The Next ‘Can I haz cheezburger’?’

From Manolith.com

It’s rare that I get the chance to actually watch a great phrase early in its career, before it blows up to bedevil us all with its hilarity, but this is such a time. Ladies (if you’re reading, you poor things, you) and gentlemen (if you are one; you don’t fool me for a second), I give you: WHOSE RESPONSIBLE THIS?

Here’s the history: the cultural storehouse that is Topless Robot hosts a regular feature called Fan Fiction Friday, wherein some lucky would-be writer gets their story highlighted for all the world to see. This past Friday, the lucky recipient was the user named Brickhousebunny21, and his story called “Adopting a Cute Bear Cub”, in which a woman named May adopts a Pokémon and has sex with it. YES. Here’s a mercifully brief excerpt: “I see you noticed my milk junkies.” said May in a sexy tone.” And normally I’d insert a [sic] here to indicate that what I’ve posted is as I found it, but the term [sick] is probably more appropriate.

Now, aside from the dubious content of the story itself, the thing is riddled with poor spelling, horrible grammar, and just plain bad storytelling. But whatever, it’s this guy’s story, it’s his site, he can do with it what he wants. The best part, however, is when Brickhousebunny21 decides to get pissed off at Topless Robot for giving his story some attention: “WHOSE RESPONSIBLE THIS? I wanna know whose idea was this RIGHT NOW. Who did this on purpose, huh? I found this little secret and I’m so angry I wanna know who did this and why or I’ll report everyone here to the site moderaters on this website and Yiffstar and have the one responsible BANNED FOR LIFE. NOW TELL ME WHO DID THIS NOW?” He then goes on to hilariously attempt to defend himself utilizing the same firm grasp of the technical implements of writing he employed to concoct his masterpiece. Go read it, you’ll love it.

I don’t think I need to spell this out for the readers of this site, who are all the cream of the crop of the Internet-going audience, but dear Pokémon fetishist: it’s the Internet. It’s not private. If you can be found, you can be ridiculed. End of line.

So there you have it, expect WHOSE RESPONSIBLE THIS is the next “I can haz?” Remember your roots, y’all, history is important. The More You Know … rainbow … star!

11 Hidden Secrets in Fight Club

Got this awesome article from 11points.com

 

"Fight Club" came out 10 years ago next month. I re-watched it this weekend and, like the great film that it is, it still holds up. It’s as relevant today as it was a decade ago.
Yes, society’s consciousness toward terrorism is different (and if the movie came out today, they’d probably go a different direction than having Project Mayhem blow up a bunch of financial buildings at the end). But the messages, the visuals, the story, the art of "Fight Club" — all still perfect.
Another great part about re-watching it: The movie has so many subtle secrets going on in the background (most of which super-subtly foreshadow the huge twist) — secrets you’d never pick up your first time through but notice more and more with every subsequent viewing.
I went through "Fight Club" and picked out freeze frames of 11 of the best hidden secrets in the movie. Enjoy. (And warning: This list wouldn’t be possible without spoilers, and I’m going to let them fly. The movie came out in October of ’99. You’ve had time to watch it.)

1. The Tyler flashes. Before Tyler officially enters the Narrator’s life when they’re sitting together on the plane, he appears six times in the film. Once he’s riding a moving walkway at the airport (that appearance isn’t included on this list, since it’s not hidden).
   Four of those times, Tyler appears as a subliminal flash that occurs when the Narrator has a moment of frustration or anger during his insomnia daze. These, of course, create the foundation for Tyler.
   Below are screen grabs of all four one-frame Tyler Durden appearances — once when the Narrator is mindlessly making copies… once when he’s leaving his doctor… once when he sees Marla leaving a therapy session… and once during his testicular cancer support group.
   Say what you will about Brad Pitt but he really looks like he’s having fun in this movie. Sure, his shirtless scenes in "Fight Club" launched a thousand male eating disorders (both manorexia AND [if I may coin a new phrase] boylemia)… but seeing how gleeful he looks, even in one-second freeze frames, makes it hard to be mad at him.
   
