LWITM: Can't Hardly Wait

I figured I would at least give you all (the few that look here) a little something. I have thought about doing this for a little while now, and since I have nothing to say today - it might be the perfect time.

I have noticed that there are a few movies out there from the past, whose casts are pretty strong - especially if they would try to get that cast together today.

So, my first Look Who's In That Movie (LWITM) is about Can't Hardly Wait.

Can't Hardly Wait arrived in theaters in 1998 with the huge star supposedly Jennifer Love Hewitt. But, dive a little deeper and you will see just how many of today's stars were just up-and-comers when this little movie came out.

First off, you have the circle of stars in this film:

• Jennifer Love Hewitt played Amanda Beckett, the object of Preston Myers affection.
• Ethan Embry played Preston Myers, a boy who pined after Amanda since the first day she walked into school - but never had the courage to speak to her.
• Lauren Ambrose played Denise Fleming, a girl who thought she was better than the high school crowd - and was Preston's best friend.
• Seth Green played Kenny Fisher, a boy who acted urban despite obviously being very white. His whole persona was trying to get laid.
• Peter Facinelli played Mike Dexter, Amanda's ex-boyfriend and ruler of the high school. The very obvious jock-type who picks on the nerds and is looking to score.
• Charlie Korsmo played William Lichter, a huge nerd whose purpose for attending the party is to embarrass Mike - but ends up getting drunk and becoming the life of the party.

Hewitt was a decent sized star before this movie came out with her television role on Party of Five and movie roles like I Know What You Did Last Summer. Green has become a huge star in Hollywood with film roles, guest stars on television shows and two of his own in Robot Chicken and Family Guy. Ambrose had the starring role in the hit television series Six Feet Under. Facinelli starred in Fastlane, and has been last seen in Damages. Korsmo, however, did a reverse turn. He was more known for his child roles in Hook and Dick Tracy - Can't Hardly Wait was his last film role.

Dive a little deeper, however, and even those smaller characters have become players in Hollywood.

• Scrubs star Donald Faison was the Lovebürger drummer.
• My Name Is Earl star Jaime Pressly played Beth, one of Amanda's friends.
• American Pie's Chris Owen was the Klepto Kid.
• Breckin Myer of Road Trip played the Lovebürger lead singer.
• Sabrina the Teenage Witch's Melissa-Joan Hart was the Yearbook Girl.
• Selma Blair, of Hellboy, was one of the girls that Mike hits on.
• Less Than Perfect star Sara Rue was known as Earth Girl.
• 24's Eric Balfour played the Hippie Guy.
• How I Met Your Mother star Jason Segal was the Watermelon Guy.
• Save the Last Dance's Sean Patrick Thomas was Mike's jock friend.
• Freddy Rodriguez from Grindhouse played another jock friend.
• Cloverfield's Brian Klugman was the Stoner Guy.

That's most of the now known characters, but I am sure there are more. A pretty eclectic list - and I am sure most of those actors/actresses would not be in this movie - if it were made today. The asking price for some of their salaries might almost eclipse the entire movie's budget.

It's pretty cool that so many characters from one film have made it, at least somewhat, in the movie/television world. I will keep my eyes open for more films like this - and when I don't have much to write about, I will slap that sucker into a blog.

Hope you like it.

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Summertime

I haven't technically done a lot during the past few days, besides finally catching up on Weeds, watching some television and playing Guitar Hero: Aerosmith. So, I don't really have a lot to write about today.

I thought I would post this youtube video for two reasons - 1) The release of the movie Hancock today, which I will not be seeing until it's released on DVD - I will probably only get to see one more movie in the theater this summer, and that is definitely reserved for Dark Knight. 2) The weather for the past few days has actually been very nice - so it finally feels like summer time to me. I am looking forward to the BBQ's starting this weekend.

So, here you go. A little old school track to get you pumped for the summer months.

Loss of Family Member

It was a very sad day yesterday in the Kane Household. And, will probably be a sad week or two.

Erika and I have a lot of love to give, and our house has truly been beaming with it. After we were married in 2005, we adopted our second 'child' in the form of our cat, Hermione. We already had a guinea pig named Fozzie from when we were engaged. We aren't the normal type of adopting, as we seem to be into the rescuing of animals.

