Tag Archives: Entertainment

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virtual, what?

So this photo of Facebook’s Overlord got quite a bit of undeserved attention as, or so folks said, an example of the Giant Octopus getting its claws into everybody’s souls.  I think people got unnerved that they all had headsets on, and then Zuckerberg’s got this creepy smile on his face like he’s ready to drive humanity using a giant joystick.

oculus-1200x799

I mean, I guess.  It’s certainly not a good look for Facebook.  And I think I’d be genuinely uncomfortable in a room alone with Zuckerberg unless I was armed.  But I’m just not sure what the problem is?  Dude’s just showing off his fancy new product, of course they’re all supposed to wear it.

What is this virtual reality thing anyways?  I’m having a hard time understanding how this is supposedly the new thing.  Are people supposed to design buildings, drive cars, or shoot people in video games or what?  I can’t get around the concept that regardless of what you put on somebody’s skull, what they see and hear, that unless you put them in a giant custom built warehouse you run into the problem that people have to actually walk, move, etc, the touch and smell part.

So I think this’ll become a niche thing, expensive and little used.  So rich 10 year old Jimmy and his friends will play Mass Effect in a warehouse at his birthday party.  Ford will allow you to drive their new car on the track built like you’re driving around Mars.  And so on.

Will virtual reality go mainstream?  I just don’t see it.  And in any case, virtual reality is already here in its own way.  When you’re in the airport waiting area and 98% of folks are buried in their smartphones, that’s virtual reality to me.  They’ve all checked out.

In the same line of thinking, here’s another shot, as an example of one that a teacher of mine tried to sell as an example of fear of progress.

giant gear.jpg

This is not the original shot my teacher used, I couldn’t find that one.  Don’t ask me why I remember this lesson and yet can’t remember the date England separated the head of their king.  The same basic concept, a human standing next to a big gear, as an example of the smallness of humanity compared to our own massive creations.  That we’d devalued the human form into just a gear, a cog of the machine.  At the time I’m like, uh, maybe, I guess.  But we need big gears don’t we?  Ships use them to sail around and stuff.  Our #2 pencils (remember those) rode a ship from China to get here.  So what’s the big deal?

Put another way, it’s progress.  In 1963 you couldn’t talk with your friends while you waited at the airport.  Now you can.  That’s kind of cool.  Yet folks can get freaked out by progress, I mean, I’m certainly one of them.  So virtual reality’s going to rub some people the wrong way.  It’s going to be a bit controversial, just you wait.  You pick a topic, it’ll be there in its own way.

Let it.  It might be weird and little used, but it’s still progress.

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what if Rose had killed Jack?

I normally don’t fall victim to clickbait with the expectation that my immortal soul depends on it. But I have to claim ownership of this setback because I have some weird type of morbid fascination with this Titanic film. As in, if I bump into it, I’m likely to watch a bit of it, but yet feel I can’t stand the film.

First off, if you want to understand why this movie plays doppelganger inside your brain, you need only take an hour of your time to have the guys at RedLetterMedia explain it all in their own dark-twisted-hilarious way.

[rare TAP caveat; some of you might be offended with these guys, so don’t say I didn’t warn you; on the other hand, Roger Ebert wasn’t offended after watching them, but what does he know?]

Second, you can read this surprisingly delicious Washington Post article that still made me hate myself just for clicking on it.

It basically goes through the questions of why Jack just didn’t ride out the cold on a piece of wood that could have held both of them.

But, ponder if you will, how much better this movie could have been if Rose had actually killed Jack.

For example, what if as they’re floating there, Rose surprisingly goes full blown black widow. In the most unprecedented plot twist since Hitler turned out to be the disguised black guy in Casablanca.

They’re floating there and she gets this evil smile and she’s like, “Well Jack, I guess that’s it. You’ve played your part. I’m free of Cal forever. I couldn’t have done it without you. You were the best. But now it’s time for you to go. Goodbye Jack.” And she starts to remove his frozen fingers from the wood one at a time. Leo’s hypothermic, so he can’t move, but you can see in his eyes that he’s freaking out. Then he goes floating away. And Rose just leans back on the floating wood, sighs, and waits to be rescued.

