I just heard a senior

I just heard a senior citizen couple discussing Brokeback Mountain and the woman called it bareback mountain ha ha ha

  ¶ 1/30/2006 07:23:00 PM 0 Comments

  six degrees of kevin bacon so is anyone else like really into the six degrees of kevin bacon game that people always play on long car trips. honestly it was the only thing that allowed me to survive the three day car drive from cbus to tucson. i remember one time that john and i were like really into it we used to spend hours working really obscure actors out on paper. anyways, did everyone know that there is a web version?

i am not sure if this is a popular site that everyone knows about or not, but if you haven't been there john put the website under our links menu. i think like the statistics program at the university of virginia made a web program that will link any two celebrities together. it is effing hilarious trying to link the two most obscure people together and it takes like one or two links. for example:

home improvement's zachery ty bryan and butch patrick, tv's eddie munster. . .
in two steps
zachery ty bryan was in slammed with sasha mitchell
who was in dicky roberts: former child star with butch patrick

anyways, i challenge anyone to come up with any two celebrities who can only be linked in five or more steps. i have tried diligently but have never been able to do it. if you can, please post it in the blog and gloat a whole bunch:)  ¶ 1/29/2006 11:38:00 PM 1 Comments

  vh1's movies that rock: showgirls so anyways, showgirls was on vh1 the other day so john and i watched a few minutes of it. it is on vh1 like every week it seems, so you should check it out. john is going to take a clip from it and post it next time it is on now that we have so much technology going on over here.

the tv version is effing hilarious and in an entirely different way than the dvd one. first of all you have the animated bikinis that all the naked girls wear. it is vaguely reminiscent of who framed roger rabbit and watching men ogle jessica rabbit. you can take your eyes off these painted on little costumes that the girls wear.

but it is also funny how they dub over half the dialogue with even more terrible writing performed by (is it possible?) even more terrible actors. it reminds me so much of watching like an episode of cheers in mexico and how all the characters are voiced by one sexy sounding woman actress and one very macho sounding male actor. and for some reason they try to rhyme all of the dialogue with the dubbed version, so like the line "i liked it when you came" becomes "i liked your little game." i think you could make a fun drinking game out of the tv version.

but also, and i can't believe i am going to defend showgirls' premise, but, if there is one, it has to do with the love/hate mentor/protege pseudo-lesbianic relationship between nomi and crystal. in the movie they cut any sign of this out, and i am like WHAT IS THE EFFING POINT HERE??? like when crystal calls nomi a whore, that is gone. and the lesbian kiss at the end is gone. so basically we have a movie about a woman who goes to las vegas and gets a job *hurrah* there is no conflict.

still, it cracks me up how even watching the edited tv version with painted on bikinis and cleaned up dialogue, it is still like the dirtiest movie i have ever seen. every single scene you are looking down someones cleavage or at their ass.

anyways, if you HAVE seen the real one check out the edited version, but if you haven't seen the nc17 one you have to see it first of course.

okay, i am done talking about showgirls for now. we will start discussing a new movie of the week tomorrow or sometime soon so stay tuned bitches.  ¶ 1/29/2006 11:21:00 PM 0 Comments

  Brokeback Mountain Commercial We were watching The Soup on E! last night, and saw a pretty funny commercial spoof for Bareback Mountain. We decided it would be a good time to try to fire up the video capture on this newfangled contraption and see if we could record it to upload to the blog... enjoy :)  ¶ 1/29/2006 10:33:00 AM 0 Comments

  The rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated... We have not forgotten about you, dear blog...

Our computer crashed and blew up the other day. We have a wonderful new PC and I know Luke will be updating real soon.

