TV And Films

The shows and movies I like (or don’t).

Monty Python’s Lord of the Rings

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One of my favorite old pre-web ‘net institutions was the Internet Oracle. You’d send a message off to the Oracle, and the Oracle would answer your question. In return, you’d have to answer a later question someone else had sent to the Oracle, thus becoming the Oracle yourself. Not very surprisingly, in-jokes, puns, and general absurdity are highly prized when crafting Oracle answers.

I’d more or less forgotten about the Oracle until Phil dropped a link to the Internet Oracle website into my del.icio.us inbox today.

Immediately, I went to the most recent “best of the Oracle” digest (I used to have a whole collection of their “best of” digests), and found this gem:

The Internet Oracle has pondered your question deeply. Your question was:

Oh Oracle most amazing wonderful, I grovel before your sheer brilliance
and wit, whose puns not even Noel Coward on his best day could have
matched,

What is a good question to ask you?

And in response, thus spake the Oracle:

You know, last time someone asked me this, I suggested asking about
Monty Python’s Lord of the Rings. And I fobbed them off because they
hadn’t asked that. So to make up for it, and because you groveled so
nicely, here it is.

Aragorn: I am the rightful King of Gondor!
Woman: Well, I didn’t vote for you.
A: You don’t vote for kings.
W: How’d you get to be king then?
A: I am the descendant through sixty generations, father to son, of
Elendil of Numenor. Here is Anduril, the Sword that was Broken, and
is now reforged!
Dennis: Inheriting a three-thousand-year-old bit of tin from your
great-grandad is no basis for a system of government.
A: Be quiet!
D: I mean, if I went round saying I was Lord of Moria because I owned a
rusty hatchet, they’d lock me up!
A: Shut up!
D: Ah! See the violence inherent in the system! Help! I’m being
repressed!
A: Bloody peasant!

How to Recognize Different Ents From Quite A Long Way Away

Number One: The Larch.

Gimli: Is Ori here?
Orc: No.
G: Is Fror?
O: No.
G: Nali?
O: Dead.
G: Loni?
O: Gone.
G: Floi?
O: No.
G: Are there in fact any dwarves left in Moria at all?
O: No. I was deliberately wasting your time.
G: I see. In that case I’m afraid I’m going to have to cut your head
off.
O: Fair enough.

Number One: The Larch.

Aragorn: Now stand aside!
Lurtz: That’s just a scratch.
A: I cut your arm off!
L: No you didn’t!
A: What’s that, then?
L: Just a flesh wound.
A: Fine. [chops Lurtz’s other arm off] Victory is mine!
L: Come on! Have at you!
A: You’ve got no arms, you stupid orc!
L: Yes, I have!
A: Look!
L: I’ve had worse.
A: I don’t have time for this. [cuts Lurtz’s head off]
L: Oh? Call it a draw.

Number One: The Larch.

Gandalf: How long is it since Saruman bought you?
Wormtongue: Gee, I didn’t expect a kind of Orcish Inquisition.
[The doors of the hall burst open, and three Uruk-Hai enter.]
Ugluk: NOBODY expects the Orcish Inquisition! Our chief weapon is
surprise. Surprise and fear, our two main weapons. Our two main
weapons, surprise, fear, and an almost fanatical devotion to Saruman.
THREE main weapons, surprise, fear, nice black uniforms… I’ll come
in again.

Number Four: The Bristlecone Pine.

Bridge keeper: Who would cross the Bridge of Death must answer me
these questions three, ere the other side he see.
Frodo: Ask me the questions. I am not afraid.
BK: What… is your name?
FB: Frodo Baggins.
BK: What… is your quest?
FB: To destroy the One Ring!
BK: What… is your favourite colour?
FB: Blue!
BK: Right. Off you go.
Sam: That’s easy!
BK: What… is your name?
SG: Samwise Gamgee.
BK: What… is your quest?
SG: To destroy the One Ring.
BK: What… is the capital of Assyria?
SG: [pause] A!
BK: Smart-arse. Go along, then.
Gollum: Ask us!
BK: What… is your name?
G: We’s Smeagol!
BK: What… is your quest?
G: To get the Precious!
BK: What… have I got in my pocket?
G: [pause] We don’t know that! Aiieeee!

You owe the Oracle a picture of Rohan’s army banging coconut halves
together.

Dear Sir,
I wish to complain in the strongest terms about the preceding answer.
It was nothing but a series of rehashed sketches with a few choice
words added. Yours, Arthur Philip Dent (Mrs), deep fine leg, Norfolk.

