Jimmy Fallon... ICE CREAM?!

Congratulations to "Late Night with Jimmy Fallon" for being two years old.

The show celebrated with a Charlie Sheen spoof, a "Jersey Shore" spoof, a Slow-Jamming of the News, Mike Tyson and Motörhead sang "Ace of Spades" (Lem-may!).

Leading up to the show, Jimmy had said that there was going to be a huge surprise that would change everyone's life forever. The big surprise was that Ben and Jerry were revealing a new "Late Night" themed ice cream flavor. Ok, you're thinking, that's not huge at all. That's what I thought. But then I thought, I love iced cream, it's up there as one of nature's perfect foods in my estimation AND let's be real real - this could offer us all a paper-thin rationalization to go out and get loaded with fat so let's hear 'em out....

So what are the ingredients?

Vanilla Bean Ice Cream... (niiiice)

with a salty caramel swirl... (yes!)

and fudge covered .... (keep going)

potato chip clusters.

Eeeeee. Good luck with all that. That sounds like something that I would happily eat on a dare but without the whole challenge-to-my-manhood element, I don't see the point.

By the way the title of this post refers to "Days of Thunder" but that's probably not obvious to the "normal people".

IMDB 250 Challenge Revision 5 Complete (Part 1)

As you probably know, I have a (continuing) mission to watch every movie on the IMDB Top 250. I had previously accomplished this task a few years ago, however as ratings fluctuate and more movies are released, movies slip out of the 250 and others take their place. This requires that I continuously revise my list and watch the new ones to keep up. I finished the fifth revision earlier this week, watching the movie "Kick-Ass". Here are the latest movies and a few thoughts.

Toy Story 3 (2010)

My Rating: 7/10

Do I need to even write anything? With Pixar, you know you're getting a quality movie and this one is no exception. It's a worthwhile addition to the great "Toy Story" franchise that follows a gang of toys as they are forced to deal with their owner is too old and doesn't want them anymore. It's certainly a good movie but definitely not as good as the previous two. Michael Keaton (Batman) does a nice job as Ken of "Barbie and Ken" fame.

The Social Network (2010)

My Rating: 8/10

I was against this movie. If there's one subject for a movie that doesn't attract my attention, it's facebook. On top of this, I had seen the clips of this movie on late night talk shows which suggested that the movie's thesis is that the creator of "The Facebook", Mark Zuckerberg is supposed to be some sort of intellectual collossus who looks down on us little people with our tiny intellects with disdain. Yeah, copying myspace would make Isaac Newton himself gasp in awe and wonder.

Fortunately, my preconceived notions were largely inaccurate. The Social Network is smart, stylish and fast paced. Aaron Sorkin does his usual "people thinking and speaking too quickly which shows how smart I am" thing but it's fine. Justin Timberlake as Napster founder Sean Parker?

"We need to cast a computer nerd, who can we get?"

"Oh I know, Justin Timberlake!"

"Yess." (Slow fist pump)

But then, that's kind of the point. The point of the movie is not to tell an accurate account of history, it's about making an entertaining movie. And it succeeds. But for everything that it does well in terms of style and building drama, it lacks heart. I thought it was a really good movie and I really enjoyed it and I don't think I'll ever want to watch it again.

Inception (2010)

My Rating: 8/10

The conventional wisdom holds that Leonardo DiCaprio died on the Titanic in 1912 so there's no way he can be in movies anymore. But Chris Nolan is such a genius, he found a loophole. Leo is dreamy and can still exist in people's dreams so if you make a movie about dreaming you can still cast him. BOOM.

Just like "The Social Network" this one is extremely hyped and stylized and similarly it does live up to the hype. "Inception" is a sci-fi action "flick" where a technology exists that allows people to inhabit the same dream. In turn, there arise organizations in the business of "breaking into" people's dreams in order to steal secrets or plant ideas which will yield profit for them in the real world.

"Inception" is a fast-paced, well done action movie with a nice psychological twist - much in the same vein as "The Matrix" (and not too far off in terms of subject matter as well). The key for me was that within the basic premise outlined above, they also go into a dream within a dream for a number of levels until your mind gets twisted a bit. It was a unique experience that really took a good action movie and put it over the top.

