Evans Above

Just read that 37signals are phasing out support of IE6 in their Basecamp online products. As they say, “The Internet Explorer 6 browser was released back in 2001, and Internet Explorer 7, the replacement, was released nearly two years ago in 2006.”

Moving away from a buggy browser like IE6 would be great. I just checked my logs though and, ugh, about 24% of our readers are still using IE7. Time to upgrade folks!

Sometimes you dip your hand into the mailbag and it bites back…

We received a copy of Superhero Movie, a spoof flick “from the guys who brought you Scary Movie and The Naked Gun.” If you ever feel the need to completely waste about 90 minutes of your life, then this is the movie to do it.

Writer-director Craig Mazin has basically taken the plot of a superhero film — in this case Spider-Man — and shifted some things aside to make room for a healthy dose of sight gags, physical shtick, and, most importantly, fart jokes.

Now gags, shtick and farts can be funny if delivered effectively and in the right doses, but Mazin has gone way overboard with material that’s not funny or just sits there like a rock. It doesn’t help that the hero, played by Drake Bell, has all the charisma and comic ability of a bug squashed against your windshield. His Dragonfly just has to get out of the way of much better comic actors like Leslie Nielsen, Christopher McDonald and Marion Ross, but even they can’t sink their teeth into this meatless parody. Poor Ross is also the supplier (but surprisingly not the denier) of one of the longest fart jokes in the history of film. Poor woman, did she not save any of her Happy Days money?

The film is full of cameos like Pamela Anderson, Craig Bierko and Robert Hays, but they too are wasted. The best bit in the whole film belongs to Miles Fisher, whose dead on parody of Tom Cruise in the Scientology tapes is excellent. I’d almost say it would be worth the price of admission, but since it was placed on the Internet, put your wallet back.

This film is packed with the usual extras: commentary, alternate ending, deleted scenes and a “The Art of Spoofing” minidoc. It seems a bit weird to call them extras since that implies that they’re being added on to something and there’s nothing here.

I downloaded Firefox 3 and though I love the browser, I have to add my voice to the chorus of people who don’t like the new format for the location or “awesome” bar. I hate the awesome bar: the awesome bar sucks. There, I said it.

When I type “c” in the location bar, I expect to see cnn.com or cinematical.com. The new “awesome bar” grabs a list of every bookmark and history entry that has a “c” in it.

Adding insult to injury, there’s no way to turn this off.

Ugh!

NKOTB a.k.a. New Kids on the Block a.k.a. Jordan and Jonathan Knight, Joey McIntyre, Donnie Wahlberg and Danny Wood just finished performing on the MuchMusic Video Awards and the one word to describe the performance is “ouch”.

The MMVA performance really looked like five guys getting ready to take a kick at the multi-million dollar reunion tour can. The dancing was awkward, the vocals shaky — Jordan Knight in particular cracked spectacularly during “Step by Step” — and it looked like a bunch of guys at a company karaoke party pretending to be NKOTB.

I guess they can cash their cheques after the tour, which opens in Toronto this September, and finally put the reunion demands in their past.

Canadian Idol returns on Tuesday…and I couldn’t care less. Ratings for it were down last season, as they were for American Idol this season.

The only winner I clearly remember in five seasons is Ryan Malcolm and that’s only because he was the first. There was some curly blond guy and a dark-haired girl. Yep, they’ve obviously etched their names and careers into popular culture.

I think it’s funny how all the various Idol shows trumpet the “idol” word, like somehow these people have been properly elected idols that the masses must bow down to. The way Seacrest intones “This is your American Idol” the way they say “The President of the United States” when the State of the Union address starts. Sadly, some force-fed TV watchers actually accept that these people must be idolized because they’ve been told repeatedly that they’re idols and they’re the best. No, they’re supposedly the best of the people who auditioned. That doesn’t mean some 17-year-old singer in Wichita who thinks the show is a joke can’t sing circles around the winners.

I worked at a part-time job that was chock full of actors and singers. One of the women who worked there, the type who’d dote on any of the contestants, wondered aloud why none of the people at this job auditioned for the show. One savvy university student summed it up well: “Because they want careers.”

