Not only did Brian and Chris score a chance to sit down and talk with the legendary actor Ron Perlman, but we even got to do it as a generalized look at his work and career (as opposed to ANOTHER one of those same ol’-same ol’ q&a sessions about his new film).
We can’t tell you how excited we are to bring you this chat and we really hope you enjoy listening to it as much as we did recording it.
HOLY FREAKING SHIT, RON MFing PERLMAN!
Be sure to check out his new film 13 Sins coming soon
Last week’s Monday Night Raw featured a guest spot by Need for Speed and Breaking Bad star Aaron Paul. In the past, these guest spots have been extreme hits or misses. But this one was short and sweet, showing Paul drive Dolph Ziggler to the ring in a Shelby Mustang, getting a huge pop from the crowd. Not only does this further Paul’s Need for Speed push, but works as a diss to Ziggler’s opponent, Alberto Del Rio, who used to drive to the entrance ramp in badass automobiles. Paul stuck around for commentary and had decent chemistry with Jerry Lawler, Michael Cole and JBL. If this and the Betty White guest spot from a few weeks ago are any proof, WWE’s creative wing has finally cracked the formula with how to make these celebrity appearances work.
Now, at the height of the Raw guest appearance shtick (2009-10), these episodes were either pure gold, or a poo-poo panini. Here are some of their best and worst attempts at this.
Bret Hart (thumbs up): This one might seem a bit unfair, as a former superstar knows exactly how to work the crowd. But this being the first time Bret confronted Shawn Michaels or Vince McMahon on live television (since the Montreal screw job at Survivor Series ’97), this made for a memorable night. More than a few people got misty eyed seeing the Hitman and the Heartbreak Kid hug and squash beef. Sgt. Slaughter (thumbs down): Once again, a former superstar knows exactly how to work the crowd…or they should. Slaughter’s random heel-turn and attempts at inciting the Canadian fans in attendance came off as not as vile or even smarmy, but just plain sad. There’s only one longstanding babyface that can cross the border into Canada and instantly become a heel, and I already mentioned HBK.
Shaquille O’Neil (thumbs up): When getting a mega star from another sport to guest host Raw, it helps if that star is a lifelong wrestling fan. Shaq had charisma, he didn’t feel awkward interacting with the WWE superstars, not to mention seeing him and Big Show at a standoff trying to choke slam each other was worth the price of admission. JTG and Shad Gaspard of Cryme Tyme should thank Shaq for the humongous pop they got that night and subsequent push because of it.
Rev. Al Sharpton (thumbs down): This was just ill-conceived from the start. I can only assume Vince McMahon was looking for controversy. But Rev. Sharpton was so stiff, dry and uncharismatic, he seemed to be purposely turning his personality down to a 1 to not incense the masses.
William Shatner (thumbs way up): Because it’s Bill Shatner, that’s why.
Jeremy Piven/Ken Jeong (thumbs way down): This was one of Raw’s first guest host episodes. It also was one of, if not, the worst of all of Raw’s guest spots. What makes it disheartening is that I like both actors. But from their dominating nearly every segment, to the painfully bad Doctor Ken segment to Piven’s screw up of names (SummerFest), it is a wonder that they kept going with the guest host gimmick after this abomination.
What are your picks for the best and worst of Raw’s guest hosts? Share them in the comments!
It’s Sunday, so that means we’re off to The Strip Club! No, no, leave your money where it is. We’re not going to pay scantily-clad individuals to pretend to like us for 10 minute intervals. That’s what we do on Tuesdays.
This Strip Club is One of Us’ weekly feature in which we feature comic strips submitted by our friends and fans. Check out this week’s submissions and start your week off the right way.
by Jordan Schwager
by Zach Martin
By Joshua Marchant
We’d love for you to start submitting comics for our Sunday “Strip Club” feature. If you’re interested, please contact us at oneofusnet@gmail.com.
What a night it was. The elegance, the pageantry, the prestige. The honoring of the very best that the last year in cinema had to offer; of the artists who reached deep within themselves and created brilliant filmic experiences.
And we…ruined…everything.
If you were able to listen live, then you already know how silly things got. There were beers consumed, listener questions answered, and Brian sounded like he caught streptococcal while making out with Tom Waits. Still, far be it from us to deprive those few of you who weren’t able to listen to the debauchery as it was unfolding.
