A Fool's Utopia 1.28.10: In Search of A Hero

Posted by Ron Martin on 01.28.2010

This week in one man's utopia we bemoan the lack of action heroes, scratch stickers before sniffing them and talk even more NFL Playoffs. On top of that we celebrate the Thundercats 25th birthday and worry about The Wolfman.

I was reading a movie review the other day and a not so random thought popped in my head.

The review was for the movie The Tooth Fairy and the thought was "how did The Rock f*ck this up?" For the sake of clarity, let me elaborate. I'm not talking about how Dwayne Johnson screwed up what should have been the biggest blockbuster of all time about a part time hockey player/part time Tooth Fairy. I'm talking about the situation Johnson is in where he is even doing movies that have him sprouting wings and wearing tutus.



When "The Rock" left wresting, he had just come off The Scorpion King. He parlayed a couple of supporting roles into the lead for the entertaining if not great Walking Tall. Though I am not a combat and explosions type of moviegoer, I do like the occasional mind-numbing action adventure flick. Don't let the term action adventure fool you into thinking I am talking about Indiana Jones. For this action adventure genre, I speak of heavily muscled, gun toting macho men who can blow up armies at a mere whim. I'm talking John Rambo, Chuck Norris or whatever Schwarzenegger's character's name was in Commando. These aren't exactly cinema classics by any stretch, but I always felt safer just knowing they were there.



The Rock was on his way to becoming the next major action hero. Unfortunately, someone misled him about just how successful the one skit on SNL where he dressed like a woman was and now that's all he wants to do. The Rock when from the brink of testosterone inducing, grenade launching machismo to being a Disney darling. Maybe he wants to "stretch" his acting abilities. Perhaps he desires critical acclaim. The turn plus the Hollywoodesque weight loss isn't doing him any favors. The Rock isn't really leaving his mark on Hollywood with flicks like The Race to Witch Mountain and The Gameplan.

Someone has to step up. If it's not going to be The Rock, then it has to be someone else. There is a giant hole in Hollywood. There is a need for the next great action hero. Stallone is too old. Chuck Norris is too busy counting to infinity twice or roundhouse kicking Amelia Earhart. Schwarzenegger is a politician. Vin Diesel came and went. Jean Claude Van Damn didn't reach his potential. Now the Rock has sputtered out. The spot is there for the taking. Who will step up and blow up the Taliban single handedly in pricey films with dangerous stunts that will be critically panned but make a ton of money at the box office?



Look at the state of the action movie today. We are pretty much stuck with comic book superheroes. We have Tobey Maguire playing Spiderman. Ed Norton is the Incredible Hulk! Robert Downey Jr is Ironman. When the closest thing we have to an action hero is Nicolas Cage, we've got a problem.

Maybe it's because baseball has brought the public's attention to steroids. Perhaps, we've grown into a society that believes anyone can be a hero, but certainly there still is a place for the ripped one man killing machine. Seriously, do you want your kids growing playing with action figures of Tobey Maguire and Ed Norton? What has the world come to?

IT CAME FROM MY IPOD



This week my IPOD has decided to give you five songs dealing with what has to be the jump the shark season for American Idol. The celebrity judges have been atrocious, Paula is gone and most importantly, Simon is in a lame duck season. The ratings powerhouse is on its way out.

1. "Like a Stone" by Audioslave
2. "Bullet in the Head" by Rage Against the Machine
3. "The Sound of Settling" by Deathcab for Cutie
4. "Rockstar" by Nickelback
5. "Another One Bites the Dust" by Queen


