The Couch Potato Report – November 30th, 2013
Instead of movies, this week we’ll focus on performances, and we’ll start on the ice in the National Hockey League with the one and only Don Cherry.
It’s been twenty-five years since Don started to issue his yearly look back at the best of the game, from his point of view, and just as numbers 1 through 24 have DON CHERRY’s ROCK EM SOCK EM 25 features the best plays, goals, saves, bloopers, hits and fights from the 2012-2013 NHL Season, as well as highlights from Coach’s Corner – as seen on CBC Television’s Hockey Night in Canada.
Plus, as has become the tradition over the past few years, DON CHERRY ROCK EM SOCK EM 25 is also a look back at last season’s Stanley Cup Playoffs.
ROCK EM SOCK EM 25 delivers exactly what Don Cherry has been giving us for two and a half decades now, and I enjoyed it, as much as I did the first 24.
Happy Anniversary Don!!
It has been twenty-five years for Don, it has been over fifty years since the world first met a young stand-up comedian from Philadelphia named Bill Cosby, and in 2013 he is far from finished.
FAR FROM FINISHED is a brand new release from the legendary comedian and entertainer and it is his first comedy special in 30 years.
Some of the topics Mr. Cosby talks about are friendship, first love, marriage and raising children and they will have you laughing out loud.
I can’t remember a time in my life when I wasn’t laughing with – and even at – Bill Cosby. I’m glad that he is FAR FROM FINISHED and I can easily – and happily – recommend this new release.
This next film features some great car crashes, car chases and cars, but GETAWAY doesn’t really feature much else.
GETAWAY stars Ethan Hawke from REALITY BITES and THE PURGE as a former race-car driver who is forced to drive fast through the streets of a busy city at the urging of a mysterious villain who has kidnapped his wife.
If he doesn’t steal a young woman’s car and do what the man tells him, he’ll never see his wife again.
Pop tart Selena Gomez plays the young woman, and at one plot point she gets in the car as well.
GETAWAY features few surprises, stiff acting, bad dialogue, and little to no chemistry between the lead actors. But what it does have is great stunts and crashes and scenes of a car demolishing a city. That stuff is cool!!
That stuff, however, is not enough to make me recommend GETAWAY. No, it’s never awful, but it’s far from worthy of your time.
There used to be all sorts of raunchy teen comedies. Movies like PORKY’S, MEATBALLS, REVENGE OF THE NERDS, CADDYSHACK, and FAST TIMES AT RIDGEMONT HIGH. Of late, we’ve really only had the AMERICAN PIE films, and a few others. I like raunchy teen comedies, I miss raunchy teen comedies.
So I was excited to sit down this week to watch THE TO DO LIST, a raunchy teen comedy starring the fun and interesting Aubrey Plaza from TV’s Parks & Recreation as a bookworm teenager who decides that she needs to gain more experience with men during the summer before she goes off to college.
So she creates a to do list of the things she needs to accomplish. A naughty to do list, which she creates with the help of her learned older sister.
Unfortunately there really isn’t anything all that original in THE TO DO LIST, but the cast manages to save it…a cast that also includes Bill Hader from SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE, Alia Shawkat of ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT and Christopher Mintz-Plasse, McLovin’ from SUPERBAD.
I never loved THE TO DO LIST, but I still love the genre and the cast helped make it a pretty good flick, so I guess I liked it enough to mildly recommend it.
The final performance film I have for you features the Pre-Fab Four, The Rutles, Stig, Nasty, Dirk & Barry, and if you think their story mirrors The Beatles’, well that’s because it was created to do just that.
The fictional band The Rutles first appeared in 1975 as a sketch on former Monty Python member Eric Idle’s BBC television series Rutland Weekend Television.
The sketch came about when musician Neil Innes conceived a parody of The Beatles film A Hard Day’s Night, after writing “I Must Be In Love” which he thought sounded very “Beatley”.
Their idea lead to several appearances on Saturday Night Live and – in 1978 – the full-length movie ALL YOU NEED IS CASH.
Yes, THE RUTLES lovingly parodies the rise and dissolution of The Beatles, and it does that in a very funny way. It also does it with the help of Canadian Dan Aykroyd, John Belushi, Bill Murray, The Beatles George Harrison himself, Monty Python’s Michael Palin, and Mick Jagger.
The brand new blu-ray THE RUTLES ANTHOLOGY features not just the classic 1978 film ALL YOU NEED IS CASH, but also its 2002 sequel CAN’T BUY ME LUNCH. That sequel mixes old footage from the seventies along with modern day interviews with stars like Tom Hanks pretending to be huge fans.
The blu-ray also features a brand new interview slash commentary with Eric Idle.
I love The Rutles! The films are fab, the music fun, and I never fail to be entertained by them. This new blu-ray has their whole history in one digitally restored package that looks and sounds great.
If you’ve never seen it, you should see it!! This is great stuff!!
The spectacular Beatles parody THE RUTLES ANTHOLOGY; the not overly original but fun at times raunchy teen comedy THE TO DO LIST; the not awful but never great action flick GETAWAY; the hilarious BILL COSBY comedy special FAR FROM FINISHED; and DON CHERRY’s ROCK EM SOCK EM 25 are all available now, either on disc or on demand.
And that’s this week’s COUCH POTATO REPORT.
Enjoy the performances and I’ll see you back here again next time on The Couch!