Join Brian, Chris, Beau, Elliott, and Courtney as they walk you through the ceremony with uncomfortable zeal. We weigh in on the wins, crack our signature wise, and play a few rounds of Oscar-Themed Cards Against Humanity!
Listen to/download the broadcast recording and feel free to play another game as you do. It’s called “Find The Moment Where The Audio Totally Crapped Out For Five Minutes!”
I am a lifelong fan of comics and I have been reading them for well over twenty years now. While I have great love and respect for both of the “Big Two” and enjoy comics from each, deep down in my heart of hearts you’ll find the words “Make Mine Marvel.” I only point this out so that you know that the following is coming from a deep and loving fan.
You are kicking all kinds of ass right now. You have the successful movies, the whole “Marvel NOW” thing has went over very well, you have exciting new characters like the new Ms. Marvel, Kamala Khan, and hell, you’ve actually made me interested in Moon Knight! Aside from your continual mangling of a beloved wall-crawler I have almost no beef with you…
Almost.
You see, back when the Mouse bought you up we all knew it was only a matter of time before BOOM! would no longer have the right to make comics of the various Disney properties. I was sad to see BOOM! loose these rights considering what a good job they were doing. They really seemed to care about the characters and they had even answered my boyhood prayers and brought back Darkwing Duck.
If this one panel doesn’t prove how cool Darkwing’s comic was, nothing will!
I was sad, but I was also highly optimistic. I was super excited to see what the “House of Ideas” would do with these fantastic properties. Imagine my disappointment when I discovered the answer was “jack squat.”
Some YEARS later it was announced that they were making an HD version of the NES classic Ducktales. Ducktales Remastered had the internet explode in nostalgia not only for the game, but for the show that it was based on, which was in fact based on the Disney Duck comics of Carl Barks and others. People were once again excited about Uncle Scrooge, and I thought being the clever publisher that you are, Marvel, you would announce some new line of Disney Ducks comics. All I got from you was resounding silence yet again.
All the excitement over this wasn’t a hint?!
Right now the only comics company out there doing anything with the Disney Ducks is Fantagraphics, who have been putting out very nice collections of Carl Barks’ books and also Don Rosa’s classic works. I am super happy that Disney is letting this happen and I pick up each new collection as they are released, but they alone are not good enough. A collection is solely a look into the past. What I want is something to build the Disney Ducks’ comic future. That future is your business, Marvel, and you have been slacking.
Now I understand that perhaps the sales projections for giving the Ducks each their own monthly book is below what both you and Disney would accept, but who says it had to be a monthly? You could put out the books quarterly. That way it wouldn’t have to be a major investment on your part. Let me take this on step further. You are starting to put out 100+ page hardcover one shots for some characters and teams. How about doing one of these a year for Uncle Scrooge, Donald, Darkwing, and throw in Mickey Mouse as well so you have something for all four quarters? You would have an entire year to collect stories to fill out each, pulling from the entire Marvel Bullpen and perhaps some indie creators as well to create some of the best stories in these characters’ histories.
Marvel, you have been sitting on your hands instead of doing something with these internationally known and beloved characters. These are characters whose role in comics is one of the most celebrated and legendary in the entire medium. You not only owe it to us, the fans, to do something with these properties, you owe it to yourself. You owe it to the integrity and prestige of the name, Marvel Comics. So get with it Marvel, we’re waiting on you.
Spoilers. There is no word in the television lexicon that is said with more disdain. People HATE spoilers.
I get it, I do. With my increasing inability to stay up past 10:30 (I’m totally lying, that should be 9:30) I often save 10pm shows for the next day after work. This is fairly easy. I know I’m taking my spoiler-free life into my own hands, and I know I’m going to have to do a little twitter screening. And I also know I may have to put my fingers in my ears and start humming at work for a few minutes while everyone talks about it. I’m ok with that, I’d rather be well rested.
But how long can a person do that? With DVR (and Netflix, etc.) people are saving entire seasons of shows to marathon at their convenience. It’s great, I do it too. But I also have reasonable expectations about my ability to make it months on end without finding out what happens. Other people, not so much. Don’t get pissed at me if I casually mention something that happened months ago on a show that everyone watches. I can’t possibly know that you’re refusing to watch the last season of Breaking Bad until roughly 2017.