The advantage of ending the movie this way is that in 1997 it would have caused 343 million teenage girls to vomit in the aisles or in the garden outside the theater. This kind of thing appeals to me. Plus, who wouldn’t want to kill Leo.

But if you ask me, the Washington Post article has the best little nugget, of how this would have actually played out:

 “Rose lives on in a cheap house with Jack, and goes on to bear a child or two. . When Jack takes her out with her kids, she notices a wealthy family laughing and walking into an upmarket restaurant. Meanwhile Jack, fatigued by age and experience, almost weakly asks her what’s keeping her, as he walks towards a cheap fast food joint. The rifts slowly get created, and there’s no more ‘high’ of the first few days of love to get her through.”

Yup.

rose and jack.jpg

eh, you both know that one or both of you is going to die in this movie right? I knew it, why didn’t you?

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choosing the right direction

I find it intellectually interesting that just a few days after the country celebrated the legacy of Martin Luther King, that we have such a forceful issue dealing with his message. Normally I couldn’t care less, or desire to comment, about a circular firing squad emanating from Hollywood, but I feel compelled today for some reason.

Lots of reasonable people can read these words different ways:

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

But to me, when King says he wants people not to be judged off the color of their skin, I’m pretty sure he means he doesn’t want people to be judged off the color of their skin.

Yet today’s professed problem with the Oscars is that they’re judging people based off the color of their skin. Titan-of-Humanity George Timothy Clooney says Hollywood is “moving in the wrong direction“.

But what are the Oscars anyways? The organization has been a panel of white man slime since its existence. For instance, all those old Hollywood legends of how they treated young women didn’t just materialize out of thin air. Which has always kind of made me wonder why so many people take the Oscars so seriously.

What exactly is supposed to happen here? If the Academy doesn’t nominate black performers it’s not diverse? So should they have just thrown in two or three black performers, just to keep the controversy away from the panel?

What about Asians? How many is the Academy required to nominate each year? What about lesbians or gays? How many each year is an acceptable number? Is there a set quota that will scratch the itch of every interest group, racial, ethnic, religious, or gender background? And while we’re at the elimination of gender roles, why do the Oscars even continue to nominate based off male or female categories? Shouldn’t we force the Academy to create a single category for all performers? Or at least create a category for all 17 of these newfangled gender roles? You can really take this craziness down a long road to which there is no end.

So to me, the solution simply comes back to King’s dream: judge by character, and nothing else. Which occasionally, yeah, it might mean no performer of a particular identity gets nominated.

So some of you would make the argument that the Academy is not judging by character, and that if it did, there would be more black nominees. Eh, perhaps, but almost every article I’ve read on this issue mentions skin color first as the issue at hand, and not character. I also get that the business is the business. And in the Hollywood business, if you have an Oscar you’re a freaking legend, and if you don’t you’re not. Which is why the Oscars are so important an issue.

But still, at any rate, whatever the situation, I now offer a few belligerent solutions:

1) Stop pretending the Oscars are a meaningful benchmark

Is this the pinnacle of filmmaking? Why? Because the Oscars been around since 1929? So they’re the true benchmark of success because they’re old? These are the judgmental jackasses who picked Shakespeare in Love over Saving Private Ryan and gave a best director award to an acknowledged child rapist. I’m not sure what a proper replacement is, but at a certain point maybe it’s time to acknowledge that the opinions of a bunch of faceless big shots doesn’t equal what’s actually a great performance.

