Bad U.S. Movies on South American Buses

yes, the time has come to discuss disney's "the shaggy dog." i want to preface this by saying that i first saw commercials for this movie while hanging out with Andrew and Lisa. the commercial was so miserable, in fact, that i openly speculated that watching this movie would cause any viewer to inflict harm upon him or herself in the most violent ways. why would i watch this? because i was captive on a 20 hour bus ride from Lima to Cusco. that is why.

i've found the trailer on youtube and will say that it is only for the brave. it really does touch on several of the worst aspects of the film. these include 1) faux-internal biology scenes as "doggie germs" infiltrate tim allen's body 2) tim allen's body [he frequently appears half-naked after transforming back into a human] and 3) a cringe-inducing scene where human tim allen on all fours chases a cat to the baha men's "who let the dogs out?". i do recommend watching the trailer to the end though for a completely unrelated and awesome commercial for a product that makes your skateboard spark when you do tricks. totally jerkin' dude!

but the movie really does confound more than just any typically bad film. yes, i do expect this kind of dreck from tim allen; however, the supporting cast includes legitimate actors including Danny Glover, Phillip Baker Hall, and Robert Downey Jr. i was dumbfounded seeing them in this film. turns out the guy who directed this is the guy who directed "norbit." i think that, along with tim allen's involvement, explains how things went sour.

watching this movie did not cause me to harm myself. yet, it did make me sick and was the only time on my month long trip that i came remotely close to throwing up. that is the truth, so take this on with great discretion and a vomit bag handy. at least it wasn't this, which i didn't know existed until today.

high point: the ludicrous backstory involving the origin of the shaggy dog's relation to Buddhist mysticism and the fact they never touched on this again. also, the end credits.

low point: watching tim allen as a dog watch his son sing songs from "grease" in his bedroom. really, this takes place in the movie, not just my nightmares.

"yeah, right" moment: that in human form, tim allen's dog has to obey dog commands. i realize this may be a bit nit-picky for a movie like this but the fact remains the same: not even dogs are always compelled to obey commands aimed at them. let's try for a little more realism and consistency next time. better yet, let's just make sure there is never a next time for anything combining "shaggy" and "dog."

Earlier Contest Update

well, the ballots are finally in for the picture story contest from the bariloche post. the judges have conferred and it seems the victory goes to Andrew Schensted of Texas. please contact me directly to discuss the acquisition of your prize. keep an eye out for more contests in the future. maybe we can get a real rivalry going here......so that pretty much means you Lisa. let's try harder next time, ok?

Weird blue water and glaciers must be....

...El Calafate.

Elizabeth and i flew out from buenos aires february 1 early in the morning after spending the night in the airport and were greeted by distinctly strange blue water in the lakes surrounding the town of el calafate, which is in the patagonia region of argentina. the water was a milky, sky blue amongst a mostly dusty town that contained many reddish hues. however, we spent the first day walking around a nature preserve seeing many falcons and a couple stray dogs which i can't imagine were intended viewing or part of the small entry fee.

the next day we rented bikes and made our way outside of town a bit but following the major lake. much to our surprise, we encountered pink flamingos which are apparently native to this region. although i do have pictures, i am not going to put any up of that at the moment. instead, you get a picture of a couple guys finishing with the Andes in the background:

but the real reason el calafate was the first leg of the trip was because of the perito moreno glacier. one of the few glaciers that grows throughout the course of the year, we did a seven hour hike across it that required us to attach spikes onto our shoes. i, apparently, needed help:

the top of the glacier had the rough appearance of an enormous lemon meringue which was dotted with iridescent patches of blue glowing out. our guides shared that the thicker glacial ice gets, the more intense the blue ends up. this results in phenomena like the following two pictures:

sometimes you ended up with strange images like this:

perhaps what i found most amazing was the views coming to the glacier. i left this out initially because i wanted to save the pictures for the end of this post, but it really was something. we enter into the national park and drive up to the lookout. then there is the glacier just extending into the horizon. there was enough moisture for a full rainbow to be present from end to end. pretty stellar stuff. here is a sampling:

so eriks, did you like it?

It has been some time my friends

well, i'm back in good ole' buenos aires and this blog is going to get kicked into high gear, especially since my brother Karlis and his dog Bruno enjoy reading it together. how can i deny them that?

i think what is going to follow in the coming weeks is an attempted recap of my month long trip to the south of argentina, peru, a brief stop in chile, and then through the north of argentina along with a couple posts that will highlight strange occurrences and a tweak on my "bad u.s. movies on argentine cable" series which will chronicle bad u.s. films that i saw while on various buses.

to catch you up, i arrived back on buenos aires march 1. i promptly did very little outside of getting settled in a new apartment, getting back in touch with friends in this fair city, and watching movies since we now have a dvd player and a convenient video club around the corner. this has actually kept me quite busy and this was compounded by my dear friend Allison Fry coming to visit for a week. but here i am, motivated (slightly), so get ready and remember

I WANT YOU...

TO KEEP READING AND COMMENTING ON MY BLOG.