Cellars of IMDb: Steve Zahn is Really Cool
Steve Zahn is really cool. There's a pretty good chance you know of him, but I doubt you know just how cool he is. Before we delve into just how cool he is, let's a take a quick peak.

That's pretty much the sexiest you're ever going to see this fellow, so revel in it now for soon we shall venture in realms noticeably less aesthetic. Like now for instance.



Anyway, last week we left the delicious Ethan Embry at That Thing You Do. Today we begin with the same picture.


Lenny, the guitarist is, much like Embry's "The Bass Player," a secondary character whose naivete provides comic relief. This sort of role is Zahn's bread and butter. No, this sort of role is just about all he does. Sometimes it's more stupid than naive, Saving Silverman, for instance.


Over and over and over again he's the dumb sidekick. His most recent film, Sahara? You better believe he's the comic relief sidekick, just a touch too irritating at times. Poor typecast bastard. I mean really, he was even the doofy comic relief guy in Hamlet of all things.


Now I first encountered Zahn in That Thing You Do, but I must admit he didn't really sink in at the time. (Further viewings have corrected this.) The first time Zahn came to my attention was in the immediately forgotten Happy, Texas.

That movie got no love whatsoever. Yes it was yet another variation on the already very nearly exhausted "escaped criminal(s) doing whatever it takes to stay out of custody" sub-genre. Still it took the genre in a new direction, and it was, get this, funny. Steve Zahn is flawless as the hillbilly Wayne Wayne Wayne Jr. His co-lead, the much prettier Jeremy Northam also turns in a quite serviceable performance, while the inimitable William H. Macy continues to prove himself one of the best character actors ever to grace the silver screen. This died in the box offices. It imploded, it collapsed, it barely registered. It didn't register, in fact, for me. The first I heard of it was when I picked up the box and decided to rent it. Not regretting that decision one bit. Steve Zahn is adorable, and I want to eat him alive. This movie forms a third of Zahn's oeuvre in my opinion. The other two are the giddy That Thing You Do, and another movie that never hit it big, not that it was ever really expected to the way some had apparently hoped for Happy, Texas.

Employee of the Month. There's a complete transcription of the dialogue here, but it really doesn't do the film justice. This is a movie worth seeing. However I have difficulty classifying it as a good movie. You see this thing is chock full of good ideas-great ideas even. The thing is that they don't really fit together all that well. Predictably this is a movie written by a team of rookie screen-writers. Their only other writing credit is the Without a Paddle, produced the same year. Without a Paddle also rambles, but fits together far better, so I think we can reasonably hope for good things from Mitch Rouse and Jay Legget in the near future. In the meantime we have to deal with Employee. It showed up at Sundance without too much fanfare and quietly faded. It was only chance that the film caught my eye on the shelf at Blockbuster, but I picked it up, liked the cast, liked the cover, gave it a rent. It was worth it. Zahn is again cast as a lovably incompetent supporting character, but carries the film. Sure you've got the smoldering sex appeal of the female leads and Matt Dillon's actual talent for the whole acting thing (which is not necessarily all that present) but as soon as Zahn appears onscreen the scene is his. He does not waste that power, and gives Dillon and the viewer the single greatest biology lesson ever recorded. The single greatest science lesson. The single greatest lesson ever to appear on film. Oh my god that scene is fantastic. Still the movie doesn't make any sense but somehow still manages to be predictable. Watch it anyway. Repeatedly. Steven Zahn is that cool.




And remember the guiding light, lest we forget the glory that be Lemon Party.
Because your blog sucks.
- posted by Odovaucer @ 12:59 PM (0) comments

 
Exploding barrels
Sometimes you dream. When you dream you walk alone at night. Through barren streets and unknown alleyways you make your journey home through the darkness. Unknown shapes watch you from the shadows, goading you down paths long forgotten by man. Slowly the street lamp's hum becomes nothing but a faint whisper, and the concrete path turns to ill cared-for cobblestones. The unknown shapes become something more, and at the same time less, still ever watching, but occasionally you can pick out an eye... or a leg... or a long clawed arm whereon the remains of some half-dead creature whose last spasms of life evoke a grim foreboding for your own future. And then it comes... a writhing mass of tentacles bursts out of the darkness and envelops you wrapping you in its slimy grip slowly, slowly squeezing the life out of you until such a point such that God grants you leave from their realm, and you find yourself in bed screaming as the shapes slowly meld back into the shadows.

