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Cameron H.

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Posts posted by Cameron H.

  1. Posted

    If I'm reading this right, and I'm not sure that I am, episodes of HDTGM that are more than 6-months-old are only accessible through a subscription to Howl.

     

    That is correct. Scott is fielding questions about it here. They announced it today on CBB. The funny thing is, I'm not a habitual CBB listener, I mainly just listen when I enjoy the guests, so it threw me for a bit of a loop. I don't have a problem with it necessarily, but I still think they should charge for new content and leave the old stuff free, but that's just me...For the amount of laughs EW has provided, I think 4.99 per month is more than fair.

    • Like 3

  2. Posted

    Okay, I interrupted listening to CBB to scan these forums because I just wasn't getting "it" (which I admit, is probably on me). I think I have a clearer understanding of what's going on, and it's probably too late in the game to affect any real change, but I have a thought followed by a question.

     

    I have no problem subscribing to EW/WP shows for 4.99 a month, in fact I've said before that I would happily pay money for these shows. That being said, I feel like this model is a bit backward. If I have already downloaded these episodes, then there really isn't any motivation for me to subscribe. And, as others have stated, if I want to recommend an episode, I will only have the past six months to pull from unless this hypothetical new listener is willing to shell out money on something they aren't sure about.

     

    I guess my question is, since the archived episodes are just sitting there anyway, why not charge 4.99 for the new content and leave the old content free? For example, each new episode of any show on EW/WP would cost .99 to download. So if I'm listening to 8 EW/WP shows, it would cost me 8+ dollars to listen to them per week, but if I subscribe for 4.99 per month, I have access to everything (including exclusive content) that EW/WP has to offer. This would leave the backlog open for people wanting to dip their toes in the water (i.e. get 'em hooked) and still generate consistent revenue.

     

    Who knows? I'm just hearing about this today and I'm not in the podcast medium, but it just makes more sense to me...

    • Like 1

  3. Posted

    Does anyone else think it's a little distracting how much JV laughs during the monologue? She's a great improviser and adds to the show, but her non stop laughing kinda drives me nuts. Great episode guys!

     

    Honestly, this has come up in the forums before and I just don't get it...

     

    How does a person laughing at jokes (on a comedy podcast) become distracting? Isn't that what Paul is trying to accomplish? I certainly don't feel like her laughter is excessive or rude. It's not even very loud, in fact, it's pretty quiet--albeit, enthusiastic. I also don't feel like it's much different from when Paul laughs in the background during any given episode of CBB. Is she supposed to sit there in stony silence to give Paul's monologue the gravitas it deserves? That seems weird...

     

    Keep on laughing, Ms. Varney! Don't let them steal your sparkle!

    • Like 14

  4. Posted

    Another family comedy that I wouldn't let my kid watch. Lot of inappropriate stuff going on here.

     

    The obsession with tail comedy might be the worst part.

     

    Really? Is it that inappropriate? Anything specific you can point to? Admittedly, I was barely paying attention this morning, but I didn't get the impression that it was too ribald for kids? The only thing I caught is there seemed to be a lot of "burping as a joke" type humor. I was going to watch it with my son sometime this week since it is so cartoonish and he loves dinosaurs and robots (which are apparently in play in this movie).

     

    I thought it would be a perfect fit for him.... :mellow:

  5. Posted

    35 million for a straight to video film??? now that is bonkers (not sure if its literally bonkers but its definitely bonkers)

     

    From what I read on IMDb, it was intended to go to theaters, but when the studio saw how terrible it was they changed their minds. In this movie's defense, from what I saw of it this morning, I would say the 35 million is up there on the screen. The puppets are pretty well done, if not a little creepy. It's really the script that's the issue. I really like it as a companion piece to Top Dog. Top Dog was a movie that was supposed to be for children, but tone deaf in terms of subject matter. Theodore Rex, on the other hand, is definitely for children, but fails because it has no respect for its audience. It's all style and no substance. The dialog is inane, the characters are stupid, the comedy falls completely flat, and the plot is trite and derivative. I honestly had a hard time paying attention to it for more than a few minutes at a time and had to force myself to refocus.

