wildyams

How kick ass is this? On March 25th and 26th of 2005 there is gonna be a Lebowski Fest right here in LA. For those wondering what the hell a Lebowski Fest is, well having never been to one I can only go to the website's definition of what one is: "Lebowski Fest is a bowling event celebrating all things relating to the Coen Brothers 1998 film, The Big Lebowski. It can be likened to a Star Trek convention in a sense. The event takes place at a bowling alley and includes unlimited bowling, costume contest, trivia, farthest traveled, and bowling contests, prizes, and what-have-you." (from the FAQ on the site) I got on their mailing list so I can try to get tickets when they go on sale (which they say should be in early 2005) so if anyone is interested, let me know.

By the way, for anyone who notices that the Fest takes place on a Saturday and is worried about bowling on Shomar Shabbos, according to the site: "We wouldn't dream of offending Walter in this manner so we arranged to start the event after sunset. Shabbos ends on Saturday at sunset."

For the first time in my life I voted for something (at least something involving the government, cause I have voted for school elections and whatnot). My voting was due in large part to Josh Newman, living now in England, who told me that it was killing him that I wasn't going to vote since he couldn't vote himself. He got the appropriate forms for me and mailed them for me after I filled them out (he was that emphatic about it! :lol). To be honest, when I walked over to the polling booth I wasn't even sure if I was really gonna be registered or not, but sure enough my name was on their list. The polling booth was literally across the street, and since I had looked up all the candidates and propositions and what-have-you, I took my cheat sheet with me and was in and out of there in about 5 minutes. For anyone who is wondering, it was a paper ballot, where you had to mark the spaces with a pen that was provided (much like standardized tests in school, except with a pen instead of a pencil). So there you go, my apathy apparently only goes so far, I've now exercized the right for which so many have put so much effort forth for me (and millions like me) to have. Now let's sit back and see who wins :grin

Well it looks like the Republicans are gonna continue their reign of terror, but I wanted to make a general statement about some changes on my blog here. I recently upgraded my blog to the newest version of Movable Type, and as such there's a lot of differences for me, and a few for people who read it and comment on it. The main difference anyone who comments will notice is that all comments are now moderated to prevent spam. That means if you post a comment, I have to approve it first before it gets posted. Let me say that this is not intentional, and is because I am still trying to figure this upgrade out. I am most likely going to have to completely re-install MT, and am even thinking of ditching my whole format here and just going with a simple template and start designing it from there (because things have changed a lot with MT since I designed everything I've got here). Anyway, maybe I'll get into that this weekend, but for the time being, just bear with me, and if you make a comment I will approve it as quick as I can and get it live.

I've been staying up watching the election results, and since they don't seem like it's going to be officially decided tonight, I'm gonna write this and then go to bed; but before I go to bed I had a few observations on the election I wanted to share.

The states that Bush won in 2000 were good for 271 electoral votes. Those same states today are good for 278 electoral votes.

The states that Gore won in 2000 were good for 266 electoral votes. Those same states today are good for 261 electoral votes.

So in effect if the election today had gone exactly as the last one had gone, with the same states going for the same parties, what was a +5 electoral vote margin for Bush in 2000 would have been a +17 electoral vote margin for Bush today, even though the states voting would not have changed at all. Given how close the last election was and how close this election has been, it is of huge significance that the pro-Bush states from 2000 were given that edge this time.

If there is one thing that this election makes clear to me it is that there is a huge difference in opinion of what is important to people who live in urban areas vs. people who live in rural areas. Whether you look at how the nation voted state by state, or you look at how a couple of states voted county by county (California, New York, Florida, Texas, Illinois), it is overwhelmingly apparent that big cities vote Democratic, and small cities and rural areas vote Republican. Because I live in a big city, I hear a lot of people wondering how there can be so many people in this country who support Bush, and all I can think to tell them is that because we live in a big city we evidently just can't understand what it is those people see in what the Republicans offer; just as I assume that people in those areas can't fathom what people in big cities can see in the Democrats. It's really discouraging to know that our country has become so divided based on whether you live in big city or a small city, and I can't help but worry if this is a bad omen of things to come.