2. Tyler as a waiter. The fifth time Tyler appears? When the Narrator is in the middle of his early traveling montage and he’s watching TV in his hotel room. A group of waiters on screen all say "Welcome." If you look carefully, Brad Pitt is in the front row of waiters, on the far right.
   It’s the little touches like this one that take "Fight Club" into the legendary territory. You know what else helps? Meat Loaf. He’s amazing in this movie as Robert "Bob" Paulson. I wrote this entire list while listening to "Paradise By The Dashboard Light". The writing portion took me just over 90 minutes. I only had to restart the song twice.
   
3. No incoming calls. This is a quick, subtle hint early on that Tyler isn’t real. When the Narrator’s condo blows up, he calls Tyler from a payphone, with no answer. Then, a few seconds later, the phone rings. As the Narrator goes to answer it, the camera zooms in on some text on the payphone that reads, "No incoming calls accepted." In other words — Tyler could not have called him back, because this phone cannot ring.
   I am Jack’s inability to use a pager.
   
4. White boxers. During the course of the movie, Tyler and the Narrator intentionally dress in opposite ways — Tyler is flamboyant, the Narrator is corporate and buttoned-down. The only place they’re identical: Their boxers.
   When the Narrator is ordering IKEA furniture at the beginning of the movie, he’s in plaid boxers. As soon as he moves into Tyler’s house, he begins wearing white boxers… the same exact ones Tyler wears as he bikes around the house.
   Below are two screen grabs I took of Tyler in the boxers, plus two of the Narrator at very different points in the movie — once when he’s with Marla, and once near the end when he’s running away from the police.
   
5. Seven Years in Tibet. This was a little inside joke of production design. When the Narrator is sending Marla out of town, there’s a marquee in the background for the movie "Seven Years in Tibet". A movie that starred Brad Pitt.
   According to interviews with director David Fincher, further in the background there are also movie marquees for "Wings of the Dove" and "The People Vs. Larry Flint", movies that starred Helena Bonham Carter and Ed Norton, respectively. But, as he told Entertainment Weekly, "unfortunately, the bus blocks the other marquees," so no one’s ever seen them.
   
6. Hidden marquees. WAIT A MINUTE! We’ve got an 11 Points exclusive! As I combed through the movie, I looked deep in the background… and SAW those marquees that David Fincher never saw. I searched online and couldn’t find anyone else who’d ever taken these screen grabs. So, the journalist in me wants to say that I’ve uncovered the marquees from Carter and Norton’s movies for the first time ever.
   May not be true, but I’m going with it. It’s the finest piece of investigative journalism I’ve done since this video where I discovered that a young Kevin Federline once sent a high score in to be published in the official Nintendo Fun Club magazine.
   
7. Tyler’s FBI warning. Very clever feature on the DVD here. After the requisite FBI warning at the beginning of the movie, the screen briefly changes to a warning from… Tyler Durden.
   And yes, I completely see the irony that I spent a good five hours watching this movie, pulling screen grabs, Photoshopping them together and writing this list… something outright condemned by this message. So please don’t point it out.
   
8. Tyler punched. This is extremely, extremely subtle. But when Tyler is fighting the owner of the bar, when Tyler gets punched in the stomach the Narrator ever-so-slightly doubles over and winces in pain.
   It’s one of the only times you ever see him visually react to what happens to Tyler. I guess it would be too over-the-top if all of a sudden his face became all bloody here.
   
9. Lauren Sanchez. I was caught off-guard when the Project Mayhem guys are watching a news report about them vandalizing a building and the reporter is Lauren Sanchez. I was surprised for two reasons: (1) She’s a real reporter here in L.A. and (2) She was also the host of the first season of "So You Think You Can Dance" (until she got pregnant, was replaced by Cat Deeley for season two, and was then never invited back).
   OK, so maybe this isn’t a hidden secret that David Fincher put into "Fight Club", but it definitely captivated me. And if this is your first time here and you’re thinking, "Did this guy really just say a hidden secret of ‘Fight Club’ is that it features a cameo from the Brian Dunkelman of ‘So You Think You Can Dance’???"… then allow me to say, welcome to 11 Points.
   