2) Stop going to the Oscars

The one thing I’m very okay with regarding this latest round of shouting is that folks are actually putting their actions where their mouths are. Usually Spike Lee just complains but then goes on like nothing happened. This time he’s not going. Good on him. If you truly believe in something, don’t participate. It removes the element of hypocrisy. As I wrote above, I don’t necessarily understand how Lee and the others are going to get the result they want, but at least they’re showing they mean what they say

3) Create your own benchmark

If you’re a young white/black/etc/etc/etc filmmaker or performer then what’s your definition of success after say 40 years in the business? I submit, if your benchmark is, “I won an Oscar”, you’re missing the point. Just as if a writer’s definition is, “I won a Pulitzer”. Those things might be neat, but they aren’t life and they certainly aren’t art. They’re just the voting intentions of a panel of other human beings. Good movies, literature, art, are all things that transcend silly little voting exercises. Art at its best is composed of the things that define the “content” of our character. If you ask me, if you want to move in the right direction? Forget fixing the Oscars. Create your own benchmark. Create your own dream that isn’t based off an award chosen by others. That’s the right direction to go.

george

Oh George.

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hopefully he’ll never be known for Potter

Sorry, Wand Goon Squad, you can’t have him.  He doesn’t belong to you.  Any more than Alec Guinness belonged to Star Wars.  Because both men were cut from the same mold, and it showed in the way they lived, and in their best roles.

alan rickman.jpg

But sorry, Potter was not one of his best roles, and it’s not how he should be remembered.  I’ve never read the books, so maybe Snape is more of a relevant presence in there.  But in the movies (which I was forced to watch) Rickman‘s talents are devalued on a character who’s about as critical as a coat stand.  Even Snape’s death scene in the last film feels like it’s completely wasting Rickman‘s immense talents, like they’re just going through the motions.

snape

Don’t get me wrong, the Potter films aren’t completely horrible, they’re fairly decent.  There are some really, really powerful scenes in there.  But claiming Rickman’s life over them isn’t right.  Guinness didn’t want Star Wars that way either.

So where do we place Alan?  Best villain of all time?  Yeah, maybe that’s a start.  To me, the best villain of all time knife fight might be between Hans Gruber and the Sheriff of Nottingham.  Who would win?  Us, by watching it.

hans gruber.jpg

Just drink in this deleted scene longer clip from the Robin Hood extended edition.

This was the film era where a villain was fun, sharp, cool, even bordering on campy.  But you knew they meant business.  They also had motivations behind their actions.  Both Gruber and the Sheriff’s purpose make sense as Rickman skillfully reveals their character.  Whereas nowadays most villains are just stark-raving-mad-brutal-psychopaths.

And yet, I think Rickman wouldn’t want to be known for these either.  He was always afraid of being typecast and having these two lovely roles ruin his range and reputation.  He did theater, did it superbly, but also painted and was in general (as most like him) a true artist.

But more than anything he was just fun, fun to watch, fun to listen to, fun to see.  And you can tell whether he’s poking at himself in Galaxy Quest or acting in the oh so weird but delightful Alan Rickman Tea Time, that he’s having fun too.

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what if the force is not with you?

I find it hard to get excited over movies now.  Everything kind of blends together.  It’s all kind of the same, nothing’s really unique.

Even stuff I’ve loved for decades, like the James Bond series, has become tired.  I should have known better, but I actually got really excited for Spectre, and it wasn’t all that good.  I was genuinely bored watching Spectre.  Even during the mind melting action scenes with planes and cars and speed and action?  If I had a wristwatch, I’d have looked at it repeatedly.  Don’t get me wrong, Spectre isn’t awful, but there’s just nothing exciting about it.

I have the same feeling with Star Wars.  I think I’d walk out of the theater and be like, “Eh, that was okay, I guess.”  Part of the problem is I feel like I already know what the plot of the movie is seeing as how we’ve all been bombarded by trailers and merchandise ads for like seventeen months.  And now that I know the plot, I’m kind of already bored with it:

Rebel spy meets little girl who find Han and the Falcon, get attacked, we eventually see the Rebels (Not Rebels) again and there are X-Wings and another Death Star (checks watch) and a whole bunch of lightsaber fights (checks watch) and a big battle at the end.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure it won’t be awful, but there’s just nothing exciting about it to me.