In and amongst all the election stuff last night, I also watched the Lakers play their first game of the season against a vastly improved (or so they said) Denver Nuggets team. The Lakers, as you may have heard, have undergone massive changes, what with Shaq and Phil being gone, and with a whole bunch of new players and a new coach joining the team. The Lakers are a totally different team in terms of style of play from what they have been for the last 8 or 9 years or so, in that they are no longer a slow-down, pound it inside, half-court team like they were with Shaq; and are instead now a young, athletic, very fast, very aggressive team that runs a lot and has fast breaks and highlights and lots of switching on defense. The previous years under Phil Jackson the Lakers had become one of the oldest, most experienced teams in the league, due in large part to Phil's preference for players who were the grizzled veteran type of player. This new team I read has an average age of a little over 25 years, and are chock full of extremely athletic players.

The Lakers' opponent last night, the Denver Nuggets, were one of the teams that were really considered to have had a masterful offseason after making it to the playoffs last year. They added a key player (Kenyon Martin) to go with their already talented bunch, and have been pegged to probably be one of the top 4 or 5 teams in the West. However, you never would have known it by last night's game because the Lakers basically blew them off the floor from the opening tip. LA ran up a double-digit lead in the first quarter and basically held the lead between 10 and 20 points for the rest of the night. LA played this new, fast style of ball, and it was extremely effective against the Nuggets who are also a fast-paced team. LA played great defense against the Nuggets, and LA got a real surprise performance by one of the lesser known acquisitions this offseason: backup center Chris Mihm. Mihm had his career high last night in his Laker debut, literally feasting off all the great passes inside for easy baskets. Kobe looked great as well, looking to get his teammates involved and using them to kill the Nuggets early, then taking over more in the second half when they had to respect everyone else on the team.

I don't know how effective the Lakers will be this year, although I would certainly have to assume they won't be as good as they were last year or in the years they won their titles with Shaq; but they are definitely fun to watch. LA is still missing starting center Vlade Divac, who is recovering from an injury and should hopefully be ready in a month or so; and also LA may have Karl Malone join the team at some point this season depending on how he feels. If those two guys end up playing and can perform well, then LA will actually have one of the best, most powerful, and deepest frontcourts in the NBA; and will be able to pair it with a whole host of incredibly talented backcourt players and small forwards. If Malone and Vlade play and play well, then LA has a real legit shot at a title this year, because you need to have a solid post presence to win in the post season.

Anyway, here's a couple clips from last night's game if you want to see how they looked. This first clip was one of the real highlights of the night, a fast-break led by Kobe that resulted in an alley-oop to Caron Butler that really got the crowd excited:
Kobe to Caron alley-oop

This next clip was a play that came towards the end of the game with the Lakers up by 17 and a few minutes to play, in which Kobe fumbled the ball on offense, then as the Nuggets threw it up-court for a seemingly gimmie layup, Kobe came streaking out of nowhere to block the shot and redeem himself. This play was particularly telling considering the game was basically a rout at the time, and showed how much effort Kobe was still putting in despite having the game in the bag: Kobe's block on Andre Miller

I got this fictional map in my email today (thanks Pao-Pao :grin) and thought I'd share it here. It would be funnier if it weren't eerily accurate:

I also found this map via Daypop which is in pretty much the same vein:

Canada 2.0

I was talking about this the other day as the election results rolled in, but I saw it again on BoingBoing, and wanted to mention again how this country is clearly divided into people who live in big cities and people who live in sparsely populated areas:

Look at this map from USA Today that shows nationwide how people voted county by county, and go to this link (which has a larger picture of the map) and check out the total square miles of the counties that Bush won vs. what Kerry won, and then check out the populations of the counties that voted for each guy, because there is a pretty stiking difference. I calculated it out, and the average number of people per square mile in the counties that voted for Bush is 46 (for someone like me who lives in LA which probably has thousands, if not tens or hundreds of thousands of people per square mile, that should be particularly telling). The average number of people per square mile in the counties that voted for Kerry is 140. That means that people who voted for Kerry are on average living in areas that are three times as populated as the people voting for Bush.

