You must have heard the story by now, whether on the radio, on the news or at the water cooler. Some idiot in England bought a $12,000 engagement ring (please tell me that’s more than two month’s salary, because I don’t know how this guy could make that much money based on his judgment call here) with plans to propose to his girlfriend.

Lefkos Hajji wanted to do something unique and thoughtful, so he thought that while he’s “popping the question,” she should be popping a balloon. And no, not just any balloon! A balloon that has something special inside… namely, his $12,000 engagement ring. Honestly, it’s a neat enough idea and something that probably sounded really great when he came up with it and discussed it with his friends.

But, when you fill that same balloon with helium (note: helium, as I learned, does not only make your voice sound funny, but it also causes things to float), take it outside and let go of it when a “strong” gust of wind hits you, that idea is suddenly not so good.

If it were me, and I were bold (or thick) enough to do something like this -which I’m not – I would hold onto that balloon even if I were caught outside in a Category 5 hurricane. Hell, I would figure out a way to defy gravity and fly just in case something bad were to happen.

Long story short, the guy loses the balloon when a gust of wind hits him, the engagement ring goes flying away into the sky, and the guy spends two hours driving around trying to track the balloon. If he had that little kid from The Kite Runner, he might have been in better shape, but, alas, he did not get the ring back.

Even better, he goes and tells his girlfriend, and now she refuses to talk to him until he buys her another ring. Are you f**king kidding? Either these two are the best match for each other, or the worse. He’s a dumbass, and she’s a bitch. Why would you put your engagement ring into a helium-filled balloon, and how could you be such a bitch as to force the guy to buy another one right away?

I watched The Aristocats a couple days ago, and I encountered a very annoying feature that Disney apparently thinks is a device that helps the viewer. It’s called FastPlay, and I’ve run into this piece-of-crap feature on a few DVDs now.

What is FastPlay? FastPlay is a feature on the DVD that allows you to skip the DVD menu and jump directly to the film. Or one would think. Upon plugging in your DVD, a screen appears on the television asking you whether you want to go to the Menu or do FastPlay. Naturally, I want to skip over all the junk and go right to the movie, so I click on FastPlay.

The movie starts, right? Nope! It goes to a movie preview. I normally like movie previews, but not Disney previews. I click the Skip button to jump to the movie. It goes to another preview! Crap, I chose poorly. I hit the Menu button – it takes me to the standard DVD menu. I click on the “Play” button. It takes me back to the first preview again, one for 101 Dalmatians. I skip to the next preview, and the next, and the next.

Five or six previews later, several remote clicks and multiple minutes wasted, I finally reach the movie. How the f**k is that FastPlay?

Here are my issues with FastPlay:

• It isn’t faster.
• It doesn’t skip right to the movie.
• If it’s made to be easier for little children, that doesn’t make sense. I bet two-year olds these days know how to use DVD players.
• It doesn’t save any clicks. Most DVDs go right to a menu, where you can hit “Select” to trigger the Play feature. FastPlay is just a simplified version of the DVD menu.
• There’s narration to explain what FastPlay does. If you need to explain it, then it isn’t very usable, is it?

Why did Disney develop this? Why defy standard DVD usability and actually add a new layer? Why label something “FastPlay” and not bypass all the stuff people who just want to watch the movie don’t want to watch? It doesn’t make any sense.

Watch the rather unique movie trailer for the upcoming action comedy Pineapple Express, starring Seth Rogen and James Franco. I actually love this trailer. It isn’t downright hilarious, but the film looks like a blend between an indie action film and a Superbad-esque comedy… which, needless to say, isn’t seen too often. I especially love the part about where Franco is driving the police car and attempts to kick out the blood-soaked windshield, only to get his foot stuck in the windshield instead.

This may be 2008’s Hot Fuzz, but only time will tell. Watch the Pineapple Express movie trailer here:

Yes, this is a true news story. My friend Cassandra sent me this Yahoo! article about a woman who decided to sit on a toilet for two years. For these two years, her skin continued to grow to the point where her butt became physically glued to the seat and her legs “atrophied”.

The 35-year old woman from Ness City, Kansas decided one day that she didn’t want to leave her bathroom, so for some reason her boyfriend decided he’d bring her food and water every day. According to him, he’d ask her to come out every day, but she always refused. Is she mentally ill or disabled? That’s yet to be determined. Did her boyfriend keep her there? Police are considering pressing charges, but as Ness County Sheriff Bryan Whipple says, “She was not glued. She was not tied. She was just physically stuck by her body.  It is hard to imagine. … I still have a hard time imagining it myself.”

