Annual Halloween Crappy Horror Movie Fest movie #1: The Cave

This movie just plain sucked, despite having Lena Heady (pre-Sarah Connor and pre-300).

Send a bunch of seasoned spelunkers and biologists into a quasi-mystical Romanian cave system, and the best they could come up with to hunt them was the deformed love child of the Alien and the things from Pitch Black?

This film had a budget of $30 million--I wonder how many cups of coffee a day that could have bought in order to save children?

Mocking "conservative" movies, part 2

This is the second installment in my intermittent series poking fun at National Review Online's list of the 25 best "conservative" movies. Mostly, I am mocking the notion that there is a single unified "conservative" ideology anymore at all. Now, then, on to #6-10 (WARNING: Spoilers abound!):

6. Groundhog Day. I actually haven't seen this one, either (that's two so far), but I've certainly heard a lot about it. It's "conservative" cred apparently comes from its moral "that redemption and meaning are derived not from indulging your 'authentic' instincts and drives, but from striving to live up to external and timeless ideals." All I can think to say is duh. If you do anything enough times (as Bill Murray's character is forced to repeat the same day again and again ad nauseam), you're bound to either (a) go insane or (b) discover some deeper meaning to it all. This is hardly a viewpoint upon which "conservatives" hold a monopoly.

7. The Pursuit of Happyness. Long story short, single dad sacrifices everything to provide for his young son, and becomes a fantabulously successful stockbroker in the process, all during the Reagan administration. Possibly Will Smith's best performance ever, and it certainly does demonstrate the ostensibly "conservative" virtues of self-reliance, family values, and accumulation of wealth. I have a few bones to pick with NRO's analysis of the film, though:

• "[T]his film provides the perfect antidote to Wall Street and other Hollywood diatribes depicting the world of finance as filled with nothing but greed." Perhaps you missed the scene where Will Smith's character gets the idea to become a stockbroker from a man driving a Ferrari.
  
• "They’re black, but there’s no racial undertone or subtext." Except for the one you just created. Seriously, you already said it was a Will Smith movie, so why was this sentence necessary?
  
• "Gardner [Will Smith's character] is just an incredibly hard-working, ambitious, and smart man who wants to do better for himself and his son." Who takes an unpaid internship based on the dream of a Ferrari and the ability to solve a Rubik's Cube (see above YouTube link).

Those quibbles aside, this was a terrific movie. Certainly some liberties were taken with the facts, but the story ought to inspire anyone who sees it.
An amusing side note: after getting the job at Dean Witter, Gardner was then recruited to Bear Stearns.

8. Juno. Sigh. If this movie has any sort of anti-abortion message to it, it's really just one that viewers impose onto it. Juno's only stated reason for leaving the clinic is that it "smelled like a dentist's office." More importantly is the fact that Juno chose to leave the clinic after running a gauntlet of a single protester. The protester was more an object of satire in the film than anything about Juno's decision to seek an abortion. A common problem in the whole abortion debate is that people see it as only being two-sided: you oppose abortion rights, or you think it's all hunky-dory. I always thought "pro-choice" was a great choice of labels, because you can support the right to choose without actually liking the procedure itself. But back to the film: aside from the imposed "pro-life" meaning (and I hate that label for reasons I'll discuss some other time), the NRO reviewer doesn't have much nice to say about the movie: "The film has its faults, including a number of crass moments and a pregnant high-school student with an unrealistic level of self-confidence." Actually, I thought it pretty much depicted the teenage years as a series of crass moments. Juno is not a particularly realistic individual 16 year-old, but she is a pretty good cypher for a generalized teenage mindset: torn between all the various pressures and expectations of late childhood, and trying to maintain her own sense of self throughout it all, blah blah blah...point being, there is a lot more going on here than just a "pro-life" or "conservative" message. Finally, recall that the movie ends with the baby being adopted by a single mother. Yikes!