My co-worker Amy and myself had an interesting discussion about this yesterday, in which she suggested that maybe people like us who live in more densely populated areas do not have the same "morals" as those who want to outlaw gay marriage and abortion and things of that nature because we are more exposed to different ways of life and different kinds of people and are more accepting and tolerant of other peoples' views. People who live in areas of the country that don't have many people living around them probably only get their opinions about people who are different than them based on what they see on TV or read about in the newspapers or based on what someone told them, and not because they actually have ever had anything to do with them. They probably have no idea what people of different races or creeds or sexual orientations or religions are like, because they never come into contact with them. This is why for those of us who do interact with diversity and know that people with different backgrounds and beliefs are still just ordinary people like everyone else, we get so frustrated by the way that these small-town people develop these opinions and intolerances for people who are different than themselves; because we know for them it's not really based on experience, but rather just rumors and heresay. In other words, maybe these outdated, back-asswards modes of thinking are allowed to propogate in sparsely populated areas because these people aren't forced to see the truth about things because they're so far removed from the reality of the things they're voting on.

I was scouring the web last night looking to see if they still made New York Seltzer Root Beer (they don't) or Snapple Tru Root Beer (they do), and I stumbled upon this page devoted to the now defunct soft drink, Crystal Pepsi; and in doing so, came across this fantastic quote:

Crystal Pepsi, much like New Coke or the Titanic, remains as a reminder of man's hubris, our stubborn pride in creating something that just doesn't work and letting ourselves enough rope to hang ourselves.

Thanks to A-Lowe for this one :wink

Check out this listing on Craigslist.org:

Straight male seeks Bush supporter for fair, physical fight - m4m

Reply to: anon-47785163@craigslist.org
Date: Wed Nov 03 19:11:50 2004

I would like to fight a Bush supporter to vent my anger. If you are one, have a fiery streek, please contact me so we can meet and physically fight. I would like to beat the shit out of you.

it's NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests

:lol

To the guy I've been friends with longer than anyone, Happy 29th, big guy :grin

Check out this picture I found online looking for images for "Happy Birthday Chris" :lol:

"Chris-co"? :lol

I hate to say it, but I'm really starting to think that maybe John Titor was right. Maybe we really are heading towards a second Civil War.

Allow me to explain.

I've been reading a lot of stuff online since the election which fills me with dread, anger, despair and nervousness. There seems to be a lot out there voicing one of two opinions about the state of things, and both of which seem to be headed towards huge divisiveness here in America. The first opinion I've been reading is that the election was hacked, or manipulated, or stolen, basically. There's a lot of very fishy stuff out there about the way the votes were collected or counted, or about the companies that make the voting machines, or about how the exit polls differed so wildly from the actual tallies in some states, to the documentary Votergate; enough to really make you wonder how legit our electoral process really is. The mainstream media hasn't really picked this story up yet, and the Democrats (who would supposedly have the most to gain if it came out that the Republicans stole the election) haven't been saying much either, but there are a few blurbs here and there that are starting to come to the surface. If it was to come out that the election was rigged, or even worse, if previous elections have been rigged, and it turned out we couldn't really be sure who in our government was supposed to be in power, it worries me what might be the ramifications of that.

The other stuff I've been reading is less conspiratorial, but no less worrisome. The things I'm referring to is all the sentiment of people from the blue states being outraged with the people from the red states (and vice versa), and the growing chasm between the two groups of people. I think we are getting beyond the point of these groups being able to debate rationally, and that is not good for the unity of the nation. When two areas of this country hate each other more than they do other countries, what does that portend? I see maps online outlining the similarities between the areas of the country that supported slavery back in 1860 and the red states of today, and I read articles of people saying that the south never got over losing the first Civil War, and it worries me. Is this where we're headed again?

Worst case scenario, what if both of the above are true? What if there is already this huge animosity between rural America and urban America, and it comes out that the election was a fraud? What then? When I first heard of John Titor back in February, I remember thinking "what could possibly lead to another Civil War in this country?" I now worry that I can see a possible answer to that question.

