It's All About The Backlash

You know the saying "Bad press is better than no press," right? Well then it's been a pretty good week for two key figures in TV and movies...

Let's start with Dr. Phil. Mr. "You need to make a change fer YOU" took to Twitter this week with a fairly controversial question to draw a response from viewers. It said "If a girl is drunk, is it OK to have sex with her?" Now, that's not to say that I haven't taken women out, gotten them drunk, then had sex with them. However, it was all consensual, and I think the question Dr. Phil was asking was about non-consensual stuff...also known as rape. Twitter users also believed that to be the line of questioning and kinda tore the Doc a new one. One of the responders wrote "If Dr. Phil is drunk, is it okay for him to tweet?" Look, America, I get it. The phrasing of Dr. Phil's question could have been so much better. Like "Do you agree with raping a drunk girl?" But let's consider this from a PR standpoint. The way the question was phrased started a major firestorm on the interwebs. It got people talking about Dr. Phil again, which, if you're not living in North Carolina looking for a missing teenage girl, no one is really doing (but he usually does some major shit in his season premiere, so I'll be watching for that...or not). People will tune in to this particular episode to see how the Doc effs things up...but will over the course of the hour learn a valuable lesson from "Big 'Stache." After all, the Doc has to make his money. He can't just offer those mustache rides for free. (I'm kidding, Big Phil!)

Now to the other big internet outrage...Ben Affleck will be the next Batman. No joke. He'll be playing the Dark Knight in the Batman/Superman movie that I swore I was so excited about just 4 days ago. Now, let's address something here...Ben Affleck is not a bad actor (see Argo). Ben Affleck has shown he can at least REASONABLY portray superheroes on film (see Daredevil...but pretend Jennifer Garner isn't in it). But can he pull off Batman? Sure, he can pass for an adorkable Bruce Wayne...which kinda flies in the face of the socially awkward but dashingly handsome Bruce Wayne we've seen for years. Shit, they relied so heavily on "handsome" they had George Fucking Clooney (seriously, that's his middle name) play him in one (godawful) film! But can he do BATMAN??? There are some people out there who say this is a response similar to the announcement that Heath Ledger was going to play the Joker. Y'know, the portrayal that got him a posthumous Oscar nomination. To be fair, there had been nothing prior to "The Dark Knight" that showed whether Ledger could or could not pull off a brutal villain like the Joker. So a lot of that criticism was probably unfounded. But we've SEEN Affleck do a superhero movie...with "meh" results. Honestly, a lot of it will probably come down to the script and directing. The greatest writer and the best director can polish a turd with relative ease. So I'll go on the record so I can come back to this in a couple years and see what I wrote...I hope Affleck does well as Batman. I think it'd be another great opportunity (like Argo) to step out of the Affleck/Damon shadow that Matt Damon leapt out of almost immediately into a successful career. Ben, best of luck to you. You're going to step into a franchise that I have a LOT of love for. Individually, Batman is amazing and I enjoy him enough I got the bat-signal tattooed on my arm. The Batman/Superman comics have been AWESOME for the most part. So you have been offered a great part in a great legacy. More power to you. But it will probably be the deal-breaker for me and I won't see it.

I'm done bitching for the day. Go back to your regularly scheduled activities of porn and cute cat videos (but never both at once...NEVER. BOTH. AT. ONCE.)...

-B-

This One's A Quickie

First, I saw "We're The Millers" last night. Entertaining. Also, Emma Roberts and Jennifer Aniston? Call me.

I don't think anything in this next clip will surprise people, given all of the jokes and movies that feature people on TV wearing more CASUAL attire behind the newsdesk, but it still amuses me when people get called out on it:

Boston News, Weather, Sports | FOX 25 | MyFoxBoston

Wow, speaking of WHITEY BULGER...yuck. For the record, I usually blog without pants...awkward...

Hey, let's bring this bad boy home with a clip from John Oliver's last week as interim host of The Daily Show. I just want to say that watching him has been very entertaining and I hope this means very good things for his career...



G'day indeed! Foster's...Australian for how voters can stomach going to the polls.

-B-

It's Shark Week!

We'll get to that in a second, but first, some (quite literally) breaking news...regarding a hailstorm in Minnesota:



Yeah, that sucks. Hey, you guys know by now how much I enjoy The Daily Show. And you probably also know how much I loathe the backwoods North Carolina political scene. So THIS segment makes me happy. And has me thinking about motorcycle helmets...



So now, back to our lead story...it's Shark Week. One of my top favorite ocean-predator-themed weeks of television coverage...besides "7 Days of the Orca" and "Dolphin Rape Week." But it appears the kids over at the Discovery Channel are catching a little flack...



They really should just have done what the idiotically-spelled SyFy channel did (seriously, where are the Ys in "science" and "fiction"???) and just thrown Tara Reid and Beverly Hills 90210-alum Ian Ziering into it. Speaking of, be sure to catch...and I swear I'm not making this up...the original SyFy channel movie, "Ghost Shark," coming next month. The brilliant idea behind this is the aforementioned "shark of ghosts" will kill you if you have any water on you...AT ALL. "Just when you thought it was safe to splash a little cool water on your face..." Also, I should point out, after an extensive social media campaign, the kids at Syfy also came up with a subtitle for their "Sharknado 2" film. Before I reveal this to you, I want to make sure you understand that the channel reports it got something like 1,000 ideas for names. Knowing how people on social media think, you're probably only guaranteed about 20 GOOD ideas...which means there's no excuse for this: "Sharknado 2: The Second One." #facepalm Here's a trailer...



I'll totally watch that...but only if that sexy co-star starts taking off her clothes. Hey, a quick shout-out this morning...congratulations to Nate and Kim on the birth of their first child, Lizzy. I have seen this beautiful child and she has what Nate describes as a "great startled look" when she's nudged while sleeping. Her arms shoot up and shake a little...like one of those skinny inflatable things outside car dealers.

I'm out.
-B-

Ah, The Randomness Of The Summer Doldrums

Do you like offensive Fox News interviews? Do you have 10 minutes to watch a guy who wrote a book about Jesus get grilled because he's a muslim and apparently muslims aren't allow to study or write about Jesus? Then have I got the clip for you:



If, for some reason, that's not your cup of tea...hey, thanks for sticking around! Maybe instead I could offer you this link to a blog from a now FORMER investigative reporter. In it, she offers some dirty little secrets of her job (and probably some things OTHER reporters do...like nap in a news car...hey, they DO work long hours some days). And when word got out of the blog post, she got canned. If you want to see what gets someone fired from a job in news, this is a brief but interesting read.

What? I still haven't grabbed you? How about a warning for drivers in California that might be a little distracting?



Okay, fine, if nothing else has entertained you today, perhaps this little gem will. Apparently the jobs of garbagemen are now being outsourced...



So. Damn. Adorable.

Thanks for joining me for the quickie this week. We'll see if I feel like putting more words on your screen next week. Vote Weiner! (not the candidate...vote for my penis.)

-B-