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I Bet He Has a Secret Decoder Ring Too.

13 Dec

December 13, 2010

Since the beginning of time, man has yearned to destroy the sun.

Well, maybe not. You can’t trust The Simpsons on everything. OK, they got that whole Al Gore/Kang and Kodos conspiracy right, but they totally screwed up the Comic Book Guy/Milhouse/Al-Queda connection.

But there are things that man, as a point of history, has yearned to do and failed. Alchemy aimed to turn lead into gold. Think about it. Really give that some thought. Turning lead into gold would ruin the economy more than the Federal Reserve has already done. If all lead turned into gold, can you imagine how expensive a simple pencil would be? Of course, you’d never buy one because you couldn’t write with it, and without a reliable #2 lead pencil, there goes all the standardized testing in our schools, right out the window.

So maybe that isn’t such a bad thing.

Alchemy isn’t all man has yearned for. Immortality. The secret to eternal life. Walt Disney, whose frosty frozen head allegedly sits in a vault far below the “It’s a Small World” ride wasn’t the first man to want to live forever, nor will he be the last. While science hasn’t yet reached the point of achieving immortality, it has prolonged the average human lifespan, making your choice of nursing home vitally important because you will be spending an awfully long time there.

Which brings us to Nursultan Nazarabyev, the President of Kazakhstan. (Not to be confused with Nursultan Nazarabyev, P.I., Wednesdays on CBS.) If you are anything like me you thought that Borat guy was the President of Kazakhstan, but it turns out that this surly-looking fellow is in charge.

This man must be stopped.

Can you imagine the horrors of immortality? Rich uncles who never die and leave you anything in their wills. Spinster aunts who drop by for Christmas and never leave. Literally, never leave.  Living the next thousand years and seeing the Mets blow it season after season after season. Immortality is an appalling thought.

I suppose that, living in Kazakhstan, there isn’t much else to worry about. The secret of life, kissing frogs to turn them in handsome princes, magic beans, these must all be pretty important over there too.

Of course, if I were already 70 years old, I might have some pressing concerns as well.

Like getting out of Kazakhstan. This poor guy, I can only imagine how he would spend the rest of his immortal life- anywhere but Kazakhstan. That’s why he wants immortality. It is a do-over, a chance to live a life anywhere but Kazakhstan. Like I said, I saw Borat. I know Kazakhstan.

Maybe I am wrong. Perhaps Kazakhstan is an Eden where the President flies on a unicorn and wields a flaming sword. I wouldn’t want to leave that paradise either.

The paradise… of KAZAKHSTAN.

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“Sometimes, dead is better.” – Pet Sematary

9 Dec
December 9, 2010

“I showed him how God wanted him to have a swell time while he was alive. Because, brothers and sisters, when you is gone, you is gone. And ain’t no way , no how, nobody’s going to bring you back here once you is dead!”- Love at First Bite

Ever see Love at First Bite? Great film, really, a great film. It stars George Hamilton as a very tan Count Dracula who relocates from Transylvania to New York in the 1970’s and hits the disco scene. In my opinion it is George Hamilton’s greatest film, but that isn’t saying much. (It is, however, more than a bit funnier than Godfather III.) Leslie Nielsen took a stab at Dracula, so to speak, in Dracula: Dead and Loving It but no offense, the Hamilton film is funnier. (“Children of the night, shut up!”)

Dracula is so iconic a character that he may never die. He may have been plugged by hundreds of wooden stakes, but plug “Dracula” into imdb.com and you get nineteen exact matches, not counting partial matches and all the films in which the Count is not in the title. The actors who played Dracula have not fared as well, Bela Lugosi, John Carradine, Leslie Nielsen, and many more, are all gone. Luckily, Christopher Lee is still alive and acting, but there will never again be another film starring Lon Chaney Jr., not to mention John Wayne, Marlon Brando, or even Elvis. And for those of us who saw him in A Change of Habit, that’s a loss to comedy. I will now quote myself:

Elvis once said “Only the only thing worse than watching a bad movie is being in one.” And he should know.

In “Change of Habit,” 1969, he starred as “Dr. Edward Pelvis,” a hip psychotherapist simultaneously wooing a nun played totally unconvincingly by Mary Tyler Moore and curing a young autistic girl by slapping her around. Yes, by slapping her around. There are plenty of scenes of Moore and her hip nun friends getting involved in civic events, scenes of Pelvis and Moore picnicking, and plenty of scenes of Pelvis slapping the poor autistic girl while saying “I love you.” Slap! “I love you.” Slap! I AM NOT MAKING THIS UP! SEE FOR YOURSELF!

TRIVIA: This is the only feature film starring Elvis Presley which wasn’t released theatrically in Finland. Those Fins, always getting left out. Did you know that only last week they found out that Rosebud was Citizen Kane’s sled?

Abbott and Costello will never update “Who’s on First?” for free-agency, Al Jolsen will never sing Public Enemy’s “911 is a Joke,” and Theda Bara will never get her own sitcom.

“I showed him how God wanted him to have a swell time while he was alive. Because, brothers and sisters, when you is gone, you is gone. And ain’t no way , no how, nobody’s going to bring you back here once you is dead!”

Oh really?

You can't make this stuff up.

What is he thinking? Who does he think he is? Sure, he gave us Darth Vader, but he also gave us Howard the Duck. He may have created the Empire, but he is also responsible for Howard the Duck. THX sound technology is his, but so is Howard the Duck. He also produced Howard the Duck.

So now we may all get the chance to see Charlton Heston dance to “Poker Face.

Think about it. Christopher Reeve may fly again as Superman. Or he may show up in a Willow sequel. Really, this is all up to George Lucas and his wild and wacky imagination.

Of course, odds are he’ll show up as a Jedi first in a bad Star Wars film.
Sir John Gielgud will appear in an episode of Tyler Perry’s House of Payne.
John Cazale in Weekend at Bernie’s IV.
Ricky Ricardo and Margaret Dumont in a remake of West Side Story.

There is really only one winner in all of this, a group, actually. Guys like Rich Little, Fred Travalena, people who do impressions, because Lucas may have the images but he needs someone to voice them.

What, you say that Fred Travalena died in 2009? Then I’ve got to go. I need to brush up on my Travalena impression for when George Lucas brings him back for the New Dean Martin Celebrity Roasts.

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