FIVE RANDOM THOUGHTS


1. Thoughts on the NFL Playoffs and such:

a. The Saints and the Colts advance to the Super Bowl in what is a dream matchup of the two best teams in the league throughout the season. On one hand, you have the only four time league MVP and on the other you have the feel good story of the year for a city that desperately needs a trip to the Super Bowl and has never been. So why on Sunday night and all day Monday is Brett f'n Favre the only thing I heard about? He lost. He threw a terrible pass that not even rookie Mark Sanchez would throw and for the third time in five years cost his team a Super Bowl berth. It's painfully obvious to anyone with a brain cell that everyone even remotely involved in the NFL in some way, shape or form wanted Minnesota to advance to the Super Bowl. Why do I say that? Minnesota got discussed more than the Colts and Saints combined in the 48 hours after they lost. Hey, you got all offseason to talk about a team that lost. Guess what guys? There are still two teams playing.

b. Though I will root for the Colts in the Super Bowl, I have not forgotten how they so easily dismissed a perfect season. Caldwell still has to bring home a ring to validate his decision.

c. The Pro Bowl is a joke. Everyone knows it's a joke and everyone acts like it's not a big deal because it's not a true measure of anything. Bullshit. How many times do you hear about the number of Pro Bowls a guy has been to when he is up for induction into the Hall of Fame. This year almost half of the quarterbacks in the AFC are "Pro Bowl" QBs. Here are the QBs who made the AFC Pro Bowl team for 2009: Peyton Manning, Tom Brady, Ben Roethlisberger, Phillip Rivers, Vince Young, Matt Schaub and now David Garrard. How much longer before JaMarcus Russell is starting for the AFC?

d. Way to go on a limb there Mr. Obama. He picks the Saints because the city of New Orleans needs it. For a guy who appeared in a commercial with Drew Brees, you'd think he'd say something like the Saints passing game is unstoppable so he's going with the Saints instead of just picking the city who needs it more.

2. So what's next? The ‘Late Night Wars' will be in a holding pattern until pretty much after the Winter Olympics as everyone involved will be in reruns March 1, ‘Late Night Wars: Round 3' will start as Leno goes back to The Tonight Show. Will he gain back his viewers? Is he damaged goods? My guess is that the old folks who make up the majority of this country will flock back to him – or fall asleep with their channels still on NBC, which is more likely. Conan's main flaw was that his audience is too young. They weren't around at 11:35 because they weren't all snug in their beds with the TV on. Letterman has always had a strange mixed audience and an appeal for that same younger crowd. The old folks who didn't understand Conan and flocked to Letterman will come back to Leno like sheep because he's safe. They understand him. They also know that he won't actually say anything funny so they don't have to worry about their teeth falling out or having some sort of medical attack due to excessive laughter. Bottom Line: Jay is a lot easier to fall asleep to, so everything will fall right back into place once he takes over. I don't like it, but that's they way it is.





3. So I watched Michelle Trachtenberg grow up on TV. I am applying the "creepy old man" tag to me as I saw this, but "Yes, please."

4. I DVR'd the Hope for Haiti telethon and was glad I did. What a show. How respected is George Clooney amongst his peers to be able to throw this thing together at virtually the last minute and get the A-List talent that he had signed up? This wasn't the third runner up from American Idol performing with Disney Channel stars answering the phone. Bruce Springsteen and Stevie Wonder?! Amazing. Hell, if I had watched this thing live, I might've called just to see who was going to answer the phone instead of donating through texts. For a guy that I naturally wanted to bash coming off of ER, Clooney has proved time and time again that he is an actor worthy of my respect and attention. This is just another feather in his cap. Score one for the good guys.



5. I worry. It's not in my nature, but I do. Mostly I worry about The Wolfman. I make it a point (very many times in this column) to avoid remakes like the plague and the plaque both. I mean no one likes the plague, but we all hate plaque too. That's beside the point. I've also said in this very column that the original Universal monsters don't fall into that category because you can remake the original Dracula, Frankenstein, etc, etc, a hundred times and it will never demean the original. The Wolfman obviously falls into this category. The Wolfman is my favorite of all the original Universal films. Top that off with the fact that I likes me some Benicio Del Toro and you have a remake I was kind of looking forward to. Yes, it physically hurts me to type that.

