My Tribute-Joan Rivers

 

Another week, another unexpected celebrity death which leaves us feeling sad. As you no doubt know by now Joan River passed away today. I was one of those people who really liked Rivers, though much like with Robin Williams it wasn’t her stand-up I enjoyed. In fact she was a little to vulgar in her stand up act. No, I enjoyed her in other things which I will quickly list. I first came to be aware of her when she was center in square in the 80′s version of Hollywood Squares. This is probably not the version most think of but I loved that show and Joan Rivers was a huge part of why. Of course my second favorite Joan Rivers role was as the droid Dox Matrix in Spaceballs. She was really funny with almost every line she said. Of course I was way to young to watch her appearances on The Tonight Show or her ill fated late night show of her own. The story of how Carson and she never spoke after she had landed that show is pretty famous. She also appeared on Regis & Kathie Lee quite often not to mention every other talk show ever made, and in fact she had her very own daytime talk show for awhile. And it did very well! I watched it a lot and even have an episode on tape which I may just dig out when I finish this.

Top 5 Craziest C3PO & R2D2 Appearances

Who doesn’t love C3PO and R2D2? They were the comic relief in the Star Wars movies but were so much fun to watch. Especially R2. I still remember the C3PO action figure I had that came apart (ala Empire Strikes Back). To this day I can hear the clanking noise the parts made when they fell off onto the table. R2D2 was always my favorite to, I loved the way he charged in and saved the day! I know had an R2 toy or clock or something growing up.



I bet you’re thinking this is going to talk about all the great moments of these two from the Star Wars movies.


NOPE!


C3PO and R2D2 were so popular that they were all over the place in TV of the 70′s and 80′s. Don’t believe me? Check this out!



#5.Commercials

I guess it makes sense, if you’re going advertise the movie do it with most likable stars. C3PO and R2D2 have hawked a kinds of stuff. They were in a commercial for the Star Wars toy line. They appeared in an add for a Burger King knock-off in the 70′s. Yes, really. They have done some car commercials overseas. They were in ads for an appliance store named Curry’s. R2D2 introduced the TRS-81 personal computer. They both appeared in an Underoos ad (with Boba Fett!). But the craziest and my favorite? How about C3PO hawking his own cereal? I am almost sure I tried C3PO’s and liked them. The commercial is a classic of the 80′s. Hey that’s not so bad, Darth Vader has done ads for Energizer, Priceline, and Target. Yes I’m serious.

The cereal ad is HERE
The burger ad is HERE

Top 5 Memorable Movie Character Deaths (THAT RUINED THE MOVIE!)

A few months ago I discussed when a movie character is killed off in a way that it works and leaves a strong impression. But, there is another side to that coin. When a death is so unnecessary, stupid, or contrived that it actually spoils the whole movie.


Killing off a movie character has to have a reason. It needs to have some sort of effect. Or it needs to come at the end and leave an impact because the death makes sense and involves a character we have spent time with. For instance, in Star Wars Obi Wan Kanobi’s death has all sorts of importance (in my opinion). It is necessary to advance Luke’s story and changes the tone of the whole movie. In The Dark Knight Rachel’s death not only changes the whole course of the movie for both Bruce and Harvey, it continues to resonate into The Dark Knight Rises. And the death in Spider-Man 2 was done well because it made sense in the movie, it didn’t feel like it was done as a shock moment.
But for all death scenes done well we get the stupid one’s. When Kirk was killed in Generations even though there were a million ways they could have avoided it. Or  Man of Steel when it killed off Jonathan Kent in an absurd way with that tornado (not to mention killing off Zod just to shock the audience, with no follow up!). Or Aliens 3 killing off most of the popular supporting cast in the first ten minutes!





Like last time the death’s have to be permanent and there will be spoilers if you’ve never seen these movies. And I stress that as always this is my opinion so feel free to disagree.

Now, here are five examples awful movie character deaths that ruined the movie for me. These are in order from crappy movies to movies which were decent or even great.




#5.X-Men 3:The Last Stand

Do I really have to explain why this here? Nice of them to kill Cyclops off in the first ten minutes. Off-screen! Nobody liked him anyway. And the death of Professor X could have been a very powerful thing…if it wasn’t so over the top goofy. Cyclops was real bad because it wasn’t dealt with at all. Yeah I know the actor wasn’t available, why not just have him simply not be in the movie? Aren’t characters written out constantly in movies when the actor is unavailable? At least that way you can bring him back if there is a sequel. This movie had many, many problems. I don’t think I have heard anyone ever say anything good about it.

