Here’s what happened.

Zack Snyder went into a pitch meeting wearing a huge smile across his face and probably something super trendy from the Gap or some shit like that. He sat across from studio execs, men and women begging for a hit film, begging for money, begging for something that’ll help them not lose their jobs.

“You remember my film 300?” Snyder asked.

“Oh, yes! That was a huge success!” said one exec.

“Now, replace the dudes in that with scantily clad hot chicks. Now give me millions.”

The execs looked at each other, each one sporting a huge erection. Even the one woman exec (which made this otherwise monumental occasion awkward.)

As Snyder walks away, one of the execs says, “Wait! Hold on, what’s the story?”

Snyder continues walking out the door.

Why did he keep walking? BECAUSE THERE IS NO FUCKING STORY. HOW THE HELL DID THIS MOVIE GET MILLIONS UPON MILLIONS UPON MILLIONS UPON MILLIONS (according to Box Office Mojo, $82 million.)

Sucker Punch is basically a video game that isn’t fun to play and a music video that isn’t fun to watch. It’s apparently about empowering women, but the funny thing is, all the empowering is done in dreams, never in real life. Great message! “Hey, little girls. You can totally be independent and dominate the world, but only in your dreams. And sometimes a dream within a dream. Now go get a short skirt on and flash that cooter all over the place.”

It’s a bad sign when I have to go to IMDB to look at characters’ names, which I definitely need to do. But this movie doesn’t deserve it. So here is a rough plot outline.

White-haired girl’s mom dies, she tries to kill her stepdad but kills her sister (mind you, the sister was sitting on the floor and White-haired girl shot a lightbulb on the ceiling and the sister got shot in the back of the head and FUCK PHYSICS WE GOT A PLOT TO GET TO!). So her stepdad sends her to a mental hospital so he can get dead mom’s inheritance.

The mental hospital is ran by a crooked dude I refer to as… crooked dude. Fuck it, I don’t care. Crooked dude is a dick. Moving on…

I don’t know. From there, the mental hospital turns into some sort of old timey speakeasy where the crazy girls dance for rich men. And white-haired chick is forced to dance and when she does for the first time, she suddenly teleports to a place where she meets an old dude who is the poor man’s David Carradine. She gives him super cheesy advice that is suppose to be empowering women, then givers her a sword and a gun and a list of shit she’ll need to escape the hospital. After that, three huge CGI ninja things show up and they fight. She gets kicked through a building and through pillars, hits the ground and slides across it, tearing up the floor. She simply shrugs and gets up.

Also, she’s in a skirt and a short shirt. Empowering women and boners, I guess.

Anywho, she kills them and teleports back to the hospital where everyone tells her she is a fantastic dancer. Whatever.

She has five days to escape before she gets a lobotomy. So she enlists some other girls from the hospital to help her get out. From there, they go on a journey to get these items. How do they get them? White-haired girl dances and suddenly they are all transported to fantasy lands where they fight random shit, from zombie nazis to dragons to robots to my anger. Each one dressed super sexy, flashing vaginas and cleavage everywhere.

That’s all you really need to know. Does that make sense? No. No it fucking doesn’t. Nothing in this movie does. The movie looks pretty, I guess that’s good. The action scenes are cool at first until they just turn into the same thing over and over and over again. I really do not understand how this movie got made. I hate saying that because I think Snyder is a great filmmaker with a tremendous style, but someone needs to reel him in a bit. Christopher Nolan, I’m looking at you. Don’t let him mess up Superman.

I read a bunch of good and bad reviews of this film before going in. I was prepared for a movie that might be bad, but still be fun. Something like Michael Bay would make. I was also prepared to watch it and go home and fiercely masturbate to images of the women in this film. But no. That I could not do. I was too enraged about how terrible this film was. I couldn’t do anything when I got home. Absolutely nothing.

So if Sucker Punch did anything well, it kept me from having to buy more socks. Thanks, assholes.

Posted: March 30th, 2011 under Movie Reviews.
Comments: 36

Keep up the voting for Emory vs. Georgia Tech or University of Minnesota vs. St. Cloud State. You can vote to support your team every five minutes through 3/31 at 6pm local time. Can’t wait for the results – the suspense is killing us!