10. Car crash. I have a lot of beef with the car crash… I know they explain on the DVD commentary how a figment of your imagination can drive a car into a ditch… but it’s always felt a little too forced to me.
    (It’s almost too much of a fake out. We’re willing to believe the Narrator beat himself up in those first few fights, that he chemical burned his own hand, that he went around the country setting up fight clubs. But that he could have that argument with himself while driving a car off a road? It’s just one leap too far.)
    Anyway, in the scene, here are two hints that Tyler doesn’t really exist. When the car pulls up, the Narrator gets in the driver’s door, and Tyler follows through the same door. But when the car crashes and flips over, Tyler gets out of the passenger side… and pulls the Narrator out of the driver’s side. Because the car’s flipped it’s hard to figure that out… damn near impossible in the moment.
    

11. Hidden penis. And finally, one of the most famous scenes in the movie is where Tyler and the Narrator talk about secretly splicing one frame of graphic pornography into movies. The goal: Have it enter an audience member’s subconscious and make him or her feel unsettled for reasons they can’t quite believe.
    At the very end of the movie, for one frame… Fincher spliced in a penis. Here it is, in all of its glory. (With my censorship touch, of course. Sorry. I got corporations to please.)
    

Transformers Crew Slams Megan Fox

Got this from oliviamunn.com

This is a holy shit letter if I’ve ever seen one. Three of Michael Bay’s crew members from Transformers, asked Bay to post this letter on his website addressing the insults Megan Fox has said about Bay in recent interviews where she said working with him was like working with “Hitler”.

This is a must read:

“This is an open letter to all Michael Bay fans. We are three crew members that have worked with Michael for the past ten years. Last week we read the terrible article with inflammatory, truly trashing quotes by the Ms. Fox about Michael Bay. This letter is to set a few things straight.

Yes, Megan has great eyes, a tight stomach we spray with glycerin, and an awful silly Marilyn Monroe tattoo plastered on her arm that we cover up to keep the moms happy.

Michael found this shy, inexperienced girl, plucked her out of total obscurity thus giving her the biggest shot of any young actresses’ life. He told everyone around to just trust him on his choice. He granted her the starring role in Transformers, a franchise that forever changed her life; she became one of the most googled and oogled women on earth. She was famous! She was the next Angelina Jolie, hooray! Wait a minute, two of us worked with Angelina – second thought – she’s no Angelina. You see, Angelia is a professional.

We know this quite intimately because we’ve had the tedious experience of working with the dumb-as-a-rock Megan Fox on both Transformers movies. We’ve spent a total of 12 months on set making these two movies.

We are in different departments; we can’t give our names because sadly doing so in Hollywood could lead to being banished from future Paramount work. One of us touches Megan’s panties, the other has the often shitty job of pulling Ms. Sourpants out of her trailer, while another is near the Panaflex camera that helps to memorialize the valley girl on film.

Megan has the press fooled. When we read those magazines we wish we worked with that woman. Megan knows how to work her smile for the press. Those writers should try being on set for two movies, sadly she never smiles. The cast, crew and director make Transformers a really fun and energetic set. We’ve traveled around the world together, so we have never understood why Megan was always such the grump of the set?

When facing the press, Megan is the queen of talking trailer trash and posing like a porn star. And yes we’ve had the unbearable time of watching her try to act on set, and yes, it’s very cringe-able. So maybe, being a porn star in the future might be a good career option. But make-up beware, she has a paragraph tattooed to her backside (probably due her rotten childhood) — easily another 45 minutes in the chair!

So when the three of us caught wind of Ms Fox, pontificating yet again in some publication (like she actually has something interesting to say) blabbing her trash mouth about a director whom we three have grown to really like. She compared working with Michael, to “working with Hitler”. We actually don’t think she knows who Hitler is by the way. But we wondered how she doesn’t realize what a disgusting, fully uneducated comment this was? Well, here let’s get some facts straight.

Say what you want about Michael – yes at times he can be hard, but he’s also fun, and he challenges everyone for a reason – he simply wants people to bring their ‘A’ game. He comes very prepared, knows exactly what he wants, involves the crew and expects everyone to follow through with his or her best, and that includes the actors. He’s one of the hardest working directors out there.

He gets the best from his crews, many of whom have worked with him for 15 years. And yes, he’s loyal, one of the few directors we’ve encountered who lowered his fee by millions to keep Transformers in the United States and California, so he could work with his own crew.

Megan says that Transformers was an unsafe set? Come on Megan, we know it is a bit more strenuous then the playground at the trailer park, but you don’t insult one of the very best stunt and physical effects teams in the business! Not one person got hurt!