Hearing about setback after setback from the set and now seeing the commercials for the film -- I'm worried. Okay, let me rephrase that. I'm not worried. I'm pretty sure this thing is going to suck dirty donkey balls. I'll go see it. I feel I must. I'll be kinder than most critics, but it's not looking good, kids. Still waiting for the remake of Piranha!



This week on RETRO…



This isn't the first time I've mentioned Thundercats. I believe some time ago I talked of Wily Kit and Wily Kat – how they just didn't float my boat. However, seeing as the show recently celebrated its 25th anniversary, maybe it's time for another look back on one of the cartoons of my formative youth.



Thundercats was a strange situation. Lion-O was the unspoken leader and all the others followed him, yet he was the youngest and had to be mentored by these same followers. Most episodes could be summed up thusly: Lion-O wanders off, gets into trouble, uses the Sword of Thundara to call the other Thundercats to come and save his ass. Let's not play coy here, Mummra could kick Lion-O's ass any day of the week. The Thundercats played the numbers game to get their wins.

I began to lose a bit of faith in the show when Lion-O needed to become the supreme ruler of all things Thundercats even though all the other Thundercats already followed his lead. In order to be king of everything, Lion-O had to defeat all the Thundercats at the thing they were best at. For example, he had to be faster than Cheetara and stronger than Panthro. Ironically enough, he did not have to be whinier than Snarf. This led to the obvious plothole of if Lion-O is better than the other Thundercats at the thing they do best, then why are they even around. I specifically remember my next door neighbor and I being put off by the fact that Lion-O was faster than Cheetara. We called bullshit on that before we were even allowed to say ‘bullshit!'



Things got crazy near the end of the series with new Thundercats popping in and out, storylines getting ridiculous and Cheetara still not getting naked so I bailed after a couple of seasons, which I believe most people followed suit. Really? Wily Kit and Wily Kat? What the hell did they do?

From stinking cats to stinking stickers, let's talk about how great technology was in the early 80s. Sometime in the late 70s collecting stickers became a cool thing for little kids to do. I don't know the ins and outs of how this fad came about, I just know there were people (some of my cousins included) who had entire photo albums full of ridiculous stickers.



When the whole supply meeting demand thing kicked in the world became privy to stickers or all kinds. There were bubble stickers, stickers with googly eyes, stickers of all sorts of different shades of color and most importantly for our purposes today, there were stickers of the Scratch N Sniff variety. For those of you under the ripe old age of 28, let me explain. Scratch N Sniff stickers were just as they sounded – you scratched them, then you sniffed them. To be fair, these things were potent. If the sticker told you that you were going to be smelling candy apples, then by God, candy apples were going to fill your nostrils.

Scratch N Sniff's, if I remember correctly were the gems of your collection. For girls, this meant collecting different flowers and flavors of milkshakes. For boys, this meant collecting the grossest, foulest smelling stickers you could find. Until the invent of Garbage Pail Kids, this was the 80s version of pulling the wings off flies – well, other than actually pulling wings off of flies.



I compare the gross out stickers of old to the Harry Potter version of the jelly bellies today. In the new millennium you can eat jelly beans that disturbingly taste like boogers or earthworms. Back in the day you could sniff stickers that smelled like rotten eggs, skunks or garbage. Yes, those were actual scents. On top of the fruity, flowery and gross out stuff as you can see above, the companies went for scents that were distinctive. You may ask yourself who the hell would want a rope or rubber tire sticker, but if you smelled them blindfolded you would know what you were getting into.

The thing that caught my eye was the sticker that it scented like a star. I didn't realize stars had scents. I also didn't realize that we would know what that scent was since the one closest to us would burn us alive if we were even a couple of inches closer to it. Unless by "stars" they meant celebrities. Seeing some of the celebrities of the 80s, I don't think anyone needs a sticker that smells like Madonna or Cyndi Lauper.

23 YEARS AGO TODAY

January 28, 1987

#1 Song



"At This Moment" by Billy Vera and the Beaters

#1 Album



Slipper When Wet by Bon Jovi

#1 Movie



Critical Condition

I must leave you now.