Can we please stop talking about Susan Boyle?

"I can't believe she can sing so well!"

Why? Oh, it's because she's not very attractive.

This entire situation may be more telling of society's view on attractiveness. Good looking people are talented and successful. "Ugly" or unattractive people aren't. At least when it comes to women. Men don't need the perception of being classically attractive to be talented - look at most male singers. Then look at most female singers.

Surprisingly, this phenomenon (or at least attitude towards this) occurs all the time. Last year, that little "cute" girl singing at the Olympics in China was a fraud - she lip synced a "less attractive" girl's voice.

Boyle's gimmick of "never being kissed" was made up. In fact, I'm sure that if this line had not been uttered, no one would have known who this person was on April 12th.

I think the world as a whole would have been better for it.

Star Trek

Well, I wasn’t going to see the film. I really wasn’t. I had little interest in seeing it. Funny, considering that I’ve seen all previous 10 films, and have seen every episode of Star Trek, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Star Trek: Enterprise and most of Star Trek: Voyager’s first 5 out of 7 years (The show sucked). I finally took the plunge. And you know, it wasn’t too bad. That is, after you take in account the Swiss-cheese writing, the time-travel “cheat,” and the paper thin “revenge plot.” Outside all of that, it’s not “bad.” Massive spoilers follow.

A Brave New Reality
Apparently Nero’s time travel has created a “new universe” which is completely separate from the Star Trek universe that has existed since 1966. Right off the bat the film ignores one of the central staples of how time travel “works” within the confines of the fictional universe.

The way that the writers (well, mostly Roberto Orci) have described it is that when the mining vessel Narada travels back in time, the very fact that there was time travel means that a “new” universe is created – and that any changes to this past will not affect the future of where the person who traveled into the past came from. Convoluted, confused? Please read on, perhaps it’ll make more sense soon.

Did Nero really create a new universe?
Ignoring the most basic changes to the look-and-feel of the “universe” – something that’s fully acceptable and easy to ignore based on advances in the medium, as we wouldn’t really expect them to stick to 1960’s simplicity, even though it looked pretty good in the Enterprise episode “In A Mirror Darkly” (image at right) which is another story that uses time travel and alternate universes – but I’ll get to that later.

As I read someone put so eloquently, “More disappointing is that this self-serving contrivance for the franchise reboot seems to be the only actual science the film attempts to accurately portray.”

The dreaded “continuity” peaks its head
Well, Nero was not only able to change time from the point that he arrived, but he was also able to change events from before he arrived.

They apparently know what Romulans look like (though this isn’t resolved until Kirk and Spock discover this in 2260-something on the television series). This is a major point of contention as no one knew who Romulans really were. The original story (Balance of Terror) was, in my opinion, a slight analogy to communistic fear – when they discover that Romulans and Vulcans are in-fact the same species – fear and doubt is cast on Spock. No such luck here.

"It's not mentioned in the scene on the Kelvin, but they are aware of it," Abrams confirmed, agreeing with the sharp-sighted fans. "Because later in the movie, Kirk mentions that they were Romulan. And we very purposely begin the film with a moment that, for fans of 'Star Trek,' is a left turn from the timeline they are familiar with." Yep, regardless of what the Mission Impossible III director thinks or feels fans "caught" Abrams. He even points out, "For fans of 'Trek,' yes, the Romulans appearing breaks with what is known to be 'Trek' canon. But that is on purpose." Of course, his explanation is less than stellar, since there’s no purpose beyond taking out any complexity of storytelling – probably with the assumption that the audience is too stupid to understand fine details.

Nero's incursion also apparently caused the Kelvin, a ship 20+ years older than the original 1701 to have nearly as many people (officers, crew, and civilians) on board the vessel as the Enterprise-D and over twice as many people on board as the original Enterprise did before Nero showed up.

And well, the silliest thing is now Pike, someone who is supposed to be “roughly” the same age as Kirk – is now well over 20 years older. Right. I guess because they killed off his father, they needed the “father figure/Obi Wan Kenobi” character to step in. And Chekov has somehow been born 3 years *earlier*. Why didn't they just call this a reboot?

Nonsense
Earth’s defenses are made up of only 7 starships? What about space dock – did Nero destroy that?

