Should Layla Kayleigh Play The Clone Wars’ Ahsoka Tano?

Posted on by sexyarmpit
Photobucket

I must seriously question your midichlorian count if you aren’t a fan of Star Wars: The Clone Wars. Although, surprisingly, the film and TV series have a large sand barge full of detractors. For some reason, many online folks have focused their feelings of disgust and hatred toward Anakin’s padawan, Ahsoka Tano. Actually, I can’t find anything about her character that I DON’T enjoy. She’s not annoying unlike some of the propaganda circulating on the Internet will tell you. Ahsoka proves to be a young, strong, female character who girls can look up to. When their friends or brothers are emulating Anakin or Obi-Wan, girls need a hero too! Thankfully, Ahsoka wasn’t given a stereotypical accent much like some of the other characters in the prequels (i.e Watto, Jar Jar, and Nute Gunray, to name a few). Ashley Eckstein flawlessly provides Ahsoka’s voice, but what if Ahsoka were to appear in the live action TV show? Who would be best for the role? 

Photobucket
Keep in mind that Ahsoka is merely 14 years old, but I think we can stretch the age limit a little bit here. If Gabrielle Carteris and the rest of the cast of the original 90210 did it, then so can George Lucas! I choose Layla Kayleigh, a natural beauty who hosts The Feed on G4’s Attack of the Show and America’s Best Dance Crew on MTV among other TV credits. She’s only 24 and in addition to modeling, Layla has starred in a film and runs her own video blog. I find her physical features and diverse ethnic background to be prime reasons why she would be perfect for the role of Ahsoka. According to Wikipedia, Kayleigh has “African, European, and Middle Eastern ancestry.” What do you say Layla? Are you up for the Jedi training? How do the readers of The Sexy Armpit feel about it? 

Photobucket
www.SexyArmpit.com

Cineplex Odeon Memories: The Night I Was Ghostface

Posted on by sexyarmpit
Photobucket
In addition to donning the bat costume earlier that year for the premiere of Batman and Robin, I was also tapped to play Ghostface from the Scream series in honor of the premiere of Scream 2 in December ’97 when I worked at the local Cineplex Odeon Theater at the Menlo Park Mall. My coworkers were aware that I was a huge horror fan as well as completely obsessed with the first Scream film. Electing me to stalk the popcorn gorging, giant soda drinking filmgoers while threatening that that I’d “gut them like a fish,” was a given.

Compared to spending 6-8 hours shaking hands and sweating in the hot, awkward bat costume, I took much pleasure running around in the free flowing, comfortable Ghostface costume. Stalking theatergoers with a fake knife and sneaking up on unsuspecting girls coming out of the bathroom became my pastime for the evening. The most memorable part of being Ghostface happened during each presentation of the film. Right after the moment Jada Pinkett has her excessively dramatic death scene in the film within a film STAB, the Scream title slashes onto the screen. During the short fade to black, a theater usher slammed through the emergency exit door and up the aisle in the dark theater as if he was being chased. Seconds later, wielding a knife high above my head, I barreled through the door and sprinted up the aisle after him. When I reached the door to the lobby I blasted through it and had a laugh with my fellow employee, Victor. In the fleeting seconds that the stunt took place, I remember feeling quite a rush as I heard almost the entire crowd scream and gasp in shock and fear.

What made the occurence even that much more clever was the fact that that part of the movie featured a “film within a film,” which blurred the lines of fiction and reality. I like to believe that my performance magnified that idea and added a little more thrill to the atmosphere.

Would you expect something like that to happen when you’ve spent nearly 10 minutes immersed in a film that you payed $8 bucks (at the time) to see? Nowadays anything that can be classified as an “interruption” would start a line of 12 people complaining in attempts for free passes. As I noted in “The Day I Got To Be Batman” I give credit to the Cineplex Odeon theater staff for taking liberties and being creative as film exhibitors.

It’s not everyday you walk into a movie theater and see a cavernous homemade Batcave erected or a knife wielding killer from a horror film chasing innocent ushers through the theater at high speed. I would’ve liked to have been one of the people watching Scream on that Friday night. It was almost a throwback to gimicks like “smell-o-vision.” I would love movies to become more of an event, like when I go to see an film in IMAX. Do you think witnessing the killer chasing someone through the theater would intensify your viewing experience? Maybe if it doesn’t succeed at creeping you out, it would definitely make for a memorable bit of conversation!

