Untertainment Weakly (1-27-12)

By Jake

“Captain America 2” is going to start filming THIS YEAR!

Steven Spielberg will be bringing the story of Moses to the big screen.

NBC is developing a Dwight Schrute spinoff from “The Office.”  The show will take place at his beet farm.  Sounds fucking awful to me.

The “Hangover III” actors are going to get a huge $15million payday.

ABC has ordered a “Beauty and the Beast.”  So did CW.  What the fuck!?  Who wants to see this shit?

Andy Dick is being sued for assault.  Shocking, I know.

Movies Out This Weekend

Man on a Ledge - This is the story of a man on a ledge, who is going to jump, supposedly.  Elizabeth Banks is a woman who tries to save him, I guess.  I like Elizabeth Banks and I like a title that tells you, in a very generic way, what you will be seeing.  For some reason, the idea reminds me of “Cellular” and “Phonebooth.”  Ebert gave it two stars.  Probably don’t see it.

The Grey - A Liam Neeson film about some dudes who are in the Arctic Circle trying to survive and, I think, getting eaten by wolves.  This is actually probably going to be really good.  It doesn’t sound like fun to watch, so I won’t be going to see it.  Still, if you have to go see a movie this weekend, go see “Haywire.”  It was really great.  It’s like an art house action movie with no music during the fight scenes and the music that does play in the film is like jazz.

Other Thoughts

Sadly, not a lot of news this week.  One piece of news I did not talk about yet, but will now, is that “Chelsea” and “Whitney” have been getting bad ratings on Wednesday.  This could be good news for our favorite show ,“Community.”  By now, everybody should know that I enjoy “Whitney,” although everybody else seems to hate it, so I’m hoping that “Chelsea is the show that gets canceled. 

Debate: Assisted Suicide

By Jake and Glenn

Assisted suicide is a controversial issue, legally and morally.  If you type in J-A-C-K K-E- into Google, Jack Kevorkian is the number two result after Jack Kerouac.  This speaks to a renewed interest in finding doctors who will assist in your suicide and authors who will inspire you to try new things and drive across the country.  This week, Jake, an assisted suicide survivor, and Glenn, who has read “On The Road,” tackle this literally life-threatening issue.  At the end of the debate you can choose whose suicide you wish to assist.

Jake:  As The Beatles once sang “I get by with the help of my friends/I can die with the help of my friends.”  If a band as popular as The Beatles are for assisted suicide, then how can I oppose it?  Assisted suicide is the John Stockton of suicide.  Everybody loves John Stockton, so there is no logical reason that they should not also love assisted suicide.  I do not see what is morally wrong about a doctor or a neighbor aiding in suicide.  It is safer and less lonely than solo suicide.  Or is it the suicide part that people find morally reprehensible?  Look at it this way: we are all going to die one day.  Being against suicide is like being against death itself.  It is just a natural part of life.  


Glenn:  When David Bowie screams “I want to live!” at the end of the near ten minute long song “Cygnet Committee,” he is echoing our natural state.  We want to live and until something comes along to kill us, being alive is our natural state.  Assisted suicide is like someone creating a tsunami from a laboratory in the center of the Earth that goes on to kill you, your family and everyone you love - but you’ve asked for the tsunami first.  I know assisted suicide is a tempting idea to support--the person wants to be dead and society wants to get rid of disabled/terminally ill people.  But why should anyone get an assisted ride out?  I am forced to wake up every day in this awful place and the only hope for escape I have is winning the lottery or being killed in a random drive by shooting.  Let’s wait for the “gangbangers” to perform an assisted murder.

Jake:  Hoping to be shot is such an 1837 way to die.  This is 2012.  It is the future.  We should be more advanced than those filthy puritans that landed in this country and killed each other for practicing witchcraft.  Now, I’m not saying that witchcraft is okay, but that’s a different debate.  What I am saying, is that it is time for progress.  Men can sort of marry other men, you can download full seasons of uncut episodes of “ALF” off of torrent sites, a black man is president of this country and only some people think he’s from Kenya--so why don’t we add assisted suicide to that list?  It fits perfectly.  And to paraphrase the late Johnny Cochran, “If the [assisted] suicide fits you must...uh...quit [living].”

Glenn:  Some have accused OJ Simpson’s murder of Nicole Brown Simpson as the first legal assisted suicide of the 90s, under the assumption she was basically asking to be killed by having a relationship with another man.  I do not agree with this, nor do I agree with assisted suicide.  If someone has lost both his legs, he should not be killed by a doctor but given metal legs. If someone has lost both her arms, she should not be killed by a witch but given metal arms.  If someone is slowly losing all of his senses - like Ewan McGregor in the upcoming movie “Perfect Senses”--he should fall in love with a woman while it’s happening.  Love is much better than an assisted suicide.

