MondayCity

I agree . . . with everyone. I really liked The Game, and someday someone is going to get an elaborate birthday prank from me that involves actors strategically placed throughout the city improvising dialogue that will basically serve as cut scenes for a random set of missions. Having said that, the movie could have worked a little harder to make the ending less dependent on sheer luck. Did they have a line in there at the end somewhere about having other ways of making sure he got to the party? Even that would have helped. I do have a weakness for twist endings involving what we thought was real, like Vanilla Sky, Jacob's Ladder, Fight Club, but it should not have too many cheats. Still, I'd even rather see a failed attempt at twisting reality than something really good about realistic problems. (That has everything to do with me and nothing to do with art.)

And, people, we're not cutting a Steely Dan album here. Having said that, could you bring down the director's commentary a little bit? I swear I could hear wet sounds coming from places deep within him during his clips. (Jason would have loved it.)

He was a cop with a shadowy backstory. She was a pop singer whose backstory was hammered into you at every opportunity. Together they write songs and take on international arms dealers and try to find her biological mother. Steven Seagal and Mariah Carey in "Glitter Man." There'd be nothing but jungle, then some glitter... Then you'd be dead!

The sequel to "Staying Alive" was "Michael."

The movie "Staying Alive" was named after the song "Stayin' Alive" because the song lyrics obviously were used as a treatment for the screenplay: Well, you can tell by the way I use my walk I'm a woman's man no time to talk Music loud and women warm I've been kicked around, since I was born And now it's all right, it's okay And you may look the other way We can try to understand The New York times' effect on man Whether you're a brother or whether you're a mother You're stayin' alive, stayin' alive Feel the city breakin' and everybody shakin' Stayin' alive, stayin' alive Ah, ha, ha, ha, stayin' alive, stayin' alive Ah, ha, ha, ha, stayin' alive Well now, I get low and I get high And if I can't get either, I really try Got the wings of Heaven on my shoes I'm a dancin' man and I just can't lose You know it's all right, it's okay I'll live to see another day We can try to understand The New York times' effect on man Whether you're a brother or whether you're a mother You're stayin' alive, stayin' alive Feel the city breakin' and everybody shakin' Stayin' alive, stayin' alive Ah, ha, ha, ha, stayin' alive, stayin' alive Ah, ha, ha, ha, stayin' alive Life's goin' nowhere, somebody help me Somebody help me, yeah Life's goin' nowhere, somebody help me, yeah Stayin' alive [Rinse. Repeat.] Interesting, these lyrics were also source material for "Godzilla" (1998) and the movie about Jayson Blair, "Fragile Trust." By the way, to truly appreciate these lyrics, you must read them aloud, sans music.

As we are recognizing the contribution of individual letters, I congratulate "g" for being restored to the end of the word "Stayin'" in the title for the film, in contrast to the song. I am unable to interpret the significance of avoiding the apostrophe. Would that have been way too informal? Was this the author's choice or a studio demand?

Notice that for the name of the female character whom the protagonist physically and emotionally uses, abuses, and abandons, Stallone chose "Jackie," which is also his mother's name. You could write a whole textbook on the Freudian implications. (I wouldn't read it.)

Drillboids, that's great. I hated "The Lost Boys." They can make it a coronation episode called, "How Did This Get SchuMade?" and they can keep "St. Emilio's Fire" in the chamber in case they ever need it to defend his reign as king of HDTGM directors.

You guys, you could so easily make Schumacher the KING if you do "St. Elmo's Fire," or M. Night the KING if you do "The Happening." Let's crown us a auteur sometime soon.

Another person who I wish could have taken home some hardware is the audience member at "Gymkata" (Live) who provoked Jason into a fit of contempt by insulting Jason's appearance, calling out Jason for not taking a picture with him, and then, when he finally got around to his question, speculating that someone threw a bucket of . . . cum . . . on Kurt Thomas. Jason's reaction is so satisfying.

Sadly, the awards show snubbed my favorite Paul quote, which appeared in "Fair Game," when Paul exclaimed at 42:19: "I don't even understand the plan, and I'm privy to it!" I just get the feeling that Paul says that a lot in his personal life as well.

Try Jane's pronunciation of Jeremy Guber in "88 Minutes."

In defense of the pasta robot: 1. Rob Schneider is clearly tampering with the robot because when Dredd says "Halt!" and obstructs the robot's passage away from the crime scene, the robot says, "The servo-droid is your friend. Please let your friend go by." The robot would not have said that unless Rob Schneider was manipulating its verbalizing functions and trying to escape. 2. Dredd arrests Schneider for "wilfull sabotage" of a public droid. 3. It is possible to make a battery out of a potatoes or lemons. Every middle school science fair contains some such contraption. It is not entirely unreasonable to believe that a robot whose stated purpose is to recycle food could be powered by, and even perhaps wired with, food products--especially in a society that has the technology to produce clones that come to life as adults and have genitals that were completely formed in the last 30 minutes of the gestation process. Ergo, Rob Schneider could have been using the spaghetti to hack the servo-droid. June, that's the best I've got. I'm not a scientist (and, Pete Holmes, I'm not a cop).

