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Bait and Switch: Horrible movies that had great trailers

Posted in humor, internet, movies, pop culture with tags humor, internet, movie reviews, movie trailers, movies, pop culture on May 27, 2009 by Paxton

preview_screen It’s happened to all of us. You are sitting in the theater, watching the coming attractions, waiting for your movie to start, and a trailer comes on that blows you through the back of the theater. You think, “That looks AWESOME!” and mentally make a note to check it out later. When the day comes that you can finally check out the movie you’ve been building up in your mind for months, you are disappointed. Maybe more so, maybe you are pissed. Perhaps even outright hostile towards the movie which did nothing to you except suck the will to live out of you. It’s called the “bait and switch”. Offer you one thing to get you in the theater, then give you something completely different.

Cutting together a trailer has almost become an art form in today’s Hollywood. How many times have you watched a trailer and one funny line kills you, then you go see the movie and that was the only funny thing in the entire flaming pile of “poo doo”? Too often. Movie trailers should be considered a social contract. If you promise to deliver an ass-melting action movie, then you better damn well deliver or I get to go to the director’s (or actors’, or producers’) home and suplex them through their glass topped living room table. It’s only fair.

Let’s take a look at a list of movies that had really awesome trailers, only to not deliver on said promise of awesome.

Snakes on a Plane (2006) – When the trailer for this movie started making the rounds on the internet in 2005-2006, it blew up big. Everyone was talking about it. People thought this movie was going to open HUGE. It didn’t. Turns out the movie kinda blew. The best part of the movie was Samuel Jackson and his one line about muthaf’n snakes which, by the way, was not originally in the film and added during post-production. The expectations were too high for a Grade B horror movie that works better late at night, on HBO with like 5 drunk friends. Surprisingly, it’s not as entertaining when you’ve just paid $10 for admission, $20 for concessions and aren’t completely bombed.

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Movie Flashback: Star Wars Episode I 10 year anniversary

Posted in movies, pop culture, reviews, Star Wars with tags Entertainment Weekly, magazine, Movie Flashback, movie reviews, movies, pop culture, Star Wars on May 19, 2009 by Paxton

Ten years ago today (May 19) Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace opened in theaters. Hard to believe it’s been 10 years. I still remember taking that week off work and going with my friend, Jason, to see multiple showings the day of release. Those multiple day screenings were seen at the now defunct Carmike Galleria 10 Cinemas.

When talking to Jason about this recently, he reminded me that we also saw a midnight screening the night before the day of release at the Summit Carmike Cinemas. Which we wound up doing again for Episode II.

I was going through some old magazines I have in my collection looking for Episode I stuff and found two issues that have cover stories on Star Wars Episode I. Both magazines cover rumors about plot lines and actors that have been possibly cast in the movie. Since the magazines are over 12 years old the information they have is sketchy and mostly rumor, but it’s fun to look at what the magazines thought the new Star Wars movie(s) would be about. Especially at this point in time when we’ve seen the whole prequel trilogy.

So, let’s look at these two magazines from the early ’90s that had cover stories on the movie we now know as Episode I: The Phantom Menace. We’ll also see a few tidbits of info these magazines speculated on that, in hindsight, are wildly false rumors.

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My 15 step plan for surviving the Zombie Apocalypse

Posted in humor, pop culture, zombies with tags Apocalypse, humor, pop culture, Zombie Apocalypse, zombies on May 7, 2009 by Paxton

First of all, welcome to all the new readers who got here through StumbleUpon. Apparently someone recommended my McDonald’s commercials article from Tuesday and I got a flood of visitors “stumbling” onto my blog. So welcome new readers, hope you enjoy your stay and stick around to enjoy some AWESOME goodness. Today, I discuss, the Zombie Apocalypse.

It’s inevitable. There will be an apocalypse. The only question is, what kind? Will the computers become self-aware, rise up SkyNet-style and annihilate all humans? Will the robots we build all of a sudden get sick of being used to disarm bombs or fetch us a beer and rise up to take over the world? Maybe the mighty Leprechaun army will finally gather and surge against their overly tall oppressors who are constantly searching for their “pot ‘o gold”. Any of these scenarios are viable apocalypse situations. Another more popular situation involves the dead walking around feasting on living brain tissue. This one is known as the Zombie Apocalypse.

