He’s active on Twitter

There are quite a few celebrities that are getting on the Twitter bandwagon but none seem as excited about as much as Shaq.  He recently just learned how to upload photos to the service and has really taken advantage of it.  This has resulted in some of the following great pics.  He also has close to 200,000 followers and he enjoys hearing from most of them. If you’d like to follow him check him out @THE_REAL_SHAQ

He’s a cop

Shaq has the distinction of being an L.A. Port Reserve Officer as well as a Miami Beach Reserve Officer.  I wouldn’t want to be a perp that got on the bad side of Shaq in a CSI: Miami style interrogation.  Of course it would be awesome to see Shaq play himself as a reserve officer in an episode of that show.  This brings us to our next point.

He’s an actor

Now, I’m not saying that he’s a great actor, but he has played the lead in two movies, which is two more than I’ve been a lead in.  Even he has a sense of humor about it.  One of his recent tweets asked which of his two movies were better and then acknowledging that they both weren’t very good.  Also, he plays himself in my favorite episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm.  Larry David trips him at a game and to make it up to him he gets shack a VHS of every Seinfeld episode for him to watch in the hospital.  Awesome.

He’s a rapper

Even though his album, Shaq Fu: The Return wasn’t a huge success I’m pretty sure it’s better than anything Joaquim Phoenix is going to put out.  You gotta respect a guy that does something just because he wants to.  When he sets his mind to something that’s what he’s going to do.

Shaq is hopefully going to be around for a good long while.  Even when his basketball career is over I’m sure he’ll move on to other projects that keep him in the public eye.  I would love to see him become an NBA analyst.  He’d be sure to have some great sound bites.  Either way, Shaq is the coolest guy in the NBA right now.  I’m looking forward to the future of Shaqfucious.

Hey Shaq, if you ever read this I just want you to know that I would love to meet you someday.  Whenever you come to play the Jazz, drop me an email and we can get together.

Having said that, I took some time last night to think about a few movies that would have been better with hippos in them. I’ve narrowed those movies to five gems.  And now, here is:  Spencer’s list of 5 movies that would have been better with hippos and that all, oddly enough, star Tom Hanks.

#5:  Big

The classic tale of a boy who just wanted to be big and woke up one morning to find, he was big.  Since we’re working with such a believable premise already I don’t think there would be a problem in adding the minor detail of him not only turning big, but becoming a hippo.  Hippos are big by nature and that would work great with the premise.  Of course, then you’d have no reason to have Tom Hanks in the movie.  We can’t have that, so how about instead of dancing on a giant keyboard with his boss he played a game of Hungry Hungry Hippos with him instead?

#4: Saving Private Ryan

Who wouldn’t love a random scene in the movie where an escaped hippo from a local zoo came and trampled some German soldiers?  Or it could have been a twist that ‘Private Ryan’ wasn’t a soldier at all, but a hippo that somehow got lost behind enemy lines.

#3:  The Burbs

There are probably a lot of you that don’t remember this movie, but it’s a classic.  Now imagine that the murderous family next door wasn’t just killing people.  Instead, they were feeding them to a giant monster hippo that they have concealed in the basement.  Now that’s a kick ass movie!

#2:  Forrest Gump

Considering all the things that Forrest was able to do in the movie, and the number of other ridiculous things he did in the book by Winston Groom, I think it only logical that he become a succesful breeder of seeing eye hippos.  Also, Lt. Dan could have used a hippo to get around instead of a wheel chair.

#1:  Turner & Hooch

Hooch is a hippo.  Need I say more?

What movies do you think would have been better with hippos?

As you know doubt have already heard Christian Bale went of on the DP during filming of his latest movie. I’ve heard he could be difficult and now I guess I’ve found out that it is true. I don’t think there’s any reason to snap like he did, but I know that the long hours on film sets can make your fuse a little short.

Now I’m starting to think that maybe he really did beat up on his mom and sister.

Bad Christian!

Here’s a little snippet courtesy of CNN:

#5  Scrooged

This Bill Murray classic is a humorous take on Charles Dickens’ classic ‘A Christmas Carol.’  In this version Bill Murray plays the Scrooge character and is reminded constantly about why Christmas is a good thing.  He even takes a toaster to the head multiple times.  If you’ve never seen this movie I highly recommend it.  It does to Christmas what ‘Groundhog Day’ did to that obscure holiday.

#4  A Muppet Christmas Carol

Another take on Dickens’ Christmas classic, this time with Muppets.  In this version, which is a more literal interpretation of the tale, we find Scrooge being played by Michael Caine.  He encounters various Muppet ghosts and, well, you know the story.  The best part of this movie, however, comes when Beaker gives Scrooge the finger after he refuses to donate money to a charity.  Gotta love those Muppets!

#3  Home Alone

Who can forget the first time they ever saw Joe Pesci get shot in the nuts with a BB gun sticking out of a dog door?  Priceless.  This Christmas masterpiece was the number one all time blockbuster until Spiderman came along.  It’s strength is the simplicity of it’s story:  Kid gets left home. Burglars try to invade.  Kid maims burglars with various hilarious boobie traps.  I make sure to watch this  at least once each Christmas and have been known to say, “Keep the change you filthy animal” on a number of occasions.

#2  It’s a Wonderful Life

What?  How can this be number two?  Well it is.  Even though a lot of people would have this as number one, for me it’s number two.  The message that every person makes a difference no matter how small we think it is has never been shown more clearly and eloquantly.  I love watching Jimmy Stewart running down the street yelling, “Merry Christmas!” to every person and inanimate object in site.  I also like that he calls his daughter Zuzu.

#1  A Christmas Story

If you haven’t seen this movie you should be shot with a Red Rider BB Gun and sent down a long plastic slide.  This has got to be the funniest Christmas movie of all time.  Watching Ralphie’s escapades as he deals with bullies and school essays reminds everyone of the simpler times they had while still a child.  I still believe to this day that soap poisoning is a real affliction and I never, ever put my tongue on a frozen flag pole.

So there’s my list.  I had a fun time thinking about it and there were many other movies that considered.  I’m sure you have a different set of movies.  If you feel like I really missed one then let me know.

Also if I wanted to base a movie on my experiences traveling through time and fighting cavemen and dinosaurs I could do that as well. I went to a museum once and saw dinosaur bones and wax cavemen. I threw some trash at the dinosaur skeleton and then shot a paperclip at the wax cavemen with a rubberband. Remember, this is ‘based’ on a true story.

Now it’s made me look back at some of my favorite movies that were based on true stories and learn the ‘real’ stories behind them.

Rudy – Turns out Rudy Rudiger was actually a woman who didn’t even play football. What happened was she had sex with one of the members of the practice team. And the school wasn’t Notre Dame, it was actually Sears Community College. I was very disappointed.

The Pursuit of Happyness – Turns out the main character was really a white guy who graduated from Standford with an MBA. He was married to a hot model and had three kids who all attended private school and had issues with drugs. He also never solved the Rubic’s Cube.

Battlefield Earth - Surprising this movie was fairly accurate.

So there you have it.  All you aspiring screenwriters out there just remember that you can say everything you write is based on a true story, no matter how obvious it is that it’s not.