Yes, unnamed orange font commentator, “Disney has done it again.”
Opening today, which is apparently last week, is Beverly Hills Chihuahuahuahuahua. This is an exciting period we live in. It’s time for a whole new generation of kids to get sick of chihuahua jokes. I never thought I’d get to a point where I was nostalgic for the tasteful subtlety of the Taco Bell dog.
This brings together so many of disney’s favorite things: kidnapped dogs, talking dogs, affluent communities and racial stereotypes which are still socially acceptable to tackily exploit.

It is my personal belief that no terribly intelligent movie has been made in which a dog is kidnapped. Yet Disney has molded pretty much a genre out of that happening. The decision to have them kidnapped into Mexico was no doubt inspired by the unsatisfactory mortality rate when they are kidnapped to cold places.

I imagine some point in the distant future when I will say to my brothers’ grandchildren, “why, I can still remember when there were only seven Air Bud sequels!”
A wise human, the wisest, in fact, once remarked “Talking dog could enslave humanity.” Maybe this is how. I have to think that with every year we, as a species, become less and less valuable as potential slaves due to that which we occupy our time and so develop various strengths and senses with, but it may be enough simply to have us unable to fight back. Ehhh, and yet I am suddenly wondering how the Beverly Hills chihuahuas will return home without use of, as the Airbuddies* wikipedia page puts it, “the uncanny ability to play every sport.” Is it worth nine dollars, what remains of my self-respect and possible tyrannical dominion by wise-crackin’ four legged overlords to find out?

Oh deef, what have I done?

*according to my periodic table of video game elements, the next movie, Earth Buddies, will involve the dogs being kidnapped by mole people, only to be rescued at the end and taken yet further down by Satan, hinting at the inevitable follow up Fire Buddies.


One thing I hate (I’m glad it’s just the one!) about ‘blogs’ is their tendency to, as a collective unit, constantly re-use the same picture while making the exact same commentless acknowledgments of popular news stories and filling up google image search with useless copies. For example, I recently wanted a picture of a rat ear and all I could find were numerous instances of the exact same picture of some poor mutated rodent with a human ear stuck to its back. “Mouse ear” gave the same, despite quite a few actual differences between rats and mice. Most evident here, that “rat ear” does not bring follow up results for stupid Disney World hats. And so I thought a dog ear would do just as well. Specifically from a chihuahua sort of dog, but in all honesty I was worried about turning up pictures related to recent media I may or may not just have complained about. So I searched for “dog ear” and got pictures of fences for some reason. Rage. That makes about as much sense as political commentary from the Scary Movie 4 team.

Oh, are we doing this today? Very well, if I must. I suppose it’s either this or whine about Sarah Palin again, ehhh? That’s good in limited amounts, but It’s like Junior Mints. But fear not: this is slightly less horrible than the last thing I hid under an “aw naw” link. I’m just trying to cut down on bandwidth. Because I use so much.

First of all, this is not, alas of alases, the long awaited film biography of Caroll Spinney, legendary portrayer of Big Bird. The official premise is that film maker Michael Mallone, who all possible materials make a point of pointing out is “a parody of Michael Moore,” even though he looks exactly like Michael Moore and isn’t necessary to identify so specifically, hates America and wants people to stop celebrating Independence Day. And so ghosts of dead people and a couple living people harass him at night because they think film watchers actually take him more seriously than Big Bird.

In the preview, director David Zucker is referred to as the master of movie satire in a quote fragment attributed to himself. I suspect this is supposed to be a joke, but I also suspect he wouldn’t mind if I didn’t catch that and truly believed someone worth listening to had called him that.

The tv ads substitute a more helpful “from the director of Airplane and Naked Gun,” and I would feel better about that if either of those had been made in the last twenty years and without specific other collaborators not involved with this project. But this is good, because somehow I was of the assumption that both Zucker bruckers had disassociated themselves from the Will Elder-background gag movie which has so struggled to not be done retardedly lately, when in actuality it was only Jerry. To think I was giving David Zucker uncredit he did not deserve! He also directed “My Boss’s Daughter,” a movie so unremarkable in every aspect that I forgot it had existed.

“Finally, a comedy that gets it ‘RIGHT,‘” say the tv ads.
Republicans are really proud of that stupid pun there. Each time it’s like they just noticed “hey, our arbitrary assignment to one imaginary side of a non-physical ideological space shares a word which is a synonym for correct!” How long before they notice GOP looks like GOD? Which is dog spelled backwards? And tuba toothpaste?

I’m the angel of freakin’ death, you turd head.”
I can’t, nor do I ever expect to be able to confirm that is the actual line as spoken in the film. I can only confirm that a head is compared to excrement immediately after it states support for gay rights.

Former gubernatorial candidate, fiscal crisis ’08 contributor spokesman and reigning hilarious retro reference among morons Gary Coleman makes an appearance every bit as dignified as I’ve come to expect.

