My Food Chain Gang

Ok, I have to issue a warning for the following post because admittedly, it’s in poor taste.  And I usually try to write a family-friendly blog, but the following video has some non-family friendly content.  If your kids are anything like mine, they come running when they hear audio coming from the computer.  Too many fun forwards and youtubes of the DoodleBops and Barney, I guess.  But shoo the kids away and consider yourself warned.  Those of you who find sloppy drunken behavior funny should proceed to watch the following video.  It’s a version of the 12 Days of Christmas sung by the late comedienne Fay McKay.  In the song, she replaces all of the presents from the true love with gifts of liquor, leading to her being completely trashed by the song’s end.  I heard it when I was a kid; they used to play it on the radio.  And although I didn’t understand the scope of what was happening, I knew that the singer was acting goofy and it was fun for a kid.  So my sister and I called the song “Greenstuff” (you’ll know why when you hear the song), and we made a cassette tape of it.  Oops - I didn’t mean to lose all you readers who are under the age of twenty (a WHAT tape?).  On the other hand, maybe you shouldn’t be watching this video if you’re not old enough to legally enjoy alcohol responsibly.  Thanks to the modern invention called youtube, I was able to dig up the recording of the song I enjoyed so much as a kid.  Maybe I shouldn’t admit that, it seems kind of strange…

The only video I could find of Fay McKay performing the song was audio/video mismatched, if you know what I mean.  The audio didn’t match the way her lips were moving, and it was annoying, so I’m reluctantly posting a different version instead  - one with a slide show that matches the lyrics.  Some of the add-ins are funny, while I failed to see the humor in others.  And I don’t know why they showed the woman on the table so many times…  maybe she is someone that knows the youtube poster - how embarrassing.  How does something like that happen anyway?  See for yourself, if you dare, and don’t forget to listen to the song:

I shouldn’t have liked it.  It’s an 82 minute comedy farce co-starring Reese Witherspoon - what’s to like?  But I actually enjoyed the movie 4 Christmases more than I thought.

So why did I see if I thought I’d hate it?  For one, it was the only thing playing at the matinee price and for two, I had a sort of curiosity about the acting abilities of two country music super-stars:  Dwight Yoakam and Tim McGraw.  Actually, having seen Dwight Yoakam in Sling Blade, I’m well aware of his acting skills.  It was such a great performance in Sling Blade that I thought it was Oscar-worthy.  He’s not given much to work with in this movie however, and his role as one of those Leap of Faith-type preachers is not very well developed.  I don’t think it’s any fault of Yoakam, though, but more a testament to the lazy script.

Vince Vaughn and Reese Witherspoon star as a freewheeling couple who don’t see the need to marry since they’re already happy, and they don’t want kids.  The first scenes of the movie really emphasize how perfect this couple’s lives are, and it’s almost sickeningly sweet how well they get along.  Enter their extended families, and they become miserable people.  It begins when their flight to Fiji is cancelled on Christmas and they are featured on the news.  The couple (their names were not memorable) is now busted in their annual lie about travelling to some exotic location for charity work.  They fib about this every year to their families so they can avoid seeing all 4 families (each set of parents is divorcd) for Christmas.  So now that they can’t go to Fiji, they have to visit 4 sets of crazy relatives on one day and yada, yada, anticipated baby jokes and predictable chaos ensues, you get the picture.

For some reason, a lot of Hollywood stars agreed to be in this movie.  And just as I expected, Vince Vaughn was the same in this movie as the characters he always plays.  He can be funny, but he’s not very versatile.  I was surprised that Reese Witherspoon did not get under my skin because for some reason, she annoys the heck out of me, and it’s distracting when watching her in movies.  As far as the country music super-stars are concerned, I consider this movie a waste of Dwight Yoakam’s acting talent, and Tim McGraw was barely in the movie at all.  I read somewhere that he beefed up for the role, and he was hard to recognize, although I don’t really know why he bothered gaining all the weight for a part that hardly has him on camera and with barely any lines.  Other big name actors making cameos were Mary Steenburgen, Jon Voight, Robert Duvall, and Sissy Spacek - maybe it’s just me, but even though she’s almost 60, I still look at her and see Carrie the fire-starting teen from the famous Stephen King horror movie of the ’70’s.

Overall, there was only one scene where I couldn’t even watch because of its ludicrousness, so instead I turned to my husband and whispered, “This is unbelievably dumb”.  Other than that, I was entertained, and mostly because it was a holiday movie, it was fun to sit, watch, and eat popcorn.  I wonder how Christmas With The Kranks will compare.  I’ve heard that one is just awful, yet I want to see it since I read the John Grisham novel upon which it was based.

