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...