Brig? No, their protocol in this alternate universe is to jettison every person out onto the nearest habitable planet instead of putting them in the brig like any person, logical or not, would do. They probably decided that shooting Scotty back into space or onto another planet wasn't worth the effort.

Red Matter that will do whatever the writer's want it to do? A drop will destroy a planet in moments but an entire huge sphere of it (full of tens of thousands of drops) will take minutes to consume and destroy a moderately smaller spacecraft (compared to a planet).

So the ex-suspended cadet is now rank Captain straight out of the academy. Does that make any sense?

Missed Opportunities
The factor that I return to that bothers me the most about this is the time travel “cheat” – they cheated in telling the story about how the crew got together. No matter how you shape your argument, these people are essentially and radically different characters than what was presented in the 1966 series. They have little in common beyond having the same names. Their ages are different, their character backstories are nothing like what was presented before, and some of their character traits don’t resemble the original characters at all.

The basic story could have easily been written to "fit" with the start of Kirk's 5 year mission which began in 2265. Heck, the film could have still been an "alternate reality" film and still stuck to the established back story of the Federation, Enterprise, and crew up until the 5 year mission began. The Enterprise could have still been launched sometime around 2245. It could have still had the two (or so) 5 year missions that Pike took part in. Spock could still have served under Pike for 11 years. Kirk still could have been written to have lived through the Tarsus IV massacre. He still could have served on the Republic and Farragut.

I honestly believe that most of the bitching and moaning that people are doing would have been non-existent if they had stuck to what we knew about all the major characters, instead of completely revising their origins, and ages in some cases. They should have kept the start of the "5 year mission" to when it originally occurred, instead of being started at least 6 years "early".

The film could have easily still been about a Time-traveling Romulan that appears in 2265, soon before Kirk takes command of the Enterprise from Pike.

Ultimately there are only two explanations:

1. This is an alternate timeline/parallel universe before Nero arrives
2. This is an alternate timeline/parallel universe created because of Nero's time travel, the first time in franchise history they’ve done time travel like this.

The “Plot”
All the above culminates with the problems I had with the plot. Unfortunately this movie really doesn't hold up to any sort of heavy scrutiny in the slightest.
Nero’s motivation was pretty weak. His planet is destroyed, so he waits around for 25 years to take his revenge on the guy who was trying to save it? If they had presented the Spock and Nero back-story better, his thirst for revenge would have been more believable.

If there had been some kind of discussion where two sides to “saving” Romulus had been presented – one side being rejected in favor of Spock’s plan (a plan that Nero believed would have worked in time) – we would have some kind of motivation. The way they present it in the film is “well Spock and the Vulcans worked hard to save Romulus, and he didn’t do it in time.” That’s not really sufficient or reasonable evidence for the kind of revenge scheme he concocts.

So he just sits around for 25 years? Super weak.

Results

The writers of the film used "time travel" as carte blanche to create a completely "original" story about characters that happen to share the same names as their original series counterparts, with the occasional nudge and reference to Star Trek lore itself. The movie Galaxy Quest is one simple overnight script revision from being about a fictional Star Trek-like series to being actually about Star Trek.

The biggest shame is that we'll never see the "actual" origins of the 1701 crew from TOS. They still could have done it, even with the Time-travel gimmick. And considering that this iteration of Star Trek most likely does not have a lifespan beyond 3 films since the cast will move on after the 2nd and 3rd films, and Abrams, Orci, and Kurtzman won't be doing this for more than one or two additional films, you're left with either rebooting the franchise again, or actually trying something original. At that point it may be a tough sell to set it in the real Star Trek universe, or take the plunge and set it in this "new" Star Trek universe. Either decision will have major repercussions.

I just hope that this brings in people who will want to watch all the Star Trek that came before it and not just what comes after this.

With all that said, as a “Star Trek” film (ignoring my issues with how they rebooted the franchise), I’d say it is pretty good, but as a general film, it’s being given far too much praise for what the finished product provided us.

*** out of *****

A Good Pale Ale and a Really Bad Movie

There’s nothing quite like a nice, cool late spring night. The weather is perfect, the temperature is warm but not hot, and it’s the perfect temperature to crack into a nice, cool micro brew. Thankfully, today was the day for the release of Sierra Nevada Southern Hemisphere Harvest 2nd release. Phew, what a wait.

