Every week, the DVD-through-the-mail site Netflix announces new DVDs for rental. Most are films that never got a theatrical release. Ethan Kaye brings you This Week In Netflix, the most inexplicable actual description of an actual film actually posted by the Netflix staff.
This week?
The Weekend Directed by Michael Todd Kuskin, this rollicking indie comedy chronicles the high-spirited fun at a wild weekend shindig thrown by well-heeled high schooler Jacob Meyers (Kristian Kordula). Hormones rage out of control as Benjamin (Beau Allulli) tries to bed his reluctant girlfriend, Marty summons his courage to pursue his dream girl (Elizabeth G. Wilson), and the geeks turn up looking to change their image.
Many of you may be familiar with this plot, as it seems to have borrowed from about 90 other movies, including American Pie, Can’t Hardly Wait, Revenge of the Nerds, and the parody of all of them, Not Another Teen Movie. I do not doubt that the 8 stars this film got on IMDB were from people who had not seen the movies The Weekend ripped off. It’s also possible that the cast and crew of The Weekend got together and each gave the film 8 stars, just to skew the results. There’s also the slim chance that this is the BEST TEEN HORMONE COMEDY EVER and I’m just being cynical.
I don’t know about you, but I’m not that interested in a movie where hormones rage out of control. To me, that just sounds like a lot of scenes where characters are acting desperate, and that doesn’t make for a good film.
One of the big selling points, right off the bat, in this Netflix description, is the fact that The Weekend is directed by Michael Todd Kuskin, which would be more impressive if Michael Todd Kuskin did anything other than direct and star in The Weekend. He hasn’t, and neither has his sister, Joey Kuskin, who played “drunk girl #3,” nor his mother, Laurie Kuskin, who played “Jacob’s Mom,” nor did casting consultant Emily Knopf, who also played “Ms. Roth,” nor Emily’s husband, Marshall Knopf, who played “nerd’s dad,” nor did their daughter Elizabeth Knopf, who played “drunk girl #4,” nor their son, Max Knopf, who played “Donny.”
This would be the point in a review, if I were a competant critic, where I’d say, “And I hope we see more from this talented cast,” but instead I’ll say, “It’s ok to say ‘no’ to your friends and relatives when they ask you to star in a movie about teen hormones.”
This week’s runner up
In The Blood Finally ready to explore his attraction to men, college jock Cassidy (Tyler Hanes) goes out with sexy Victor (Carlos Alberto Valencia). But in the middle of their foreplay, he has a disturbing vision of his sister’s death, which may be linked to the recent murders on campus. A serial killer is on the loose, and the only way for Cassidy to have more psychic visions to help catch the murderer is to embrace his homosexuality completely.
This probably should have gotten top billing, but The Weekend was just so chock full of nepotism I couldn’t let it slide. However, I can imagine what the scene inside the police station was like.
“What? Slow down, you’re saying you know where he’s going to strike next? How? Um…that’s…not really standard police procedure. And…you say if you embrace your homosexuality completely, you’ll succeed where we have failed? Well, uh, if it gets you out of our station quicker, I say go for it. Godspeed, junior psychic gay deputy Cassidy! You can take the hovercar.”
I have a few odds and ends from the post-Con afterglow. Yeah, it’s four days later, and thankfully my memory of people poured like chunky potato salad into Snowtrooper uniforms has subsided, but there’s something to be said.
About women.
Yes, there were ladies at the Con. There was also this gentleman, who had plastic tubing emerging from his fly:
But he’s not the one I’m talking about here. I’m talking about women in skimpy costumes, proving again and again that comics are drawn by men. I’m talking about the sense of shame not visiting the Javits Center that weekend.
And golly, if that’s what America is all about, then slap a flag on me and call me Uncle Sam.
We ran into Mystique near the back of the convention center. I’ve always been a fan of blue women, so the picture was taken. This was to be my nerdwife.
Yet, while my heart was captured by Girl-Playing-Mystique, my attention was captured by an improv show called “Star Trekkin’”. Being an improviser myself, with about 5 years of performance under my belt, I stuck around for the show. It was…well, what you’d expect from an improv show revolving around non-continuity Star Trek.
But alas! There was a cast member in red!
Enter nerdwife #2! Sigh. I fall in love too quickly.
So what’s an upwardly mobile blogger like myself to do? The girl in blue or the girl in red? Well, I couldn’t make up my mind. So I went with the mutant in green.
He never lets you down.
Oh, and speaking of letting down, here’s day three of the New York Times booth.
Every week, the DVD-through-the-mail site Netflix announces new DVDs for rental. Most are films that never got a theatrical release. Ethan Kaye brings you This Week In Netflix, the most inexplicable actual description of an actual film actually posted by the Netflix staff.
This week? Oban Star-Racers: Vol.1: The Alwas Cycle
Every 10,000 years, a huge galactic race takes place, and Earth’s only chance to avoid annihilation by the evil Crogs is to win the race with its entry, the Whizzing Arrow. When Earth’s star pilot is taken out, its fate rests on teen prodigy Molly. Co-produced by French and Japanese studios, this popular series boasts theatrical-quality animation and a thrilling story line, drawing viewers into an action-packed world beyond imagination.
Rule one in film: DO NOT use more than one set of colons in your title. Yes, I know it’s some sort of anime thing that’s divided into ninety million parts each with an obscure proper noun in the title, but it just looks dumb. Use a dash or something, people.
So this film took up the time of both the French and the Japanese. All the crepes that could be made, all the sex robots that could be made…sigh. No, instead of working towards better trade relations, these two superpowers got together and made a movie about an implausible space race and their cute little car “Whizzing Arrow”.
