Month: October 2004

Gentle Ben: Man, you don’t look so good.
You survived Christmas… You collected your Paycheck… But are you ready for Ben Affleck’s next cinematic blast of explosive diarrhea, Man About Town?
Currently filming in lovely Vancouver, Man also stars Oscar and Nobel Prize nominees Rebecca Romijn-Stamos, Amber Valletta, and Gina Gershon, and, oddly, Air America Radio‘s own Sam Seder. (Sam, Sam, Sam. Well, I guess you and Ben are having some good talks about John Kerry.)
But if these names—and BEN AFFLECK—aren’t enough to pump you up for this film, maybe its writer, director, and co-star will: Mike Binder!
You know, he of the sub-sub-sub-Woody Allen knock-offs The Sex Monster and Londinium (straight to cable and straight to your funny bone!), and HBO‘s second funniest show (after Arli$$, natch) The Mind of the Married Man! (Why only one season, HBO? Now we’ll never know if Binder’s character Micky Barnes ever followed through on that apt metaphor for the entire show and got that full-release massage or not.)
I for one cannot wait to see the one-two comedy punch of Binder and Affleck. Oh, and did I mention that it also stars the coolest teacher at “Manhattan High School,” Howard Hesseman? Well it does!
Truly, this will be a Man in full!

Roger “I Don’t Just Flack for Harvey” Friedman reports:

“[Y]es, that was Fallon caught live on Fox extravagantly kissing a blonde who looked a lot like Drew Barrymore on the field right after the Red Sox won the World Series…The reason for their appearance: Jimmy and Drew are filming a new movie called ‘Fever Pitch‘ about an obsessed Red Sox fan and the girl he loves.”

Directed by the Farrelly brothers from a script adapted by Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel. Heart, prepare to be warmed!

“Candy? We spent all our money on lights. Lights are like candy for your eyes.”
Related: “…sweet crude oil down $2.71 a barrel to $52.46.” Mmmm…. Sweet crude oil.

Coming soon to your pretentious “anti-establishment” best friend’s smoke-filled rec room: Fight Club: The Game from that bastion of anti-authoritianism, Vivendi Universal Games. (FOX must’ve passed on it since it destroyed Bill Mechanic‘s career.)
So put down that dog-eared Hunter S. Thompson book and pick up your PS2 controller, you rebel. It’s time to tear this whole fucking system down: from your couch!

Yes, in fully-pixelated glory, it’s a recreation of the dilapidated yard you grew to love so much with your repeated DVD viewings of David Fincher’s Fight Club…you remember the film, right? It came out in, ummm, 1999?

And there’s that beautifully grimy, dimly-lit basement! It’s almost as if Chuck Palahniuk himself is getting all up in your face, ready to pummel it into oblivion.

God. There’s Meat Loaf, in what surely has to be his first-ever appearance on an X-Box or PS2.
And in the vein of a good self-help group session, video game fans are congregating and clamoring for changes to the way in which this particular one is played. From the manufacturer’s forums:

“Wouldn’t it have been awesome if, after the fight, both fighters, completely covered in bruises and blood would hug each other? That would have been so much funnier and different than all the other crappy fighting gmes target to pre-adolescent rap-boys with Girls, Money and Power on their minds.
VU, you missed your shot to create something truely [sic.] special.

Hey, man! The first rule of Fight Club is you do not reveal the queer subtext of Fight Club. The second rule of Fight Club is you DO NOT reveal the queer subtext of Fight Club. The third rule of Fight Club is take off your shirt and let’s grapple.

Is this another prank from those tricky Canadians at Vice?
If it is, it’s not so funny, but it’s better than the whole “We’re white supremacists” thing.
If it’s not… I guess that’s why it’s not funny at all.