Photobucket
www.SexyArmpit.com

Two-Face Cameo In Dead Heat?

Posted on by sexyarmpit

While checking out the archives at Nightchillers Rare Music blog, I saw a movie mentioned that jogged my memory. Dead Heat, (1988) is a buddy cop movie in the vein of 48 hours and Lethal Weapon, but done ZOMBIE STYLE! The film stars cult hero Treat Williams, an actor who I’m surprised hasn’t had a book written about him similar to The Truth About Chuck Norris. We also get to see Jersey boy Joe Piscopo star as Treat Williams partner, Doug Bigelow. Sure, some of the SFX are dated but that’s part of the charm. It’s the type of comedy/shocker that we really don’t see made anymore. If you want to relive some great ’80s late night cable memories then definitely pick up a copy of Dead Heat. Cheesy jokes, reanimated corpses, and Joe Piscopo…how can you go wrong? I haven’t watched this movie since I was a kid so I popped it in the other day and had a moderate revelation. Treat Williams was the first on-screen Two-Face!


It’s undeniable if you ask me! Of course Treat Williams didn’t actually play Harvey Dent, he played Detective Roger Mortis, but I’ll be damned if the makeup artist wasn’t a huge Batman fan! Be sure to look out for appearances by Darren McGavin, Toru Tanaka, Martha Quinn, and VINCENT PRICE!

www.SexyArmpit.com

The Wonderful Parking Garage of Oz

Posted on by sexyarmpit

Many people dislike stories that sound too “coincidental” because they seem preposterous. There’s been a few times that I got pegged for making up stories like Chunk in the Goonies but I assure you that I wouldn’t waste my time writing about these instances unless they were entirely 100% true.

“Who would make up a story like that?” – Dana Barrett (Sigourney Weaver) in Ghostbusters.

It was a almost a month ago when I decided to relax, have some dinner, and watch a dvd. That night I was in the mood for Scorcese’s After Hours since I hadn’t watched it since I was young. That’s the kind of movie I like. It’s a film that doesn’t really have too much of a plot, it’s more about the string of events that happen to the main character. It’s so easy to get wrapped up in it. It’s similar to Desperately Seeking Susan (also starring Arquette!) where the bored housewife inadvertently gets tangled up in another woman’s life. Being in these bizarre situations always turns out to be entertaining, but I wish my life occasionally took on excitement like that. In the past I’ve often written about how nothing exciting ever happened where I grew up. I’ve even had dreams of having exciting things happen in my neighborhood because my subconscious must’ve been so starved for excitement! I guess watching After Hours appeals to my desire to have more personal excitement.

The following photo doesn’t really elude to having something “exciting” happen to me, but it can definitely be classified as weird!

Either the person who did this was a huge Wizard of Oz fan or this is a piss poor attempt at graffiti. The building I work in has a massive amount of underground parking. For the most part it’s kept clean, and there’s not much to worry about when you head to your car. There’s not a lot of shady stuff going since the security is super high. About 2 days after I watched After Hours I walked through an area of the parking garage that I rarely ever traverse. I had to escort a visitor to a section of the lot that isn’t as jam packed with cars. Out of nowhere I looked over at one of the concrete columns and I squinted my eyes in disbelief. I was momentarily shocked at what I saw scrawled on this column: “Surrender Dorothy” was written in an extremely random fashion. There must’ve been a hundred columns in this bi-level parking garage and none of the other columns had any graffiti or markings on them.

I immediately told my friend Steve about this weird coincidence. “OK, what’s the big deal Jay?…It’s from Wizard of Oz!” I knew full well that the wicked witch wrote that in the sky to freak Dorothy out. “No man! I just watched After Hours!” Steve didn’t quite grasp my correlation, so I almost spelled it out for him in the sky. “You see Steve….” Marcy, Rosanna Arquette’s character, told a story about her husband. He was obsessed with Wizard of Oz and when they had sex on their wedding night he would scream Surrender Dorothy every time he came. “Instead of saying something normal like, “Oh, God,” or something normal like that.” – Marcy