Jake:  Just because I believe that people who are too cowardly to commit suicide should be able to get some assistance does not mean that I think assisted suicide is better than love or that OJ Simpson should be freed from prison for stealing his own possessions.  Assisted suicide is for those of us who are too blundering to take our own lives.  How many post-”The Naked Gun” Leslie Nielson movies did you seen in the theater in an attempt to end your own life?  Six?  Seven?  It just doesn’t work.  The late Dr. Jack Kevorkian knew how to really end a life and it sexually aroused him.  So what?  You should enjoy what you do for a living.  And so what if he had sexual intercourse with the freshly dead bodies?  It wasn’t hurting anybody.  Assisted suicide doesn’t hurt anybody.  It is absurd that it is looked down on in this country.  Anything that can whittle down the population is good, in my opinion.

Glenn:  Assisted suicide hurts EVERYONE.  It hurts the person who is killed.  It hurts the doctor/shaman who has to commit a reluctant murder.  It hurts our country because we get less money from the UN/One World Government when our suicide rate increases!  I empathize with the desire to die and I sympathize with those who cannot do it themselves.  But I’m pro-life.  This starts with the issue of abortion, which I oppose, and extends all the way to assisted suicide, which I also oppose.  I could no more support someone’s right to have a doctor kill them than I could a woman’s right to have a doctor kill her fetus.  3322 Fetal Americans are killed every day by abortions and the number of humans killed by assisted suicide is surely at least double that.  If you want to kill yourself, you can but at least have the decency to do it yourself - like the bravest Fetal Americans among us.   

Untertainment Weakly (1-20-12)

By Jake

“Work It,” the sitcom about two heterosexual men posing as transgendered homosexuals, has been canceled after two weeks and better ratings than your favorite NBC Thursday night shows.

A&E is working on bringing us a prequel series to the Alfred Hitchcock film “Psycho.”

CBS has ordered a pilot from Nick Stoller (“Forgetting Sarah Marshall,” “The Muppets”) about 20-somethings hanging out or some shit.

The great podcasters Harris Wittles and June Diane Raphael have joined Sarah Silverman’s TV pilot for NBC.

ABC is considering running “General Hospital” in prime time this summer.  

“Grown Ups 2” is planned for 2013.  

CW, the lowest-rated network, has ordered a pilot of a “Sex and the City” prequel.

Ryan Seacrest is getting his own TV network!  WHAT IN THE FUCK!?

The “Bridesmaids” sequel is completely dead, minus a potential direct-to-DVD sequel with little to no cast-mates returning.

Movies Out This Weekend

Haywire - MMA superstar Gina Carano stars as a cyborg accused of steroid use in this action film.  Upon the accusations she goes “haywire” and goes on a rampage against her critics and accusers.  Ewen McGregor reprises his role from “Trainspotting” as a heroin addict loser.  I’m going to see this today.

Red Tails - They said Hollywood would never make a big-budgeted film about menstruation, but alas, they finally have.  This is the story of what happens when women fly airplanes and experience their menses mid-flight.  Bust Magazine named it their 2012 movie to see.

Underworld Awakening 3D - Did you see the other “Underworld” movies?  If you answered ‘yes’ to that question then you are probably stupid enough to pay to see one in 3D.  Enjoy!

Other Thoughts

Finished “King of the Hill” this week and now have nothing to watch, so I guess I’ll read books instead (sigh).  Recommend me something good off of Netflix, preferably something with several seasons.

Love you guys,

Jake

Debate: Lana Del Rey

By Glenn and Jake

The new singer Lana Del Rey is the most controversial person in indie music since Jim Morrison.  She blasted onto the Internet in 2011 with a song and video entitled “Video Games.”  Then she started playing small shows in Europe.  Then she released another music video.  Then someone on the Internet insulted her.  Then she played Saturday Night Live and the music blogosphere exploded with a fury not seen since either the Challenger or the “Leave Britney Alone” video.  Should everyone leave Lana Del Ray alone or instead go to her concerts and download her hits from iTunes?  Glenn, who both dated LDR in the mid 00’s, and Jake, who has a controlling interest in her on the “Hollywood Stock Exchange,” debate the future of music’s “next big thing.”