The woman’s skin had grown around the toilet seat. “We pried the toilet seat off with a pry bar and the seat went with her to the hospital,” Whipple said. “The hospital removed it.”

This is just a really weird case. I can’t even imagine sitting in one place for two years. Even the most mentally disabled person capable of moving their own body would become fidgety after a short while, let alone a span of years. How could you sit there for years and let a toilet seat grow around your ass? And why would the boyfriend not call anyone sooner? I just don’t get it.

The Aristocats arrived on DVD in February. I was supposed to review it in February. I didn’t. It’s now March, and I finally got to the film. As much as I could watch anyway.

I don’t believe that, even in my childhood, I ever saw The Aristocats, and as such, my childhood sentiment for the film isn’t there. The movie, about four cats who try to make it back home to Paris after they are abandoned in the countryside by an evil butler, is a Disney classic, but it’s certainly a film that shows its age.

The Aristocats is moderately funny at times and has some quality entertainment; a scene where the butler hides in a haystack and carefully tries to steal a bunch of stuff from a couple of dogs is pretty amusing, and there are other highlights as well. The animation is good given that the film originally hit theaters 38 years ago (yes, 1970 was 38 years ago); actually, I miss this style of animation a lot. All the cartoons these days look so glossy; the roughness of The Aristocats really works in its favor.

I expect little kids will still find this movie entertaining, but I’d be curious to see if that’s the truth. The style of humor is certainly different than that found in modern movies, and I wonder if children are still able to appreciate calmer, more laid back cartoons like this film. Unlike most cartoons, The Aristocats really doesn’t have a prominent villain, and the film takes its time moving from sequence to sequence without any sense of excitement or tension. This isn’t bad – it’s just different.

Nevertheless, I found The Aristocats a little boring. Had I grown up on the film, I’d probably think differently, but since I didn’t, I didn’t see anything very spectacular here.  Little kids may still enjoy it, but the film certainly feels dated.

The DVD offers several games and activities, deleted scenes and some behind-the-scenes featurettes, none of which I bothered to watch.

Here’s the movie trailer for The Fall:

I just watched the movie trailer for the upcoming Edward Norton action flick The Incredible Hulk, which looks to repair the damage done to the character in Ang Lee’s version a couple years back. Expectations are high for the film considering that Norton rarely does poor movies and is one of the best actors of the last ten years.

Here’s the movie trailer for The Incredible Hulk:

Unfortunately, the trailer leaves little to be desired for. The movie looks a bit grittier than the last one, which is good, and the dramatic scenes could have impact with Norton at the wheel, but there’s just something about this trailer that doesn’t work. The setup for the introduction to the Hulk seems a bit cluttered and is not as exciting or suspenseful as it should have been. Of course, what really hurts are the scenes with the Hulk – and that’s not good.

Standing still, I think the Hulk looks pretty cool. I love the veins. However, in motion, neither he nor the villain (Tim Roth) look very good at all. The sequence is just cheesy; the two “creatures” running at each other in slow motion looks like something out of a video game. Right now, I’m still holding out hope, but this one looks like another box office dud.

There’s good news and bad news about the upcoming finale to the Harry Potter franchise, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows:

The good news is that the Los Angeles Times is reporting that the movie is being split into two movies, the first to be released in November 2010, the second in May 2011. I truly feel this is not simply to capitalize on an extra $400 million worldwide – the book was massive, and to remove much if any of it to fit into a two-and-a-half hour movie would be a travesty. Now with 4-6 hours to play with, Warner Brothers can create an epic two-part movie series… Of course, the first half of the movie is going to be immensely frustrating, just like Kill Bill: Vol. 1. That is going to be an agonizing six months, let me tell you.

The bad news is that David Yates is signed on to direct these films. Does Warner Brothers really think this guy can handle the epic finale to the Harry Potter franchise? He already did a piss poor job on Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix; why would Warner Brothers hire the crappiest director of all the Harry Potter movies to do the last four, and subsequently most important, films in the franchise?

If Yates ruins Harry Potter, I will be massively upset.

I was forwarded this article from The Huffington Post in hopes that I would use it to promote the Jason Staitham The Bank Job, which is now playing in theaters. That’s fine – I get requests to market movies all the time, and The Bank Job was the best reviewed film of last weekend.