On a lighter note, last night I had the good fortune of going to see Wes Anderson's newest movie, The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou. I was at home last night when at around 8:20 or so, J. Krue called me up and asked if I wanted to go see a screening of it at 9 in Hollywood since his brother had flaked at the last minute. Since I'd been looking forward to this movie more than any other out there that's due to be released in the next 6 months or more (that I'm aware of), naturally I decided to go, and I wasn't disappointed. Wes Anderson's movies are certainly not for everyone (in fact a couple that was sitting next to us got up and left after about 15 minutes or so), but if you enjoy his movies, then I would assume, like me, that you would enjoy Life Aquatic. I won't go into some big review or tell you what it's about or anything like that, cause it's pointless. If you like Wes Anderson's stuff, you're probably already going to see it, and if you don't like his stuff you've probably never heard of it or have no interest. I'll just say that I got a very strong feeling watching it last night that like all of Wes Anderson's stuff it's going to get immeasurably better upon repeat viewings. Anyway, that's my review. I see that Wes Anderson is going to be at the Egyptian Theater here in LA on Nov. 18th for a screening of the movie, and I also see that it is scheduled to come out theatrically here in LA (and in NYC as well) on December 10th. I'm up for going again, is anyone else interested?

By the way, this is pretty hilarious.

This is a little reminiscent of the Harrison Ford Giving Everyone the Finger thing, but I was thinking about it and Tom Cruise has something he tends to do in most movies too. Now this is different from Matt's notorious (and accurate) theory about how Tom Cruise's characters generally follow a formula in which Tom Cruise plays a badass who suffers a setback and emerges as an even bigger badass, so don't confuse the two. It just seems to me that in just about every movie he's in, Tom Cruise goes crazy.

"Don't worry, I'm not gonna do what you all think I'm gonna do, which is, you know, FLIP OUT!" - Tom Cruise in Jerry Maguire

Actually, turns out that he does flip out quite often. Now I haven't seen all of his movies, and for some of them that I have seen, either it's been a long time or I just don't know them that well, so I may need a little help putting a list together, but here are to my recollection scenes where Tom Cruise has gone nuts:

- Collateral - At the scene in Club Fever when he attacks the security guard from behind by breaking his neck, then stomping on him and flexing while straining his neck muscles for the camera.

- The Last Samurai - I haven't seen this one, but he looks like he's going nuts on the poster

- Minority Report - When he gets eyescanned in the bathtub before his new eyes are supposed to see any light he freaks out pretty bad, lots of moaning and straining.

- Vanilla Sky - When the doctors give him the mask and tell him it's a "prosthetic face shield", Tom jumps up and down while yelling "Good. Because for a minute there, I thought we were talking about A FUCKING MASK!"

- Mission: Impossible II - I saw this once and blocked it out of my memory as much as I can, although he did flirt with a girl while ramming his car into hers on a mountain road, if that counts.

- Magnolia - Either during his "respect the cock" speech or when he tears up at the bed of his dying father.

- Eyes Wide Shut - Near the end of the movie when Tom comes home to find his supposedly lost mask sitting on the pillow next to his wife, he completely breaks down

- Jerry Maguire - Four words: Show me the money.

- Mission: Impossible - Almost the whole scene on the TGV in the tunnel, culminating with when he yelled "Red light, green light!" then blew up the helicopter with chewing gum.

- Interview with the Vampire - When he says to Brad Pitt "Kill them swiftly if you will, but do it, for do not doubt, you are a killer!"

- The Firm - I haven't seen this in a long time and don't remember many specifics about it, but I know he was amped up a lot while running from the mafia or the feds or while chasing after his wife. If that's not good enough then maybe at the end when he tells Ed Harris "YOU don't run me, and THEY don't run me!"

- Few Good Men - Four words: "I want the truth!"

- Far and Away - Thankfully (from what I hear), I never saw this one.

- Days of Thunder - When he confronts Michael Rooker about not going to see the doctor for his memory loss and he hits his pool table with a baseball bat and yells "We can fix it there, or we can fix it right here! Now what's it gonna be!"

- Born on the Fourth of July - When his mom tells him not to say "penis" in the house and he yells at her "Penis! Penis! Big fucking erect penis, ma!"

