21) Did the dinosaurs talk? I mean, like actually talk? “Hello Mr. Brontosaurus, how are you?” “Oh, I’m delightful Mr. Triceratops, thank you for asking.” Scientists assume not but none of us were there. I bet those scaly bastards talked all the time.
22) Would Abraham Lincoln win an election today? Or would everyone just be all like, “Great emancipator, my ass, look at that dude’s craggy ass face!”
23) Have you ever asked Siri, “What does the fox say?” You should try it. Seriously, you should.
24) Do ghosts really exist? I hope not. I mean sure, for the first couple years, you prank the people who move into your house. Move their shit around while they aren’t looking and freak them out. Break stuff. Jump around while they’re sleeping and laugh when they jump up and try to convince themselves it was the house creeking before they go to bed. But I have to say, that’s a pretty tedious way to spend an afterlife. I hope ghosts get to quit that crap eventually.
25) Few politicians of the 1960’s dared to speak out on the plight that was elderly criminals dressing up like monsters so as to manipulate real estate prices. Scooby Doo and the good people at Hanna Barbera were the only citizens who dared bring this issue to the forefront. And I say, god bless them. Thanks to them, I don’t have to worry about my Grandpa dressing up like a Sasquatch to drive down the price of the local abandoned amusement park.
26) If Star Fleet has the power to beam people anywhere in the Universe, why do they even need the Starship Enterprise? Or the whole fleet for that matter?
27) Speaking of, the next time you encounter a difficult situation at work, you should scratch your head and say, “Wow Boss, this is a real Kobayashi Maru!” There is a 50% chance your boss will think you’re brilliantly citing some obscure business principle and a 50% chance your boss will think you are a stone cold crack smoker. There’s pretty much no in between in that scenario.
28) Am I the only one to notice that in Pulp Fiction, they make this big deal about Harvey Keitel’s character, “The Wolf,” that he’s some kind of mastermind fixer and an expert at turning around bad situations, but all he does is tell Travolta and Jackson to spray some household cleaner in the back seat and clean up all the brains? I mean, I’m not a criminal hitman, but I feel like I could have figure out “get the paper towels and the windex” on my own.
29) I want a helper monkey. There’s nothing wrong with me. I’m just lazy. He could fetch me snacks, change the channel on my TV when I lose my remote, and write this blog. Hell, he could probably do a better job.
30) Sometimes I worry that people are so easily offended by the silliest things that it is really going to take a toll on the future of comedy. I predict by the year 2100, Saturday Night Live will consist of nothing but Knock-Knock Jokes and jokes about ducks walking into bars. Thank God I’ll be dead by then and won’t see it. Or if they keep me alive through robotics then remind me to reblog this when I’m right.
Some kind person put a link to my review of Blade Runner and the result was I had an all time record of 238 visitors today. Previously, I have yet to break 100.
I’ll have to look into Reddit – has anyone tried posting on it? Any experiences using it you’d care to share?
Thanks to whoever did that.
In other news, I’m almost at 3000 followers, if you want to obtain the coveted position of 3000th follower.
Valentine’s Day is right around the corner, dudes. And even though I totally just reminded you, you’re going to wait until Feb. 14th at 6 pm to get some tired, left over card and a box of stale candy from the discount bin at the drug store because that’s all they will have left.
So, I’m here to help. Even if you screw up your gift giving responsibilities, you can still check my blog, and recite some love poetry with the help of my main man, Bill Shakespeare.
“To Mac, or Not to Mac? That is the Question.”
Shakespeare was the most romantic dude of his day, which, alright, was pretty easy, since he lived in an age where people thought bathing was optional.
Alright. SCENARIO – You get home on Valentine’s Day. Your lady love is all dressed up, waiting for you to get your romance on, and what do you do? You’ve got nothing. You’ve got one of those M and M Dispensers where the cartoon M and M men are doing something hilarious. But it’s not enough for this woman, because, I don’t know, what, does she think she’s the Queen of England or something? Why is your woman not cool enough that she can’t just appreciate a good M and M dispenser? Sheesh.
Alright, anyway, all you do is lay out the Romeo and Juliet action:
But, soft! what light through yonder window breaks?
It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.
Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon,
Who is already sick and pale with grief,
That her maid art far more fair than she:
– William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet
I’m just going to say it. Women like drama. Ok some women do. Not all. Let’s not use sweeping generalizations. Some like to have all kinds of attention and have the focus be on them.