(I love how he tried to rape what could possibly be one of the best paragraphs he's written here with superfluous ellipses. Luckily he turns a lovely little phrase in the next paragraph. Let's read on and see if we can spot it. - Odovaucer)

Or sometimes you dream that the cute girl in your English class finally noticed you, and then let you do her up the butt. It all really depends on what's going on in your life. Personally I think that the first dream is cooler, especially since you don't have to get feces (even dream feces) on your penis.

I don't pretend to know anything about dreams though... well except for one thing. Dreams are awesome. Really awesome. Dreams can be used in any situation, and I do mean ANY situation.

Let's say that you're trying to romance a fine lady, right? You whisper sweet nothings into her ear and tell her that she is the very stuff of your dreams. Ok, it is kind of creepy if you don't pull it off right, but if I have learned anything from sappy love stories, it's that stuff like this always works (unless you're that really creepy guy who causes the misunderstanding and not the only somewhat creepy protagonist).

Or perhaps a really ugly girl just asked you to prom. You lean over to your friends, and take a little jab at her, you tell them that it's like all of those nightmares that you keep having. If you wanted to be really mean, you would tell her (along with telling your friends the previous bit) that you'd go to prom with her... in her DREAMS. Get it? (Got it - Odovaucer)

Sometimes dreams even help you sort out problems that your conscious mind doesn't want to deal with. I don't know exactly how this works, but I'm sure that if you feel the need to post your dreams here I'll tell you something possibly involving rape and your parents. (Generally I agree with a lot of things turtle_07 says. Scratch that, very little he says is even possible, let alone true. This is one of many cases in which he's just wrong. You cannot sort any problems without be willing to consciously deal with them. Even if your dreams provide a solution you cannot implement said solution without the consent of your conscious mind. So turtle_07's message is a little disingenuous there. Also I should counsel you against using your dreams to solve your problems because you aren't smart enough to understand all of the implications. turtle_07 is either, but his answers involve both rape and your parents, so you should probably consult him. - Odovaucer)

I hope that this has been informative, turtle_07 out.


And remember the guiding light, lest we forget the glory that be Lemon Party.
Because your blog sucks.
- posted by Andrew @ 7:23 PM (0) comments

 
Cellars of IMDb: An Ode to Ethan Embry
Welcome to what may become the latest weekly feature to hit the front page of your beloved Lemon Party. Let me first assure you that Ethan Embry is really cool, and that we'll be totally talking all about him in just a little bit. You see I just want to lay out some explanatory exposition first. We haven't had a whole lot of content recently, so I've been working on concepts that are templated and reusable while (hopefully) not the sorts of things that become stale quickly. The best of those concepts was IMDb-hopping/celebrity BJs. No these are not actual blow jobs, and it's questionable as to whether or not most of the stars profiled in our new Friday feature really qualify as "celebrities." We're going to be dealing, for the most part, with people and movies that have slipped under the radar for most people. I'll talk about how cool each person is and discuss some of his or her work.

If the person is not cool at all in any way whatsoever I will makes up things that are cool about that person.

Once I don't feel like writing anymore I will stop and give some sort of closing and come back exactly one week later with another performer in the final entry of the previous Friday's piece. In that manner we'll surf our way across IMDb, perhaps eventually returning to Ethan Embry, our first somewhat less famous famous person. We're placing this on Friday because I will be watching at least one movie listed in the actor's IMDb filmography not previously detailed in that week's Cellars of IMDb.* Once I've seen the film in question I shall update the Friday entry, so you'll just have to come back several times over the course of the weekend to see if we've got any new content up yet.

Enough boring shit, let's masturbate to the one and only Ethan Embry!


Isn't he ever so pretty?



And look, now he's all smoldery! Burn baby, burn.



For more totally hot pictures of Ethan Embry check out http://www.freepgs.com/ethanonline. Now that we're clear on the essentials, let us take a look at the filmography of this underappreciated young star. We'll work backwards because backwards is the new forwards. Most recently the distinguished Mr. Embry has been doing nothing. Zero movies out in 2005 and none currently in production. He's just 26 years old though, and I don't expect to see him retiring any time soon, though he has already seen more of Hollywood than most even dream of. It's safe to say he's just on a bit of a break.