The beer itself pours a clear dark orange color which is followed by a large white fluffy head of foam. The aroma has an extremely hoppy, grassy, floral aroma. This beer is brewed with hops harvested in the Southern Hemisphere, which would be the right time to do so considering the “season” they would be having. They use fantastic New Zealand hops which bring that hoppy, grassy, floral aroma that I mentioned earlier.

The Mad Monster

The Mad Monster is a 1942 horror film, in which a rejected scientist plans to wreak revenge against fellow colleagues who had rejected his scientific views on blood transfusions.

Dr. Cameron feels that since he has been ostracized that he must kill off his former colleagues. His method of killing is creating a mindless (at least as presented) beast using his gardener using transfused blood from wolves. This beast that will apparently follow his orders (unknown why or how – since it appears pretty unwilling or unable to accept any orders most of the film) to kill them off one by one – after which the creature returns home and becomes the simple gardener again.

And when I say simple I mean “I will Hug him and squeeze him and call him George” simple. And I mean that this guy (Petro) makes Lennie Small appear to be a genius.

His ultimate goal after killing off his contemporaries? Using the newly discovered werewolf serum to kill Nazis.

Right.

Heroes Season 3: Volume 3

Volume 3: Villians was the continuing saga of how not to run a television show that at one point was actually relatively good.

The main story arc of this season was developed and originally would be part of the second season, but due to the writer’s strike – many of the plot elements were apparently transferred over. Since I’m basing this entirely off my memory – the central story arc of this season was certainly not as well defined as either of the previous two seasons. The “Villains” that we were introduced to were underused, and honestly were not very threatening at times.

Like the second season, the storyline is split up, with storylines competing for airtime in practically every episode. In a way it almost feels as if they divvied up airtime so each character got equal airtime. However, Claire’s storyline apparently grows in this volume (for no reason), as does her importance to something we had never been introduced to before (ret-conned into the show). I guess she has a better agent.

Again we have a story arc that is missing a good central villain, because too much time is focused on Sylar. In this case, Arthur (a new character introduced in this season) should have been the real "big badguy" of the season. The problem here was that Sylar was used far too much and in too many differing ways. Good Sylar, trying-to-be-good Sylar, buddy-buddy Sylar, "brother"-Sylar, and finally Evil Sylar again.

The Jessica-Micca is officially over at this point. However, not to escape Heroes, Ali Larter returns as another character entirely. Those darn compromising photos she has of someone on staff come back to bite the show in the butt! I kid… I kid… (unless it’s true – then you heard it first from me!). The Maya storyline that bogged down Season 2 is almost gone (almost). It still unfortunately rears its head again before disappearing for good.

Most of the people I know who are still watching Heroes are either out of habit or obligation. Volume 4 is a vast improvement, and (almost) worth the wait.

** 1/2 out of *****

My respect for Ewan McGregor has increased

Any ill will I had towards him has completely erased. It only took three words. Well, three words, one which is a conjunction.

"Who's Megan Fox?"

While I realize that in this particular post I'm partaking in exactly what I'm about to rail against, I figure it's time to put everything out in the open, then forget about it.

From my brief experience on the matter of "actress" Megan Fox, I have come to the conclusion that she's either dumb as a bag of bricks or a marketing mastermind. When I add everything up, my conclusion is that she's likely the latter, assuming that she's not being told what to say.

I first found out who this chick was about 3 months ago. Yep, 3 months ago. I had no idea who she was, even after seeing about 20 minutes of Transformers on HBO. Yep, I haven't seen that entire film. 20 minutes is enough to "get" a Michael Bay movie.

What I find so perplexing about this person is that even though she burns her own fan base when she says they are a "waste of time" - they don't care. She's "hot." I don't find her particularly attractive, at least when ranked against quite a few other celebrities and actresses. I've seen porn stars that are less fake then her, and others with more charm and acting chops to boot!

I don't see a long, fulfilling career with this person. Her looks will fade in a few years, her relationship with the "mature 35 year old" will eventually crumble like most Hollywood relationships, and eventually someone "new" will fill her place faster than you can snap your fingers.

She's trying to be "edgy" by telling us she's filthy and doesn't flush the toilet and stinks it up whenever she consumes anything. She's condescending and transparent when she talks about Scarlett Johansson, a situation where she says she has "nothing against her" then immediately attacks her. Why? Because she's intelligent and uses "big" words.

