In the interest of bringing you a quirky newsbit of the week, I scoured Youtube for fake Apple/Mac ads. The premise behind this: Everyone wants to be Apple (er, Google) or at the very least, win a chance to work for them. Plenty of parodies exist on the theme of the the Mac/PC guy. Some more memorable than others, but the best Apple ad of all time (and a REAL one, at that) remains the Orwellian commercial that came out around this time of season way back before Apple was Macintosh. In the interest of keeping with the 80s theme here: There’s something about growing up in the Max Headroom-inflicted era of the 80s and hearing, Music is my boyfriend [and girlfriend] alongside an electronica beat that I can’t help but swoon over.
As this clip, which integrates Mr. Bean, the Spice Girls, an iPod, iTunes, and Mac/PC illustrates, the tragic flaw of majority of the pseudo Mac ads is their lack of simplicity - the core ingredient to Apple’s success in advertising. Witnessing a few of these ads in succession makes one even more nostalgic and appreciative for the type of vision, clarity, and intent with which Apple creates their ads. So as a final follow up, the best fake Apple ad of the season is indeed the Wired toted disco Christmas ad with the Mac computer displays. But there is a hope for novice hacks out there: Companies that are able to capitalize on the success of Apple ads by piggybacking on those infamous light bulb Mac ideas and leveraging this popularity, have the best chance at creating memorable ads this holiday season.
So start creating and uploading to YouTube. Just keep the Muppets, Michael Jackson, and Columbine out of it.
Although the new Harry Potter book breaks records by becoming the worlds fastest selling book with an amazing 8.3 million copies in the first 24 hours, the new Harry Potter movie, on it’s second week only came second at the box office in the past weekend with estimated $32.2 million. It was I Now Pronounce You Chuck And Larry making $34.8 million. It’s not that $32 millions in one weekend is bad, but you know, second place always have to try harder…
I like those weeks when more then one Big movie is opening, and it is hard to predict which of them will win at the box office. In the last couple of weeks it was impossible to watch any talk show, day or night, that did not host a cast member of either Hair Spray or I Now Pronounce You Chuck And Larry, trying to win our hearts, or at least our pockets.
I Now Pronounce You Chuck And Larry- Chuck and Larry (Adam Sandler and Kevin James) are two fireman who pose as a gay couple so they can get some insurance benefits. This movie reminds me a French movie I can’t remember the name of…
Hairspray- John Travolta(in drag) and Nicole Blonski sing and dance in this Musical. Tracy Turnblad dreams about appearing in “The Corny Collins Show,” a famous dance TV show.
Cashback- We actually featured a clip from this movie last week. Ben Willis, a student, uses his imagination to fight the boredom of working an eight hour night shift at the supermarket. I think this might be the refreshing movie of the weekend.
Since we are going to talk a lot about The Simpsons movie next week, today’s peak is from the new Lindsay Lohan movie, I Know Who Killed Me. Enjoy the weekend
For the week that was 4/29, Beth tackles Alec Baldwin, Heather Mills, Sanjaya, Richard Gere, Sarah Silverman, and Rosie O’Donnell in her weekly podcast.
I happened to read the same Newsweek article mentioned in the previous post. I don’t dig “The Simpsons” so much so I can’t share Ariel’s enthusiasm, but I can share some of my insights about this summer preview article Newsweek unveiled on its unsuspecting readers.
Ok, so I read it twice, maybe three times. I kept thinking maybe I was missing out on the point of the piece? It’s a summer preview of all the comedies coming out this Summer. A lot of these movies star my favorite funnymen: Seth Rogen, Steve Carell, Robin Williams, Paul Rudd (questionable w/out Ferrell and Carell alongside), Adam Sandler, etc. And yet…And yet…
Why did Newsweek pay these guys to do tongue-in-cheek type reviews of their own films “in character”? The premise was just a little too weird for my pea-sized brain to wrap itself around.
