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?
99
A college playboy needs just one more conquest to win a bet that he could sleep with 100 women before he graduates — but sealing the deal could be difficult with only hours to go and 99 babes roaming campus looking for revenge. Meanwhile, a classmate and recreational drug enthusiast risks forfeiting his inheritance unless he can steal back his tainted urine sample. Jereme Badger and Bobby Campo star in this comic romp from director Pete Guzzo.
Yes, this movie’s called “99″. And yes it has two conflicting plots about racing against time for you to focus on. And yes, it got less than 2 stars out of a possible 5. Happily, aside from student films and shorts, this is the highest rated of Pete Guzzo’s films on IMDB.com.
Neither plot is particularly intriguing, with the second one particularly sucking. I have always hated “race against time” movies and the race to deliver clean urine…well, that’s not getting my time. According to the IMDB plot synopsis, the “inheritance” is a bar. I don’t see a conflict of interest here, as many bartenders (and especially owners) couldn’t pass a drug test even if they replaced their plasma with Evian. But that’s our conflict, ladies and gents, and we’re stuck with it.
The person who left him the bar must not have known him very well, which begs the question: “WHY ARE YOU MAKING THIS MORE DIFFICULT THAN IT HAS TO BE?” The only times when people do retarded things like this is in movies. “I’ll give you all this money, but only if you…” There has to be a legal precedent where the lawyer just says, “You know what? Screw what the old bat wants. He’s dead and in an urn. Take what you want. You don’t have to do something dumb like finish college in 30 days or eat chicken every day for a year. Just take this sack of dough.”
The first plot is a smidge better, but watching an obviously uncaring, slutty womanizer get chased around campus by 99 women he seduced and abandoned is just sexist, mysogynistic, and boring. I’d be more apt to watch 10 minutes of that and then 50 minutes of him being tortured to death while listening to L7. And although I haven’t seen this film, I predict there’s at least one scene where he gets slapped by a girl. If it were an 80’s film, I’d also expect the main character to get hit in the crotch and have his eyes go crossed.
So I guess here’s the conflict. If the school is so small that a gang of 100 people can’t find one dude (and let’s face it, there’s always a place to hide on a college campus), he can’t seduce and potentially emotionally scar another college girl. We’re expected to side with this guy. “But…but…if he’s forced to hide, then he can’t keep doing the awful stuff he was doing before! And he loses a bet!”
My advice? You just had sex with 99 women over the course of 4 years. Unless you have the opportunity to win a solid gold unicorn that farts South Park DVDs while singing lost Beatles songs, forget the bet. You’ve already won.
(5 months before the Con)
ARTHUR: This year…this year, I’m going to do it. I’m going to make a kick-ass costume that’s going to be the pride of the New York Comic Con. I’m going to do this awesome Mojo costume with my amazing art school skills. It’s going to have all kinds of wires and latex rubber attachments to it but it’ll be lightweight so I can walk with it. It’s going to be amazing!
(Mojo)
LUKE: That’s pretty ambitious, Arthur. You sure you can do this?
ARTHUR: Definitely. I’m majoring in sculpture, right? I can put this together in no time.
(4 months before the Con)
ARTHUR: Jeez, my workload is huge this semester.
LUKE: Told you, man. Sophomore year is where it starts to get real.
ARTHUR: I should totally get working on my Con costume. Mojo’s going to take a while. But I’m so busy doing my art that I have no time.
LUKE: To be fair, Art, your art doesn’t take that much time. It’s mostly just you peeing on religious iconography that you buy at the thrift store.
ARTHUR: I’ll have you know that my performance sculpture art takes hours and days of contemplation before I can unveil it.
LUKE: But buying statues of the Virgin Mary takes all of 15 minutes, including the train ride to the thrift store. Setting it up in the gallery is like another 20 and then peeing on it…well, how long does that take?
ARTHUR: My record is 42 seconds.
LUKE: So by my estimation, you spend more time not doing art than doing it. You could have made 3 Mojo costumes in the last month.
ARTHUR: But I simply agonize over every purchase, that’s what makes it art! Ugh, I’ll never get to make the costume at this rate.
(3 months before the Con)
LUKE: How’s that Mojo costume coming?
