Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.
- President Dwight D. Eisenhower

Thursday, August 21, 2008

Matt Lauer

He really is my hero. Here's a video clip to help explain why.



So, Kim and I had the distinct and considerable displeasure to endure "Tropic Thunder" last night. It was awful. Ben Stiller cannot direct himself out of a paper bag, much less make a funny parody of the movie business.

Moreover, stealth Tom Cruise. The man singularly responsible for the word "scientology" to be synonymous with "cult" was in a fat suit, bald skull cap, and a shitty beard.

Don't watch Tropic Thunder. It tries to make you laugh at the idea of skinning an endangered animal and wearing its head as a hat.

41 comments:

kimberkara said...

Tom was the most interesting part of the movie for me. It amused me to see him dance like the gopher from Caddyshack. Why didn't you post what you wrote last night? Not feeling like a cheater today? :D

chris said...

nothing slows down time like a bad movie. thanks for fixing my computer. and what about "not feeling like a cheater today"?

Cindy-Lou said...

I can't imagine what possessed you to even consider going to see that movie. It's not even DVD worthy, much less going to the theater to see it. Ick!

Drunken Chud said...

mayy lauer's your hero because a let a bat shit crazy tom cruise steamroll his agenda all over his show for 6 minutes? i think you need a better hero. someone who can call tom out a little more.

as far as tropic thunder is concerned, i feel you may have your head up your own ass with your own agendas a little too much to accurately review a comedy such as this. so i will reserve judgement till i see it. which by all other accounts, from people who have a sense of humor, it was a hilarious movie.

I'm Scooter, but I might be a troll. said...

Ok, from my perspective, Matt Lauer wound Tom Up, and watched him go.

Chud... panda skinning just ain't cool.

Drunken Chud said...

dude, they didn't actually SKIN A PANDA. it's a movie. the humane society would have been on set for any actual animal scenes, and i feel they mave frowned on the skinning of a GIANT FUCKING PANDA!

sometimes you just need to relax and take shit in context.

I'm Scooter, but I might be a troll. said...

So, you are ok with the IDEA of panda skinning, to get laughs.

So, the FALSE PORTRAYAL of skinning an endangered animal is ok, as long as it is supposed to be funny.

Dude. That could really sum up how I feel about this film. "If you think panda skinning is funny, then you will like this movie".

Mommy Phoenix said...

So, When the director was blown up by the land mine, I bet you laughed...
So are you saying "You laugh at death" cuz by taking the panda skinning thing out of context, your being a hypocrit if you laugh at anything that is satire.
The movie was meant as a Joke, it is all SATIRE... Did you laugh at the lines that Robert Downey Jr had? Cuz if you did than you support "Black Face" Just Chill, it had its moments, I haven't watched it all yet, but Tom was funny from what I have seen. :)

I'm Scooter, but I might be a troll. said...

Oh yes, I laugh at land mine humor alllll the time. Princess Diana was just a bitch with no sense of humor, trying to rid the world of land mines....

Mommy Phoenix said...

Cindy-Lou, He didn't pay for the ticket, infact, he obtained an illegal copy of the movie.
Normally I would laugh and shake my ass at the MPAA but I might offend Mark :-P

I'm Scooter, but I might be a troll. said...

Meh, the studio wasn't going to get any money from me, any ways. At least I can present a fully informed opinion on it.

Drunken Chud said...

yes, i think in the right vein, skinning a giant panda could be high comedy. why? BECUASE I'M NOT AN OVERLY SENSITIVE CAUSE MONKEY THAT NEEDS TO BE OFFENDED AT EVERYTHING.

I'm Scooter, but I might be a troll. said...

Cause monkey. I spent two minutes on this blog this morning. You, have checked back at least three times.

Who, exactly, is more worked up about this un-funny film?

Drunken Chud said...

you are. you spent two minutes on it this morning and account for 5 comments. in a day. i account for four. so, 5 comments, plus the post makes you the cause monkey. now go get sad about a fake skinned panda and a sad bear at the zoo.

I'm Scooter, but I might be a troll. said...

Wow. Lots of fail here. Um... this is my blog, and that means I receive every comment in my e-mail automatically. You... you have to sign up for that on your own volition. On top of that, you are equating the false portrayal of a skinned animal the moral equivalent of the actual suffering of a living being.

Why on earth are you defending a movie you haven't even seen?

Drunken Chud said...

"Why on earth are you defending a movie you haven't even seen?"

because of your rightous indignation over a scene in a comedy.

were you upset at star wars when the death blew up alderon? i mean, millions of voices cried out, and were suddenly silenced. THEY BLEW UP A FUCKING PLANET. SUPER DUPER MASS GENOCIDE! IS GENOCIDE FUNNY? well, i guess in the right context it could be. but aside from that, NO. so where's the outrage mark? where?

this whole causemonkey shit is wholly unbecoming on you, who, purportedly has an above average IQ, and should thusly be able to see where the humor lies. instead you've become some reactionary hippie.

what happened to mark, the guy who sang about being a cross dressing lumberjack. THAT guy had a sense of humor.

