Sunday, October 12, 2008

Midnight Madness - Lethal Weapon 2 Edition

Riggs and Murtaugh go after the bad guys in Lethal Weapon 2

The first two Lethal Weapon movies are among my favorites of all time, the mix of action and humor enhanced by Richard Donner's splashy direction are film making benchmarks to me. Lethal Weapon 2 had more jokes so I tended to like it a little more than the first film. The combo of Mel Gibson's tortured yet amused killing machine cop and Danny Glover's retiring old school family man cop had great chemistry, enough to carry them through two more sequels. I'll have to expand on this more some other time, but for now I just want to give a shout out to the Lethal Weapon movies, back when L.A. cops were considered cool, Mel Gibson was fun instead of demeaning and action was done with actual stunt people instead of CGI. Am I getting too old for this sh*t? Nope, just wanted to throw in a movie quote.

I've got two weeks to catch up on for media news, so here it goes -

Phish Food - The 90's jam band Phish are reuniting for live dates. I'm too lazy to come up with a good joke so here's the words "granola", "hacky sack", "porta potties", "hemp" - use as needed to have a laugh.

Get the Led Out - Robert Plant confirmed he's not involved with any Led Zep reunion, which is probably the right thing for Plant to do for himself but bums out millions of people. We should try to convince Plant to do it as part of an economic rebuilding plan for America and Europe. Because if they reunited they could charge just about any price they wanted to, why not pay off some national debt with it? C'mon Robert, the world needs you!

Apple of my Itunes - Catastrophe was averted a week ago when ITunes successfully beat back a rate hike from the record companies this week. If the hike had gone through, ITunes was threatening closure from loss of profitability. Sure ITunes has lower bit rates and lousy DRM in their downloads compared to say Amazon, but it's still hecka convenient. And I'm still lazy!

Living in the Future - Bruce Springsteen is set to play the halftime show to this season's Super Bowl. Please-no wardrobe malfunctions or phallic guitar stances, Boss. That would be scary.

The Magic is Back - There's talk of a Lethal Weapon 5 going around which would be great, except it sounds like the whole thing is going to be recast. That means no Mel Gibson, who has been away for awhile following his bad press and could probably use a comeback vehicle. Bring Gibson back I say, all he has to do is be nice to people of other races, sexes and sexual orientation. On second thought, maybe they should recast. Mel Gibson, dude, what happened to you?

Dr Bombay, come right away - Both Janet Jackson and Meat Loaf recently spent time in the hospital for undisclosed illnesses. Hopefully both performers will recover soon.

Ain't It Fun - The latest word all over the media is that Axl N' Rose's, er, Guns N' Roses long gestating album Chinese Democracy is set for a November release. And once it hits shelves, if it sells well I'm betting on a flurry of lawsuits over writing and performance credits because so many people have come and gone from these sessions over the years.

Romeo's Delight - After a very public divorce from Valerie Bertinelli, guitar virtuoso Eddie Van Halen is engaged to be married a second time. I wonder if EVH plays at his own weddings? It's not like he can find someone else that's better, plus I bet he gets really good rates on the wedding band.

Tempus Fugit - Yes is continuing with tour plans sans Jon Anderson, who bassist Chris Squire claims now supports the newly configured band. Hopefully if Anderson doesn't return to Yes, he'll be able to form another band out of ex-Yes members. It's happened before, why not again? Anderson, Bruford, Moraz and Rabin??

"I'm a smart person, what the hell was I thinking?" - is the sound byte in the making from the early word on Spears upcoming MTV special. Britney Spears continues on her carefully paced comeback trail with the release of the new single "Womanizer" complete with "Toxic" style video. Later there will be the aforementioned special coming where she allegedly explains some of her recent behavior. Personally, I've never been that into Spears music beyond "Toxic" (a good pop song, regardless of who sings it in my opinion) and have found her meltdown mildly entertaining but it's probably best for her own health to get sane again. But what you say about her company is what you say about society, I think Spear's recent career has said a lot about the pressure on young performers, the invasiveness on celebrities lives by media and the public's need for provocative dancing girls. If I was still in college, she would be a thesis paper onto herself.

Lethal Weapon 2 Trailer

6 comments:

Jeb said...

Dammit, a Zep tour without Plant. Haven't commented in a while.

Mr. Mike said...

Yeah, a Zep tour without Plant is pretty weak, I read somewhere they were trying out the singer from Alter Bridge. It's disappointing because it's like the Cream reunion a few years ago, only the super rich get to see the real show.

Jeannie said...

Did I mention that I love the first two Lethal Weapon movies too?? I wouldn't mind sitting down and watching them with you sometime.

"Please-no wardrobe malfunctions or phallic guitar stances, Boss. That would be scary."

HAHAHA! You're telling me!

Mr. Mike said...

We'll do that Bunny! We can watch the first one with one of my favorite movie moments "Do you really wanna jump? Do you wanna? Well that's fine with me, I want to jump."

Anonymous said...

What happened to ´Dude´ Mel Gibson? I don´t think anything spectacular.
I don't accept anti-semitism or sexism in any way or form. I just don't think he is either.

See the first comment under the following article:
http://www.emorywheel.com/detail.php?n=25936

Mr. Mike said...

Thanks for the link, it is an interesting read. I can't say that I necessarily agree with the comment on there though it is well written, so I'll say I choose to respectfully disagree. This doesn't mean I'm not a fan of Mel Gibson, I still like both him and his movies. But I also like to make fun of him on occassion.