Have a nice weekend :)  ¶ 1/28/2006 12:14:00 PM 0 Comments

  memoirs of a geisha versus showgirls john and i are watching showgirls and we got to the scene where nomi is dancing at the cheetah and she goes up to the guys' table and asks them if they want a private dance and the one guy says can i suck on your tits and i was like what kind of guy would just go up to a strange woman in a bar and ask her if he can suck on her tits but then i just felt stupid, because of course i know the answer:

isaac mizrahi.

so megan brought up memoirs of a geisha in a response to one of my posts the other day. it was pretty good, even though the story was kind of shallow and the whole thing felt, sometimes, just a little bit inauthentic. it was totally beautiful though. you should go see it in the theater, because it is one of those movies that you would probably enjoy a lot more watching it on the big screen.

the plot was really simple. sayuri's parents sell her to this woman in kyoto who owns a house where they train geishas. unfortunately, the head geisha girl hatsumomo hates her, ostensibly because she feels threatened. (li gong who plays hatsumomo is probably the best thing about the movie. deliciously evil. i love that.) sayuri gets in trouble and is forced to become a maid, but another geisha, mameha, takes sayuri under her wing and eventually sayuri becomes the most famous geisha in all the land. then the u.s.-americans come (wwii) and everything goes to hell. the end.

of course there is more to it than that, but i didn't want to give the whole story away.

still, what really interested me about this movie, and i am SO not joking, is that it totally parallels showgirls in like dozens of ways. it is so similar in some parts that i want to know if joe eszterhas read the book or the author of the book saw the movie. it is probably just a coincidence, but here are some similarities:

first of all, the "flashdance" scene megan wrote about in her comment. when sayuri finally gets her big break and becomes a famous dancer she performs on stage for all the men. (it was actually my favorite part of the movie.) here is a picture.



















this struck me as really effing similar to the part in showgirls where nomi finally gets her big break (after breaking crystal's hip) and gets to dance on stage as the star of the stardust's new show. here is a picture:



in memoirs sayuri comes from a small fishing town. in showgirls, nomi comes from a small town in wyoming.

sayuri at first fails to achieve her dream of becoming a star geisha and is forced to work as a maid. nomi first fails to achieve her dream of becoming a showgirl and is forced to work as a stripper.

but then sayuri gets "adopted" by mameha (and the powerful chairman) who train her to be the best geisha in kyoto. nomi gets "adopted" by crystal (and the powerful zach) who train her to be the best showgirl in vegas.

in order to achieve her dream, sayuri must defeat the vicious and jealous hasumomo who first inspired her to be a geisha. in order to achieve her dream, nomi must first defeat the vicious and jealous crystal who first inspired her to be a showgirl.

sayuri falls in love with the first man to show her true respect, the chairman. nomi falls in love with the first man to (ostensibly) show her true respect, zach.

in order to be succesful, sayuri must betray her "sisters" hatsumomo and pumpkin. in order to be successful, nomi must betray her "sister" molly and castmate crystal.

the biggest similarity between the two films is that the general theme that defines each of them is EXACTLY the same. memoirs strives to show an internal conflict within sayuri to define her career as a geisha as separate from prostitution. and (if one could argue it even has a theme) showgirls strives to show an internal conflict within nomi to define her career as a showgirl as separate from prostitution. the conclusion: "you are a whore darlin' we all are."

of course, there are other similarities, but i don't want to give anything away. in any case, y'all should go watch memoirs and see for yourself why it should really be called showgirls: kyoto.

(postscript: as awesomely diabolical as li gong is as hatsumomo she is absolutely no match for gina gershon as crystal conners. i'd let her do my nails any day.)  ¶ 1/23/2006 11:13:00 PM 3 Comments

  Showgirls Of course, as Luke previously said, our favourite movie is definitely Drop Dead Gorgeous, but the most oft-watched and discussed movie in the Witman-Gardner household is, without a doubt, Showgirls.

One my most favoritest film-going experiences was seeing Showgirls at The Loft in Tucson with some of our friends. The movie was, at the time of release, most likely supposed to be Paul Verhoeven and Joe Eszterhas' vision of how women really act. The end result has turned into a campy flick full of quotables. This film has also fostered a love and appreciation for all things Gina Gershon.

In celebration of week two of Men On Film, everyone needs to go out and rent Showgirls and watch it. Watching it on television does not count, because they edit out the brestisses with strange, cartoony, painted on couture.

Continue following the blog for more discussion on Showgirls, coming soon... (We even changed our banner lol)  ¶ 1/23/2006 06:17:00 PM 2 Comments

  Yes, Isaac Mizrahi is a total prick.


