Scanner : wall-e

Sloppy Seconds: Stripper Feels the Crunch

Brian Fairbanks — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 23:12:00 GMT

We just want to start out by saying you need to see the following three movies this weekend: Slumdog Millionaire, Milk, and The Wrestler, supposing they are out where you currently reside. Mickey Rourke's performance is one of the greatest so far this century, although Sean Penn is equally good on a more subtle level and could steal an Oscar from him, while Slumdog Millionaire is barely not cheeseball Bollywood/Hollywood, but the story hooks you almost instantly and the end-credit dance-off is the most eye popping in ages. Check out movie showtimes here.

In other news, we have a final result in the $54 million dry cleaning lawsuit...

Roy L. Pearson, the former administrative law judge who sued his dry cleaner for $54 million over a misplaced pair of pants, lost his final appeal in the District's highest court.
"Appellant failed to establish either that the Chungs' 'Satisfaction Guaranteed' and 'Same Day Service' signs constituted false or misleading statements, or that they lost his pants.

Next, we hope he gets sued (and loses again) over all this...

A stripper in Colorado has been making $18 a day thanks to the recession.

Want to have a day of hookey with your girl? Just call in anonymous threats to her school!

Wall-E seems to be benefitting the split votes among the critics, who can't decide on a favorite that any of them pick as their #1. Instead, they end up with everybody's second or third choice, the Pixar film that delighted audiences and baffled the gluttonous.

And Janet Jackson broke up with Jermaine Dupri, according to the tabloids.

While You Were Sleeping: Scrubs & Friends

48-Year-Old Carol Alt Finally Does Playboy

While You Were Sleeping: Khloe Kardashian Looks Weird Naked

Sloppy Seconds: the 69-Year-old Pinup Dude

Top 10 Celebrity Twitterers

Golden Globe Nominations Even Worse Than We Expected

Brian Fairbanks — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 16:23:00 GMT

As usual, the studios sent their movie star emissaries, who cajoled and bribed the Hollywood Foreign Press into making this lackluster set of nominations.

Geez, you'd think that journalists for foreign newspapers would be more removed from Hollywood and have a more neutral perspective on its usually terrible moviemaking...

BEST MOTION PICTURE – DRAMA

THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON
FROST/NIXON
THE READER
REVOLUTIONARY ROAD
SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE

So, instead of Milk and Wall-E (and not to mention the host of brilliant foreign films released this year, especially Edge of Heaven), we get the widely-panned The Reader and the Sam Mendes flick Revolutionary Road, which has been ignored in every year in best-of up until now. But what's even worse is this category:

BEST TELEVISION SERIES – DRAMA

DEXTER (SHOWTIME)
Showtime/John Goldwyn Productions/The Colleton Company/Clyde Phillips Productions
HOUSE (FOX)
Universal Media Studios in association with Heel and Toe Films, Shore Z Productions and Bad Hat Harry Productions
IN TREATMENT (HBO)
Sheleg, Closest to the Hole Productions in association with HBO Entertainment
MAD MEN (AMC)
Lionsgate Television
TRUE BLOOD (HBO)

You have to be kidding: House, In Treatment, and-- gag-- True Blood over The Wire? Hell, Gossip Girl and-- we're only slightly joking-- the Hills as Best Drama over some of these choices. You think these people actually watch the shows before they nominate them or just watch the sex scenes on Scanner?

There are some bright spots: Rebecca Hall, Penelope Cruz, and Javier Bardem for Vicki Christina Barcelona, Tom Cruise for his genius and unannounced three-scene performance in Tropic Thunder, and 30 Rock and Weeds for Best Comedy Series, with Tina Fey and Mary-Louise Parker up for Best Actress.

See the rest here.

Related:

Five Unintentional Laughs From Flirting With Forty

Sloppy Seconds: Jessica Biel Finally Goes Topless

Musicians I'd Like To Finance: Great 2008 CDs By Older Women

We Won't Milk "Milk" For Its Every Pun, Promise...

Wall-E's Puppet Master Revealed: It's Al Gore!

Brian Fairbanks — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 18:24:00 GMT

The right wing has gotten tired of trying to find something wrong with Obama's mortgage or which hand he uses to wipe away his Muslim tears while he salutes the Nazi flag. They have a new enemy, one who''s smaller than an ogre but still bigger than John McCain: Wall-E.

Although we haven't seen the movie, we've heard for weeks that Pixar's latest animated film would feature some political content, including some "left-wing propaganda."

“It was like a 90-minute lecture on the dangers of over consumption, big corporations, and the destruction of the environment,” Pollowitz writes at Planet Gore, National Review’s global-warming blog.
I have been a huge fan of Disney Pixar's movies. Parents are usually just as entertained as their kids are. With WALL-E, that's probably true only if you thought An Inconvenient Truth was Oscar-worthy. As for me, Pixar's latest offering was Godforsaken dreck. From the first moment of the film, my kids were bombarded with leftist propaganda about the evils of mankind. [National Review]
It’s propaganda! We’re talking about a movie that foists off on little kids the idea that human beings are bad for planet earth. And that’s not true. Why are human beings bad for planet earth? … If you take your kids to this, understand they’re going to come away with the idea that mommy and daddy are bad for the planet and the planet would be better off without them. [Lars Larson on MSNBC.]

Other conservatives disagreed with these assessments, with some bloggers/writers supporting the argument that Wall-E is actually right-wing propaganda:

“I was relieved to see a kids’ movie in which the obligatory message of ecological apocalypse is framed in terms of jeopardizing our own humanity, rather than being mean to poor Gaia,” writes Matt Frost at The American Scene.
Robert Patrick J. Ford of The American Conservative suggests that “Wall-E” is... more right-wing than left-wing. “The real tragedy of these callous conservative critics (say that three times fast) is that they are missing the real lessons of the movie, ones I found immediately attractive to a traditional conservative,” Ford writes. “In the film, it becomes clear that mass consumerism is not just the product of big business, but of big business wedded with big government.

Did you see Wall-E? Let us know what your thoughts are on the film, its quality, its political content, and anything else you think of.

Via Political Wrinkles.