Posted: March 30th, 2011 under National College Comedy Competition, NCCC tournament updates.
Comments: 21

Mike Merryfield is a man at ease with who he is.  A father of two—four years for one child, seven months for the other—Mike is no longer trying to impress anyone; he’s just interested in being honest when on stage. This approach, combined with a likability factor that lets the audience in on his jokes, has allowed Mike to excel in the world of comedy.

Nathan Timmel dialed Mr. Merryfield up and they chatted about his third CD, “Cupcakes & Potpourri,” now available on the Rooftop label.

NT: How many years has it been since your last CD?

MM: It’s been at least five years since I’ve put anything out; the last release was a double-album, where I crammed like two hours of material on to the disc. In the past two years, I’ve written like a ton of new stuff, and when Rooftop approached me with the idea of putting out a new disc I was just ready. I think this one is right around forty-five minutes, and while it’s the same style as the last release, you know how it is, the longer you’re a comedian, the better you get at it. Your skills improve. So, the two hours I have out there on itunes I’m proud of, but this new release is what I really think represents who I am as a comedian. It’s more my “comedic voice.” You know how they say you’ll find your voice as a comedian? I think I’ve found it.

NT: How would you describe your voice and how it has changed over the years?

MM: I think in the beginning I was acting how I thought a comedian should act on stage. I was being all “quirky” and “clever” and just trying to be this character that wasn’t me. It was kind of an extension of me, but it was more or less acting. Even the way I wrote, to re-tell those old jokes really took acting. I wasn’t writing for myself, I was writing for the type of comedian I thought I wanted to be, which didn’t make any sense because the whole reason I got into comedy was to just be me on stage. I probably spent the first seven/eight years of my career trying to be a “funny comedian,” but in the past four years I’ve given up on that and am just myself on stage, which is what I should have been doing all along. I wish someone would have told me in the beginning, “Hey, just be yourself.” Because now that I get that, it makes it easier to write. I don’t have to add anything to what I think; I just get an idea, take it up on stage and start working it out, and if it’s not funny, it’s not funny. But the point is, as I test these ideas, I’m real to the audience, because I’m not doing these over-rehearsed bits that have to be said in the same order, with the same inflection, just to get a laugh. I think comedy crowds can tell the difference between something rehearsed and something honest.

NT: OK, now I want to challenge you, because of a conversation we had years ago: I know Doug Stanhope influenced you, not in content of material, but in the delivery of it.  You told me that after you saw him the first time, you walked away from it just blown away because you believed he made the entire act up on the spot, because it sounded so natural and fresh. Then you heard him again a few months later and it was the same exact bits, but they still sounded natural, fresh, and made up entirely on the spot, because he did use the exact same inflections and stuttering pauses.  Then you buy his CD, and it’s again the same material, with the same pauses, but it still sounded like the very first time he’d said any of it.

MM: I think he’s so good because of the way he words everything. There’s your standard, “set up/punchline” jokes that the old-school comics—Jerry Seinfeld and so on—tell. Doug, and Louis C.K. is another one who has inspired me, is more a storyteller. Neither of them is doing “bits,” they’re telling stories. And maybe they’re telling them the same way each time, but that’s the genius of it. I mean, I had been doing comedy for two or three years by the time I saw Doug, so I knew the game, I knew guys went up on stage and did the same old crap over and over, because that’s all I had seen at that point.  And then I saw Doug and, yeah, was blown away, because it looked and sounded so natural.  Again, I thought he had made it all up, the whole hour. With Louis C.K. it was the same thing; the first time I saw him was on Conan. I didn’t know who he was back then, but he was sitting on the panel, being interviewed. I had turned it on in the middle and was drawn in because he was hilarious. At the end, Conan said, “Comedian Louis C.K.,” which I thought was cool. Four months later, I was working at the Comedy Café in Milwaukee, with Louis C.K., and there he was on stage, and he’s doing the same stuff as he was on Conan. I was just blown away, because I thought the stuff on Conan was just made up for that; interview material. He performed it so fluidly and flawlessly that it looked like it was off the top of his head each time; both on Conan and then months later on stage. So, both of them inspired me to just be more myself, and to tell stories more than do “bits.” Be less rehearsed, be less set up/punchline, don’t try to be more clever than anyone in the room—[laughs]—because I’m not a clever person, but I think for a while I was trying to act clever on stage.