Glenn: Simply stated: leave LDR alone.  Since the beginning of the year when I discovered Lana Del Rey I have watched “Video Games” at least 300 times.  It confused me, aroused me, frustrated me, haunted me, and ultimately satisfied me.  And that was just the first time I watched it!  All the subsequent times I felt numb, but in a good way - like leaving your genitals on a block of ice for 10 hours.  She also has a song about Blue Jeans with lyrics like “I will love you until the end of time” and “Check out these new blue jeans, from Levi, on sale at Urban Outfitters this month.”  Young female vocalists stuck in the ether and forced to make YouTube cover videos had no one to look up to until LDR showed up.  Now we all have a role model. 

Jake:  Lana Del Rey is a major label artist with a carefully cultivated image and plastic surgery lips.  Her music is hipster-baiting pap.  Glenn is the exact market for this type of extra vanilla music.  There is nothing daring, exciting or interesting about the song “Video Games.”  She is a modern day female Chris Isaak and she is singing adult contemporary music to hipsters too stupid to realize it.  In a way, Lizzie Grant is the Papa Shango of music.  She did some voodoo and all of a sudden the public is throwing up and bleeding green ink from their scalp in acclamation.  Now she is Lana Del Rey, after going through a careful image change, much like Papa Shango transforming into the popular Godfather character.  Lana Del Rey is your pimp and she is turning you all out and making you ride on a ho train, whatever that is.

Glenn:  Chris Isaak’s video for “Wicked Games” was voted one of the sexiest music videos of all time by a television channel recently.  Presumably the voters in that poll had never watched the film Salò/120 Days of Sodom and thus have very traditional, healthy views of human sexuality.  Is it a coincidence that “Wicked Games” and “Video Games” share the word “games,” like the games you are playing with our readers right now?  Trying to compare Lana Del Rey to Papa Shango is like comparing Chris Isaak to Chris Kattan or comparing OYIT’s Bub to Marshall Applewhite.  Of course she’s carefully cultivating her image - we all do!  Why do you think I updated my Facebook profile picture to a prisoner in Guantanamo Bay?  I wanted people to know that I am a Muslim, and that I oppose indefinite, trial-less detention of human beings.  Why did you recently change your Facebook profile picture to you wearing heavy eyeliner?  You love Bauhus.  That’s your image.  You can have it, but let LDR have hers too.

Jake:  Lana Del Rey can have her image!  I am not trying to image block her.  If you want to listen to the type of music that is about image first and the actual music second, then go ahead.  If you want to listen to the shit that a major label record company shovels into our ears instead of a group or artist that makes music because it is a creative outlet, great.  You can catalog Lana Del Rey’s MP3s in the same folder as Lady Gaga’s.  Papa Shango is a pretty apt comparison.  Like Charles Wright (the actor portraying the wrestler Papa Shango, Kama Mustafa and The Godfather) did to Undertaker’s urn, Lana Del Rey will probably melt down her gold records and remold them into a golden necklace to taunt her fans for supporting her.  She has about as much respect for her fan base as Kama did for the ashes in that urn.  And maybe, much like Undertaker did with the urn, we can regain control of the necklace and reform it into its original form, but the power is never the same.  Lana Del Rey can have her image, her pseudonym, her gold record necklace and the tears of her disappointed fans after a flop performance on “Saturday Night Live.”

Glenn:  A flop performance?  Hardly.  I can name three SNL musical performances in recent memory that were all more offensive: Sinead O’Connor ripping up the picture of the Pope in our dimension and in two others.  Yes, this counts as three separate performances because in one of the dimensions she rips up a picture of Mark McGwire too.  The only thing Lana Del Rey shredded were her own vocal chords after a passionate rendition of Blue Jeans.  Maybe my opponent cannot relate to songs about video games or blue jeans, two loves of the proletariat.  No matter how much you want to tar her and feather her like the Gobbledy Gooker, the point remains that she is trying her best to create art based on her failed relationships - the musical equivalent of what I do on this blog every month.  As Mark Ruffalo’s character says in The Kids Are Alright: “It's hard enough to open your heart in this world. Don't make it harder. “  Let’s celebrate her beautiful voice instead of trying to crucify her, like I think Undertaker once tried to do Stephanie McMahon.

Jake:  Lana Del Rey is no Stephanie McMahon!  The one thing they do have in common is plastic surgery.  Lana Del Rey, to put it as simply and crudely as I can, has dick sucking lips and she does suck indeed.  Maybe it is not dicks that she sucks, but it is the figurative dick of Interscope records.  They ask her to jump and she says “how high?” and they ask her to sing about video games and blue jeans and she says “how sexy?”  Then she coos these stupid songs like a phone sex operator and the Glenn’s of the world go out and purchase the video games that Lana sings about and the jeans that are featured in the liner notes of her albums.  If that does not make your want to uproariously vomit, then you have the stomach of an Olympian.  If you enjoy listening to Lana Del Rey, then turn your satellite radio to an adult contemporary station, put on your blue jeans and boot up your copy of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III.  It is what Lana would want you to do.     