A Look at DC Comics Crossover Events

This is something I have been wanting to discuss for awhile. But I have held off because I stopped reading comics shortly after Zero Hour. That was in 1996. As you may imagine, there have been one or two crossover events since then. But something recently got the fire burning to di this (I will get into that below) and so I decided to do it. So here is a look at DC Comics crossover events.
These are limited to company wide crossover’s, not events confined to just one title (like The Death and Return of Superman for instance). Though there may one or two exceptions. And no elseworld’s. The focus will be the 1985-1996 period but I will take a quick look the events after that that I aware of anyway. But the real analysis will be on the early stuff. So where do we begin? Where else…..




Crisis on Infinite Earth’s.



The grandaddy of all crossover event comics. Even Marvel owes some thanks to this little masterpiece. I was just becoming aware of comic books when this little mini-series was taking place. So as you may guess, I was very confused. But that was then, today I get it and am amazed at the work put into it by Marv Wolfman, Geore Perez, and several others who worked on this. The best part of this was the build-up. For a year before the series ever began The Monitor and Harbinger made cameo’s in pretty much every book. And this mini-series truly did change the DC universe. It would have been if they’d had a plan in mind for what to do after..but that hardly hurts the product. What other mini-series has the guts to kill off dozens of characters including Supergirl, Flash, and even Wonder Woman!
I’m glad I jumped on board when Crisis was over. The other reason this is so landmark is because of the crossovers. By having official tie-in’s with other books the story was able to be expanded beyond the 12 issue format. And that led to the next two events which I LOVED.

Random Thoughts-Muppet Most Wanted

Wait….didn’t this movie come out months ago? Um…..let’s pretend that I am re posting this because of the new site and that I didn’t wait nearly six months to watch it on pay per view. Yeah…that works for me.

So, I finally got to see the long awaited sequel to The Muppets. Honestly, I have a lot of pressure on me here. As some may remember when The Muppet’s came out, I roasted it and the article got much deserved hatred. So I want to do this latest movie justice and give an honest impression of it. I have to stress, this all opinion! Oh and there may be spoilers if you’ve never seen it. What did I think?


Eh, it was ok. Honestly this movie makes me want to apologize to The Muppets for being so hard on it. Because while I hated the love story in that movie it really was a decent Muppet film. This one….had it’s moments. But for the most part, to be honest, I was bored. It really is just like The Great Muppet Caper, a decent Muppet film with nothing that really stood out or made it great. The gags were funny, and some even made me laugh.  The stuff with Kermit in the Gulag was good but went on to long. Constantine was actually a decent villain believe it or not, even though the idea that none of the Muppets could figure out it was Kermit was a stretch. I ordinarily hate Ricky Gervais but I liked him here. And the plot was actually kind of well thought out and clever, for a Muppet movie anyway. The stuff with Walter was well done especially the way and Fozzie worked off each other. And that final fight and helicopter scene was pretty decent even if Piggy never did her classic Hi-Yah!!

Analytical Episode Review:Full House, "Silence is not golden"

In April I talked about an episode of Fresh Prince and said it was a “very special episode” done right. Today I wanted to look at the other side of the coin, a very special episode that tries…. but misses. For that we go to the popular show that no one admits they liked :

 

“Silence is Not Golden”

This was a "very special" episode aired in Season 6, but does it work….or miss the boat?

Five 80's Personalities (I Haven't Mentioned Yet)

Been a sad week so I decided I needed to talk about something fun and diverting. For me there is only thing that is guaranteed to bring a smile to my face-80's nostalgia! So that's what I am doing today. I have done many articles but there are some things that I still haven't gotten around to touching upon (or only briefly touched upon).

I wanted to talk about five 80's  personalities or characters who are just a part of the 80's culture and always will be. Not to say some of these people didn't make news beyond the 80's, it's just that they are most remembered for that time period. So this may seem like a odd mix but that is the whole point. Today, five people who epitomized the 80's....that I just haven't gotten around to yet.



#5.Larry Bird

I am not a big sports fan. And that's especially true for basketball. It just gets so boring. But even I had to admire Larry Bird growing up. Especially since I was lucky enough to live in the Boston area, and I think I got to see him play once. The Boston Celtics were pure awesomeness in the 80's and while there was plenty of talent on that team, Bird just stood out among the pack. And in the interest of fairness I should mention that Magic Johnson was pretty good too, he played for the Lakers.