I was in shock when I saw the way he fondled Scarlett Johansen's booby (and people who know me know that not much shocks me). She should have smacked him across his face. Eva Longoria should have kicked him in the balls. I personally want to drive to LA and just hit him with my car for that.  ¶ 1/23/2006 05:33:00 PM 0 Comments

  isaac mizrahi is a prick i don't know if anyone watched the golden globes pre-show on E. i was going to but didn't get around to it. i did, however, watch joel mcchale's commentary on the show on the soup. anyways, here is a brief about the show that i read on (what else) imdb. this should be titled "isaac mizrahi is a big fat huge throbbing disease infested prick." i mean seriously, what a prick.

::TV Bosses Defend Outrageous Mizrahi

Bosses at US cable channel E! are standing by controversial fashion designer Isaac Mizrahi after he was publicly criticised for risque acts and comments at the Golden Globe Awards last week. Mizrahi groped actresses Teri Hatcher and Scarlett Johansson, asked Eva Longoria about her pubic hair and insisted on prying in handbags as he co-hosted E!'s red carpet coverage. But TV executives have booked the style king for their upcoming Oscar night coverage in March. Although none of the stars have complained about Mizrahi's conduct, officials at America's Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) have complained about comments Mizrahi made to Charlize Theron about her Oscar-winning performance in Monster, during which he called her character "a scary dyke with bad teeth." A spokesman for the network says, "We wanted someone who would bring surprises." But bosses at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which runs the Oscars, are planning to discuss E!'s coverage in a bid to make sure their guests aren't insulted by Mizrahi. Spokesman John Pavlik says, "We would be extraordinarily angry if that sort of thing happened on our red carpet."::  ¶ 1/23/2006 04:19:00 AM 0 Comments

  the joys of imdb. . . blogging is so much fun!!! i mean it is like livejournal, except i don't have to think about things in my own life to write about. that is why i don't post in livejournal much because nothing interesting ever happens to me. i guess i could use livejournal to rant about things that interest me, but it makes it extra fun when you have a blog with a general message and everything. i think everybody should have one. it is therapeutic.

anyways, back to film.

megan and john and i have been bantering back and forth with one another about the joys of imdb so i decided to write more about it. i think i first started messing around with it in college, but i definitely have gotten more into it in the past couple years. honestly, sometimes i think it actually makes watching movies more fun. it is probably my favorite webpage.

first of all, it is SO helpful for when you see someone in a movie (like amy adams from junebug) and you are like I KNOW I HAVE SEEN YOU IN SOMETHING ELSE BUT WHAT IS IT. so you go into imdb and you look and bingo you are like OH you are that slut from drop dead gorgeous. it saves you a lot of time wracking your brain.

secondly, there is a trivia section for most movies and tv shows and sometimes there is trivia for the actors under the bio section. it is really fun to read, especially about movies you really like. old movies like the wizard of oz or gone with the wind might have pages and pages of trivia. john and i always read the trivia every time we watch a movie. you can also see the rewards a movie or actor won which is cool if you are into that.

third, and i just discovered this relatively recently. if you go into the showtimes section for a movie, it will tell you the theaters in your city where it is playing (like moviefone) BUT if it isn't playing in your city you can click and it will show you a map of where the movie is playing. like john and i wanted to watch grizzly man but we waited for weeks and it never came to tucson. on imdb i saw that it was playing in a theater in scottsdale so we drove there to see it. if you want to watch a specific movie go to imdb rather than moviefone.

but by far the best thing about imdb, like megan said in her comment to my last post, is that you can learn more about what kind of movies you like to see. what i mean is that rather than knowing what genre of movies you like or even what actors you like to see, if you use imdb you can learn about the writers, directors, producers and/or movie studios that interest you. for example, lately i have been getting really into todd solondz and lars von trier movies. i go to imdb and look for project they have been involved in that i haven't seen yet. it would be a lot more difficult to follow a particular filmmaker if there wasn't a database like this.

