1941-2007

Director Bob Clark and his son were both killed today by a drunk driver in Los Angeles. The driver wasn’t just drunk — he was also driving without a license. Tragic and senseless.

Clark’s early work includes the first two Porky’s movies and the 1974 horror classic Black Christmas, which was recently the subject of a remake. (Howard Stern has also been working on an updated version of Porky’s.) He directed Sylvester Stallone and Dolly Parton in Rhinestone and also helmed Turk 182!, an ’80s cult classic starring Timothy Hutton, Kim Cattrall and Robert Urich. More recently he did the Baby Geniuses movies.

My favorite Bob Clark movie is one of my favorite movies, period: A Christmas Story. Witty, weird and totally charming, it’s scene-for-scene one of the great American classics. Clark also directed its sequel, My Summer Story (aka It Runs in the Family), in 1994. Not many people have seen it, including me. I’ll be remedying that as soon as I can, and I hate that something like this had to happen for me to get in gear and finally watch it. Both films were based on the works of the late, great Jean Shepherd, who narrated both (and also provided the voice of Santa in the first). In fact, my friend Bob and I were just talking about Bob Clark a few nights ago, which makes this all the more sad and surreal.

So thank you, Bob Clark, for sharing your gift with a world that can always use a laugh. You’ll live on forever through your work.

Quiznos Garlic Prime Rib

So, I got this coupon for a free Mountain Dew and chips with the purchase of a Quiznos Prime Rib on Garlic Bread sub.

I knew what I had to do.

The sandwich features a magnificent mound of Quiznos’ perfectly sliced prime rib with mayo and mozzarella cheese, sprinkled with (what appeared to be) oregano and heaped between two pieces of tasty, toasted garlic bread.

Delicious.

The garlic and the prime rib overpower even the cheese, so you’re mostly tasting prime rib and garlic. Which is fine, especially if you’re me and you like those things. I wish mine had had a bit more mayo, though, so that it didn’t taste quite so dry. I think that would have made all the difference.

I still loved the sandwich very much, though I probably won’t get it again, because nothing Quiznos makes is better than the mighty Smokehouse Beef Brisket — nicely sliced, slow-roasted beef smoked with mesquite and smothered with barbeque sauce under plenty of cheddar cheese. Whew.

So, what have you been eating? Because I’d really like to know.

New Transformers photos and video

I loved playing with Hasbro’s excellent Transformers as a kid; Jetfire was my favorite toy of all time, and the brand new Classic Voyager Jetfire stands proudly (and quite awesomely) on my computer desk today.

I’m not sure how this summer’s Transformers movie is going to be, though the trailers promise big fun.

Speaking of which, click right here to check out the Transformers movie page on Yahoo! Movies, where you can check out the theatrical theater and view a brand new slideshow directly right here. My favorite picture is the one of Optimus Prime knocking the hell out of Bonecrusher on the interstate.

If that’s not enough to whet your appetite for giant bio-mechanical alien life forms who come to our planet and disguise themselves as vehicles until it’s time to pummel each other into oil puddles with all kinds of fancy energy weapons, head on over to this post on director Michael Bay’s blog, where you can check out two new TV spots. The second shows Starscream — who’s now a Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor — swoop under a bridge and transform just as he flips himself up to land atop it. Too cool.

In other Transformers news, genre hero Hugo Weaving — who was Agent Smith in The Matrix and Elrond in the Lord of the Rings trilogy and V in V for Vendetta among many other wonderfully played roles — will be providing the voice of Decepticon leader Megatron. But in a decidedly old-school move, it was announced last year that original cartoon Optimus Prime voice actor Peter Cullen would return to provide the pipes for the Autobot commander-in-chief in Bay’s live-action update.

Transformers fights traffic — literally! — on its way to a theater near you on July 4.