I hardly ever tell this story, but here goes: I had a non-speaking part as a villain on Ang Lee's Hulk movie. When I heard that they were going to use CGI for the Hulk, I told Ang just to "Lou Ferrigno" it. So they used my trainer and a whole bunch of anabolic steroids to bulk up Eric Bana and then painted him green. He got up to about 190 lbs for the part, and none of it was flab. Well, one day, I heard that Eric Bana was talking trash about me, so I grabbed him by the neck and told him that he was going to be using my poo as a hair conditioner. He kind of stomped back to his trailer, and when Ang asked him what was wrong, Bana just said, "Hulk scared." Ang came after me and said that I would never work in this business again. I grabbed him by the neck and told him that he didn't know anything about comic books. I said, "You should be making movies about gay cowboys or something instead." Everyone heard this and started laughing at him. The rest, as they say, is history.

Re sponsors: 1. "Cards Against Humanity" IS a hilarious game. 2. Why did Paul say that sponsors ask him not to use violence in their spots? Has that been a big problem? I could imagine that could be an issue if the sponsor were a saw, a hostel, or a summer camp, but has Paul been tempted to incorporate brutality and gore into his Nature Box pitches? 3. I just read that Nordstrom bought Trunk Club for $350 million. I have to believe that TC's exposure on HDTGM drove that acquisition. So, congratulations. By the way, with that kind of money, the sellers could easily reboot Pluto Nash and make it right this time--or they could remake Sleepaway Camp one thousand times.

Definitive proof that Karl Williams is right: "You grab my severed hand out of the shark's mouth," says Tara Reid to Ian Ziering in an "Us" magazine interview August 4, 2014 pg 68. (By the way, I would much rather be quoting Voltaire.)

INDEPENDENCE DAY-- A determined group of cringeworthy stereotypes saves 1% of Earth's population by using a laptop (and wireless connectivity?) to commence the auto-destruct function of the mothership of a race of alien monsters that are dumb as rocks but somehow have mastered interstellar travel. (I hate everything about this movie.) THE HAPPENING -- The lead actors, who have queer emotional responses to ordinary life, find that they must run away from a wind that makes the day players self destructive, only to find that Betty Buckley has changed since "Eight is Enough." (I am so happy I finally watched this movie.) MAXIMUM OVERDRIVE -- Machines against idiots. I last watched this one with close captioning on and noticed a caption during a defecation scene that consisted only of the word "squish" in brackets. (This movie is kinda fun in its stupidity.) ST. ELMO'S FIRE -- The movie about a group of college grads that tells it like it isn't, never was, and never could be. Makes you realize that Joel Schumacher killed the Brat Pack before he killed the Batman franchise. ([squish])

I think that when June says "Gooby," it becomes an onomatopoeia.

Correction and Omission: Let's focus on the positive. Gooby's ass could have looked a lot worse than threadbare--have you seen a Charmin commercial lately? Members, please resist the urge to illustrate this comment.

This may be an unintended segue from the previous comment, but I want to thank Paul for recommending "Under The Skin." I have always wanted to see a 1 hour and 48 minute portrayal of Ally Sheedy's character from "Breakfast Club" mutely wandering around Scotland alone. I took Andy Warhol to the screening, and he kept begging to leave, telling me he was "bored out of my skull." I wanted to use the film as a screen saver, but my IT people said that a screen saver has to consist of some kind of moving image...

Returning to the dog for a minute, is it possible that the guy caught that dog while he was fishing and is throwing it back? Also, this mini ep provided more evidence that Paul has some kind of name aphasia. And on that subject, doesn't it seem like whenever Paul apologizes for mispronouncing Avril the intern's name in the past, there is no discernible difference in how he says the name with the supposedly correct pronunciation?

Strongly agree. I usually say, "Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die." Most of them die with mixed emotions.

I think he was in earnest.

Here's my theory about why they cut the last scene out of the DVD release. In the deleted scene, Ernest has a job as a bank clerk. However, at the start of the next movie ("Scared Stupid"), he is a sanitation engineer (I believe). Therefore, it would be impossible to assemble the movies "Godfather"-style without causing hopeless confusion about what happened in his professional life between the time he got out of jail and when he inadvertantly released the goblin. By the way, I think the title should have been "Ernest Goes To Prison" (not "jail"). Would that have been a poor title for a kid's movie? The sequel could have been "Ernest Scared Straight." Finally, I think that June indicated she has a knowledge of recidivism. Someone should update the chart.

Paul seemed a little defensive on this point in the mini ep. Sounds like he had had an unconmfortable phone conversation with Mr. Vajna after the Judge Dredd episode: "It's pronounced 'Van-ya,' and if anyone affiliated with your podcast gets it wrong again, I'll crush you like a bug," Vanja growled while chomping on a cigar. "Does that include posters?" Paul squeeked. Vajna slammed down the phone, and Paul heard nothing after that except a dial tone. Link to an interesting article about Uncle Vajna: http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,628785,00.html According to Wikipedia, "On January 15, 2011, the Hungarian government appointed him government commissioner in charge of the Hungarian film industry." That refers to Vajna, not Paul.