What was Bill saying in this scene? He’s having Romeo tell Juliet, “Hey, Juliet, you’re hot like the sun, and you’re such a hot sun that you’re hotter than the moon. The moon’s got nothing on you baby.”
You can just skip the poem altogether and just tell your lady, “You’re hotter than the moon.” Or, just pick a gal she hates. Her sister. Your next door neighbor. The dame she complains about from work. Just be all like, “Baby you are way hotter than Becky from Accounting.”
Actually, don’t do that. Then she’ll just accuse you of checking out Becky from Accounting.
The point is – Bill Shakespeare can get you chicks. So keep following and I’ll tell you how.
Sooo, first surprising thing, after five years of wandering through Georgia, they’re suddenly in Virginia now. Oh well. That’s a change of pace anyway.
Most of the episode centered around Tyrese hallucinating after being bitten. And then that nasty scene where Michonne hacks off the infected limb with her samurai sword. This was basically Tyrese’s character building episode. And it almost looked like he was going to make it.
The gang decides to head for Washington, DC.
And what was up with all those zombie torsos in that truck?
Well, who else in Rick’s crew do you want to see on the bookshelf? Michonne? Glenn? Maggie? The Governor? Eugene? Abraham? Abraham beating up Eugene?
Well, this is getting ridiculous. As my 3.5 regular readers are aware, the theme of this blog is an ongoing “Bookshelf Battle.” I have limited shelf space. Books want it. They fight. And they send soldiers, robots, assassins, ninjas, or whatever to attack each other. Battles are constantly being waged on my bookshelf, and frankly, all the racket is keeping me up at night. So imagine my surprise when I woke up in the middle of the night last night to find none other than Sheriff Rick Grimes blasting away on zombies with his big ole revolver. Conveniently in time for tonight’s midseason premiere! I snapped a few photos of the action. You tell me which one you like the best.
Vote for #1 – Rick blasting one solo walker.
Option 2 – Rick, more zombies, and Merle, who may or may not be a zombie.
So for the past few weeks, I’ve been asking for your input as I build a world for a sci-fi novel that’s locked up in my brain. Naturally, I thought, why not help the process along by checking out a cult classic of Sci-Fi cinema, namely the 1982 Ridley Scott Directed film, Blade Runner, starring Harrison Ford.
(Forever Cinema Trailers)
THE PLOT
Ford stars as Richard Deckard, a Blade Runner, a special type of police officer assigned to hunt down and execute replicants on site.
Replicants are bioengineered humans. They’re built by the Tyrell Corporation to be stronger, faster, smarter, or as Tyrell puts it, “More Human than the Human.” (In case you were wondering where that White Zombie song came from).
Foreseeing the problem that replicants could use their superior abilities to take over, the government outlaws them on Earth, and only allows them to be used as slave labor on off world colonies. Further, Tyrell has put in a failsafe – replicants only live for four years, so none of them really have time to learn how to get too big for their britches.
THE WORLD
In the 1980’s, Japanese tech companies were booming, so naturally the creators of the film anticipated an Asianization of American culture. Although it takes place in a futuristic Los Angeles, open area Asian bazaar style shops and sidewalk noodle joints riddle the landscape. An enormous building size image of a geisha is prominently displayed.
Even though its in the future, everything looks old and worn out, suggesting that America may one day fight itself in abject poverty, everyone living in cramped, dirty spaces, tripping over one another just to get some room. (Sometimes when you look at today’s economy reports, it feels like we’re there).
THE CLOTHES
Oddly, even though it’s LA and the depletion of the ozone layer is only going to make it hotter, everyone in this film is bundled up like its Christmastime in Minnesota. This is where some science nerd will now explain to me that global warming can actually lead to global cooling. And you’re probably right, science nerd.
THE TIME
It takes place in 2019, so about four years from now, we’ll be subject to a number of “Where are the replicants?” stories like we did this year now that we’ve reached the age of Back to the Future II.
THE TECHNOLOGY
Much of the tech in the film, at least by today’s standards, looks like it was raided from the basement storage room of a high school AV Club. There’s a lot of tube based monitors and equipment that looks like it could display microfiche in your local library. But hey, it all probably seemed like top of the line stuff in 1982.
There are flying cars, but there are also regular land cars. Deckard has a land car. He does get a ride in Edward James Olmos’ flying car. And I was glad to see this flying car did have several instruments, computer monitors, controls, and Olmos even puts on a special flying hat. In other words, the people behind this film anticipated, like I do, that flying a frigging car will be serious business and not something you can allow just an y old jerk to do.