Untertainment Weakly (1-13-12)

By Jake

Fox is developing a late-night animation block to air on Saturdays and will be headed up by a former Adult Swim head.

Emma Stone and Andy Samberg will guest star on an upcoming episode of “30 Rock.”

Fox has canceled the awful “Allen Gregory.”  It was pulling down the ratings of every show that followed it, so no surprise there.

Paul Rudd will guest star on an upcoming episode of “Parks and Recreation.”

“Psych” has been renewed for a seventh season.

Universal is planning a sequel to the hit religious film “Bruce Almighty.”  Why not?  Jim Carrey’s career is going down the toilet anyway.

Some asshole who directs the terrible “Tosh.0” will helm the “Police Academy” remake.

Fox has ordered a pilot about a “manny,” which is a male nanny.  I hate you people change words to either reflect a male or female orientation, it’s sexis and it's stupidt.  It’s the same reason I refuse to speak french.

There will not be a Kristen Wiig-less sequel to “Bridesmaids.”  Actor Melissa McCarthy, who the movie would have theoretically centered around, has called it a terrible idea.

Even though cast members of “Glee” are graduating on the TV program, they will still return for another season.  Is this Glee’s jump the shark moment or has it already happened?  Their ratings are way down from last season (which I found I by visiting Wikipedia).

Paula Deen, the fat cook, has diabetes.

Tila Tequila is converting to Judaism.  The question isn’t why is she doing this? it is why aren’t you?

Herman Cain will be a guest on the premiere episode of “Real Time with Bill Maher” season 10.

Stephen Colbert may run for president, at least in the South Carolina primary.

Movies Out This Weekend

Beauty and the Beast 3D - After seeing “The Adventures of Tin Tin” in 3D, I am on the 3D bandwagon.  It was pretty cool.  Yet, I am still not on the “Beauty and the Beast” bandwagon.  This is, what, the second or third time Disney has re-released “Beauty and the Beast” in theaters.  I guess there’s constantly new babies being born, but still, can’t people watch this movie on their 3D televisions in the privacy of their own mancaves?  I’m sure my dad will take my baby sisters to see this, so I can’t be completely against this, and I even asked Kaleena if she wanted to see it.  She didn’t.  I really didn’t either, but I would have.

Contraband - Mark Wahlberg’s brother, Donny Wahlberg (of New Kids on the Block fames), has found himself in great debt due to not getting accostumed to the non-celebrity lifestyle and living beyond his means.  Mark must return to his old career of being a smuggler.  This was, I guess, between being in the Funky Bunch and starring in “Boogie Nights.”  What will Mark Wahlberg steal to save Donny?  How will he steal it?  Will he do it in time?  You will have to pay $15 for a ticket to this film to find out.

Joyful Noise - Queen Latifa and Dolly Parton team up (finally!) to bring us a music-driven feature-length film.  They play senior citizens who form a choir since they have been forced to retire from their jobs and cannot live off of the money they’re getting from social security.  They become famous!

Other Thoughts

Stephen Colbert running for president is pretty fucked up.  He’s probably going to win, right?  I would even consider voting for him, but I will probably vote for the ghost of John F. Kennedy like I usually do.

Kal and I have been watching the children’s TV show “Adventure Time” recently and it’s really fun and funny.  I would recommend renting the DVD of it from the Washington District Library.

Hot Rod's Guide To Primaries

By Hot Rod


It is the most exciting time of the year again for the farmers that drink coffee all morning at the donut shop – presidential election season! Since they are so old, their years are longer than ours, and equal approximately 4 human years. Primary season is the most fun part of the election season, because everyone gets to argue with everyone else, and at the end each party still has a winner. Whenever I sneak out early in the morning with my mom’s purse to buy a dozen bear claws (which I eat for medicinal purposes) I usually catch the old guys talking about the weather and how they wished divorce was still illegal, but when a presidential election is around the bend their conversations become more interesting, I assume. All I actually know about politics has to do with lizard people.

