Leslie Caron

TCM just showed Gigi again on Sunday. I like Leslie Caron more and more every time I see her nowadays. Apart from An American in Paris, I think her biggest hits were movies named after a character she played where the name is a repeated two-letter first-syllable beginning with a consonant and ending in the letter “I”: Gigi, and Lili. These were so big for her, you’d think they would have stuck with the formula. That’s what Hollywood usually does! She could have made lots more of them: Bibi, Cici, Didi, Fifi, and Mimi. And if those did well too, then they could just make up new ones and just go down the alphabet, like: Hihi, Jiji, Nini, Pipi, Riri, Sisi, etc., all the way up to Zizi. Think of how much more famous she would be had they followed that plan! She might still be making them! (But they might have to round the alphabet again, with movies like Gigigigi, Lililili, etc. Or maybe just a different way of writing it, like giGi, or Gi Gi, or G.G. Who knows, maybe G.G. Allin was trying to follow her path to success!)

And I know what you’re thinking: Why not do this with An American in Paris instead? So then they could have made An American in Marseilles, An American in Cannes, An American in Monte Carlo, An American in Bordeaux, etc. Then, if they did well, they could have moved on to different countries. (Yes, I know Monte Carlo isn’t in France. I just put it in there to annoy French people.) And each time, Leslie Caron would be the love interest for Gene Kelly, who’s trying to make it as some artist or whatever in whichever city they’re in. He’s done a painter, so then he could be a failed sculptor, a failed photographer, a failed puppeteer, a failed ballet dancer, a failed poet, etc., all being chased by Nina Foch with a different accent in every city. It couldn’t have missed! Why didn’t they do it? (They’d do it today! No movies that makes money, or even those that don’t, are allowed to go sequel-less. It simply isn’t done!)

Obama Calls Americans “Lazy”

I heard from someone that President Obama called Americans “lazy” recently. I didn’t actually hear it myself, but someone said he did it. I was going to watch the news, you see, but the remote was on the coffee table, and I would have had to get up to reach it, so I just figured I’d do it later. And I was going to write something about it before, but I was kinda tired, and after all, is it really worth it to bother about it? It is pretty insulting, though, and I would really probably vote against him next time for saying that, but it’s such a hassle to vote and stuff. They make you register first, and then you have to go somewhere to cast your vote, and there aren’t even cookies or anything. But he’s got some nerve calling us lazy! He’s the president, I thought he was supposed to do everything. Maybe he’s the lazy one, blaming us for everything! Whatever!

Republican Mad Libs

Oh, the news is all abuzz about Herman Cain’s problem answering questions about Libya. And it’s just because of media bias! We all may know about what happened in Libya, but that’s just because we’re not being accused of sexual harassment! (Again.) That’s very distracting, so everyone should give him a break! This is a smear campaign and nothing else! And I must admit, it was extremely prescient of the Democrats to have had women accuse him of stuff years ago, knowing that he’d be running for president now. They must have a really good psychic! Or do they just have people set-up every conservative all the time, just in case they decide to run for president someday? (They ought to do that, if they’re not doing it yet! It’s the right plan for America!)

But hey, running for President is hard, especially for people who aren’t real politicians. And for people who are politicians, but aren’t very smart. Or aren’t good at debating. Or whatever excuse you want to use. That’s why the RNC needs to adopt a new policy with regard to answering questions, because as Newt Gingrich has pointed out, every question they get is a “gotcha” question. Or was that Sarah Palin who said that? Oh, I’m confused too! That’s why we all need Republican Mad Libs to help us answer the tough questions!

Republican Mad Libs are a sort of talking-point-style answer-all solution to liberal media “gotcha” questions: simply memorize them, and fill in the blanks as necessary. There would be a few of them, maybe, or maybe they only need one. Let’s see, Herman Cain’s “gotcha” question on Libya could have been answered in this way:

“President Obama has destroyed America by ____________ (activity) _____________ (noun), because he is a naïve leader without the ____________ (noun) to __________ (verb) properly, and if he’s re-elected, he will destroy the country with his ____________ (adjective) _________ (noun).”

And in the case of Libya, it would have sounded like this:

“President Obama has destroyed America by invading (activity) Libya (noun), because he is a naïve leader without the experience (noun) to lead (verb) properly, and if he’s re-elected, he will destroy the country with his inexperienced (adjective) leadership (noun).”

See? That’s exactly like the kind of answer we usually hear from Republicans, right? (BTW: I know we didn't invade Libya, but I'm assuming Herman Cain doesn't know that.) So this is just an easy way for them to make an automatic answer about any topic, even if they don’t know anything about it. They just have to make sure they don’t start the answer without knowing what to fill in the spaces with, as that might give the game away! (Example: “President Obama has destroyed America by, um, what are we talking about again?”)

College Football Team Animal Names

There are a lot of schools with scary-sounding predator names, like Lions and Tigers and Bears (Oh my!), but if it really came down to it, you’d scrap with one of those for your life, right? Sure, you might lose, but you’d go down swinging or try to run away clean. Either way, it’s respectable. But how about naming your college team after something scroungy and gross: some animal nobody would even want to touch, let alone fight!

