The Couch Potato Report - July 28th, 2007
This week The Couch Potato Report peels a number and an underdog, plus we see Iraq…in fragments.
If there is a number that corresponds to someone or something meaningful in your life, you probably see it everywhere.
For instance...that number for me is 333.
In the early nineties I worked at a music store that was located at 333 Yonge Street and to this day I see that number everywhere - on licence plates, buildings, t-shirts...and I even somehow always seem to look at the clock at 3:33, both am and pm.
Luckily the number doesn't haunt me, follow me around, or show up right before bad things are going to happen...like the number 23 does to Jim Carrey in the film THE NUMBER 23.
And that number does haunt him in the film.
In this film Carrey plays a man named Walter Sparrow. Even though he might get bored with his life from time to time, he is a character who seems happy with his normal life with his wife and son.
And then...one night while she is waiting for him...his wife introduces him to a book called "The Number 23".
As he reads the book, he notices eerie resemblances to his own life, including similarities to his own family, and he becomes obsessed with the number 23.
As Carrey reads along, he goes deeper and deeper into madness as he thinks that he must solve a murder which can only be done by unlocking the secrets of the book.
THE NUMBER 23 is a film that has many interesting moments - specifically when it shows us how often the number 23 comes up in everyday life - but ultimately it just isn't worth your time.
The great Canadian Jim Carrey once again stars from the LIAR LIAR, BRUCE ALMIGHTY and ACE VENTURA comedic roles we all love him in to play the serious lead in the film.
And while his serious work in ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND and THE TRUMAN SHOW was superb, in THE NUMBER 23 he is just the wrong man for the job.
His performance isn't awful...but he just isn't believeable as this character.
THE NUMBER 23 isn't a complete waste of your time...but it is very, very close.
I also fear that a film opening in theatres on August 3rd will also be very, very close to being a waste of our time...but I remain optimistic.
That film?...a live action version of the classic cartoon - UNDERDOG!
Underdog was a cartoon that began in 1964 and ran throughout the seventies on Saturday mornings.
The premise is that the "humble and lovable" Shoeshine Boy is in truth the superhero Underdog, who ducks into a telephone booth when he needs to be transformed into the caped and costumed hero, not unlike a certain super man.
In THE UNDERDOG SHOW there is a great hero, plenty of nasty villains, and it is always engaging to the ear as Underdog almost always speaks in rhymes.
If you even needed to find me at this time on a Saturday morning, thirty-some-odd years ago, you could just look in front of the TV because that is where I was - with my bowl of cereal - enjoying UNDERDOG.
And now the classic cartoon UNDERDOG returns to DVD, in advance of the impending theatrical film, with three new releases...Volumes One, Two and Three of THE CLASSIC UNDERDOG COLLECTION!!
The difference between these UNDERDOG releases and some of the other ones that have come out over the years is the fact that these DVDs have the complete Underdog stories, AND the cartoon shorts that originally aired with them.
Yes, Tennessee Tuxedo, Klondike Kat, Go Go Gophers and The World of Commander McBragg and all of the other characters are all here too!!
It might be thirty-some-odd years since I first saw Underdog on TV...but I had a wonderful time watching the THE CLASSIC UNDERDOG COLLECTION this past week.
I even had a bowl of cereal...or two.
Good times, good memories, good good good!
Here's hoping the live-action theatrical movie - which I will see - is half as good!
Okay, finally this week, our FOREIGN FILM FESTIVAL ON DVD continues.
This summer, while the big summer blockbusters roll out in theatres, I am telling you about at least one foreign film each week, in case you'd like something less commercial to watch.
And there is nothing commercial about the documentary IRAQ IN FRAGMENTS.
This film introduces us to three different individuals - and the people around them - and it shows how their lives are now, after the fall of Saddam Hussein.
Many of them can't understand why things aren't any better, and some of them would even prefer to have things the way they were.
The thing that IRAQ IN FRAGMENTS does best is provide us a rare glimpse into the lives of ordinary Iraqis.
The people we meet talk at length about school, work, their families, their hobbies, and much more.
While some people might find the amount of details and stories irrelevant, I was engaged from start to finish during this 94 minute film.
IRAQ IN FRAGMENTS is filled with unique faces and places, and for the first time we get to see extended stories about how the youth in Iraq is dealing with life there.
It is an exceptionally interesting documentary and this week's title in our FOREIGN FILM FESTIVAL ON DVD.
IRAQ IN FRAGMENTS, Volumes One to Three of the always entertaining CLASSIC UNDERDOG COLLECTION, and Canadian JIm Carrey's new film THE NUMBER 23 are all available now on DVD.
