still have your looks and I have, hey, what do I got? Oh dear, is this pie better than I am? They couldn't even sell me for a buck twenty." "I believe the pie is one fifty." "One fifty? Maybe if I dressed nice I could fetch a buck twenty but a buck fifty. No way." The woman laughed again, and looked out the window at the world around her. Thinking about all the things it held for her and her son, and then she looked across the table and this oddly shaped man. Sure he had a few years on her and probably was never really a looker in his time, but his goofy smile and odd personality had sort of charmed her. "I'm not sure how I could ever thank you for cheering me up like this on one of the worst days of my life." "You could thank me by joining me for dinner. That is if we could find a place that serves hairless gorillas. It, ugh, it would be on me." She looked over and the crumple pack of cigarettes and down at the horrid pie before her. Despite its bad looks and foul taste she'd almost completely eaten it all. "It's a date. I’m Bess." she said sticking her hand out. "Nice to meet ya Bess, I'm Chester. The pleasure is all mine."

Or this is how she gets good at being the goalie. Put butterflies on the ball and just start yelling at her to "catch the butterflies." We see her jumping and diving to grab them. Rather in the movie she believes in herself and just gets good. I ask you, which is more unrealistic? Again I hate to be doing this screenwriter's work for him but 9-0 is not a huge blow out if the other scores are going to be comparable. Soccer is well known for its low scores so you can either do what you suggested and have the funny joke of them being blown out of the water 1-0 or just go super over the top and have 20-0. Either case 9-0 is just like "oh, that's bad. Surprised it wasn't higher."

These pictures makes me think of something I was wondering. I could be completely off base here, and this is where I wished June chimed in more but are these scores normal for soccer matches of this age group? If you have kids in youth soccer or were part of it I am very curious. We have 8-7, 9-7, 6-4 just from Mullen's boards alone and those seem very high for a soccer match. Currently the top premier league team's biggest win was 5-1 but most of the games are 2-1, 1-1, 3-0. I know there is a big difference between young kids and top tier professionals but these scores just seem ridiculously high. What makes this even weirder in the Ladybug's first match when all the players but one were new and they had no skills or anything they lost 9-0. Wow! They got creamed, right? Well, if they are winning 8-7 and 9-7, they're getting goals now but defensively speaking they are doing as good as when they had no training. They are just kicking more and that seems to be netting them goals. Are they actually getting any better overall though?

This is something I swear we had recorded off TV that I watched as a kid but have only the faintest memory of. I think I remember a scene with the Jabberwocky and that's about it.

This week works better for me. I can probably do next week but this week is overall better.

That is a fantastic point but here is what makes things even more complicated. Matthew phones Chester and is like "The girls want to go skinny dipping and I'm going to get found out, but I can't leave until my mom gets here so get here right now!" So does Chester rush to his aid not only saving him but himself? Nope. He goes and gets a dress. Well first he has to drop Bess off at home. Maybe she had a hat and veil, maybe not. Now Bess is clearly smaller clothing size wise than Chester, so it's not like he can simply just grab one of her dresses and put it on. This means that he either a) went and quickly bought a dress or b ) already owned a dress. In either case this is taking up so much time meanwhile Matthew is being hunted by these skinny dipping mad girls while the parental supervision is having an affair with a volleyball coach. Chester could have simply driven to the house and said "Oh hey, it's me Coach Chester. Martha's mom is busy at work and asked if I could pick her up." Problem solved in no time. I bet he was just looking for an excuse to wear that dress he secretly owned.