I'm Scooter, but I might be a troll. said...

Crossing genres, I see. If I remember correctly, the BAD GUYS blew up Alderaan.

Why should I feel sympathetic to a character who feels compelled to skin pandas?

You know, I would have hoped you would strive to be better than irrelevant ad hominems.

I don't want people to see "Tropic Thunder" because it isn't funny. Skinning pandas, even in the abstract, is just stupid.

Now, killing a panda accidentally when you love pandas, that's funny. Feeling compelled to wear his head as a hat after you accidentally killed him? Not funny.

kimberkara said...

Wow. Look what I missed. The movie had a land mine splatter someone resulting a human head being waved on a stick, a gutted panda, the word nigger, the word retard, Matthew McConaughey (hot), Tom Cruise, and Robert Downey Jr. (love him). The movie still sucked. The shock value was there, but it fell flat. It was good actors portraying bad actors poorly. It was disappointing to say the least. I WANTED to like it. I pushed to see it. It was crap!

cassdawn said...

would the skinning be less offensive if it was of a non-endangered animal.

i agree matt lauer wound tom up which was lovely to watch. but more importantly he made sure that any point tom might have had (ie that children ARE overdrugged and overdiagnosed) was lost in the overall craziness and through that an utter calm he pretty much destroyed the dude.

ah, what is funny . . . so we went to see chelsea handler the other night and she starts talking about date rape. she says earlier that day she was talking to some chick from "southie" who said she had been date raped three times; twice by the same guy. chelsea says something like "well, that's your own damn fault, i mean that's like voting for bush twice" and some chick yells out 'that joke sucked' and starts heckling her. to wit, chelsea said 'you know what, it's a comedy show, leave if you don't like it'

otoh, chud, sad bears at the zoo are real and worth expending emotion. hurting animals irl to no end is lame.

and kimber . . . . you have got to be shiiiiiiiiitting me are you actually presenting use of the word 'retard' as a comment against the movie????

for that matter use of the word nigger doesn't overturn 'funny' either. i have two words for you:
blazing saddles

if done right - anything can be funny.

I'm Scooter, but I might be a troll. said...

Skinning an animal that one purportedly loves, endangered or not, is not an act that garners sympathy.

If I am going to be emotionally connected to a character, he ought to be worth that effort.

Cassie, that's just it. "Blazing Saddles" is still funny, 30 or some years later.

Tropic Thunder won't be funny... ever.

cassdawn said...

off the top of my head - i can see skinning an animal as being funny if the character goes on and on about how much he loves it but then at the slightest of provocations (i need a new pair of shoes) skins it and thereby highlights the shallowness of his character etc. etc. not my personal kind of humour mind you - too obvious but it worked pretty well on a mad tv skit where a guy ate his fellow airplane crash survivors after being stranded for a matter of hours.

i can't say whether the movie is funny i haven't seen it. just saying that use of certain words or deeds do not inherently make something unfunny. although i will concede that generally bad things happening to children or animals need to be crafted very well in order to be funny. why on earth we don't care about adult humans i have clue - the head on a stick wasn't note worthy?

what i am most confused by is who were trying to "connect" with in that movie.

but of course . . . now, i gotta see :)

Drunken Chud said...

"If I remember correctly, the BAD GUYS blew up Alderaan."

OOOOH, so genocide is ok, as long as the bad guys are doing it. i see.

Why should I feel sympathetic to a character who feels compelled to skin pandas?

from what i've read about the scene, there is no sympathy expected. AND HE DOESN'T FUCKING ACTUALLY SKIN A PANDA.

You know, I would have hoped you would strive to be better than irrelevant ad hominems.

well, considering you keep going back to the same rhetoric that has no basis in logic and and you refuse to see reason, i figured appealing to your more emotional side might help.

I don't want people to see "Tropic Thunder" because it isn't funny. Skinning pandas, even in the abstract, is just stupid.

Now, killing a panda accidentally when you love pandas, that's funny. Feeling compelled to wear his head as a hat after you accidentally killed him? Not funny.


really? cuz to me, that's hilarious. seriously.

@kimber sounds like a recipe for funny to me. and retard? really? when is the word retard not funny? even when applied to actual retards it's a hoot. methinks i know where scooter's sudden causemonkeyness comes from.

cassie, i would agree with you, if you could prove to me that bears can be sad. we personify a lot of animals a bit too much. i don't think most animals have the higher functions of true feelings. anger, maybe, but i think a lot survival behaviors could be miscatergorized as anger, isntead of basically misplaced fear. fear, we know they experience. and personally i think that's the only feeling most animals have. fear, in different forms. and horniness.