9. Blast from the Past. If you wanted evidence that "conservatives" have no sense of irony or satire, look no further. "Brendan Fraser plays an innocent who has grown up in a fallout shelter and doesn’t know the era of Sputnik and Perry Como is over. Alicia Silverstone is a post-feminist woman who learns from him that pre-feminist women had some things going for them." I haven't seen the film in a good long while, but I'm trying to imagine the two actors discussing the merits of Valium-addled '50s housewives versus Prozac-addled late-'90s career-driven mothers, etc., etc. It could be that I'm too cynical. Maybe I need a good dose of 1950's-era idealism! Well, it's sure a good thing I'm not a gay black communist woman--I hear the 1950's weren't so great for those groups. This is just the same tired old "conservative" cliche that there existed some mythical past when Everything Was Better, and modern society has somehow lost its way.

10. Ghostbusters. Really? Well, there was a very Reaganesque ethic to the movie, which I think is the sole basis for including it on this list: "[Y]ou have to like a movie in which the bad guy (William Atherton at his loathsome best) is a regulation-happy buffoon from the EPA, and the solution to a public menace comes from the private sector." Of course, the EPA buffoon as portrayed utterly failed to follow any of his own agency's procedures for information gathering, but that allowed Bill Murray to have a funny smackdown scene with him. The shutdown of the containment facility was a sterling depiction of Bush II-era disregard for the rule of law in the interest of national security (they had a warrant none of the Ghostbusters were allowed to see.) But seriously, my main concern with this movie's "conservative" creds arises from two facts: (1) a god not mentioned in the Bible tries to destroy the world, and (2) salvation is left to the New York National Guard and four snarky private contractors--four smart-asses defeating ultimate evil? That's what the movie is really about, and it's a little too timelessly awesome to just be "conservative."

Now for some video:

I triumphantly return to blogging by mocking the idea of "conservative" movies

It's not difficult to point out some movies that are decidedly "liberal," at least based on the overall tone and plot of the film. A few titles come to mind such as The American President and Dave, wherein Republican politicians receive their comeuppance by Democratic politicians or a likeable everyman character. For some reason, it seems harder to label a particular film "conservative," particularly using the present-day meanings of the words "liberal" and "conservative." Sometimes I think "liberal" ideas just make for better drama--stories of an underdog triumphing against the odds are much more compelling than stories of the struggle to remain abstinent or to retain one's tax cuts. I jest, somewhat, but the reason I'm even writing this is because I have been haunted for the past several days by the National Review Online's list of the 25 best "conservative" movies (h/t Chez Pazienza at HuffPo). What, you may ask, is a "conservative" movie? Well, in this case it refers to films "that offer compelling messages about freedom, families, patriotism, traditions, and more." With such a generic definition, this should be an entertaining list. Personally, I think it shows the utter bankruptcy of the very concept of a single "conservative" ideology in 2009 America. Cue the snark.

1. The Lives of Others. Beyond a doubt, this is one of my all-time favorite movies. Set in East Berlin in 1984, it tells the story of a Stasi spy assigned to snoop on a barely-tolerated subversive playwright, and how the spy comes to sympathize with the playwright's ideals and freedoms over the Communist system he has devoted his life to. Thinking that communism and totalitarianism suck is hardly the sole domain of "conservatives" anymore, though, so I hereby reclaim The Lives of Others for my fellow political independents.

2. The Incredibles. Another one of my favorite movies, said to "celebrate marriage, courage, responsibility, and high achievement." These are "conservative" values? I think someone missed the last 8 years.

3. Metropolitan. I haven't seen it, but it apparently involves a normal guy showing up a bunch of effete New York snobs. And that's really what conservatives are all about.

4. Forrest Gump. The title character is described as "an amiable dunce who is far too smart to embrace the lethal values of the 1960s." I suppose that is one way of interpreting it, but I got a rather strong anti-everything-stupid vibe from the movie, not just limited to hippies. Meh.

5. 300. Seriously. 300 is considered a conservative film. Beefcake in leather speedoes being fed into a meat grinder in the name of defending a society that kills unfit individuals at birth. It is worth noting that a major cause of the eventual smackdown they receive (aside from being horrifically outnumbered) is the betrayal of one of those "unfit" individuals who was allowed to live, and man was he pissed. I suppose the lesson is that freedom isn't free and must be defended at all costs, which is why so many College Republicans have volunteered to go to Iraq. Oh wait...

