Day 24: Your Favorite Movie and What it's about....

I don't know if I can answer this question: What is my favorite movie?  I've seen Caddyshack the most times.  I've analyzed the Shining a lot.  I've loved Blazing Saddles since the first time I saw it on VHS.  I loved The Burbs when I was a kid.  I felt like A Beautiful Mind was the best movie the year that Denzel won Best Actor and not Russell Crowe.  Although I think my favorite movie has be Pulp Fiction.  It's hard to argue.  It's a movie that is like no other.

I remember seeing this movie much later than when it was released.  I think the first copy I bought was the 10 year anniversary one.  It was just such an awesome movie cover to cover.  It's the movie that made me want to get involved with writing and movies in general.  It's a summation of suburban ugliness.  It has gangsters, it has fights, it has cool music, it has drugs, it's got unforgettable characters, it has mesmerizing scenes, and it's never really been duplicated as a film.  Every time I've seen this movie, I've been comfortable after the two and half hours and just thought "I could've watched that for two more hours."  It's the only movie that I will watch and never get bored with.  I think that's the best thing about a director that you can say.

If I were on a deserted island or paralyzed for the rest of my life, I would watch this movie over and over.  It's script is perfect and it never really gets tiring.  This is my favorite movie.

!!SPOILER ALERT AHEAD. DON'T READ ANYMORE IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN PULP FICTION!!

To summarize Pulp Fiction is pretty hard.  It's a gangster film.  The opening scene begins with "Honeybunny" and "Ringo" sitting in a diner eating breakfast and talking about how they robbed a convenient store instead of a bank.  They then pop up and yell "Everybody be cool, this is a robbery!  Any of you fucking pricks move and I'll execute every fucking last one of you!"  We move to another scene, the main honcho, Marcellus Wallace, sends out two hitmen, Jules and Vincent, to take care of an issue regarding a payment that Wallace was owed.  The film then jumps to Marcellus Wallace making a deal with a boxer, Butch Coolidge, to take a fall in his upcoming fight.  We see Jules and Vincent walk in the background, but they are dressed differently from before.  The film then jumps again to a situation where Vincent, has to take out Marcellus Wallace's main girl, Mia, out for dinner, while not making any moves on her sexually.  They go to dinner and win a dancing competition, which is one of the most entertaining yet woefully repeated scenes in other movies.  Mia finds her way into Vincent's little bag of drugs, which she thinks is Cocaine, but we're to believe that it's Heroin, based upon the drug dealing scene that we saw prior to Vincent picking up Mia in his car.  In order to save Mia, Vincent rushes Mia to his dealer's house and they perform an unforgettable scene on Mia's body.  After this scene, we learn a little more about the life of Butch Coolidge, and what he's actually fighting for and running from.  One segment, which is a wonderfully done scene with Christopher Walken, is about Butch's Father's Gold Watch, which his wife forgets while they are trying to pack up and leave town.  Butch has to return to his old apartment and get his watch back, but he finds a certain person we've met before that's reading a pulp fiction book in his bathroom when Butch walks in.  Butch tries to return to his wife unscathed, but is met by Marcellus Wallace at an intersection, which turns into a rundown and leads to one of the most originally horrific and mesmerizing scenes in cinema.  Butch and Marcellus find themselves both tied up and in someone's basement about to be gang-raped.  I won't spoil what happens, but it's at this point that Butch comes to a personal choice to save his business partner from being raped or face being raped.  We jump back to Vincent and Jules back in the apartment from the beginning of the movie.  They find themselves faced against a guy who pops out of the closet and misses Jules and Vincent with all six shots he fires from a hand cannon.  Jules thinks he has been blessed with divine intervention and considers leaving the business of being a cold-blooded gangster.  Vincent asks the kid they have in the backseat of their car if he believes any of it.  I don't want to spoil anymore, so just go watch the movie and see for yourself.

Day 21: One of my Favorite TV Shows...

I love Breaking Bad.  I love The Wire.  I love SNL.  I love Mad Men.  Out of all of those, I think The Wire and Breaking Bad are just transcendent.  They are so much better than the rest of TV that it's not even funny.  Breaking Bad is just incredible.

Back during the writer's strike, TV was pretty much on it's knees begging for ways to get more money to it's writers.  I don't think there was a single show on TV that wasn't rerunning.  Mad Men had just debuted.  It was the only show on TV that was pumping out new episodes of quality TV, while TBS and TNT were churning out reruns of Family Guy, Law & Order, and House of Payne.

Now during those wretched days of rerun TV, I said "Screw it!" and went on to AMC since they were making something new and were also replaying my favorite Patrick Swayze movie like it was going out of style.  I figured it couldn't be that much worse since it was known as "the show that the guy from the Sopranos made".  I was blown away by Mad Men.  I didn't see Breaking Bad until after Mad Men Season 1 was completed.  All I knew was everything you would see in this trailer:

"Oh Great!  The Dad from Malcolm in the Middle is on a new show.  I'm never watching that!" was probably my first thought.  Then I had to wait for my friend Bill to confirm that it was awesome.  He saw a couple episodes and said it was so cool and that I would be missing out if I missed it.  So, I waited for which ever episode was on TV at the time and thought I could just jump in and see an episode.  Holy Shit, was I wrong.  The episode I saw, I stopped what I was doing and ran to the computer to see if anything I was seeing was possible.  The scene I first saw was the one below:

I ran to my laptop and found out that this shit was real!  This could be happening!  This was so mind-blowing, that it changed my TV watching schedule instantly.  I went to the library and got season 1 on disc and finished it in a day.  I went back for season 2 and finished that in another day.  I found out that Season 3 was just coming up and that I could catch up on every episode via Amazon Instant.  I did that and it's been the best medicine for bad TV since God knows when.  Everything about this show is terrific.  One of the first things on screen in the beginning of season 1 is this image:

Look at this image and tell me you aren't interested in what the hell is going on.

