Throwback Thursday: This Time 13 Years Ago...

Not a very exciting story, and I wish I had thought of it sooner so I could include the ONE picture that encapsulates the moment, a blurry early selfie of me and Choni on my couch.  I can always add it later.. if I do you'll find right here>>

In the meantime:  This time 13 years ago, I was undergoing the recoop process from the late teen/early 20's right of passage that is having your wisdom teeth removed.  I was living at "home" (I say loosely due to the fact it was merely a house my mother and ESM lived in, NOT my quote 'Home').  I had self inflicted red hair, disheveled and rightfully so.  Bruised, swollen face is a look I do not recommend for anybody and I don't think we had started back to college just yet because Choni was over all the time.

Quick back story: We did not live close to eachother.  He lived four towns/cities away, a good solid 30 to 40 minutes in traffic away from me.  Part of the drive was just tedious, boring country roads.  Also, it took 5 minutes to drive the few feet on our road that was only a road in the technical sense that it "TECHNICALLY" got you to where you were going...but mostly just fucked up your car because of all the dips and holes and dirt...

For this guy to do all that everyday for a week for me ( I think there was a work day or two in there) was amazing...  He worked at a little Korean dude owned video store then, so he brought over TONS of movies.  In my Vicodin daze, I remember mostly one title in particular that he scooped up from his store of ancient B movie titles, "Ice Pirates"...  Oh yeah, that was GREAT stuff when I was a kid and it reminded me of my dad (who at the time was merely two states/one 1 hr and 30 min flight away) so I was stoked that, again, he pulled a gem out for me.

Ma was home taking care of Lil Sis at that time, so she was there, but she was busy doing the toddler two step so it was helpful having Choni there.  I had my pillow, my blanket, my jammies, my bathrobe (it was winter, it gets cold even in SoCal), my Choni... I was the most comfortable a person could be in that situation...  Luckily I was dazed enough and wasn't eating solids, so I was not expected to dine with the ESM and Ma during those days... Aaaahhhh....

I lived solely on Instant Breakfast Shakes, I wasn't complaining...not at all... Those spoonfuls of vitaminy chocolate were wonderful... Funny, most people wouldn't have FOND memories of such a week, but I do... I have them because Choni made them better.  Not to say he didn't do his foot work, boy did he... but in those it wasn't too hard to trump what was going on at home... anything positive was a vast improvement.  It was great/is great to be around a person that I don't have to TRY SO HARD to make happy... it's organic, it just happens... he just makes me happy... Sometimes I want to swat him and sometimes I do because you gotta keep them on their toes, but I look back on the life I walked away from and for a second I think, "Geez, what did I do?" and after a thought or two it quickly turns into "OH YEAH!!!  Made the better choice!!"  Haha...

So that's my wisdom teeth story... I wonder if I'll find that picture...

Dream Casting: Highlander

Now now now...don't get me WRONG... there is NOTHING the matter with the Highlander as it stands.  In my humble opinion that film has ONE home and that's the 80's...the cheesey, over the top, Queen is the soundtrack, 80's.  But if you're me and my mister, you can't watch the movie without wondering... could you make this today? 

Not too far back I heard an absurd rumor that "They" were looking at Ryan Reynolds to rehash the Christopher Lambert role...I'm BREATHING okay, I like me some Ryan Reynolds, but as The Highlander?!  Can I be a little cheesey myself here for a second and say, "There can be only one..."

However, that doesn't mean that a discussion didn't get had, and a list didn't get made... so I present you with Dream Casting: Highlander Edition.

Connor MacLeod:   Paul Bettany

Roxanne Hart:   Olivia Wilde

The Kurgan:   Tom Hardy (or Manu Bennett)

Juan Sanchez Villa-Lobos Ramirez:   Liam Neeson

Heather MacLeod:   Rosie Huntington-Whiteley

...and so on and so forth...  and now you want to watch that don't you? 

DREAM CAST: Buckaroo Banzai ...

If you read that going , "Whaaaa??!?!" 

Step into my office and let me introduce to a world that my pop walked me into without knowing it...

The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across The 8th Dimension is a great flick.

It's got everything!!!  Action, drama, love, science, fantasy, CHEESE!!  LOTS of cheese...  especially the red framed glasses that the studio didn't want Peter Weller to sport in the THREE whole scenes he has them on... fantastic!

We had this on during dinner a few nights ago and it came up that this movie was WAY ahead of it's time and we were almost GLAD that it didn't catch on when it did, so it could be a nice little cult classic for us to geek out over and not everyone knows the "secret handshake" about this great little flick.

BUT, the other edge of the sword is that it's great... it really is!  And I would like to spread the greatness to share with everyone!  And I want to say to someone I barely know, "Didn't you just LOVE the bubblewrap glasses?  And the Rasta Alien good guys?"  and they can say "YES!!" instead a mouth agape look of shock and confusion...  that would be nice too...

In conversing about how we sort of wish they would remake this, and not screw it up, we started to say, "In a perfect world..." and all that... so then ... Dream Casting Buckaroo Banzai jumped off the session...

Buckaroo Banzai:  Brandon Routh

Dr. Lizardo:  John Turturro

Perfect Tommy:  Joseph Gordon-Levitt

Rawhide:  Jacob Pitts

Penny Priddy:  Brie Larson

New Jersey:  Justin Long

John Bigboote:  Jemaine Clement

the rest of them can pretty much be figured out during general casting, but these were our musts and thought they would really make the remake if ever anyone decided to tackle such a thing :)

DREAM CAST: Live Action TaleSpin

If you were a kid in the early 90's, I don't care WHO you were, you watched TaleSpin...

For me it was KCAL 9 everyday after school until the 'rents came home and then it was Wheel of Fortune and dinner and primetime...

