Moonage Webdream

A week ago I did a post on the new Burger King ad.  It just kinda struck me as misguided and sophomoric.  A lot of people agreed with me.  Great concept for a porn flick, bad for traditional advertising.    Which all this threw me back a while, to June 21, 2006 to be exact.  Gotta wait for the fuzzy wavy lines.  OK, now that they’re here.  My issue was “proper product placement“.  In this picture:
 

She is selling a phone.  Does anyone really care?  The phone, I would suggest, is totally lost in the effort.  Her boobs just make that phone seem incredibly pointless.  Now, flash back to today and we see this:

It’s screaming all over the place that this is innuendo.  If you don’t get it, the cheese is even whiter.  However, once it’s all said and done, the product itself is lost in the joke that this will become.  I can imagine every single teen pulling up to the window and ordering a big seven incher, and something to eat.  One ad is bad placement, the other just bad.

Now, this is what all this is coming to.  To compound the goofiness of this all, I use Google Adsense among other promotional tricks that net me almost nothing.  Yesterday I was kidding Mrs. Moon about the fact that Google’s placement for the kinda ewwy Burger King ad was, get this, someone selling Burger King masks.  That just sent ewwy into creepy territory.  That took my post about bad product placement and made it real, right here on my blog.  You couldn’t get any worse trying to sell Burger King masks to someone who wants to practice fellatio technique on a blow up doll with a sandwich.  But you know what, SOMEONE clicked on the silly ad.  It is now my biggest earner for 2009.

And to whoever it is that thought they needed a mask for their big seven incher, I really, really, don’t want to know who or why.

In the history of movies, very few follow-ups have improved on the original.  Most have been let-downs.  Some of epic scale that left people wondering what the heck they were even thinking.

Transformers II is along the lines of epic.  The original Transformers was witty all the way through.  It didn’t have anything offensive other than a robot peeing on someone.  OK, you ask, a robot peeing?  You get the drift of how logical the original was.  The follow-up took the peeing scene and ran wild with it.  Nothing makes sense in this follow-up.  It is bloated with too-long fight scenes.  Most of the time, I couldn’t tell who the bad bots were or who the good bots were.  It just got that muddled.  Once again they toss out one fleeting piece of eye-candy:

However, in the first movie, you felt like you were seeing something you really shouldn’t be enjoying as much as you were.  In the follow-up, it’s all over the place.  It’s in your face the entire time.  The bad angel is now a Centerfold.  It lost its appeal pretty quick for me.  And, just as quickly, the entire movie lost its appeal to me.  The movie gets off to a semi-fun start.  The part where Shia freaks out is funny.  But, from there, it’s just boring.  It’s one fight scene after another and nothing entertaining in between.  I never expect a logical plot with a Transformers movie, but this one was too hard to follow. The bots looked too similar so that when they fought, there was no way for an adult to get involved.  I just sat there and watched metal on metal.  Bots dieing just doesn’t yank at my heart strings.  Once it was over, I was glad the sensory assault was over.  In the ultimate judgment, the boy did not ask to come and see it again.  He does want to see Star Trek for a sixth time.  Not wanting a second showing is pretty harsh.  Only Knowing got that treatment this year.

No thumbs.  They just didn’t think this thing through too well.

Actually, there were two scenes worth remembering:

Ya think “Introduction to Astronomy” was a give-away?  I tried to figure out what the reference for aeromental.com was, but apparently they can’t handle the load from the movie.  However, the textbook appears to be completely fake.  So, it appears to me that what could have been a very cool puzzle within a movie has turned out to be, well, nothing.

June 25, 2009 hopefully was the end of a rather disturbing few weeks.  First David Carradine was found dead in a rather odd state.

Then, on Tuesday Ed McMahon passed away.  That wasn’t terribly unexpected as he had been ill for a while.  But, then on Thursday another icon passed away:

That wasn’t terribly surprising to me either.  All the indications from the media were that it was fairly expected to be very soon.  However, the news was all Farrah all day.  I got tired of that and turned the news off.  When I got home I did other things.  Then I went to play racquetball, once again protected from the news.  However, when I got to my car, a message was on my cell phone from Mrs. Moon telling me yet another icon had passed:

Michael Jackson had passed as well.  This was a load.

I was born in 1962.  Basically the last of the boomers.  To put this all in perspective, mainly mine, Ed McMahon entertained me my entire life.  When I first stayed up late, it was Johnny and Ed.  For many, many, years, I spent the end of the evening with Johnny and Ed.  Once Johnny retired, I settled on Letterman for a while.  But now I just cruise the net.  There just seemed to be something special with Johnny and Ed.  The others were funny for a while.  Johnny and Ed just made me feel good. I think it was the bond they had.

Michael Jackson was the next “first” for me.  The reason I stuck that pic up there and not one of the ones everyone else is using is because that was the poster for my very first real concert.  When Diana Ross Presents The Jackson Five came out, I had it immediately.  The Jackson Five was probably my first pop obsession.  To this day I can still sing Nobody, (I Know) I’m Losing You, My Cherie Amour, Standing In The Shadows Of Love, The Love You Save, Stand!, I Want You Back, Who’s Lovin’ You, and of course, ABC.  By any standards, that was just one hell of an album.  You know watching that kid that if he kept his head on straight, he’d be around for a long time.  Some would argue his bigger hits later on were better, I still prefer the early Jackson Five stuff.  When I was on the road yesterday, I was listening to Mama’s Pearl.  There was just something special about a ten year old kid belting out tunes like he did.  He wasn’t just singing, he was singing hard.  None of that whiny crap or snarling you hear all day long today.  I still miss that stuff.