What does this all mean? Well if I knew the answer to that then I wouldn’t have posted this entry. Out of all the thought provoking stuff you could tag on a concrete column! Off the top of my head “Dan was here ’87” was always popular. Oh, and I can’t leave out the Slayer logo. It’s very possible this person was simply a hardcore Wizard of Oz fanatic or they worked for the Wicked Witch and they were just letting us all know that her spirit is still hunting Dorothy. Another scenario is that the person could’ve been a huge After Hours fan and it’s been there since the movie came out in 1985. Perhaps it was a guy and he had just seen the film. He was getting some oral action while leaning against the column and decided to carve Surrender Dorothy into the pole as he completed his mission. Maybe back in ’85 there were some people who actually started yelling that as they reached their moment of bliss?

Here’s a couple of other entries relating to my weird but true “coincidental” stories.

“Yesterday”: An Unexplained Occurence

and

That Fence Has a HUGE Bush!

www.SexyArmpit.com

The Day I Got To Be Batman

Posted on by sexyarmpit

This whole Dark Knight countdown is becoming a huge obnoxious competition against myself to find out who is the bigger Batman fan, ME or ME? Either way, it’s on like KONG! (the article above appeared in the Cineplex Odeon newsletter called “The Biz” in ’97)

When I was 16 I applied to work at the local Cineplex Odeon Cinema at the Menlo Park Mall. (Cineplex Odeon is now AMC Theaters) I knew it would be the perfect job for me especially since I was in high school and didn’t want a job where I had to be too serious or have too much responsibility. Without even realizing how fast the time went I wound up working there for about 5 or 6 years! I met so many awesome people throughout that time and saw a ton of movies. Sometimes on a Thursday night we would have screenings of the big films that were coming out the next day. I remember getting sneaks of all the cool movies especially for all the Star Wars re-issues and The Phantom Menace. I have some great memories of that place.

For the first 2 or 3 years I worked there the management was very supportive and excellent to work for. One busy night at the theater in 1997, Bob, the house manager, pulled me aside. I got a bit nervous. Bob was easy to get along with but he was nothing but business. He wasn’t smiling so I thought something was wrong.

JAY: “Did I do something wrong, Bob?” I always ask that of all my bosses…I just like the sound of it.
BOB: “No of course not, as always you’re doing a great job! I just have something I want to ask you…”
JAY: “Oh Ok sure”
BOB: “How would you like to be Batman for us at our premiere of Batman and Robin?”

Speechless….

JAY: “Are you serious? Holy Crap, of course!!!”

F–k Jean-Paul Valley! What an opportunity for me since I used to pretend I was Batman for the first 16 years of my life and now I could actually be him in front of people. I definitely felt like I was a shoe-in for the job because everyone there knew I was the resident Batmaniac. When I put on the cowl and cape, such a familiar feeling came over me as if I had put on a cape and cowl every day of my life. I did my best impression of Michael Keaton when he became Batman. Screw Kilmer and Clooney, I was still a Keaton mark! Not only did they get one of the more professional looking bat costumes for me to wear but they also had a few members of the management team create an overhang above the ticket ripper that made you feel like you were entering the Batcave!

To make the premiere even more of an event they had one of the girls who worked at the concession stand, Jen, play Poison Ivy. Like me, she really ate it up. She waltzed in like she spent months taking lessons from Uma Thurman! The kids and adults loved it! I shook so many hands that day, was asked to be in a ton of pictures, and I was also asked for autographs which was bizarre but I had prepared for it just in case. I remembered that back when I was a kid I met a Batman impersonator at the Wildwood boardwalk back in ’89. I took a picture with him and he signed the Polaroid. I dug it up and took a look at how he signed it and I sort of lifted his technique. I know, I know…you all want to ask the burning question: Did I stuff my codpiece with socks? Don’t you know that Batman never reveals his secrets? Let’s just say, the ladies seemed to be quite aroused! Come to think of it, they were probably more distracted by my huge batarang. (pictured below: Batman/Me trying to resist Poison Ivy’s pheromones)

www.SexyArmpit.com

Batman on Blu-Ray Giveaway!!!