     

    Also, I will defend Whoopi's performance. From what I read, she had to be sued in order to keep her in the movie. Considering she didn't want to be there, I don't feel like she phoned it in. I sometimes forget that Whoopi was once a really talented actor/comedian.

     

    Plus, this movie has Drusilla in it. I know that doesn't mean a whole heck of a lot, but it made me happy.

     

    Drusilla-Spike-Angel-promotional-images-buffy-the-vampire-slayer-12513254-665-1000.jpg

    • Like 5

  6. Posted

    Ugh.

     

    I typed it into Google and here it is - it came right up.

     

    A predisposition is a tendency to do something. If you know you have a predisposition toward getting carsick, better to plan ahead and avoid eating before a long drive. Things could get ugly.

     

    noun

    1.

    the fact or condition of being predisposed :

    a predisposition to think optimistically.

     

    Hey Paul,

     

    It's always great to see you on the boards, but you really don't have to engage with the quibblers. I'd hate to think the only time you post something here it is to defend yourself or the show. There's no need, we got your back. Plus, these types of posters tend to weed themselves out.

     

    In the future though--if you do feel you want to respond to an annoying comment--feel free to use my "Angry Paul" gif.

     

    b956649a6a55ac9a03464c0685874f26.gif

     

    P.S. Theodore Rex is a terrible movie. I watched the first half this morning, but I'll have to start again knowing that Whoopi is a freaking robot!!!! I do have a feeling that my three-year-old will like it though, so i'll definitely be watching it with him when I start it over. Thanks for the great show!

    • Like 8

  7. Posted

    I don't have too much to add to the whole "Musicals" topic, there are some I like and others I don't, but I would like to applaud the entire forum for hijacking this thread and turning it from something negative into something positive.

     

    That's pretty rad!

     

    b4edc1a38e1dfeae211603aa2166328c.gif

    • Like 7

  9. Posted

    As we all know, the key to writing compelling and believable characters is to imbue them with some sort of character flaw. And while I daresay all of the characters in Top Dog appear to have many flaws, I have never seen a movie in which so many characters (heroes and villains alike) all seemed to share a common flaw. Of course I'm talking about the movie's depiction of people suffering from a chronic lack of peripheral vision.

     

    Examples:

     

    *The grandfather, in a small room on a boat, doesn't see (or hear) the large metal door opening behind him. Result: Death.

     

    *The cops staking out the warehouse, whose sole purpose is to keep an eye on things, are somehow snuck up upon by two gun toting thugs. Result: Death.

     

    *The henchman chasing Reno is so busy looking for the dog UP IN THE PIPING!! that he doesn't notice it sitting quietly behind him. Result: Unclear. At the very least, he's almost certainly concussed, but there's a very good possibility he also has cerebral hemorrhaging which will most likely result in Death.

     

    *The vested henchman who is beating Norris doesn't notice the large, hairy dog creeping up--not from behind--but from the side. The same dog that then slowly gnaws the ropes loose so Norris can get free. Result: Incapacitated, possibly killed, with a good ol' fashioned dose of Chuck Kwon Do.

     

    In each of these scenarios, had their visual acuity been any where close to normal, the tragic outcomes that each of these characters suffered could have easily been avoided--all without turning their heads even a fraction of a degree.

     

    What's going on San Diego?? Are you guys okay? Do we need to dispatch CDC to investigate what is obviously a city wide glaucoma pandemic?

    • Like 7

  10. Posted

    Not to mention earlier in the film when he goes to the docks. He heads into the harbor masters office, identifies himself, and asks to see the log as he reaches out for it. When the harbor master, who is crooked, stops him and asks if he has a warrant Norris just rips it from his hands and says "You got a problem?" Yes many! Anybody could get a real enough looking badge and come in, a warrant not only compels you to comply but shows that this is a legit and legal search. Like FisterRoboto said it a simple requirement of law and your rights and by doing this he negates any evidence gained. However Norris takes it even a step further by ripping the page out of the log!! Not only was it an illegal search but you can throw in destruction or tempering with evidence charges on top of that right?