I'm Scooter, but I might be a troll. said...

Yes, fictional portrayal of genocide is "ok" if the bad guys are the ones doing it. A protagonist cannot systematically kill a people or group... he automatically turns into the ANTAGONIST.

So, he's an anti-hero. I can go with that. Still, it's stupid. I feel my intelligence is insulted when asked to laugh at the implied act of skinning an endangered animal.

Appeal to emotion? That's a complete and total logical fallacy.

Which is why I stated that "If you think panda skinning is funny, then you will like this movie."

Gah.

cassdawn said...

drunkenchud - idk, maybe sad is the wrong word - anxious. and if we're going to stick animals in cages just so our kids can look at them that's cool but they're doing us a solid by sitting there why fuck with them on top of it.

realistically, you can't *prove* emotions period. so they base 'sadness' on agitated behaviors.

that said, i don't completely disagree with you. i know there are the "that's amazing" cases - the couple that raised a lion and then saw him in the wild - but by and large, while i do think animals have emotions i don't think they are on the same complexity as ours . . .. and before anyone gets their knickers in a twist - that's actually one of the things i like about them.

one thing scooter is right about though comparing the 'bad guy' in a drama to the protagonist in a comedy pretty much defines apples and oranges. the "bad guy" in a movie can do all sorts of shit that might otherwise be unacceptable because by doing so s/he solidifies his/her position as the "bad guy".

now, let's back up a minute - there was no ACTUAL skinning?? so seriously, can someone tell me what makes the *thought* of panda skinning worse than the visualization of playing with a severed human head?

oh, one final word to chud - yeah, i um, when i read kim's post apparently listing retard as an automatic unfunny i kind of assumed it was scooter's influence so . . there you have it

kimberkara said...

Cass - no, I'm saying the movie fell flat for me despite the use of all the shock value they could muster. You know me - I like to say offensive things because it's funny to me and the look on someone's face who doesn't think it's funny is hiLAReous.

Chud - fuck you! You don't know me, and apparently you don't know Mark very well either.

I was surprised to see that Tropic Thunder was rated favorably by the majority, but then I thought - oh yeah, so was George Bush. Twice.

cassdawn said...

i feel relief. shewwww

I'm Scooter, but I might be a troll. said...

Cassie, the film tries to make land mines and the implied skinning of endangered animals funny, and fails. I just grabbed the panda reference because it was what tore it for me.

Stiller's character did not believe that the severed head was real. I play with latex severed heads all the time during Halloween.

Drunken Chud said...

Which is why I stated that "If you think panda skinning is funny, then you will like this movie."

no, you didn't say that in your post. what you said was, and i quote: "Don't watch Tropic Thunder. It tries to make you laugh at the idea of skinning an endangered animal and wearing its head as a hat.

you said it in your second comment, but you put it in quotes as though it was meant to mean something. you quoting something never before cited.


@kim Chud - fuck you! You don't know me, and apparently you don't know Mark very well either.

I was surprised to see that Tropic Thunder was rated favorably by the majority, but then I thought - oh yeah, so was George Bush. Twice.


sit down honey, the big kids are arguing.

cass, i agree with you on the animal thing. we can't prove it. therefore i can't agree with it. i don't go on suppositions.

however where i disagree with you is that the misplaced outrage at an accidentally killed panda in a comedy should be any different from a flip comment about millions of lives lost in a sci-drama. if one is bad, the other is bad. period. no matter who does it, it is worthy of outrage. (in cause monkey vioce) DOES GEORGE LUCAS CONDONE GENOCIDE!?!?!? HE DIDN'T DECRY IT IN A NEW HOPE!!?1?!?!?!?!?!

sorry, had to put it into perspective, but if the fictional portrayal of one is abhorrent, then so is the other, period.

cassdawn said...

hhmm, yeah, but i'm saying you can't prove emotions with any being. humans are just able to speak. john wayne gacy expressed remorse - i don't personally think he really was but who knows maybe he was just a misunderstood softie

okay so last time we were talking about the act of blowing up alderaan - now you are talking about the flip comment. either way, the difference is - he does decry it by having the bad guys do it. he has established them as evil already and that's our cue that what they are doing . . . hmm, gotta go my kid is calling me - he sounds sad ;)

I'm Scooter, but I might be a troll. said...

Ok, Chud. You want to rely on the post itself, and discount the commentary on by the author itself? Fine.

Show me the word "offensive" in the post. Show me the word "abhorrent" in the post.

kimberkara said...

Chud - you crack me up... when did this stop being a juvenile argument? And why do you assume Marks views are in line with my own? It is a just weak attack to discredit his opinion and you're the only one here who doesn't know that.