Well it seems like it's been forever, mainly because it has, but it is that time again for another exciting episode of... How Did This Get Named? Now after the long wait of similarly titled movies comes Ladybugs which gives us a good old two for one. That is to say this movie was re-released and renamed. So I've talked about before about the problems of marketing some of these movies for a foreign market. How can you take stars people don't know and ideas people don't know and make people want to see them? Well luckily Rodney Dangerfield was a not a well known name here in Japan so the first strategy was to market this movie as a romantic comedy. It was call 恋のレディ＆レディ？Koi no Redi & Redi? or Ladylove & Lady? The first thing we notice here is the complete lack of Rodney Dangerfield. In fact at the top it says "Starring Jonathan Brandis" and in very fine print along the bottom is Rodney. Next we come to the horribly photoshopped head of Jonathan Brandis where Rodney Dangerfield's is on the American posters and covers. If you were to hear this title and see this poster you'd assume it's some sort of teen love story and boy would you be confused. Well, that's must have been what happened because when the movie was released again for the home video market they decided to do some rebranding. In came Rodney Dangerfield and the title was changed to reflect the soccer theme. For home video we got 恋のキック・オフ Koi no Kikku Offu or Kick Off of Love Gone is the attempts to make it look like a cross dressing love story and rather a romantic sports film. Even the tagline has changed. In the first it was "For you I'd become a woman" while in the second it is "Yellow card! Players in drag are not allowed!" Now the second tagline makes no sense because there is no allusion to drag anywhere unlike in the original title and if you think about it is slightly implying that Martha is in drag from the picture above. In either case it didn't seem to work because the movie seems largely forgotten here with one review I found noting "I saw this on TV and watched it. It looked cheap."

For me the most interesting thing about watching this movie is that both Jackee and Rodney Dangerfield seem the have the same acting style. Both really like to gesticulate with their arms while speaking. However, they don't really move their arms as much as they move their forearms while keeping their upper arms firmly at their sides.

Guys I just noticed this in the finale game scene: Could this be his trailer?

Let's think for a minute what would be in a typical snack vending machine and the smells associated with them. You'd have a variety of chips so there would be some vinegary smells and some BBQ smells. You'd also have Doritos so there would be a cheesy smell to it all as well. Now I'd imagine in addition to skittles in the fruity candy section you would also have some starburst. Now, which is the strongest smell of all of those? The correct answer should be none, as they are all packaged so why can you even smell them to begin with? This leads me to believe that Skittles packing must be the weakest of all packaging and therefore more susceptible to being wrongfully popped or opened. This meaning he'd smell more like skittles than any of the other smells in a typical vending machine. Or maybe his partner just has terrible fruity smelling cologne and he only thinks it's Skittles he is smelling like.

I agree with this. This does bring a question I had with Shelby's job. Do vending machines really have to be restocked at the crack of dawn? I live in the vending machine capital of the world and I see them being restocked at all sorts of times.

My initial thought on this was because of cars. I remember being back in Canada in the early 2000s and driving around with friends who only had cassette capability because their cars were old and they didn't want to put a new stereo into a car with a questionable lifespan or didn't want to risk it getting stolen. So clearly DJay and crew are poor and on the wrong side of the tracks so to speak. His Cadillac is old and falling apart and has a manual radio. It didn't appear to have a stereo at all, so maybe in his mind people around him and his circle could only listen to cassettes in their cars so why make a CD. Not saying this is the right answer but this is how I justified it in my head for a good portion of the film. However I do think it is kinda what others have said as Skinny Pete got his success by doing tapes, which was probably only a few years prior, so that's what he knew and thought.

I might be alone in this but did everybody like the ending? For me when you have such a character as DJay(with the ay as he likes it) who is so morally questionable and divisive and you give him the straight up happy ending it feels like a vindication for his actions through out the film. Yes he was right to force Pennsatucky into having sex with the music shop man, he was right to lie to all his friends and make them walk for him, etc. because ultimately he was right about the song being good and he's going to get at least 15 minutes of fame. It just doesn't sit well for me. By the same token him being an abject failure does seem wrong as well because you kinda do want to see him succeed. Which I was never sure if I wanted DJay to succeed or rather I wanted the success so it would effect those around him who I liked and cared about more like Key and Sugar. So if he got a harsher prison sentence but his friends got better lives because of his success would that be better? I don't know, I just know as it was ending any want I had for him to succeed or rise above his station were gone.

Listening to that Ladybugs trailer all I could think was...

I remember Timothy Olyphant from way back in Scream 2. Then he popped up in Hitman, Deadwood, and some other things I watched. Never once did I think he was a handsome man. He was just another actor. Then I started watching Justified and I started to develop a huge man crush on him. He was sauve and handsome and just so cool. I don't know if it was him or the character, but ever since I'm a huge Oly-fan-t.