I've always thought of Stephen Spielberg as what George Lucas would have turned out to be had he not gone money-hungry and power-mad. Where George Lucas was introduced to the Wonderful World of Merchandising through Star Wars and his foresight to retain licensing rights, Spielberg never had a really huge cash-cow franchise to tempt him off the path of artistry and on to the path of Jar-Jar Binks.
It is not a path I would wish upon anyone.
Sure, Stephen Spielberg's had his missteps: Hook (FUCK YOU) and The Lost World: Jurassic Park come to mind. But after Raiders of the Lost Ark, or after Jurassic Park, he could have stayed content to direct schlock. While it must be said that he's no different than Lucas in terms of making shitstacks of money off the movies he's directed, he's never totally "sold out".
I cannot express in words how cool it is that he comes with THE MILK. THE MILK!!
PS, if you're reading this blog, and haven't seen Léon: The Professional, go out. Watch it. You'll thank me. Fun fact: the director of The Fifth Element made Léon while waiting for the special effects and post-production to finish on Element.
Hoo boy...you know, a lot of things have been happening lately that are conspiring to make me feel old. First of all, there's this:
It also occurs to me that I was born before the fall of the Berlin Wall, which might as well have been a hundred years ago.
But truly, nothing makes me feel older than looking at new technology and remembering the days of VHS and video stores...going in, picking one out, wearing that shit out watching it as many times as I could, then having to REWIND it before physically dropping it back off at the store.
Or remembering when a fucking 20 gigabyte hard drive seemed like more than enough...and when the fact that videogames had graphics in 3D was blowing our fragile gamer minds.
Hell, I remember the StarTAC. Anybody remember that one?
Later models included StarTAC: The NACxt Generation.
This Best Buy circular is like that treasure room at the end of National Treasure. You've vaguely heard of the stuff in here, but most of it is unrecognizable. And it all looks horribly dated now (the "Macarena!", mostly), but back then, this stuff was cutting edge (except for the "Macarena!").
I think the thing that surprises me most are the $2400 computers. Man, and people bitch about Apple NOW...
Ohhh, William Shatner. He tweeted this interview in which he explains that Star Trek was superior to Star Wars, listing, among other advantages, that Star Wars was "derivative" of Star Trek:
Now, I will say this: Star Wars is derivative of almost everything else (including, in the prequels, itself), but one thing it is NOT derivative of is Star Trek. I think people like to fight about these two because they're simply the two biggest kids on the sci-fi block. But it's like fighting about Ghostbusters vs. Back to the Future. Sure, they're arguably the two biggest sci-fi comedies of the 80's. But they cater to different sensibilities...different senses of humor, and exhibit different themes and styles of storytelling.
Similarly, I've always felt that Star Trek and Star Wars are just built differently, for different people, and that fighting about which one is "better" is just silly. Star Trek might have come first, but Star Wars is no less valid for coming later, and Star Trek is no less influential, despite being sometimes overshadowed by Star Wars' influence on the movie industry.
For me, the thing that allows me to separate the two and my love (or passive-aggressive longing for earlier iterations) for them is that they're really not in the same genre at all. Star Trek is science fiction, and Star Wars is science fantasy.
God. He's gone too far this time. Zuckerberg's like Stalin, revising Facebook, not telling anyone, then acting as if nothing's changed. What is the latest unparalleled atrocity?
I guess he's doing some kind of augmented reality deal, but these new "like" and "dislike" buttons just strike me as completely cumbersome and impossible to use:
I mean, REALLY. How does he expect us to use this without, ONE, getting ink all over our computers, and TWO, without mucking up the real world in blue ink!? Granted, our ability to "like" is no longer limited to things on the interwebs. I'll give him that. But it just seems like it's asking for mad "liking" sprees across the face of reality.
And "disliking" things IRL? You'd better hope that ink isn't permanent...it would be like some kind of 21st-century Scarlet Letter. "Disliked" once, and EVERYONE can still see the fateful letters splayed across your skin...or your business...or your dog.
Anyway, I guess now that I think about it, it has some benefits, but I just really liked the previous Facebook iteration more. Call me old-fashioned.
But let's just thank our lucky stars that these "like" and "dislike" stamps are the only new Facebook changes. Because otherwise, there would be HELL TO PAY. I would definitely use one of these stamps to DISlike it. Actually...now that I'm thinking about it, they're sounding better and better...