But here’s the catch. This article, which is actually a blog post written by Logan Nakyanzi Pollard, is about Eliot Spitzer, the governor of New York who just resigned today following the accusations (which sound 100% true) that he repeatedly paid upwards of $5,000 at a time to have sex with call girls. The latest report is that Spitzer spent $80,000 over a period of time for these prostitutes, presumably paying that much to maintain confidentiality (why else would you spend $5,000 on a single prostitute?).

How does this relate to The Bank Job, a slick, fast-paced heist film? The plot of The Bank Job is about a group of robbers who break into a bank to steal photos of important people having sex with prostitutes – the intent being that they can blackmail these important people for more money. I haven’t seen the movie, so if that summary isn’t completely true than forgive me, but that’s the gist of the movie.

Now, the fact that those responsible for marketing The Bank Job is using this Huffington Post blog post to market their film is raising some eyebrows. There’s been some negative reaction to this marketing approach, but I have to say I’m rather impressed. As an Internet Marketing person myself, I think it’s only fair that they try to market this film anyway they can, especially if they can play off the biggest story of the week. Those who call this tactic “disgusting” should ask themselves: “Who does this hurt?”

• Does marketing The Bank Job in relations to Eliot Spitzer hurt the movie? How can it?
• Does it hurt Eliot Spitzer? I think he has bigger fish to fry.
• Will it help a movie that has received good reviews but not much audience attention get a few more box office dollars? Yes. I’ve already seen the movie mentioned in a non-marketing way in relation to the Spitzer story.

So, to me, it seems like this marketing tactic helps the movie and doesn’t hurt Spitzer. Is there an ethical element to it, regardless of whether it actually hurts anyone? Perhaps. But is it really unethical to try to capitalize on national headlines to market your product? In fact, I think it would be bad if a marketing person didn’t try to take advantage of headlines. Controversy rarely hurts the movie industry, and so the marketing team should always be looking at ways to get free press.

Whether the tie-in between The Bank Job and the Eliot Spitzer story takes off is any man’s guess, but I’ve started the discussion here; I’d like to see other marketing blogs and movie blogs take it up and provide their opinions.

Beautiful girls in little or no clothing get raped and murdered in Lake Dead, a B-grade crapfest version of The Hills Have Eyes meets The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. One of 2007’s Horrorfest films, Lake Dead has its moments, but most are uninentional.

Lake Dead follows three beautiful sisters who have just learned that they have inherited remote real estate from a grandfather they thought was long dead. Along with their friends, they travel to their hotel but for some random reason decide to camp at a nearby lake, which makes for easy pickings for the mutated, inbred hillbillies living nearby. As the friends are picked off one by one, two of the sisters realize that they are destined for something worse than death.

There are a few things about Lake Dead. The young women in the movie are hot. Sometimes they wear bikinis, on a rare occasion they get naked, and almost always are wearing something tight and skimpy. For this type of movie, that’s important. There are some good gory moments, even though the film is so low budget at times that the blood looks more like red paint. Best of all, the film has some great, albeit unintentional, one-liners. Here are two examples:

• A guy who is known for cheating takes off into the woods to collect firewood with the seductive slut of the group, and the two end up having sex. As they undress, the female says to the guy, “Let’s see if your wood can light my fire.” All women should use that line. That’s hot.
• Near the end of the film, after one of the main bad guys is killed, his protagonist brother who is responsible for the death says, “Now that’s fucking family.” Inbreeding. Screwing. Get it?

This is dialogue that you just can’t get these days in theaters, but thankfully the Horrorfest films are deemed as “too disturbing for theaters.” If The Hills Have Eyes can make it to theaters, then any film can make it to theaters, and the only reason Lake Dead and the rest of these Horrorfest films don’t get wider releases is that they’re too terrible for theaters. While I do enjoy these violent, B-grade horror films more than the PG-13 crap that usually find wide releases, I can’t say that they’re better movies as a result. The gore, violence and sex/nudity make up for a little of it, but Lake Dead offers some of the worst acting I have seen in a long while. The actors are quite cringe inducing at times, and you have to wonder how realistic their career aspirations are.

Basically, Lake Dead suffers from being a lot goofier than the filmmakers ever intended it to be. It is entertaining enough, but its similarities to other and better horror movies make it pale in comparison. The makeup and gore in the film is cartoonish at best; the inbred brothers aren’t even remotely intimidating. The bad, psychotic cop is borrowed directly out of Chainsaw Massacre, and the rest plays out like a titillating teaser to a better movie that doesn’t exist.

Those of you looking for a bad but enjoyable film should look no further than Lake Dead, but if you’re in the mood for real horror or suspense, keep searching.