Hangnails, terrorism, Tony Hawk, Joey, wet blankets, David Caruso, paper cuts, broken umbrellas, Bella Swan, the first 5 minutes of Alien 3, the rest of Alien 3, dating actors, red 40, office coffee, the haircuts in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Lotus Notes, the robot montage at the end of Battlestar Galactica, the expansion of the 9-5 workday, the Electoral College, Rodimus Prime, laugh tracks, House of Sand and Fog.
And that’s about it. Can someone please reign in Tim Burton, please? He’s genius when he needs to be, or given the right material, but otherwise he is just ridiculous, and not in a good way. Alice in Wonderland was horrifically bad. There’s this scene at the end where Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter does the most random and ludicrous dance ever put to film. And that about sums up my feelings for the movie: a random and ludicrous dance. Can we have Batman Returns and Big Fish Tim Burton back please?
I haven’t seen Alice In Wonderland yet … but I liked Alien 3!
Well I’ve only seen it once, but I can’t forgive them for what they did in the first 5 minutes.
I actually didnt think it was horrible. I hated Willy Wonka much worse. I think Tim Burton just needs to stop trying to reinvent classic stories in a weird and twisted way. He needs to stick to original material.
Dating actors is bad? Do you speak from personal experience, Craiggers?
And I totally agree about that dance thing. Totally gratuitous, superfluous, and unneccesary.
And may I add to your list: any storyline involving Wolverine in a high profile team (like the Avergers); V: The Series; 2 twenty inch snowfall blizzards in less than a week; computer crashes; hot tea that burns the roof of your mouth; Sandra Bullock and Julia Roberts winning Oscars for sappy, heart-string tugging but uninspired performances; that inner film in a hard boiled egg; and people that pull out in front of you making you slow down and then drive twenty miles under the speed limit.
HUGS…
I didn’t mind Alice in Wonderland. I didn’t LOVE it, but I didn’t HATE it. Yeah, the dance was lame. But then you loved Australia so you and I may have differences on the movie front.
I could not agree more!
Haven’t seen it yet, but will at some point, simply out of morbid curiosity.
As for the list, I’ll add: “9″ of rain in the last 24 hours which caused the flood in my parent’s basement which I am now in the middle of cleaning” is pretty high on the my list right now.
That makes me happy that we were slow getting ready when we were considering seeing it and ended up playing cards in a coffee shop in North Park instead.
Ugh, that is a bummer. Alice in Wonderland is the Mrs’ most favorite movie of all time; she is totally giddy in anticipation of seeing this movie. Hopefully she will not be completely devastated by the Tim Burton rendition. I am not sure if we will see it this weekend at the local theater (and suffer through the horrible sound system they have) or wait until we can go to a real city to see it.
M. Nico: I actually didn’t hate it as much as Craiggers, I don’t think. I mean, it was nifty to look at, I enjoyed the look of it. But as for the story and plot and stuff…nah, that bit.
Hope the Mrs. enjoys it as well.
HUGS….
I haven’t seen it yet, he and Johnny Depp are doing a remake of Dark Shadows later in the year, I hope he doesn’t go too far with that.
Alice was okay… which is perhaps pretty damning since I saw it in IMAX3D.
It was better than the “How to train your dragon” movie (also, alas, seen in IMAX3D. There goes this month’s movie budget.)
Reading musings about potential Depp/Burton collaborations had my brain free associate to a remake of “What’s New Pussycat?”, with Johnny Depp playing the psychologist (the Peter Sellers role). Not sure who to cast in place of Peter O’Toole, though.
I liked it! It wasn’t perfect and you’re right…that dance @ the end was terrible! But Helena automatically makes thingz ten timez better!
Haven’t seen it (will probably Netflix it though). I agree on sticking to new material for Tim Burton. His version of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory put me to sleep.
Love the list. I would add: leaf blowers, Jennifer Love Hewitt, bad breath, George Bush, mayonnaise, alarm clocks, people who don’t return their shopping carts, Ashton Kutcher and my job.
And Edward Scissorhands!!! My fave Burton film and one of my fave movies ever. So good.
I’ve never seen Edward Scissorhands.
My family went to see Edward Scissorhands as part of a double feature with Spaced Invaders at a drive in. I fell asleep.
Edward Scissorhands & Beetlejuice are CLASSIX. If you didn’t lurrrve them growing up, then I seriously wonder about your mental well-being.
My friends asked me to go see it with them. Since I dislike the crowds at the movies so much I have to really want to see a move to go. I didn’t feel drawn to this movie so I passed. Given your review, I guess I can pass on watching it at home whenever I get a TV as well.
I bet JJMcG will have some comment on your Lotus reference.
Polt: I am also curious about which actor Craig has dated.