NT: So would you say then you have become a storyteller comic because of them, or that they made you realize you could talk about your thoughts and ideas more than just sitting down and saying, “OK, I need to write a bit about the president, or whatever is in the news right now”?

MM: Oh yeah, I’m way more personal now than I ever used to be. Which is something the greats say all the time, that if you write about yourself, because then you can’t be accused of stealing, and no one can steal from you, because they’re your thoughts, and your ideas. And sure, these days I’m talking more about my kids than ever before, but that’s my life and where I’m at. I do try not to do all kid or all family shows, because I know there are people in the audience without kids and who don’t give a shit about my kids, though. My thing is, I try to take each show as an individual event. I don’t necessarily have a forty-five minute set I do each time, where each joke has to go in a specific order. I do that because it challenges me, and makes everything seem more fresh. If I don’t even know what joke comes next, that makes the show more interesting; less rehearsed.

NT: Back to the CD: did you record one or multiple shows?

MM: I actually bought recording equipment about a year ago, all the mics and everything needed for a professional release, and I would play it back and edit it on my mac. So I’ve actually been recording all my shows for the past six or eight months with the full intention of putting something together, and I did have one great show set aside that I planned on using. Then I was in Appleton and had a really, really good set on Saturday, the early show. I wasn’t too dirty, I wasn’t too clean, it was like the perfect set, and I got every bit in that I wanted to, so the CD then turned out to be that one show, in one take. I maybe chopped off five or six minutes; jokes I didn’t want to repeat from the other disc, and you have to take out the merch pitch, but other than that I got really lucky.

Cupcakes & Potpourri is available for download now.

Posted: March 30th, 2011 under Interview.
Comments: 13

Congratulations to Penn State. Their Starting Lineup will advance to the Select 16. Big thanks to the Temple team – we <3 you guys!

Posted: March 29th, 2011 under National College Comedy Competition, NCCC tournament updates.
Comments: 7

Voting is up and running for both Penn State and Temple University, now through 3/29 at 8:30pm EST. Support your school by voting every five minutes. Only one of these talented teams will advance to the Select 16!

Posted: March 28th, 2011 under National College Comedy Competition, NCCC tournament updates.
Comments: 5

The legendary Gotham Comedy Club hosted the Regional Rival Match between MMC and NYU last night. What an awesome show! Our New York comics brought some serious talent and a lively crowd as well. Thanks to our hilarious host Jermaine Fowler and to all our comics who performed. Vote for one team to advance to the Select 16 on April 6-7th.

Posted: March 25th, 2011 under National College Comedy Competition, NCCC tournament updates.
Comments: 15

BYU returns to play tonight, led by their celibate Caucasian superstar Jimmer Fredette. Jimmer, known as Jameser to his friends, is averaging 33 points a game through the first two games of the tournament. The third-seeded Cougars, ironically named after the groupies that their school’s honor code forbids them to enjoy, face off against the second-seeded Florida Gators. If you have premarital sex at BYU, you are kicked off the team, while at Florida, premarital sex is an integral component of the pre-game shoot around.

Jimmer is a thrilling player, and easily the greatest white player remaining in the big dance. Duke’s Kyle Singler has the pallor and softness of a traditional Caucasian great, but he lacks the sharpshooting and family connections of a Mike Dunleavy, Jr., the scrappiness of a Wojo, or the premature baldness of a Danny Ferry.

In honor of what might be Jimmer’s final college game, let’s take a look at some of the other great white heroes of March Madness.

First up is Valparaiso’s Bryce Drew. In 1998, Drew hit a three-pointer at the buzzer and 13th-seed Valparaiso beat Mississippi State. Drew became a first-round draft pick, washed out of the NBA quickly, and his shot has been a part of March Madness montages ever since.