The last “first” was Farrah Fawcett.  Like the rest of the planet, I had “THE” poster.  The one with the prominent nipple.  I’m not going to go into a lot of detail about what was special about Farrah.  I’ll just put it this way, fourteen year old boy, Farrah Fawcett poster with the prominent nipple.  Do the math.

Johnny and Ed retired, Michael got weird, Farrah quit being a sex symbol and made serious movies like The Burning Bed.  So, a long time ago all of them pretty much lost relevance in my life.  But, hearing all this news this week just hammers home the realization that being young is special because there are so many firsts.  That just doesn’t happen a whole lot now.  There were funnier comedians, better singers, and sexier pinups.  But, none of them will ever be my “first”.

Burger King has had some rather notorious promotions in the past.  Some good, some bad, some downright ugly.  This new one has got to fall under the category of all three.  It’s beautiful, it’s offensive, it’s enticing, it’s smut.

Ok, anyone get the innuendo here?  Better question, does one single person on this planet need me to explain the innuendo here?  I hope not.  If you have to ask, we’re not on the same wavelength.  We won’t be able to communicate at all.

This thing is already causing problems at home for me.  Upon viewing this “promotion” for a few minutes, I told Mrs. Moon I’d like to go home and get my big seven incher blown.  She said she’d rather have a whopper.  We got no whoppers at home.  Thus the problem.  Friday night, if all goes well, I plan to go to Burger King, blow her mind with a big seven incher, then take my whopper home.  Problem solved.

Another quick shot post.  Name the song my misunderstood lyric came from:

I can’t find, oh, the rock of my life

It came from a ballad about a guy who’s apparently made a pass at someone else, and it’s not working too well.  At the time, the song was great musically, but meaningless pretty much lyrically.  Then it clicked and it all made sense.

I’m going to stick some distractionary stuff here to give the post a break. Below the break, is the song.  There are clues all over the place, so don’t cheat!

OK, if you’ve made it so far, the lyric actually was:

I can’t find, oh the right romantic line

From, of course, “Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me” by Elton John. Given the tone of the song, can’t light the darkness, frozen on the ladder, tired, time not moving ( bored ), finding a rock seemed a natural fit. But, as I later figured out, that’s not what the song was about. So, his lyric fits perfectly in that aspect.

But, occasionally, I still sing it my way.

This is exactly what you’d expect from Jack Black. Inane. Goofy. Gross. Sophomoric. Funny.

The obviously crafted highlight to this movie is Jack Black eating a turd with Michael Cera aping Cheech and Chong. I saw that one coming way before Cera started. In fact, if it weren’t for Cera, this would have been a complete bomb. Black seems to force a lot of his lines, Cera seems very comfortable with his. As usual tho, you have to love crude humor to enjoy it, there’s nothing subtle about it. I took the six year old and didn’t feel too uncomfortable ( other than the turd scene ). That does say a lot about Harold Ramis and Black. It is possible to be crass, crude, gross, and funny without being offensive. That was the upside of the movie by far. I did enjoy it, I just can’t really put my finger on why. It’s an upbeat movie, it is funny at times, and it just leaves you kind of smiling. Not hurting from laughing so hard, but just feeling kind of happy and silly.

One pinky up. There is no tangible reason to give it any thumbs, but it’s definitely worth something.

This movie was a sleeper for me. Not to a lot of folks tho. But, watching the trailer for months, I figured I had it all figured out before I even saw the movie. I was totally wrong. This isn’t one of those movies where you see all the best parts in the trailer. You see some of the chuckles, but the best part is totally omitted. The character development in this movie is possibly the best I have ever seen. You really understand what’s going on. It really gets under your skin pretty much right off the bat. The events of the movie itself almost seem irrelevant to me. You just want him to get to the silly waterfall.

Bottom line, all thumbs up. I liked it, the young boy liked it, and the wife loved it. That doesn’t happen too often. Definite must-see for any family with young kids, I would imagine older folks who are feeling the same things as the main character, and people who appreciate a great movie that doesn’t rely on pratfalls, car chases, or excessive violence. It’s a cerebral tug out your heart kind of movie along the lines of Wall-E. A movie buff friend of mine claims it’s one of the all-time greatest movies ever made. He’s seen thousands. That’s a pretty lofty claim. Not sure I would disagree with him now that a little time has passed and I can think back about it.

About every other day, we get some headline about some babe posing topless.  It’s like it’s some brand new thing going on that was invented this year.  We’re supposed to be shocked or something that some female had the audacity, if not stupidity, to bare her breasts or more for the camera.  And vice versa, some chicks know that if nothing else is working, flash a boob on camera and you’re back in the news for a day or so.

Well, it’s not a new thing at all apparently.  Check this chick out:

Not exactly my definition of smoking hot by 21st century standards.  But, apparently she was for the sixteenth century.  Now, the story going is that Mona Lisa herself posed for the painting everyone knows and some love.  However, Leonardo, the horny bastard he was, decided to take liberties with her likeness at later dates, making only enough changes so as to make it not obvious who he was creating his porn over.  Some people, me included, think we have an idea who the object of his perverted lust was.  I’m still looking for the five hundred year old version of Foxnews with the headline of “Mona Lisa Topless!”.  If someone has it, please let me know.

So, when the next Britney Spears Topless headline emerges, just think how over-used that headline has been for five hundred years before checking her out once again.

Here’s the headline:

Michael Douglas Wanted to Impregnate Catherine Zeta-Jones on First Meeting

I kid you not.  This is what they were referring to:

I kid you not.  Who wouldn’t want to do her the first chance they had?

Just for the record, he apparently did.  They married in 2000, they have two children now.  One of course, is eight.

Got this from family who I’m quite sure wishes to remain anonymous.