First off when I heard PETA’s supposedly sexy ad was banned from The Superbowl I figured it was going to be pretty revealing or full of vegetable innuendo. In reality their ad is dull in comparison to most sexy commercials I’ve seen. I have a handful of them posted over on my homesite–Sexy Commercials List.

If you’re going to show half-naked women and vegetables at least have them doing more than licking what looked like a pumpkin. I don’t think I even saw a cucumber? Obviously this ad was rejected not for the sexual imagery but for the fact that it made a really stupid statement: Studies Show Vegetarians Have Better Sex.

Could we be more subjective? Which studies? I went to their promo page for the commercial and there’s nothing there indicating the scientific evidence. They do link to a page with NBC’s complaint list, but I still say the images are not the reason the commercial was rejected.

Here’s an article from Slate.com that  is more honest about the sex debate. It basically states that many vegetarians are simply more health conscious than meat eaters and therefore may be more active in bed as a result. I can accept that. But here’s another quote from the article that’s a bit disturbing:

“Vegetarian women are also more likely to develop amenorrhea (loss of periods), a condition that’s usually accompanied by low testosterone, vaginal dryness, and poor libido.”

Yeah, that’s what I look for in a woman. It really turns me on to know a woman is all dried up from eating beans and carrots.

Want some commonsense? Slate.com makes a very good point when the article’s author Nina Shen Rastogi says that if you simply ate french fries as part of your vegetarian diet you would become obese and therefore your sex drive would be diminished.

PETA can’t seem to make up their mind. Are they against meat because it kills animals or are they against meat because it lowers the sex drive? If it comes down to the sex drive then I hope to see PETA come out with a commercial against certain vegetable dishes like fries, broccoli with cheese, and baked potatoes.

The Superbowl is primarily for “meat eaters.” Barbecued ribs, burgers, pizza topped with pounds of pepperoni, hot chicken wings–sorry, started drooling there for a moment. I think NBC decided it would be bad for business to insert a vegetarian ad that insulted the consumers of all the other ads–like Pizza Hut, McDonalds, KFC, etc. It’s like saying FU to all of the football fans in 30 seconds.

PETA’s ads have mainly turned into a cheap gimmick over the last couple of years. I’ll grant them their props in creating pointless controversies that make the news. I don’t mind cheap gimmicks, but what I do mind are statements not backed up by facts. Here’s something I believe may be true: Vegetarians fart more than meat eaters.

“In general, vegetarians fart more than meat-eaters, but their farts are less smelly. However, some vegetarians are said to have more sulphur-producing bacteria in their guts, and so produce much smellier farts.” Quoted from Answers.com.

If that’s true, how come PETA doesn’t come out with a campaign on farting? Maybe they could try a humorous angle for once instead of showing us anorexic lingerie models. As much as guys like seeing half-naked women, we don’t care much for the actual opinions of brain-dead super models who are not in touch with the real world.

I am not against Vegetarianism. I’ve resorted to eating soy since becoming lactose intolerant which has lead me to trying some of the oddball stuff in the “Organic Section.” Alot of vegetarian products are awful but there are a few bright companies that make a good meal. Eventually, others will follow as the market progresses beyond aging hippies. Hopefully Morningstar products will die a slow death, their meat substitutes taste like doggie treats.

Enjoy The Superbowl all you meat eaters. Yes, it’s exciting to see a woman rub a piece of broccoli up her mid section, but even more exciting is seeing a woman take a footlong into her mouth.

I thought I had seen the sickest moments possible in comedic films until I came across Pledge This! (2006). There was the love goo in the hair, there was the escaped testicle and then there was the scene in this movie that made me wretch.

Something About Mary of course set the bar high for gross out humor and I’m still surprised the scene where Mary discovers Teds lost “achem” on his ear and uses it for hair gel didn’t get the movie an NC17 rating. It just shows how ridiculous the MPAA is when they don’t force that cut but go after some indie film for extreme violence.

Then there was Tomcats with Jerry O’ Connell and Gary Busey’s son Jake Busey. A testicle escapes and is chased all over a hospital until it ends up in the cafeteria and is eaten. Gross, but not as gross as the next movie I will describe. I can tolerate body parts being eaten. Horror movies are filled with such moments.

What horror movies don’t normally show is bestiality unless you want to get into the debate about The Howling (is it bestiality to have sex when you’re turning into a werewolf?).

