Layman move review: HUSTLE & FLOW

God damn! This movie was so good I almost forgot to get pissed off about it. I mean, it was excellent. Just really, really good, maybe the best movie I've seen all year. At least the best that I can recall off-hand (that this was so good it makes it that much more egregious that a piece of crap like Cinderella Man gets mentioned in the same breathe as the Oscars.) Terrance Howard, who was part of an extraordinary enselmble in Crash, was even better here. Anthony Anderson was good, too, and Ludacris, and the skinny sad white chick that played the Howard character's primary "ho." But the chick that played the pregnant ho girlfriend was just spectacular, as she her character develops self-confidence and a sense of purpose throught the course of the movie. Like I said, I can't think of a better movie I've seen that this (at least, one made in 2005,) and I'm giving it my highest recommendation.

Of course, the parallels between myself and the character D-Jay was what make truly this movie so powerful and vital. Slappin' bitches, dealing yay, whooping tricks, keeping away from 5-0... it's like this film held a mirror to the Early Life of John Layman and captured it on film. Rarely have a seen a movie where thug life of my early days on the street was captured with such eerie accuracy, without glorifying or glamorizing it.

Kids, I'm not a role model. I'm not a hero. And you don't want to be like me. Sometimes bitch gots to get slaps. And sometimes Layman gots to buss a cap in a motherfucker. I'm not saying it's the right thing to do. But it's real, man... and that's my life.

Don't judge me.

Batman Legos Revealed

courtesy of Batbrick.com On sale this spring.

Oh, I just had a nerdgasm.









Not pictured:
#7783 Batcave: penguin & Mr. Freeze
#7784 batmobile: the ultimate collectors edition

Guess what comic book Ol' Layman is writing next?

Details here.

Chris Penn: Dead at 43

I got a funny feeling I am next!

John Layman: Celebrating 20 years of Erotic Awesomeness

Kool Kid on Kampus John Layman: Senior Year, Yuba City High School. 1986

It was broke, but I fixed it

Reggie somehow broke the automatic litter box we got, but I managed to fix it.

I'll probably smell like cat piss for a week, though.

Stoopid Reggie.

A Layman triple-play movie review

Cinderella Man: Anyone who says this should be nominated for best picture ought to be stabbed through the tongue with a fork. I mean, this was by no means a bad movie, but it wasn't great, either, and I figure any movie nominated for best picture ought to be at least, really, really good. This was just, eh, by-the-books feel-good vanilla screenwriting, and it wasn't particuarly different than any Rocky movie I'd even seen. Frankly, I'd rather see Russell Crowe clubbing some room service hotel guy with a phone. My roommate got this movie for free, at CES in Vegas, and I watched it once, and now it is going into the "to sell or trade" pile. She also got Batman Begins, but I'm not even going to watch that once, much less dignify shelf space in my DVD cabinet.




Broken Flowers: I enjoyed the hell out of this movie, and totally recommend it. It started a little too slow for my taste, but once it got going, was very enjoyable. The story is about Bill Murray, getting an anonymous letter from an ex-girlfriend, saying he has a kid, so Bill goes and tracks down various exes. What I liked about it was the clues filmmaker Jim Jarmusch put in, how--well, you know how when you are looking for a particular something, you see evidence of that certain something everywhere you look? It was like that, though I can't really explain it better than that (or, I could, if I was not hung over.) Anyway, I enjoyed it, as I've enjoyed just about every Bill Murray movie, but especially the quirky undertated movies he's been doing in recent years. The ending of this movie was really great, too. See it!




Bride and Prejudice: Er, I fell asleep pretty early into it. To be honest, I was kinda hammered at the time. Sayeed from Lost was in it, though, singing and dancing.

Gone skiing

Please, do not resuscitate.

on sale today: SENTINEL SQUAD O*N*E #1

Giant robot mayhem. Great art by Aaron Lopresti.

Bring the Pain II: Last Night I Puked So Hard I Dislocated My Jaw--AGAIN!

Harkening back to a happier time, before SUPERFRANKENSTEIN and I were bitter and litigious enemies, last night I fucked myself up where I puked so hard I dislocated my jaw--AGAIN.

The culprit, this time: Starbucks Coffee Ice Cream.



