POTPOURRI

TV: I'm getting way behind in my TV watching, which isn't healthy for my TiVo at all. It's backlogged with episodes of The 4400, Insomniac with Dave Attell, Less Than Perfect, the movie Clerks, and, unbelievably enough, last week's Amazing Race, which I usually watch as soon as possible. I think I'm nearing the TiVo danger zone, where shows are going to be automatically deleted to make room on the hard drive, if I'm not careful.

Speaking of TiVo, I'm a little alarmed by reports (found via Mark Evanier) that it's not doing so well, business-wise. Which I can't believe. Everyone should have one. It's the greatest invention since... well, television. They're dropping the prices this month. You must get one, I'm telling you.

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MOVIES: Run, Ronnie, Run

I loved Bob Odenkirk and David Cross' Mr. Show, which spawned this film, but I didn't much care for the film itself. For one thing, it's inspired by a sketch from the show which I never liked in the first place: Ronnie Dobbs, a poor, stupid, white trash troublemaker, becomes famous for being arrested multiple times on a Cops-like show, and eventually an entire show is built around him getting arrested every single week. The movie stretches this thin concept way beyond its breaking point, while adding in various weak satires of other reality shows (a Survivor rip-off in which the losers are killed and eaten), and it fails to ever really pick up steam.

There are tons of cameos by some very funny people (such as Ben Stiller, Garry Shandling, Trey Parker and Matt Stone, Patton Oswalt, Scott Thompson, Patrick Warburton, and, most random of all, Jeff Goldblum), but they never really do anything funny. I mean, when you've got Dave Foley and Andy Richter and Sarah Silverman in the same scene, and my only response is, "Eh," you're doing something wrong. The only one of these cameos that worked for me was Jack Black's performance of a hilariously vulgar song in a "deleted scene" from a Mary Poppins-esque musical.

There were a number of laughs throughout the film; I especially enjoyed the music video interlude by faux soul group Three Times One Minus One (played by Bob and David), and a Mortal Kombat-style fight scene toward the end had me in stitches. But I mostly felt like this film was a series of missed opportunities. The central concept could've been utilized to better effect, and the film could've been funnier still if the central concept weren't such a dud to begin with. Good job on putting Nikki Cox in a bikini for most of her scenes, though. Very good job.

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"Summer, if you grade-grub one more time... I will send you back to the first grade."

I have to admit, I did a little grade-grubbing yesterday. About 7:30 PM, I noticed that I had 89 hits via my Sitemeter counter. So I pinged my blog (that sounds dirty) to get it refreshed on the Comic Weblog Updates page. I'm not proud of myself. But I finally got triple digits in hits, which I take pride in. Oh, wait, I guess I am proud of myself. Anyway, just before midnight, the site received its 100th hit of the day, which is a landmark for me. Drinks are on the house!