TV And Films

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

Friday Five

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This is one of those ‘net memes that has been going on for quite a while now. Figured I’d go ahead and jump on the bandwagon.

  1. What is your favorite scary movie?

    I have such a hard time with ‘favorite’ lists — narrowing any category down to a single entry is damn near impossible. The first ones that pop into my head, though, are The Blair Witch Project, Alien, and Something Wicked This Way Comes.

  2. What is your favorite Halloween treat?

    Candy corn, definitely. Love that stuff.

  3. Do you dress up for Halloween? If so, describe your best Halloween costume.

    I haven’t in years, but I think the best I ever had was ‘The Blue Beetle’, when I was a kid. We got a blue snowsuit, and mom sewed an extra pair of arms onto it, connected to my arms with string, so that they moved with mine. I couldn’t tell you anymore where we came up with the idea for the costume, or even whether or not it had antennae, or anything else — but the costume, and especially the arms, has stuck in my brain for years afterwards, so I must have been pretty impressed by it back then.

  4. Do you enjoy going to haunted houses or other spooky events?

    Something else I haven’t done in years. I had fun going to them with friends a few times, but I think they lost their luster after a while. How many times can you walk down a dark corridor, waiting for someone to jump out and yell “BOO!” before it starts to get boring?

  5. Will you dress up for Halloween this year?

    It’s not looking like it. Again. Someday I’ll get back into it…

(Thanks to the Friday Five)

Two Towers protest

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This just might be the single stupidest thing I’ve seen in a very long time. A group of people have put up a website protesting the title of the next Lord of the Rings movie, “The Two Towers”, because, “The name of this movie will undoubtedly cause a return of the emotions felt on Sept 11th which left so many people in the nation feeling stunned and in a state of shock.”

From their FAQ:

The movie is intentionally being named The Two Towers in order to capitalize on the tragedy of September 11. Clearly, you cannot deny the fact that this falls under hate speech. We believe that if they will not willingly change the name, the government should step in to stop the movie’s production or to force a name change.

Just amazing.

Why movies are bad

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Most movies seem to follow the following formula to success:

  1. Hire big actors for the gross national product of a small nation
  2. Spend another few GNP on special effects
  3. Give a wino in the parking lot 5 bucks and a slightly used cigarette for a script

— substrate, on MeFi

Animatrix

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What is the Animatrix?

Well, okay, so my first answer would probably involve something along the lines of Betty Page making a cameo in a Roger Rabbit cartoon. But that’d be wrong.

Animatrix screen grabIt’s actually the title of a DVD coming out sometime in 2003, where (as far as I can tell from the trailer) nine stories set in the universe of The Matrix will be told using various styles of animation. Sounds cool, and quite a few of the shots in the trailer are little short of mindblowing. Certainly seems to be worth keeping an eye out for, in any case.

Theologian of the Year

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I’d be interested to hear what Dad thinks of this link — ‘The Door’ magazine (who I don’t know anything about at all) chooses their Theologian of the Year:

Perilous times call for bold theology.

Let’s face it. Evil is running rampant. Terrorists strike without warning. Corporate executives defraud the public and their own employees. Politicians tear apart the fabric of national unity for their own agendas. Popular culture has become a banal river of unadulterated trash, a “hellmouth” slowly dumbing down our sense of reality. The people are paralyzed by indecision, ennui or terminal cynicism.

Meanwhile, the ozone layer is perforated, glaciers are melting, and crazies set wildfires that denude the landscape. While Generation X passes the baton to Generation Y, adolescence is still hell, AND THERE’S ONLY ONE LETTER LEFT!

We need someone who can not only deconstruct the problem of evil, but kick it’s hiney; someone with a preternatural sense of comic timing and an eye for fashion.

We need Buffy.

Dad (along with other people) has been telling me for a while just how good of a show ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’ really is. One of these days I may need to see if I can rent the DVD season sets and start working my way through it. Neat article, though.

Incidentally, The Door looks like it may be an interesting site to explore — from their ‘About The Door Magazine‘ page:

We satirize something we love — the Church, and more generally people of faith — with the hope that our prodding might generate some course corrections while inducing a laugh or two…or three.

