Category Archives: Movies

May 21, 2014 · 21:23

Juicy Chunks O’ Wisdom For Wednesday, May 21st

‘Cause I’m really PO’d and trying not to be, that’s why.

  • As my brain shuts/melts down, the one item I try to keep on top of the memory stack is the wisdom I learned from Crash Davis: “Don’t think, it’ll just hurt the team.“
  • Seven junk phone calls today to the land line, two from bots pushing political candidates and causes, two from live humans pushing political candidates and causes, and three from telemarketers. We’re getting really close to the trigger point where we take the phone off the hook until mid-November.
  • Is everyone checking in every now and then with the ISS HD Earth Viewing Experiment? I’ve stopped watching it obsessively (and come on, isn’t “obsession” too harsh of a word for what’s simply a deep and abiding appreciation for the beauty of our home planet from low Earth orbit?) and now just remember to pop it on a handful of times a day to see where they are. There’s about a 50/50 chance that they’re in darkness or out of range of the TDRS system or ground stations, but if they’re in daylight… O. M. G!
  • We’ve all seen the hundreds of “test” sites on FaceBook where you can see which Star Wars character you are, which Gilligan’s Island character you are, which kind of storm or tree or dog or insect or house you are… Cute, for about ten seconds, but do people really not realize that they are giving away all kinds of personal information to marketing companies when they do that? You already have so much data out there and once you go to one of those sites from FaceBook, you’ve agreed to let the site have access to whatever other public information you have on FaceBook. Birthday, where you live, where you work, your marital status, where you were born, what you like, what you don’t, who your friends and relatives are… Lots of small, innocent, individual pieces but not that hard for someone’s computer to pull together into a really accurate picture of who you are in detail. Yeah, they may be using that data to try to sell you cruises and insurance policies. Or they could sell it (or they could be careless and get hacked!) and the buyer could use it for blatant identity theft. Given the risk, is it really worth knowing what kind of cactus you would be?
  • Speaking of manned (or “crewed”) spaceflight, particularly on the ISS these days, can anyone explain why they’re always wearing belts on their pants when they do an interview? It can’t to prevent their pants from falling down and it seems a waste. Is it just to keep the ground-based human critters from freaking out?
  • I want one of those driverless cars from Google. The sooner the better.
  • If you’re watching that ISS HD site on your iPad regularly, I recommend that you bookmark an ISS locator site (here or here, my favorite) and the direct ISS HD video feed site separately rather than using the link above. It will look much better using the full screen on a tablet or smart phone. If you’re like me, you’ll actually create two icons on your iPad that will take you directly to the sites rather than simply bookmarking them in your browser — if you want to do that and don’t know how, just ask, I’ll be glad to walk you through it.
  • On second thought, I want everyone else to be in driverless cars even more than I want to be in one. I want one for myself so I can do other things while travelling and not see that as wasted time. I want one for everyone else because there are a lot of really stupid and incompetent freakin’ idiots out there on the road every day and I don’t one of them to make me a dead person just because they’re a stupid person. That’s not a decent tradeoff.

Remember that other timeless piece of advice from Crash Davis: “Some days you win, some days you lose, and some days it rains.” I’ve always thought that was actually pretty profound.

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Filed under Astronomy, Freakin' Idiots!, Juicy Chunks, Movies, Space

February 24, 2014 · 21:58

On The Passing Of Harold Ramis, Genius

I use my iPad a lot, probably almost as much as my desktop systems. One of the things I like about it is the versatility, the ability to be lots of things, depending on my needs. When I’m flying cross country, I need to be entertained, so my iPad is full of books, music, and a select few movies. Movies take up a lot of memory, so I only have eight that I always carry with me. Two of the eight are “Groundhog Day,” directed by Harold Ramis, and “National Lampoon’s Animal House,” written (in part) by Harold Ramis.

It was tough to hear that Harold Ramis died today at age 69.

I have very distinct memories of seeing “Animal House” for the first time in a theater in 1978. You hear the phrase, “laughing so hard you fall out of your seat?” That was me, quite literally. I had been there once earlier in the film, when the horse was put into Dean Wormer’s office. (The chain saw put me over the top.) Then came the cafeteria scene, specifically where John Belushi gets to the jello, gives that glance from side to side, and then slurps it right off the plate. I was laughing pretty hard throughout the movie up to that point, but the jello put me on the floor again. I didn’t even know there was a food fight scene that followed until I saw the film again. I was too busy trying to breathe during that scene in the first showing.

If I got stranded on that mythical desert island and could take just two comedies with me, “Animal House” would be one of them. (“Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” would probably be the second.) Just so many scenes, one after another. Just running through it in my head, I’m starting to chuckle again.

I didn’t know it at the time, but Harold Ramis, Chris Miller, and Douglas Kenney wrote that movie.

In 1981 I first became aware of Ramis, when he starred in (and wrote) “Stripes”. I’m a huge fan of Bill Murray and while I thought that “Stripes” was a little uneven, there were some amazing bits in it. The scenes where Murray trains his loser squad mates all night in close-order drill and then shows up on the parade ground is wonderful. Murray just chewed up the screen in that stretch (“Blowed up, Sir!”) and Ramis, as he so often did in movies that he wrote, was a sidekick, a co-star at best.

I remember seeing the billboards in early 1984 with the teaser ads showing just a ghost in that “circle-with-a-slash” symbol. Later they started adding, “Who you gonna call?” At first I assumed they were making a live-action version of “Casper, The Friendly Ghost.” Of course, what we got was “Ghostbusters,” also a rock solid masterpiece of comedy. The fact that it had Sigourney Weaver wearing something diaphanous and looking demonic was just gravy.