I’m glad that you warned me about Alice. There are so many movies I want to see and so little time…I can’t wait to see “How to Train Your Dragon, Clash of the Titans and Sorcerers Apprentice” – anything with a dragon and i’m there.
Edward Scissorhands is definitely work checking out, though you’ll yearn more for the Burton of those days.
I LOL at your list especially putting hangnails, Bella Swan and terrorism in the same sentence! Especially agree with you about dating actors- they may not even be famous, I think semi famous or wanna bees also can be totally narcissistic.
Oh and the thing that sucks for me at the moment is finding out Vincent D’Onofrio is leaving Law and Order CI. He and Katherine Erbe (also love) are being forced out in favor of Jeff Goldblum. They also want to make it lighter like Monk!?! Goldblum was great -EVERY OTHER WEEK but not all the time. After Lost and 24 ends, I’ll have nothing left to watch!
“People that pull out in front of you making you slow down and then drive twenty miles under the speed limit.”
That drives me crazy too! They practically peel out to get in front of you, and then they take their sweet ass time.
No one famous of course. Mostly people TRYING to be actors. Ugh. So self-centered.
Craiggers: you simply MUST see Edward Scissorhands. It’s quite a tale. Well, quite a look to it. Made me chuckle.
And I know about what wanna-be actors. I dated one that was into local theater and I heard ALL about this production and that part and how hard it was to work with this director, etc, etc, etc. And I thought to myself, “Dude, you do dinner theater productions of the Odd Couple for buses of people from the retirement homes. You’re not dodging paparazzi on the red carpet. Freakin’ diva wannabe.”
And if the sex with him wasn’t so damn good, I’d have broken the month long relationship off at least a few weeks prior to when I did.
HUGS…
But we must amend this to say that we would give our left nut to date Josher’s David.
(Hope he hasn’t seen this yet.)
This anti-actor bias is very unbecoming of you, Craig.
That shirt is very becoming on you. If I were on you I’d be coming too.
Bazinga!
Craiggers comment #1: I would say that, although I’m worried there’s a Josherz counterpart to the dreaded Davidsaurus…and I want no parts of a Joshezraptor!
Jere And naturally, Jere is included in the David amendment as well.
Craiggers comment #2, response #1: ZING!!! Nice cover!
Craiggers comment #2, response #2: Wha??? I’m here, day after day after day for almost 4 years, leaving all kinda of innuendo/double entrendres/stalking comments and I never get a response like THAT! And we all know I’d REALLY like a response like that, in person preferably!
HUGS…
Ok now that I’ve recovered from my laughter at not just the original post but all the comemnts — this is one of the best combos of both in a long time — let me just say I’m not at *all* surprised that Alice was bad. The only reason I even *considered* seeing it at all was because I discovered it was more a sequel to the original stories, and not a version of the original stories (which always get mashed up into a single film, instead of having one film for Wonderland and another film for Looking Glass).
I stopped liking Tim Burton a LONG time ago. I agree with the consensus that Craig needs to see Edward Scissorhands — I adore that movie. And Beetlejuice is one of my favorite movies OF ALL TIME and still makes me burst out laughing every time I see the “Day-O” scene. I just think Beetlejuice is hilarious, sweet, imaginative, wonderful and simply awesome in every way. Almost every single moment of it.
My other favorite Burton film is Nightmare Before Christmas. I am not a big fan of “modern” musicals (give me a Lerner and Loewe any time over something by Andrew Lloyd Webber or pretty much anything post 1970), but I simply adore that movie.
Since then, Burton films have either been boring and derivative or have actually been abominations. I *despised* Sleepy Hollow and I find the creepy Michael Jackson version of Willie Wonka extremely unpleasant — not to mention that the movie is boring and slow. I haven’t seen his Sweeney Todd yet — I heard they cut out many of the best songs, and I know I’m going to find the gratuitous spurting blood tiresome and typical modern Tim Burton, but I’m considering that. Alice I had major misgivings about, and I’m glad Craig has warned me.
M. Nico — what do you mean by “the Mrs. favorite movie” — as if there is only ONE movie version of Alice in Wonderland?! There have been several — all (in my opinion) very bad.
Poltsky-doodles — could you *POSSIBLY* be more of a comic-book nerd? You’re complaining about Wolverine-misuse? a-GAIN?!
Chris (and thanks for making my last name honorarily Scottish — I have a sad feeling that was probably a typo but I’d like to think it was deliberate; I am Scottish but only on my mother’s side; oh — I just realized nobody will even understand what I’m talking about unless I make it clear that my twitter id is simply the definite article followed by my initials: I have two middle names, so I have four initials) — just because I work for Lotus/IBM doesn’t mean I have to like Lotus Notes
. There are some things I like about it — some things where it’s very powerful and better, say, than Outlook — but on the whole it is a big fat mess with a horrible UI. I’ve never been on the Notes or Domino teams and I never wanted to be. (Notes is the client, like Outlook; Domino is the server, like Exchange.)
