I hope this was the right joke to end the hiatus with.  Though I have to admit, I like this joke way more now than when I first started drawing it back in January.  Due to the pressures of unemployment which as of yet are not completely gone, I felt it was best to hold off on creating parodies for a while.  I plan on updating regularly but perhaps not as consistently (< JN will laugh at that) as before, but I will never turn my back on FTR.  It’s my baby.  My plan is to update AT LEAST every other week, and try to update once a week when possible.  Definitely for the next month or so.

For those who have seen Scarface, you’ll probably recognize the quote that is the title of this strip.  For me, when the Central American drug lord tells Tony never to eff him, it was the best part of the movie because it was so hilarious.  The line almost became the subject of this parody, but I scrapped it for several reasons, mainly because I had already started drawing this “little friend” joke before I actually saw the movie.

By the way, I think this movie sucked.  I can understand why people appreciate it for being well made and well acted, but for me it was too long, without any redeeming characters, and worst of all boring for much of the runtime.

Until NEXT week, Keep It Reel!

P.S. – Don’t forget to pick up For The Reels Volume One: First Blood from the InkSpot comics store!

You can also get it as an eBook!

I wasn’t sure what to write for this strip’s blog, so I just asked my wife and she suggested writing about how much I dislike this movie.

Which I do.  Good Will Hunting sucks.  Balls.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s not a horribly made movie.  It did win several Oscars.  But when I think of the protagonist’s primary struggle in the story, I just can’t sympathize.  When I watch it I just want to say:  ”Get the hell over it, Will.  You had a rough childhood.  Lots of people have rough childhoods.  Quit being a dick and use that genius IQ to invent some jetpacks or something.”  I mean, the WHOLE movie was about his emotional disorders that he should have just acknowledged and moved past if he was really that smart.

Anyway, the reason I parodied it is because there are a lot of people who do like the movie, my wife included.  AND I needed a filler joke to bridge the gap between my Mission: Impossible joke and my upcoming Fifth Element joke, which I thought were too tonally similar to do back to back.  So look forward to that next week.

I leave you with a youtube clip of Family Guy’s riff on the movie, which was a big influence on this strip.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Until next week, Keep it Reel!

The original quote from the movie was: “You’ve come to fight as free men, and free men you are!”  I changed it in this strip, since it looks like William Wallace didn’t necessarily come to fight.  Don’t ask me what he came for.  Maybe his plan is to can-can the English to death.

Braveheart has always been one of my favorite movies, definitely in my top 10.  My wife hates war movies, but I keep trying to get her to watch it by telling her that at its core, Braveheart is a love story.  Plus, chicks love weepy movies.  If the ending to this movie makes ME tear up, then I assume it’s gotta be a sure thing for most women.  It’s a shame Mel Gibson went crazy, because he’s such a great, talented director.

This was another comic written by my friend, Sean.  I remember this kind of joke was made a lot around the time the movie came out, but never quite in this way, I believe.  Call it what you want, but a skirt’s a skirt and makeup is makeup.  That’s not to say William Wallace couldn’t kick the living crap out of me, though.

ALSO: THE INKSPOT COMICS STORE IS FINALLY UP. If you’re ever interested in buying a For The Reels book or e-book, go here.  Expect more cool y2cl.net products to show up in the near future as well.

Until next week, keep it reel!

Chicken suit = instant parody.  Just add water.

This strip’s joke doesn’t really comment on the movie itself, but I did think it would be funny to draw James Dean in a chicken suit.  That’s pretty much the only change to the movie here.  In the film, Buzz the bully falls to his death during a “chickie run” (more commonly known as a playing “chicken”) with Dean’s character.  Here’s the clip:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Jon wrote the joke, forcing me to watch the film.  It was better than I thought it would be.  All this time I thought Dean was a legend just for his looks and cool, but the guy was a really good actor.  I didn’t like how the focus of the movie shifted to crazy Plato near the end, but I can respect the film for holding my attention for so long.

Dare I say “remake?”  With the right cast and director… maybe…

Until next week, keep it reel!

If you haven’t seen this movie, then these jokes probably won’t mean much to you.  And if you haven’t seen this movie, you really need to because it’s excellent.  And if you haven’t seen this movie, don’t read any further because I have a anecdote about the film that contains a major spoiler.

When this movie first came to theaters in wide release, I was there opening day, first in line.  When the previous showing ended and people were exiting the theater, I was privy to all their reactions to the film:

“That was a great movie.”