This may or may not be based on specific recent events in my life. If it happened, I would tell the alleged victim that I wasn’t talking to you, maybe you shouldn’t listen in on other people’s conversations. I will neither confirm nor deny that I got yelled at for 15 minutes about this.
I’m sure most of you have seen the spoiler scene from Portlandia. It hilariously depicts a dinner party where no TV conversation is safe. We’ve all been there. With so many quality TV options now, we’re all always in different places on different shows, and sometimes it leaves us with absolutely no safe topics. These conversations usually include at least one instance of “this isn’t really a spoiler, but…” which for the record is ALWAYS a spoiler. This is why when forced to make TV small talk I stick to Spartacus. No one else watched it. No one ever will apparently, despite my best efforts. So I can bore you for hours talking about a show you don’t care about at all. Maybe everyone should be required to have a spoiler-proof show ready? (Side note on Spartacus, it still cracks me up how pissed some fans were at the way the show ended. Apparently avoiding spoilers was so important to them that they refused to learn actual history. That’s dedication!)
Never let the truth get in the way of a somewhat popular TV series.
I will try my hardest to never spoil anything here, because as I’ve said, I’m sensitive to your plight. I think we just need to try a little harder to make sure we’re reasonable in our expectations. We don’t live in caves. Twitter tells us everything immediately. So if you make the ridiculous choice to wait six months to catch up on something like American Idol, you’re probably going to find out who won.
Maybe that’s a bad example, do people even still watch American Idol? I have no idea.
All that aside, there is one kind of spoiler still that drives me absolutely bonkers. Since we live in a world now where SO MUCH information is at our fingertips all the time, we are bound to end up with information we don’t want on occasion. A show I really enjoy was recently renewed for a second season before the end of the first. This was fantastic news because it was no guarantee and I’m looking forward to more. But in the same announcement they announced the promotion of several recurring characters to series regulars, taking away any uncertainty about the future of those characters and relationships. With a couple of episodes left to air, I was a little disappointed to know what direction those storylines were headed in.
In this particular case it wasn’t that big of a deal, but it’s happening more and more. We hear an actor’s contract wasn’t renewed so we can be pretty sure his character will bite the dust in the season finale. We see that an actress has signed on for another major series so we know her character isn’t going to survive that car accident in the previews. I know it’s silly, and I know it’s just TV, but I like to dive into that world where I can pretend it’s real for an hour. Knowing that an actor has already signed on for another season sort of takes away the suspense of a cliffhanger.
I think what I’ve learned from this spoiler-crazy world we live in now is to truly appreciate it when I have no idea what is coming. True Detective ends this Sunday and I feel like ANYTHING could happen. That’s pretty freaking awesome!
What are your spoiler pet peeves? I know you have them!
Mr. Peabody is a dog. Mr. Peabody is a time traveler. Mr. Peabody has a human son. I’m betting drugs were involved when the creators of Rocky and Bullwinkle came up with Mr. Peabody and Sherman in the 60’s as an accompanying short to their show.
Flash to decades later and here we are, a dark dystopian future where no brand is safe from a family friendly re-imagining and the dark lord Dreamworks has hatched a nefarious plan to hoist upon the planet’s unsuspecting populace a new evil, from the past, reshaped into the monster that is…Mr. Peabody and Sherman.
Or, alternately, it might actually be really cool. Only Ashley, Beau and Chris know for sure. Better find out before this whole time-space continuum gets all wibbly-wobbly.
Welcome back to “I’m All Out Of Love”, in which I take a pop culture subject (film series, director, actor, television show, etc) and dissect how my ‘love’ of them from early on slowly dwindled and what my current stance on them is.
I was never a goth kid when I was younger. I never powdered my face with white makeup, listened to The Cure on a regular basis. or had the poofy black hair. I apologize for the broad generalizations, but I have a point. By most colloquial standards, I was not part of what the general public would assume a “goth kid” would be. Yet, I would say the young bright-eyed and bushy-tailed Tommy Mariani fit one familiar and probably not accurate stereotype of the subculture: he loved the shit out of Tim Burton movies.
As a kid, Tim Burton was everything a young film-lover could ask for: his movies were bizarre, he had an eye for visuals, and his stories always had us rooting for the loner misunderstood outcast who just wanted to fit in with everyone else. Burton was an idol of mine for a little while. I still remember wearing out a VHS tape that had Burton’s episode of Biography on it (the Peter Graves narrated era of Biography mind you, not whatever the hell they did with it later). To my credit, I never came to school with a Nightmare Before Christmas backpack slung over my shoulder. By the point that came into fashion, my obsession for the poofy-haired goofy artist was done… but I’m getting ahead of myself.
