THAT'S how you stuff a turkey

Yesterday, I showed an example of poor kitchenmanship (?), so today, as you enjoy the food hangovers and perhaps if you're lucky an extra day off from the rigors of the workplace, I bring you a woman who really DOES know how to cook: Hazel.

"I'm sure Mr. B's watch is in here somewhere."

Happy Thanksgiving weekend, everyone.

Cultureshark Cares: Is this really a good way to slice a potato?

This Thanksgiving, please, folks, safety first. Be careful when peeling potatoes. I say it's better to cut away from yourself, not towards yourself as in this scene from Arrest and Trial (1963):

From all of us to all of you...

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

This Week in DVD and Instant Watching

2 Guns: I forgot to mention this Denzel Washington/Mark Wahlberg action flick  last week, when it was actually released.  I was just gonna say something, like, I don't know, it sounds like an Andy Sedaris movie. Yeah, you didn't miss much at all.

Red 2: I think I feel asleep 3 times while watching the first one on cable, but maybe that just means I'm getting as old as the cast.

Jobs: No disrespect to the late Steve Jobs, but just when I thought I could not be any more annoyed by that "iconic" picture of him holding his chin, someone comes along and kicks it up a notch by inserting Ashton Kutcher and making a movie poster out of it.

Getaway: Ethan Hawke and Selena Gomez in the same movie! OMG! That duo makes Washington and Wahlberg look like the Carpenters.

The Canyons: Lindsay Lohan was gonna be in that movie about a porn star, then here she co-stars with an actual porn star...Don't you think 20 years from now, we're all just gonna think she was a porn star?

Breaking Bad: Final Season: I loved the show, too, but in a weird kind of way, I'm kind of over it right now. Release this again in a year or so.

Boston Red Sox: 2013 World Series Champions: Remember when the Red Sox winning it all was a novel concept? I say bring on my Pittsburgh Pirates: 2013 National League Wild Card video.

And in streaming....

If my DVD comments seem even snarkier than usual, maybe it's because I'm steamed that Hulu Plus pulled a big Minus on us by taking away the entire season 1 of Kojak. Oddly enough, I had always kind of held off on watching those on Hulu, fearing that the lack of the complete run was an indicator that the show would be pulled at any time. A few weeks ago, I finally decided to start watching them regularly. And of course I started with season 1. D'OH! I hope these are coming to Netflix.

Netflix added that movie that got Michelle Wlliams an Oscar nom, My Week with Marilyn. There's also Josh Duhamel in Scenic Route, the recent documentary about the Iceman with Michael Shannon and Winona Ryder, and the recent remake of Red Dawn. There's a new Jim Norton standup special, too.

I'm also interested in 2013's Saving Santa, an animated Christmas movie featuring the voice talents of Martin Freeman. And while I certainly won't complain about a bunch of Mystery Science Theater 3000 titles appearing, I wish they were new to Netflix instead of returns of the titles that were there a couple years ago.

Warner Archive Instant did something unusual: It took the week off. Granted, it added a slew of new titles in November, but it's still disappointing to check in Friday and see no new arrivals. However, they DID add some new stuff on Monday. It looks like mostly stuff from its old Gangsters box sets, but, hey, more Eddy G. Robinson (Little Giant), Bogart (All Through the Night) and Jimmy Cagney (Each Dawn I Die) isn't something to complain about, even if you do happen to own the discs. If you happen to have an HD Roku, a lot of it is streaming in high-def, so there's that, too. Cagney's The Fighting 69th is also new, and because no update is complete without a seemingly random add, how about Sly Stallone and Michael Caine in John Huston's WWII/soccer film Victory?

Mag Rack #1

Welcome to the Magazine Rack, a new recurring feature in which I talk about some of the various magazines I read each month. Yes, I do read magazines, PRINT magazines--the kind that have smelly perfume samples, the kind that have cards that fall all over the place when you pick them up, the kind that you can take with you into the--er, into any room in the house.

