Potpourri

The final table of the current Celebrity Poker Showdown series will air this Sunday, with players Matthew Perry, Dennis Rodman, Kevin Nealon, Neil Patrick Harris, and Mekhi Phifer. (The Bravo website conveniently, and possibly unintentionally, but probably not, ranks them in order of celebrity importance, from Ace to Ten.) My prediction: I think Phifer and Nealon got to the finals on pure luck, and will be eliminated first (in that order). Rodman will stick around for a while because of his intimidating persona (and in spite of his erratic play), but in the end, Harris will edge out Perry for the win. Doogie's got skills!

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I finally finished going through all the Farscape episodes I taped during the Sci-Fi Channel's recent marathon. That is one excellent show. But I gotta say, I understand now why the fans were so ticked off about how the series ended when it got cancelled. What a pisser of a cliffhanger! Man, you end it one minute earlier, and it's happily ever after. Well, now I've got the Peacekeeper Wars mini-series queued up and ready to go on my TiVo. It better not end on a cliffhanger!

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I haven't gotten the blockbuster Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas that all the kids are talking about yet, because I'm still trying to finish GTA: Vice City. Partly that's because I'm much less of a gamer than I used to be; last week, when I got back into Vice City again, I was surprised to see my previous saved game was from May. And partly it's because Vice City is so damn big. I finished the main storyline, defeating the Mafia goons trying to take over my territory, and becoming the unchallenged kingpin of Vice City. The end credits rolled and everything. Then I checked the statistics: I had only completed 42% of the game. In one sense, I had finished it, but in another sense, I wasn't even halfway done, what with all the missions, hidden packages, insane stunt jumps, properties, etc. I had yet to discover/explore/complete. Now that is getting your money's worth. And I hear San Andreas is even bigger. I think I may wait for Sony to release the inevitable "Greatest Hits" version for $19.99 before I buy it; no matter how much gameplay is in it, I still think fifty bucks is too damn much to lay down for a video game.

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Found via Pop Culture Junk Mail: there is a blog solely dedicated to the deconstruction of the comic strip "For Better or For Worse". It's For Better or For Worse Strikes Back, and it's a crack-up. Actually, as I examine it more closely, I see the maintainer has recently abandoned the blog, leaving it open to anyone who wants to post about that day's happenings with the Patterson clan. How fun! Much like Hulk's Diary, this is something I wish I had thought of first. Maybe I'll start my own blog about "Rose is Rose". Or "Drabble"!

MOVIES: Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle

I wasn't expecting much from a movie called Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle, and that's basically what I got. Maybe I should've expected even less. But how could I? It's a stoner comedy by the guy who directed Dude, Where's My Car?* That bar is not set very high. (Heh, I said "high".)

It's funny enough, with a few good extended laughs, but for some reason I had built myself up into thinking this would be some kind of comedy classic I needed to see in the theater. Partly due to a lot of hype on various blogs and review sites, partly from Ebert & Roeper giving it two thumbs up (I figured, if they recommend a stoner comedy, it must be very funny indeed). And it's just not that good.

Again, I'm aware that I'm talking about Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle here. And I'm aware that it seems a little silly to claim disappointment in a movie with that title. Still, I did expect more.

The two leads are definitely very funny people, especially John Cho as Harold. He's been good in a lot of different things, and he's good here. And the movie has a decent amount of comedy in it, as well as some excellent cameo appearances, including Fred Willard as an admissions officer at a medical school, Jamie Kennedy as a strange man in the forest, Ryan Reynolds as a male nurse, and, best of all, Neil Patrick Harris as himself. You can't resist laughing when Doogie Howser tells Harold and Kumar, "I'm tripping my balls off," or, "I left some love stains in the back seat." You just can't. Well, maybe you can, I don't know you very well. But I couldn't.

I think one of the problems I had with this movie may have come from the audience I saw it with. There were very few people to begin with, and the ones who were there were often uncomfortably silent while I was laughing, which made me a little self-conscious, and less willing to laugh. Not that the audience hated the movie, or never laughed; they just were fairly reserved for a raunchy, dopey, drug-related comedy like this one.

I still laughed a lot, though. It's not Anchorman funny, but it's still a good deal funnier than it has any right to be, and it actually makes a few clever observations about how Asians are perceived, and expected to behave, in America. It's a definite DVD rental.

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*One of my favorite jokes ever from The Daily Show was when Jon Stewart claimed the sequel would be named, Oh, There It Is.