(Notes was never developed by Lotus, by the way — it was developed by a wholely-owned subsidiary called Iris, which kept itself tightly and rigidly separate from Lotus. Lotus and Iris no longer exist, of course: we were all just absorbed into the Big Blue Borg Collective which is IBM, and “Lotus” is merely a brand name that IBM sticks on whatever it wants to stick it on; “Lotus” products are no longer even built exclusively in Massachusetts but are globally developed now.)
By the way, I love Craig’s original list of “bad things” and I love the items people have added. I agree with Polt’s bad driver addition — that’s a HUGE pet peeve of mine around here in metro Boston: people will pull out without even LOOKING FIRST and you have to panic stop and then they drive like 20 miles below the speed limit in front of you and then turn left at an intersection where there’s no way you’re going to get through after them.
As for Craiggers’ hilariously witty comment to Jere — don’t take it personally, Polterz. Jere isn’t geriatric (no pun intended) like you and me. Not everybody can be a peepaw fan…
Justin: No, it was intentional, though it was actually just a cognitive encoding artifact. Before I knew your name I got used to seeing your twitter ID. Since the letters didn’t have any inherent meaning to me my brain must have “wordified” them into “The JJ McG”, which sounds like a cool Scottish rapper name.
Justin: The Mrs loves the classic Disney animated version of Alice in Wonderland, she loves the Tweedles in particular. Oh, and I LOVE Nightmare Before Christmas; I have way more Jack Skellington branded nick-knacks than is appropriate for a man in his thirties. Double-oh, and the Mrs and my kids have you beat in the middle name department; they all have five (actually, my daughter has six.)
I so TOTALLY disagree with you on this! I love Burton’s take on Alice, which is right in line with (and kind of rips off) American McGee’s Alice…honey, what were you expecting…sunshine and lollipops? This movie rocks! Ok, my momentary rebellion against you is done. I am back to being your supplicant. As you were.
Ray Ray: Who let you out of your cage? Back, demon! Back!
M. Nico — I bow to your superior and admirable Affectedness and Pretentiousness, qualities I have striven for my entire life. I thought *my* parents were Affected to give me two middle names: though, truth be known, it wasn’t pretentiousness on their part, but Indecision. In the UK, you have a certain number of days (14 I think) by law to register a child’s birth. My parents made it to the registry office at 4:59pm on the 14th day — it took them that long to decide on my name. (Most parents have a name picked out *before* the birth, especially nowadays, when hardly anybody wants to be “surprised” by the gender at birth.)
My first middle name is simply my father’s first name. My second middle name is a name as pretentious as my first name used to be. According to the “How Original Were Your Parents” application on Facebook, my first name USED to be super-rare. It’s now as common as dirt, sadly
The output of that app for me:
“Your parents get an A+ for originality.
Ranking – ‘Justin’ was the 418th most popular boy’s name in your birth year.
Rarity – 8% of boys had rarer names that year. (Grade: A+)
Peak year – ‘Justin’ peaked in popularity in 1988.
Current rank – ‘Justin’ is currently the 45th most popular boy’s name.
Current name – Your parents might name you ‘Rocco’ today (current #418). ”
*sigh* — I refuse to rename myself “Rocco”. I wouldn’t even name my DOG “Rocco”. (And I *always* name my dogs pretentiously — Argus, Agni, Circe, and Prospero are the last four names I gave dogs.)
I didn’t even meet another Justin until I was 21. I have an amusing story about that.
I don’t think the colon P emoticon comes out right in this blog. It looks like a big happy smile. It’s supposed to be a tongue.
By the way, Chris, thank you for thrilling my inner linguistics geek by using the phrase “cognitive encoding artifact”.
<3
There was a stripper in Columbus named Rocco….although he was riddled with random tattoos and somewhat egotisitical…so I’m not even really sure now why I mentioned it……
HUGS….
A stripper who was *somewhat* egotistical? I can’t imagine such a thing!
Our friend David S / Spike excepted, of course!!!
Justin: no really! I’ve met several strippers who were pleasant, and interesting and not the slightest bit into themselves like that. Although those strippers were generally Canadian, so that probably explains that…
HUGS…
Aw shucks, Craig.
Hey! Unrelated note: We should plan a summatime Puntabu-get-together! Lovez it? Hatez it?!
Lovez!
Josh: Sure, sounds like fun. Are you planning it?
The origins of Evil Bunny?
http://mmckee.net/pictures/origins.jpg
Happy Easter Craig!