Coming up on the next Couch Potato Report
JEAN-PHILIPPE is one of the best films I have seen this year, it is about Fabrice, a man who has to coinvince his favourite singer, a man who is running a bowling alley, that he is - in reality - a music superstar.
Also next week, I will talk about the hilarious British movie HOT FUZZ, from the makers of SHAUN OF THE DEAD; the epic action film 300 - based on Frank Miller's graphic novel; the classic MOTHRA VS. GODZILLA; and our FOREIGN FILM FESTIVAL ON DVD continues with the animated action film RENAISSANCE from France.
I'm Dan Reynish. I'll have more on those, and some other releases, in seven days.
For now, that's this week's COUCH POTATO REPORT.
Enjoy the movies and I'll see you back here next time on The Couch!
Sex Pistols' first album, classic singles to be rereleased
Virgin Records plans to mark the 30th anniversary of The Sex Pistols' Never Mind the Bollocks…Here's the Sex Pistols with a rerelease of the album and their four classic singles.
The British band helped shape the punk scene of the late 1970s with their then-shocking songs about anarchy, violence and apathy.
Both the album and their classic singles — Anarchy in the U.K., God Save the Queen, Pretty Vacant and Holidays in the Sun — will be rereleased on seven-inch vinyl.
The paper sleeves will have reproductions of Jamie Reid's original artwork and the album will include the same poster issued with the original Never Mind the Bollocks in 1977.
Never Mind the Bollocks will include Submission, a track left off the original album when it was mistakenly released a week earlier than planned.
God Save the Queen, with John Lydon, who would later perform under the name Johnny Rotten, on vocals, was banned by the BBC.
The band broke up after only two years.
The singles will be released throughout October and Never Mind the Bollocks on Oct. 29.
Fall Out Boy Keeping New Songs To Themselves
Though its latest album, "Infinity on High," is barely six months old, Fall Out Boy is already sitting on a batch of new songs. "I've got a bunch of songs written, but I think I'm going to wait a while before we release it, because I'm still really proud of this record and I want to kind of give it some space," lead singer Patrick Stump told Billboard.com yesterday (July 26) at a New York luncheon honoring industry legend Clive Davis.
Stump says Fall Out Boy will continue to push the envelope with its sound, a pursuit inspired by comments made by Green Day's Billie Joe Armstrong years ago.
"He [said he] didn't want to play four-chord punk rock for the rest of his life," Stump recalls. "If anybody knows anything about punk rock more than Billie Joe from Green Day, I don't know who it is. So I looked at that and their growth, and I think about how honest that is. They're really just true to what they are, and so that's how we are. I think we'll change stylistically, but at the end of the day, that's just something you wear. You're still yourself."
Fall Out Boy just returned from playing its first show in South Africa, where it also shot a video for the new single "I'm Like a Lawyer With the Way I'm Always Trying To Get You Off (Me & You)." In addition, Stump is producing the new album from Cobra Starship before Fall Out Boy returns to the road for shows in Mexico, Japan, the United Kingdom and Russia.
"These are all our friends and that's why we do it," Stump says of collaborations with Cobra Starship and Gym Class Heroes. "There have definitely been opportunities for the [band's Fueled by Ramen] label to take on really big bands, but in general the cadence has been built on our friends."
Nimoy to reprise Spock role in Trek film!!
SAN DIEGO - Leonard Nimoy isn't through with Spock yet. The 76-year-old actor will don his famous pointy ears again to play the role in an upcoming "Star Trek" film due out Christmas 2008.
"This is really going to be a great movie. And I don't say things like that lightly," Nimoy told a gathering of 6,500 fans Thursday at Comic-Con, the nation's largest pop-culture convention.
He greeted the crowd with a Vulcan salute.
Nimoy was joined by the newly named young Spock, "Heroes" star Zachary Quinto, who bears an uncanny resemblance to Nimoy.
Both Spocks were introduced by the film's director and co-producer, J.J. Abrams.
"This is a series I loved as a kid," Abrams said, acknowledging that he was "more of a 'Star Wars' kid than a 'Star Trek' kid."
"This matters so much to so many people," he said. "I'm honored to be here and do this."
While the character of Captain Kirk has yet to be cast, Abrams said that William Shatner, who played the role in the original TV series, would likely also have a part in the film.
"It has to be worthy, of him and of you," Abrams told fans, adding that production is slated to begin in November.
One fan asked Nimoy what he thought of his "replacement."
"It was logical," the actor said dryly. He then closed with Spock's classic line: "Live long and prosper."