     

    Or when he first arrives at the police station and the hippie-looking dude is yelling that they have no right to hold him there and that he "knows his rights" and Norris physically forces the guy into the chair and says, "Sit your rights down!" I think the whole reason why Norris was on suspension is becoming a whole lot clearer...

     

    It really does seem like the movie is positing that laws are there to govern the general populace, but if you are "morally right" then the laws don't really apply to you.

     

    ETA-Officer Grandpa didn't have a warrant to search the boat at the beginning of the movie either. He was just going on a hunch that the nondescript, stocky white guy and the nondescript, skinny white guy (who were just hanging out at the scene of the crime...?) matched an eyewitness' description.

     

    He also didn't bother, in the 6 or so hours he waited for nightfall, to write in his notepad anything other than, "Followed two suspects to the docks." You'd think he'd at least get a slip number, the name of the ship, or anything that might be useful. Then again, I guess that would cut into doughnut time.

    • Like 4

  11. Posted

    Whenever Chuck was attempting to act caring with the boy, this is all that kept running through my head:

     

     

    Norris' relationship with the boy was hilariously awkward--it was like he was a vacuum cleaner trying to mimic human emotion. I particularly loved the scene where the kid is cradling the dog and whimpering softly. Chuck comes out totally stone-faced and says, "What's the matter, Matt?" Hmmm...I don't know, Chuck--whatever could be this boy's problem? I would have loved if in reply the kid just said, "Gee, I don't know, Mister...Let's see if we can figure this one out: I'm sitting in a strange, degenerate's detritus strewn backyard, sobbing into the matted fur of a dog that used to belong to my beloved grandfather--who just one month ago--was brutally murdered and unceremoniously dumped into the bay. I don't know detective, you tell me: 'What's the matter?'"

    • Like 1

  12. Posted

    Midway through the movie, Norris meets with two cops who are staking out the bad guys' warehouse. He approaches them and he is told that a search warrant has been denied due to the lack of "probable cause." Undeterred, Norris flouts the Fourth Amendment, asks them to keep an eye out, and says he's going to go in anyway. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure that even if he did discover the crucial piece of damning evidence he was looking for--without a warrant--it wouldn't even be admissible in court. Norris just got those police officers killed for nothing!

    • Like 7

  14. Posted

     

    - I was a little grossed out by Jake picking up the phone with hands that had just handled a rotisserie chicken. Grab a napkin or something.

     

     

    While I do agree that's gross, what I believe to be even grosser is a hot dog vendor who shoves his sweaty hands into the mouth of my filthy dog and then pats it on the head before going back to serve more hot dogs. *BARF*

     

    Hey, Wiener man! Invest in some goddamn Purell!

    • Like 3

  15. Posted

    Still got my vote.

     

    Fair enough. I'm just saying maybe Reno should run for mayor, Jake should be his bodyguard, and the Chief should be a local government themed super villain out for revenge.

     

    The cops in the movie kept mentioning skinheads and shaving their heads to go undercover, but all the white supremacists in the movie had long, flowing hair like they were models in a Vidal Sassoon commercial.

     

    The vibe I got from that random police lady who says she'd be willing to go undercover was that she just wanted to do so as an excuse to really unload some of the racial epithets she'd been saving up.

    • Like 4

  16. Posted

    . Then we show the climax of "Top Dog" and how under Captain Callahan's guidance this act of terror was stopped. This of course is great for his campaign! He wins the election and becomes mayor on his platform of law and order.

     

    Cam Bert, while I love your treatment for the potential sequel, I do have a question. Do we really think Callahan is going to win the mayoral election? I thought the movie made it clear that when Reno grabbed the "pope's" sash that was going to reflect badly on him. Even more damning is his decision to run under the campaign of "Law and Order." I mean, yeah he was the Chief when the plot was thwarted, but fuck if it didn't come right down to the wire. It would be one thing if he could run and say, "You know why I'm great, because you've never even heard of the shit that threatened your safety. We had that locked down." Instead he has to say, "Hey, remember that Racial Unity thing where a bunch of people were shot and killed and Balboa Park was three seconds away from being a crater, yeah we stopped it, but just barely. In fact, we wouldn't have stopped it all if I didn't, reluctantly, take this guy off suspension. You see, none of my officers, nor myself, were capable enough investigators to go to the scene of a cop killing and do basic police work..."