And who is the real Megan Fox? She is very different than the academy nominee and winning actors we’ve all worked around.She’s as about ungracious a person as you can ever fathom. She shows little interest in the crew members around her. We work to make her look good in every way, but she’s absolutely never appreciative of anyone’s hard work. Never a thank you. All the crewmembers have stopped saying hi to Ms. Princess because she never says hello back. It gets tiring. Many think she just really hates the process of being an actress.

Megan has been late to the sets many times. She goes through the motions that make her exude this sense of misery. We’ve heard the A.D’s piped over the radio that Megan won’t walk from her trailer until John Turturro walks first! John’s done seventy-five movies and she’s made two!

Never expect Megan to attend any of the 15 or so crew parties like all the other actors have. And then there’s the classless night she blew off The Royal Prince of Jordan who made a special dinner for all the actors. She doesn’t know that one of the grips’ daughters wanted to visit their daddy’s work to meet Megan, but he wouldn’t let them come because he told them “she is not nice.”

The press certainly doesn’t know her most famous line. On our first day in Egypt, the Egyptian government wouldn’t let us shoot because of a permit problem as the actors got ready in make up at the Four Seasons Hotel. Michael tried to make the best of it; he wanted to take the cast and crew on a private tour of the famous Giza pyramids. God hold us witness, Megan said, “I can’t believe Michael is fucking forcing us to go to the fucking pyramids!” I guess this is the “Hitler guy” she is referring to.

So this is the Megan Fox you don’t get to see. Maybe she will learn, but we figure if she can sling insults, then she can take them too. Megan really is a thankless, classless, graceless, and shall we say unfriendly bitch. It’s sad how fame can twist people, and even sadder that young girls look up to her. If only they knew who they’re really looking up to.

But ‘fame’ is fleeting. We, being behind the scenes, seen em’ come and go. Hopefully Michael will have Megatron squish her character in the first ten minutes of Transformers 3. We can tell you that will make the crew happy!

-Loyal Transformers Crew”

WOW. Thoughts?

Michael Bay just posted on his official website this note on the Crew Letter:

“I don’t condone the crew letter to Megan. And I don’t condone Megan’s outlandish quotes. But her crazy quips are part of her crazy charm. The fact of the matter I still love working with her, and I know we still get along. I even expect more crazy quotes from her on Transformers 3.”

Final Destination Number 1 Again

From Variety.com

In the first day of the Labor Day frame, auds walked, instead of running, to the multiplex, putting Warner Bros./New Line’s "The Final Destination" and Fox’s Sandra Bullock–Bradley Cooper comedy "All About Steve" in a near dead heat for the top spot: $3.58 million to $3.55 million.

Moviegoers have shelled out $38.7 million for "Final Destination" in its first eight days, a figure that’s 35% ahead of the franchise’s highest grossing installment, "Final Destination 3" (Total B.O. $54.1 million) versus the same point in time. "Final Destination" fell 67% yesterday from its first Friday.

"All About Steve" is the second film this summer to feature headliners Bullock and Cooper, both who respectively hit career opening day highs at the B.O. back in June with "The Proposal" ($12.7 million) and "The Hangover" ($16.7 million). "All About Steve" played at 2,251 venues.

Lionsgate’s actioner "Gamer" scored third with $3.3 million from 2,502 locales. The film directed by Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor posted a first day in sync with the duo’s 2006 Lionsgate Labor Day weekend release, "Crank" which also reeled in $3.3 million. "Crank" wound up minting a three-day weekend of $10.5 million and a four-day of $12.9 million.

Weinstein Co.’s "Inglourious Basterds" landed fourth in its third Friday with an estimated $3 million off 3,358, repping a 49% decline and a running domestic cume of $83.2 million.

Weinstein Co.’s reboot of "Halloween" in 2007 continues to reign with the highest opening day ever for a Labor Day release — $10.9 million. However, the pic’s sequel in its second Friday dropped 78% on 3,088 for a day gross of $1.74 million in sixth place. Through eight days, "Halloween II’ has grossed $21.8 million. The Rob Zombie-helmed horror chapter followed closely behind Sony/TriStar’s "District 9," which notched fifth with $1.75 million off 3,139, a 41% dip with a total B.O. of $96.1 million.