Drew is a great white hero not just because of his dramatic shot, but because he exemplifies many white values. The success of the play relied on the white collegian’s bread and butter, shooting accuracy, rather than running, jumping, or dribbling. His father, Homer, was the coach who drew up the play for him, meaning the miracle was made possible by nepotism, traditionally an important part of white culture. Drew currently works as his father’s assistant and designated successor, meaning he also represents the white value of inherited wealth.

The miracle involved accurate shooting, and was also made possible by Ansu Sesay missing two free throws right before the attempt. “That’s why they call them free,” said white dads all over America, including Homer Drew himself.

Adam Morrison was the Player of the Year at Gonzaga in 2006, along with fellow Caucasian J.J. Redick. In 2006, not 1956! It’s like giving out a Computer of the Year award, and splitting it between an Apple Newton and a Speak and Spell! Morrison starred at Gonzaga, the school that produced such players as John Stockton (white), Blake Stepp (white), Dan Dickau (white), and Ronny Turiaf (black, but French). He was a devastating college scorer with a 15-inch vertical leap, and became entirely ineffective upon reaching the NBA, where he faced players who could actually jump to contest a shot.

In his final college season, Morrison and his teammates nearly upset UCLA, but blew a 17-point lead. Not only did Gonzaga suffer a stunning defeat, the loss left Morrison face down on the court, crying his eyes out. And as Yelp.com has taught us, there’s no whiter reaction to something that displeases you than crying about it in a public place.

Gerry McNamara of Syracuse was an undersized white point guard who could shoot three-pointers like no other. He won an NCAA title as a freshman, hitting six three-pointers in the first half, though some would argue that Syracuse won thanks to another talented freshman named Carmelo Anthony. McNamara continued to bomb threes for the remainder of his career, winning two more Big East titles, to go along with the thirty-seven sunburns he received in his college career.

Three-point shooting is the whitest basketball activity there is, and McNamara excelled at that, but he’s really on this list due to his name. “Gerry McNamara” could easily be a retired police captain from the Boston PD, a prizefighter from the ’50s who only fights guys named Dutch and Rocky, or the backup guard at Hickory High. Gerry McNamara is going the plaque in the Caucasian college basketball Hall of fame simply because “Whitey McWhiterson” wouldn’t fit.

Christian Laettner is the prototypical white March Madness hero. He went to Duke, the whitest college, and played for Mike Krzyzewski, who is the whitest coach in America, if not the whitest man entirely. He had the strong jaw and vaguely homoerotic look of an Abercrombie model. Even his name evoked family values, Republican fundraisers, and colonialist missionary efforts. They might as well have called him “Judeo-Christian Laettner.”

Laettner’s greatest game came in the 1992 East Regional final versus Kentucky. He shot 10-for-10 from the field, and 10-for-10 from the free throw line AND stomped on the chest of a black player. And he got away with it! That Duke team also featured Caucasian superstar Bobby Hurley, and their best black player was named “Grant.” In other words, the way to say “government assistance” for white people instead of saying “welfare.” And like all true white college superstars, Laettner’s pro career was extremely disappointing.

Posted: March 24th, 2011 under Sports.
Comments: 27

We’re very proud to announce the release of the brand new album from comedian Mike Merryfield – Cupcakes and Potpourri. Recorded live at Skyline Comedy Café in Appleton Wisconsin in fall of 2010, Cupcakes and Potpourri is now available for sale on Apple iTunes, RooftopComedy.com, and on Amazon.

In this, his third attempt at a successful live comedy album, Mike was determined to make this sound good without adding a laugh track. Mission accomplished. With just the right mix of alcohol and prescription medicine Mike delivers the show of a lifetime, or at least the best one that week. With 15 years in the business and failed appearances at the HBO Comedy Festival and the Boston Comedy Festival Mike’s career is riding on this new album. Buy this album, it is guaranteed to decrease the size of your prostate gland. Ladies you are on your own.