Ok. I have a low tolerance for caffiene. That is, I can only drink so much before I get jittery and weird, and if I drink any more than that I can end up coughing, and eventually throwing up. Yesterday in the afternoon, after the twenty-billionth Seattle day of rain in a row, I warmed up with a double (extra foamy!) cappacinno. I skipped dinner, as there was nothing in the fridge, and my personal chef was working a night shift at her day job. So I, uh, helped myself to some of the Starbucks Coffee Ice Cream in the fridge, having no idea HOW FREAKING HYPER-CAFFINATED it must be. After I ate it my heart was pounding like crazy, and eventually I started coughing, and, well, one thing led to another.

You know the funny thing? Ice cream puked up actually does taste just as good coming up as it did going down.

Even so. No more Starbucks Ice Cream for me!

My Legal Woes Mount: Two Wrights Make a WRONG!!

John Layman:

I am attorney with the law firm of Wainwright & Wainwright LLP, which has been retained by SUPERFRANKENSTEIN. I am attaching a cease and desist letter relating to the "SuperLAYMANstein's... The News Explained in Kitty-Cat Pictures" entry posted on your blog for Sunday, January 15, 2006. I urge you to read the attached letter so that you may take any and all appropriate actions.

Best regards.
Drake Huntington


Wainwright & Wainwright, LLP
Attorneys at Law
1275 Pennsylvania Ave, NW
Washington, DC 20004-2415
tel 202.293.0100
fax 202.293.3593
www.wainlaw.com

January 16, 2003

VIA BLOGGER COMMENTS

John Layman
Re: Unauthorized Use and Disclosure of Intellectual Property

Dear Layman:

Our law firm serves as counsel to SUPERFRANKENSTEIN, owner of all intellectual property rights to The News Explained With Comic Book Covers. Through Blackboard's extensive and continuous use and promotion of this product and other systems, SUPERFRANKENSTEIN'S mark is recognized around the world, and its intellectual property has acquired substantial good will.

It recently has come to SUPERFRANKENSTEIN'S attention that you have posted a wholly derivative work, "SuperLAYMANstein's... The News Explained in Kitty-Cat Pictures," on your blog for Sunday, January 15, 2006. Moreover, its text prominently featured the claim that SUPERFRANKENSTEIN "poached" the idea from you and "turned it into a grotesque parody."

SUPERFRANKENSTEIN hereby requests that you immediately cease and desist from appropriating his private intellectual property and repeating the claims noted above, or any facilitation of those appropriations and claims, including but not limited to, transmission on your blog, Mighty Layman Bollah-quafina My Lego Cats With Danger. SUPERFRANKENSTEIN also requests that you immediately cease and desist from any facilitation of the use of its name and marks in any manner, and that you remove all references to SUPERFRANKENSTEIN from any website, power point presentation, seminar handouts, or any other promotional materials, and that you refrain from any use of such marks.

If you fail to comply with these requests, SUPERFRANKENSTEIN will have no choice but to proceed in a manner appropriate to protect his good name and valuable intellectual property rights.

Sincerely,
Drake Huntington

SuperLAYMANstein's... The News Explained in Kitty-Cat Pictures

Some time ago, Tom Peyer, in his derivative SUPERFRANKENSTEIN blog, poached one of my ideas, and turned it into a regular weekly item on his own blog, THE NEWS EXPLAINED IN COMIC BOOK COVERS, which is featured both on his blog and the comic book news site THE PULSE.

Anyway, in the interest of keeping faithful readers of this blog entertained and informed, here is the "News Explained" feature as it was meant to be seen, before Mr. Peyer perverted into a grotesque parody.



Deadly U.S. Attack in Pakistan Targets Al Qaeda No. 2



Socialist favored as Chile votes for president



Cinema backflip over cowboy love story



Study confirms sleep essential for creativity



An overweight nation grows more accepting of obesity



Greenpeace and Japanese whaling standoff escalates



Two snowmobilers missing in Montana

Laymerican Idol: THE FINAL TALLY!!!!