There are video pay phones. Video phones are here, but you know my feeling on the subject. Pay phones of any kind are long gone and I doubt they’ll make a comeback.
Also, nothing to do with tech, but people smoke like chimneys throughout the film. People don’t smoke as much today and when they do, rarely in public lest they be accused of a hate crime. Enter any dive bar and you’ll find people engaged in Russian roulette competitions, chainsaw juggling, wild and crazy orgies, but anyone who lights up a stogie will be asked to leave.
LEGACY OF THE FILM
It’s fun to make fun of, but in a time where Star Wars had put Hollywood on a “space opera” kick, the people behind this film did try to make something serious. It poses a lot of questions about bioengineering, and JF Sebastian’s creepy “toy shop” certainly leaves us wondering whether maybe we should let nature run its course with the human anatomy, rather than do our own tinkering.
There’s certainly a lot to discuss about life when it comes to film – the quality of life, how little time we have, how none of us want to die, even replicants.
Olmos’ character, Gaff, speaks in a foreign language of some kind through most of the film, only to clearly annunciate at the end, regarding Deckard’s replicant love interest Rachel:
“It’s too bad she won’t live! But then again, who does?”
In other words, Gaff uses his few precious words in the film to tell us that we all tend to walk around aimlessly, trying to get something out of life, but few of us ever get where we want or are satisfied if we ever do.
IS DECKARD A REPLICANT?
If I shake my magic 8 ball, it will read, “All signs point to yes.”
Deckard dreams of a unicorn. I don’t know if that’s really a sign, because frankly, I dream about unicorns all the time. I might be a replicant then. Replicants have implanted memories and since unicorns aren’t real, and yet Deckard has a vivid memory of seeing one, the suggestion is he was built in a lab where a scientist added a false memory of a unicorn. Replicants receive false memories, supposedly in an effort to make them happier and/or more human.
Also, Deckard has kind of an odd relationship with his boss, Bryant. At the start of the film, he tells Bryant that he’s out of the Blade Runner business and won’t help him. Bryant tells Deckard he doesn’t have a choice and so Deckard just complies and goes on a replicant hunt. Does that mean Deckard is a slave of some kind, beholden to Bryant’s will? Or is Deckard just like any other human who doesn’t want to piss off an overbearing boss?
ROY BATTY
The villain of the film is Roy Batty (isn’t batty another word for nuts?) aptly played by Rutger Hauer. He’s a replicant who roams LA, cutting a wide swath through various genetic scientists in the hopes he can torture one into coming up with a cure that will allow him and his friends to live longer. None of them are able to, which drives him, well, batty.
SPOILER ALERT (Although honestly, you’ve had like thirty plus years to watch this damn thing)
The surprise of the movie comes when Batty has Deckard right where he wants him. Dickard clings to a rooftop beam, about to fall at any second. Batty can easily step on the hands of the man who has been hunting him and be the victor. But instead, Batty uses his super strength to save Deckard and pull him to the rooftop.
Why? Could it be that Batty recognizes that Deckard is a fellow replicant and doesn’t want to kill one of his own? Or, does Batty just decide that killing Deckard won’t really accomplish anything, so why spill more blood?
In the end, Batty has this iconic “TEARS IN THE RAIN” speech:
I have… seen things you people wouldn’t believe… Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched c-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those… moments… will be lost in time, like (cough) tears… in… rain. Time… to die…
Out of the mouths of replicants. That’s pretty profound stuff, isn’t it? Forget about attack ships and glittering beams, just think about all you’ve done in your life. Long before I became Blade Runner fan, I would often get choked up just by thought that one day, I’ll kick the bucket and all the memories of all my accomplishments, including starting this blog that only three people read, will vaporize into nothingness. Who knew that I was just suffering from Roy Batty sadness the entire time.
And what is a tear in the rain? A tear is happening. A memory is happening. But a tear in the rain just becomes another drop of water. A life full of memories ends, just like so many others do every other day…well, I don’t want to say that life is meaningless or “a tale told by an idiot” as Shakespeare once said, but aren’t there times when we all feel a little bit like Roy Batty?
CONCLUSIONS
It’s worth a rental. And Hollywood hasn’t shown an interest in remaking it with a bunch of dopey starlets who would probably just screw it up…yet.
