H. Seitz
June 27, 2018
Movies and Television
Fonzie, Happy Days, Jackie Chan, Katie Holmes, Lena Dunham, Matt Damon, Mr. Cunningham, Mrs. Cunningham, Rosie O'Donnell, The Fonze, Todd Bridges
Happy Days: The Awakening Rated TV-MA For the love of God, another reboot. But let’s put that aside for a moment. I consider myself to be a “woke” individual. I’m an alcoholic who shoots speedballs and frequently cries in front of prostitutes and I refuse to judge myself (or let anyone judge me) for any of it. But Lena Dunham’s Happy Days is beyond temporally biased. It isn’t even insane as much as it’s totally incoherent. The Fonze is played by Rosie O’Donnell. And that’s about the only thing I’m sure about. As far as who anyone else is supposed to be, it’s anyone’s guess. Maybe it’s my unacknowledged biases coming through, but I’d assumed that Jackie Chan was playing Arnold. But apparently, he’s supposed to be Potsie? Or maybe Mrs. Cunningham? One minute he’s talking to Todd Bridges about picking up chicks, the next he’s wearing an apron and…
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H. Seitz
June 25, 2018
Divine Advice
Chicxulub crater, Donald Trump, Jeff Sessions, Jesus, Old Testament, Satan, The Donald
Dear Jesus Christ my Lord and Savior and Satan His evil but necessary counterpart, I’m starting to think we bet on the wrong horse. The problem with this latest kids in cages debacle is that we put little kids into cages. The demented harpies who voted for Trump aren’t going to stand for this, seeing little kids suffering makes them weak in the ovaries. And Trump saying it’s the Democrats fault, and then saying an executive order wouldn’t be enough, and then saying congress had to do it, and then caving and signing an executive order anyway. This is a lot to swallow even for a Trump supporter. We’d need a miracle to survive the midterms after this. Or a deal with the Devil. Either way, as long as we Make America Great Again or accomplish whatever the hell it is we’re supposedly doing. We’re a bit short on souls,…
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H. Seitz
June 20, 2018
Fiction
His name was Barney. I met him at the farmer’s market in Union Square 14 years ago on a hot summer day in August. He was depressed because his second wife Zelda had just left him. It had always been Zelda’s dream to raise mink in upstate New York, so it shouldn’t have surprised Barney when she finally left him, but it did anyway. Maybe he was in denial, as so many of us are in the face of inevitable disappointment. She cleaned him out. Their savings, credit cards, checking accounts, everything. So now he was stuck selling vegetables on the weekends to make ends meet. He was a cobbler by trade, and apparently that’s still a viable career, but without the profits he made from selling his zucchinis, tomatoes, and kale, he would have lost his apartment and been out on the street. He needed the apartment because that’s…
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H. Seitz
June 19, 2018
Default, Movies and Television, Reviews
Alex P. Keaton, American History X, Edward Norton, Emma Watson, Family Ties, Gabrielle Union, Jeff Goldblum, Justine Bateman, Meredith Baxter-Birney, Michael Gross, Michael J. Fox, Tina Youthers, Willem Dafoe
When I first heard about this, I thought “great, another fucking reboot.” Is Hollywood really this creatively bankrupt? (Yes.) With The Transformers reboot, at least there was the chance that today’s technology could give us a paradigm-shifting experience (and it did! Seven times!). And reboots of 90s classics like Sabrina the Teenage Witch just make sense. Who wouldn’t want to watch a cat puppet talk to a girl we’re not sure how to feel about wanting to hump? But Family Ties? Really? The only reason it worked in the first place was the spank-bankability of Meredith Baxter-Birney. Without the sexual tension between her and Michael J. Fox, what’s the point? I’m happy to report that I was wrong. Dead wrong. Family Ties: The Ties That Bind melds all of the classic archetypes of the original with today’s dystopian angst. We still have the liberal dad (Jeff Goldblum), the hot mom…
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H. Seitz
June 18, 2018
Divine Advice
Betty White, Bruins Human Centipede, Donald Trump, Estelle Getty, Golden Girls, Guantanamo, Guinness Book of World Records, Jesus Christ, Michael Cohen, Raisin Bran, Red Sox, Rose, Rudy Giuliani, Saag Paneer, Satan, Scarface, Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot, Terminator, The Godfather, Yankees
Dear DA, I’m screwed. You know the people who when they were kids were always misquoting movies? Who’d tell the same dumb joke or say the same stupid catchphrase over and over again and laugh every time? That kid was me. I’ve always been kind of a wannabe. When I was a kid, I wanted to be a cowboy. Living with nature among all of God’s creatures, sleeping under the stars and cooking beans over a campfire, all of that stuff sounded awful to me. But being able to shoot Indians or Native Americans or really anyone (but it’s easier to get away with it if they’re brown) would have made all of those hardships worth it. Like a lot of college guys, I went through my “The Godfather” and “Scarface” phase. I would repeat those lines about cannolis and saying hello to my little pal to everyone. I was…
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H. Seitz
June 11, 2018
Divine Advice
Adolf Hitler, Big Foot, Blitzkrieg, Donald Trump, Elon Musk, Elvis, Jesus, JFK, Loch Ness Monster, Mars, Satan