It’s like they’re just going through the motions.  Probably because JJ Abrams is just going through the motions.  It’s the safe bet.  This movie will make over $2B provided JJ just feeds a serviceable movie to the viewing public.  As long as he totally doesn’t screw it up, they’ll do alright.  It doesn’t have to be a masterpiece, it just has to not be bad.  After the total disaster that was the prequels, folks will be glad to settle for decent, I assure you.

But what if the force is not with you?  It’s not really with me, so I’m not even sure if I’ll see it in the theaters.  I probably will, but I guess I’m just not feeling excited about it.  That’s a bummer.  Oh well.

jj-abrams-shows-off-first-footage-of-x-wing-in-star-wars-episode-viiMy the cash be with you.

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were it not for Duracell; Obi-Wan would have slain Vader

Somebody who’s actually seen the newest Hunger Games or has read the books is going to have to tell me if they have Dodge cars and trucks in there. As in, do the stormtrooper-based Hunger Games goons drive around in Dodge trucks? Or does Jennifer Lawrence lead her militant-teenage-love-army into battle in a Dodge Challenger? I ask this most important of questions because I saw this ad where they show various Hunger Games trailer shots alongside Dodge cars.

If I had to guess, I’d say that Dodge isn’t in there. So then why exactly does Dodge desire to be associated with a story that has among other things genocide, starvation, murder, and other lightweight topics that typically encourage people to go joyfully buy cars?

I don’t know what they call these things? Joint ads? Dual commercials? Future obliterated Earth tutorial?

The first one of these I saw was in 2009 when all of a sudden they shoehorned in an ad for Avatar interspersed with clips of the World Series. Joe Buck got tasked to narrate the thing. It literally broke my brain. I was like, “Eh, is there a baseball league on this mysterious alien world? Did Joe Buck misplace his brain medicine? Should I stop drinking now?” The commercial was almost entirely over before I figured out it was a deliberate dual ad.

So this is the way it’s supposed to work, I guess:

1) You like The Hunger Games

2) You see an ad of The Hunger Games alongside Dodge

3) So you like Dodge now

4) You go get your $

5) You use $ to go buy a Dodge vehicle

Or, simply replace the words Dodge and The Hunger Games to have the opposite reaction.

This is the most basic and simplistic advertising campaign imaginable. It basically devalues the audience (you) into nothing more than a partial-corporeal-ape-like-creature. How did this juvenile campaign work in 2009 and Avatar? Well, the success of that simplistic ad helped equal $2.79B. So I guess it works? I think?

So now it’s all over the place. They’re doing it for Star Wars too! Gaze upon this disgrace to humanity, only this time it’s Fiat.

I have it in my mind that they need to go back in time to 1977 and redo all the trailers for the original.

They can show Obi-Wan and Vader dueling, and Obi-Wan’s kicking Vader’s ass. Vader’s lightsaber keeps malfunctioning, and Obi-Wan’s just toying with him. Instead of finishing him off, Obi-Wan keeps kicking Vader in the shins and smacking him in the face, laughing. But then Vader has an ah-ha moment, whips out some Duracell batteries, puts them into his lightsaber while epic music plays, Vader viciously slays Obi-Wan, and then looks directly at the camera with Obi-Wan’s mangled corpse behind him: “The Force is no match for the power of the Copper Top!”

But of course this didn’t happen, for Star Wars 1977 was before the time where everybody was a sell out. A simple, glorious time when movies were still pure. And so you see, and, oh, oh no, please no.

vader

“You don’t know the true power of The Dark Side, only Duracell does.”

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we nitpick the worst trailer in screen history

If it is indeed true that all good things must come to an end, then it’s assuredly also true that all bad things never seem to end, or that things that were once good, but became bad, must last forever.

Were you once a young-degenerate-loser too?  I sure was (past tense, I swear).  Remember when this show was actually good?  I bet you don’t.  For if you saw the last few seasons / movie you undoubtedly came to the realization that when a show doesn’t end at the right time, it becomes horrible.