Every guy grows up knowing about these various apocalypse situations. Some believe more in the Computer Apocalypse, some put their money on the Robot Apocalypse. Now, I admit, on paper, the idea of living robots rising up against humanity or the undead walking the Earth eating brains sounds pretty bad ass but, in reality, the situation would be pretty horrifying. So, in preparation, many guys make their “Apocalypse Contingency Plan”. In the event of one of the aforementioned apocalypses actually happening, this “contingency plan” would allow you and your loved ones to survive the difficult coming months. So, as I’m a believer in World War Z (aka WWZ, aka Zombie Apocalypse), I thought I’d present to you my 15 step plan for surviving the inevitable Zombie Apocalypse.

Note: Early in our marriage, I let my wife in on this contingency plan. She laughed and mocked the idea of a zombie apocalypse. She is no longer a part of the contingency plan.

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More AWESOME McDonald’s commercials

Posted in advertising, fast food, food, McDonald's, nostalgia, pop culture with tags Hamburglar, McDonald's, nostalgia, pop culture, TV commercials on May 4, 2009 by Paxton

(Via SA_Steve)

Well, it’s ri-donk-ulous how popular my last McDonald’s commercial article became. It’s now constantly at the top of my blog traffic. So, I thought, why not write a sequel? I still search YouTube for old McD’s commercials, so it shouldn’t be hard to find some worthy of a look back. And, I was right, there are many that I can still talk about.

McDonald’s has always had really, really good commercials. Especially during the whole McDonaldLand era. All of those characters were awesome and almost every single one of the characters had their own commercial. So today, I thought I’d look at my favorite character and a few of his commercials.

I love the Hamburglar. He was always my favorite character. He had an awesomely kick ass name and he was a bit of a rebel. Also, check out the striped suit, the dude obviously did some time in prison. How cool is that? A children’s fast food mascot that did hard time. Awesome, indeed. So, in honor of our felon friend, here are a bunch of commercials that feature the Hamburglar. Click the title of the commercial or the image to see the commercial on YouTube.

hamburglar_touch1 hamburglar_touch2
The Hamburglar Touch – This was back in the ’80s/’90s when the McD commercials had title cards like a Looney Tunes cartoon. This commercial featured the Hamburglar dreaming about what it would be like to have everything he touched turn into a juicy hamburger. You can see the Hamburglar in this commercial looks different than the big picture above. The Hamburglar used to look more like a goblin, but they softened him up in the late ’80s to look more like a Cabbage Patch Kid. It’s tough to find commercials with the goblin face.

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Star Wars Celebration I: The 10 Year Anniversary

Posted in Colorado, Denver, movies, nostalgia, personal, pop culture, Star Wars with tags Colorado, conventions, Denver, movies, pop culture, Star Wars, Star Wars Celebration, Star Wars Roadtrip on April 28, 2009 by Paxton

Well, I was going over some pictures a few months ago trying to pick some good ones to upload to my Flickr blog when I came across pictures of my trip to Denver, CO in 1999 for the first Star Wars Celebration. While looking at them, it dawned on me that this trip happened 10 years ago this weekend. TEN YEARS!!! Man, time flies.

The Star Wars Celebration I occurred from April 30 – May 2, 1999 in Denver, CO. It was held as a “celebration” (obviously) of the original Star Wars trilogy as well as a “release party” for the new Star Wars prequel, The Phantom Menace (which was set to release in less than a month from that time).

At that particular time I was on a client site in Tampa and I went to the Celebration with my friends Jason Collier and Jonathan Loden. Denver had inclement weather the entire weekend so it was either rainy or sprinkling at all times. Plus, since this was the first official Star Wars convention in many years, some of the mechanics of the operation were not as well oiled a machine as you would come to see in Celebration II and Celebration III. Despite that, it was a lot of fun and I’m glad I went.

Let’s take a little photo walk through some of that weekend’s festivities.