The Best of National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation
While Miracle on 34th Street is my all-time favorite Christmas movie that captures the spirit of what Christmas really should be, National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation gets multiple viewings every year because it captures Christmas how it turns out to be.
Here are a few of my favorite clips from a movie quite unlike any other.
Content Warning – unedited scenes contain language.
Classic Christmas Ads
Like in pretty much all other ways, Christmas is the time when advertising too is at its best. Rightly so…there’s more dollars than anytime in the year burning a hole in people’s pockets. Here’s a few classic Christmas ads and TV commercials to take you back to those precious few times when you didn’t leave during the commercial break. Or nowadays, didn’t fast forward the DVR.
Folgers – Peter Comes Home for Christmas
1983 McDonald’s Ice Skating Commercial
Nabisco’s Oreo Commercial
Coors Christmas Commercial (eh..kinda dumb, but old school)
Mr. Bean and Christmas
Some old school British Christmas comedy. Probably strictly funny to Mr. Bean fans only.
Facebook Hates Your Computer
No reason in particular, but today I wanted to vent on my buddy Facebook. To be true, Facebook is no MySpace, which not only can throw your computer into a crashing halt just to log in, but may also fry other applicances in the process.
But Facebook, used by millions almost everyday, is surprisingly unstable. And when I want to update my status with “I’m standing right next to Michael Douglas at the Airport! FTW” it’s no good 3 hours later. And that’s not even trying to upload my cameraphone picture of it.
Here’s my Top Reasons why Facebook may be its own worst enemy.
1) Back in the late 1990s I used a program called AIM Instant Messenger. When I received a message, my keyboard did not grind to a stop and crash my browser. Not to mention multiple conversations. Receiving a message on Facebook Chat is like trying to open Adobe Photoshop CS4 on a 486 computer. With it unplugged.
2) Speaking of Facebook Chat, I know of no other program that can jump into my other tabs and stop my YouTube videos from playing with every “pop.” Yes, I am watching last week’s episode of Gossip Girl while I’m talking to you.
3) Maybe have the option to select a different sound when receiving messages, or even an actual sound. Turn your volume up loud enough to actually hear that little “pop” and let’s hope you don’t forget to crank it back down before you listen to iTunes. This will be your third noise violation this month.
4) Probably enough about Facebook chat, so another big issue is the addition of a “dislike button.” It will need to be disabled on my account, but I’d like to thumbs down your wall posts please.
5) Cool, let’s look at your photo album. Weird, it looks like you took a lot of pictures of a blue status bar.
6) Clicking “close” on windows appears to not mean what I think it means. No problem, I’ll just browse around that little guy and end up refreshing to a blank page over and over.
7) FarmVille. I see some of my friends have been playing it. 10 minutes of scrolling, I think I saw an actual status message in there. Would scroll back up but it’s loading more posts. Fingers crossed I don’t receive a chat.
8 ) Sorry, an Error Has Occurred. We’re Working to Get it Fixed as Soon as We Can. You and I both know neither one of us has any idea what the hell just happened. I’ll just reboot.
9) Facebook for the iPhone is the best way around many of these problems. Unless you want to watch a Facebook video, view a link in under 5 minutes, or plan on using your battery afterwards.
10) View News Feed? Awesome, a post from 3 weeks ago at the top. I try to remember Live Feed=about 80% of what people post showing up and News Feed = randomly pulled from any time period for no discernible reason.
11) If you unfriend me, I need to be notified. If you poke me, I’d rather not be.
Apple Goes Lala All The Way to the Bizank
Though somewhat of an abrupt and seemingly normal announcement, Apple’s purchase of the genius online streaming service Lala will take us into the next generation of music (well the next generation of legal music) just as iTunes once did. (Note this is somewhat speculation on what Apple will do with Lala, but it’s pretty clear).
The iTunes model and software are quickly showing their age, and as Apple tends to do (iTunes was originally software from a company Apple up and bought the whole thing) they’re gearing up in advance for the next generation. By stealing the idea of some small dude who already thought of it.
For those of us in the age of Pandora..who no longer buy CDs but singles, who only use media to play our music about half the time (as opposed to streaming), this is a big announcement that I look forward to seeing how it plays out.
I first heard of LaLa just days before this announcement, and I was really interested in their model of looking at music in the cloud, and having a price structure that matches your use. What it will mean is much more music, much more options, less cost, and the bands should still be able to make some money. Far superior to filesharing (great for us, bad for bands), hard CDs, and iTunes as it exists now.
