Johnny Carson- Book

Johnny Carson by Henry Bushkin

I generally like autobiographies.  All kinds of autobiographies.  Celebrities, sports, politics, I like them all.  Kirk Douglas, Andre Agassi, Gene Simmons, Shannon Tweed,  Bob Barker, Barbara Walters, Jimmy Conners, Mike Piazza, Javy Lopez, Ellen DeGeneres, Adam Carolla, Ann and Nancy Wilson from Heart, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Director Kevin Smith,  Bear Grylls, Regis Philbin, Steve Jobs, just to name several.  I have enjoyed most every one.

When I was a kid there was only one late night guy, Johnny Carson.  If you were going to watch tv after 11p it was watching Johnny or watching late night movies.  He was the King.  I listened to Ed McMahon's book Here's Johnny.  I thought it was interesting yet to me seemed like a real puff piece.  I thought it was funny that it was released months after Carson's death in 2005.  Ed had nothing but wonderful things to say about Johnny and what a great guy he was.

This book is written by Henry Bushkin.  He was Johnny's right hand man and lead lawyer.  While I found it interesting and it does tell a good bit of the behind the scenes with Carson and the Tonight Show.  It is clear from the start that Bushkin has a score to settle with Johnny.  By the end of the book you see why.  I'm surprised it took him so long to write the book.  Bushkin is more than happy to tell what a controlling jerk Carson was.  He talks freely about all of the times Johnny cheated on his wives (often) and how rude he was to people when he wasn't in front of the camera making America laugh.

I'm always leery about books where people recall exact conversations had 40+ years ago down to the hold the mayo on the ham sandwich.  I can't remember what I had for lunch yesterday.  Bushkin made million$ off of Carson and enjoyed many all expense paid luxury vacations on his tab.  Yet he has little good to say about him.  He blames much of Carsons stand offish personality on his very cold mother whom he could never please no matter how hard he tried.

At his peak the money Carson was making is hard to comprehend.  In the 80s Johnny was making $25 million a year for a three day work week, thirty seven weeks a year.  Vegas was paying him $250,000 a week with plenty of perks to do his show four nights.  Johnny had his own clothing line of high end suits.  He was making $2 million a year and all he had to do was pose for pictures two days a year.  He found that to be too much trouble for those two days and shut down the company. Three ex-wives. The last wife cost him $38 million.

If you are a Johnny Carson fan you will like the walk down memory lane.  I have no doubt Johnny was as rough as Bushkin makes him out to be.  I just think he could have balanced it out by throwing in some good here and there too.

It was sad that when Johnny died of lung cancer (four pack a day smoker) in January of 2005 neither his wife or any of his kids were at his side.  He was alone.  Maybe Bushkin was right...

Last Vegas

Last Vegas

Rating 6 out of 10

I love Las Vegas.  Got married there nearly twenty years ago.  Have an old college friend that lives there so I go as often as I can. I generally attend and mostly like movies that have to do with Vegas.  This is a mostly harmless fun little movie with a cast of yesteryears A-list actors.  Many of the jokes you see coming and fifteen minutes into the film you can guess what's going to happen.  Doesn't matter.  It's an entertaining ride.

Movie starts with four young boys growing up in NYC.  Best friends.  Defending each other against bullies. Getting into trouble.  Fifty years later the boys are now long in tooth and gone different ways but still in touch.  Billy (Michael Douglas) is the successful one that is getting married to a woman less than half his age. He wants his old friends there when he gets hitched for the first time in Vegas.  Archie (Morgan Freemen), Sam (Kevin Kline) and Paddy (Robert De Niro) come along although Paddy is reluctant to do so.  First night there they meet aging but still pretty lounge singer Diana (Mary Steenburgen) who then tags along.

Lots of old people jokes.  Some corny ones too.  As I said it's a harmless mostly well acted movie.  Good rental.

About Time

About Time

Rating 7.5 out of 10

When I first saw the trailer for this movie I had no desire to see it.  It does star Rachel McAdams and who doesn't like her?  But wasn't she already in a time travel movie?  Who's this goofy looking redhead Englishman Domhnall Gleeson?  This low budget movie can't be good, can it?  Well as it turns out yes it is a good movie.

When young Tim (Gleeson) turns 21 his father sits him down for a difficult discussion.  Not one on the birds and the bees even though he is not well versed in that area either.  Dad (Played very well by Bill Nighy) explains that the males in their family are able to travel back in time.  Go into a dark closet and think real hard at a time in the past and magically he is transported back.

While many could use this power for evil.  Transport back and buy Apple stock at $10 per share and become rich.  Tim instead uses his for love.  He falls for Mary (McAdams) and is not much of a ladies man.  Having this talent gives him a do-over every time he sticks his foot in his mouth.  He is able to make a first impression over and over until he gets it right.  Tim is a good guy and also helps out friends in need.

As he gets older he learns that his power is not a fix all.  Kinda hard to say much more about it without giving things away.  I found About Time to be a well made and well acted feel good movie that I would recommend.  I am glad I saw it.

Thor: The Dark World

Thor: The Dark World

Rating 6.5 out of 10

As anyone who has read my blog knows I like the superhero movies.  They don't need to be very complicated.  There is the good guy superhero.  Bad guy who wants to destroy the world.  Good guy battles bad guy to save everyone.  Maybe in some cases throw in a love story to make things even more interesting.  I like Thor as a superhero even though I don't really understand what all his powers are or what he can do.  I know he has a big hammer that causes big damage and if he swings it around very fast it can allow him to fly.  Chris Hemsworth is as perfect to play Thor as Christopher Reeve was to play Superman.

