It's Not Easy Being a Green Junkie

NIN's Hurt, as performed by Sad Kermit.

(Probably NSFW: language, Heroin Junkie Kermie, general wrongness)

The AccordionGuy blogged this before I did. That doesn't make it right.

Kermit the Frog is beloved by millions. Not just liked. Beloved. How could any star, amphibious or not, handle that kind of pressure?

Sure, it's easy when you start out. Do a little kids show, get noticed, go on a few talk shows, pretty soon you get on a bigger kids show, you're the king of children's TV. Then you get a variety show. You're the star. You're on top of the world baby! But do you think this is easy? 5 years of tantrum throwing co-stars, Hollywood has beens, the constant pressure of a live show, and everyone wants you to be that funny, cheerful muppet they expect you to be. Sure, there's love affairs, movies, and all the trappings of fame, but is it really enough? Enough to compensate for that empty feeling inside?

No one talks about the dark years, after Jim died. About losing your voice. Lesser muppets told all, but not you. No one knows what it's like. To be the sad frog. to be the bad frog. Behind white eyes.

I don't know what a zomedy is, but I like it.

The Mad A Johnny Kalangis film.

About a week and a half ago I got a call out of the blue from Kyree Vibrant, a long time friend and crime partner of mine. "Are you doing anything tonight?" She asked. Remembering that the last time she asked me to do something for her I had wound up dressed as a garden gnome for her wedding, I prepared to dig in my heels. "Well, I -" I said. "You have to come to Johnny's movie tonight. He has a screening. You have to." I'm not sure how she managed to convey a puppy dog look to me over the non-visual phone lines, but somehow I wound up at her husband's film.

This last minute call had come because her husband Johnny Kalangis had a film in the Canadian Filmmaker's Festival, and had originally expected a small screening that maybe the cast and crew could get to. It turned out that the festival had decided to make his film the opening night Gala. It might have had something to do with Billy Zane being the star. Or maybe they just really liked zombies.

I really like zombies. I especially like them when they're powered by diabolical meat. On those two factors alone I would have liked this movie, but what I got was a surprisingly good film. I say surprisingly not because I am surprised that Johnny made a good film (I'm not - he's pretty good at all this), but because of the unexpected twist at the beginning of the film. (You can open with a twist? Who knew?) It's really a heartwarming story about a father, a Dr. Jason Hunt (Zane, who's actually very funny in this) and his daughter Amy (The beautifully petulant Maggie Castle) who need to reconnect after the death of Amy's mother. They've left town for a getaway weekend with Dad's new girlfriend Monica (The bitchtacular Shauna McDonald) and Amy's new boy. This would all be a terrific setup for a TV Movie of the Week, If it weren't for the fact that what drives dad and daughter together is a ravenous horde of mindless zombies.

In all of my years watching horror films, I can honestly say I never expected to see a father and daughter coming to understand each other while beset by zombies in a farmer's field, or hear the words "Are you flirting with him?" after they meet a potential psychopath (incidentally, the room on set that Johnny referred to as 'The Sex Barn' during production is worth the price of admission). There's plenty of blood and guts flying, fulfilling the horror quota, but this film is just plain funny. See it if it gets to the theatres near you, rent it if it comes to your video store, or stay up 'till 2 on a weeknight if it's playing late on the teevee. You won't be disappointed.

The Uncensored Reply

My Box

(NSFW: language, references to Canada's National Symbol)

The Internets work at lightning speed.

How else to explain this reply to the Justin Timberlake / Adam Samberg video I posted just before Christmas. Well, OK - It had been on the air a few days before that, and I'm actually posting this a week after it first hit the net, but I'm saying that the Internets work at lightning speed, not me personally.

So anyways. She calls herself Bunny. Her voice sounds pretty good. She's been blogging about it. She has a box. For You.

I usually post only one thing a weekend, but since I was lazy on Tuesday, here ya go. There'll be something else tomorrow.

So Why Do White Guys Get The Chicks?

Yellow Fever

Okay, so, again in the interests of full disclosure, I am a white guy. And while the number of chicks I get is statistically non-zero, I do not, in fact, "get all the chicks". In that way I could be considered an honourary Asian, I suppose (with my apologies to Asians everywhere). Nevertheless, I applaud Wong Fu Productions on their bold exploration of this racially sensitive topic. Why do white guys, get The Chicks?

A college student undertakes a quest to answer this question, or more specifically, why there's more White guy / Asian girl couples than Asian guy / White girl couples (Having been involved in neither, I can only speculate). What follows a fun and witty dissection of the interracial dating scene - at least at the college level - and is as good or better than any date comedy you may have seen in a theatre (certainly better than this - yeesh).

Wong Fu has been flying under my radar for quite some time now, having produced over a dozen shorts, almost as many music videos and even a feature, most of which they did while still attending UC San Diego. This thing bubbled up the nerd video food chain, and mad props to whoever dugg this and brought it to my attention.

So how do I go about getting The Chicks now?

Moxie by Jake

So this is Jake Moxie, and the Battle Between the Planets. This is also the basis of my first IMDB entry. Oddly enough, this isn't the first version of this project.

Jake Moxie was written by Adam Swimmer and Scott Albert, and was originally concieved as an old time black and white serial, to be shot as live action on video and shown before films at the Bloor Cinema, a downtown Toronto rep-house. In both versions I was cast as Dr. Phallus. The first version was being shot all together as a feature, and would have gone to 13 episodes. Unfortunately, a few weekends into shooting, half the cast got real paying acting gigs that took them out of town. I was not in that half.

The production fell apart, and was not resurrected until a few years later, when it was re-concieved as an animated show. This was the pilot.

Paul Snepts (the Prime Minister, Johnny, and others) had a cough the day we were recording the voice work for this version. He kept saying he was "a little SARS-y". As Toronto was under quarantine for SARS at the time, it was frikkin' hilarious.