The Spark:
“What’s this?”
Pee-Wee Herman was a mainstay of my childhood. Mind you, I was born after the media hoopla surrounding Paul Reubens’ incident in the porn theater happened, so I would gleefully watch Pee-Wee’s charmingly weird antics via reruns and video cassettes of Pee-Wee’s Playhouse. So naturally, my father decided to unveil the film that put Pee-Wee into the public consciousness to me: the incomparable Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure. It was odd, even more so than the TV show was. Sure, the bright colors were there throughout, but there were dark moments in there too, such as the nightmare sequences, creepy lighting in places, the Large Marge scene. It was all unique and somewhat frightening to a kid like me… but I wanted more of it.
From there, Burton’s films from the 80s and 90s became ones I would treasure, but would also grow to appreciate more and more as time went on. Beetlejuice was the first movie to introduce the idea of a horror comedy to me. Before that, I was completely unaware that things I considered scary like ghosts could be played for laughs. Now, horror comedy is probably my favorite sub-genre. Honestly, I think Burton was my gateway to a lot of genre related material. His Batman movies were my introduction to superhero films, Mars Attacks was the first movie I saw with a rather large body count, and Edward Scissorhands was my first exposure to the concept of the Frankenstein-like “creation attempts to survive outside of his creator” story. Hell, his films were even influential to my musical taste. I was introduced to Danny Elfman and Oingo Boingo as a result hearing the beloved composer’s music in Burton’s films. Even as early on as his short films Vincent and Frankenweenie, Burton had the ability to adapt pop culture concepts he had grown up with and give them his own very creative spin, such as old horror movies, gothic architecture or suburbia. And I latched onto it, especially since I felt some resonance with the sort of loner outcast kid that Burton placed in his movies throughout much of my youth.
The Love Affair
“C’mon, Simone, let’s talk about *your* big ‘But’.”
As previously identified by online internet reviewer The Nostalgia Chick, Tim Burton is one of the few auteurs working in Hollywood to have a very subversive style, yet still have movies that gross hundreds of millions of dollars. True, that style would eventually become very mainstream, but at the time, no other person was making weird films like Burton’s before he became a bonafide success, especially when compared to contemporaries of the same era like Robert Zemeckis or Steven Spielberg. Burton has been given carte blanche many times over to take Hollywood’s cold hard cash and make either his grand scale goofy art films or adaptations of previous properties the studio had through his goofy art film aesthetic. As a kid who was partially raised on the works of Zemeckis and Spielberg, Burton’s viewpoint and presentation felt refreshing.
So, Burton is basically the closest thing the Hollywood system has to a multi-million dollar grossing rebel. The best indicators of this, oddly enough, are usually the movies of his that disappointed the studios like the outlandish mesh of political satire, sexual identity crisis and Christopher Walken that is Batman Returns or the big budget Z-grade 90s parody of alien invasion movies that is Mars Attacks. However, the film that really spotlights what Burton attempted to achieve within the studio system yet was fairly underrated at the time was Ed Wood. Wood is not only my favorite Burton film, but one of my favorites films period. It takes this cult icon, known for making horrid below B-movie schlock, and turns him into the ultimate kind of underdog: the one who doesn’t really win. He finds some sort of happiness by the end of the movie, but the overall story is one of a hero who lacks the ability to succeed. Yet, in his own way, he finds contentment by embracing the idea of making art rather than it being perceived as good. Anyone who attempts to take on a creative endeavor can appreciate a naive yet charming attitude like that… though a bit of foul mouthed Bela Lugosi didn’t hurt too much either.
Nothing Lasts Forever
“Hold me.” “I can’t.”
The first Tim Burton film I saw in a theater was Planet of the Apes. Let that sink in for a second; a kid like me who loved pretty much everything Burton-related who was not alive/too young to see most of the director’s earlier films ends up seeing 2001’s Planet of the Apes as his first Burtonized cinematic outing. I can still remember getting to that ending and wondering to myself “… maybe I’m not grown up enough to get this. Maybe I’ll watch this again later and it’ll make more sense.” Oh, how naive I was. No matter how much older I got, the antics of Marky Mark and the Furry Bunch never managed to click with me in any way, even (and especially) after I actually saw the original 1968 film.