I think I'll have to make this a series of sorts, since I'm not going through all 25 in one sitting. Besides, I like to leave my reader(s) wanting more...

Why I'm sad the Olympics are over

No more Blanka Vlasic for the time being :(

Blanka Vlasic Osaka 2007
Uploaded by docteur23

I'll also miss moments like this:



Yeah, I'm a scumbag. I never claimed otherwise.

Never get into life-threatening danger in front of a geek

Especially a Star Wars geek:

Greatest. Summer movie idea. Ever.

90 minutes of this would be so much better than most anythingt Hollywood has to offer:



Throw in some ballet-dancing cyborg action, and you may just have the perfect movie:

Bald people kick alien/fascist ass

io9 has a bit on the most bad-ass bald people in scifi. I have to give props to Captain Picard for ultimate bad-assedness...



...but it was Captain Sisko who perfected the bald/goatee bad-ass look...



...and really, this is all just giving me naughty thoughts about Evey Hammond and Ellen Ripley...



...this is the wrong blog environment to go into those thoughts, though...

Voiceover fun

Presented for no reason whatsoever:

The chances of '70s disco coming from Mars...

Bad Astronomy Blog has a reminder of the awesomeness that is The War of the Worlds. The very first commenter to his post referenced the 1978 concept album, and another showed us where to find an addictive montage of '70s cheese and fake UFO pics:


The chances of anything coming from Mars - The best video clips are right here

You have to wait until about 6 minutes into the video to get to the hook: Once Richard Burton gets a break from narrating, Ogilvy the Astronomer gets a tenor solo (courtesy of Justin Hayward) about his opinion of the chances of life on Mars. My dad own(s)(ed) this opus on vinyl LP, and I recall many a weekend marveling at the artwork and not realizing how cheesy it all was. (True confession: I bought the CD's on sale at Waterloo in 2002.) I dare you to listen to the whole thing, though. It's catchy.

Does anyone else think...

...that this whole Miley Cyrus topless thing is some sort of publicity stunt? I mean, she's supposedly shocked, shocked and appalled at photographs for which she posed, probably for hours, but now she's all over the headlines. I for one, was only vaguely aware of media personalities by the names Miley Cyrus and Hannah Montana, but I didn't realize until this week they were the same person (or that Billy Ray Cyrus had procreated). But really, this is waaay more interesting than, say, the ongoing Iraq war, the reconsituted al-Qaeda force in Pakistan, or Russia and Georgia's brewing war in Abkhazia. Just to name a few yawners.

Acting shout-out: Todd Anderson in "North Country"

I watched the movie North Country this morning (h/t Netflix), a 2005 Oscar-baiting Charlize Theron film, and I have several salutes I have to make here.

First off, and obviously most importantly, it really is a pretty good film about the issue of sexual harassment, as well as how crappy it must be to work in an iron mine.

On a less-socially-conscious note, the film proves Carlize Theron is beautiful even with ridiculously-authentic '80s hair, and it offers a glimpse of hometown hottie Amber Heard in the undoubtedly-daunting role of a young (teenaged) Charlize Theron.

Really though, the point of this post is this: I must tip my hat generally to the grotesque depiction the film offers of the types of harassment the women had to endure, and specifically to Todd Anderson, who portrays a mine worker whose preferred method of harassment is to ejaculate into Michelle Monaghan's locker. I single out Mr. Anderson for his courage and fortitude, based on the fact that he may forever be known, thanks to the film's credits, as "Semen Man."

That has got to be hell on a resume.

Currency exchanges for the computer generation (and for foes of Ganon)

Maxim has finally provided me a means to understand the dire state of the American dollar: by comparing it to video game currencies (h/t CFLF)!!!!!



For example, $3 will get you one Hyrulian rupee, while $37,000 will get you a single coin from Super Marios Brothers. Check out the site for the methodology. It's amusing enough that you don't realize for a minute or two how depressing it is.