“Thanks for the tissues.”

“Man, Sandra Bullock was a BITCH in that movie!”

“… So the bullets in the little red box were blanks?”

When I heard that last one, I jokingly said to my friend, “Aw great, now the movie’s ruined!”  I had no context to base the “little red box” on, so I didn’t know how true my statement was.

So at the end of the scene where Farhad’s daughter buys the gun, I knew she had gotten him blanks.  Therefore, during the emotional climax of the film, when Daniel’s daughter gets shot point-blank in his arms, I knew she was going to live.  What was hilarious, though, was everyone’s reaction during that moment.  I looked around and saw people crying, people closing their eyes, people looking like they had just been punched in the spleen, people looking like they were crapping their pants – I felt kind of bad for them.  I just wanted to stand up from my seat and shout ,”DON’T WORRY!  THEY’RE BLANKS!!!”  and save everyone from their emotional turmoil.

I didn’t, of course.  ”Crash” is the kind of film that’s supposed to make you feel uncomfortable.  It presents tough situations and forces you to examine your own prejudices.  To that end, I knew this parody had to be a series of racist jokes.  In my opinion, racist jokes are only funny if you’re not racist.  Because otherwise you’re like, “Yeah, that’s true.”   So if you didn’t laugh at any of these, guess what?

… or they weren’t funny.  I dunno.

Until next week, Keep It Reel!

It’s crazy how your preconceived notions of a film that you watch as a kid turn out to be something entirely different when you’re older.  Like, I remember Forrest Gump being a boring, long-ass movie about a chocolate-loving retard when I was an 8 year old.  Watching through it again before drawing this strip made me see it for the wonderful film that it is.  I feel like I’ve finally matured…*sniff*

Anyway, I ran into a few snags when attempting to draw/write this comic.  Here’s some Forrest Gump facts I learned:

1) The line in the movie is, “Life was like a box of chocalates,” instead of “is like a box of chocolates.”

2) Forrest Gump’s mother doesn’t have a name.  She’s always referred to “Mrs. Gump” or “Momma” (by the way, I refuse to spell it “mama.”  When I see that, my Mexican side wants to pronounce it the Spanish way: maw-MAW instead of MAW-muh).

3) The film never shows where Forrest’s mom is buried.  I could have sworn she had a headstone next to Jenny at their house, but nope.  After that scene where he talks to her on her death bed, she’s never seen or mentioned again.  So I just kind of made up that she had a headstone on their land, somewhere near the house, but away from where Jenny’s would be.

There were a lot of different adaptations of this story to choose from.  The version I knew the best was the Animaniacs cartoon.  J wanted the Mickey Mouse version.  Jon wanted the Patrick Stewart version.  The George C. Scott film was also suggested.  In the end, I went with the classic 1951 version because after doing some research, I found out it was one of the most revered films among fans of the novel that wasn’t a made-for-television movie.  So I watched that one and loved it.  It’s definitely up there next to It’s a Wonderful Life and Bad Santa as one of my favorite holiday films.

As I said with the previous strip, it’s easier to make the unfunny, funny.  So if we’re drawing a blank for the next joke, we usually just take one super-dramatic movie, add a funny twist, and voila!  Instant parody.

Jon was always nervous about spoofing this film because of the sensitive nature of its plot, but I always thought this was one of our funnier gags.  Originally he had “dumb bitches” on his shit list but Jon whined and moaned for me to replace it, saying women would find it offensive.  I was like, “What women would identify herself as a dumb bitch to be offended by that?”  I eventually caved in, but I kind of regret it.  I think part of the hilarity of the strip is wondering about the backstory for each of the items on his list.

Great film, great scene.  Though, am I the only one who thought Don Vito was kind of an ass for scaring his grandson like that right before he died?  You know that kid actor wasn’t really acting when he freaked out.

If you haven’t seen the movie or don’t remember this scene, check out this YouTube vid.

Ricky is a strange character in the film.  If he gets that emotional over a plastic bag, I’d hate to hang with him.  If we went to the zoo, he’d probably go into convulsions.

Jon had a hard time figuring out how to draw something imploding, so it ended up like this.  I suggested that his heart caved in so much that it warped into another dimension and came back into our own, but explosively!  Jon thought that made sense.

This one goes out to all the ladies in the house…

Just because you’re a disfigured mess and have had a horrible life full of suffering does NOT give you the right to be a buzzkill.

Remember that, J.