Recent filmography consists primarily of minor, supporting, largely forgettable roles in a number of motion pictures some major blockbusters, some less so, including Timeline, Harold and Kumar go to White Castle, and Sweet Home Alabama. Generally the size of his parts have been had a directly inverse relationship to the popularity of the movie. Which is to say that only cheap and dirty movies seem willing to tap him for leads anymore.

It wasn't always like that though.

In fact it wasn't entirely like that at the time. He played Detective Frank Smith on the acclaimed "updated edition" of Dragnet.



Or at least it was critically acclaimed, but ABC didn't even air the entire first season. The next year three of the missing five episodes did, however, show up on USA.

That tends to happen to television shows starring young master Embry.
"Work with Me" - cancelled
Life on Liberty Street - never made it past the pilot stage.

He's been in one other TV show. One show in which he was the lead, the top-billed, hell he even got to play two characters. The show was called "FreakyLinks".



You probably haven't heard of it. Or if you have, it was probably during Peter Griffin's litany of Fox shows picked up and subsequently cancelled between Family Guy's cancellation and its miraculous resurrection. "FreakyLinks" was another product of the team that put together the Blair Witch Project, and was certainly a natural evolution of the that movie. "FreakyLinks" also employed handheld cameras in a Blair Witch style, but managed to somehow weave those elements seamlessly with standard footage. The show was about the exploits of one Derek Barnes (Embry), an enterprising lad who takes over the his brother's (also Embry) website after the brother's apparent suicide. The website, Freakylinks.com obviously, was dedicated to tracking all sorts of occult and supernatural tidbits, so Embry and his cohorts are constantly investigating all manner of strange and scary happenings. The show was accompanied by an official website (luckily the producers preserved this particular relic, if not at its original location). "FreakyLinks" was thrilling, and scary, and funny, and witty at times, though it was somewhat youth-oriented. It quickly developed a rabid fandom. Freaky Links went off the air after nine episodes. Two more eventually surfaced.

No more tears for "FreakyLinks." Now we move on to Embry's greatest celluloid successes.



There he is, starring in Can't Hardly Wait. There he is so sweet and innocent and naive. You may sigh now. If you wish.



Well before that brief flirtation with teenage comedy Embry had turned in his two best-noted performances, both in roes of starry-eyed innocence, much like Can't Hardly Wait.

In 1995 he was just seventeen years old, but he managed to pull the part of Mark in the almost completely forgotten Empire Records.



Every character in the film demands the viewer's undivided love and attention, and all the actors steal scenes back and forth from each other. Mark is one of the best though. This gleeful if rather stupid character introduces every viewer to the instantly unforgettable band GWAR. I cannot begin to imagine to hope to countenance providing a clear and concise explanation of the phenomenon that is GWAR, but I will say that this film does a pretty solid job of it. In summation:



The next year Ethan had changed his last name from Randall to Embry (his grandfather's last name) and was appearing in Tom Hanks' 1996 That Thing You Do!**



Yet again we see Embry as a lovably dim chipmunk, and we love every fucking minute of it. Embry's character, the band's bassist and an aspiring marine, is infinitely more adorable than his repeat costar, the really quite boring Liv Tyler. Maybe she just gets typecast into boring parts, but she really does have a knack for being boring on screen. Embry's character, despite his sizable role, does not get a name. A dig at the common conception of the anonymity and replaceability of bassists, his character is never named. In the credits he is listed as "TB Player," one of the best names in all of music history simply for being attached to the inimitable Ethan Embry.



That's all for this week and for this week's Cellars of IMDb. Join me next week when we take a look at one of Ethan Embry's That Thing You Do! costars. And now, a picture of poor Ethan's receding hairline.




And remember the guiding light, lest we forget the glory that be Lemon Party.
Because your blog sucks.

*Not every week, but most weeks. Definitely most weeks. I promise.

