directed by ben stiller
starring robert downey jr., jack black, ben stiller, nick nolte, bill hader, matthew mcconaughey, tyra banks, and tom cruise as les grossman

hot chick wanted to go to the movies. ended up at the vista by my house. 7pm show. good sized crowd for a wednesday night.

got in a little late cuz chickie was being a chickie. turned out some of the previews are actually fake previews for the movie. dont be late.

didnt realize till at the end of the movie, but ben stiller directed this. pretty damn good for a guy whos last shot at the helm was zoolander, which wasnt bad either.

tropic thunder isnt all that. its better than most, but thats nothing to crow about. when you have robert downey and jack black and half of hollywood trying to be funny, it should be funny shouldnt it? plus ben stillers funny so you’re half way home.

tropic thunder is a love story about a man who has lost himself. hes having an identity crisis and it takes the chaos of war for him to reach self discovery. thats what i told dategirl as i was trying to take her bra off left handed in the vons parking lot.

she disagreed.

tropic thunder is an action movie, she said, where the only person getting any action is gonna be your right hand if you dont step off and let me dig into these gummi worms.

dont call it a gummi worm i pouted.

i used to have a manager at e! whos word i always relied on, especially about movies because she is a stuntwoman. she said that when jack black is the lead in the film its a meh film, but when he has a supporting role hes super funny and everythings perfect. gotta say it was hard to choose whether black or downey stole the show more often, but i think its gotta go to ironman cuz he was able to do the blackface thing without being offensive, which is almost an impossible trick.

sadly the film sorta fell apart halfway through when it became a parody of itself which is why i give it a reluctant thumbs up, mostly to encourage people to watch the mastery of downey, who actually gave a better performance in this movie than in ironman cuz really how hard is it to act like ironman?

this is one of my faves from them. its about you.

“Startime”
Band, Girls, Money
(whalen, kern)

L.A. is the place to be and if it ain’t as shocking as it used to be
take the bullet out your head, put it back in the gun get your finger on the trigger

Welcome everybody to the city of sound
they feast on your fears to turn the city around
all they want to do is get up on your action…let em go

My brothers are all proud rockers…wild and aloof…trippin on acid
My sisters are all stone stunners…wired to the roof…and rolling on adam

Baby you live like a suicide
Hell, somebody’s gotta stand up and die

Won’t ya, figure i’d live down in Hollywood, never liked no fraud who
wear his money for food for fifteen minute freaks, to fan the flannel flame…
Cuz they use you man!

Come on!…Pass the pipe and take the test
Cuz your the young Lee Harvey, man your David Koresh
And if you don’t dig that, why don’t you go home and
watch some Tivo f**ker!

My sisters are all nice rockers…shoes to the roof and lookin up at my way
My brothers are all jean cutters…glued to the tube and jumping like an osprey

They never let it down, they heard the sound now get it around

And we say oh…American girl wo wo
Fill my heart with gladness Lord
You gotta save my soul wo wo
Clean my mouth of sadness oh oh oh
oh wo oh oh
oh wo oh oh

My brothers are all proud rockers…tripping on acid
My sisters are all stone stunners…rolling on adam
My brothers are all proud rockers…tripping on acid
My sisters are all stone stunners…wash these devils off!

Startime rock-n-roll make up your mind cuz this won’t come off
Get ready to let it rock on!
Startime and steal the show so many miles to go!
and let it rock on
Get ready to let it rock on
Get ready to let it rock on
Get ready to let it…Rock On!!!

was posted by merlin mann. and because i wrote the original list called “how to blog“, of course my mailbox was filled with people asking whaddya think.

with all due respect to mr mann, and i mean that, bro lost me at #1, Voice. Says Merlin:

Good blogs have a voice. Who wrote this? What is their name? What can I figure out about who they are that they have never overtly told me? What’s their personality like and what do they have to contribute — even when it’s “just” curation. What tics and foibles fascinate make me about this blog and the person who makes it? Most importantly: what obsesses this person?

I’m sorry, but next to making money, Voice is probably the most overrated goal in blogs. A good voice is good, but a blog with informative or interesting posts is far better and will be far more successful.

The concept that a voice is necessary for a successful blog just hasn’t been proven. Blogs like BoingBoing have 4 different bloggers who are very different from each other. The success of that blog (Top 5 on Technorati for years) is due to its content, not its voice.

Huffington Post has hundreds of contributors and has been #1 on Technorati for most of this year, not because of it’s voice but because of its content. Same could be said for Engadget, Gizmodo, Post Secret, or even icanhascheezeburger.

One can try to be the next Mike Royko or Jim Murray or Steve Lopez all they want. And a group can attempt to all write in a particular style or tone all they want. But the most successful blogs simply try to provide the best, most newsworthy, most interesting posts in a timely manner and don’t distract themselves with subjective ideals.

Of course there are exceptions to the rule: Dooce, Perez Hilton, Gawker, but when I was at LAist we went from 2000 in Technorati to 600 in six months with 50 people writing exactly the way they wanted to.

Likewise Top of the Ticket went from 2000 to 94 on Technorati in a short period of time with several vastly different styles of blogging. I don’t think anyone confused an Andy post from a Don post regardless of the fact that Andy utilizes “attitude”. Don doesn’t, and that blog is still climbing the charts.

i know it might be weird for the author of the busblog, a solo blog with tons of attitude and voice claiming that voice has nothing to do with what makes a good blog, but sorry, i saw it first hand at LAist: good content trumps “voice” any day of the week.

unless youre maddox.