Wheel of Reviews: Advertising - Bowlmor Lanes

Okay, I know Bowlmor isn't exactly a national brand with a huge ad buy. For the most part, they just do cheeky little campaigns on NY subways and buses, but that's still no excuse for poor execution.


Basically, a cute girl with a flirtatious nickname is used to say "cool people with a free spirit bowl at Bowlmor." Also, in a subtle subtext, the name "Gutter Girl" suggests to lonely guys the prospect of a handy in the men's room.

Fair enough. I've been to Bowlmor, and I know the entire lure of the place is the trendy scene and fascinatingly overpriced booze. But at heart it's still a bowling alley. As such, one would hope that of all things they might fuck up in their ads, it wouldn't be HOW TO KEEP SCORE AT BOWLING.

Well, one would hope, but one would be terribly disappointed. I submit a closer look at the ad...


WTF? Did she actually knock down 12 pins in one frame? Either she's got mad skills or the person keeping score is borderline retarded. And if Gutter Girl is retarded, it certainly makes that hook-up in the john way creepier. Ew.

To continue...


Okay, so now I'm led to believe that 7 + 9 = 9. This one is a little more forgivable because the person is simply writing the score of that frame rather than the total. Forgivable for most, but not in an ad FOR A BOWLING ALLEY! Then again, if you're idea of an appealingly quirky nickname is "Bowling Stone," you're a crap weasel anyway. Unless of course, you're NBC journalist Stone Phillips, in which case, cool play on words.


So, if you remember nothing else from this post, allow me to sum up. Stone Phillips gets hand jobs from retards in the crapper.

Wheel of Reviews: Advertising - Honda

This might not be the most recent ad, so some people may have seen this before, but I just heard about it today. Everything you see was done with practical photography. No special riggings or digital effects were used. The recording cost 6 million dollars and it took 3 months to finish, including the engineering design of the sequence.

I will never complain about a slow or complicated production schedule ever again.

Wheel of Reviews: Movies - Watchmen

Being a geek, I decided to see Watchmen on opening night. I used to be a Geek (note the capital "G"). Back in those days I would have seen the movie on 12:01am late Thursday night/Friday morning. As it turns out I love sleep just a bit more than genre movies, so Friday night won out.

As I was thinking about this review, I couldn't think of a way to concisely review a 2-hour 45-minute movie filled with A TON of stuff. Plus, I don't want to reveal too many spoilers. The only way I could think to do it easily is a simple list of Pros and Cons. So here we go.


> Rorschach was spot on. (Get it..."spot on"...it's a damn fine pun, aint it?)
> Solid action sequences.
> Kept the adult themes in place.
> Visually stunning in most places.
> Had about the right amount of laughs mixed in.
> Wasn't too overly "Snyder-ized."
> Malin Ackerman's nakedness.
> Night Owl's costume and gear were pretty badass.
> Faithfulness to 90% of the graphic novel.


> Some of the action got gory and violent without needing it.
> Too much giant blue radioactive penis.
> Some of the visuals tried a bit too hard to be comic-booky (see Nixon, Richard).
> The soundtrack had cool classic rock songs but they seemed out of place.
> Dr. Manhattan just felt a bit too CG in too many scenes.
> Malin Ackerman's acting.
> Night Owl's acting.
> Some of the relationships and interactions seemed forced or lacked emotional believability.


So, the way I see it, the movie was an overwhelming win. Most of my pros were things I was worried about beforehand that wound up turning out well. And almost all of my cons are nitpicks and things that missed the mark, but not by much.

Missing LiNK Wheel of Review final verdict:
On a scale of 1 to 5, we give Watchmen 4 ink blots.


(Chop off half a blot if you're a stickler for fine cinema and details.)

If the question is "Who watches the Watchmen?" the answer should be you, and soon.

Wheel of Reviews: Advertising

It doesn't have to be a billboard in the heart of Time Square or a commercial during the Super Bowl. Sometimes a great idea can be a light switch cover sent to doctors.

You got your Wheel in my Shenanigans!

So, what happens when you mix one recurring blog column that no one reads with another recurring blog column that no one reads? You get a cool-ass Siamese combo of the two into one write-up that no one will freaking read. Sweet!

The Wheel of Reviews lands on advertising this time, while we simultaneously call Shenanigans on Pizza Hut. Now let me start by saying I kind of like Pizza Hut, but I only eat it about once every two or three years in an effort to not die. To me, the defining characteristic of Pizza Hut is that it's pizza, but not really. It's their take on pizza. It's not like anything you'd find at the 56 places that all claim to be the one and only Original Rays in NY. It's closer to Pizzeria UNO, though UNOs is universally considered the more like eating Patrick Ewing's jock after triple overtime.

And now the latest ads in the current Pizza Hut campaign feature hidden cameras capturing people loving restaurant lasagna, only to find out it's really from Pizza Hut. Hmmm...my shenanigan-sense is tingling. Oh, and these impressed patrons are IN ROME, ITALY! Ummm, no. Not buying it. I smell bullshit (though it's possible that bullshit is one of the ingredients. I haven't made lasagna in a while.)



First off, I can't get my mind around people oohing and ahhing over Pizza Hut lasagna in the company's own corporate cafeteria, much less in Italy. And I wouldn't know how to say "this is the best mass-produced processed food-like substance ever!" in Italian.

Second, I have a hard time with the guy who says "it taste just like my mothers!" I believe they edited out the part where he later mentions that his mother has one eye, a gaping head wound and dementia bad enough to make her think she's Ernest Borgnine. Oh, and she's from Philly.

And lastly, the thing that just seems completely bogus is the rousing applause when they are told the food is really from Pizza Hut. Pizza Hut doesn't exist in Italy, so why are people so impressed? They don't even know what it means. Seriously, no one in the history of humans on this planet has ever emphatically applauded Pizza Hut. They could discover that Pizza Hut cures cancer and it would still only get applause equal to the arrival of Sanjaya Malakar at a car wash opening.

It all seems fishy to me. (Again, that could the ingredients. There's mackerel in lasagna, right?) So, I officially say to you Pizza Hut..."Shenanigans!"

NOTE: Pizza Hut has even shared a 'behind the scenes' look at making the commercial. As if they knew we'd all question it. Take a look...

Wheel of Reviews: Advertising - Pepsi

Our brand is recognizable worldwide...so let's mess with it.


Just sayin'.

It's time to introduce...The Wheel of Reviews! (echo echo echo)

What, you ask, is the Wheel of Reviews? This:



The Wheel of Reviews is the 4th most famous wheel in history. Obviously, #3 was the "Wheel of Fish" from the Weird Al Yankovic opus UHF. At #2 we have the world famous Wheel of Fortune, but not the bullshit Pat Sajak/Vanna White version. I mean the old school Chick Woolery/Susan Stafford version where you bought ceramic dalmatians and cheeses of the month and put the rest on gift certificate or account. And of course, the #1 wheel of all time is the Big Money Wheel from the bonus round of Match Game (back when no one knew for sure yet that Charles Nelson Riley "sucked blank"). Ironically, the actual wheel, which originated in ancient Mesopotamia in the 5th millennium BC and is perhaps the most important invention in the history of mankind, ranked only 78th. Go figure.

Anyway, from time to time, I will randomly (or not so randomly) spin the Wheel of Reviews and write a review pertaining to whatever category it lands on. Incidentally, I briefly considered making the 6th category "Toilet Paper" instead of "Sports," bust seriously, anyone who doesn't think Cottonelle is the best ever should piss off.