I have not seen this film, I always have to say that with these articles, but I assume it adequately explains the fact that our planet is threatened if we don’t win a race. It’s fairly typical of alien races in anime to judge the viability of a culture based on how well it does in a galactic race, right? I remember a Speed Racer episode with a similar plot, where a country would close off its borders unless someone could beat them in a race. Must be a familiar theme with foreign countries.
Part of me suspects that this is just a ploy by the Japanese and French to put the idea of a galactic race in our heads, and then make fun of the US when we don’t have the stones to enter it. I understand, that’s a good plan on their part. Not a feasible, reasonable plan, but whatever, it’s at least being proactive.
C’mon America, get in the race already. It only comes around once every 10,000 years.
The New York Comic Con’s done for the moment, and I have a re-cap I want to put up, but in the meantime I want to show you something that threw me for a curve today: the Yahoo news headline this evening.
Painful fill-ups & papal trivia Everybody realizes gas prices are skyrocketing, but you may not know these facts about the pope.
Viewpoint one: I did realize that gas prices were skyrocketing, and I am also glad to learn more about the pope.
Viewpoint two: I did not realize that gas prices were skyrocketing, but when I went to read more about it, I found instead only trivia about the pope.
Viewpoint three: I searched for more information about the pope, yet the lead-off story about gas prices skyrocketing put me off, and I did not receive any trivia about the pope.
Viewpoint four: The pope is responsible for gas prices skyrocketing, and I will enjoy reading this article, while wearing my tinfoil hat.
This is by Antonio Clark, an up-and-coming artist who’s more than friendly and more than fast at drawing.
This is by his art partner Shawn Alleyne. Both of them are incredibly nice guys with the best attitude I think I’ve ever come across. I hope we see more of these guys soon.
This one’s by Daniel Bradford. It’s a different take on the character, but he was so happy to do something that wasn’t “Iron Man on drugs” or something dumb, and the piece turned out really nice. Next year, I’m saving up cash and getting a ton of these done.
Sorry about the title of the last blog, I was going to include the “Grillz” candy in it, but got distracted by something, probably this:
Anyway, here are the Grillz candy
It’s like wax lips, but it has fake teeth which you can put in front of yours! I didn’t buy any because I thought it was a stupid idea! Exclamation points because I’m trying to point out how dumb these are! Hella dumb!!!!
!!!!!!
I ran into Wonderbread He-Man at the Mattel booth.
Wonderbread He-Man, for those who don’t know (which is more than those who do), was a He-Man variant that no one knows where it came from. There are a bunch of them out there in collectors’ hands, but Mattel has no records of producing one or distributing one. It’s become a hot collectors item with an air of mystery around it, and he got his own shelf at the Mattel booth. I also did a really good article about him in a previous issue of ToyFare. Now, today, I met the figure.
Plus I bought a bunch of back issues and I’m not looking forward to standing in line for the ATM.
It’s day three of the Con! I’ve survived assaults from greasy chicken fingers, overzealous people handing out flyers, and those guys with huge backpacks that take up the entire aisle in the dealer’s back issues!
One of my favorite things is where people put a lot of seriousness behind an idea that’s supposed to be fun and light. Fr’instance, the Duncan yo-yo booth. Yo-yos are as old as the hills, and their presence at the con is kind of reassuring - the old ways are still viable. However, they released a DVD, How To Be A Player:
this, of course, should not be confused with the Bill Bellamy movie of the same name:
I don’t think that the name and gravitas of the cover properly frames the product: a guide to doing yo-yo tricks. Yo-yos have their time and place, but are they meant to be this intimidating? No. There really is no way to make yo-yos badass, I mean, just look at the name. There may be a chance if you get rappers to start playing yo-yos (I mean, dominoes are still hip), but you are dealing with the stigma of many years of being endorsed by Tommy Smothers before you get that baaaaadasssss status.
We have some more costumed gents for your perusal. One, the dark Jedi thing.
He stayed in character while he was stalking around the lunchroom looking for chicken. He didn’t smile, even when I complimented him on the costume. Luckily, I found much humor in the fact that he was posing all badass in front of the lunch menu.
Then there was CC Banana.
CC Banana is a local NY hero, who does a ton of interviews with metal stars while dressed like a banana. Google him and see what he’s up to. At this con he was dressed up like a drunk Iron Man, who was sweating a lot. The man’s got energy, and the man’s got style.
But what if you don’t have a costume? No time to be clever? That Harley Quinn costume didn’t come in the mail on time? Well, you can always just throw on a cape and a Nightmare Before Christmas hat and go to town!
He was standing in the lunch line, all agitated about something. I didn’t ask questions, I just focused the camera and shot the picture.
It makes my job easier because I can take pleasure in things like running into Sean McKeever, or finding that one last Books of Magic issue that I need for the whole run. It also allows me to discuss continuity, good and bad books, and my favorite characters with other fanboys. I like it, and it translates to good blogging.
At the con you can get autographs from comic pros and, if they’re artists, they’ll even do a drawing for you. My mission? Mad Hatter sketches. I LOVE the Mad Hatter. My favorite Batman villain, my favorite character, my mission at this con. I spent a lot of time going from table to table looking for sketches, and I have two to show off.
One’s from Tiny Titans artist Art Baltazar, I asked for a Tiny Titans version of the Hatter:
He did it in crayon and marker! i loves it!
The other one I got was from Silver Age legend Ramona Fradon, artist for Metamorpho, Brave & Bold, and Showcase. I’m really happy I got this, and I thanked her profusely.
She wasn’t familiar with the character, so I had to provide her with reference material. Luckily, at a comic con you can find an issue with any character for about a dollar. Really, really happy I got this sketch. Oh yeah, this is getting hung up.