The future of music looks bright once again. Now I’m going to go download a 1.29 song that I will only listen to once.
Here’s what Lala’s all about (from Gizmodo)
It’s three things, really: A CD trading site (its original emphasis), a streaming site, where you can “upload” your own music and stream it anywhere (your collection is matched with what Lala’s got, and anything they don’t have is actually uploaded); and a streaming site that’ll let you stream a song once for free, or pay 10 cents to stream it an unlimited number of times. In other words, It’s a music service that’s all about streaming and the cloud, both for the music you already own, and for finding and playing new music.
How Could Climategate Happen?
The thing I hate about Microsoft Office is that it always tries to get in your way and figure out what you’re doing. Generally their suggestions are wrong, but apparently sometimes they are very helpful.
Movie Review – Funny People
Funny People (2009) on DVD/Blu-Ray
Rated R
Adam Sandler, Seth Rogen
Directed by Judd Apatow
2 hours 6 minutes
Funny people, in a vacuum, is a decent movie. But taking into account what they were going for, how much of the film was really good, and who was in it, it ends up falling in mediocre-ville.
Funny People is directed by Judd Apatow, famous for the Knocked Up and 40 Year Old Virgin, and he continues to prove that he is the Seinfeld for Generation X. Many of his movies (either directing or writing) are based on his real life experiences and explore the humor of everyday life. This one included, and even stars his actual college roommate Adam Sandler. Unfortunately, Generation X has proven to be far more self-centered (yes its possible) and vulgar than their Seinfeld predecessors and their lives not nearly as interesting.
But there is genius here, and it’s the first half of the movie. The film is about a comedian far into his movie star prime, Gene Simmons (played by Adam Sandler) who finds out he is dying. The comedian then takes to the stand-up scene and does the typical things movies have people who are dying do (call the ex, etc.). With a great supporting cast and pacing, it truly is interesting and funny for a while. And Gene Simmons is a replica of Adam Sandler, and pokes fun at his off-the-wall style of humor and even how he ended up making lame mainstream movies as time went on. It’s great to see Sandler (one of my favorites as a teenager) and Rogen (in an interesting turn) interact and begin their journey about life and laughter.
But then the second half crashes. I’m not sure if it was the 100 cameos (cameos always break the reality of a film to me, especially with so many that are here so fast) or the stopping of interesting plot lines for one that goes awry, but when a comedy breaks the 2 hour mark it desperately needs a strong second half. Funny People does the first, but not the second.
Not to give anything away, but I will say that Sandler’s character doesn’t learn the lesson from near death that you think he would. In doing so, the morale of the film is one of extreme depression. Not sadness, just cynicism. Though the ending somewhat makes up for it, you start to feel that the whole thing was too contrived and the great beginning is a distant memory.
From a comedy standpoint, there’s some pretty good stuff. It’s not a laugh out loud riot, but there’s some great lines and scenes. Way too many wiener jokes (though they are somewhat making fun of those jokes) and a few poorly used characters, yet some underused ones (you’ll recognize the entire cast from other comedies).
In the end, it is a shame that they weren’t able to pull this off. I generally like Apatow movies (though they are a bit too rauncy even for me) and I always like Sandler movies. The pairing of the two leaned more towards Apatow and lost a lot of Sandler. It’s maybe worth a rental…if you love Sandler or Apatow that’s a probably..but in the end it doesn’t live up to its potential.
It’s not “what I call H20″ if you know what I mean.
* * 1/2 stars out of 5
Bill Maher on Jay Leno
Sometimes a fan of Bill Maher, sometimes definitely not. This sit down on the Jay Leno show reminds of the sometimes why I’m a fan. Topics range from Tiger Woods, to Banking, to the Afghan War.
Part One
Part Two
Hollywood Continues to Destroy My Childhood Memories
It’s a story that is all too familiar. Hollywood remakes a classic 80′s franchise by giving it a final death blow and burying it. Perhaps it is our punishment for having too many great memories and experiences Saturday mornings and at Friday night sleep overs. Today’s movies are uneventful CGI spectacles or slapped together retreads, released by the week and on DVD a week later. It’s not fair to today’s kids that we had it so much better. Think of it as socialism for joy.
The latest is the Karate Kid remake, starring Will Smith’s son Jaden Smith and Jackie Chan. No I didn’t make that up. Whatever universe it may have had potential of being something worth watching, even there it has been destroyed by today’s release of official photos.
See them below, weep for the children, and then run for the nearest Blockbuster for one last ride with the original.
Wax on my friends, wax on.
Full story at SlashFilm.