THE WINNER
JAMES. FUCKING. NADIGER

A few weeks ago, this blog started a feature known as Layamerican Idol, in which case 20 bloggers of varying degrees of talent, from the uber-awesome to the laughably bad, were rated, and, one-by-one, E-LAYMAN-ATED. After the blood has dried and the dust has settled, it seems clear that there is only one true blogger worthy of the coveted crown of Laymamerican Idol, and that is the sweet little Canadian blogger known as James ("Jimmy") F. Nadiger.

He wins by quantity more than quality, posting sometimes upwards in 5 posts a day, and the vast majority of the time the posts are interesting, if not at least mildly interesting. To compare and contrast him to other runner's up: Unlike Eric DeSantis, James is not a shameless DC whore with ludacrisly bad taste in comics. Unlike, David Baron, with his endless parade of trashy goth skanks, James' harem has a clueless Canadian wholesomeness to them. Unlike Hannibal Tabu, James has not threatened to kill me, in the most violent ways possibly. And James is, (thank god!) simply unlike Neal Pozner.

So, in conclusion: the crown-prince of bloggers, and the proud winner of the 2005 coveted trophy for Laymamerican Idol, is James ("Jim-Bob") F. Nadiger's I Blame the Internets




James


One of James' "ladies"


James' toys


James' sweet little kitty cat




Next: The losers... where are they now?

fox news is a freakin' cartoon

Screen grab, stolen from crooksandliars.com

"Will Vicious Dems pay for driving Alito's wife to tears?"


anybody who still maintains there is a liberal media bias in America ought to be shot in the face.

coming this spring! I can't waits!!

Claw/Red Sonja #2... on sale, uh... this April?

cover by Gabriel Dell'Otto. Variant cover (not pictured) by Jim Lee.



Insiteful interview with "Kid" Layman here.

Adios you dirty scumfuck-- Part Two

"Embattled DeLay won't reclaim House leadership post."



Now, who wants to bet a million dollars that he will be replaced by somebody just as crooked, white, evil, vile and rich?

Layman state of Television 2006: TUESDAYS

TUESDAY:
The best night of TV all week, up until a couple of weeks ago.

My Name is Ed: Part of the Layman-staple of Tuesday TV. But NBC just moved it to Thursdays, so look for the write-up of this show in the appropriate upcoming blog posting.

The Office: Definite required viewing, but also recently moved to Thursdays.

House: I’ve heard good things about this show, and I know a couple of people who swear by it. But I won’t watch it. Wanna know why? Because it’s a medical show. I don't watch medical shows at all, because they only have two plots: Somebody gets sick and they either get better, or they die. And half the time they get sick because they are old. I don't particularly give a crap about sick people, or old people, or relationships between medical staffs, so I avoid medical shows like the plague.

Law & Order SUV: Far and away my favorite Law & Order. Not only does it have the most consistent cast, but it’s also the most salacious, and you never know what crazy, depraved stuff they are going to come up with. You know they are just one bad writer away from child-molesting space-aliens. Also, I like Olivia, and the guy from Oz, and, as an old Homicide fan I’m always comforted by Richard Belzer’s Munch character. Best of all is Ice-T, and I really love the shows where he is the featured cop. Or, better yet, when he is the featured cop dealing with things like a gay son or returning some lost kid to her grandma. Considering this is the guy who rapped about killing cops in the late 80s and early 90s, I am just endlessly amused by the fact he plays a cop now on TV. Plus, most of his albums are on my iPod, and are some of the tunes I enjoy the most when they come up on shuffle. I can remember in 1991, at my friend Craig’s college graduation party, when I was peaking on acid, and there were a bunch of old people who showed up at the party... aunts and grandmothers and elderly well-wishers, and they were seriously freaking me out. After a while, Craig decided these old fogeys were a serious drag on the party, so he put on Ice-T’s heavy metal Body Count album (with the notorious “Cop Killer” song) and he turned it to deafening, window-shattering full-blast. And it seems like every single one of those old farts simultaneously dropped dead of a heart attack. Anyway, every time I watch Law & Order and see Ice-T I have a mini acid-flashblack to that crazy party of Craig’s.

South Park: I don't know. Is this even on on Tuesday’s anymore? I don’t know. A couple years ago South Park creators Parker and Stone came out in support of George Bush, and ever since then, I have nothing to do with their show. I know SP fans will say that everybody gets skewered equally, but I don’t believe that. After five years after George Bush’s goddamn nonsense, anybody who still remotely supports him is an asshole in my book, and if I can avoid supporting a Bush fan, I will.