**Random Aside: The title song and recurring theme of the movie, the aptly-titled "That Thing You Do," was penned by a man named Adam Schlessinger, whose band would release its self-titled debut, Fountains of Wayne, the next year.
- posted by Odovaucer @ 11:57 PM (0) comments

 
Thirty-One is the Number of this Nudeist Colony
Today's Nudeist Colony is dedicated to apathy, bitter rival to productiveness. This Nudeist Colony, like all Nudeist Colonies, contains a number of listings. Each entry contains the actual data of an Internet browser who stopped by our illustrious website. As usual I have given date, time, resolved domain, IP address, the page viewed, and the page the reader was referred from. All users are assumed to be English-speaking Americans using Windows and IExplore unless otherwise indicated. My comments follow each entry.

Note that there was no Nudeist Colony last week or the week before for that matter. No they haven't gone away for good, but don't expect one every week anymore. We'll just have to wait and see what happens.


Mon Apr 4 22:48:05 2005
adsl-61-138-250.mco.bellsouth.net
208.61.138.250
http://www.lemonparty.blogspot.com/2004_12_05_lemonparty_archive.html
http://websearch.cnn.com/search/search?source=cnn&invocationType=search%2Ftop&sites=web&query=young

Yes Lemon Party automatically becomes more prestigious simply for showing up on a CNN.com search. Or it would if there was any prestige to be gained from such an occurrence. There isn't, so we haven't. Incidentally, it's pretty safe to say that this referrer has been truncated. I'm guessing the search was actually for something along the lines of "young nudeist" or "young girl stripping" or "young people are ruining this country" or some such nonsense. I can guarantee you that the person who found us this is not the sort one would want to converse with at any great length.


Wed Apr 13 21:33:30 2005
adsl-69-149-212-157.dsl.wchtks.swbell.net
69.149.212.157
http://lemonparty.blogspot.com/
http://www.altavista.com/web/results?itag=ody&q=free child nudeists&kgs=1&kls=0

This is an admirable statement and certainly one I can get behind. Notice how forceful the imperative is. It's not at all wishy-washy like "I wish you would set free the child nudeists." Instead have a forceful demand: free child nudeists. It sounds just like the sort of thing one would put on a sign as one trotted angrily around a building in which child nudeists were imprisoned. Fear not, dear young nudeists, for your rescuers have arrived upon a great steed of internets. Rejoice.


Sat May 7 12:44:17 2005
adsl-33-133-239.asm.bellsouth.net
67.33.133.239
http://lemonparty.blogspot.com/
http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=nudeism&ei=UTF-8&fl=0&xargs=0&pstart=1&fr=FP-tab-web-t&b=11

I my last Nudeist Colony I discussed nudeism. I gave a definition and explained about what makes a nudeist a nudeist. However it turns out that what I actually described was a "chav," not a nudeist. My apologies. The correct definition follows.

Nudeists are thin cardboard discs approximately the diameter of a half-dollar coin. The term "nudeist" comes from the name of a passion fruit/orange/guava drink in Hawaii. The cardboard disks came out of the lid.

after a while, nudeists caught on in mainstream American culture, so companies sold the discs sans Hawaiian fruit drink. The mass produced nudeists were decorated with a variety of images.

Nudeists were primarily collected to be used in a peculiar and rather simple-minded game of skill and chance. The nudeists would be stacked in small piles and the players would use thicker, heavier disks of metal or plastic to strike those piles. Any nudeists flipped by the "slammer" would go to the person who flipped them. Players would take turns, and the player with the most nudeists at the conclusion of the game would be declared the victor. Unfortunately mainstream American culture has long since massed nudeists by. Like Furbies and Beanie Babies they have become relics of a more innocent past. Would that we could return to those simpler days when sexuality had not weaseled its insidious way into all our thoughts and deeds.



And remember the guiding light, lest we forget the glory that be Lemon Party.
Because your blog sucks.
- posted by Odovaucer @ 11:59 PM (0) comments

 
Reports of Our Demise Have Been Highly Exaggerated
Hello there friend. I see that you are reading an update on Lemon Party. Good for you. You may have noticed that the recent archives are somewhat spotty. Our output has been noticeably low for the last several weeks and the content has been somewhat nonstandard. You are free to interpret "nonstandard" as a euphemism for just plain weird if you are so inclined. At any rate it has either gone down in quality or at least sideways. Neither of those possibilities seems optimal to me, but alas that is the state of things. Factors beyond my control have made it difficult for your Lemon Jockeys to provide you with content as regularly as you might have liked.