Case-in-point: Paul Rudd is starring in “The Ten“-an anthology-based flick loosely based on the actual Ten Commandments in which each characters’ story somehow relates to one of the commandments.
So here’s what Rudd (as “Jeff“)writes for Newsweek:
Though it’s debated, many people believe that there was a first set of commandments that Moses smashed in a fit of anger (because the Israelites chose to worship the golden calf. Great!). Through extensive research (i.e., Wikipedia), a few of the originals have been unearthed. Drumroll, please:
Thou shalt not get a tattoo of an Asian proverb if you’re a lame white guy.
Honor small, medium and large. Tall, grande and venti are for jackasses.
Thou shalt never try and live with bears.
Thou shalt not go back to Rockville (specifically for R.E.M.).
Thou shalt never, never, never, ever buy a Hummer.
Huh? Maybe it’s just too obscure to have comedians pretending to be actors acting “in-part” pretending to be writers describing their pretend roles to readers.
Can the equation work when only one of its component is actually real?
Adam Sandler and Kevin James’ new comedy, “I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry” is a remake of the original French film starring Gerald Depardieu and Daniel Auteil in which Daniel pretends to be gay to save his job.
In an interview for Newsweek, Sandler defended “King of Queen(s)?” co-star Kevin James’ heterosexuality, saying:
This movie says there’s nothing wrong with being gay. There’s just something wrong with being gay for Kevin James. I know Kevin, and it’s kind of a strange thing to have to play. So to ease the tension, before the first day of shooting, we had sex with each other. We just got it out of the way so it wouldn’t be an issue. It’s an old tip I picked up from working with (Jack) Nicholson.
The formerly hip Adam Sandler, star of the film we were just raving about is set to star in a Disney film directed by Hairspray’s Adam Shankman. The former “Billy Madison” star will be portraying a yuppie whose “Bedtime Stories” he tells his niece and nephew start to come true.
Final Verdict: I’m not going to pay the $10 for price of admission, but I might have to Netflix this one for when my own niece and nephews come to town.
As we are getting closer (some may say not fast enough) to the weekend, here is a list of movies if you decide to do some passive activity, such as going to the cinema. So here are the movies and what Yahoo movies had to say about them.
1. Blades Of Glory- Will Ferrell and Jon Heder star as rival figure skaters, banned and disgraced from the sport, who team together as pairs’ skaters.
2. Peaceful Warrior- A mysterious stranger leads an arrogant, talented college gymnast on a spiritual journey that will change his life forever.
3. Meet The Robinsons- A boy genius creates a machine to recover the lost memory of the past and embarks on an amazing adventure with his future family.
Dame Edna’s alter ego emerged from a different kind of closet in the latest edition or Heat magazine. Barry Humphries aka Dame Edna admitted that he is “partly Jewish.” While Damn Edna could be the bastard child of Julia Child and Mike Myer’s mother-in-law and frequent SNLer Linda Richman (Child contributing the Y chromosome in this scenario), who would have guessed Humphries was a canasta player?
With my background it was not spoken of, but I could play canaster without anyone teaching me, so I thought ‘well I must be Jewish!’ And I get on very well with North London people. I like the mix of scepticism and humour, and the intelligence of the average Red Sea pedestrian.Outside of character Humphries, who is also well known for the larger-than-life Les Patterson, has been involved with cultural Jewish events.
For a number of years, he has been a patron of the Jewish Music Institute’s Suppressed Music Project, which focuses on composers who suffered under the Nazi regime.
Have I told you how much I loved “Reign Over Me“? Well it came 8th in this weekend’s box office gross, with $8 Million. The 1st. place belongs unsurprisingly to “TMNT” with $25.5 Million, while “300″ is not far behind with $20.5 Million. The new Mark Wahlberg movie, “Shooter” came in 3rd. with gross of 14.5 Million. The complete list is available at Yahoo Movies.
