Photo Friday - 'Evil' - plus a few updates

A couple of tough themes for me at Photo Friday ('Gross' last week and 'Evil' this -- the first one I've missed, I believe, since I started). For what it's worth, I'm not actually submitting this image (right) to the weekly contest (since it's clearly not a photograph taken by me), but I thought I'd go ahead and post it here, especially in light of the news story I heard yesterday morning listing C. Montgomery Burns (a/k/a 'Mr. Burns' from The Simpsons) as one of the richest fictional characters ever (second only to Oliver 'Daddy' Warbucks). An interesting list this 'Forbes Fictional Fifteen.' Other interesting characters included on the list are:
Jed Clampett (of the Beverly Hillbillies)
Mr. Monopoly
Mario (of Super Mario Bros, Donkey Kong, etc.)
and, my personal favorite:
Prince Abakaliki of Nigeria (of e-mail scam infamy)
(Click the link above for the full list)

One of my favorite 'Mr. Burns' moments doesn't really involve Mr. Burns at all, but rather, Homer pretending to be Mr. Burns. As usual, Homer fails miserably:

Homer:(affecting accent) "Hello, my name is Mr. Burns. I believe you have a letter for me."
Postal Worker: "Okay, Mr. Burns, uh, what's your first name?"
Homer: "...I don't know."
[click for audio link]

'Santa Claus' was #1 last year, but dropped entirely from the list this year, apparently because enough readers questioned his status as a 'fictional' character. Go figure! I mean, I enjoy Miracle on 34th Street (1947) as much as the next guy, but let's face facts!

While we're mingling real with fiction, anyway, here's another news story that caught my eye:
Manila stops real version of 'Snakes on a Plane'. Just when you thought SoaP news was done!


In other news, the November theme over at Self Portrait Challenge is 'Glam' and I've got nothin'! The gals over there (and a few guys, too) are doing a great job with the theme though, so check them out even though I'm not participating this month.

Films Recently Watched:

The Interpreter (2005) dir. by Sydney Pollack
In the bonus features on this DVD, Sydney Pollack does one of the best explanations of the widescreen vs. pan-n-scan issue that I've seen. It's great to see a director so passionate about the issue, showing the pan-n-scan framing, and saying to the audience, "this is not what I wanted you to see." He intended the widescreen framing and composed his shots based on that framing. I highly recommend the featurette. Oh, the movie was pretty good, too!

(Here's a youtube link to the widescreen vs. pan-n-scan featurette mentioned above.)

The Island (2005) dir. by Michael Bay

Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (1998) dir. by Guy Ritchie
Snatch (2000) dir. by Guy Ritchie
Hilarious! Not sure how I missed both of these for this long.

Fame (1980) dir. by Alan Parker
This was so different than I remember (re-mem-ba; re-mem-ba; re-mem-ba....oh, sorry about that). I think I probably mix memories of the subsequent television show with the film, though, it is entirely possible that I'd actually never seen the film at all. The film leaves LOT of loose threads hanging -- and not in the good, 'make-you-think' way. It's an ensemble cast and I think they just try to take on too many of the characters' back stories for a 2-hour film. At the end, it feels like it should have been about an hour longer, but that a lot of that extra footage hit the cutting room floor. Perhaps the television show resolves some of these plot lines. I can't remember (re-mem-ba; re-mem-ba; re-mem-ba -- FAME!!)

Happy Thanksgiving/Black Friday!