I wish they’d use Mad Magazine style names, I suggest Bloatsy O’McDonalds, instead of lame copouts like that. If you’re going to make an immature feature film go all the way with it, I say. And instead of Michael Moore you could call him Mouthful Bore, although that’s confusing because it sounds like it’s making fun of him for talking a lot –id eat: his mouth is full of boring things– but in fact it’s supposed to suggest that he eats and talks a lot. Hey, it needs work. I’m sure the screenplay took a couple of hours to write. And you could call the one who looks like Bill O’Reilly Bellow Wretchedly. Or you could if he wasn’t appearing as himself.

I confess I don’t know much about George Patton and wouldn’t trust what I read right just this minute, but he always seemed like a frightful person I wouldn’t want to meet or associate my opinions re: governing a nation with. Also, supposedly he had a high-pitched voice largely dissimilar to Kelsey Grammer’s and I’m thinking about this too much in the wrong ways.

I also don’t know what, if anything, the late John Kennedy thought of the very late Patton, but I have to imagine if either are close to as great as I’m told they are, neither would agree to appear in a portable toilet box with Bill O’Reilly. Larry Craig probably wouldn’t even do that.

If the only people you could get to appear as themselves in a movie about becoming enlightened and loving America are Billiam O’Reilly and Trace Adkins… if that’s what patriotism means to you, liking things just as they are and in the worst possible way, and that thinking otherwise means you “hate America…” I don’t want to see your movie! (surprise) So this isn’t going to change anybody’s mind. Trace Adkins, I wasn’t entirely sure who he was, when I first read of this movie’s approach but before I’d seen him in the ads, but I knew he was a country music person. It turns out, he just is the country music person. Tracykins is my generic mental image when the phrase “country music” is mentioned. Even if I thought this premise made sense I would still hate country music, unless it could be proven that thinking country music is a good idea is controlled by the same part of the brain that decides whether An American Carol is a good idea.

This post also manages to tie in suspicion of this movie to not liking Sarah Palin and that to hating all women, and that in fact she should be president, ending with old-skool internet rave-hermit trademark, the sarcastic LOL of premature delusional triumph, but I urge that you not be interested. There are actual salaried, televised persons who behave that way and get paid to do it who are plenty more worth being scared by.

If the Daily Show can be scared of another show which nobody knows about and that only put out 17 episodes in a seven month period, and then got canceled, of course liberals at large can be frightened by a David Zuckfest which thinks it can rip off America’s Funniest Home videos and get Rudy Giuliani Mitt Romney its least favorite republican elected at the same time.

“Right wing comedy” doesn’t seem to understand that few of its nemeses set out to be any wing. They just arrived at that because so often republicans are the more superficial, petty and ridiculous of the two sides.
If The Daily Show was ever scared, it was four years ago when its writers conspired to release America: The Book at this approximate point of the year. No such book was produced this time. Which is too bad because that was actually rather a decent read when I felt like it.

Me, (always) I’m probably not going to abandon whatever principles the Obiden campaign pretends it shares with me because a fictionalized Michael Moore is a slightly bigger jackass than the real one. I’m only scared of the thought that ghosts might have the power to team up and communicate their wisdom of the afterlife to the living and this is the best they could do. Unless you have evidence that the famous New Orleans levies broke because Michael Moore sat on them, he seems like rather a small part of the heaping helping of ignorance-related problems ghosts could help with that are the United States of America.

Obviously I don’t know the details beyond the preview (and rather importantly it must be stated that neither does anyone who would choose to defend the horrid thing), but the suggestion is that people like Michael Moore, which I gather, again, from copy saying so all up in my cathode, don’t like America, and that is flawed at a very basic level. The idea that “if we could just get liberals to love America they’d stop being liberals” is ridiculously misguided. I would never argue that Michael Moore isn’t a self-serving (in more ways than one, ho ho) creepsicle who selectively edits footage, misreports facts and/or goes to great lengths to imply things he knows are inaccurate and so should not state outright. I didn’t even give him the courtesy lookup I afforded Patton (did you know he hated Russians before it was cool?). To suggest that by vilifying Mr. M&Ms, and in a way totally disconnected from reality, you’re making any point is absurd. This is just another empty, pointless ineffective comedy. The difference is that this one thinks it’s going to make another difference right before an election.

Regarding the counterpart dastardly last minute political movie, Oliver Stone’sâ„¢ “W“, one assumes (one being Oliver. I can at best hope) that will actually be able to make something resembling a point without confounding data and logic with irrelevant jokes not beholden to truth like so many Dennis Miller talk show appearances. Although the “based on a true story” label suggests to me that it too is rather a bit less than a documentary. And even if it was that, I already know Bush did inept stuff. Why don’t the ghosts know that? I know stuff he did that the movie doesn’t because it was made a year ago.

I wish the W movie was being released years from now rather than very soon. We still don’t know the full extent to which that administration has secretly skeeved around and will publicly oaf around, and we probably won’t for some time.

But then, I don’t expect to watch either of these. I do certainly know which I want to watch less. I don’t think I want to see any new movies until the hacked up America version of Red Cliff comes out in January¹, quite honestly. And I already know how it ends!

I’m glad this is over, too.

¹And it didn’t even come out! What am I supposed to do about that? Aside from add a note saying so to an old entry, I mean.