Pledge This! starring Paris Hilton, who was also an executive producer, plays herself, er, a character named Victoria English. Ms. English is head of the most prestigious sorority on campus. They allow the usual cast of geeks and nerds to pledge because in order to win the FHM Magazine contest they need to show diversity.

None of that matters. You’re only going to watch this movie to be grossed out by one scene and that scene involves one of those infamous little dogs that Paris and other spoiled celebs like to carry around in their purse. This accessory, a Yorkshire Terrier I think, is guilty of interspecies licking in the most wrong way possible.

What happens, and I don’t care if I spoil the move here because it’s basically crap, is that Victoria’s boyfriend wants to make love and she’s not really interested at the time. So she blindfolds him and ties him to the bed. Then she sprays whipped cream all over his nether regions. He thinks it’s kinky, only she leaves the room after stuffing her Yorkie under the sheets.

The Yorkie aggressively licks the whipped cream, which means it’s licking this guy’s–okay, you get it. And it’s not just  a brief “eww” moment because they draw the scene out until this guy’s friends come by and we see exaggerated dog movements under the sheets with slurpy sound effects interrupted by occasional nips.

Absolutely an “EWWWWW” moment. I knew National Lampoon was desperate for attention but maybe you should draw the line somewhere.

There’s funny subtle bestiality jokes like Woody Allen and a sheep in “Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Sex…” and then there’s just WTF gross moments. This is one of them because while it was outrageous it just wasn’t very clever. And the boyfriend doesn’t even get mad when he finds out Victoria had her pooch go down on him–even a comedy should have him try to get even with his girlfriend.

Ironically Paris Hilton got upset over Pledge This! because the main producers wanted more nudity in it. But she didn’t seem to mind the dog job?

Follow up Note: I just showed this scene to my wife and she found it hilarious and made me laugh with her. Maybe it’s a moment so gross you have to share to find it funny. Or maybe it’s just women enjoy cruel humor towards men.

Just out of curiosity I went looking for complaints against Disney. I know their lawyers and marketing team are very good at keeping bad news about The Mouse out of the headlines at all costs, but you can find all sorts of local news, histories, and personal complaints involving Disney and Death.

So here’s one tidbit. Marilyn Piazza is suing Disney Cruise Lines because her 78 year-old husband fell in the bathroom and later died in the hospital. She blames the design of the bathroom and the lack of proper medical attention by the Disney Cruise staff for killing him.

Here’s another complaint about one of the staff on a Disney Cruise who was trying to get with someone’s wife. A tall man, he apparently cleaned the rooms and would try to make some moves on her when she was alone. She complained to the head pursor but nothing was done about it. Of course she could be delusional and the man was a large homosexual with no intentions of having sex with her. Maybe he just wanted to talk…

Putting the cruise lines aside here’s a nice article on Disney World and Death. It covers a 77 year old woman collapsing at The Pirates of the Caribbean–my favorite ride–and some child deaths which have got to be horrific for parents. All they wanted to do was give their kid the best time to remember and then they come home with a body bag as a souvenir.

And lastly, this article has to be the most morbid of the bunch–but it’s hard to resist reading it. Disneyland and Death. ”Unfortunately, he slipped and, as the papers reported, was ‘found wedged between two cars with his head and the upper part of his body crushed’.” That was an incident on the famous people mover which happened in 1967.

It’s too bad Disney has to keep such a pristine image. With all of the incidents at their theme parks and cruise lines, the material would make for a good movie.

If anyone grew up watching Boy Meets World and had a crush on Cory’s girlfriend played by Danielle Fishel, they might want to rent Dorm Daze 2.

Released in 2006 this is yet another National Lampoon straight to video feature with no plot and plenty of nudity. Unfortunately Danielle does not go topless or bottomless. She has kind of an odd figure anyways. Not necessarily in a bad way but she is pretty wide in the shoulders, though nicely buxom.

No, what you get to see is a nice long lesbian kiss between Danielle Fishelle and co-star Jennifer Lyons. Granted it would have been nice to have seen more tongue or better close-ups but we will have to be satisfied with the scene as delivered to us.

Topanga, the weird sitcom hippie girl who for some strange reason falls in love with a character that looks like Ben Savage, grows up and shows off for her male fans. It makes sense for Topanga to go lesbian. If you’ve ever watched the first series of Boy Meets World (I gave up on the college years that came later) then you know what I mean. Maybe Danielle has embraced Topanga’s free spirit and escaped the male domination of one Cory Matthews.