Since I live in Iowa, sometimes all the candidates come down to the donut shop to visit, but they never let me in on those days, just because my pockets are full of bottle rockets and nails. But those old guys get to meet them all and tell them they’re great candidates, and talk about how rotten things are in this horrible country that they love so much, where everyone who isn’t like them should leave because they couldn’t possibly love it they way they do, just like that rotten handsome hippie bartender that took off with their wife. The candidates make a face and shake their heads until the old men are done complaining after they trail off while staring at floor in mournful reflection. Then the next day they all congratulate each other on telling the candidates off, and console each other about their wives and the weather. Since there is a primary tonight, (in a place that was either named after a pet, or where pets are allowed to vote, I forget...) I want to share the wisdom about each of the candidates I’ve gotten from the old guys at the donut shop so that you future voters can help keep America great, or white, or however that saying goes…


The Candidates

• One thing they all agree on is that they hate the one Muslim-socialist candidate - Mitt Romney. Romney was born in a place called Kenya which is somewhere in communist Russia. He wears magic clothes that turn people’s minds off when he gives a speech. It makes his speeches seem like boring catchphrases and stilted, awkward attempts at seeming capable of empathy, so that no one will remember all the stuff he said about how great Hitler was and how people should have access to medical care.

• Next there is Ron Paul. He’s the one that talks like Don Knotts and says we should bury all of our money underground. While they love his ideas about burying valuables and assassinating everyone in congress, the old guys don’t care for the way he says we shouldn’t blow up every other country. If the president doesn’t keep America safe, personally – possibly with a type of magic pants - then the next thing we know we’ll all be dead, or worse, Iranian.

• Then there is the one that looks and smells like cabbage. He says everything like he thinks you, specifically, are an asshole. He’s got beady eyes that pierce his enemies (presumably everyone) like black marbles wearing Mitt Romney’s magic clothes would pierce your mind if they, the marbles, were giving a speech. He is Newt Gingrich, and as you can tell, he’s very compelling. The old guys especially support his policy of wife hating. And they think he’s got the kind of face you could see on Mt. Rushmore, or, at least, on a patriotic scarecrow.

• There is also Rick Santorum, the homosexual candidate. He actually won here in Iowa, which is surprising because the lonely old men that seek companionship with each other every day are very much against homosexuality. From what the internet says Santorum is covered in a gross goo that makes him look like Slimer from Ghost Busters, but brown. Despite all that the old guys liked him a lot because of how ‘clean cut’ he looked and because he promised to resegregate The South.

• There’s another Rick. Rick something. He used to be president before Obama became president and ruined our country by doing mostly the same things that he did while president, like declaring victory in Iraq. The old guys used to like other Rick, but he reminds them too much of themselves. And they’re very self-loathing.

• Then there’s another guy from Utah, I forget his name, but no one liked him because he was sent from China to run for president here since the Supreme Court decided to let other countries have candidates in our elections. The old guys worried that he would let China steal all the jobs we send there.

So there you have it – vote or die, dudes! Or just wait to vote in the real election. Or don’t vote at all, those are really your four options. No matter which one you choose, you should still write in a vote for “Mickey Mouse” because while it is really funny to do that, he would also make a great president.

Untertainment Weakly (1-6-12)

By Jake

Russell Brand and Katy Perry are getting a divorce.

Alan Taylor (“Game of Thrones”) has been hired to direct “Thor 2.”

Looks like the “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” reboot is dead, thankfully.

Another “Paranormal Activity” film?  You know it.  And you thought normal activity was prolific.

“Horrible Bosses 2?”  More like horrible idea, the fourth in this article so far!

Kristen Wiig and Annie Mumolo say they aren’t that interested in making a sequel to “Bridesmaids,” but Universal is still interested and might make it without them.  Good idea, jerks!

Zooey Deschanel has filed for divorce!

Martha Stewart’s daytime TV show has been canceled!  You will have to shamefully masturbate to porno during the daytime now!

I don’t know exactly why this is happening, but Michelle Obama is going to star on an episode of iCarly.

The Fox Network has canceled the results show of “So You Think You Can Dance,” nobody can win.

Movies Out This Weekend

The Devil Inside - A movie about devils.  Not the kind of devils you normally encounter on your road trips through Kansas, but the kind that live inside you and tell you, and people like you, to murder your family.  I’m not sure if this movie is about professional wrestler/professional murderer Chris Benoit, but I would that it is.

Once Upon A Time in Anatolia - This is some sort of Russian movie that I’m not even sure is playing in American theaters, let alone actually exists.  The title makes it seem like it is a movie about fairy tales.  I don’t remember any fairy tales being set in Anatolia; maybe “The Three Little Pigs” was.  Take your kids to see this one, they’ll love it.

Other Thoughts

Still making my way through “King of the Hill” on Netflix and am enjoying it.  Currently watching season 10.  I have no idea what to watch next.  Suggestions are welcomed.