Mash-ups, man. I don't know what it is about this time period, but we're full of them. The good ones are clever, or funny, or pay loving homage, but the BEST ones transcend the original source materials into something new and wondrous. Something you never thought would happen, but you're so glad it did.
That's why I love this hhhhuuuuge remix of 39 different songs by Madeon. It shouldn't work. It should be a train wreck, if the trains were full of live chickens and fireworks. But its not...it's just awesome. Check it out:
It's a gangbang. With one cheerleader and 6 football players. Man...fuck your pom-pom shit...just give 'em a gangbang and they'll be RARIN' TO GO for the big game.
And apparently it was entirely consensual. Which means either that girl is a fuckin' FREEEEAK or she's lying out of fear of the football players. Either way, I'm not sure if this news story is arousing or just hilarious...
But one thing that isn't either is the fact that the school's administration made the team forfeit that week's game. It gives me tremendous delight to imagine stuffy, small-town bureaucrats thinking: "Hhhuhhnnh, that'll teach those boys to fill up every hole she had! And she still probably had a dick in each hand to boot!"
Part of me wants to say that this situation is simply too freaky to get angry about. Part of me is angry that despite the sex being (I can't capitalize "allegedly" enough, so I won't try) consensual, the team was still punished for it.
And part of me wants to know just how the hell that girl is feeling.
I've spoken before about my love for TV Tropes on this blog. It is The Abyss in every sense of the word...you gaze into it, and are lost for all of time. Seriously...hit "Random" once on that site and you're hooked.
But one of the more maddening tropes, that infects modern day Hollywood and media in general, is that Viewers Are Morons. It's a commonly held perception in Hollywood that one can never underestimate the intelligence of viewers, and certainly there's support for it if you look at the grosses of Michael Bay movies.
The top-grossing being, "Who Wants To Set Back Civil Rights 20 Years?"
Unfortunately, the idea that Viewers Are Morons is particularly prevalent in American media. And don't bloody pretend it isn't...I've read far to much IMDB trivia about the making of the movie, where executives went, "its a good movie, but what about TITS?" There are exceptions, but unfortunately, the higher-ups in entertainment tend to play the odds.
That's this trailer for Indonesian action movie The Raid:
Every frame is like a fucking cluster fragmentation rocket grenade, exploding your eyes full of red-hot razor-sharp ACTION. This trailer gives guns ERECTIONS.
And I think it's about time we had a ball-busting, hole-fucking, rip-roaring hip-shooting old-fucking-school action movie to teach the current crop how it's done. Hint: REAL STUNTS.
Because when I start a column of underrated movies, I don't fuck around.
MacGruber could easily be confused for a war crime. It's a Saturday Night Live movie, for example, and its humor is about as crass and offensive as you can get.
But it just might be the fucking funniest thing I have ever seen.
It's not for everyone, to be sure. It's a movie where the lead character comes up with "a little distraction" for some henchmen by shoving celery up his ass and strutting out naked in front of them making bird noises. Its humor is more 4chan than Blazing Saddles. But by God, I laughed harder at MacGruber than at any movie since Superbad. And (dare I say it?) I think it's actually smarter than most people give it credit for.
So, as an edit to my recent post on the sexual habits of pirate Rangers, I have to point out that he is not doing The Shocker as I originally feared/hoped/realized. He is doing what I can only describe as The Sex Ender, because if you try putting two fingers in a girl's bum, you'll find your bed empty real fast.
So, I was perusing Hobby Link Japan, one of my favorite websites for Gundam models and other Japanese collectibles. Annnd I came across this figure, from the newest Japanese incarnation of Power Rangers (known as Super Sentai in Japan). The picture that displays with the figure reveals something rather shocking:
Did you spot it?
Hint: he's giving The Shocker. With his fingers. That's why I said "shocking". Up there, before I posted the picture. Alluding to-
Anyway, the series is apparently pirate-themed. And I like how Wikipedia says, "...and as the 35th anniversary series, the protagonists have access to the powers of the previous 34 Super Sentai teams." Like...fucking, of course they do. Why wouldn't they? All 35th incarnations of things do.
Power Rangers plus pirates is a gold mine waiting to be unearthed. Just gonna put this out there, though, I would totally watch a Power Rangers porn parody where they could only defeat villains with liberal application of The Shocker.