So, uh, there were 11,500 jobs lost today according to the home page of CNN, and oh what else do I see there–”Digital TV Could Be Delayed By Vote.” All of a sudden these Washington idiots are running around worrying that Ma and Pa out in the boonies may not get reception on their TVs.

 This is their fault to begin with. Why the hell is the federal government mandating updates on technology? Is this what they were doing as the economy slowly tanked. Are we really worried that people are going to be stuck with an analog signal because some broadcaster felt they didn’t need to update to digital.

AND get this per CNN: “The FCC ran out of money in recent weeks for the $40 coupons to help people buy converters for their analog TVs.”

Good Lord! Why are we wasting government money on buying people entertainment equipment?! This is ridiculous. If you can’t afford a new digital tv–which you don’t need if you use Comcast Cable here for 12.99 a month for the basic channels–then maybe you should use another free government service. It’s called a Library! News and entertainment under one roof. They even loan movies.

 I am a TV fan and yet this pisses me off. This is not the government’s business. Entertainment is one area where the free market reigns supreme and if you’re poor, I’m sorry. There are cheap alternatives and even free alternatives to getting your entertainment and news. In an emergency you can still listen to a radio and most likely if there was disaster everyone would be gathered together watching one TV anyhow.

What a waste of taxpayer time and money. And now they’ve delayed the process because they can’t even manage handing out coupons for digital receivers. Friggin’ ridiculous.

It seems inevitable that a sequel or prequel will be made of I Am Legend. They will probably coax Will Smith back into the role even though he is not interested in doing repeats of his character roles.

But does anyone besides me think that I Am Legend was a bad, bad film? Yes Will Smith did a great acting job, he always does. This was the director’s fault, Mr. Francis Lawrence. It was his decision to replace old school effects (actors in costume) with CGI monsters.

The CGI was horrible! The entire film felt like a video game. I feel like everyone is excusing this film from criticism simply because Will Smith starred in it.

Why can’t directors learn that you use CGI for special shots but not for close-ups? It was the same issue that ruined The Mummy 2 to some extent because of The Scorpion King close-ups (what? No one trusted The Rock to act?).

I Am Legend could have been a good film if the director had spent time creating realistic humanoid-zombies, but he treated them like cheap special effects.

Compare the 2007 incarnation of the classic science-fiction story to The Omega Man with Charlton Heston. It has its faults: some cheezy soundtrack music, not the greatest make-up effects, etc, but the zombie-like things were real–they felt real! And because of it the danger they posed felt real.

 I couldn’t take I Am Legend seriously. I don’t care if it was hit. I wouldn’t watch it again if I were the last man on earth.

I watched Paul Blart - Mall Cop over the weekend and there’s nothing great about the script and the jokes are mildy amusing, but for some reason Kevin James seemed to make the whole thing work. I was not bored.

He also made me laugh on the sheer strength of his character acting. He really is the new lovable fat guy actor.

We’ve lost the other fat guys: John Candy, Chris Farley, John Goodman (oh wait, he’s still alive isn’t he?). Isn’t it awful we encourage these comedians to abuse themselves for our entertainment? After all, the way Kevin James is looking he’s bound to die of a heart attack in the next two years. My wife noted that he looked like he had gained weight since his TV show “King of Queens.”

And he wasn’t the only fat one in the movie. Surprisingly the casting director didn’t go for the “pretty people.” Everyone except for the villains looked normal, like you and me and our neighbors and generally speaking people you would expect to find working at a mall.

Even the stereotypical jackass that competes for the affections of the love interest is average with a bad hairdo and weak build. Usually the competition in these sorts of comedies ends up being a jock type with loads of muscles.

But what I really found interesting was the casting for Paul Blart’s daughter. It went to Raini Rodriguez, a very plump but charismatic little girl. This is the girl who would be teased in junior high for her weight, but she can tell all those snots to go to hell–she’s starring in a movie.

They did not pick Raini for her outer beauty; they went with the girl who could show confidence in her inner self despite inheriting a weight problem from her Dad. And she is also half-Mexican in the film, recognizing the fact that we are increasingly becoming a blended nation (Paul Blart married an illegal to give her citizenship, then she runs off on him).

It’s like they took a crap script and made it good. The elements are all there. Of course, it doesn’t hurt that the setting is in a mall which most Americans have a nostalgia for. Most likely the audience is seeing Mall Cop in the Mall Theater.

