Whack It

Jeremy loves the Married to the Sea comics but I must say they are rather hit-or-miss for me. I found this particular one to be a definite hit:

Well That Is Just Appalling

Old Guy Music

I'm certainly no Rolling Stones fan, but "Gimme Shelter" is a kickass tune.

Another Missed Opportunity [updated]

Spoiler Alert: You probably shouldn't read this if you haven't seen the new Indiana Jones film yet

Let's get this right out of the way. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is not good. It's not all bad, but it's not good. The only thing it really has going for it is nostalgia. The script is extremely weak sauce and there are a number of instances that are so over-the-top that I was forced to hang my head in shame. Now I'll go ahead and rant about some specifics...

• What was with that opening scene? Hot rod kids playing chicken with some military dudes in a truck that ultimately meant nothing. This is Steven friggin Spielberg, here. I expect a memorable opening.
• The atomic bomb/refrigerator scene was just stupid. It was unnecessary and way too over the top. Indy is a tough guy for sure, but he's not fucking invincible.
• The lowest point for me had to be Shia's vine-swinging-with-monkeys scene. Just completely ludicrous. I don't even want to continue talking about it, I'm so disgusted.
• Cate Blanchett's character was unrealized. They hinted that she was some sort of psychic at the beginning but then never really followed through with that. She was a chick with a sword and an accent who was kinda greedy, I guess.
• Special effects can certainly be used to enhance a film and its storytelling. This is evident in a film like, say, Transformers, which really needs big special effects to pull off the necessary visuals. The scale of giant fighting robots is simply too massive to recreate in reality. But this means we are now in an age where computer effects are an easy alternative to practical ones and this is unfortunate in the case of Crystal Skull. The intensity of scenes is lessened by the fact that we can tell it's not real danger. The best action scene in the movie was the motorcycle chase because there were no effects. It was stunt men doing real stunts in a real setting. I really think that CGI should only be used when no other alternative is available. Remember how you felt when Indy was being chased by the boulder in Raiders or when he was on that rickety rope bridge in Temple of Doom? Yeah, there's nothing like that here.
• The supporting characters weren't handled well, either. Mack was too flip-floppy in his motivations to make logical sense and John Hurt's character was pretty useless overall.
• The script sucked, to be blunt. It was convoluted at times; too talky at other times. It wasn't clever. There were a lot of references to the previous movies in there but you can't rest a film on that alone. And, as is the case with most David Koepp scripts, the movie really degrades after the second act.
• Aliens and spaceships in an Indiana Jones movie? No thank you. The supernatural stuff from the original movies was fun but this is just too much. Plus, everything was so muddled in its presentation that I simply wasn't made to care. There were 13 alien skeletons that became one whole, living alien somehow. There was a portal that went somewhere I guess. It all felt lazy and out of place in Indy's world.

So after all that ranting, here are some things I liked. It was good seeing Indiana Jones again. Harrison Ford was still able to pull the character off and it was fun seeing him kick butt again after all these years. It was also nice seeing Marion again. I liked the motorcycle chase scene through campus and (most) of the government warehouse scene. I liked hearing the music again. It wasn't as bad as the Star Wars prequels.


Think I'm off-base here? Feel free to leave a comment.

[update] just found this great article discussing many of the problems I had with Indy 4.

The Elephant In The Room

Thanks for your support, you withered old fuck.

Out In Front

The Japanese Office

This is pretty funny if you're a fan of The Office. If you're not a fan of The Office, you have my pity.

SNL Office Japanese Version
Uploaded by yutming

I Will Never Be This Ambitious

MUTO a wall-painted animation by BLU from blu on Vimeo.

(Props to Greg for sharing this freaking amazing video.)

A Ron Burgundy Interview

Why Is Stephen Colbert So Awesome?

The Best & Worst Movie Moms

In honor of Mother's Day...

THE BEST

Helen Parr (aka Elastigirl)
Holly Hunter in The Incredibles

Mrs. Gump
Sally Field in Forrest Gump

Peg Boggs
Dianne Wiest in Edward Scissorhands

Sarah Connor
Linda Hamilton in Terminator 2: Judgement Day

Elaine Miller
Frances McDormand in Almost Famous

Bren MacGuff
Allison Janey in Juno


THE WORST

Joan Crawford
Faye Dunaway in Mommie Dearest

Mama Bates
Psycho

Eleanor Iselin
Angela Lansbury in The Manchurian Candidate

Margaret White
Piper Laurie in Carrie

Beverly R. Sutphin
Kathleen Turner in Serial Mom

(from Rotten Tomatoes)

He's Got Range

They Don't Make 'Em Like This Anymore

For some reason I brought up this commercial today while Cookie was watching that silly "Little People, Big World" show on TLC. I don't remember what the connection was but I decided that I needed to find the clip and post it on the ole blog. It's basically one of my favorite commercials ever.

A Comment From Dave

"Hillary Clinton barely won my home state of Indiana. And she lost in the State of North Carolina. But here is the good news. She has a substantial lead in the state of denial... I’m no pundit but it occurred to me that Hillary Clinton has one thing in common with President Bush. Neither of them has an exit strategy."

-David Letterman

5 Cats That Look Like Wilford Brimley

(thanks to Cookie for sharing)

The Dark Side Of The Mouse

In response to my Donald Duck post, Greg shared these Mickey Mouse comic strips that are, agreeably, much darker.