Yes, there are a few animal names not yet taken, and they might put the heebie-geebies into your opponents before they even hit the field! So why not use such a name? What do I mean? How about the Rabid Raccoons, the Ravenous Rats, the Slimy Cockroaches, the West-Nile-Virus-Infected Mosquitoes, the Squishy Silverfish, the Vile Vermin, the Chiggers, the Lice, the Tapeworms, the Viruses, the Flesh-Eating Bacteria, etc. Your rivals might not want to have to tackle one of those, so you just might win the game!

Atlas Shrugged

There’s been a lot of to-do over the movie version of Atlas Shrugged. The right wanted it to be great. The left wanted it to be awful. Apparently, the lefties won this round. And to top it all off, the blurb on the DVD said it was about self-sacrifice! Hee hee.

But this was just Part 1! Surely Part 2 will be awesome! (Especially since they're not making it.) But what I don’t understand is how they couldn’t have fit it all in one 90-minute movie! It may be a thick novel, but the Cliff’s Notes are a lot thinner I’ll bet, and they should have based the movie on them. After all, how complicated do you have to make it when the point is that when business leaders and experts all quit due to government interference, the world stops functioning and everyone has to crawl on their hands and knees to beg them to come back. Or were they afraid we’d think about the recent Wall Street meltdown caused by business leaders and experts and laugh ourselves silly?

Hey, I have an idea of how they could make Atlas Shrugged as a 30-second cartoon: Atlas is holding the Earth up on his back, and some kid comes walking down the street and asks him what time it is. So Atlas shrugs. Then the kid says: “You’ve got a watch on, don’t you? It’s on your wrist there!” So Atlas pulls his wrist down to look, and the Earth comes falling off his back and goes rolling down the street. So Atlas goes running after it, yelling: “You damn kid! I’ll get you!” And the kid guffaws his way home. The End.

I heard that’s better than the movie.

Anyway, here’s the story about the silly DVD cover mix-up:

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/atlas-shrugged-film-producers-replacing-100-000-dvd-213051848.html

Starship Captain’s Choice

Friskies cat food makes a flavor called “Sea Captain’s Choice”. That got me thinking that they could probably corner the market on Star Trek nerds’ cat food needs by having a flavor called “Starship Captain’s Choice”. It could say it’s made from Ferengi fish and Romulan rats and stuff. Yum yummy!

Then they could have ads showing a Federation starship captain fighting these alien beasts to the death before they’re made into cat food. And of course, they should have a cat in a Star Trek uniform on the can!

Ford Press Conference Ads

Ford made a big splash with conservative groups when they ran an ad a couple months ago where some guy said he bought his Ford because he didn’t want to buy a car from a company that was bailed out by the government. Then apparently liberal groups got mad, and Ford pulled the ad, claiming it had run its course anyway, and then they replaced it with another and then another press conference interview ad, where they say other stuff about why they bought the cars. These are boring. What would have been fun is if they had said it was just a coincidence that the first ad had a guy who didn’t like the bailouts, and that more ads were coming; but when they showed the new ads, each one was more and more anti-Obama in tone, and then each time they could say that they didn’t know it would seem like that, and that the people were just being honest, etc. That would be so funny!

So the second ad could have had some lady say she bought her Ford because she “didn’t want no pansy-assed electric Commie car, like that Socialist activist president wants to force us to drive!” Then the next ad could be a Larry the Cable Guy look-alike guy who says: “I bought a Ford ‘cause I wasn’t gonna waste my hard-earned money on a company that supports a secret Muslim who’s tryin’ to overthrow our country!” And then they could have some lady with a “Forget, Hell!” hat with a Confederate soldier on it say: “I bought a Ford because they didn’t take no bribe money from that Kenyan interloper who’s pretending to be our president!” And then whenever anyone complained about it, Ford could just say that they didn’t know they’d say that, and they were just showing random Americans expressing their honest opinions, and why didn’t they like the First Amendment, etc. That would be a hoot! And I’ll bet they’d sell a lot of cars to Tea Party types too! But they could kiss everyone else goodbye, I’ll bet.

But apparently the White House complained to Ford about that first anti-bailout ad (They deny it, but I’m assuming they’re lying. They are politicians, after all.), and that’s when they changed the ad. But if the White House had leaned on Ford about the ad, it would have been a perfect revenge to cherry-pick extreme conservatives for the following ads, and then just to make a public apology saying they were sorry about them, but it’s not their fault if everyone disagrees with the direction the country’s taken. We rarely see stuff like that happen, so it would have been hilarious! But I’ll bet they’d find that Ford had a whole new set of gas-mileage standards to meet if they did it!

(BTW: This isn't a political statement: I just think it would have been hilarious if they had done that with the Ford ads. Personally, I’m glad they saved the auto industry, but I understand the criticism of bailing out failing institutions too. I just think it’s more the economy at the moment, and that the auto companies were heading in the right direction when the crash occurred.)

Here’s that Ford ad with the anti-bailout guy:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qg5eSM5cJdU