The basis for The Door‘s mission is a scriptural injunction to mock idolatry. The prophet Elijah did it best, during his contest with the priests of Baal. But an expanded discussion is found in the Talmud, that compendium of Jewish oral traditions that we find a continuing source of light on New Testament understanding. The rabbinic teachers said Israel was forbidden to mock or jeer anyone or anything except idolatry. The prescribed epithet was, “Take your idol and put it under your buttocks!”

fCon

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Okies — so a while back I babbled about the Tron DVD, and included a link to www.tronkillerapp.com — which appeared to be the beginnings of a promotional site for the rumored Tron 2.0 movie.

Well, tonight I stopped by the site again, and things have changed — a lot. Things are looking very interesting, too. Using a combination of a Flash presentation and a downloadable screensaver, there’s a little bit of backstory being presented.

Apparently a company called fCon has bought ENCOM (the company from the orignal Tron film), and nobody’s entirely sure why — but there are some hackers doing their best to find out. They’ve managed to intercept a few voice mail messages that you can listen to, and even found some very interesting images that can be viewed (18 in the on-site Flash presentation, 10 more in the screensaver). I’ve gotta say, things are looking pretty nice, and I’m definitely looking forward to this coming out.

The work on fCon is hilarious, too. At the site, you can get a little bit of background information on fCon…

fCon is dedicated to creating and controlling the future we know you want. Even if you don’t know it yet, don’t worry. Because we do. And we are committed to making our dream a reality.

…you can check out their privacy policy…

Should you decide to register with fCon, rest assured that any personal information we gather from you will be used for our purposes only, and at no time will any third party involvement occur*.

  • “Third party involvement” refers specifically to fCon competitors. Partners, vendors, and other companies that have established a reasonably good faith relationship with fCon (as determined by our senior executives) are clearance eligible for member information on a case by case basis.

…and, of course, you can register for more information…

Just follow these simple instructions to register with fCon (and prove to our Executive Board of Senior Information Executives that you are adept at following simple instructions).

…and it’s all presented like that. Wonderfully condescending — gee, I wonder who they could be poking fun at?

Needless to say, I signed up. ;) This should be entertaining. Sounds like the rumors of the MCP’s demise have been greatly exaggerated…

Top 25 lines from Star Wars…

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…that are improved by substituting the word “pants”:

  1. A tremor in the pants. The last time I felt this was in the presence of my old master.
  2. You are unwise to lower your pants.
  3. We’ve got to be able to get some reading on those pants, up or down.
  4. She must have hidden the plans in her pants. Send a detachment down to retrieve them. See to it personally Commander.
  5. These pants may not look like much, kid, but they’ve got it where it counts.
  6. I find your lack of pants disturbing.
  7. These pants contain the ultimate power in the Universe. I suggest we use it.
  8. Han will have those pants down. We’ve got to give him more time!
  9. General Veers, prepare your pants for a surface assault.
  10. I used to bulls-eye womp-rats in my pants back home.
  11. TK-421…why aren’t you in your pants?
  12. Lock the door. And hope they don’t have pants.
  13. Governor Tarkin. I recognized your foul pants when I was brought on board.
  14. You look strong enough to pull the pants off of a Gundark.
  15. Luke…help me take…these pants off.
  16. Great, Chewie, great. Always thinking with your pants.
  17. That blast came from those pants. That thing’s operational!
  18. Don’t worry. Chewie and I have gotten into a lot of pants more heavily guarded than this.
  19. Maybe you’d like it back in your pants, your highness.
  20. Your pants betray you. Your feelings for them are strong. Especially for your sister!
  21. Jabba doesn’t have time for smugglers who drop their pants at the first sign of an Imperial Cruiser.
  22. Yeah, well short pants is better than no pants at all, Chewie.
  23. Attention. This is Lando Calrissean. The Empire has taken control of my pants, I advise everyone to leave before more troops arrive.
  24. I cannot teach him. The boy has no pants.
  25. You came in those pants? You’re braver than I thought.

Thanks to Demented Kitty

Ascii-pr0n!

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Deep ASCIIOkay, sure, so I’ll freely admit that i’ve been curious about seeing Deep Throat for a long time. Somehow, I never thought that my first chance would be through the magic of ASCII animation! Curiously engrossing, I’ve got to admit.

Also of note: asciipr0n.com, a collection of ASCII-generated pinups, nudes, and artwork. I remember being at mom’s office years and years ago, discovering, and printing out some of these on the office computer system — it gave me no end of amusement, though I’m not sure what either she or her coworkers thought of me stumbling across them…!

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