August 4, 2004

Hi everyone. How's it going today? Things are going pretty smooth around here despite the fact that my car is rapidly falling to pieces on me. I guess I'll have to consider getting a bank loan to help finance a new car, just not a brand new car. Something made in the last decade would be a nice upgrade though.

Greatest College Movie of All Time

All right people. Only two of you felt the urge to chime in last week when I thought about writing a column comparing PCU and Old School. That's it? After thinking about it some more and talking with my roommates Ryan & Jon, I've decided to expand the field to eight movies and have a battle royal. He's the list:

Old School
PCU
Back to School
Road Trip
Van Wilder
Glory Daze
Revenge of the Nerds
Animal House

Here are the criteria they will be judged on:

Most realistic representation of college life
Best cameo appearance
Hottest lead actress
Volume of Quotable Lines
Amount of Nudity (female)
Historical Significance

You all have this week to give me your suggestions as to which movie is the best and why. A panel of judges (Ryan, Jon, & I) will then discuss the merit of each film and declare a winner. So, if you want your opinion to count, you better email me at jacsv76@hotmail.com this week.

Poker!!!!

I signed up with this Internet poker sight called EmpirePoker.com the other day. It gives you the option of playing the real money games and/or the play money games. All you have to do is download their software, choose a username and password and you're off. They don't ask for any financial information unless you play the real money games. Plus, the graphics are much better than yahoo poker and you can play pot limit or no limit games. Since I've signed up on Sunday, I'm plus $2,900 in play money in about four hours of total playing time. I'm a poker shark and didn't even know it. I may enter into one of the money tournaments in the next few weeks. That is unless my girlfriend destroys my Internet connection...

This is of course on top of the $20 bucks I won off my buddies the other night in a poker game. I had all of their chips in a little over an hour and a half.

Tonight (Tuesday) I will be going to the poker tournament at Last Call bar in Athens. I balked last week, but I'm all in this time. Poker humor, sorry. I'd invite some of you to come join me, but you won't read this until it's too late. However, if you're in the area and plan on coming next week, send me an email. I'd be happy to take your chips.

Five Quick Things You Probably Didn't Know About Me

1) My favorite Elvis song is Suspicious Minds. Hands down one of the
greatest closing songs of all time.

2) I own a shirt that has a rebel flag on it...and a bandana too for
that matter. I'm sure my parents cry themselves to sleep thinking about it.

3) I'm a better than average racquetball player. Of course, it's been a
few months since I last played and I've put on a few pounds recently. Time to get my ass back in the gym.

4) I generally have notoriously long fingernails which I don't trim until I stab myself with them.

5) It's my firm belief that the greatest movie of all time, the one that supercedes all others is...

Boogie Nights

Boogie Nights is the coming of age story about a young man named Eddie Adams (Mark Wahlberg) who is discovered for his huge penis by porn movie director Jack Horner (Burt Reynolds) and becomes a star in the late 70's/early 80's porno industry. This movie covers the rise, fall, and redemption of the Eddie and the group around him. So, without any further delay, ten reasons you should watch, own, and worship Boogie Nights.

1) It's about the porno industry, so yes there are plenty of naked
ladies onscreen as well as some snippets of cheesy 70's/80's porn dialogue.

Here's a great example:

[In a scene from "Brock Landers: Angels Live In My Town."]
Dirk: [as Brock] You still hungry?
Jessie St. Vincent: Starving.
[Unzipping his pants.]
Dirk: [as Brock] Then feast on that.

2) Eddie chooses a porn name in the hot tub. This scene has three very memorable moments, Burt Reynolds shirtless, an awful poem by Reed Rothchild (John C. Reilly), and Eddie's choice for a name.

Reed Rothchild: Want to hear a poem I wrote? "I love you, you love me. Going down the sugar tree. We'll go down the sugar tree, and see lots of bees: playing, playing. But the bees won't sting, because you love me." That's it.

Later...

Eddie: Jack, I was thinking about my name, y'know?
Jack: Yeah?
Eddie: I was wondering if you had any ideas.
Jack: I've got a few, but you tell me
Eddie: Well, my idea was, y'know, I want a name I want it so it can cut glass, y'know, razor sharp.
Jack: Tell me.
Eddie: When I close my eyes, I see this thing, a sign, I see this name in bright blue neon lights with a purple outline. And this name is so bright and so sharp that the sign -- it just blows up because the name is so powerful... It says, "Dirk Diggler."

3) You Got the Touch - probably the funniest part of the movie is Dirk
recording some songs for a record deal he is trying to nail down. He has no vocal range or ability whatsoever and is blindly encouraged and backed up by Reed. "I think the bass is taking away from my vocals." The Boogie Nights Volume One soundtrack has both You Got the Touch and Feel My Heat. Those two tracks are worth buying the CD alone.

4) This movie is just jam packed with quality/known actors: Mark
Wahlberg, Julianne Moore, Burt Reynolds, Heather Graham, John C. Reilly, Philip Seymour Hoffman, William H. Macy, Thomas Jane, Don Cheadle, Philip Baker Hall, Alfred Molina, and more. The casting in this film is genius. Plus, Paul Thomas Anderson threw in a few porn starlets to give the movie some authenticity.

5) Although she's a good 15 years older than me, I have to give Julianne Moore credit, because she was bitchin hot in this movie and really shined as Jack's wife. Heather Graham has some nice boobs too, but I'm sure you don't need me to tell you that.

6) Roller Girl (Heather Graham) stomping some frat boy's head in with
her roller skates after the failed video taping of a sex scene. "YOU CAN NEVER FUCK ME!" (Stomp...stomp...stomp) "YOU CAN NEVER FUCK ME!" The best part is that they left the guy there bleeding on the side of the road.

7) The score. Except for Quentin Tarantino, nobody uses the musical
score better to help set the tone of the movie better than Anderson.

8) DVD Special - On the director's commentary, you find out that John and Mark got into a fight the night before filming their first scenes together and that they didn't talk to each other during some of the filming. Apparently, it all start with some friendly ribbing and escalated when John threw a marshmallow that hit Mark in the head. Of course, when prompted during the commentary to talk about it, Mark would only comment that it was a big marshmallow.

9) The donut shop robbery. This scene is too intense to explain. Just
know, that given the same situation, I would have done the same thing Don Cheadle did. No question about it.

10) The Marky Mark face. This is hands down my favorite part of the film. Dirk, Reed, and Todd Parker (Thomas Jane) are trying to pass of some flour as cocaine to a drug dealer and are hanging out at his house. The dealer (Alfred Molina) is out of his mind nuts, rocking out to Rick Springfield, freebasing, and playing Russian roulette while the trio nervously watches on. Suddenly, it occurs to Dirk that he has pretty much fucked up his life. He went from the top porn star in the industry to a jobless drug addict trying to pull a fast one over an armed drug dealer and his bodyguard. And that, is when you see the face. It's brilliant.

Ok, that's all I can muster for the week. If you want to put in your two cents in the Best College Movie debate, you gotta do it this week. As always, you can email me with any comments, complaints, and marriage proposals to jacsv76@hotmail.com.


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