Everything "kooky" she says is all calculated so that people will continue to talk about it, like I am here. When the gimmick is over, all anyone will remember her for is the stupid comments.

But what do I know, I'm apparently just an immature twenty-something. I'm not like Megan Fox - ya know, she feels like she has the maturity of a thirty-five year old.


So again, my hat is off to you Mr. McGregor.

Angels & Demons wins the weekend, barely

Box Office Mojo has estimated that Angels & Demons has won the week with an estimated $48 million, almost 30 million less than "Da Vinci Code" earned in it's first weekend.

Coming in second was the Star Trek reboot which earned $43 million dollars at the box office. Turns out this weekend was a slow weekend indeed.

Wolverine earned an estimated $14.8 million in its third weekend.

Coming up next weekend is the next installment of the Terminator franchise, Terminator Salvation and the sequel, Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian. Memorial Day weekend has the Pixar film, Up.


Considering the amount of flack I've read about JJ Abrams directing style in the new Star Trek film, a film I feel the need to mention that I have not seen yet, I offer a video that delves into the question of what would have happened had JJ Abrams directed "Space Seed":

Heroes Season Two

Not long ago I went back and re-watched the first season of Heroes, and reviewed it here and here. In my previous reviews of this work, I pointed out the potential and well execution of basically a long, comic book on the small screen.

Season 2 unfortunately does not learn from any of the mistakes it made in the first year, coupled with the writer’s strike of 2007, the season ends up truncated, and unable to fully correct itself before the end.

Unlike the first season, a shift occurs between the minor characters and the main characters in the show. Unlike with the first season where Claire and Peter’s stories were obviously the central focus, the storyline is fragmented, with competing, and largely unrelated storylines competing for airtime in practically every episode. They all get their time, and unfortunately that leaves little progress per episode across the board.

Again, with this season some of the characters are heroes, some are villains. The main story arc of this season deals with a deadly virus, and the possibility that it will be unleashed on the people with special powers, or even the general population. The story still revolves around the Petrelli Brothers, Peter and Nathan; Claire, a teenager who can heal herself; Matt Parkman, a man who can read people’s thoughts; Mohinder Suresh, a doctor living in New York; and Niki, a resident of Las Vegas. David Anders appears as Adam Monroe, and Zachary Quinto returns as Sylar. Dania Ramirez appears as a new character, Maya Herrera, on the run for killing countless people in her home country.

I think the major downfall of the second season was keeping the character Sylar, the main villain of the first season, around after season one ended. With Sylar, the entire "travel across Mexico and the southern US" for nearly the entire season was almost absurd, and unfortunately introduced us to the Niki and Paulo of Heroes (pointless new character from Lost), Maya and her brother. This undermined the character and served to remove whatever menacing aura he had.

At best the season should have seen the return of Sylar at the end of the season. Adam, the character which who was being set up as the big bad guy of the season, should have had the focus. The entire thing became just far too crowded for its own good.

What really sold the show for me in the first season begins to falter and get stale. Hiro, a character I loved starts showing signs that the writers just don’t *get* it. His character is overly enthusiastic, and shows many lapses in judgment that are unlike how the character was presented in season one. The biggest failure of the season was the inclusion of the Jessica-Micca storyline. Season one dragged their storyline on far too long, and this season expands on this, with Micca moving in with his cousins. Their story arc is perhaps the worst of the entire show, and I can only thank the writer’s strike for killing it off.

*** out of *****

A Cigar, American Pale Ale, and a Goose Island India Pale Ale walk into a bar...

After a wonderful evening sitting around, relaxing, and finally catching a break from the hassles at work, I’ve decided that life is good.

As I sat back, enjoyed the end of a nice cigar and an average micro brew, I took in the nice abnormally cool May air in. Let me just say that I’m going to try something new here, this is an attempt to meld the two of the many things I love most, movies and beer together on this blog. Let’s see if this works.

The American Bud Ale is Budweiser’s attempt at cracking into the ever growing, and wonderful micro-brew world. I found this quite humorous since the company did an ad campaign with Rob Riggle as the pitchman. It’s also interesting that while I can find a Schlitz ad from 1960, I’m unable to find any signs of these “Lager Lesson” beer commercials. Where they that embarrassed with the response that they literally *don’t* exist on the web now?

