Social Friday: It's a free for all! (Updates today)
Posted Friday, June 5, 2009 at 9:17 AM Central
by John Couture
In the immortal (?) words of Ted Nugent, it's a "free-for-all" sort of day which is really code for I've been sick all week and I'm not really feeling creative enough to muster a specific topic to guide today's Social Friday.
But, I'm here (for now) and I'm going to do my best to answer your questions and inquiries before this bug gets the best of me. I just hope that I didn't get the swine flu last week when I was out for a hockey tournament.
Judging from the pulse of the feedback, that we've gotten this week, we could continue to talk about my decades piece from last week. It seems that there are two distinct camps. One that feels that I completely hit the nail on the head with this decade's lackluster performance and another group who thinks that I'm being too hard on the 2000s.
I will say this, I agree that the test of time will reveal the truth. It is hard to be judgmental when we are still so close, but at the same time, when you have a stinker, it's hard not to notice, right?
Update #1
Hey guys! Just thought I would comment on something I've noticed. Whether you love, hate, or don't give a shit about Will Ferrell, you have to give the man credit. He gets out and helps promote his movies more than anyone else in hollywood. I saw an ad for him on some sort of nature show (Man vs Nature, I think), and it looked like he had it pretty rough. You know you're working hard when you're trying to target the Discovery channel crowd. That being said, I think the movie to see this weekend looks like The Hangover. Ironically, it was Todd Phillips, the director of Old School, who really helped propel Ferrell to the status he's at today. I hope The Hangover is more like Road Trip and gets the director back to his winning, raunchy ways. Anyway, I'll end this rambling post with a have a good weekend guys. Hope you feel better. Oink, oink! PS - I really hope you guys do decide to make one of the Social Friday's topics about the ratings system, because I'm very curious if there are others out there as fed up with it as I am.
--Eric from Gardner, KS
Hey Eric, thanks, I hope the swine leaves me alone soon enough. In the meantime, I will agree with you. I was a little slow to come around on Will Ferrell. I thought he was great in small doses on SNL, but it took me a long time to appreciate his comedy style on the big screen.
And the best thing he has going for him is his own self-promotion. Even this week's on Conan's opening night on the Tonight Show, his grand entrance upstaged Conan's own coming through the curtain moment. That takes some big brass cajones to pull off.
As for the ratings system, I know that we've skirted the issue from time to time in various articles, but I wouldn't be surprised to see it be a focus in the Social Friday (perhaps even a live version) soon.
Update #2
i miss when the vma's was actually good this year & last were ok but the last couple of years before sucked. what happened to having several kick-ass rock bands playing instead of getting a bunch of rappers. as for what film got the awards i think it was absurd that twilight won so many. it's an ok movie but it was never that good! i remember how much they hyped the movie up & then it came out what a disappointment. the trailers played up the one fight in the whole movie & it didn't even last 5 full minutes. i would complain more about how they decide who wins but its totally fan based so that means we the fans dropped the ball. it's clear that all the teenage fan girls of twilight put it ahead of all the others despite the fact that we all know movies such as the Dark Knight were far more deserving. i couldn't believe that they gave best fight to twilight which was the shortest lived movie fight i can remember. all in all this years vma's was yet another let down by mtv. i ! don't mind that they use the vma's as a platform for summer movies i like seeing special clips from Transformers 2, & the new Harry Potter. as for the clip from the 2nd twilight well it looks like maybe it might have more meat to it but it will probably turn out that the only meat the new one gained is on the male performers. obviously the next time twilight is up in the vma's we will all need to vote more to prevent this from happening again.
--Joshua from Oxford, GA
I miss when MTV actually played, you know, music videos.
*sigh*
I actually haven't seen the last few VMAs simply because they are nothing more than shameless plugs for crappy Summer releases. The "awards" are hardly even worth mentioning when they are so skewed for the almighty dollar.
Update #3
Sorry your feeling sick my man. The only thing I can tell you is to do the opposite of what the illness is. Since you have a cold, make yourself hot. Put on sweats if you've got them, wrap yourself up in a warm blanket, and make yourself some hot soup, especially chicken noodle. The heat will help to kill any viruses and germs while the broth in the soup contains many good nutrients to supplement your immune system. Rest is good as well because it allows your immune system to kick into overdrive and really work on the bacteria. But anyway, I wholeheartedly aggre with your decade column. They are just getting lazy or running out of ideas it seems... Finding any character or old movie/story that they can get their hands on and remaking it in the hopes of getting people into the theatre if for nothing else but to see if they screwed it up. (Which most of the time they do). But we STILL go see them in the hope of finding those few movies that were actually made properly having t! ime and thought put into them instead of churning out tons of movies every week and filling them with swearing, sex, and drugs and calling it a great movie.
--Matt from Broken Arrow, OK
What? No sex and swearing in movies? I know I'm sick, but I couldn't have read that right.
Sorry, I forgot to elaborate on the fact of swearing, sex, and drugs. I didn't mean to say that they shouldn't be in movies. That's just our society today, we can't avoid it. I ment to imply that movies shouldn't be about nothing but that. I don't care about watching a movie in which everyone is high on something all the time, while chasing after women, and swearing every other word. Again don't get me wrong, i love R movies, but the OLD R movies when it had that stuff in therein smaller amounts, and wasn't the foucus of every scene!
Oh, ok. Thanks for the clarification. Yeah, isn't that what porn is for? We don't it completely in mainstream movies, but I also think that if it's integral to the plot or important to the movie, it needs to be in there.
I hate when movies skirt the de-skirting to grab a PG-13. Yes, I'm talking to you Terminator Salvation! Is it just me or do you think that one would've had a bigger box office had it been rated R?
Update #4
Sorry you're sick. Hope you get to feeling better. Remember, there's no better cure for your ills than chicken broth, seven up, and your favorite movie. (In your case, it's probably Clerks or Mallrats.) Works for me everytime.I've spent the week revisiting my favorite cinema decade the 80s in a marathon that included Footloose, Porky's, Heathers, Dirty Dancing, Die Hard, and A Nightmare on Elm Street. My only wish is that I was alive for more of the decade so I could see these in their original releases.
Now for a complete change of topic, I'd also like to see a SF dedicated to the rating system. Ever since I saw the fantastic documentary This Film is Not Yet Rated, I've had problems with how movies are rated.
--Shane from NC
Thanks man, it's a constant battle of drainage, but that's probably TMI.
I actually thought a little Kevin Smith marathon would do me good and I might have to start with Clerks tonight and see how far I can get this weekend.
You know it's weird, while I was alive for the entirety of the '80s, I was between 6 and 16 years old during this time period and I remember watching many of these movies on this new thing at the time called cable and HBO. I grew up quick watching a lot of late night HBO and Cinemax.