Nip/Tuck: Man, my whole inspiration for this little TV-series of blog posting I’m doing was Nip/Tuck, and the god-awful Season 3 finale where it jumped the shark with a sonic boom. N/T has always been a guilty pleasure, with a lot of “I can’t believe they are showing that on TV” shock value, and just low-brow, salacious soap. But the last 15 minutes of the final episode abandoned all pretense for logic, and was just shocking and stupid (most stupid) for stupidity’s sake. I could go on, but I don't have the heart to. This was a show I really enjoyed, and I’m not sure I can every watch it again, it was so wretched and insulting.

The Shield Probably my favorite show, given that Sopranos is so erratic, and the last Sopranos seasons have been kinda a let down (more on that in an upcoming post.) What I love about the Shield is how they ratchet up the tension, and just when you think things couldn’t get more fucked up for Vic, it seems to. Plus, I think my friend David Baron does a great job playing Vic's crooked-cop little buddy Shane.

The winner:



Law & Order SUV. The Shield is a better show, but Law & Order is around more, and so it provides me more bulk hour entertainment. Plus, the Ice-T thing.

Go Dave!

Anybody else enjoy Bill O'Reilly getting verbally bitch-slapped by David Letterman? I've never a seen an interview with Letterman where he has been so serious, or where his loathing of a guest as been so obvious.

Check out a clip on Crooksandliars if you haven't already.

Layman move review: THE CUBE

A couple folks recommended this after I spoke so gushingly of HELLELEVATOR (which was not so awesome in the second viewing, but still pretty damn good.)

And I think it is safe to say, even though THE CUBE and HELLEVATOR are fairly different, they are similar enough to describe the THE CUBE is Cana-duh's version of HELLEVATOR. That is, a bunch of strangers stuck together in a close-confines, and we slowly get to know everybody, and not everybody is who they appear to be--and pretty soon people start winding up dead.

Of course, the primary difference IS that THE CUBE is from Canada, which means everybody is far more polite than they need to be. Everybody is vaguely funny-looking, like all Canadians, and nobody has a very thick head of hair, just like my strange Candian poster boy, James Nadiger . In the Cube, a half dozen people are going from one square room to another, looking for a way out, and avoiding deathtraps. But, like I said, because it's Canadian, even the deathtraps are polite, and a soothing voice will come on ten second before the trap is sprung and say "kindly step away from the flame throwers," "please beware of the death lasers," and "oh, do be so good as to avoid the poison gas." And then everybody curtsies delicately before they run from the particular deathtrap.

Anyway, this movie kept me entertained, even as I updated my ipod and futzed around with my CDs, deciding what old crap should be put onto the iPod (tonight winners; Sisters of Mercy's Floodland, Barry Black's Tragic Animal Stories and Pink Floyd Momentary Lapse In Reason. Sorry those aren't particularly "cool" or "edgy," but I'm got more then 3500 songs loaded up now, so the good stuff was put on long ago.) Usually about halfway through a movie I put it on double speed and read the subtitles, but this held my interest enough I didn't have to (also, because it is Canadian, the DVD did not have a subtitle option--lame!) I only fast-forwarded once--during a scary part, because I'm a great big fucking puss.

Anyway, six people enter the cube. A jerk, a prison-escapee, a math nerd, an engineer, a doctor and a retard. It's a Canadian movie, so of course you can be sure the retard will live.



Next up on the Netflix que:
The Cube 2
The Missouri Breaks
and something else I forget.

Layman State of Television 2006: MONDAYS

MONDAY:
A decent night for TV, starting to take nosedive.

I like Arrested Development quite a bit. I'm not as rabid as a lot of fans, and I'm not gonna piss and moan too loud it is cancelled. I think Fox would be very dumb to pull the plug, considering the awards and accolades this show gets, and I think it probably does well in DVD sales, and I'm sure if it ever reached syndication where you could watch an episode every night, the show would do gangbusters. But it probably won't. Most Americans are idiots, it's a sad fact, and most prefer crap. And so Arrested Development will constantly be on the edge of cancellation. Maybe it would be better to pull the plug so this doesn't have the stigma of being on life-support as it limps along. But, damn, when this show is funny, it's a goddamn riot.