In these ads Riggle goes on about how much better Bud is. How “darker beers” can hide their flaws easier. Of course they can. The flaws are hidden with something called “flavor.” You can’t mess up the brewing of macro pale lagers because you’ll notice every flaw in that beer. That’s why they tell you to drink the beer ice cold. If you drink nearly anything ice cold you will not be able to really capture a tenth of what it actually tastes like. The "Warm beer" problem - which is pretty much what people consider any beer over the 40 degree mark, is because the beer isn't that good.

They point out that it’s not “some import or trendy microbrew,” all while brewing beers such as Winter Bourbon Cask, Stone Mill Pale Ale, Beach Bum Blonde Ale, and Landshark Lager. Nope, no attempts at trendy microbrews here.

I’m currently sitting here drinking a real beer. A good beer. Goose Island India Pale Ale. Definitely a great brew to consume, smooth, silky, hoppy – but not overly so. About what a beer should taste like. It's a beer that as it approaches and passes that "40 degree" mark, it actually gets better. Imagine that.

Goose Island describes their beer as such:

Our IPA recalls a time when ales shipped from England to India were highly hopped to preserve their distinct taste during the long journey. The result, quite simply a hop lover's dream. And this classic ale adds a fruity aroma, set off by a dry malt middle, to ensure that the long hop finish is one you'll remember.

The weather could not be better for this one. And neither can life.

Star Trek winner this past weekend

Box Office Mojo has estimated that the new Star Trek reboot has earned $72.5 million dollars at the box office since it's Thursday night release.

Wolverine, a movie I finally saw this weekend, earned an estimated $27 million.

It's interesting also that Box Office Mojo reported that "According to Paramount's exit polling, Star Trek's overall audience composition was 60 percent male and 65 percent over 25 years old."

The turnout of males isn't a shock since science fiction is heavily dominated by males, but that almost two thirds of the people seeing this film were over the age of 25.

This doesn't exactly target the demographic that I thought they were going for, a demographic full of youths completely unfamiliar with Star Trek. With this kind of news I'm not sure in the end a reboot that in no way melds with the original series, movies, or spin-offs in the franchise was at all necessary.

Coming up later this month is the sequel to The DaVinci Code, Angels & Demons; the next installment of the Terminator franchise, Terminator Salvation; and for Memorial Day, the Pixar film, Up.

Barbarella

This is probably one of the most baffling films I have ever seen. My first reaction was to hate it. A film that I should absolutely despise as nonsensical Eurotrash. It came across to me as silly, absurd, pointless, and dumb.

The film is based on the “adult” comic book by Jean-Claude Forest. Upon further review I see a bizarre charm in this film, a campy cult classic. However, in no means does it make this a good film. It isn’t. The film is the equivalent of soft core pornography. The opening credits is nothing short of Fonda stripping for the camera.

The film stars Jane Fonda as the title character, who is technically not the “Queen of the Galaxy” as the promotional title suggests. In this film, Barbarella is contacted by the President of Earth (snicker, har har) to rescue the doctor by the name of Durand Durand (snicker, har har) to keep any potential weapons from being created since that will potentially destroy the eternal peace that has been created across the universe (snicker, har har). Upon crashing on this planet, she is introduced to the concept of physical intercourse (“civilized” people just take pills that do the trick).

I’m still trying to think if the director was ahead of his time or if his director of photography was just insane. The camera work is not typical of the era it was filmed in, and the film have some, how shall I say it, interestingly composed shots. And I’m not even referring to the “acid trip” sequences of flying through space, or escaping the evil city on SoGo.

The film has no pace or rhythm. Things appear to happen, but with no plausible or logical progression between sequences. By roughly the second half of the film we have some idea of what the characters are “really” doing when they make plans with members of the underground of SoGo. Before that it is just touch and go.

The quaint film is enjoyable, but only if you can stomach silly, pointless, meaningless films of the past. It’s clear that they knew what kind of film they were making, along the lines of another Dino De Laurentiis produced film in 1980, Flash Gordon.

** 1/2 out of *****

Richard Branson wants to shed a few pounds like Mia Farrow

While I do not want to make light the tragedy in Darfur, I absolutely refuse to believe that the "hunger strikes" are anything short of a cheap way for celebrities to claim they are "suffering with" the people actually suffering.