anyways, it is fun but it is also really helpful, so if you don't use it you should:)

and i agree with you too megan that it pisses me off when actors don't have pictures, because sometimes i am bad with movie characters names (like in memoirs of a geisha everyone has asian sounding names) and i am like i want to know more about the actor that played the evil girl but i can't remember her character's name so it takes me forever to figure out whose profile to read. actors i think only pay to put their pictures up if they are looking for work. so a lot of like middle range actors don't have photos posted because they aren't paying to do it themselves and nobody else has thought to add it.  ¶ 1/22/2006 07:42:00 PM 2 Comments

  junebug "god loves you just the way you are, but he loves you too much to let you stay that way"

so john and i rented junebug the other day and it was really kind of cute, and not in a vacuous way either. i have been wanting to see it ever since i saw the trailer, but i never got around to it. it just came out on video this week, so y'all should go rent it.

it is sort of like that reese witherspoon movie sweet home alabama, but good. it is about a newly married woman who goes on a business trip to her husband's hometown and meets his family. every single person in this movie is totally psychotic, and the funny thing is that the movie never explains why they are all nuts. it just accepts it. it is funny but not too funny and sad but not too sad. it is just honest. i like honest movies. (you know, like showgirls).

i guess the star, amy adams is going to be nominated for an oscar for best supporting actress. she is definitely the best thing about the movie, and the only member of the family that you don't want to smother to death with a pillow. amy adams, ironically enough, is the actress who plays the slutty cheerleader leslie ann miller in drop dead gorgeous ("i got second runner up! i'm in second place!")

anyways, it wasn't my favorite movie of the year or anything, but since this year was a really terrible one for movies in general, it is up there.

and by the way, megan was writing in her livejournal about her penchant for imdb. i didn't know other people were obsessed with it like john and i are. outside of my email, it is probably the website i spend the most time playing on. if you don't know about imdb, john and i put a link for it on the blog. it is so much fun! and it makes playing six degrees of kevin bacon a snap.  ¶ 1/21/2006 08:00:00 PM 2 Comments

  luke can be awesome-o too. http://www.moviewavs.com/cgi-bin/spmp3s.cgi?Episode_209_Chefs_Salty_Chocolate_Balls=209_gaymovie.mp3

i can't believe i am continuing to bitch about brokeback mountain. i mean i watched it like a week ago and it was completely unmentionable. but i found this link so i had to post it.

and once again i will make a plea to the filmmakers of the world to never make another movie about gay cowboys eating pudding. there are lots of good gay themed movies that could be made that would not involve texans who violently and uncomfortably make out, abuse their wives and children, and spend the rest of their days staring blindly into the mountainside. as a matter of fact here are some suggestions

1. corey feldman is an aging street hustler who gets hit by a car driven by an angel played by mandy patinkin. patinkin takes feldman on a magical trip through time to show him what life would have been like if he had gone to medical school like he wanted. as a result feldman finally finds God and becomes an episcopalian minister.

2. charlize theron is a post-apocalyptic lesbian and demon exterminator who finds a wormhole into 1978. she travels there to meet and destroy the head demon played by angelina jolie, an evil nazi surgeon threatening to release the AIDS virus on humanity. but things get complicated when theron and jolie succumb to their animal lust for one another.

3. ted danson, steve guttenberg and bernie mac, roommates in their suburban townhome, are thrown for a loop when a great aunt dies and leaves them a baby in her will. there is just one problem: the baby is gay. the three go to great lengths to try to fix the baby's queerness and, in the process, come to turns with their own sexuality.

4. harrison ford leads a team of supergay supercriminals as they attempt to break into a vault in the smithsonian and steal the original ruby slippers worn by judy garland in the wizard of oz. however, in order to have success they will need to find a way to get past woody harrelson, a tough security guard who has just one weakness: he's secretly addicted to meth.

5. bruce villanche: the musical

anyways, i think any of these ideas could potentially make a better film than brokeback mountain, and i have a hundred more up my sleeve:)  ¶ 1/19/2006 06:05:00 PM 3 Comments

  Team America: World Police For someone who 1) enjoys Trey Parker and Matt Stone projects, 2) thinks that the Yanqui's "War on Terrorism (TM) (R) (C)" is silly and 3) thinks that Kim Jong Il looks so "sirry" in his little track suit; I was relatively late to see this movie but I am glad that I did.

