- There is an annual fan festival devoted to the Coen
Brothers’ cult classic 1998 comedy “The Big Lebowski” and over the years, there
have been many cries for a sequel to a movie whose popularity remains immense
nearly two decades after its release. That sequel has never developed for many
reasons, but “Lebowski” is finally getting a spin-off film – just not one in
which the Coen brothers are involved. One of the movie’s many quirky,
peripheral characters was menacing bowler The Jesus, played by John Turturro.
Turturro, perhaps feeling that if no one else is going to seize upon this
moneymaking opportunity then he had best do it, is planning to make a crime
drama about his famed character, who is best remembered for his catchphrase
“Don’t f*ck with The Jesus.” A bit player in the original, the character will be
the lead character in “Going Places,” a crime caper based on 1974 French comedy
“Les Valseuses.” Turturro is writing and directing the film, which also stars “Vinyl”
actor Bobby Cannavale as The Jesus’ partner-in-crime Petey. The project is
fairly far along, with a story centering on these two thieves on a mission to
give a woman (played by Audrey Tatou) her first orgasm. Yes, that is actually
the plot of an actual movie and amazingly, it’s been done before in another country
and will now be redone in the United States, although it’s not currently clear
if Turturro has the rights to actually make a film about The Jesus, full name
Jesus Quintana. Maybe he can call Jeff Bridges, who played The Dude in “Big
Lebowski,” and who has said he’d be interested in appearing a new “Lebowski” film
even though the Coen brothers have said repeatedly that they have no interest
whatsoever in doing any type of sequel………
- It’s the age-old question: When your small, rural village
needs a way to recover ancient Buddhist statues that your ancestral tales say
were buried in a nearby river, what’s your first move? Do you try to find an
excavation crew willing into the swift, muddy waters and plunge to the bottom
in search of said statues? Do you embrace technology, pool your financial
resources and try to contact someone who has sonar equipment and could come in
and conduct an in-depth search for the items? No and no. For residents of a
small Cambodian village near the Tonle Sap River, the answer is to hold a
ceremony asking spirits to recover the statues. To be fair to those small-town
dwellers, divers recently recovered eight small statues of Buddha and claim to
have spotted another that is about six feet tall, so this isn't all folklore
and mysticism. Still, it was quite a sight to have Buddhist monks join some 500
locals at the ceremony, asking the spirits of water and earth to help them
raise any statues still buried as much as 66 feet underwater. To the outside
world, this would seem an exercise in naïve ridiculousness, but clearly those
who took part and those who organized the event believe in stories passed down
by villagers' ancestors, stories telling of the statues being buried in the
river hundreds of years ago to hide them from marauders from other areas or
neighboring Siam, now called Thailand. It’s also good that the villagers have
found and are trying to recover these statues rather than some archaeologist or
less scrupulous person finding them and looking to build their career - or net
worth - on recovering, selling and grandstanding on the find……..
- John Daly remains the best. He might be in his 50s and
have the liver and general appearance of someone several decades older
following an entire adult life of consuming amounts of alcohol that would cause
even the most badass frat bro to beg him to slow down, but Long John is still a
party wherever he goes and that include a stop in the Czech Republic ahead of
the Czech Masters. It’s a relatively meaningless event that even the most avid
golf fan wouldn’t pay attention to and one might assume that given the fact
that Daly recently missed the cut at the U.S. Senior Open Championship, he
wouldn’t be in a particularly jovial mood even when you factor in a trip to one
of the coolest places to visit in Europe. Yet there was JD, wearing a pair of
his trademark loud/ugly/radioactive golf pants, hitting golf balls into a keg
floating in the middle of a river. Why? It appears to be a promotional stunt
for the Czech masters, which - pun intended - is clearly scraping the bottom of
the barrel/keg in this case. To help draw more attention to the event Daly tweeted,
“Nothing lk Kicking off #CzechMasters having 86 meters to the floating keg on
the river! #charlesbridge #gripitnripit pic.twitter.com/GKBHlmgpIH.” The idea
of the event was simply to hit a ball closest to the keg, a feat accomplished
by Andy Sullivan of England, who hit the shot of his life into a water hazard
and won a year's supply of beer for his handiwork. Given Daly’s historic,
gargantuan love of beer, one has to imagine that he may have downed nearly that
same amount of booze after he was done promoting……….
- It seems fitting, even if McDonald’s is trying to
reposition itself as a healthier option on the fast food scene. The Golden
Arches clearly felt they were doing something good for the next generation -
good in a different sense that serving kids greasy cheeseburgers, salt-laden
fries and sugary ice cream cones - by including
Step-It activity trackers in its Happy Meals. It made sense, right? Mom
and dad have their Fit Bit or Apple Watch to keep track of how many steps they
take and how many calories they burn during the day and kids want to be like
their parents, so give little Kyle or Ashley a Step-It activity monitor and
allow them to see if eating their own boogers, running in circles while calling
their big brother a poopy head or throwing themselves down on the floor and
flailing their limbs in their 17th temper tantrum of the day burns off all the
calories they’ve taken in….or not. Not long after launching the ill-fated
promotion, McDonald's is removing the devices due to concerns over skin irritations,
according to a statement. "We have taken this swift and voluntary step
after receiving limited reports of potential skin irritations that may be
associated from wearing the band," company spokeswoman Terri Hickey said
in the statement. "Nothing is more important to us than the safety of our
customers and we are fully investigating this issue." If the safety and
well-being of customers really mattered to McDonald’s, then double Quarter
Pounders with cheese and bacon wouldn’t be on the menu beside extra-large
milkshakes and apple pie, but that isn't the issue at hand right now. What is up
for discussion is that Arkansas resident Casey Collyar wrote on Facebook last
week that her child was burned by the Happy Meal toy after playing with it for
eight minutes. That post went viral and it didn’t take long for the fast food
chain to yank the fitness trackers, which come in six bright colors, from
inside its tiny cardboard boxes of dietary hell. When not burning small children,
the plastic wrist-worn pedometer measures steps and blinks quickly or slowly
depending on the pace of the person wearing it. It really is stunning that
McDonald’s didn’t go for a more high-end fitness device to give away to
children who can literally break anything in under two minutes, and even more
stunning that this idea went so wrong, so fast……..
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