Well, we’ve now gotten a taste of two new episodes for this season, and I think I can safely say that the Office is back on track and as funny as ever!  It’s always been funny; it’s just that the few episodes that aired after the writer’s strike weren’t the best ones.  But I’m happy to see that so far, this season is a riot and will keep me looking forward to Thursday nights.

Entitled, ‘Business Ethics’, the 2nd Office episode of the season saw Michael and Holly in a major disagreement.  But no need to fret, it was resolved by the end of the show, thank goodness.  Sorry if I spoiled something for you, but you wouldn’t want to be left hanging about that, now would you?  I think I’ll copy n paste the tvguide.com episode sysopsis and comment on it.  That’s an easy way to write a review of the show and share the tvguide.com summary which I always enjoy.  Tvguide.com is in italics, my comments are in BOLD CAPS.

With the exemplary premiere behind us, in which we were treated to Jim and Pam’s engagement, Dwight and Angela’s torrid and super-secret affair, Michael and Holly’s evolving ‘friendship’ and Ryan’s return as Pam’s temporary replacement, does the second episode of the Office continue the momentum? The answer, my friends, is …

Definitely. Maybe. Ummm … Not so much.

It’s hard to follow up near-perfection.  WHILE I AGREE WITH THAT COMMENT, I WILL DISAGREE WITH THIS WRITER TO SAY THAT I THINK THE 2ND EPISODE WAS ALMOST AS GOOD AS THE FIRST - THERE’S JUST NO COMPETING BETWEEN AN HOUR OF THE OFFICE AND A HALF-HOUR OF THE OFFICE. “Weight Loss” was a one-hour gem, while “Business Ethics” had some nice moments, particularly during the beginning of the show, but it had some disappointments for me as well. I’ll list out my quibbles with this episode first, and then I’ll get to the funny:

1) The Absence of Pam
After their shocking engagement, Pam is relegated to a disembodied voice on the telephone at the beginning of the show. No doubt there will be plenty of opportunities for her to take center stage as the season develops, and I understand that sending her to school makes it difficult to include her in the office’s day-to-day, but it was jarring to all but ignore the Jim and Pam relationship right after their shocking engagement.  AGREED - I MISSED PAM TOO, BUT IT WAS ONLY ONE EPISODE, AFTER ALL.  IF SHE ISN’T THERE NEXT WEEK, I WILL HAVE A BEEF.
2) Ryan’s ethics
Reflecting back on an episode entitled “Business Ethics” I guess I was surprised that it focused primarily on Michael, Holly and Meredith, and only tangentially referred to the busted and now-humbled Ryan. I was expecting the episode to center more on Ryan somehow (don’t ask me how, I’m just a recapper).  RYAN CAN BE ANNOYING IN LARGE DOSES, SO I’M GLAD HE WAS ONLY ON THIS EPISODE FOR A LITTLE BIT.
3) Holding back the crazy
Creed didn’t say or do anything Creed-like; Andy didn’t sing a capella or punch a wall; even Michael and Holly’s “Let’s Get Ethical” intro was a schtick we’ve seen before. So even in an episode with Dwight peeing into a soda bottle, the usual absurdities of the Office family felt somehow muzzled or restrained.  CREED DID SAY AT LEAST ONE REALLY FUNNY THING - SEE BELOW.

But enough with the criticisms. Let’s get to the kudos. I thought the “personal time” subplot was the highlight of the show, and led to the episode’s two best scenes:

Jim: Hey Andy
Andy: Yo
Jim: By any chance did you see Battlestar Galactica last night?
Andy: No I did not. Is that any good?
Jim: Actually not, it’s really so-so.
Jim: I don’t like all the crazy monsters and stuff, like Klingons and Wookies and all that.
Jim (looking at Dwight): Sorry, is there something you wanted to add Dwight?
Andy: Is that like the original Battlestar Galactica?
Jim: You know what’s weird, it’s practically a shot-for-shot remake

(Dwight crumbles paper in frustration)

Jim: The story is kinda bland, it’s about this guy called “Dumbledore Calrissian” who needs to return the ring to back to Mordor
Andy: That doesn’t sound right …

2) 19:48

It’s easy for Jim to push Dwight’s buttons, and it’s easy for us to laugh at it. Jim’s pranks on Dwight have been the stuff of legend, but this was the first time that Dwight had it over on Jim – and Jim didn’t even know it.

The smugness on Jim’s face when he got Dwight to admit that he took “personal time” paled in comparison to the sidelong glance Dwight gave the camera when he admitted that “Yes, maybe I’m not” ethical. The camera panned over to Angela buttoning up her shirt, and we understood how Dwight spent that 19:48. I loved that the writers gave Dwight this moment over Jim – unexpectedly turning the tables and making Jim’s prank just seem irrelevant.  THAT WAS A NICE MOMENT.