I’m not quite sure what Fox is thinking, other than that they’re banking on many degenerate-losers at least viewing it for nostalgia sake.  But the last movie was awful and made no money.

If they want more money, they sure got off to a bad start.  With the most boring trailer I’ve seen in a long time.  Even the music sounds like it was written by a failed engineering student turned high-art-musician.

Eh, whatever, let’s have at it!

 

why the name

Why do they have to show her holding the phone with his name on it?  Can’t they just have her answer and we hear his voice?  Then we know it’s Mulder, without actually seeing the text.  Do they think we forgot his name?  Are they trying to trigger the part of our brains that’s activated by textual memories in addition to visual memories?  Get outta my head, Fox!

 

he's right there

But this is all besides the point because in fact, he’s standing right there!  He’s thirty feet in front of her!  Why is he even calling?  He could just tap on the glass.  If you rewind, you see from the aspect of her eyes that he is clearly inside the 45 degree arc that enables most humans to notice when another human is creepily standing in front of a glass door without knocking.  What’s going on here?  We haven’t even started and already I have no idea what’s going on again.

 

evil drone

Evil!  Drones are so evil.  They’re the new black unmarked helicopters.  Do you get it?  Evil!

 

then do something about it mulder

“Then do something about it, Mulder?”  Uh, hey Mitch, you’re like the Assistant Director of the freaking F.B.I.  Why don’t you do something about it for a change?  Don’t you have like 3K goons on speed dial?  How about you take care of this one instead of outsourcing the planet’s problems to a vicious-boring-sex-addict?

 

'splosions!

‘Splosions!  I’m so excited.  Nobody has ‘splosions on screen anymore.

 

boring mulder

“You don’t understand Scully, since the last time we slept together, I’ve become a vicious-boring-sex-addict.”  Hey speaking of that relationship, what ever happened to their kid?  Wouldn’t that, like, be kind of important to these two?  Seeing as how it’s been like a decade, they should probably go check up on him, maybe baby needs a new trike?  Seriously.

 

roswell

Roswell!  1950s!  Black suits and top hats!  Aliens!  [wipes brow; breathes heavily]  Oh, thank god, I was really worried they’d go with something actually interesting and original.
[smoking man

[unintelligible profanity]  You, have, got, to be… [unintelligible profanity]  What kind of c-grade nonsense is this?  When we last saw this dude, he was getting his corporeal form incinerated by helicopter gunship rocket fire.  How exactly do they plan to talk themselves out of this one?  Time travel?  Alien teleportation?  Intervention by the Divine Almighty?  Eh, whatever, I won’t be around to find out.

 

no, please no

no, please no

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Omar Sharif is The Most Interesting Man in The World

– Royal monarch visits his childhood home regularly

– Connoisseur of insanely beautiful women

– Able to converse in half-a-dozen languages

– Hooligan of mediocre EPL team

– Frequent French casino patron

– Mythically talented actor

– Drinking buddy of Peter O’Toole

– Accomplished bridge player

– Called a swanky hotel one of his homes

– Human in greatest movie entrance of all time

omar sharif

I don’t always applaud legends.  But when I do, I prefer Omar Sharif.

RIP my friends.

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I’m glad science is finally paying us back what we’re owed

Let’s humbly acknowledge our role in paying for all of this. Our carefully appropriated research and development funds took 38 years to yield a functioning speeder bike. And 26 years for a hoverboard. So we should all expect a check in the mail in the next week or so.

 

Hoverbike

Coming soon to a wooded National Park near you; a 700% increase in death by tree strikes

 

Coming soon from Lexus (ignore unrelated smoke-like appearance)

hoverboardlexus

[lunatic wide eyes] Baaatttterrr Up!

