The Kitchen

Awesome!

Article Just hit 200 likes. Boosh!

Just checked in with the article and it just got 101 likes. This is more than my 2 previous articles combined.

Thanks alot everybody, especially Bree whose skill with the photoshop is the reason it’s there at all.

It was quite a day for this soon to be former collegehumor intern.

In the A.M. I shot a hardly working in which I not only had a speaking role but am referred to by name. That’s what I call fame. Soon all shall know of my awesomeness. Sweet.

Then, with the help of new Illustration intern (meaning mostly her doing the work and me pointing at the screen helplessly) I submitted what I believe will be my best and most well recieved article on CH. Look out for it, it’s coming soon.

And finally, Casey Wilson from SNL stopped by to come and bleep bloop with Jeff and the other higher-ups, but even being a superfamous SNL cast member didn’t stop Casey from having to take the elevator when she was done, the very same elevator that I was in. I rode the elevator with someone from SNL, and then even spoke to her as we were leaving. So yeah, I’m pretty awesome.

The CH all nighter is happening this Thursday night. I’ll have been staying up all night for last 3 nights anyway, so I might as well make it 4 in a row.

I’ll be there, will you?

Also check out the promo for the show. See if you can spot me in the crowd of CH all stars. I’m the one showing everybody up with my fake yawning skills.

That’s called acting ladies and gentlemen.

http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1910033

Yesterday, in one of my worst fits of procrastination ever, I watched the 1985 sequel to the classic musical, the Wizard of Oz entitled Return to Oz.

I was first drawn to this movie after a discussion among the collegehumor workers about childrens movies that scared us as kids and this one came up. I was intrigued and decided to do some research.

I first came upon a fan made trailer for the movie on youtube (link forthcoming) which made it look like a campy disney version of Pan’s Labyrinth. Very promising indeed. So instead of learning about romantic poetry or Thomas Hobbes, I decided to watch this thing.

The premise itself is really quite interesting. Imagine taking all of the whimzy and happiness out of the wizard of oz and creating a much darker version, obviously not for kids, but still exploring the world of Oz in a more adult fashion. That’s kind of what this movie attempts to do, only it was produced by disney and mistakenly marketed for kids.

The movie begins with Dorothy, (played by a much younger actress than Judy Garland who, in my opinion makes the character seem just plane stupid half the time, although that’s mostly not her fault since she had very little quality to work with, but I’ll get to that later) being taken to a doctors office for electro-shock therapy because she won’t shut up about this magical world she believes in. That’s right, Disney was going to let little Dorothy get zapped for having an imagination. This was definitely one of Disney’s more warped features. Anyway, just as she’s about to have her head fried, a myterious little girl saves her and they run to the river where Dorothy essentially drowns and wakes up in, you guessed it, Oz. Only this isn’t the Oz you remember. When she arrives she finds her old house in a now completely deserted Munchkinland, suggesting that all of those cute little midgets had been horribly murdered in some Lollipop Guild genocide (This ain’t your grandparents Wizard of Oz). Dorothy then discovers the Yellow Brick Road has been completely torn up. The Emerald city has also been wrecked and all of its inhabitants turned to stone.

Upon her arrival to the Emerald city, Dorothy is attacked by some of the coolest looking monsters in a 1980s movie I can think of, called the Wheelers. They’re essentially psychopathic people with elongated limbs with wheels at the ends. Forget flying monkeys, these things are the best villainous henchmen I have seen in a while.

So that’s what was cool about the movie. The darker twist on the happy little classic was something I could get behind, and the Wheelers, coupled with a wicked Witch who collected human heads were some really compelling things to have in the movie.

The problem was, the writing was a complete pile of steaming, festering, swine flu infected feces. Not a single piece of dialogue was anywhere near coherent, random characters were introduced and then never refered to again, and the story ark was laughable and painful to sit through. Plot holes and inconsistencies occured in every scene, Character traits that made no sense and were never explained continued to pop up and the main villain, the Nome King’s motives for killing just about everyone in the land don’t make any sense of all, not to mention the fact that he gets killed by a (Spoiler alert) fucking chicken egg at the end. Thank goodness Dorothy brought along a talking chicken instead of loyal Toto, it turned out to be the Deus Ex Machina that saved the land. Hooray.

I mean, this movie is BAAAD. Storywise its terrible, the acting is laughable and even the production value was disappointing. I can’t get it out of my head however and I’m trying to figure out why. I love the premise and some of the new characters are pretty interesting but there was no Tin Man or Cowardly Lion until the last 5 minutes, an injustice in my opinion to the original characters. Hell even the Scarecrow was little more than a plot device who had little if any actual impact on the story itself during his minimal screen time.

I guess I can’t stop thinking about it because I wanted so much for it to be so much better. There were some very cool elements but I can’t think of a worse executed movie. I would love to see this thing get remade with the same premise but a coherent script and todays special effects. Maybe instead of the Nome King, the villain is a corrupt Glinda who’s gone power crazy now that all the rest of the Wicked Witches have been destroyed and there’s no one to hold her in check. I dunno. Maybe this summer I’ll write up a treatment just for fun and see where it takes me.

Anyway, don’t bother wasting your time watching the movie itself, you will be sorely disappointed, the fanmade trailer I mentioned earlier takes all of the cool parts of the movie and makes it look about 100x better then it really was. I recommend watching that instead. Although, if this review has picqued your interest as mine was, the entire movie is available for free on youtube. Just search Return to Oz part 1 and it’ll be there.

Just don’t say I didn’t warn you, this trip down the yellowbrick road only leads to bitter disappointment. Frank L Baum and Judy Garland would be spinning in their graves if they ever saw this thing. And it’s a shame because it had so much potential and I wanted it to be so much better.

Oh well.

Today, as the light began to fade from the sky to close out another day of hard work at Collegehumor, a spontaneous battle erupted in the corridors of Connected Ventures.

Whether they liked it or not, all in the vicinity were forced to take part in the great war. Nerf Darts flew through the air and ball pit balls hit human flesh with sickening thuds.

It was war. It was epic.

Those unlucky enough to be caught in the fray had but two choices, be victims, or take charge.

I was done running. I grabbed the first nerf pistol i could find and joined the battle. Soon I grabbed another and was double barreled. Ready for action.

The attacks came in waves. They were relentless.

I sustained a ball pit ball hit to the face by the tyrant known as Jordan but I battled on.

I am proud to say that I survived.

Today, 5/1, we remember the brave souls who fell in the war of just a few minutes ago. Their sacrifices serve as somber reminders, that in Nerf Wars, there are no winners, just men who sit down breathlessly and say “That was fucking awesome” when it is all over.

5/1, never forget.