ARTHUR: Oh that? I’ll get to it later. I’m working on a new conceptual piece. I’ll stand outside of Central Park and just hit a wood block for an hour a day while reciting Hindu love poems.
LUKE: That’s art?
ARTHUR: I get a grade for it.
LUKE: What happened to peeing on statues?
ARTHUR: Turns out someone did it last year as his senior thesis. I’m going Hindu now.
LUKE: I think you need to work on your costume, wash off that mascara, and start getting a life.
ARTHUR: It’s art, Luke. It takes time to find all those Hindu love poems. Also, I’ve lost like three wood blocks because I’ve forgotten them on the subway.
(2 months before the Con)
LUKE: How was it in there?
ARTHUR: Terrible. I didn’t get my phone call until a day later, and some guy “claimed” the only toilet in the cell and we had to “pay” him for the privilege to use it. It was horrible.
LUKE: Shouldn’t have been throwing Ziplock bags of your blood at pedestrians, Art. That gets you sent to jail.
ARTHUR: That was a statement! About our dependence on foreign oil!
LUKE: I think you should take some time off. Just do some sketches or some wood carving for a while.
ARTHUR: I know, I’ll work on my Mojo costume! Right after I watch this conceptual art video from this Danish director.
(1 week before the Con)
ARTHUR: Whew, that was a long video. ACK! I don’t have time to make my Mojo costume! Crap! I’m screwed! What am I going to wear to the Con? I’m going to go as just…some dude! I can’t do that to my art!
LUKE: Hey Arthur, want to play Castle Crashers on XBox?
ARTHUR: THAT’S IT! WHAT A BRILLIANT IDEA! I’ll make one of those my costume?
LUKE: You haven’t done any real art in a while, Luke, you sure you can do that?
ARTHUR: Sure! I’m an awesome artist, I can do anything!
I have too many comics and too little space in my 2-bedroom apartment. New York City is famous for packing tenants into cramped buildings and I thank God every day that I’m fortunate enough to live where I do. It allows me to store a lot of things I’d normally have to get rid of, like comics, books, and musical instruments (I probably wouldn’t throw those out).
Sadly, I have run out of room. Which means I need to make some decisions about what needs to go into storage, that delightful place that New Yorkers pay too much money for. My storage locker is a good $20 round-trip cab ride away, so I don’t often visit it, or drop things off in it.
So I’ve started taking books out of the collection that I know I won’t read again for a long time, and putting them into a special long box that’s labeled “off-site”. All limited series too, so I won’t be surprised in the future when I stumble across an issue and then have it living separately from the rest of the collection. So far 52 and all the Countdown tie-ins (as well as the 52 issue series itself) are in the box, which frees up a LOT of space for me.
My point is keep your collections in good order. Don’t cram them all in a box, don’t let them take over your house or apartment. Make judicious decisions about your books and they’ll treat you nice.
And speaking of “judicious,” I’m sitting in a room for jury duty. Waiting. For something, anything to happen.
Everyone puts advertising down as being unnecessary, but gosh darn, there’s a lot of advertising that’s great. The Super Bowl always has funny ads year after year, and I like to think that I make ads that are important in selling medicines to doctors. I’m an ad writer by trade and I take my profession seriously. I like a good ad.
Especially when there are some ads that are TOTALLY INSANE but awesome. Case in point:
How TOTALLY INSANE but awesome is this Quiznos ad? Here’s a still image from it:
If I ate at Quiznos, I would be proud that my choice of hot sub deli had the stones to go out and take a risk with this. The song’s catchy, it gets you thinking about Quiznos, and if you’re really lucky, you’ll start hearing dogs tell you to kill people with a gun.
As you know, if you read the blog, I’m a Mad Hatter fanatic. At every convention I go around getting as many sketches of my favorite Bat-villain as I can and, thanks to an unexpected influx of cash this year, I stocked up on these guys. Some of the quicker sketches were free, others cost a bit of money. Brian Bolland was out of my price range, but next year…
This is Ivan Reis’s (Green Lantern) version of the Hatter. I got it about 10 minutes before the con ended, so we were in a rush, but I’m making it a point to get a full one next time.
This is from Tim Seeley (Hack/Slash, Loaded Bible).