 

But I want to know where the hell is the rest of our damn money. Our funds have led to a whole bunch of projects and I’m just sitting here, waiting, drinking beer, and tapping my finger on the table. I paid $4 a seat many years back, and I still don’t have:

 

– Skyways & Hover Conversion; 26 year delay

docbrown

“I’m on it, I’m on it, [shifty eyed] I know I promised these by 2015, but I’ve been, a little backed up lately. I saw Breaking Bad, and decided to get into the meth business, so I’m running behind on the car.” [panting] [panting] [panting]

“Doc are you getting into your own stash? Doc? Doc?!”

 

– Upgraded Dialing Machine; 33 year delay

et phone home

If this piece of shit could communicate between freaking stars, and all they did is upgrade it, I could harness the technology to solve minor problems like cold fusion. Also, does anybody remember TI Speak & Spell!?!?

 

– Self Driving SUV; 22 year delay

Google’s self-driving clown car is a joke. Where’s my autonomous SUV that’s so durable it can mostly survive a vicious assault from a deranged creature seven-hundred times it’s size?

jurassicpark-trex-footmud-full

Uh, he can probably see you even if you don’t move. You should run. Like, honest. “Go. Go now!” It worked out well for the other guy.

 

– Buildings on Sky Stilts; 52 year delay

It worked for Cloud City, it’ll work just fine in Frisco.  What could go wrong?  It must be done.

JETSONS

 

– Man Portable Death Ray; 29 year delay

death ray

If the machines took over tomorrow, what are we supposed to defend ourselves with? America’s existing 300 million carbon based firearms? Ordinary journeyman and teenaged-girl-stalker Kyle Reese made himself pretty clear that all those ordinary guns are ineffective against the machines. And so, …

bale

Oh.

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Arcturus News Muster – Swift seizes West Coast, proclaims New Republic of Love

Cupertino, California – 22 June 2015 – In a shocking joint statement Apple Music head Eddy Cue, speaking alongside California governor Jerry Brown, surrendered unconditionally to the forces of Taylor Swift after a violent, bloody twelve hour struggle.

Battle hardened Silicon Valley warriors solemnly listened as a tearful Cue summarized his decision to unilaterally end all hostilities, “… our forces had already experienced a lot of concern from indie artists whose rear echelon attacks had begun to drain our bottom line, but our recent defeat leads me to the conclusion that our cause is finished.”

Cue later tweeted, “We hear you @taylorswift13 and indie artists. We submit to your authority. Please, please just stop. Love, Apple.”

The unexpected termination of hostilities followed this weekend’s crushing defeat of the Valley’s Sixth Division outside Sacramento. Initial reports indicate the Sixth Division suffered upwards of 95% casualties encapsulated by an unverified Tumblr video appearing to show a blood stained Swift holding the severed head of Apple CFO Lieutenant General Luca Maestri.

Panicked evacuations from various Valley campuses were indicated by the numerous private jets, helicopters, and auto-gyros arriving at Aspen bearing panicked Valley leaders toting what meager worldly possessions they could gather as they fled, such as $20K Apple Watches, $15K pop-collared shirts, and a $4 VCR.

Rumors swirled throughout the West Coast that Swift’s forces were occupying government buildings and public spaces riding armored hybrid-electric vehicles blaring “Shake It Off” from loudspeakers.

Governor Brown’s concurrent statement seemed to confirm this capitulation as he’d apparently placed the California National Guard under Swift’s command. “I don’t know what else I can do, my state’s essentially bankrupt, we’re outta water, I don’t remember where I left my keys, but hell, she’s got enough money to fix all this. Right? I think?”

Yet Valley devotees expected Cue’s capitulation would not impact Apple CEO Tim Cook’s plan to run a government in exile until a point he could use Apple’s mammoth reserved funds to build the world’s fifth largest standing army and counterattack.

Said one Apple insider, Tim’s counting on the loyalty of his Foxconn employees to manufacture a bunch of awesome new iWeapons to turn the tide. He figures they’ve been loyal to Apple all these years, and so he can trust them to back his return.”

swift

“I say this with love, reverence, and admiration for everything else you have done: If you betray my rule, I’ll kill you all.”