For me Thor just gets too complicated.  In The Dark World I liked the visuals, but the plot left me wondering what in the nine worlds was going on.  Best I could understand since Thor helped the Avengers save NYC he left the love of his life Jane Foster (the lovely Natalie Portman) for two years to clean up all the bad guys in the nine planets including Earth and Thor's home planet of Asgard.

Now as bad luck would have it when the nine planets align every 5000 years it enables really bad guys to control a black fog thing that can destroy everything.  Thor is out to protect Jane Foster and also enlists her brilliant mind to help defeat the bad guy, Malekith.  There is something with some worm holes that allow people or things to pop between worlds.  They also need the help of Thor's evil brother Loki (played very well again by Tom Hiddleston) as he is the only one that knows a secret passage.

The ending of the movie didn't make much sense to me.  The part after the credits made even less sense.  Still I found the movie entertaining in a visual sort of way.

Ender's Game

Ender's Game

Rating 4 out of 10

I have heard Ender's Game was at some point a best selling book.  I read a decent amount and have never heard of the book.  Now I can say I wish I had never heard of this movie.  That's a little harsh.  This is not a terrible movie.  Just not a very good one.  I was mildly entertained.

The movie takes place in the future.  A group of aliens has attacked Earth and were on the verge of total destruction until hero Commander Rackham (Ben Kingsley) saves the day and defeats the enemy.  Fifty years later the military on Earth is in constant preparation for the next attack that they are sure is on the way.  They have determined the fate of the planet lies in teenage boys and girls.  I think they have been playing video games which would make their minds quicker and able to wave their arms around commanding the space ship armies.  Colonel Graff (Harrison Ford) is on the constant lookout for that genius wizard that will lead us to victory.

That genius wizard is a goofy looking boy with a stranger name of Ender Wiggin (Asa Butterfield) who isn't sure he wants the part.  He is grouped with another batch of teenagers including Petra (Haliee Steinfeld- the girl from True Grit).

The movie to me seemed like I was watching a video game.  Harrison Ford seems to be mailing in his parts now and needs to retire.  He has one gruff look and walks thru the part.  The biggest problem for me is I never cared about the main characters.  In the end I didn't care who survived or who didn't.  The effects were a little cheesy.  Most of the action comes from a zero gravity tag game with the cadets at the want to be wizard academy.

I was mildly entertained at times, but mostly bored.  Wished I had gone to see Bad Grandpa again.

Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa

Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa

Rating 7.5 out of 10

I have never been a Jackass or Johnny Knoxille fan.  Never watched the tv show or saw either of the other Jackass movies.  Just not my cup of stuff from the toilet.  There was something from the trailers for Bad Grandpa that made me want to see it.

In Bad Grandpa Knoxville puts on some very good make up to become an 80 year old man given a grandson he does not want with the duty of delivering him to his worthless father in North Carolina.  Thus we get to witness a several day road trip.  Grandpa is rude, crude and very offensive to everyone.  They make stops along the way with unsuspecting real people.

The movie is stupid in many ways yet there were times I was laughing so hard I had tears.  The reaction when a grandpa reacts to his wife dying with big smiles and high fives for everyone is priceless.  As I said this movie is very crude and not for the young ones.

I laughed more in this movie than any in recent memory.  Not really a plot as much as a series of skits.  It really doesn't matter.  I was very entertained and might even go back to get a second viewing.

Runner Runner

Runner Runner

Rating 5 out of 10

This movie was hammered in the reviews getting only a 9% rating from rottentomatoes.com.  Knowing that I went in with low expectations.  Had planned to see the movie Carrie but everyone I talked to said it was not very good or scary at all.  So when I got to the line of scrimmage I called an audible and went to this one.

I'm not sure if Runner Runner deserved all the bad reviews.  It's not a great movie but not a bad one either.  It doesn't let plot holes or even common sense get in the way of moving the story along.  Richie (Justin Timberlake) is a brilliant Princeton student hoping to graduate soon a get that high paying Wall Street job.  He is paying his way thru school by playing internet poker and being paid to steer other students toward certain internet gambling sites.  The school finds out what he is doing and puts a stop to it just as bad luck would have it he has a huge student loan coming due where if he doesn't pay it he will be kicked out of school.  I thought student loans came due AFTER you graduate? Oh well, moving along.

When Richie takes his life savings and decides to do an all or nothing win on the internet gambling site and loses he goes into the code to figure out he was cheated.  Seems if he could do that he could figure the code on how to win? Oh well, moving along.

Of course the thing to do is fly to Costa Rica and have a face off with the big boss, Ivan Block (Ben Affleck).  What could go wrong there?  Block admires his spunk and hires him on the spot.  In a matter of months works his way to the top of the ladder being Blocks right hand man.  The more Richie sees the more he realizes how corrupt it all is.  There is a love interest for Richie in Rebecca (the very hot Gemma Arterton) who works for Block yet it's never really explained what she does.

This will make a decent rental.  Watch it and don't think too much.  The acting is pretty good.  Ms. Arterton is about as attractive as any movie actress in recent memory.  With the low expectations I liked the movie enough to get a moderate thumbs up.