I filled my afternoons with the toons of Disney on in the background while I did homework (yes, I know I actually DID my homework)...

The best part of TaleSpin was it was about a 30's era and planes... I was in... even my dad tried to catch it to watch with  me on his few and far between days off.  Reason 472 why my pop would have loved to live in our time...  DVR...

Anyways, carrying on to the Dream Cast bit... Choners LOVES the underdog cartoon as much as I do and now we are turning the kids on to it... so of course THIS conversation had to happen...

Choni: Who would you get to be Baloo if you they did a Live Action TaleSpin?

Me:  Oh damn... let's do it!  Who WOULD we get? **gets pen and paper and writes down the dreamcasting session.

--This is what we came up with...

Baloo:  Kevin James

Rebecca:  Gretchen Mol

Wild Cat: Steve Zahn

Don Karnage:  Kevin Kline

Shere Khan:  Arnold Vosloo

Louie:  Jack Johnson (you know you want to see this guy act)

and Don Karnage's First Mate:  Steve Buscemi.

And there you have it... try getting THAT out of your head ;)

DREAM CAST: BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA

Oh yeah, I'm totally going there RIGHT NOW!

I LOVED/LOVE the movie BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA.  It's great, better than great... GENIUS.  I love me some John Carpenter and when you mix up John Carpenter and Kurt Russell there's no stopping their forces!!  I have seen it so many times that I didn't realize that it always felt like something was missing...until one day the wonderful fantastic husband of mine says "Did you know it was supposed to be a western?"...

Uh-huuuuuh...  And then?? 

And how he knew this?  He watches a movie and then if we have the commentary available to us, he watches that too.  If it's great, he tells me it's great and we watch it together...and John Carpenter and Kurt Russell on the commentary are great...  Carpenter talks about how it was SUPPOSED to be a western, but when this was made Westerns were a dead art...DEAD...  They didn't come back until, some say, Unforgiven, I say blasphemy... Silverado was the rebirth of Westerns my friends... TRUST and BELIEVE... But Big Trouble... is '86...  no Westerns...  And that's it...

Western-era San Fransisco and BOOM!  That's what missing!

So talking about this we start to Dream Cast as follows and also imagine that they change the storyline BACK to a Western!


Jack Burton: Chris Pine

Wang Chi: Will Yun Lee

Gracie Law:  Amy Adams

Eddy:  Bobby Lee

Egg Shen:  Jackie Chan

Lo Pan:  Gordon Lie

Miao Yin:  Devon Aoki

and you can basically pick any three top martial arts stunt/actors as the 3 Storms :)

Have fun with that ya'll!!  Cuz we sure did...

I Know Why It's Called Amazing Spiderman...

...Cause it is!  Sorry Sam...  I must say, I never really like overly hyped movies...so when we went to see Spider-Man in the theater after ALL THAT HYPE, I don't know what I enjoyed less...the 2 dimensional characters, the effects heavy scenes, the mediocre acting... what?  And then, to reboot a movie franchise who's body isn't even cold yet?  That urked out that last movie almost as an after thought?  I was against a reboot.  I rejected... I didn't want any part of it...  And luckily I am married to a man that has the ability to turn on a movie just for turning on a movie's sake...

Me, not so much...and he knows that...and he knows that I know he knows that...so if he sees a movie and thinks I'll like it, he'll talk me up on it...sell me on it as it were.  And I was pretty sold on seeing the newer version by the weekend... and see it we did... and...WOW.. I'm just... I just... really?  I didn't hate it?!?!

Three dimensional characters!  ONE villain!  Home made webshooters! Arc for the next film!  No Mary Jane!  And Peter is a smart kid and we don't just have to take someone's word for it... we are shown...he's pretty genius...  he was before he got bit by the radioactive spider...  I liked that his Uncle didn't die until the second act!  And that his Aunt isn't a crippled, delicate OLD woman...  I like Sally Field better and I like that she's got chutzpah!  I liked what they did with Flash... he calmed down towards the third act.  And just as I thought I was going to be pissed at Gwen Stacy showing up at the end after her dad makes Peter Parker promise not see her... she says her speech that is a tad too close to that "I TRUSTED YOU! YOU LIED TO ME!" drama pause in A LOT of flicks, she turns... "He made you promise didn't he?"  I loved that they did that move!!  It's so true!!  Says so much about how their story will be handled or actually NOT handled because I think I read somewhere that they are actually going to bring in MJ in the next installment... eh...  so anyways...  I was really happy with the new Spidey franchise possibilities.  I feel like this is a total revamp and that we won't be seeing the same ol shit... Although I must say, I think the part I enjoyed most about the last three films was Willem Defoe and James Franco... I know...right??

The only thing is that now I feel like Jim Caviezel in "Frequency"...  I wish I didn't have to remember the Raimi version of Spiderman AND the new one... but I do...and after a while I'm gonna feel like JC with having the two memories and one a little clearer than the other because I am going to need no recollection of the other franchise, I will just about have tossed it aside like an alternate memory of a timeline that no longer exists...

Bring on more Amazing Spider Mans!!  Or Spider Men??  Whichever... 

Dream Casting: CLUE

Here is the Dream Cast of "Clue" in the Judd Apatow Universe:

Professor Plum: Jason Segel

Col. Mustard:   Steve Carrell

Mr. Body:       James Franco

Mrs. Peacock:   Jane Lynch

Ms. Scarlet:    Elizabeth Banks

The Cook:       Jonah Hill

Cop:            Craig Robinson

Wadsworth:      Russell Brand

Yvetter:        Kristen Bell

FBI Agent/
Religious Guy:  Michael McKean

Telegram Girl:  Kat Dennings

The Motorist:   Danny McBride

You are welcome!!