And finally, here are my favorite one-off lines:

“The tall guy got engaged” – Creed  CLASSIC CREED, HILARIOUS!

“I’ve listened to Cookie Monster Sings Chocolate Rain 5,000 times” – Michael. (By the way, I tried like heck to find this video on You Tube, but no luck. But here’s the consolation prize)

“You’ve been cuckolded by a stronger, smarter male” – Dwight

So, what did you guys think?  LOVED IT.  Am I right that this episode – while good – did not live up to the season premiere’s lofty heights?   I THINK YOU’RE WRONG.  IT WASN’T AS GOOD AS THE PREMIERE, BUT PROBABLY ONLY BECAUSE IT WAS ONLY HALF AS LONG AND FOR THE PREMIERE EPISODE, WE WERE SO HAPPY TO HAVE THIS AWESOME SHOW BACK AFTER SUMMER HIATUS!

Good news from our date night this week - we found a new restaurant in a neighboring town that has good gyros!  Finally, no more trekking to Toledo or further just for gyros off the spit!  And for you Greek food fans, stay tuned because we are currently trying to convince the owner to offer Saganaki, another one of our favorites in Greek cuisine!  He said it’s a difficult thing to carry since many waitresses won’t serve it because of the fire involved.  Yes, I said fire!  For those of you who are unfamiliar, Saganaki is a greek dish made of sheep or goat cheese, and they bring it to your table, splash brandy on it, yell OPA! and light it on fire.  A large flame erupts, the entire restaurant turns to stare at you, children cry, they extinguish it with lemon juice, and then the other restaurant patrons begin asking questions - what is that?  Is it safe?  What does it taste like?  Can I have some?  One time we ordered it from a restaurant and 3 more tables ordered it after seeing ours!  It is DELICIOUS!  Just for fun, here is a video of a waiter serving it, though he begrudgingly mumbles opa while he’s really supposed to be yelling it while smiling.

  My 8-year-old daughter can eat a whole Saganaki appetizer herself.  She is part Greek, of course, but the stuff is that good.  It is my dream to get to Greece someday to try actual Greek food - if I ever had the babysitter, time, and money, it might just be enough (along with heavy sedatives or alcohol) to get me back on a plane…

Now onto the movie, I’ve been wanting to see the movie Baby Mama since I’m expecting and it looked like a cute comedy based on pregnancy - dumb title though I have to say.  For some reason, our local theater didn’t have it until now, so we finally got to see it.  It actually wasn’t quite as funny as it looked in the previews, but it did have a better plot and better acting than I was expecting - it did not disappoint.  Steve Martin was hilarious as a very hippy-ish owner of a large company; I would consider his character the CEO of the Walmart of organic food.  My favorite gag in the movie happened when Amy Poehler and Tina Fey’s characters were fighting in the car and Amy Poehler’s character couldn’t get out of upper-class Tina Fey’s “space car”.  So Tina Fey’s character goes, “Quit touching the door handle while I’m trying to unlock it for you!”  That is hilarious, I can’t tell you how many times that’s happened to us that the car door won’t unlock while an impatient person is touching the handle.  Whether you like comedies about pregnancy or just feel like watching one, I would recommend Baby Mama.

I used to really enjoy watching The Ellen DeGeneres Show.  It’s on tv in my area at 4pm, so I used to watch it all the time while I was feeding my youngest daughter.  Since that is no longer a job that requires sitting down for a good 30-60 minutes - quite the opposite nowadays actually! - I haven’t caught Ellen in ages.  But the other day, I was reminded of a viewer of Ellen’s who she made a few phone calls to on the show…  An 88-year-old named Gladys who was as matter-of-fact as can be and just hysterical.  Check out the clip from her first sound byte on the show below.  Gladys first calls Ellen’s show and leaves a message, which is funny enough by itself, but when Ellen calls her back, hilarity ensues!  Check it out:

And here Gladys gives a glowing review of American Idol, specifically Sanjaya’s hair:

I wonder if Ellen still talks to Gladys or how she’s doing?  Wish I had time to catch Ellen’s show, it was really funny and fun to watch.  Well, I will have a newborn to sit and feed in a matter of months, so maybe then I can turn on the tv and enjoy some comedy once again…