In support of redhead nudity

Me and my dang fetish.


FCC Okays Nudity On TV If It's Alyson Hannigan

Cognitive dissonance goes great with smut!

Get this: the Parents' Television Council, whose raison d'etre is to "to ensure that children are not constantly assaulted by sex, violence and profanity on television and in other media," posts what it considers to be the most-objectionable TV material on its website as "The Worst Cable Content of the Week" (h/t SexInt).

As of today, March 21, 2008, the "worst" recipient is FX's Nip/Tuck. A clip from the episode “Rachel Ben Natan” is posted, along with a play-by-play of the salacious bits, e.g.:

Receptionist Bettina performs oral sex on Christian as he reads his phone messages. Her head briefly pops up as he asks her a question. Christian grabs the back of her neck and shoves her face back into his crotch, just below camera range.

...

Bettina has sex with Christian on the couch. Both are clothed, though she leans back, displaying her cleavage.

...

Christian is shown having sex with Bettina from behind, as she kneels on his desk wearing a bra and panties.

Bettina: "God, you're in great shape!"

Christian spanks her.

...

Christian has sex with Bettina who is lying on a desk wearing only a bra on top. She answers the phone while having sex. He buries his face in her breasts.

...

Bettina lies on the couch, her legs over Christian's shoulders as they have sex. Both are naked. No breasts or genitals are seen. Both scream as they climax.

Shortly after they’ve finished, Christian fires Bettina for mispronouncing Julia's name.

I guess if there's gonna be a bombardment of smut anyway, it might as well come from a "parents' advocacy group.

Must be somewhere between Georgia and Azerbaijan

Weirdest thing I've seen all week (h/t to Jesus' General):

The song that's haunting me this week

I recently discovered this song, "Cassie," by Belton, TX-based Flyleaf, courtesy of Pandora.



Even after reading the lyrics (kind of a cheat, I know), I'm still puzzled by the song. It's probably about suicide:

Do you believe in God
Written on the bullet
Say yes to pull the trigger
Do you believe in God
Written on the bullet
And Cassie pulled the trigger

But then again, maybe I'm just imposing a cliche on the song. Regardless, it's catchy and I thought I'd share.

Remembering the greatest nerd of all time

Sir Arthur C. Clarke, hero and icon to nerds and geeks alike, passed away today at the age of 90. I have been a fan since I first saw 2001 at the age of 7 or 8, and an admirer since I read Childhood's End and Rendezvous with Rama at the age of 13.



In addition to being a screenwriter and prolific author, he also first thought up quite a few things we find commonplace nowadays:

Clarke also was credited with the concept of communications satellites in 1945, decades before they became a reality. Geosynchronous orbits, which keep satellites in a fixed position relative to the ground, are called Clarke orbits.

His non-fiction volumes on space travel and his explorations of the Great Barrier Reef and Indian Ocean earned him respect in the world of science, and in 1976 he became an honorary fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics.

I'm also a big fan of Clarke's Three Laws:

1. When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.
   
2. The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.
   
3. Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

I'm not sure there can be as fertile an imagination as his anytime soon. I hope the first people to venture beyond the moon do so at least partly in his honor. I'll bid him farewell with a little Also Sprach Zarathustra:



See you out there in the universe, Sir Clarke.

When times were simpler...and bubblier

I did not watch the Superbowl, as I don't particularly care about the Giants, the Patriots, the NFL, or the game of football all that much. I also no longer find the commercials all that entertaining--the secret formula is out, and there is really no way to surprise us anymore.

Still, it is worth remembering the glory days, when Superbowl ads were unusual and edgy, and the idea of a ".com" company held endless promise. I think this was from the 2000 Superbowl:



At least E*Trade survived the crash, abeit with some problems.

CP the video star!

I have a post up at one of my sister sites about my infintessimally brief stint as a music video extra. Just so you know.

24, '94-style

Volokh Conspiracy has the scoop on the original pilot for "24", dating back to 1994, when AOL ruled the 'net and savvy government agents carried pagers.