So top notch on marketing. It would have been nice if they could have made the jokes funnier but Kevin James is worth the price of a ticket. I hope this is his start to more comedies, funnier ones. And if he’s backed by Happy Madison Productions hopefully he won’t go down the Rob Schneider road, who is often ignored for making some rather good comedies too–just in bad taste.

Note to parents: This film is pretty much family safe. There is one ambiguous scene where we are left to imagine a dog possibly getting hurt. And there’s one innuendo. But as for action movie type swearing–it’s absent. And the violence consists of the kind you might see in a Three Stooges film with some gunfire thrown in. Very innocent overall compared to most releases.

This happened locally here in Tacoma in Washington State. What I find so tragic about it is that a Monster Truck Rally is supposed to be one of the best events a little boy can attend. Yes, it’s silly and there’s mindless destruction, but it’s just plain fun for kids.

What happened, as explained on King 5 News, is that a large metal ring flew off a truck and hit 6 year-old Sebastian Hizey in the head. They tried to save him at the hospital but he passed on.

This had to be a freak accident. Unfortunately it means a lawsuit and government regulation and before you know it audiences will be watching Monster Trucks behind a shield of glass.

If the investigation reveals the Monster Truck Rally owners were negligent I’m all for them paying restitution. No amount of money is going to bring that child back. However, I’m not for installing glass shields. This kind of accident is rare. I don’t hear about people dying every day from Monster Truck Events.

That driver must feel awful too. I’m sure he enjoyed thrilling the kids with jumps and rolling over car debris. Having something like this happen can ruin what should be one of the best jobs in the world.

My Dad was never inclined to take me to such spectacles when I was a kid. He wasn’t interested in oversized tires or even sports. I was raised on hiking and recognizing varieties of plant-life. Yeah, I was raised a nerd, but I still love my Dad. I wish I could have seen a Monster Truck Rally at least once when I was under the age of ten.

Hopefully this father realizes that he still did the right thing to bring his kid to a show in order to enjoy a father-son event. No one could have predicted such a thing would happen. My heart goes out to him.

Why this trailer for Mutant Chronicles is rated R, I don’t know. I didn’t see anything offensive. You are required to enter your birthday to see if you’re old enough to view it.

I honestly have never heard of Mutant Chronicles but according to Wiki it is a role playing game. That’s fine and all I guess. From a movie-goer’s perspective though I don’t think the trailer told me much concerning the storyline. Fact is, the trailer just seems confusing.

Again according to Wiki “…mankind has exhausted Earth’s natural resources. The protagonists must battle against mutant creatures accidentally unleashed upon the planet.”

Nothing new there. This movie is going to have all kinds of marketing issues. At first when I saw the title I thought it was a preview for some sort of X-men spinoff. Really all it looks like is zombies in space.

Surprisingly John Malkovich is in this as well as Ron Perlman so I’m sure there were some high expectations when they got the greenlight to start this thing. The problem with role-playing games and video games as the basis for movies is that there is no definite story, only background information and character information. You can’t “wing it” when it comes to writing the screenplay otherwise it feels like you’re stuck in a game being pulled in twenty different directions.

However, Mutant Chronicles has already been released in Europe, apparently in an incomplete form. Now they’re trying to sucker us in America to spending cash on seeing this.

If the trailer confusion isn’t a big enough clue all you have to do is head on over to RottenTomatoes.com and look at the Tomatometer. It’s at 20 percent for Mutant Chronicles. Scroll down and you’ll see all the bad reviews.

I think the R-rated trailer was an intentional gimmick to get people interested. And damn if I didn’t fall for it. At the very lease there could have been some nudity or a head exploding. Mutant Chronicles deserves its fate for trying to be so sneaky.

What will they think of next? While looking through my daily junkmail for good recession-inspired dinner coupons I saw this: Personalized M&M’s for Valentine’s Day. This is so cool!

If you go to the website link at mymms.com/love8 you’ll see an ordering page that allows you to create your own bag of M&M’s. You can put an original message or even better you can upload your photo and have it appear on a chocolate candy.

Isn’t this what technology was invented for! There’s going to be some butt-ugly people uploading their photos for a loved one, but it’s all about the romance. Plus you get to eat your significant other and they’ll actually taste good for once.

I can also imagine this will be used by the lonely and depressed on V-day. They can create their own bag of M&M photo candies of that guy or gal who doesn’t know they exist. Then munch on them as they begin to fall further and further into depression. Eventually they’ll be found dead as a result of an overdose of chocolate and love. Damn you M&M’s, have a heart.

Seriously, a great pop culture idea to give back to the people.