We went kinda crazy with the movies this weekend…  We watched the 1984 classic Splash with the kids, and we also took in Mr. Woodcock and Dan in Real Life (for the adults).  Splash is a Tom Hanks and Daryl Hannah movie about a mermaid who leaves the ocean to come to New York city and fall in love with Tom Hanks.  It sounds dumb, but it’s actually pretty well done and a movie with substance and heart.  The special effects of her fins aren’t bad either, considering they’re over 20 years old and most likely made without computer assistence.  Since I haven’t seen the movie since I was a kid, I was wondering this time around about how many takes it took to film the underwater scenes…  mainly the one where Daryl Hannah’s character looks on a map in a sunken ship to find where Tom Hanks lives.  Also, there’s a scene in the movie where they are trying to choose a name for the mermaid, since her name is unpronouncable in English.  They’re walking down a New York street, and Tom Hanks mutters, “where are we, Madison…” to which Daryl Hannah replies, “Madison, I like Madison.”  That was a joke in the movie at the time, that the mermaid was named after a street in New York, but nowadays, the name Madison is almost TOO popular.  We had about 4 Madisons or Maddies in a play we directed last year out of 21 kids!  Anyway, I would recommend this as a good family movie, especially for little girls.  There is actually some nudity (female rear end), and I could have done without a few of the kissing scenes, but overall, it is good family entertainment.  I wonder if it would have gotten a PG13 rating if it had come out a few years later?  I know there is a Splash Too, but judging by the lack of returning actors, I haven’t bothered to check it out.  After a quick lookup on imdb.com, I found that it got a whopping 3.0 rating with only 170 votes.  Also interesting is that Madison the mermaid in Splash Too is played by Amy Yasbeck, who is nowadays best known for being John Ritter’s widow.  She was good in her bit part in Pretty Woman, but still…  I wonder if I should bother getting it from the library for the kids?  Also in the original Splash is Eugene Levy, who plays the bad guy trying to expose the mermaid  - literally, by throwing water on her in public.  This must be one of his first movies; I think he was a relatively unknown actor back then…  Also, the late, great John Candy is hilarious as Tom Hanks’ party animal brother, and those two have great chemistry in the movie…  but on to the adult movies…  ahem, I’m talking about the movies we watched without the kids…

Mr. Woodcock is a comedy starring Billy Bob Thornton, who came no where near to reminding me of his character in Sling Blade - that’s probably why he was nominated for an Oscar for that performance.  I wasn’t expecting much from this movie, but it was actually worse than I thought.  It wasn’t horrible, and I didn’t feel like I wasted my time watching it, but it wasn’t very funny, and there wasn’t much to get from it.  For one thing, I thought they would make the Mr. Woodcock character a little more nasty.  As it turned out, he was really only nasty to little kids, which is still pretty bad, but I thought we’d catch him being nasty behind his girlfriend’s back.  Let me back up for a minute and give a plot synopsis - Mr. Woodcock is a horribly nasty gym teacher who terrorized kids so badly that a former student uses his experiences as fodder for an inspiring self-help book he wrote.  This former student returns to his hometown in Nebraska to receive the “corn key to the city” only to find that his mom is happily dating Mr. Woodcock - his childhood nemisis!  The successful author is played by Seann William Scott, whose acting I wasn’t thrilled with.  His mother was played by Susan Sarandon, and she was pretty good in the movie, given the character she had to play, who didn’t have much depth.  Like I said, I didn’t feel like I wasted my time on this movie, but I don’t know that I’d watch it again either.  It definitely wasn’t one of my favorite comedies.

Dan in Real Life is a touching comedy (just falls short of a dra-medy, I would say, not quite sad enough, thank goodness) about a columnist widower named Dan (the ever-awesome Steve Carell) who is raising 3 daughters alone.  The girls seem to be about 16, 14, and 9.  For starters, let’s just say that this movie had me dreading my life in about 10 years - the movie depicted teenage girls as frightening challenges for parents!  Anyway, Dan takes his girls to visit their extended family for a few days, and when he first arrives, he really falls for the ‘perfect woman’.  He gets to his mom and dad’s house, and wouldn’t you know it, the ‘perfect woman’ turns out to be his brother’s girlfriend.  After a few days of torture…  well, I’ll let you watch the movie, I don’t want to spoil anything for you.  It’s a really cute romantic comedy.  If you have sons, you will be amused at Dan’s daughters’ antics.  If you have daughters, be afraid, be very afraid!  On another note, Steve Carell has beaten out Tom Hanks as my favorite actor - he is just amazing and so fun to watch, whether it’s in the Office, Evan Almighty, or Dan in Real Life.  His characters never remind me of each other, and it’s not like they’re mentally impaired like Billy Bob Thornton in Sling Blade or Tom Hanks in Forrest Gump - sometimes those types of characters are actually easier to play since they have a very specific demeanor about them.  Steve Carell plays ‘regular’ guys, yet he gives them such depth and character that it really helps draw you into the movie and / or show.  I never watched the tv show Get Smart, but with Steve Carell playing Maxwell Smart in the big screen version of Get Smart due this summer, you can bet I plan on checking it out!  Dan in Real Life is funny and heartwarming, and it makes me look forward to having huge family get-together weekends at our house someday with the kids and their spouses and kids…  providing we survive the teenage years of course - that remains to be seen!