    • Like 2

  17. Posted

     

    I thought the premise of the meet cute between Chuck Norris and Reno in Callahan's office was insane. Reno is smarter than every person in this movie and is a hero so many times over that pulling a baby out of a burning building is not even a big deal. Not only would Reno be famous at the police department Reno would be more famous in San Diego than Tony Gwynn. But Chuck Norris has never heard of him.

     

     

    Excellent point, ChunkStyle! That bugged the crap out of me as well. When the chief calls Jake in from his suspension, it is specifically to solve this case. When he mentions Officer Grandpa by name, Jake says, "Yeah, he was a good cop," but evidently he wasn't a good enough cop that Jake can be bothered to remember that he had a goddamn, city famous, wonderdog as a partner!

     

    Which brings me to another thought, and forgive me as this may have been touched upon in the episode, but am I wrong in assuming that if a police chief assigns a dog to be your partner, that doesn’t mean you now have to live with that dog and it will henceforth be your dog? What if Jake was deathly allergic to dogs? That would be like if Mantzoukas was in a movie and he was partnered up with an egg and from that point forward he had to protect it like some kind of horrifying and never ending home economics assignment.*

     

    And everyone acts as if there’s nothing they can do about it. At one point he’s says something like, “Hey, I'll pick him up in the morning and I’ll drop him off at night,” and they’re all like, “Sorry Bro, he’s your responsibility now.” I think the kid even says at one point that he wishes he could take him home, and Jake just sort of shrugs like, “What are you going to do?”

     

    *Have no fear, I'm already working on the script.

    • Like 5

  18. Posted

    In regards to Jake being a complete asshat, what was with his attitude when the narcotics officer asks to borrow Reno to sniff out drugs? To set the scene, Jake just sort of…shows up at the scene of a crime? If I were to hazard a guess, I would think Jake is a homicide detective and wouldn’t have anything to do with a drug bust. Plus, he’s kind of in the middle of trying to stop a huge terrorist plot, so I don’t know if loitering around a drug bust is really the best use of his time. Anyway, he’s there now and the officer on duty tells him they’ve been waiting an hour for a drug sniffing dog and asks if they could borrow Reno for a little bit, at which point Chuck Norris gives the officer a dick shriveling stare, sighs, and says, “I guess so…” Hold on a second, dipshit! You shouldn’t even be there! You’re not a narcotics officer! You’re just getting in the way! This guy just wants use of your dog for a couple of minutes so he can get his job done and get the fuck out of there and you’re going to give him attitude? Who the fuck are you, Jake? You don’t even like the dog! At the very least, you’ll be rid of it for a couple of minutes.

    • Like 6

  19. Posted

    Another fantastic episode, guys! The audio wasn't too bad, I'm really glad you guys decided to put it out as is.

     

    So the movie starts with two characters discussing the setup for the movie--two characters, and I can’t stress this enough, that play no further role in the movie! They are simply described in closed captioning as MAN 1 and MAN 2. Why can’t at least one of the men be Jake, or if that doesn’t work because his Norris’ character HAS to be on suspension, why not the captain and the grandfather?

     

    Anyway, as they are going through their expository slide show, MAN 1 says that the criminals were using C4, which he describes as “scary stuff,” but not as scary as the timer, which he says is a type where you would need to hit the button and then run for your life. This is telling me that that the bomb has to possess at least one of these three aspects: an extremely short timer, it can’t be disarmed easily, and/or it can’t be activated remotely. Yet, in the climax of the film, we find out that not a single one of these scenarios are true: Jake has ample time to not only defuse the bomb, but trade wisecracks with the captain; the bomb is your standard red wire/blue wire setup, which shouldn’t be too hard to disarm if you know what you’re looking at; and it can be activated via a remote control. Why the big show about the timer, movie? How is mis-describing how the timer actually works heightening the tension in any way? Why can’t the C4 just be the scary part?