Hermione was a barn cat, and when we got her was extremely sick. We, however, gave her a lot of love and medication - and she has been in glorious health ever since. She is now three years old.

A little while after our son was born, we again adopted a sick animal in the form of our dog, Abby. She was born to a large litter of puppies that was in a bad situation, and managed to get some parasites. But, we again gave her a lot of love and medication, and she is in perfect health as well - and is a little over a year old now.

Just before Christmas last year, Erika and I felt we had a little more love to give. So we adopted two more 'children' in twin kittens Rusty and Sydney. Instead of a barn, however, we adopted them from the humane society.

We were a bit upset, because Rusty arrived with a major cough and his eyes were very runny. But, again, we took the two of them in and nursed them back to health with love and medicine. Rusty is also in perfect health now, and is extremely rambunctious.

Sydney was also doing pretty well for the first part of his time in our house, however, I had noticed a change in not only his demeanor, but his looks as well.

He had totally stopped playing. He wasn't eating or drinking as much. And for the most part, after he got up in the morning, would sit either staring out the window or behind the vacuum cleaner. I was very worried about his health.

Yesterday, we got the news that we were dreading. Sydney had developed the virus F.I.P. (Feline Infectious Peritonitis), a mutated form of the feline coronavirus. This coronavirus is apparently pretty common in household cats, especially those homes with multiple cats. But, it is extremely rare for it to mutate - as in 1-in-5,000. There is no cure for the F.I.P. virus, and unfortunately we had to make the tough decision yesterday.

Our pets are like members of our family. We treat them no different - they get yelled at when they do things wrong, and they get praised when they are good. And we always enjoy spending time with them, and playing. So, when you lose a member of your family it hurts - and it hurts for awhile. Even though we made the right decision, it is going to hurt. Sydney was suffering, but selfishly I wish he could have come home with us yesterday - though it wouldn't have been fair to him, or easier on us.

He was an amazing cat, and I am happy that we were able to spend time with him. I wish we would have had many more years, but I cherish the time we did get to spend with him. I would have been very sad if his final moments were still in the human society.

I know you are in a better place now, Sydney. I hope that you enjoyed your time with us, and that we treated you well. You were extremely important to us - and we love you very, very much, and always will. You are gone in body, but never in spirit. We will remember you always. Rest in peace little buddy - we love you.

Two Decent Flicks

It had been quite awhile since I have actually been able to watch a movie. The summer months have actually made my weekends pretty busy, and this past weekend might have been my last free one for awhile.

I have also been catching up on the Weeds' seasons, and have just finished Season 3. I am caught up, except for the two episodes that I have missed this season so far.

Anyway, my wife and I watched a pair of movies this weekend - the first of which was the Matthew McConaughey-Kate Hudson flick, Fool's Gold. I must admit, that whenever I go into these romantic comedy movies my standards are set pretty low. They appear to be basically the same story re-written in a bit of a different way.

I am, however, a McConaughey fan, and Hudson is nothing terrible to look at.

This movie is actually more of a treasure hunt-type film than it is a love story (although there is a bit of that going on as well). It's nothing like National Treasure or any other find the clue movies, but it was pretty decent. It was also nice to see Theo (Malcolm-Jamal Warner) in a movie, although with a weird Jamaican accent.

The movie had some fun action moments, some decent humor and a lot of gratuitous McConaughey shirtless scenes for the ladies - although in my wives' words 'he doesn't wear deodorant', so I guess he has lost some pizazz with her. The shirtless McConaughey shots more than outnumber the Hudson bikini shots (which I believe is only one).

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The second film we watched was Bee Movie, the Jerry Seinfeld-driven cartoon movie.

The film also stars the voice characters of Matthew Broderick, Renee Zellweger, Patrick Warburton, John Goodman, Chris Rock and others.

Barry (Seinfeld) is a bee who has just graduated into the workforce. On a tour the day before he is supposed to start he finds out that once you pick a job that you are there for the rest of your life, until you die.

Barry decides that he wants to see the world first - and heads out to discover the world. One of the main bee rules is to never talk to humans, but after Vanessa (Zellweger) saves his life, he thanks her - and forms an odd friendship.

Through his visits with her, they go grocery shopping and Barry finds out that the humans are stealing the bee's honey. He tracks down the source of the honey and discovers that bees are being held against their will to make honey for the humans.