Posted on by sexyarmpit

To celebrate the kickoff The Sexy Armpit’s DARK KNIGHT COUNTDOWN Fox Home Video has been gracious enough to supply us with a Blu-Ray disc of the original Batman The Movie (1966) Special Edition starring Adam West and Burt Ward to give away to a lucky reader. Batman was released today on Blu-Ray so THANKS Fox Home Video!

HOW TO WIN THE BATMAN BLU-RAY DISC: E-Mail sexyarmpit@comcast.net subject line: BATMAN. Just for fun, try to answer one of the 2 following questions: What was Catwoman’s Moscow Bugle Alias OR answer Riddler’s riddle What’s Yellow and Writes? One winner will be picked randomly and the deadline is 7/20.

I’ve always been obsessed with the ’60s Batman TV series. It’s so bad that I can tell you the episode name, what season it was in, who played each villain, etc. So basically it’s going to be difficult for me to give away the new Blu-Ray transfer and not try to hold onto it for dear life.

As any legit Bat-fan knows, the ’60s live action TV series brought us some cool bat crap but my favorite of all time comes from this film: SHARK REPELLENT BAT-SPRAY! When I was a kid my friend Frank and I made all kinds of accessories for our toy utility belts but the one thing that he never had that I DID was a mini can of Shark Repellent Bat Spray that my dad made for me. Alot of you remember the times that your dad taught you how to spiral a football, throw a slider, or change the oil in your first car. Well, I remember my dad fashioning me a kick-ass aerosol can that would repel sharks in case one decided to “pull my leg.”

In the film you’ll see all the classic villains masterfully portrayed as well as the entire cast of Batman regulars. There’s so many extras on this disc they couldn’t even fit on Commodore Schmidlapp’s yacht!

Features include: Commentary by Adam West and Burt Ward, Isolated musical Score in DTS, several featurettes including: Batman: A Dynamic Legacy, Caped Crusaders: A Heroes Tribute, Gotham’s City’s Most Wanted, The Batmobile Revealed, Batman on Location, original trailers, still galleries, trivia, and lots more! Take a look at one of the featurettes from the new Batman Blu-Ray disc:

www.SexyArmpit.com

Super Hero Dance Sequences

Posted on by sexyarmpit

OK, so this article is a bit BAT-HEAVY but these entries deserve to be on the list! Feel free to leave a comment with any ones I forgot! I know there’s many others, but here’s the most notable ones…

Spider Man 3 – Upon its release I remember there being quite an uproar that Sam Raimi decided to feature a dance sequence in a Super Hero movie. I’ll sling myself out on a web here and risk my reputation by saying that I actually enjoyed this part of the film. You have to remember that Peter was still in the black suit and it was doing weird primal stuff to his psyche. So naturally, the way that it manifested itself was by jazz dancing with a hot blonde. Who better to piss off your ex-girlfriend with than Gwen Stacy! While jazz dancing! C’mon, lighten up…it was fun.

Smallville actually seemed to have “bit” off Spider Man 3 or “taken the lead” from it so to speak. In season 7, Chloe, one of the best characters in the show, goes and hangs out at a club and heats things up with Jimmy Olsen on the dance floor.
Mystery Men – Perhaps it’s not a classic superhero movie but it was hard to resist. In yet another brilliant role, Geoffrey Rush plays criminal mastermind Casanova Frankenstein. We hear the Bee Gee’s Night Fever, and see the gigundo disco ball hanging from the ceiling while Casanova takes it all in: “Ah The old disco room, just as I left it…” His cohort Tony, played by Eddie Izzard, prances around disco dancing and doing the macarena. He later proclaims “Disco is NOT Dead!”
Plastic Man Cartoon – I don’t know if you’re on board but I had really fond memories of watching Plas as a kid. It was such a fun show! Plas was accompanied by his cute blonde girlfriend Penny, his Hawaiian best bud Hula Hula, and Baby Plas. Here‘s part of the intro of the show where Plas boogies down: “…he can spring…he can stretch..he can fly…he can bounce…he can change his shape…and he can even dance!” Plastic Man doesn’t get enough accolades. He’s one of the better comical super heroes and that combo usually doesn’t work well but it does for him! I always thought Jim Carrey would be an awesome choice to play Plastic Man in a movie.
Batman Returns – Michael Keaton and the super smoking hot Michelle Pfieffer slow dance to Siouxsie and the Banshees’ haunting Face to Face while having the type of conversation I’ve only dreamed of having with Catwoman. “Mistletoe could be deadly if you eat it…A kiss could be even deadlier.”