- Rain Man - You can find any number of places in this movie where Tom Cruise loses it, but my favorite is when Ray tells him he has to buy his underwear at K-Mart and Cruise's response is "What difference does it make where you buy underwear? What difference does it make? Underwear is underwear! It is underwear wherever you buy it!"

- Cocktail - When he tears up Mr. Mooney's check after he tried to buy him off from pursuing his daughter, and they have to fight a bellhop to get out of the apartment.

- The Color of Money - When Paul Newman gives him the rest of his money in the stairwell and Cruise tells him "You can keep your fucking money, pal." Then he kicks the pool cue down the stairs and tears off a handrail and storms out the door.

- Top Gun - When the guy who played Theo in Die Hard tells Cruise he coulda had him and Cruise drops his gear and grabs him and says "I will fire when I am goddamn good and ready! You got that!"

- Legend - I never saw this

- All the Right Moves - I never saw this

- Risky Business - The whole scene when he calls Booger on the phone to come over cause the she-male hooker he called has shown up at Cruise's house, and Booger tells him he's not coming over, or when he calls Joey Pants an "a-hole" on the phone and gets hung up on.

- Losin' It - I never saw this

- The Outsiders - I haven't seen this in so long I don't remember much at all about this, but odds are Cruise got in a rumble at some point with the Socias.

- Taps - Cruise probably goes more nuts at the end of this movie than at any point in his career when he is mowing down people with a machine gun while yelling "It's beautiful man!"

- Endless Love - I never saw this

If you have any suggestions for better scenes where Cruise flips out, or have seen the movies I haven't and can contribute a good scene, or if you have any good pictures of Cruise going nuts, by all means please leave a comment adding to the list.

Today was not really a great day. Everyone at work is getting really burned out from all the deadlines and overtime and whatnot, and you can tell it is getting to people. I tried to avoid the tension around the office once I noticed it was there (by lunchtime it was hard to miss) by just putting my headphones on and listening to music all day while I worked. Maybe tomorrow will be better. Hopefully it's just the fact that it was the middle of the week, and tomorrow with the weekend looming that will have people in better spirits.

I know tomorrow I'm gonna be in better spirits. Jon just recently bought a 51" HDTV (using his Sony discount), but Jon is moving to Mammoth for the winter to be a snowboard instructor, and is leaving me in charge of babysitting his new TV for the winter. I already have HDTV pre-ordered from my cable company, so I'll have that all hooked up in another week or so. Jon also is generously selling me his Tivo (with a lifetime subscription), so I'll have that hooked up as well. It's gonna suck not having Jon around, although in the winters he's usually pretty scarce anyway, off snowboarding every weekend.

I saw Jon last night though when I met up with he, Steve-o, Juliette, The Bob and The Becky for Bob's 29th birthday (happy birthday, big guy :wink). We treated Bob to dinner at the restaurant of his choice, which turned out to be Claim Jumper. I hadn't been there in a while, but I remembered the huge portions of food they serve. Even still we underestimated the size of their combo apetizer platter, which was pretty much enough food for the whole table even without getting entrees. After some of that and my salad that came with my fish and chips, I was pretty full, but I managed to eat a couple of the fish and a chip or two. We left without any dessert (except for a slice of birthday cake), but I did manage to grab a handful of root beer barrel candies, which helped me through the rough afternoon today :grin

I've been neglecting the Lakers a bit lately, so I thought I should make a mention of their win tonight over the cross-town rival Clippers. Actually, before I do that, I've got a somewhat interesting Clipper story. About a week ago I got in the elevator to ride up to my apartment and a guy and a girl got in with me, and the girl was talking about how her friend was at a Clipper party, and she asked the guy what he thought that meant. The guy said "You know, the Clippers." She said she wasn't even aware that LA had another basketball team other than the Lakers, then she asked me if I'd ever heard of the Clippers :lol

Anyway, LA beat the Clips tonight in their first head to head matchup of the year, and it should probably be a little bit of a wakeup call to all those Clipper fans out there (or should I say "to the few Clipper fans out there") who were thinking they were going to win it all because they were 5-3 heading into tonight. Now both LA teams are 5-4, and as a Laker fan watching this young team I have to say what Clipper fans should keep in mind: it's WAY early in the year. Don't read too much into what happens in November in the NBA. Having said that, here's a couple highlights from the game tonight, showing that even though it's November, there's still some exciting ball being played:

Kobe gets an alley-oop dunk on the break

(2.9 megs)

Kobe gets a breakaway dunk

(2.5 megs)

Stuff like this really makes me very depressed about where life in this country is headed. There's a bill in the Senate right now that may be voted on in the next month or so that would have really unbelievable effects on all of us. Have a look:

The bill would also permit people to use technology to skip objectionable content -- like a gory or sexually explicit scene -- in films, a right that consumers already have. However, under the proposed language, viewers would not be allowed to use software or devices to skip commericals or promotional announcements "that would otherwise be performed or displayed before, during or after the performance of the motion picture," like the previews on a DVD.

So it'll be ok to censor the content of the art that we're looking at, but it will be illegal to not watch the advertisements!? What the hell is going on in this country?

I bought a Tivo last night off my good friend Jon who is moving to Mammoth for the winter. Jon isn't sure what he's gonna do after snowboarding season ends up there (probably in April or May, I'd guess), and he may or may not move back here, and if so he may or may not do it right away. It's all up in the air for him, so he basically got rid of everything he owned, either by selling it (like he did to me with his Tivo) or by giving it to people to watch till he gets back (like he's doing with his HDTV). I'll get the HDTV from him in a week or so, but last night he brought a bunch of stuff over for me to store for him, and he brought the Tivo which I was purchasing, and having played with it a bit I wanted to comment on it.

I can tell already that I'm really going to love the Tivo, and I can also tell I am almost surely not the person that the Tivo was made for. I almost never watch any kind of TV show, mainly because I don't like commercials, I don't like having to schedule myself around a show, and I don't like the content and ideas that most shows seem to advance. Put it this way, I get a real disgusted feeling watching virtually any TV show that's on regular TV even when it's not during the commercials. I may not be able to explain adequately why that is, but that's the way it is, so I don't ever tune in. Virtually the only thing I watch with commercials is sporting events these days, everything else I watch on TV comes from premium pay channels like HBO. Now, on those channels I will watch TV shows on occasion, although I still hate to schedule myself around them, so it's more like if they're on I'll watch them, but now with a Tivo I won't have to do that, so I'm sure I'll end up watching a lot more of the great shows they have on HBO that I get peeks at here and there.

Since I'm not going to be scheduling many TV shows for my Tivo to record, utilizing the "season pass" feature, I'll mainly just have it record a bunch of movies. I did go in last night and tell it to grab all of the occurrences of The Daily Show, as well as all the Laker games; and I also had it look for any programs on snakes or sharks (I'm fascinated by both of those animals), but that will probably be most of whatever I put in there. Other than that, I went through all my movie channels and was able to view everything that would be shown in the next day or two very easily, so I just had it grab every movie which looked even remotely interesting, and I'll just select from there which movies I'd like to watch whenever I'm home and in the TV watching mood.

As Steven mentioned in his last comment, and which I had read about on my own, Tivo is going to soon introduce pop-up ads that will appear while you are fast forwarding through commercials. While I think this is unfortunate, and I hate this type of thing, hopefully it will not bother me too much as I will still probably not be watching much programming that has commercials (except for The Daily Show and sporting events). My quest to avoid advertising marches on, I guess :lol

This is really long, so bear with me, but I have a lot to say about this.

I figure I should weigh in with some kind of an opinion on the NBA fight that took place in Detroit on Friday between the Indiana Pacers and the Detroit Pistons (or more accurately, between the Pacers and the Detroit fans). I got home on Friday and caught the tail end of the Laker game (they lost to Phoenix), then went onto the Laker message board to see what the other fans had to say about the game, and instead of seeing comment threads about the game, there were a bunch about this big fight that had happened earlier in Detroit. So, being curious, I flipped over to ESPNews to see if they had something on it, and basically I sat there and watched the coverage of this spectacle for the next two hours or so because I was basically dumbfounded.