I got this from Anthony Williams (all kinds of everything DC and Marvel, especially 2000 AD) who talked about advertising a little bit with me. Nice!
Amanda Conner (Terra) was the one sketch that I really had to get this con. She was possibly the nicest person I met all weekend and she was also the busiest by far. Thanks Amanda! I wish this photo came out better!
Mike Norton (Green Arrow & Black Canary) was selling Recession-Proof Sketches, which means I’ll be able to retire off this. Love the caption!
Todd Nauck. Currently riding high off his Spider-man/Obama crossover, he pencilled a ton of Young Justice books that SHOULD BE IN TRADE PAPERBACK.
I got a quick sketch from Jim Calafiore (Gotham Underground), one of the artists I’ve been tracking down to get a sketch for 2 cons already. His sketch list fills up fast. But this piece is exactly what I wanted!
Eddy Barrows has been doing spectacular work on Teen Titans lately so I was happy to get a sketch. My request did have to be translated into Portuguese by Jim Prado.
Christopher Jones pencilled every issue of The Batman Strikes but never got a chance to draw the Hatter. He said it was because he didn’t appear in the show, and that only show villains could be made into the comics. Also, he mentioned that he was told specifically not to include Two-Face, Ra’s Al-Ghul, or the Scarecrow, probably because of the films. I asked him to imagine the Hatter if he did make it to the Batman Strikes comics.
Jack Purcell (Gotham Underground) came up with the version of the Hatter that most reminds me of a Pilgrim on meds.
Sometimes an artist has a special place for you even if he isn’t signing at Artist Alley. Jim Mahfood (aka Food One) is one of my favorite indie artists, putting out books like Stupid Comics, Bad Idea, Grrrl Scouts, and One-Page Filler Man. With Jim, if he’s got a new book out, I’m buying it on day one. He lives in LA and this is his only East Coast con, which made it an incredible coincidence that he was signing as I was on my way out. This is one of my favorite sketches, since it’s pure Food One.
Sam Henderson’s another indie artist who I adore. He’s done work for Nickelodeon Magazine but I love his work with his title Magic Whistle. To get his take on a supervillain character just made my day.
Leonard Kirk, currently on Captain Britain and MI13 but penciller for a whole host of other books, did one of the best-composed Hatter sketches of the weekend. All those hats!
Cliff Chiang’s hot talent, especially since his Dr. Thirteen mini was the sleeper hit of 2007. Usually his sketches are priced out of my con allowance, but he was doing quick sketches for free at the DC booth. Now I know what his Hatter would look like!
Rafael Albuquerque (Blue Beetle), hands down, did the creepiest Hatter of the weekend. I likes it.
Philip Tan’s (Final Crisis: Revelations) another hot talent and I’m going to try to get a full sit-down sketch the next con. This was another freebie at the DC booth.
Billy Tan (no relation to Philip) is currently wowing everyone with his Avengers series over at Marvel. He did this Hatter while I waited – the guy knows his way around a sketchbook.
Dustin Nguyen (Detective Comics) offered a free headshot with the purchase of one of his prints. I bought his Batman villains poster which, if I remember right, features the Bat family amongst 17 different villains. I’ll frame it and hang it in my office, I like it so much. I’m trying to get a few of his original pages from the Hatter issue of Detective he put out last year, through the inker Derek Fridolfs, but DC hasn’t released the pages yet. Soon!
Greg Titus (Annihilation) did a pretty lovable Hatter, almost like he was off to prom. Greg told me this was the best piece he’d done all day, and I’m way impressed.
I know, it’s a lot of pictures.
Nathan Fox (Pigeons From Hell, DMZ) exceeded my expectations with this ink piece. It’s impressed everyone who’s seen it, just because it’s something unexpected. So cool.
This is my girlfriend’s favorite. Christopher Uminga. I should have gotten this inked, his inked stuff is amazing.
And finally, Reilly Brown (Cable & Deadpool). He doesn’t disappoint, and this is on an oversize piece of board, so it’s going to look all the more impressive when it’s framed.
This guy was doing his best to hit on this girl in the wheelchair. The creepy part? HE WAS USING THE SCOOBY VOICE.
I think I’m going to go home and try and make sense of this. This disturbing, disturbing scene. Thanks for following along! I’ll put some Hatter sketches up soon!