Mary and Max (2009)

My Rating: 6/10

A claymation movie for adults, this movie is about being quirky and different. So different, in fact, that at times it's just weird. It tells the story of a young girl in Australia who picks a random person from the US and writes a letter to them. Soon an extremely unlikely pen pal relationship is struck. Though claymation, the movie is nearly colorless in its palette (at times it's nearly black and white) with some color here and there. This visual suits the tone of the movie which depicts a bleak world where people are dealt a bad hand but try to remain hopeful. The characters deal with depression, sadness, emptiness, abandonment, psychosis and generally the sad state of humanity. And yet it's claymation! At times it's very creative and clever, at times I loved the quirky, strange nature of it, at times I really rooted for the characters but unfortunately it doesn't sustain greatness for the entirety of the movie and I thought the ending was very weak.

Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... and Spring (2003)

My Rating: 5/10

This is a Korean film that centers on two Buddhist monks that live in harmony with nature out in the middle of nowhere. There's very little to say about this movie because it's sparce and slow. There's probably about one line of dialogue for every minute of film time. There are many beautiful shots of pristine nature as the film slowly and quietly shows the passage of time, the imperfect nature of man and the peaceful beauty of the natural world. The main theme of the movie is the cyclical nature of life (as the title suggests). In the end, it's a 5 for me. To value this movie more or less than any other movie would imply that some things are more valuable than others. This view of unequal value leads to a possessive spirit. And a possessive spirit will murder. *gonnNNGGGG*

Black Swan (2010)

My Rating: 7/10

FINALLY they make a ballet-centered movie about the descent into madness! It seemed obvious to me.

Obviously "Black Swan" centers around ballet but the real subject of the movie is psychological illness. We are not merely spectators as the movie attempts to draw us in as much as possible to put us in the unsound mind. And it does a pretty good job. The movie is paranoid, claustrophobic, disjointed, intense and can be, at times, hard to watch. But then, that's the point. But then, that means that it's not a movie for everyone.

I really think it's a good movie, but it's not great - I was moved and I was into it but nothing sort of pushed me in 100%. But within the confines of such a movie, Natalie Portman give an amazing performance as the main ballerina Nina Sayers. Her performance is multi-layered, multi-faceted and completely convincing. I haven't seen all the other nominees but I can only assume her Oscar is completely earned.

Who knew that someone from the Star Wars prequels could actually be good at movies?!

To be continued....

Donald Rumsfeld on Letterman

I wanted to post this interview for quite a while but it wasn't up anywhere. It's a terrific interview and a terrific return to the "old style" of Letterman political interviews.

I knew that Rumsfeld had been the oldest Secretary of Defense but I had no idea that he had been the youngest as well. And likewise that he had known, interacted with and served for so many U.S. Presidents. A fascinating interview and includes some great "mule" banter.

Segments like this one are one of the main reasons that Letterman is (has been) head and shoulders above every other talk show host. When bringing on political or polarizing figures, he isn't content to be apolitical and have them tell stories about how they love their cat (as other talk shows will do). Instead, he does the opposite - mixing the jokes with direct questions about the important matters of the day. At times like these the show ceases to be just a dumb comedy show and gains an edge of serious journalism.

And the BEST part of the serious political interview segments was that it was entirely detached and objective. When someone from the left was on, for instance, Letterman would ask fair but hard-hitting questions. When someone from the right was on, it was the same deal. Again, in the vein of journalism, the questions would be fair but tough regardless of the guest. This was probably most evident during the presidential campaign of 2000. The "Late Show" were able to book both presidential candidates and the reviews on both interviews were that Letterman had actually been harder-hitting than most interviews done by the "serious" journalists.

Unfortunately all of this is filed under the "old style" above because recently things have changed. Though THIS interview is recent and that shows Letterman is still capable of doing it, lately he's become much more politicized. He'll give guests from the left a free pass and say things to those on the right are treated with outright hostility. Recently in an interview with Rand Paul for instance, Letterman actually uttered the phrase, "You know, I think he’s wrong about some of these things. I just can’t tell you why.” It's a statement so dumb, I couldn't (and can't) believe it was said.

All the more reason to enjoy interviews like these because they're an endangered species.

Gentlemen, Start Your Engines?

Jason Sudekis tells the story of drinking too much at the NBA All-Star game:

Then, Amber Heard describes her experience announcing the official "Gentlemen, start your engines" at a NASCAR event and Jason Sudekis and Jimmy Fallon argue about the quality of Jimmy's version. They both agree that it's bad but is there more to it than that?

Classic Roots Choice #26

Nicole "Snooki" Polizzi was on the show the other night to promote the current season of "Jersey Shore". Her walk-on music? A segment of the Oompa Loompa song from "Willy Wonka...".

[Waaaaaa.]

That's classic.

Thank You Notes

It's Friday and that means "Thank You Notes". This particular edition gets some help from violinist Itzhak Perlman. And yes, I double checked that spelling.