Aaron Paul, who plays Jesse Pinkman, has transformed from a simple know-nothing character actor to a multi-Emmy winning actor with amazing talent.  He was originally supposed to die in an earlier season, but because the way the producer's ran the show, he stayed on and it's made him a career.

Anna Gunn, who plays Skyler White, has gone from being a pregnant housewife who does laundry and makes eggs for her family, has put out a stellar performance as the housewife to a cancer patient who makes drugs.  Every turn and twist that this group of character's goes through makes you empathize with their decision making and gives you that feeling that rooting for the bad guy is the new thing to do.

It took a while for fans to pick up on this show being some of the best TV out there, but when people starting to wonder why Bryan Cranston was raking at the Emmy's, they tuned it and were hooked, just as I was.  I can't wait for the continuation of this season, since it seems like the final chapter, but it will be one of the greatest moments in television history, and the most watched.

Day 5: Favorite Comfort Foods and Why

This is going to be picturesque.  I love food.  Being a fat guy and all.  So with this being a blog based around a Fat Guy (me).  I'm going to include some of the foods that I love, that may or may not have had a hand in making me fat.  So here goes some of my comfort foods:

Homemade Meatloaf w/ Heinz Ketchup

This is probably one of my favorite meals that I love to have whenever I go home during the fall-winter months.  I despise store-bought meatloaf and I also despise Hunt's ketchup.  The homemade meatloaf needs to fall apart when my fork slices through it.  Heinz ketchup is the best of the best.  I've once tried a sauce that my father once made with a meatloaf and I immediately went back to ketchup.

I like meatloaf because just the texture and the taste are perfect for a cold autumn night.  Meatloaf, mashed potatos, and maybe some green beans.  Plus if there are leftover's you can make meatloaf sandwiches, or just heat it up again.  But the ketchup is perfect for meatloaf.  Perfect taste and perfect texture.

Chicken Wings

I absolutely love chicken wings.  I love them covered in BBQ sauce.  I love them Chinese style.  I love them breaded.  I love them in Buffalo sauce.  I have actually been caught by a friend eating chicken wings in a hotel bed, getting the last bit of meat from the wings in my underwear.  It was a hilarious sight.  It was also in Vegas.  Now, I think the perfect chicken wing is the "forearm" part of the chicken wing; the wing with one bone and not two.  It offers you to dunk the wing in sauce and also allows for a free hand to grab your drink/beer.

My mom usually makes the best Chinese-style and Breaded chicken wings.  The hoisin/plum sauce on the chicken wings gives a good sticky taste.  The breaded kind you can mix in with any sauce you want.  Whenever I go home to this meal, I usually eat between 12-15.  Just because they are so easy to eat.  

BBQ Ribs (Dry and Wet)

Riiiiiibbbs.  Probably one of my first favorite comfort foods.  I remember on one of my early birthdays that my mom offered to make me ribs for the first time.  I love thinking about the sauces and the rubs that go on ribs.  I went to a place in Memphis called Charles Vergo's Rendezvous Charcoal Ribs, but is mostly known by Rendezvous.  It's a back alley rib joint that probably seats about 400 people.  They specialize in dry rub and they hit the flavor right out of the park.  I loved the dipping sauce, but that rib rub stays with me.  I got a little shaker of their rub and I might order more if the Internet allows...(checking website)...and it does.

Tomato Soup

Before Zooey Deschanel was ordering this dish via Siri for a rainy day while she danced around her house, I claimed it as the perfect soup for dipping sandwiches in.  It goes well with anything.  In this picture, it's a grilled cheese.  I would never have it delivered.  Although making it via Campbell's can isn't the best either.  It has to have some sort of tomato chunks in it and must also be creamy.  I always get it whenever I go to Panera.  I prefer the tomato soup over the "cheese soup" because I feel like there is a bigger difference between the Tomato soup and Ketchup than there is between Cheese soup and Nacho cheese.  Besides, most things with Cheese aren't that healthy anyways.

Pie

I love pie.  I love pie so much that when the pizza place named Easy Pie opened up near me, I thought it was an every kind of pie place.  They do make dessert pies, but they are also a pizza place.  I figured they would open in the morning serving Quiche and coffee.  Then lunch would be desserts, Shepherds pie, and some other kind of pie.  I know there is a place out there, but I can't think of any mainstream pie that would make a good dinner, unless it's deep dish pizza.  But dessert pies just keep getting more creative.  But I enjoy a nice blueberry, a nice apple, a nice key lime, and of course a nice chocolate pie.  I do eat cheesecake, but it's not the same and I think it's too rich sometimes.  If there is extra pie in a party, I will offer to take it off of someone's hands.