Well, as Entertainment Weekly reports, "Virgin music and airline entrepreneur Sir Richard Branson agreed to step in and continue [Mia Farrow's] fast for three days."

These people don't raise real awareness this way. One may say I've been duped into "raising awareness" of the plight by the mere fact that I'm writing about how silly the whole thing is. Donate money. These people literally have tons of it. Raise awareness without delving into cheap "lose weight quick" gimmicks. Don't use the volunteer "fasting" joke as some cheap badge of honor to toss around to make you and your cheap Hollywood pseudo-liberal sentimentalities feel fulfilled.


Everyone, I think I'm going to join in solidarity with these celebrities and shed a few pounds. Never mind that summer is coming and I need to slim down a few pounds, like, real quick.

Murderers' Row

In this second Matt Helm installment, we begin to see the law of diminishing returns kick in. The Silencers already began to show signs of a faltering franchise, and that was only the first film!

Again, like its predecessor, Dean Martin appears to love his job. He’s effectively playing himself. He appears to does what he wants and at times I wouldn’t have been surprised if he just ad libbed the entire role himself. Of course he didn’t but he pulls off his performance that way.

Obviously Dean returns in this film to portray Matt Helm. Joining him in this adventure is Ann-Margret, as Suzie, a woman that gets mixed up in whatever nonsensical plot Helm is pursuing. James Gregory returns again as MacDonald.

I have been sitting here for about 20 minutes and have been unable to sum up this film any better than the summary provided on IMDb:

The handsome top agent Matt dies a tragic death in his bath tub - the women mourn about the loss. However it's just faked for his latest top-secret mission: He shall find Dr. Solaris, inventor of the Helium laser beam, powerful enough to destroy a whole continent. It seems Dr. Solaris has been kidnapped by a criminal organization.

That pretty much says it all.

Out of the entire film, I found the opening title probably was the best part of the entire film. Unfortunately that’s saying something. The film is like a train wreck, but it's a fun one to look at.

Next up, The Ambushers.

** 1/2 out of *****

Fry till you die (of a coronary)

Can you deep fry anything? Does it actually make it good?

I've had the Snicker's bar:


I've heard of the Oreo:


I've never heard of this:

I think I don't need to eat dinner after watching these videos.

Caprica

I am a huge fan of Battlestar Galactica. As such, over the last few months since that series ended, I have been looking forward to this spin-off prequel with great anticipation.

Caprica is a different type of show. It’s about a different time, taking place 58 years before the events of the Battlestar Galactica miniseries. The society is decadent, it’s bloated, advanced, and is troubled.

Caprica may feel like a “soap opera” but that’s the nature of the show. It’s more drama than sci-fi action.

Since this is only a pilot to a series that is coming in 2010 - long after the SciFi Channel changes its name to the vastly inferior “SyFy” – there isn’t “much” here to go on. A traditional film would expend far too much time and development too quickly. For an introduction into the series, the film serves its purposes just fine.

This show should even be interesting to those who are unfamiliar with the previous series Battlestar Galactica. It builds on the events leading up to the first Cylon war, where the Cylons, a robotic race is created and eventually rebels against their Human masters. No prior knowledge is necessary, though minor subtleties may be lost or be found to be unimportant when they show up. This is not like the Star Wars prequels, which I can’t imagine being “fun” to watch in any respects if you have no prior knowledge of who Obi-Wan Kenobi is, or why we should care if the Jedi are killed off. I knew what happened and I still didn’t care!

Eric Stoltz stars as Daniel Graystone, who is spurred to try and resurrect his daughter Zoe (Alessandra Toreson) after she dies in a terrorist attack. Esai Morales is Joseph Adams, who’s wife and daughter are both killed in that same attack and who is left to raise his son, William. Also starring is Paula Malcomson as Amanda Graystone, Daniel’s wife; Polly Walker as Sister Clarice Willow; and Sasha Roiz as Sam Adama, Joseph’s brother.

I know this will eventually make its way into a box set. I realize that, but don’t mind – since I’m viewing this an entire year before the box set (which I’ll pick up on Blu-Ray) will be released. This will tide me over just fine.

*** 1/2 out of *****

Dom DeLuise has passed away

Dom DeLuise, actor and comedian has passed away. He was 75.