For anyone living under a rock for the last couple of years, Team America: World Police is a movie that shows how silly our little war really is. Gary Johnston is a Broadway actor, currently appearing in the hit musical "Lease" (everyone has AIDS! AIDS AIDS AIDS!). His acting talents are needed when Team America wants to infiltrate the terrorists of Dirkadirkastan, who are in cahoots with Kim Jong Il. Gary struggles with taking on the burden of national security, all while trying to deal with the loss of a brother in a nasty blueberry-eating gorilla accident.

Anyone who is familiar with the Parker and Stone works in the past know that there has to be something in this movie poking fun at celebrities. Alec Baldwin, head of the Film Actors Guild (or FAG) brings his fellow peace-heads Helen Hunt, Samuel L Jackson, Tim Robbins, Susan Sarandon and Jeanane Garofolo together, and ends up helping the dirkadirkas.

I kinda figured from the get go that Luke wouldn't like this movie. Luke will admit his taste usually moves towards independant films about women dying of ovarian cancer or an out-of-control addiction. There were several scenes that did arouse laughter from him, and at the end he admitted it was funnier than he originally thought it was going to be.

I personally really enjoyed the movie. If you like South Park, or other greats like Orgazmo, and are familiar with the humour of Parker and Stone, then you will enjoy this movie.  ¶ 1/19/2006 10:03:00 AM 4 Comments

  drop dead gorgeous so john and i's entire relationship is built on a foundation that is the film drop dead gorgeous. well that might be a little overdramatic, but it is a good movie. on our second date we were going to hang out in john's apartment and watch a movie and we discovered our mutual love for mockumentaries. we watched drop dead gorgeous and have been together ever since. a coincidence? i think not.

if you haven't seen it yet, ddg is an absolutely hilarious mockumentary about a series of beauty pageants gone awry. denise richards and kirsten dunst are rivals in the sarah rose cosmetics beauty pageant in mount rose minnesota (former home of the world's oldest living lutheran). denise richards' mom kirstie alley starts killing all of the contestants and hillarity ensues.

john posted a screenshot of the funniest scene from the movie in the banner above. it is definitely hard to single out one scene as the funniest, but denise richards' performance in the talent show is one of my favorite scenes from a movie ever. after she sings a duet with a crucified jesus, her mom (the emcee) goes, "i wouldn't want to follow that act. voice of angel that one." it makes me pee myself a little.

anyways, if you haven't seen it yet you absolutely must go to wherever video tapes are sold or rented and buy (or rent) it right now. it is a delight. jeje. if you enjoy lutefisk, duck hunting, lutherans, bars and/or the howard johnson hotel chain, you will enjoy this.  ¶ 1/19/2006 01:09:00 AM 2 Comments

  I am the linkmaster I just wanted to update - I added Luke's Top 100 Films list (mine will be coming soon) and also a link to our movie collection. Eventually, I will link our wish list. If you know of any good movie related sites, let me know.  ¶ 1/18/2006 11:36:00 PM 0 Comments

  our inaugural post *huzzah* so anyways, last week john and i went to see brokeback mountain at the loft, an independent cinema in tucson, where we live. i have been waiting for months to see it after reading about it on imdb and in the advocate and stuff. well it finally opened up here and we went to see it the first chance we had.

it made me want to vomit glass out of my eyes.

john and i don't have a lot of hobbies outside of eating and reality television, but we do watch a lot of movies and we are building up a pretty good dvd collection. one of our favorite things to do is go to matinees on our days off. we usually spend the rest of the day arguing about the film until one of us slams a door shut and the beagle crawls under the coffee table to hide.

so after spending about an hour arguing about brokeback i was thinking, gosh we really need an effing outlet. so that is why we decided to start this blog. we just put it together this week, but we plan to use this page to make movie recommendations to friends and others with similar interests (especially other gay men). also we can use this space to express our almost always contrasting opinions on the movies we watch.

i really hope that eventually people will read this and add their comments and recommendations to the ones we post. i know a lot of my friends (gerson, tamara, ESP megan) are film freaks like us and i imagine john's friends have interesting things to say too. so please check back here every once in a while and see what we have to say.  ¶ 1/18/2006 09:05:00 PM 0 Comments