There is a new book out called The Enlightened Bracketologist: The Final Four of Everything. It’s co-written by a sports journalist and a literary agent. The former makes sense since Bracketology, a method for sports fans to keep track of which teams they are betting on to win, is traditionally associated with basketball, March Madness, and determining which collegiate teams will make it into the NCAA Finals.
Authors Mark Reiter and Richard Sandomir were recently interviewed on “The Today Show” where they talked about applying their Final 4 methodology to pop culture and most specifically illustrated one of the studies from their book in which they determined which bald-headed figure in modern culture was the most popular. No, it was not Homer Simpson, but he was a finalist. Other studies found in the book include “A Jew/Not A Jew” and “Women’s Magazines Sex Cliches.” If you’re shaking your head about now, you get where I’m coming from with my frustration with this ridiculous study.
Wait, there guys were actually paid to write this book and are collecting phat royalties off it?
Ok, so maybe I’m just jealous that these guys thought of a clever way to pitch their bogus, fun-filled project to a major publishing house and get paid a wad of cash to indulge their fancy. It’s conceivable. But I’m also concerned about the consequences that such ideas bring forth into the world. Why must we reinforce the idea that people need to be sized up and classified on the basis of superficial criteria? Who and what determines that criteria? Why judge people at all on the basis of some artificial construct?
While you can claim I’m rushing to serious accusation here, insidious as it might sound, such manufactured ideas have a way of seeping into the underbelly of our day-to-day conscious decision making. While in fact schema are necessary to function in everyday life (yes, I took my Psychology back in college) as they help us digest the world around us without sensory overload, they have a way of causing frequent errors in our judgment.
There was a line last night in “Reign Over Me” I held close to my heart. It was said by Don Cheadle’s character to his daughter when she called to her father (something along the lines of), “Your friend is here. The one that acts younger than JoJo.” Perhaps it wasn’t so much Cheadle’s words but the manner he affected when he retorted, “Don’t do that. Don’t judge him like that. It’s not kind.”
So shoot me. I’ll opt for a bit of kindness and a little understanding over shiteology any day of the week.
Dave Letterman unexpectedly took ill and needed a last-minute replacement on Tuesday’s “Late Show” so CBS called upon scheduled guest Adam Sandler, there to plug his new movie “Reign Over Me.” Sandler was pretty funny (though he would disagree) and hands-down was much more capable late night host than either Jimmy Kimmel or Carson Daly. Anyways, Sandler interviewed his dog, Matzo Ball (see clip here) as well as “Reign Over Me” co-star Don Cheadle and race car driver Danica Patrick. Clearly, the night’s star was Matzoball, but we think Adam Sandler did a pretty top notch job as well.
In the interest of bringing you a quirky newsbit of the week, I scoured Youtube for fake Apple/Mac ads. The premise behind this: Everyone wants to be Apple (er, Google) or at the very least, win a chance to work for them. Plenty of parodies exist on the theme of the the Mac/PC guy. Some more memorable than others, but the best Apple ad of all time (and a REAL one, at that) remains the Orwellian commercial that came out around this time of season way back before Apple was Macintosh. In the interest of keeping with the 80s theme here: There’s something about growing up in the Max Headroom-inflicted era of the 80s and hearing, Music is my boyfriend [and girlfriend] alongside an electronica beat that I can’t help but swoon over.
For the week that was 4/29, Beth tackles Alec Baldwin, Heather Mills, Sanjaya, Richard Gere, Sarah Silverman, and Rosie O’Donnell in 
Adam Sandler and Kevin James’ new comedy, “I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry” is a remake of the original French film starring Gerald Depardieu and Daniel Auteil in which Daniel pretends to be gay to save his job.
The formerly hip Adam Sandler, star of the film 
Dame Edna’s alter ego 
There is a 
Dave Letterman unexpectedly took ill and needed a last-minute replacement on Tuesday’s “Late Show” so CBS 