Here we are on the doorstep of what promises to be yet another huge flop starring Angelina Jolie (the much-maligned Alexander is the movie I'm referencing), and to commemorate the occasion I wanted to ponder which actors out there have huge names and recognizability (meaning they're A-list stars) even though their movies continue to flop. I wanted to throw out a couple actors to see what people think:

Harrison Ford
His last four movies and their domestic grosses were:
Hollywood Homicide - $30,940,691
K-19: The Widowmaker - $35,168,966
What Lies Beneath - $155,464,351
Random Hearts - $31,502,583

Now What Lies Beneath was clearly a hit, but keep in mind that was almost 5 years ago. He's got to be a little worried about his draw these days, although I would guess if he just gets the right script he'll probably be able to churn out another hit. I don't know if I can say that about the rest of these actors.

Angelina Jolie
Here is a list of all of her movies since Tomb Raider:
Sky Captain - $37,517,057
Taking Lives - $32,682,342
Beyond Borders - $4,430,101
Tomb Raider 2 - $65,660,196
Life or Something Like It - $14,448,589
Original Sin - $16,534,221

Clearly she's not exactly "popular" at the box office these days. I sure hope she's not asking for much money for these roles, otherwise you have to wonder why she keeps getting work.

Ben Affleck
Once the supposed "king" of the box office, look at how far he's fallen with his last few films:
Surviving Christmas - $11,217,186
Jersey Girl - $25,268,157
Paycheck - $53,790,451
Gigli - $6,087,542

I guess this just goes to show you that Matt Damon, who did not sell out for a slew of shitty roles once he became an A-List star (unlike Mr. Affleck), made the right choice in the long run, considering Damon now has two solid franchises with the Bourne and Ocean movies.

Vin Diesel
After XXX (which was a disappointing showing for Sony, even though it made $140 million), Mr. Diesel has strung together quite a few bombs:
The Chronicles of Riddick - $57,712,751
A Man Apart - $26,736,098
Knockaround Guys - $11,715,637

He's now returning to the Fast & Furious franchise after saying he was through with those movies, which is not a good sign for him, and he was replaced as the lead in the sequel to XXX by Ice Cube, who is not exactly a huge draw himself, having never been in a movie to gross more than $80 million.

John Travolta
He's been here before (see the Look Who's Talking era of his career), and his last movie was a moderate success, so maybe he's not totally dead yet, but he's certainly been in a lot of trouble lately:
Ladder 49 - $72,734,485
The Punisher - $33,781,011
Basic - $26,793,311
Domestic Disturbance - $45,246,095
Swordfish - $69,772,969
Lucky Numbers - $10,042,516
Battlefield Earth - $21,471,685

Sean Connery
The rules of the game are, if you can't bring in the crowds, you get more credit than you deserve:
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen - $66,465,204
Finding Forrester - $51,804,714
Entrapment - $87,704,396
Playing by Heart - $3,970,078
The Avengers - $23,384,939

Connery's not quite as bad as some of the rest on this list, but I think that the poor showing this summer of LXG probably is going to signal the "over-the-hill" phase of his career. Either people are gonna think he's too old to carry a movie, or they're going to suddenly become aware that he's playing a mentor to some apprentice in every movie he's in, to whom he has to explain "the rules of the game" (i.e. Highlander, Finding Forrester, Entrapment, Rising Sun, The Rock, The Untouchables, LXG, etc...).

Other people who maybe could have been on this list but weren't:
Sylvester Stallone & Sharon Stone - The co-stars of The Specialist & Antz used to be A-list stars, but haven't had a hit in so long that I don't think anyone really considers them A-listers anymore.

Jennifer Lopez - She's a big celebrity, but it's mainly on account of the tabloid's fascination with her. She's never been in a movie that's made $100 million before, so it's debatable whether she was ever really considered an A-list actor.

Madonna - Like J-Lo, she's famous for reasons other than her movie career (although she's also somewhat famous for seeming to only star in movies that flop). She's never been a box-office draw, so the fact that she isn't anymore of one now doesn't show a change in things for her.

