Got some entertainment based stuff to share with you today, including dirty secrets of television and film, a picture I think would make a great movie, and my pick for a movie to avoid.

Let’s start with that last one, shall we?

An Altered State

No, this is not about Altered States, which is a fairly cool movie, and a great cautionary tale about the perils of going after emotionally unavailable men. (Take heed, ladies. )

No, it’s about a movie called Altered, about a group of men who, fifteen years before the movie starts, were abducted by aliens, and what happens when they finally manage to capture one.

The problem is that this movie is actually quite good. Good acting, quite skillful use of a smallish budget and old fashioned but still solid dramatic tricks to drive the action forward and create suspense, tightly focused editing, and a great script…. almost.

I say “almost” because the ending of this movie completely fucking sucks.

It’s arbitrary, it’s nonsensical, it leaves massive amounts of plot completely unresolved, it relies on elements completely unrevealed until that point, and basically fails on every level I can think of in being a good ending for what has otherwise been a pretty good movie.

It really smacks of the studio forcing a traditional Hollywood happy ending on the film instead of the tragic or at least different ending they had intended.

And it pissed me off so bad that I just had to vent about it here, which is rare for me.

Dark Secrets of Television

Learned some things which disturbed me a little from this Cracked article about the secrets behind some beloved television shows.

Five out of six of the entries did not bother me. I already knew working on Alf was a nightmare, everyone knows what a petulant pervert Bob Barker was when hosting The Price Is Right, I was never a fan of Webster so I am not interested in its secrets, I loved Growing Pains but I already knew Kirk Camerson was an insufferably self-righteous prick (just didn’t know how early it had started), and it somehow does not surprise me that Martin Lawrence was a hot tempered rage machine during the shooting of his sitcom. It does surprised me he got a sitcom in the first place, granted.

No, the one that shocked me was Grace Under Fire. I loved that show, and stuck with it despite the fact that the show went through massive retooling every season and so it was hard to get too attached to a character. They might not be around next season.

At the time, I assumed that the reason the show changed so much was that the network weasels could not keep their greasy little fingers off it and in an effort to justify their existence kept messing around with it to make it “better”.

But no, it turns out that the reason the show kept changing was that Brett Butler, whom I quite liked both on the show and as a comedian, was a raging alcoholic whom nobody could stand to work with for long. The show had five seasons, and five producers. I don’t think even Roseanne Barr went through producers that fast.

Oh well, at least now I don’t feel as bad about her career going nowhere after the show.

Ronin of the Streets

If this was a movie poster, I would totally want to see said movie.

-Hobo Samurai- by =arvalis on deviantART

It is called Hobo Samurai and it really implies a whole story in a single image. The license plate armor, the wild beard, the plastic rings from a six pack of beer dangling from his belt, it all adds to the feeling of a whole narrative behind the image.

Actually, what it looks like the most is an illustration from a role playing game manual, describing how “hobo samurai” was a class you could take for your character, and what that would mean.

Sounds like a game I would like to play, or at least, read. The kind of game where Hobo With A Shotgun would fit right in.

Or heck, maybe even the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles!

David O. Russell is a Horrible Person

One last story from Cracked and we will be done.

According to this article here, David O. Russell, director of such critic pleasing movies as Three Kings and I Heart Huckabees, is also a short tempered abusive asshole of such Type A prickitude that he even had the temerity to bitch out Lily Tomlin.

For that alone, he deserves to get his ass kicked. I adore Lily Tomlin!

But this story has a happy ending. One involving amazing human being George Clooney no less!

During the production of Three Kings, he verbally and physically abused his crew members, at one point kicking a young extra on the ground while yelling at him. When George Clooney told Russell to cut it out, the director reacted like any mature 14-year-old would: by calling Clooney a pussy and daring him to throw a punch. Russell then lunged at Clooney and grabbed him by the throat — which proved to be a mistake. Clooney went nuts and proceeded to thoroughly kick the director’s ass.

Is that not awesome? Just when you think George Clooney cannot possibly get any more awesome, you learn something like this. He not only stood up against the director of the movie he was in when everyone else was too afraid, he did it to protect someone else, and then when Russell dared to attack him, gave him the serious beat down that he so obviously deserved.

Fucked had that coming a long, long time. The only thing that could have made it better is if at some point during the ass whupping, Clooney had shouted “And this is for Lily Tomlin, you asshole!” and then punched him squarely in the junk.

Well, that’s entertainment for today. Coming soon : weird products on the Internet!