It's like a crazy secret vigilante army!

Here's a fun story about a group of Venice citizens who patrol the streets looking for pickpockets. This appeals to me for some reason. I'll bet James will like this story too...it kind of reminds me of the red-jacketed samaritan who saved the citizens of Washington, D.C. from unwarranted stabbings.

Who was that red-jacketed man? And, did he move to Venice to raise a non-violent vigilante army? And perhaps to learn some sort of Italian martial arts?

The two most ironic lines from Last Action Hero

RUNNER UP:

But now, Arnold IS a politician! Get it? Maybe? Well, here's a better one: the number one most ironic line from Last Action Hero...

Sounds like a reference to Grass, right? But we all know Arnold hates early 20th century American poetry! Get it? Don't you get it?

That's right, I'm just catching up on the movies you all saw in 1993.

Other thoughts not worthy of an entire blog entry:

• If Death from The Seventh Seal walked off a movie screen (because for some reason it's showing in Los Angeles), wouldn't he speak Swedish?


• This movie would have been much better with a less annoying child star. Arnold's character is surprisingly complex.


• The main bad guy should have actually been played by Ron Silver, and not by his body double.


• It seems the bad guy's butler, who I thought was played by Oddjob from Goldfinger, was in fact played by Subzero from The Running Man, which is somehow even more awesome.

My theory on why Cheney shot his friend

From what I've read, Cheney's 78-year-old hunting partner was an old pal and a hefty contributor to the Dark Side. So no, I don't think this is all part of some awesome conspiracy to shoot him on purpose out of hate.

Here's how I think it went down...

Cheney sees some quail off to his left. He turns, shotgun raised. These flightless birds are going down.

The birds are moving farther to the left. Cheney turns a little more and his finger starts its gentle squeeze on the trigger. Suddenly, Cheney notices his pal in the extremely bright orange vest, standing in between him and some birds. Some birds that Cheney has vowed must die.

So I figure, in this split second, our VP had to weigh his options. "Yes, I'll injure and perhaps even kill an old man and staunch supporter. But if I don't fire, those birds won't taste sweet death. What to do?" And naturally, being as he is completely evil, he fired.

I frikkin love figure skating

No, not for the falling.

For the moment right after the fall, when you can see in their faces that all their hopes and dreams are crushed!

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!!!!!

More DVD talk from Andrew

From now on, this will just be my DVD blog. Not really.

Anyway, you'll all be sad to know that Wedding Crashers narrowly escaped the Robot Movies list. Apparently the auteurs found out about our list, and the movie's Robot scene ended up on the cutting room floor. It's the scene where Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson karaoke "99 Red Balloons." Yeah, that's right, karaoke is a verb now.

Come to think of it, that scene is one of the wisest cuts ever. Everything about it just screams comedy clich?. Throw Ben Stiller in there, and suddenly I can't distinguish this from any other Hollywood comedy.

Actually Wedding Crashers was a lot better than I expected. I usually hate Vince Vaughn, for example, but he spends a lot of time in this movie getting hit by things, so that worked out.

But what's even better than the movie, is the "Uncorked" DVD. Pretty much every recent comedy gets the same DVD treatment: a theatrical cut version totally free of special features, and a feature-packed "unrated" edition. "Unrated" is supposed to make you think "more titties," but it turns out all it means is "this cut was never up for review by the MPAA, because we edited out scenes that made the movie worse than it already is."

(DVDs that represent the film as it would have been if the artists involved didn't have to water down the sex and violence for a preferred MPAA rating -- like Robocop and Basic Instinct -- do exist, but they're few and far between.)

Nitpicky? Maybe. But I've been angry for years that I can only watch the "expanded", or "lame" version of Superman: The Movie.

So why is the Uncorked Edition of Wedding Crashers so great? Because it gives you the option! You can go either "uncorked" or "theatrical." Being a purist, and Wedding Crashers being as it is our generation's Touch of Evil*, I went "theatrical." I haven't yet personally come across any other DVD that gives this option.

*Citizen Kane was too obvious.

Sean Astin's dad was Gomez Adams?

So a few days ago, the morning news anchors had a satellite interview with Sean Astin. I was hoping they'd talk to him about his role as Agent Frodo from Division on 24, but no go. They just talked about how his mom, Patty Duke, had bipolar disorder. If I was a news anchor, I would've said, "Are you sure you weren't just confusing her with her identical cousin, Sean Astin? Like maybe she'd come into the room, and suddenly she's all British and proper?" Then I'd laugh, and laugh and laugh.

Speaking of 24, this week's torture scene was my favorite yet. We had to rewind and watch it twice. For those of you who missed it, it went something...like this...

Yes, he actually talked in internet slang.