I get most of my magazines from the library these days, but that doesn't make my opinions any less worthwhile. Hey, this blog is free, right?

A few weeks ago, "Time" featured Prince Charles' mug on the cover as part of a big feature story inside. That's interesting, but interesting in a "Does Time actually still want to sell magazines?" way more than a "Huh, I want to read about Prince Charles" way. For the record, the Prince seems like a fairly decent sort, and he's big on charity and environmental causes these days.

Elsewhere in the issue is a small picture of Christy Turlington topless. I kind of wish they had put Christy Turlington on the cover and had a small picture of Prince Charles inside.

"Entertainment Weekly" of November 8 spotlights Katy Perry on the cover with the copy: "ALL-ACCESS PASS We Spend One Wild Week With Katy Perry And She Tells Us...Everything!" Yeah, you can predict how that goes.

More interesting is a short story on "Modern Family's" Ariel Winter and how she lives with her older sister. Unfortunately, it's a bit too short, and it is (perhaps understandably) sparse on details of the sad situation that made the 15-year-old Winter petition for emancipation. It's an uneventful issue, but one more thing jumps out: "EW" loves "The Good Wife," and it wants you to love it, too.

Last month's "Vanity Fair" has Jay-Z on the cover, but I picked it up anyway. I'm willing to listen to people who try to convince us the guy is some kind of super-genius, but unfortunately this is an "all-access" article in which the author tells us about what it's like hanging out with the subject. It's not surprising, then, that the article begins with a whole lot of ink (I read print magazines, remember?) about how cool Jay-Z is. I just can't read an entire piece of that stuff.

I did read the article by Maureen Orth about Mia Farrow, updating her life now and reminding us of the sordid Woody Allen scandal. Now, this is clearly a pro-Mia piece that relies on access; Orth reported on the story originally for "Vanity Fair." Farrow does emerge as the sympathetic figure, but the bigger takeaway is this: Hey, wasn't Woody Allen a huge creep at best and something more sinister at worst? Didn't we all kind of forget about that? Reading this article made me wonder if maybe Woody needs to be lumped into that Roman Polanski category of directors you respect professionally but feel guilty about supporting.

Stuff We Should Bring Back: The Statue of Liberty Play

Remember the Statue of Liberty play in football? Oh, we see variations of it sometimes, but the offenses are always trying to be genuinely deceptive about it, running some other kind of simultaneous trickeration to distract everyone from the beauty of the play. Far too often, some generic end around or misdirection is run when a good Statue of Liberty could otherwise be executed.

Here is what I consider the true Statue of Liberty play, the one that we ran playing neighborhood football (and there is no truer form of the sport than neighborhood tackle football, preferably with a Nerf ball): The quarterback drops back to throw--OR DOES HE? In fact, he (or she, though my neighborhood didn't have a lot of Helen Hunt types) backpedals a few steps then suddenly freezes with his arm cocked back as if to throw. Only he does NOT throw. He stands there like a moron so that a running back/wide receiver (there's really no difference in neighborhood football) can dart behind him, snatch the ball out of his hand, and run to daylight!

Any misdirection element of this play is negated by 1) the ridiculous amount of time it takes to pull it off, 2) the goofy stance of the quarterback trying to look normal if the timing isn't perfect (and it never is in neighborhood football), and perhaps most significantly, 3) the inability of the players on the offensive team to resist shouting, "STATUE OF LIBERTY!" as soon as the play happens. The "trick" part of the trick play isn't the critical element. It's the coolness of it. You don't even run the play because it might work; you run it because it's fun. So declaring what you were doing was part of the deal. What's the point in doing such a silly-looking maneuver if everyone isn't aware of it?

Shouldn't the big, fancy pro teams of the NFL, in particular, run more plays just because they're fun? Yes. Yes, they should. There are a lot of players who would get a big thrill out of taking that ball and yelling, "STATUE OF LIBERTY!" as they race to get past the line of scrimmage and maybe bust the edge. Of course, there are a lot of quarterbacks who would hate getting creamed as a direct result of this call, but, well, that's fun, too, isn't it?