Reaching into the mailbag this week, we find Sidney Lumet’s Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead. It’s a given in the movies that the easier a heist appears, the greater the chance that something will go very wrong.

Philip Seymour Hoffman and Ethan Hawke play brothers whose parents own a jewelery store. Hoffman is the more successful brother. He’s got a job as a payroll executive, a sexy wife (Marisa Tomei), and a drug habit that needs cash to fuel it. Hawke is financially struggling, needs money for his little girl, and he’s sleeping with his sister-in-law.

Knowing that their parents, Albert Finney and Rosemary Harris, have their store fully insured, the two brothers figure they can stage a robbery. They’ll have the cash they both need and nobody gets hurt. Or so they plan…

Hoffman is, of course, fantastic. He truly is the embodiment of the actor you’d pay to watch read the phone book. But with him, you’d come back the second night to see him read the Yellow Pages™. Albert Finney matches Hoffman toe-to-toe as the pair’s father. With this duo in the cast it’s hard for the rest not to be partially in their shadows, but that’s not a slight considering the scale of performances we’re talking about here.

This DVD release includes interviews with the cast and director as well as commentary from Hoffman, Hawke and Lumet. Considering Lumet’s a filmmaking legend, that’s worth the price of admission alone.

While you’re at it, check out our photos from the Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead premiere at the 2007 Toronto International Film Festival.

When I first saw Leona Lewis’ X Factor performances on Youtube, I thought she had an amazing voice.

Months later, her album hits North American shores and, after an appearance with Simon Cowell on Oprah, Leona’s single “Keep Bleeding Love” is everywhere.

And it bores me. The girl’s got a killer set of pipes and this boring, generic song does nothing to really show off her vocal skills. It could have been released by any fill-in-the-blank artist.

I was just watching the local CTV news in Toronto and their community interest story was on a girl, Nicolette Nardi-Addesa, who was having her sweet sixteen party.

Mention sweet sixteen parties these days and your mind turns to the self-absorbed, vain, unappreciative girls on MTV’s My Super Sweet Sixteen. The type that yell “I hate you!” at the mother who bought them a Lexus in the wrong colour.

Nicolette is NOT that girl. She decided that instead of throwing a party that was about how much you could receive, hers would be about how much you could give. Tickets for her party required a minimum donation and the money raised would go towards the Children’s Wish Foundation so that a sixteen-year-old with a life threatening illness could have their wish come true.

Congratulations to Nicolette on her sixteenth…and congratulations for growing up to be a young woman who can think of others in this increasingly insular world. If you’re inclined to make a donation to Children’s Wish to follow Nicolette’s example, visit their site at https://www.childrenswish.ca/.

My friend, actress/writer/singer/whatever-she-sets-her-mind-to Jaclyn A. Smith, is hosting Unplugged at Vancouver’s Grace Gallery this Saturday, March 29th, 2008 starting at 6pm PT. The evening of art, food, drinks and live music, which is helping to raise awareness for Earth Hour, will feature appearances by Greenpeace founder Rex Weyler and director of The Whale Center, Dr. David Randle.

Jaclyn, or “Jax”, who can currently be seen opposite Eugene Levy in American Pie Presents: Beta House , has also made a video in support of Earth Hour. Take a look:

I’m pretty sure that Kristy Lee Cook wasn’t planning to say anything raunchy to American Idol judge Simon Cowell when she said that, if she stuck around another week, “I can blow you out of your socks and you know it.”

Simon for once was speechless and tactful, while fellow AI judge Randy Jackson immediately went “Whoa, whoa!” and suggested that host Ryan Seacrest not go there. Seacrest was doing his best not to laugh, his voice cracking as he went on, while Paula Abdul had the possibilities of the phrase fly over her head, adding, “Aim for that. Blow him out of his socks.”

Cowell, grinning ear to ear, managed to stay quiet, while Seacrest finally ventured that, “It’s hot! Turn on the air, Debbie!”

A great live TV moment that hit the border of family TV but didn’t cross it, but the big question is whether FOX’s Standards & Practices people will snip it out for the West Coast airing.

Of course, Cook’s online bio on the Idol site says her favorite quote is: “Rope it, ride it, wrestle it, cowgirl it.” I bet.

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