Dear Sir,
I never wanted to write this oracularity anyway. I wanted to be a
LUMBERJACK!

Colonel: Stop that! It’s silly!

iTunes “Dream Baby (Nocturnal)” by My Life With the Thrill Kill Kult from the album Sexplosion! (1992, 7:05).

Vidal on Oscars and Politics

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One of these days I’m actually going to start reading more of Gore Vidal’s work, as each time I’ve run across him (beginning with his role as the Democratic incumbent facing down up and coming right-winger Bob Roberts in Tim Robbins’ excellent political satire), I’ve found him fascinating and incredibly intelligent.

There’s a two part interview with Vidal in TruthDig conducted just before the Oscars that has some wonderful quips in it. Part one looks primarily at the then-upcoming Oscars:

If [Brokeback Mountain] were to win an Oscar, would it be a step forward in tolerance? How important is Hollywood in this equation?

Well, it never has been, and I don’t see why it should be suddenly now. That it was made at all and that it was made so honestly and so well is a good thing, better than to make a mess out of it, or not try at all….

Look, homophobia is fed into every child in the United States at birth. It is unrelenting, it never lets up. They asked a whole raft of high school boys across the country a couple years ago, one of those polls about what they would most like to be in life, and what … they would hate to be, and so forth, and what they would most hate to be was homosexual.

There wasn’t anyone, not one, who just skipped the question. They all said “oh no, that’s the worst thing you could be.”

To get over that training, that’s generation after generation. And it has not done the character of our nation much good. And that’s why we are a joke to the rest of the world, because we carry on about sexual matters everyone else has forgotten about.

Part two concentrates on more political matters:

This is old news now, but in terms of terrorism, there was a lot of protest against the Palestinian Oscar nominee, “Paradise Now,” with a 36,000-person petition to get the film dropped from the roster because it sympathized with “terrorists.”

Never forget there are 1 billion Muslims on Earth. The United States is far too small a country to play big boss – and now far too insolvent a country; we have no revenues, we can’t repair our own infrastructure, much less rebuild the cities that we’ve just knocked down in the Middle East. I think we should learn a little modesty, we’re not number one! At invoking terrorism, yes, we’re pretty good at provoking people to hate us. In fact we’ve been quite successful at that. But we live in a small country, a vulnerable country, a country with no defenses, only “homeland security.” But there’s no true security here – anyone can do anything he wants and will!

Right, so now we have these proposals to build a wall on the Texas/Mexico border, to fill in the tunnels….

Oh it’s just Looney Time, but you see, we have no educational system for the general public. If you come from a well-to-do family, you get a fairly good education, but you get a lot of propaganda along with it. And we have a media that is quite poisonous and only echoes what the administration—and corporate America, which owns the administration—wants us to hear. So the average person has no information, or what he has is so distorted. How can he make up his mind intelligently on any subject?

(via Slog)

iTunes “Metal on Metal” by Kraftwerk from the album Industrial Revolution, 2nd Edition (1977, 3:18).

Ultraviolet is, apparently, Ultrastupid

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Milla Jovovich’s latest film, which I babbled about a couple weeks ago, has opened without advance review screenings (never a good sign). Now that a reviewer has been able to see it…looks like this one is going to be a renter.

Another Friday, another abominable movie that wasn’t screened for critics before it opens.

…it’s called “Ultraviolet.” […] It is overstyled, deafening and incoherent.

Violet…brawls with government thugs, twists and flips through the air in slow motion — something we’ve all seen so many times before — dodges bullets and fires off untold amounts of her own. Watching scene after scene of her taking on dozens of men at once, with techno music pounding in the background, quickly becomes repetitive. It’s also dreadfully self-serious, with none of the self-knowing sense of humor that made similar sequences in the “Kill Bill” movies so much more fun.

“Ultraviolet” wants desperately to be a provocative, high-concept action thriller. It apparently is trying to say something about fear and terrorism, paranoia and racism. But it looks more like a shampoo commercial.

Can’t say that I’m surprised, though it’s a bit of a bummer. The trailer looked quite pretty…but apparently, that’s about all that Ultraviolet has going for it.

I’ll still probably rent it, though. C’mon — Milla kicking butt can’t be all bad, right? ;)

iTunes “Mercury and Solace” by BT from the album Movement in Still Life (2000, 5:06).

On Coining Euphemisms

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Just a quick word of advice.

When deciding to coin a euphemism, one might want to find out if the phrase in question has already been appropriated for something else.

For example, this discussion in the Flickr Battlestar Galactica group:

spincycle: “…I do think we’ll be getting back to an Adama-Laura conflict/resolution story fairly soon (either this season or early next). They’ve been chummy lately, time to toss that salad a bit.”