Journey Into DVD: Kids movies aren't just for kids anymore!

Some of the best movies I've seen lately come from the Children/Family aisle. Having two kids can actually expose you to some fine cinema. Of course, 2 of these 3 are ones that, due to various circumstances, I saw without my kids. But they liked them, anyway!

Monsters University: Another fine effort from Pixar. I prefer the originals to the sequels from the company because you just can't beat the joy of discovery that accompanies a Pixar movie that introduces you to a brand-new universe. Well, this one was pretty good. And of course the "Toy Story" sequels are great. Hmm, maybe I need to rethink my policy on Pixar sequels.

Yeah, I prefer Monsters, Inc., but so what? The world can always use more good family-friendly movies, and more to the point, so can my DVD shelf. As a parent, you really appreciate quality because your kids are gonna want to watch it again and again and again. I've seen at least parts of this film 4 times already, and it actually improves with each viewing. The voice work is excellent, with returning Billy Crystal and John Goodman matching their outstanding job as the main characters. Joel--yes, Joel--Murray stands out as an older college student who joins the boys in a fraternity. The character design is great, too, especially the new character of Johnny J. Worthington III (Nathan Fillion), who simply just..looks like the smug blueblood leader of the rival frat type he is supposed to be. The story is solid and finds a clever way to get our characters to where they are at the beginning of this saga (Oh, yeah, this is technically a PREquel, but for my purposes, it seemed more right to refer to it as a sequel). And it's funny.

If I hadn't seen the first one and loved it so much, I might rate this one even higher. The difference to me is that "Monsters Inc." brought me to a whole new world and a whole new way of looking at elements of the existing world, whereas the sequel takes that world and puts a school comedy spin on it. Doesn't matter, though. I look forward to seeing this dozens more times and eventually starting to dread it.

Wreck-It Ralph: Now, this movie takes a "new" world--the inner universe of video games--and makes it fresh and exciting. It's also clever and also brings plenty of heart to the proceedings. The big standout, though, is the voice work. John C. Reilly is perfect as the title character, a video game villain who breaks stuff but wants to be something more. His voice-over at the beginning of the film is one of the funniest things I've seen in a movie in years. It's subtle, but it's hilarious, and though the dialogue is brilliant and establishes the character, it's Reilly's performance that makes it. I also want to praise Sarah Silverman and Alan Tudyk for voice acting that is as vivid and amusing as the cool visuals. This movie is a real delight and has to be up there with the best animated movies of recent memory.

The Muppets: OK, I finally got around to seeing the Jason Segel reboot of the franchise, and, hey, what took me so long? This one is great! I mean, it's entertaining, funny, warm, and I am kind of upset it wasn't really huge instead of "just" a hit.

Retooling the Muppets for a new generation could have gone terribly wrong, but Segel doesn't strain for edginess. Instead, he makes a few subtle references to changing times, but he stays true to the characters and doesn't pander to try to make teenagers and hipsters want to see it. Maybe that's why it wan't really huge.

One of the smartest things Segel does is he includes a human love story (with co-star Amy Adams, who as always is the most adorable thing ever) but gives it just enough attention to make it relevant while never upstaging or interfering with the Muppets. He creates a new character, Walter, who isn't in himself all that remarkable yet blends in well because of that normal quality. Debuting a new Muppet could have been another pitfall, but instead it works. The best thing I can say about "The Muppets" is that it feels like The Muppets and still feels fresh.

If nothing else, this one is worth it for Chris Cooper's spirited turn as the movie's big villain. He's so good you want more of him, but again I think Segel got the balance right and didn't overexpose him. My favorite scene in the movie involves Cooper doing something I hadn't seen him do before, and, yeah, the movie's a few years old, but I am not going to spoil it. After all, it was a surprise to me!

These are 3 amazing movies, all good for the whole family. I may have to give "Turbo" and "Planes" a shot on DVD.