I’ve been looking forward to this one for a long time, mainly because I feel like they’ve been promoting in forever. Given that it is up against Seventh Son, a fantasy film, nerds have plenty to watch this weekend, though these films may be cannibalizing one another’s profits since their core audiences are going to be the same contingent of geeks and dweebs.
That’s not an insult geeks and dweebs. I am one of you.
And sadly, since they’re both movies that cater to a younger crowd, I think they’re both going to be trounced by…dun dun dun… Spongebob: Sponge Out of Water.
But enough about business talk.
The plot? It turns out that worlds aren’t so much natural occurrences as they are business assets of a corporation owned The Abrasax family. The three heirs, played by Eddie Redmayne , Tuppence Middleton, and Douglas Booth, as heirs to a fortune often do, squabble over their inheritances, always trying to gain more planets for themselves.
But they don’t want to rule them. They want to harvest them. We’re all basically cattle and once a planet’s population exceeds its resources, the Abrasaxes have all of the people killed and somehow they are turned into a juice that can be bathed in to reverse the aging process.
Umm…good luck with that. All I can say is if you bathe in a juice made out of me, you’re going to be pretty disgusted.
Somehow, and they don’t really explain how, but Jupiter Jones, played by Mila Kunis, is a reincarnated version of the Abrasax kids’s mother. That’s a problem for them, seeing as how their mother, before being murdered by Redmayne’s character, Balem, wrote it into her will that her reincarnated self would inherit Earth.
Sidenote – this movie realized that I’ve done very little to ensure that my assets will be transferred to my reincarnated self, and thus as soon as I’m done writing this review, I’m going to get my attorney on the horn posthaste.
Keep in mind that at the start of the film, Jupiter has no idea that she’s a reincarnated space queen. She was born a Russian immigrant and cleans rich people’s toilets for a living.
Middleton’s character, Kalique, is happy to have a version of her mother back. Booth’s Titus contrives a scheme to marry Jupiter, claiming that doing so will protect Earth and keep it out of Balem’s grubby mitts. However, Titus has his own evil plans.
Here’s a rundown of a conversation I had with the Wachowskis in my mind as I watched the film:
ME: So this guy is trying to marry a reincarnated version of his mother?
WACHOWSKIS: Yes.
ME: That isn’t incest?
WACHOWSKIS: No. She’s not actually his mother. She’s his reincarnated mother.
ME: But she’s his mother brought back to life so…
WACHOWSKIS: SHUT UP AND WATCH THE PRETTY SPECIAL EFFECTS!!!!
Anyway, Channing Tatum plays Jupiter’s protector, Caine Wise, a human-wolf hybrid, and at this point, the man’s abs must be a multi-million dollar business.
HOLLYWOOD: Channing, we want you in our next picture.
CHANNING: I’m gonna have to charge you a million per ab.
And much to my surprise, Sean Bean was in the movie and he didn’t die. He dies in every movie he’s in, so it was kind of a disappointment that his character didn’t bite the dust, buy the farm, or kick the bucket.
All in all, for a February film, it was pretty decent. I’ve seen ads for this forever, and when a movie is hyped for this long, you kind of go into it expecting your socks to be knocked off, and usually they never are. But sci-fi nerds and space geeks will be pleased. The Wachowskis of Matrix fame are masters of the genre and they don’t disappoint with their special effects skills. People fly, there’s space craft warfare, and so on.
Plus, the scene lampooning the bureaucratic process that Jupiter has to go through to be named Queen was amusing.
One minor complaint – there were a lot of characters, aliens, technologies, organizations – in short, just a lot going on. It leaves you with questions that unfortunately a movie just doesn’t have time to answer.
The special effects alone are worth seeing on the big screen though, and let’s face it, you’ve got nothing else better to do this weekend, so go see it.
Oh Twitter. We can always count on you to rub the salt in America’s gaping wounds.
Smart asses from all over the Internet have descended onto #brianwilliamsmisremembers to engage in the wisecrackery of placing Williams at the scene of all manner of historical and fictional events.
Even this jerk weasel got in on the action:
All my reports were based on posts on a bulletin board. Drop your mug in disbelief America #BrianWilliamsMisremembers
If you’re not following @bookshelfbattle then you’re missing out on all the snarky goodness! And if you act fast, you can be my 3000th follower, which will win you…absolutely nothing! Well, it will win you my undying gratitude and devotion.
So yeah, in other words, you win nothing. But follow me anyway! Surely being my 3000th twitter follower will get you bragging rights…if you’re in a room of people who care about mundane things.
Bookshelf Battle 