Gaudior: “I’d like to see them ‘toss the salad’ (my new euphamism)!”

Hee. I’m amused.

For those not in the know, ‘toss the salad’ is already a euphemism for a particular sex act. Here’s a slightly Not Safe For Work definition (no nudity, just text descriptions of a non-mainstream kink).

iTunes “Del Davis Tree Farm” by Primus from the album Tales from the Punchbowl (1996, 3:23).

Name Five…

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Prairie bounced into the room this morning as I was scanning headlines while I woke up. “Quick — name all the members of the Simpsons,” she said.

“Um…Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa, Maggie.”

“Now — what are the five rights given by the first amendment?”

“…um. Oh. Heh…that’s not good. Let’s see,” I fumbled. “Freedom of speech, religion, freedom to assemble….”

She grinned. “That’s three.”

Kind of a sad commentary, isn’t it? At least I’m not alone.

Americans apparently know more about “The Simpsons” than they do about the First Amendment.

Only one in four Americans can name more than one of the five freedoms guaranteed by the First Amendment (freedom of speech, religion, press, assembly and petition for redress of grievances.) But more than half can name at least two members of the cartoon family, according to a survey.

The study by the new McCormick Tribune Freedom Museum found that 22 percent of Americans could name all five Simpson family members, compared with just one in 1,000 people who could name all five First Amendment freedoms.

For the record, here’s the First Amendment to the Constitution:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

iTunes “What the Hell” by Radioactive Goldfish from the album Rhythm and Rave (1992, 3:16).

BSG on the iTMS followup

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Just a quick followup to my post comparing Battlestar Galactica downloads via Bittorrent and via the iTMS: according to MacRumors, recent BSG episodes are appearing in an uncropped widescreen ratio.

Of course, the resolution is still aimed solely at iPods, but I’m running out of ways to rationalize snagging the free-but-technically-illegal Bittorrent downloads rather than the cheap-and-legal iTMS downloads. This is a good thing (except for my bank account)!

iTunes “Music Reach (1/2/3/4)” by Prodigy, The from the album Prodigy Experience, The (1992, 4:12).

The End of the Countdown

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Two quick things regarding Lost:

  1. I’m afraid I didn’t bother with the usual recap of the last two episodes. I’ve been at work ’til 10pm on Wednesdays lately, so I just watched both of them back-to-back, and…well, I just didn’t feel like doing that. I doubt anyone’s heartbroken, but just in case…sorry!

  2. Oh, sure, the timer runs out…and then you just get to reset it again anyway? What a gyp!

I’m still really curious about the hieroglyphs, though.

Lost Heiroglyphs

iTunes “Blue Suit Boogie” by Indigo Swing from the album All Aboard! (1998, 3:53).

The IT Crowd

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Cory’s right — The IT Crowd is great.

Creator Graham Linehan has produced a cast of characters who exemplify everything I loved about Father Ted: complete, over-the-top silliness, likable villainy, and great comic foolishness. The setup for the show is as silly as Father Ted’s: two IT geeks in the basement of a large, abusive corporation get a new boss, a woman who lied about her IT experience on her resume. What follows isn’t funny because of its intricate plotting, but because of its willingness to lard absurdity on absurdity, so that each episode gets progressively weirder as it progresses (for example, in episode two, there’s a screamingly funny running gag about a fire that’s broken out in the basement, which has to be hidden from the abusive CEO when he comes down to check on everyone’s morale).

British humor and geek jokes (lots of ’em, too, from Flying Spaghetti Monster posters to RTFM t-shirts to EFF ‘Fair Use Has a Posse‘ stickers…essentially the entire set dressing) combined. Bonus points for basing the theme song off of Gary Numan‘s ‘Are Friends Electric?“, too. Fire up your bittorrent clients and enjoy!

iTunes “Are Friends Electric?” by Information Society from the album Darkest Hour, The (1997, 4:27).

Ultraviolet

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UltravioletI’m trying to figure out what this movie‘s about, or why it’s been made. I can only come up with a few possibilities:

So: Leeloo + Trinity + Selene = Violet?

Or, to put it another way: Milla Jovovich + tight outfits + promising effects + promising action = my ass is in the theatre. ;)

(Random, only semi-related trivia: In The Fifth Element, Leeloo’s full name is Leelouminai Lakatari Bali Minouchai Ekbat de Sabat [the spelling may not be precise, but I’ve done my best]. I actually took the time to learn that, so that at any given moment, I can let Leeloo’s full name come rolling off my tongue. Why? Why not?)