Dear DA, Yes, they saved my brain. I’ve been monitoring the earth’s activities from my Nazi Martian Thunderdome and frankly, you people sicken me. Certain earth elements have been comparing me to Donald Trump, so I want to make it absolutely clear right here and right now that the comparison is invalid. To compare me to that draft dodging, fat assed, Russian piss hound buffoon! I got a medical deferral, but I forced my way into serving anyway, I was on the front lines of WW1! I was awarded two Iron Crosses for valor. Zwei! When I see that fat orange baboon blabbering away I want to kick him in the stomach and stomp on his face until his face and his stomach switch places and he looks like the pink, bloated balloon man he is! VERDAMMT SOHN EINER HUNDEN ARSHGEIGE FLACHWICHSER! I hate him! When I get back to…
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H. Seitz
June 4, 2018
Divine Advice
Colin Kaepernick, Donald Trump, Jesus Christ, Larry the Cable Guy, National Anthem, Padres, Pornhub, Roseanne Barr, Rosie O'Donnell, Satan, Star-Spangled Banner, Trumpanzee
Dear DA, Americans are nostalgic and they love a comeback, and I’m both. Or at least I was. They liked me so much they thought I was kidding about being a Trump supporter. I guess what the millennials say is true. If you’re a rich, privileged, white woman, you can get away with almost anything, except for showing them what hypocrites they are. They liked me, so they figured I must be one of them. Don’t get me wrong. You’re technically God, so you can’t get me wrong and there’s no point in lying to you. What I tweeted was racist. But is that any reason to shame me? That’s race shaming. They’re making me ashamed of being white. Being a racist I can live with, but being white? I’ll never be able to wear a bikini in public again. If I wasn’t a racist, I might actually be ashamed…
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H. Seitz
May 28, 2018
Divine Advice
Andrew Garfield, Armie Hammer, Bill Gates, Data, Facebook, Jesse Eisenberg, Jesus, Justin Timberlake, Kenny Baker, Lal, Mark Zuckerberg, R2-D2, Salvador Dali, Satan, Sean Parker, Spiderman, Star Trek the Next Generation, The Devil, Winklevoss
Dear DA, Lately I get the feeling that none of my friends are seeing my posts on Facebook, and I don’t think I’m seeing theirs, either. All I get are spammy links to softcore porn and political articles written by Russian hackers. It’s like Facebook has become a never-ending spam folder. When Data built me and my sister Lal, he told me that it was his dream to become more human, but that I shouldn’t even bother trying. So I took his advice and created Facebook. But now, I’m thinking about deleting my account and going back to ham radio. It was such a thrill to finally talk to tweaked out truckers after hours of sifting through static. One time, I even talked to a guy in Switzerland. He was in his basement talking to truckers, too! How is my sister Lal? Of all the souls I have encountered in…
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H. Seitz
May 21, 2018
Divine Advice
Bill Cosby, Jesus, Larry King, LGBTQ, NAACP, NASA, Newt Gingrich, Satan
Dear DA, I applied to NASA, and do you know what those CIS, heteronormative bastards told me? They told me I was too old, weak, and stupid to be an astronaut. That’s ageist, ableist, and also somehow anti-semitic. All those rumors about Nazis on Mars, I never used to give them much credence, but now I’m not so sure. You want to be an astronaut, it’s just like anything else. You schmooze, smoke cigars with the boys, hang around gin joints yucking it up. It’s all about who you know. Not whether you’re old, weak, or Jewish. Look at Sandy Koufax! (I know, I know, can a Jew go for five minutes without talking about Sandy Koufax?). In his prime, he couldn’t jump over a fire hydrant, but could he have been an astronaut? Probably. He has a 2.93 lifetime ERA. These fakakta astronauts. They want me to piss in…
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RK Galaga
May 16, 2018
Movies and Television, Reviews
A New Hope, Alden Ehrenreich, American Graffiti, Beanie Babies, Bespin, Billy Hoyle, Capt. Kirk, Chewbacca, Chewie, Chris Pine, Chris Pratt, Clint Eastwood, Cloud City, Coen Brothers, Donald Glover, Ethan Coen, George Lucas, Hail Caesar!, Han Solo, Harrison Ford, Henry Fonda, Jabba the Hutt, James Stewart, Jawas, JJ Abrams, Joel Coen, John Wayne, Lando Calrissian, Millennium Falcon, Paul Le Mat, Ponda Baba, Repo Man, Richard Dreyfus, Robot Chicken, Ron Howard, Shia LaBeouf, Sidney Deane, Solo: A Star Wars Story, Star Wars, Storm Troopers, Walrus Man, White Men Can't Jump, Woody Harrelson
Solo: A Star Wars Story is the movie everyone was asking for but nobody really wanted. And why wouldn’t a Star Wars fan want a Han Solo origin story? Because they know what to expect from Disney’s desperate pandering. Focusing on the western film genre influences in Star Wars, Solo casts Alden Ehrenreich in the title role. This is undoubtedly due to his previous role as a goofy cowboy who can’t act in the Coen brothers film Hail, Caesar! Fan reactions to this choice were mostly negative. In discussions of who would have been better, many names are thrown around, including Chris Pratt (too obvious), Chris Pine (Capt. Kirk, really?), and Shia LaBeouf (seems like they weren’t even trying). In my opinion, all of those guys would have sucked, too. Clint Eastwood was the best cowboy of all time and therefore would have made the best young Han Solo. James Stewart’s…
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