Upcoming Tour Dates:
March 22nd – Lake Norman, NC
March 23rd – Greenville, NC
March 24-16 – Comedy Zone/Fort Mill NC
March 30 – Apr. 3rd – Funny Bone/DesMoines, IA
April 6 – 9 – Loony Bin/ Wichita, KA
April 12 – 16 – Comedy Cabana/ Myrtle Beach, SC
April 20 – 24 – Loony Bin/ Oklahoma City, OK

Watch Mike’s clips on Rooftop Comedy

Posted: March 23rd, 2011 under Cool stuff from Rooftop Comedy, Press Releases, rooftop comedy productions.
Comments: 31

By Reid Faylor

Dear Reiders,

Looking back, may discover hard times in this blog. A few months back I went through a pretty rough comedy depression. I hated mostly everything I had done, wasn’t doing well on stage, and ended up spending a week where I didn’t write, perform, or really leave the apartment except to buy more ice cream (to feed the sadness). I think it stands as a testament to my new work ethic that the similar episode I just had only took a weekend to run its course. It was a weekend of staying in, watching Rocko’s Modern Life, and doing very little comedy. It was probably necessary: at a mic on Friday I pushed myself to go onstage despite not feeling like it, and continued to abandon a joke twice in order to talk to the microphone stand, an inanimate object, who did its best to console me. “If I had arms I would hug you,” it said. I then kissed the microphone stand.

Coming out of it on Monday I had a new focus and some insight as to why I was so down. There are plenty of highs and lows doing comedy, and after a number of highs I hit a few lows –some of my recent jokes weren’t feeling right, weren’t getting great reactions, and probably more importantly: in the last month I experienced two deaths in my family and broke up with my girlfriend. I think taking a break with my lady-person affected me a hell of a lot and continues to affect me, as it really stands as my last concrete link with my life in Ohio and college. Saying goodbye to that, despite the good terms we left it on, has shaken me up a bit.

Remedies! Monday was full of some good thinking, and I decided on a few things to keep me motivated. First: starting a show. This is one of those New York necessities –having your own show means stage time for you and your peers, it gives you an opportunity to connect with some of the comics at a level higher than yourself, and it also gives you some more shows of your own to perform at via a “you scratch my back I scratch yours” methodology. We contacted a couple musicians in a Jurassic Park themed post-rock duo (You Bred Raptors?) we’ve come to know and like, and we’re laying the groundwork for a late night type variety program with a house band (YBR?), comic performances and skits. The only obstacle is finding a suitable venue. A lot of bars here have back rooms or basements for performances, but it’s hard to find the right one and in an area that isn’t oversaturated already with comedy. If for some reason you know of a venue in Astoria please let me know. Reiders, I’m reaching out to you. It can be a long process; we’ve already tracked down a few places, got contact information, contacted them, and were then subsequently ignored. And even upon finding a space, I know a lot of people whose shows were canceled young by their venue, or venues who were so hard to deal with that the show took its own life. Regardless, it is a crucial step.

Back to the girlfriend business: it feels weird to know with certainty that I’ll be definitely staying in New York. I knew in my heart I couldn’t really leave, having gained and continuing to gain so much from it, but there was still some kind of deadline, some way out perhaps, to leave and be with her. A link to a life outside of comedy. For better or worse, that is gone now. I have comedy and not much else. I work a 9-5 job, do comedy after that, and go to bed. It’s just good I still love it so much and have built a great community of friends that even though perhaps I am less of a “normal” personal with “normal” experiences, the life I have now is one I would never give up. I’m in this all the way now, and I’m not leaving. Now to just stop feeling sad about it! However, spring is almost here, the weather is warmer, and out of that weekend funk I already have new things to be excited about and have been hitting the mics pretty hard, so my mood is definitely optimistic. I have a couple auditions coming up (more on those later) and a trip back to Cincinnati, so there will be plenty to lift my spirits. Yes.

Posted: March 22nd, 2011 under Cool stuff from Rooftop Comedy, LITTLE REID.
Comments: 28

After an onslaught of online voting, both Cal and Columbia College take the victory and advance into the Select 16. These teams will enter another online voting round to determine the Ultimate 8 on April 14-18th. Thanks to Stanford and Northwestern for being such formidable competitors.

Posted: March 21st, 2011 under National College Comedy Competition, NCCC tournament updates.
Comments: 5