Photobucket
Batman 1996 TV episode Hi Diddle Riddle – Rules went out the window for Batman in the ’60s. Batman was not only getting a little wacky in the comic books but also on prime time TV. Adam West’s brilliantly dry portrayal of Batman gets alot of flack and it may mostly be due to the fact that he wasn’t afraid to dance the “Batusi.”

Photobucket
Return to the Batcave – Adam West and Julie Newmar get together for old time sake in this made for TV reunion to dance one last Batusi.

www.SexyArmpit.com

A Few of my Favorite Movie Scenes

Posted on by sexyarmpit

An excellent horror movie blogger, Final Girl, has inspired many of us bloggers to write a positive piece about films rather than being negative and ripping a film apart. So as part of the Hey, Internet, Stop Being Such Cynical Effing Douchbags Blog-A-Thon I’ve decided to concentrate on certain movie scenes that I always wish I was in. Some arouse feelings of nostalgia, fantasy, or they just look so damn cool. I’ve always wanted to actually experience these scenes first hand rather than just passively watch them.

In 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Kirk Douglas thinks the Nautilus is a sea creature and is about to throw a harpoon at it. The Nautilus was mysterious and it evoked intensity and suspense. The sub, even though it was an extension of Captain Nemo, seemed to have a life of it’s own. Later on we get to see the lush decor on board and I never thought the inside of a submarine could be this cool.
In the 1966 Batman movie, I was seduced by the idea of having poles to slide down into the bat cave. To have an “instant costume change lever” that was actually labelled with its title would be even more awesome. Shit I just used my basement as a low rent bat cave.

Obviously, Labyrinth has a ton of classic scenes and shots. This one really captured the first moment where we see a full view of the Labyrinth and what’s in store for Sarah. When I saw this movie for the first time I don’t think I was old enough to even define the word labyrinth so seeing that Sarah was about to head into a whole adventurous world of mazes and creatures made me want to jump into the screen and join her in the search for her brother Toby.
What I would’ve gave to ride my big wheel around the deserted Overlook hotel while horrifying spectacles are haunting every corner just like Danny Torrance in The Shining.
I take a lot of flak for always referencing Sleeping Beauty as one of my favorite films. The exciting finale featuring Maleficent’s fire breathing dragon (GREEN fire by the way) vividly sticks out in my mind.
The documentary within the movie Boogie Nights is classic. Dirk Diggler’s speech touches on subjects like Napoleon, jealousy, and how he’s “gonna keep rockin’ on.” It’s some of the most eloquent stuff I’ve ever heard! DIRK: “Like my shoes? They’re like this patchwork reptilian pattern design.” I can’t leave out the recording session where they record “Feel My Heat” and “You’ve Got the Touch” which frequently come up in my iPod shuffles.
This scene in Love Actually perfectly captures how every guy feels about a girl at one time or another. You know when there’s a girl you like and she’s with someone else and you desperately want to show her that you could make her happier than the guy she’s with? This guy goes into Bob Dylan mode and knocks on aptly named Juliet’s door. He shows her notes he wrote on poster board expressing romantic sentiments while her boyfriend is sitting on the couch inside. Even though it’s apparent he’s got zero chance, he gave it his best shot. He settled for letting her know truly how he feels. She gave him a consolation kiss. It doesn’t hurt that Keira Knightley looks hot as hell either.

Return to Oz depicts a very different, more realistic Oz than the glistening green skyline we’re used to seeing in the 1939 version. As a kid it was pretty scary after realizing that the whole sparkling city was turned to stone and the wheelers vandalized it. If you’re an adult and you still haven’t experienced Return to Oz, then GET ON IT!
The finale of Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl, shows Jack Sparrow once again taking the helm as Captain of the Black Pearl: “drink up me hardy’s Yo Ho!” Then Klaus Badelt’s “He’s a Pirate” kicks in to pump you up.After the kick ass water slide scene, The Goonies kids discover the cou de gras…The Inferno, (One Eyed Willie’s Pirate Ship)…with TONS of rich stuff aboard.
I must have a million more, but for now…what are some of your favorite movie scenes?
www.SexyArmpit.com