Drunken Chud said...

cass, i get what you're saying. i just don't how anything is different or condoned when done by an antagonist vs. a protagonist. ok, how about in harold and kumar when they ride the panther then? you can't ride panthers! that's just mean. heh, yeah, it's a stretch but at least it's on the same path.

so did you figure out if your kid was sad or not? :-)

scooter, i didn't discount it. i just want to know why you quoted it. you should have annotated it so i could look up the reference material.

ahh kim. kim kim. the reason i know his views are in line with yours is because he was never a whiney cause monkey till you came around. just like a couple years ago he was never a preachy bible thumper, till he started falling for this preachy bible thumper online. seriously, do yourself a favor and hit the archives. you can see where he goes from ptrydactyl porn lover to god warrior, then drops it as though it never happened. so now he's dating an animal cause monkey and guess what he's become in order to suit you? don't think too hard. and you're the only one who doesn't realize this.

Drunken Chud said...

"Don't watch Tropic Thunder. It tries to make you laugh at the idea of skinning an endangered animal and wearing its head as a hat."

ahem, kim, i bring you mark, before you:

So, I just had this idea for an endangered species turducken. First, you stuff a kiwi into a platypus, then you stuff those into an echidna (you might have to fudge it a bit, echidnas ain't big), then you stuff that into a northern hairy nosed wombat, and finally, all of those go into a Brush tailed rock wallaby.

It would be reall good eating, and if you time it right, it would be a once in history meal...


taken from here: http://scooterrant.blogspot.com/2006/01/benjamin-franklin.html

*bows*

I'm Scooter, but I might be a troll. said...

Sure. I wasn't trying to pad my bank account by twenty million dollars when I wrote that, though.

It was done stupidly. The movie is STUPID. Not really all that offensive, when taken in context. It's just stupid.

kimberkara said...

Hm. I'm not an animal cause monkey, or a monkey at all thankyouverymuch. I didn't get upset at the panda scene. None of the scenes in this movie upset me. I eat meat. I don't donate to animal causes. I do not like to see animals suffer, and that's about it. Mark talks about hunting, killing my cute yard raccoons, and likes his steak rare.

I don't think he's changed much except he is getting laid, so he is perhaps expending a little less energy in his blogs and more on what life is supposed to be all about.

Drunken Chud said...

So, the FALSE PORTRAYAL of skinning an endangered animal is ok, as long as it is supposed to be funny.?

so the false portrayal of cooking 4 endangered animals stuffed into a fifth is ok, so long as it is supposed to be funny? oh, and you're not trying to make money off of it. look at yourself.

kim, http://kimberkara.blogspot.com/2008/08/boycotts.html

citing an article about happenings 5-6 years ago using peta as a source? really? pretty damning towards your cause monkey-ness. just because you don't donate, and eat meat doesn't mean your influence isn't high. he does it without knowing. he loses himself. that's the shit part. open your eyes a little wider.

kimberkara said...

Chud, that blog was in response to my SIL blog about her boycotting stuff and my response was basically sheesh, if I boycotted everything that people thought should be boycotted I'd be living in a cabin in the woods pumping water from a well and sneaking off to buy KFC. There is nothing wrong with people who do that stuff, and I would be a better person if I did too, but fuck that - Walmart is cheap and convenient. Maybe Mark is trying to impress my SIL, because I'm poking fun of that mentality a bit... but anyway, thanks for reading my blogs!
Back to topic - have you seen the movie yet? Is it POSSIBLE that your friend is not just brainlessly under the influence of a Yoko and might find the movie stupid - including the panda scene?

Mommy Phoenix said...

Damn It... I quit reading a blog for a few days and shit blows up and I don't even get to wave someones head around on a stick! UGH!

I'm Scooter, but I might be a troll. said...

Look at myself? I had an original thought years ago and wrote it down because I liked the novelty of it, on my blog that got like, four hits a week at the time.

I am not a man who secured financing and spent the better part of four months in the jungles of Hawaii ultimately failing to make a man in Michigan laugh.

cassdawn said...

so - here we are - nearly two years later but i did say that i would let you know once i watched tropic thunder and i did.

i liked it okay- parts of it even made me giggle a bit. that said; the panda bear thing would have been very far down on my list of what i found offensive. i could enumerate why i didn't find it offensive but then; as i already pointed out, this post is nearly a full two years old. i, in fact, had to google it. at the very top of my 'wow that almost tipped my offensive meter' was RDjr in black face cuz ya know it's friggin blackface and i'm not sure it went far enough in the we-are-purposefully-showing-you-how-offensive-it-would-be-if-someone-did-this

I'm Scooter, but I might be a troll. said...

Cassie, I didn't say it was offensive. I said that the portrayal was meant to make people laugh. It was stupid.

Panda skinning is just not funny.