movies

Separated at Birth: Murray Saul & S.D. Nemeth

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I’m not going to compare the tale of the tape here – no heights, weights, eye colors, birthdates or such – just the audio tape.

Murray Saul is most famous for being an Ohio businessman, salesperson and for his appearances on WMMS 100.7 FM in Cleveland, Ohio. The ones where he’d scream “It’s Friday!”.

Here’s an mp3 featured on BoingBoing way back when.

For folks (like me) who grew up listening to the old 96 Rock in Atlanta, you’ll remember their usage of this audio in the late 80’s on through the 90’s.

Here’s a YouTube video (picture unrelated) of a similar “rant” delivered by Murray Saul:

Compare/contrast that audio with the character Bixby Snyder (portrayed by S.D. Nemeth) in the Robocop films. You’ll remember him as the “I’d buy that for a dollar” guy.

Here’s a video refresher and a little behind-the-scenes background (if you want to jump down that particular rabbit hole):

Judge for yourself whether or not these two are secretly the same guy or not.

And here’s some more background information on Murray Saul in case you’re interested.

Oh, and, IT’S FRIDAY!/I’D BUY THAT FOR A DOLLAR!

District 9: Alive in Joburg

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For our anniversary weekend Jenn and I spent the better part of two days holed up in the glorious darkness of a movie theatre, bathed only in the glow of the screen and each others companionship.

No kids.
No whining.
No kidding.

The last movie we saw was also the most recently released: District 9. It seemed to be a popular choice and I’m all for allegorical sci-fi action flicks set in South Africa, so we gave it a go.

Ahead are a few spoilers and (hopefully) a non-hyperbolic review, so you’ve been warned.

The review: not as political or social as it could have been (or I was lead to believe), given the first half of the film and the source material, Alive in Joburg, (embedded below) but it was still highly original, incredibly stylized in its design and filming and quite a good action thriller by the end of it.

The accents can be a bit tough to fully comprehend and there were a couple of occasions where it stole liberally from The Fly, but I enjoyed it.

Again, my main problem was that some of the socio-political aspects were lost in the second half of the film in favor of explosions and violence, but this is August and the movie gods must be appeased.

Certainly not the best film I’ve ever seen, but still very good and thought-provoking, which doesn’t happen often in sci-fi action flicks.

Mark my words: this movie has been so well-received (and the ending is open enough) that there will be a District 10 sequel.

Oh, and if you’re curious for some of the parallels between District 9 the film and District Six, the area of Cape Town, South Africa that inspired parts of the film, start at Wikipedia.