People like Burt Reynolds who were A-list stars 20+ years ago don't count, cause they are not really in their heyday anymore. Very few actors can legitimately be considered A-list stars when they are in their 60s or beyond, and in my opinion, only "the Jones boys" are guys that age who's status should be questioned.

Also I'd like to mention that John Woo is probably the best example of this type of drop-off in success as far as directors go. After having back to back hits with Face Off and MI:2, he's had consecutive bombs with Windtalkers and Paycheck; and I for one am glad to see that he's finally been brought back down to earth in terms of his credibility since he's awful :grin

Yesterday pretty much wiped me out. I went to bed at around dawn on Saturday (due in large part to the fact that I got up at around 3 pm on Saturday :lol), and knew I wouldn't be able to sleep in too late on Sunday because Jon was going to be coming by with his bigscreen HDTV for me. However, at about quarter to nine (in the AM) Jon called me and told me the guy who was supposed to help him pack up his stuff and move it into his storage facility was passed out drunk, and his girlfriend couldn't wake him up. Since he said everyone else he knew was out of town for Thanksgiving, he asked if I could help him out. Now obviously waking up before 9 on a Sunday to move a bunch of furniture is not really something I wanted to do, but it would have been a really shitty thing to do to not help Jon out (I've had friends leave me to move all my stuff by myself before, and it's a very shitty thing to have happen to you). So I dragged myself out of bed, stopped at the local donut place for a croissant and some coffee, and headed down to Jon's place in Manhattan Beach.

When I got there, we surveyed his place and he had quite a bit of stuff to move, and he had rented a moving van so we could pack it all in. We spent the next couple hours loading up the van, then we drove it to the public storage place and spent about an hour unloading it all. Then we went back to my place and dropped off the TV (which was rather humorous, because as we were wheeling it in, some guy standing by joking said to us "yeah, my apartment is the one around the back here." :lol). Anyway, we moved it in, and Jon got going so I could go to my Dad's house for dinner and a movie with my Dad and sister.

I have to say, my apartment is much MUCH messier right now than it ever has been. I'm finally going to have to re-arrange a lot of my apartment just to make room for all the stuff I am storing for Jon, and to make room for his TV. I've already stubbed my toes a number of times walking around and crashing into stuff that I'm not used to having sitting on the floor. I'm probably going to spend all week after work moving everything around and cleaning up, and I'm sure I'm gonna be even more wiped out as that goes on, but in the end it should be well worth it on Saturday when the cable company shows up to install a high definition cable box :grin

I went to see The Machinist last night after work. I don't know how many people out there have even heard of this movie, but if you haven't, it stars Christian Bale and is directed by Brad Anderson, who directed Session 9 (one of the creepiest movies to come out in the last couple years, in my opinion). Anyway, the movie was pretty good, and was very dark and spooky, and kept you guessing about what was going on and what was going to happen (which I guess you'd have to expect from the guy who directed Session 9), but there was one thing which really jumped out at me about the movie, as I'm sure it would jump out at anyone familiar with Christian Bale's stuff: in this movie he is skinny to the point of looking like a Holocaust survivor. Literally. Check out the trailer to see what I'm talking about (warning, it's not safe for work as there are a couple shots of Jennifer Jason Leigh topless in it). Now, I had seen the trailer before going to the movie, so I knew how skinny Christian Bale was in it (supposedly he lost 70 pounds for the role), but clearly the audience was either not entirely prepared for it, or just the sight of seeing a guy that skinny was unsettling because there were lots of murmurs and gasps whenever he was shown without his shirt on. Since I knew about it already, the reason it stood out to me so much was my realization that if it was a woman up there onscreen who was equally skinny, she would be considered a complete hottie and would have the guys drooling over her, but because a guy was so emaciated, it was horrifying and repulsive. Being a guy who has never understood the attraction to extremely thin women like you see in Hollywood (i.e. Calista Flockhart or Courtney Cox or whomever), I thought it was interesting that it's expected that guys or lesbians are supposed to be attracted to such emaciation, but women and homosexual men are not supposed to be. I guess I should have been aware of this beforehand, but because there really aren't any male actors who are that skinny, I'd never been struck by the adverse reaction people have to that. Anyway, just an observation.