     

    This movie straight up lied to us and deserves to be pistol whipped in the crotch with Chekov’s Gun.

    • Like 6

  20. Posted

    Hang on, has Megaforce been done yet, and if not why not?

     

    No, but Rifftrax just did it. And if you like that .gif, you can probably expect a lot more. After my battle with Taylorannephoto a couple of weeks ago, I thought it best to start making my own gifs.* The last five or so I've made have all been Megaforce.

     

    And with that, I'm off!!!

     

    869fc376c5828dbfd6ad6270c3c60897.gif

     

    *I have way too much time on my hands. Think of the good I could be doing...

    • Like 7

  21. Posted

     

    Although I wonder if that's all kind of undermined by the fact that he's now trying to disown it by claiming studio interference.

     

    I had the exact same thought...

     

    Now I'm looking at the interview in a totally different way. I mean, I in no way expected he would do a huge interview and trash his soon to be released movie, but to hear him talk passionately about the movie just a couple of weeks ago and now we see him distancing himself from it is so very "Hollywood" and reeks of insincerity. In the interview, I believe he explicitly states that a lot of it was exactly how he envisioned it and that his relationship with the studio was positive and collaborative. He also stresses how important it is for someone trying to make it in Hollywood needs to know when to keep their mouth shut. It just leaves me thinking, if you don't feel the movie is very good or the result has been marred by studio interference, why do the interview at all? Or, if you are just lashing out because it truly was your vision and viewers just aren't responding to it, fuck 'em. Stand by your work. I will admit, there are times in the interview where he comes off as a bit immature, out-of-touch, and a bit of a douche-nozzle, but I kind of ignored that. Now, with his latest actions, he all but confirms that that's exactly what he is.

     

    What's going to be interesting is that the fourth part of the interview is supposed to come out next week. Granted it was probably recorded a month ago, but they do address the fact that the fourth part is scheduled to come out the week after the movie was to be released. I'm just wondering if Kevin Smith is going to address the recent controversy in his intro/outro...I'm sure Kevin Smith is going to give the movie glowing reviews, that's just the type of person he is, but how can you not address that this person you spoke to for four hours and was telling you how awesome his movie was is now saying that it was ruined be studio interference? The whole interview now seems incredibly disingenuous.

    • Like 1

  22. Posted

    I just wrote a bunch about this, but my connection dropped and now it's lost to the ether. Oh well...

     

    But basically, if anyone's interested, Kevin Smith has been releasing a lengthy interview he did with Josh Trank on Fatman on Batman. Three parts have already been released with the fourth and final part coming out next week.

     

    It's honestly pretty interesting, if only to hear him talk about the making of this movie and what he was trying to do with it and how it juxtaposes with what the critics are saying. It's like they specifically take each and every one of Trank's points and then argue he achieved the exact opposite.

     

    It's pretty fascinating in an art's "intention" vs. its "reception" kind of way.

    • Like 2

  23. Posted

    Wow. I wonder if this is some sort of revenge for fights they had when they were younger.

    I'm only 30 minutes in and I think this is one of the best worst ones they've picked.

     

    Yeah, it's pretty amazing, although I have to admit it took me three sittings to get through it. I kept running out of time due to every five minutes having to rewind to see if I had missed some plot point that led them to wherever they happened the be in the movie...Oh, there wasn't. Okay, great. Moving on.

    • Like 1

  24. Posted

    The other big thing is that this is quite possibly the worst police department ever. They know these Nazis are planning something huge and literally none of them go, "Huh, I wonder if it will be this giant-ass diversity appreciation festival the city has planned" until the very last minute.

     

    Which is, oddly enough, scheduled on Hitler's birthday...

     

    Also, and it's probably just me, but did anyone else feel like this movie existed in the same universe as Cobra? It's nothing I can put my finger on, but that's literally all I could think about while watching it. I just kept expecting Stallone to show up, sunglasses a-blazin,' to offer his tips on eating a healthier diet.

    • Like 3
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