I did not expect to like Prison Break, but I have to admit I like it, especially on nights after I've been drinking (which, ideally, is every night,) this show kicks ass. Clearly, Prison Break owes a huge debt to "pull-crazy-shit-out-of-our-ass-and-make-it-up-as-we-go-along" shows like 24, but damned if it does not work. It's like 24 meets a less-hardcore Oz, with tattooed prison dude coming up wiht some wacky ingenious shit every week, and then alternately being stymied. I especially like the creepy child-molesting racist hick named Teabag, based this blog's loyal reader, Tom B. Long.

Two And A Half Men has the potential of being the funniest show on TV, and certainly it was a great sitcom during last season. Charlie Sheen-- and I say this in all seriousness-- is a COMIC GENIUS, plus I like the little boy played by young C.B Cebulski. And Jon Cryer is pretty good as the nebbish, wet blanket. In particular, I love episodes where Charlie Sheen is just blatantly drunk and a having sex with every skank that moves. But, sadly, the show has sorta limped along with shows that are obviously written by writers on auto-pilot. Oh, well, it's occasionally funny. I'll Tivo it when Prison Break is on repeats and then skip episodes that don't prominent feature Charlie or little C.B.

I'm not crazy about Medium, but my roommate likes it, and so I watch it while it is on, and I find it entertaining enough. Actually, it always suprises me, because it walks a fine line between being predictable and creative. It seems to try new things, even as it provides a sort of comfort-food sleepy regularity. Man, the middle daughter is the biggest fucking brat on the face of the planet. Watching her is pretty much TV's best argument for birth-control.


The winner:



Prison Break, only because it's not gonna be threatened by cancellation any time soon. This is a recommendation with reservations, though, because this show could get real lame, real quick.

Layman State of Television 2006: SUNDAYS

Yah yah, i know. I've been extraordinarily freaking lame updating lately. Blogging is kinda like working out, I've discovered: easy to do when you're doing it, hard to keep up with once you stop.

Anyway, I intended to blog about this a while ago, when I had my heart broken by the Season Three finale of Nip/Tuck, but then I got so sickened and disgusted I just gave up halfway through.

But, I figure, with a new year upon us, it's time to take stock in what's worth watching and what's not on the tube. Of course, you have a right to your own opinion, but keep in mind only I am correct.

SUNDAY
I've pretty much given up on TV on Sunday.

Simpsons have not made me laugh in a long time, but I would not go as far as to urge Fox to pull the plug. It's weird, somehow; the Simpsons I thought were lame 4 years ago seem kinda funny now. I'm hoping someday I'll gain an appreciatation for the current batch of Simpsons currently coming out, but it won't be anytime soon.

Family Guy I think is funny, though hit and miss, and if it's on I'll watch it and usually get a laugh. However, for some reason it's not a show I go out of my way to see.

Desperate Housewives I've given up on. It seemed okay last season, entertaining enough, but it's really devolved into lame, predictable shit, and not only that, you'd be hard-pressed to find a more consistently man-hating show on TV. Of course, most sitcoms in the last 15 or 20 years are pretty solidly man-hating. Anyway, I quit watching it one week, and never looked back.

Law and Order, Criminal Intent is a show I've never gotten into. I love the other L&Os dearly, but by the time this one rolled around, I didn't need another addiction, so I've never watched it. And I like Vincent D'nofrio enough. Eh. Maybe someday.

That's pretty much the ony stuff on my radar on Sunday nights, and I'm not a regular viewer of any of it. I wouldn't watch stupid Grey's Anatomy if I my life depended on it. In fact, I don't watch medical shows at all, because they only have two plots: Somebody gets sick and they either get better, or they die. And half the time they get sick because they are old. I don't particularly give a crap about sick people, or old people, or relationships between medical staffs, so I avoid medical shows like the plague (HA!-- Get it?!)

The winner:



Er, a tie between Simpsons and Family Guy, but sort of a lackluster one. Or, maybe Family Guy gets a slight edge, just 'cause it occationally makes me laugh.