Monday, June 26, 2006

Jar Jar the most hated ever? Who's yours?

Poor Jar Jar Binks.

After hearing about his latest dis from the UK, I tried to think of something redeeming to say about Lucas' worst creation ever, but I just couldn't. I'm afraid the voters at the British DVD rental site Lovefilm.com got it just about right.

It seems poor Jar Jar barely edged out Andie McDowell's Carrie from "Four Weddings and a Funeral" as the most annoying film character of all time in a poll of 5,000 UK movie fans. In my mind, this race may have been closer than expected. Jar Jar is definitely the better actor. I'm fairly sure that if you made it Jar Jar vs. Andie McDowell's entire oeuvre, including gems like "Green Card" and "Greystoke", I think she just might have pulled off the upset.

The list continues thusly: In third is Rowan Atkinson's Bean, followed in fourth place by Jim Carrey's "Ace Ventura: Pet Detective" character and in fifth place by Ben Stiller's White Goodman in Dodgeball.

I can only take "Bean" in the smallest of doses, but Rowan Atkinson has my unconditional props for "Black Adder", so I was a little surprised at the animosity. And it may just be my inner fourth-grader talking here, but I thought Jim Carrey was very funny in "Ace Ventura".

Anyways, what do you think? If you care to, share the characters you find most annoying. Take this opportunity to vent your frustrations. I guarantee you'll feel better afterwards.

New "Futurama" ... yippee!

Forgive me if this news is old ... I've been in an all-soccer haze for the last two weeks, and am just now catching up on things. This struck me as the best news I found this morning in the Hollywood Reporter.

For the first time since 2003, it seems that, thanks to Comedy Central, we will be getting new episodes of "Futurama"! ... I'll pause just in case one person is as geeked up about this as me ... OK, continuing.

I just love "Futurama". For me, it blended light sci-fi and great humor as good as Joss Whedon's "Firefly", which ranks with "Freaks and Geeks" as my favorite one-season-only series. I never thought it would get the "Family Guy" treatment and come back from the dead.

We will have to wait a bit, however. Thirteen new episodes, along with the 72 old ones, will begin airing in 2008 on Comedy Central. Actors Billy West, Katey Sagal and John DiMaggio have agreed to return as voices.

I guess there's hope for great TV after all.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to get ready for my first day of work in two weeks. It will be a bit hard to concentrate with the mighty Socceroos scheduled to take out the diving Azzurri at 11 a.m. on ESPN. But I'll soldier through somehow.

7 comments:

Unknown said...

Not much of a Jar Jar fan. Still not sure what Lucas was thinking....

As for Futurama...YEY!! D was very excited to hear this! :)

CiikuMrsBabes said...

I do love me some futurama... as for Jar Jar... umm...yeah.. never got that stuff....

Iowa Film Nerd said...

This is old school, but one of the slaves from Gone with the Wind. She had the lines "I don't know no nothing about birthen babies" in a exceedingly racist tone. That, I think, ties with the likes of Jar Jar who insistantly makes me want to return my copy of Episode I.

Reel Fanatic said...

The similitaries between the two characterizations, film nerd, are startling ... Thanks for the input!

Chris said...

By far the most annoying character I have ever seen in film is Franklin from the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre. The wheelchair-bound, luckily future victim actually became a cathartic death rather than a scary one.

Reel Fanatic said...

I had to laugh out loud in my cubicle at that Chris, drawing stares from several of my co-workers .. great choice!

Anonymous said...

I hate Jar Jar with a passion. I like the Star Wars movies, but Lucas could have done a lot of things better in the last three chapters. If you think about it, he went for the cutesy factor with the Ewoks in Episode VI, but they didn't have a stupid accent and say things like "Ex-squeeze me," which was the wordt line in the whole series.

I'm not a fan of Andie, but I didn't notice her as being particularly annoying in "Four Weddings," which I love.

I'm not a big fan of Ace Ventura, though. That character WAS pretty stupid IMHO.