But that wouldn’t be the last Burton disappointment. As the 2000s rolled on, Burton releases were largely disappointments. Films like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Corpse Bride, Alice in Wonderland and Dark Shadows felt less like genuine efforts crafted by someone who cared and more like someone giving in to the brand they had become. Corpse Bride in particular was the first point where I started to lose my passion for his work, as it just felt like this bland attempt at recreating The Nightmare Before Christmas, which (contrary to popular belief) he didn’t direct (big ups to Henry Selick). Many have accused Tim Burton of being a style over substance director, but his initial films showed a clear connection with his characters and the issues he was exploring. Yet, his further attempts at replicating his style during the new millennium didn’t seem to have the heart. Themes of non-conformity that were well explored in Edward Scissorhands became tacked on in Alice in Wonderland. The production design that dazzled me in Batman evolved into sets that just bored me in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. The fish-out-of-water humor that made me laugh endlessly in Beetlejuice was warped into something unrecognizably dull in Dark Shadows. Burton turned into a former shadow of his gothic visage in my mind… and while it broke my heart as a kid, I eventually moved on from this disappointment.
Final Thoughts
“Have you ever heard a joke so many times you’ve forgotten why it’s funny? And then you hear it again and suddenly it’s new. You remember why you loved it in the first place.”
Despite waning from the initial perceptions of perfection I had of him, there are signs that the old Tim Burton is still in there somewhere. Big Fish is still probably the best thing he’s done in quite some time, diverging from his usual style to tell a heartfelt and genuinely enchanting fairy tale. I also felt Sweeney Todd was an entertaining take on the Stephen Sondheim musical, in spite of Johnny Depp’s mediocre singing skills. It just felt like a return to his Sleepy Hollow stylelove of Hammer gore and over the top dramatics. I even enjoyed his feature length stretched version of Frankenweenie, which brought back some of his very old school charms. All three had what was centrally missing from most of Burton’s films at the time: a passion for the characters along with the visuals.
After all of the disappointment, I can’t really hate Tim Burton. He’s reached pretty low points in his career, but he’s given a decent amount of solid films along the way. At this point, Burton is more uneven then he was previously. Honestly, I think I’d respect Burton more today if he went for more of the bizarrely uneven films of his from the 90s like Mars Attacks or Batman Returns. Even when those films were taking weird turns that didn’t make sense, at least they were interesting choices that we hadn’t seen with Burton before. His biggest sin at this point is just that he doesn’t take risks like in his older films. That all being said, I’m quite curious about his next film Big Eyes, which is a) written by the same screenwriters behind Ed Wood, b) stars Christophe Waltz, Amy Adams and no one else from Burton’s typical acting pool (not even Helena Bonham Carter or Johnny Depp) and c) a biographical drama about artists in the 1960s, something Burton has never done! Looks like he’s going to be taking risks again… unless he goes full Burton with the Danny Elfman score.
What do you all think of Tim Burton? Are you still swayed by his charms or is he grating on your nerves in glorious striped black and white? Post your thoughts in the comments below!
From the get-go, there are several things you might find highly suspect about 300: Rise of an Empire. Maybe you’re hesitant to approach a sequel to a film nearly a decade after its predecessor was released. Or maybe you believe 300 was so inextricably linked to Zach Snyder’s style that there’s no way it can work under a different director.
Whatever the case, it’s time to unwad your loincloth and let the professional scallywags known as The Unusual Suspects give you the lowdown. They deconstruct this new 300 by the numbers, and all without barbaric war cries or slipping into unnecessary slow motion.
Rattle your swords with delight as Ashley, Beau, Chris, Elliott, and J.C. launch their analytical arrows at this brazenly buff new epic.
The dreaded day has finally arrived; the day that one of the greatest living storytellers hangs up his brushes. Hayao Miyazaki, who brought the world such unforgettable creations as My Neighbor Totoro, Princess Mononoke and Spirited Away has retired. But as a farewell, he has left us with one last parting gift, the historical fable of a young man with dreams of flight, The Wind Rises.
And did I mention he’s designing Japanese fighter planes during WWII?
Okay, so, awkward.
But still, the master speaks and the Unusual Suspects will listen. Now YOU listen and hear what Elliott, Chris, Ashley and Beau have to say about it.