However I am at work on a compromise of sorts. Soon (I'm thinking week after next, most likely) we shall be having a five update week. A article queue stuffed to the bursting with prolix verbiage. So why is this a compromise? Well these updates will not resemble classic Lemon Party updates. Any mention of blogs and blogging will be tangential at best. You see, I'm going to show you why I haven't been writing my standard fare. It shall be a day in the life of a Lemon Jockey stretched out over a standard working week. If it goes well enough and we remain unable to provide old school updates we'll be giving you a week of turtle_07's existence as well. He may not be up to the task though, which would mean that I would be simulating a far more interesting life for him.

Anyway that's the big idea, and I'll also be trying to tie up some loose ends next week. There is a slight possibility that we'll be employing a new writer, but don't hold your breath. You will, however, be seeing at least one update from one of the lesser stars of the Lemon Party galaxy.

Finally I would like to leave with a single discussion question, because, frankly, I don't feel like padding this update with meaningful content. Why do you read blogs and/or write in your own? Now go and discuss my children. If you say anything noteworthy in the comments I'll be sure to address your points when next I write.

And remember the guiding light, lest we forget the glory that be Lemon Party.
Because your blog sucks.
- posted by Odovaucer @ 11:59 PM (0) comments

 
Hello, Don't Worry
If ever there was a reason for our blog to be nominated as the feel-good block of the year, this update is it.

As the title read: Hello, don't worry. We're going to take a step back from the harsh world of blogging and take a step forward into the less harsh (but sometimes still very harsh) world of feel-good messages.

That's right, feel-good messages. I know what you're all asking: just how are feel-good messages harsh? Well they're harsh if you don't want to hear them. I bet that the feel good message of "We just bombed the shit out of those fucking Japanese." probably wasn't very feel good to the Japanese. In fact, it probably burned a lot and mutated cells.

Another surprisingly harsh feel-good message would be "I fucked your sister." Sure it may feel good to me (unless she was a terrible lay), but I don't think that the recipient of this message would feel very good. Unless he hated his sister, and I was covered in hideous boils full of bear urine. Luckily the latter isn't true, I can't speak about the former because It hasn't happened... yet. (This sentence could probably have done without that yet - Odovaucer)

So what's the feel-good message of the century? I'll tell you: Even though we're speeding towards oblivion, it doesn't mean that you can't enjoy the ride.

Thank you and goodnight!



And remember the guiding light, lest we forget the glory that be Lemon Party.
Because your blog sucks.
- posted by Andrew @ 9:59 PM (0) comments

 
I am a time-bomb
You know, people have often asked me just what it's like being an e-internet celebrity. Many times I will have people walk up to me on the street and say: "Excuse me fine sir, but are you the illustrious Lemon Party poster turtle_07", and I of course respond with a "Verily kind sir, that man of which you speak is I!" Bad grammar and outdated modes of speaking be damned, I do actually say that. Although usually after I answer that they hit me and call me a fag. Apparently some people have misconceptions about what it means to be an e-internet celebrity... that or they're just plain rude.

Not that I really care about people having misconceptions (although their rudeness is rather tiring), being an e-internet celebrity means that I'm entirely apathetic when it comes to 'the other half'. That's right, in fact I would only acknowledge your existence if you were to come close enough to effect me in such a way that I might somehow spill my chardonnay and have potatoes au gratin stain my satin vest. In any case it should be obvious that you're all incredibly worthless, more so than paperweights.

So worthless in fact that if you were Jesus Christ you would just be the omega... do you see where this is going? You lack worth, plain and simple. But what's the point to all this? Why am I writing this? I'm afraid that this has no point, much like your life. Oh don't get me wrong, it started off having a point but once it turned into an update about talking about how terrible you (not even sure who you is) are it sort of degraded into some sort of monster and I wasn't sure where to go with it.

At which point I thought why not be honest and explain myself? Which is why I wrote that previous sentence. Now the update doesn't even make sense anymore, I'm out.


And remember the guiding light, lest we forget the glory that be Lemon Party.
Because your blog sucks.
- posted by Andrew @ 9:57 PM (0) comments