So, Barry sues the human race - and ultimately wins the case, forcing humans to stop using the bee's honey. But, because of this decision the world itself (including the bee's world) changes and it's up to Barry to restore the nature of things before it's too late.

The movie was pretty good, nowhere near Shrek or Toy Story quality, but good in itself. I found myself laughing out loud on a few occasions during the film. As for re-watchability, I wouldn't say it was good enough to watch over and over, but possibly a once a year watch.

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NBA Draft - Recap

The 2008 NBA Draft was held last night, and like I predicted in my previous article, freshmen were the keys to this draft.

First off, I just want to commend - myself. I had a summer basketball game last night at 7:45, and managed to not only play the game, but had dinner afterwards and made it all the way home without hearing a single word on what was happening during the draft. So, I am pretty proud of myself - and somewhat surprised. I thought for sure someone would let it slip who Chicago picked at #1.

So, I got home late last night and fast-forwarded through the insanely annoying Stuart Scott, who was the host of the draft for ESPN, and caught up on the picks.

No real surprises in the top three picks: Derrick Rose (Memphis) goes #1 to Chicago; Michael Beasley (Kansas State) goes #2 to Miami; O.J. Mayo (USC) heads to Minnesota at #3.

There were some concerns that Miami was planning on not selecting Beasley at #2, but you have to take him when he is considered one of the best two players in this draft.

Some highlights throughout the night:

• Darrell Arthur of Kansas slips to #27, despite being asked to attend. He sat in the Green Room for a long time before finally being selected by New Orleans. His roller-coaster ride was just beginning, however, as he was traded to Portland - then to Houston - and finally to Memphis (so far).
• Brook Lopez of Stanford appeared to have tears in his eyes as he fell to the Nets at #10. He was projected to possibly go at #3, but no way the Bobcats pass over him at #9 - which they did.
• Trades galore: the biggest coming after I finally went to bed. Memphis traded Kevin Love (#5 pick), Mike Miller, Jason Collins and Brian Cardinal to Minnesota for Mayo (#3 pick), Antoine Walker, Greg Buckner and Marko Jaric. Another huge trade for these two franchise - remember the Garnett trade? How about the Gasol trade?
• Knicks fans will boo anyone. Especially a poor kid from Italy named Danilo Gallinari. But, according to experts, he is a player - they did say the same about Darko Milicic a few years ago though.
• Robin Lopez (twin brother of Brook) has the best hair of the draft. Looking a little like Sideshow Bob from The Simpsons, only at 7'0" tall. He was drafted at #15 by Phoenix and it was absolutely comical as he tried to stuff his hair into his new team's hat.

The major point of last night's draft is the amazing job, again, that the Portland Trailblazers have done. They are truly building something special in Portland - look out for the Blazers.

Last night they picked up some major pieces to fill in some spots for their up-and-coming squad via trades. They landed Ike Diogu and Jerryd Bayless (#11 pick) from the Pacers. Bayless was considered to be the second best point guard (behind Rose) coming into the draft, but fell to the Pacers at #11. Diogu and Bayless will fit in perfectly with the young team.

They also picked up a couple of foreign players that will most likely stay overseas for a few years, and landed four more draft picks for the coming years. They seriously have figured this draft thing out.

I am not much for picking a winner and a loser for the draft, because it takes so long for some of these players to truly develop and get used to the league. I felt Portland did a nice job. The Rose pick for Chicago was automatic, but leaves them with a crowded backcourt. And I feel Beasley to the Heat gives them a solid 3 punch (including Dwyane Wade and Shawn Marion) for at least a few years.

As for a loser, I would have to say the Atlanta Hawks, and for only one reason - they didn't have a single pick. The Hawks have been on the cusp of something special with so much young talent on their roster. This season, they even snuck into the playoffs as the #8 seed, before falling to the eventual NBA Champion Boston Celtics. So, they are still a few players away - and not having a pick could hurt them as other teams appear to be getting better.

All-in-all a respectable draft, but of course we'll have to wait a few years to see how it really panned out.

NOTE: I also played my second summer basketball league game last night, and our team again rolled to a victory (our second in as many games). I again felt pretty good, scored four points again, but was 2-for-5 from the field (both made shots were layups), so my field goal percentage is now 50%, horrific.