Happy Birthday A. Wilford Brimley

Today is Wilford Brimley’s 77th Birthday.
The good folks at Liberty Medical hopefully sent him a box. Inside the box was enough dia-beet-us medication to help the 77 year old make it through his birthday cake.

And now, a message from the birthday boy himself.

Happy birthday Wilford. Go eat your cake, because it’s the right thing to do and a tasty way to do it. Maybe, if you're lucky, there's a pool somewhere with alien pods in it that can cure your dia-beet-us.  Until then, stick with the box.

The Hugo Weaving Effect

I noticed this last week when Captain America came out in theaters.  Hugo Weaving has been a part of virtually every major blockbuster franchise in the last two decades.  Granted, Hugo does a lot of stage work and has done mostly small films which gets him little publicity but since 1999 he's been taking part in a lot of blockbuster movies.

Starting in 1999, he played Agent Smith in The Matrix and its sequels. His delivery of lines like, “Mister Anderson, we’ve missed you.” is so creepy cool it makes me feel like I just got molested by a very congenial and proper pedophile. I almost want to apologize to him for it.

Then he went on to play Elrond in the Lord of the Rings trilogy as well as reprising the role for both parts of The Hobbit set to come out in 2012.

He's also the voice of Megatron in the Transformers trilogy.

Now, he's The Red Skull in Captain America and possibly The Avengers.  Couple that with the fact that he played V in V for Vendetta and you've got the comic book films as well as the summer popcorn flicks.   He's like a Geek God. Weaving is basically the Will Smith/Harrison Ford of the 21st century.

Actors and Actresses I Could Listen To Reading the Phone Book

There are certain people in this world who have a voice so awesome that they could read anything and I’d be riveted. They don’t even have to have the sweetest voice but it has to be unique. I don’t care if it’s stereo instructions or the phone book, it would be kick ass to hear it. Here is a list of actors/actresses that I love to hear record an audio version of the phone book. These are in no particular order.

Morgan Freeman – I could imagine him reading each name and adding that he remembered the first time he ever met Mr. J Smith. Looked like a stiff breeze would blow him over.

James Earl Jones – The granddaddy of all voices. He adds such gravitas to anything he reads. I could only hope he’d get to the listing for Best Buy and then he could say, “Don’t be too proud of this technological terror you’ve constructed.”

Alan Rickman – Oh dear God. This would be too friggin' awesome to have Rickman doing his Snape/Hans Gruber/Metatron voice for the phone listings.

Hugo Weaving – Could you imagine being half way through the letter “A” and him coming to Mr. Anderson?

Don LaFontaine – I didn’t want to lead off with a ringer but he is/was quite frankly the most compelling man to listen to when it comes to living “In a world” where “Only one man” can make the phone book sound like a Michael Bay film…but better.

Zee Avi – The 23 year old Malaysian singer just has very smooth voice like a fine scotch. Go YouTube her song "Bitter Heart."

Ben Kingsley – From Ghandi to The House of Sand and Fog to Mrs Harris, the actor has one of the most honest voices around, even when he’s playing the villain.

Patrick Stewart – Let’s make it so. Probably the third best voice in the world. His best work is when he’s being cheeky like on the Family Guy when he reprised his role as Jean-Luc Picard and asked Number One if he would join him in a laugh after saying that Commander Worf’s head looked like a fanny.

Zooey Deschanel – Her speaking voice is a tad nasally but her singing voice is pretty good. Actually, to get a great idea of how her voice really works would be to go and watch the animated film, Surf’s Up. I like it.

James Spader – As long as he’s doing it as Alan Shore he could read the warranty card from a refrigerator and make it interesting.

William Shatner – Say what you will about his style, he has a great voice for inflection.

Malcolm McDowell – More of a high baritone or tenor, but the way he holds a word out for a few seconds is spectacular.

Sam Elliot – He’d give it a western cowboy take that would work for me.

Dame Judy Dench – Class, earthiness, all around top notch vocals from the Dame.

Vincent Price – He may be dead, but I’d be thrilled if he could do it.

Samuel L. Jackson – I could sit in one room and he could sit in the other and just shout out the names. That would be cool.

Anthony Hopkins – His real voice is somewhat different then the voice he’s so famous for. That would be awesome though to hear Hannibal Lecter read some of the names out.

Kathleen Turner – Husky, deep, sexy, think Romancing the Stone or Who Framed Roger Rabbit.

Christopher Walken – I know it’s a bit squeaky and syncopated but it would still be interesting to hear him do it…with more cowbell.

Seth MacFarlane – The multi faceted voice of MacFarlane would be great if he could alternate between Stewie, Brian, and Quagmire.

Michael Emerson – He’s best known as Benjamin Linus from Lost and even as the decoy Jigsaw, Zep Hindle, from the first Saw movie. He adds a very nice sardonic tone to speaking and I could imagine him going through the listings of people noting if they are good or bad.

Tommy Lee Jones - Another solid voice with a Texan accent that would be a trip to hear for the length of time to read the book. I could say, "Tommy, it would be better if you read slower." and he could say, "I don't care." like he did in The Fugitive

Steve Perry – The former Journey front man doesn’t have a distinct speaking voice…so, he’d have to sing the entire book, but that would be too cool.