Again, you saw Ramis as one of the “other” guys. Murray and Aykroyd were the stars, Weaver was the beautiful damsel in distress, and, oh yeah, there was Doctor Egon Spengler also.

“Ghostbusters 2” was the rare sequel that was just as good as the original. Ramis wrote and acted in both, along with Aykroyd and others.

The next time you watch one of the “Ghostbusters” movies, pay attention to Ramis. Listen to the little asides that he has, almost hidden away. Murray and Aykroyd and Zool and Vigo are off destroying New York City to our delight, while Egon sidles up behind us and asks, deadpan, “Would you mind if I take a sample of your brain?”

All of those favorite movies would be more than enough to make today’s news a shock.

Then there’s 1993’s “Groundhog Day.”

I know that it’s a comedy. Chris Elliot seeing the truck going off the cliff into the quarry, noting “He could have survived,” then as the truck goes up in a ball of fire, “Well, not now!” The puddle. The groundhog. Bill Murray’s interactions with Andie MacDowell. All of the characters in Punxsatawney.

But this is also a deep and thoughtful film about redemption and growth, hiding in the skin of a screwball comedy. Phil Conners is a self-centered jerk, a really unlikable guy, an asshole. The predicament he’s in is at first confusing and then frustrating. What follows is a methodical progression as he selfishly takes advantage of the situation, with the worst of the hedonism and self-indulgence hinted at but done off screen. When he finally realizes even that gets boring and he’s truly trapped, that the miraculous fantasy is actually a nightmare, he tries to escape by any possible means (again with the worst of it off screen) only to fail again and again. When he passes beyond that phase, he hits an absolute low, a miserable existence, but even that doesn’t save him. When he finally decides to better himself, to learn, to grow, to become a decent human being, not because of what it will get for him from others, but because of what it means that he can give to others, then he finds his release.

This is a movie about important lessons in life, lessons that all of us forget too often. Watching this film is a great way to be entertained while we’re being reminded  of some fundamental wisdom. There’s a reason that in 2006 “Groundhog Day” was added to the US National Film Registry.

If I was on that island and could only take one film, period, it would probably be this one.

Ramis’ portfolio also included “Caddyshack” which starred Bill Murray and Chevy Chase, but for some reason that never quite tickled my funny bone as much. Go figure. Also, Ramis made “Analyze This” with Billy Crystal and Robert Di Nero which I liked but didn’t love.

When we hear about celebrity deaths, our personal experiences and tastes make a huge difference in how we each respond. There have been actors and musicians who have died in the last couple of years whose work I enjoyed, but it didn’t mean a lot to me personally. On the other hand, when Jim Henson died, when Stan Rogers died, when George Carlin died… Those were dark, dark days for me.

Today, the day Harold Ramis died, will be another. Rest in peace.

 

 

I think the first time I became aware of Ramis’ work was

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Filed under Entertainment, Movies

February 2, 2014 · 23:56

A Few Hundred Notes On Today’s Big Sporting Event

Note that I’m not trying to be snarky titling it this way, I just don’t want to get sued for trademark infringement. That big national sports league has a LOT of lawyers that need something to do until fall.

Secondly, if you’re trying to avoid spoilers because you haven’t seen the game yet (hi, Steve!) you can stop reading now.

Finally, for what it’s worth, my grades are at the end for each commercial, where applicable. Times are Pacific Standard, ’cause that’s where I live!

  • 15:00 I’ll be taking notes, primarily on the commercials, since I pretty much don’t want either team to win. If my beloved Chiefs can’t be there, I will insist on being pissy. Pbbbbbbbt!
  • 15:06 “A Million Ways To Die In The West” looks pretty funny. We saw a trailer for it in the theater yesterday.
  • 15:11 “Captain America: Winter Soldier” looks like a good, solid summer FX blockbuster. It’s not supposed to be Masterpiece Theater.
  • 15:13 Met Life ad — with Schroeder playing the National Anthem on his piano at midfield and the “Peanuts” gang joining him, this was great. Very well done, very classy, especially since the game’s at Met Life Stadium. (B+)
  • 15:14 Old ad for Sprint, along with ads for Fox’s “American Idol” (which I would only watch if you put a gun to my head), “Brooklyn Nine-Nine” (which is actually pretty good), and an old NFL Play 60 ad.
  • 15:19 Rene Fleming really belts out the National Anthem and hits every note, as we would expect from an honest-to-god opera diva. But she still sings it too slow. It’s a drinking song, not a dirge!
  • 15:24 “Noah” looks… I’m speechless, almost. I had heard they were making this, but I had no idea they had real acting stars and a huge FX budget for it. It will be interesting to see if it bombs or if the religious crowd push it into the black. On the other hand, Charlton Heston was Moses in “The Ten Commandments”, so I may be dead wrong. But really?
  • 15:25 Kickstarter/Mountain Dew — lots of pretty fireworks & rockets. I get it, it’s an energy drink, they want part of Red Bull’s market share. Whatever. (C)
  • 15:25 McDonalds McNuggets ad, not that new — but I just think that the “Bad Lip Reading” ads (and the videos that started the idea) are just the funniest thing in years. They crack me up every single time. (A-)
  • 15:26 Old ad for T-Mobile along with teasers for “New Girl” after the game and the Daytona 500 later in February. It’s annoying, but this is how Fox (or any other network) justifies spending hundreds of millions of dollars on the rights to these games. You may safely assume that at almost every commercial break we’re getting at least one, and often several, quick promos for some Fox show or another.
  • 15:28 The coin toss. Joe Namath looks good for his age. He may not have had class, but he most certainly had style. He came into a league that was dull as dishwasher with players as individualized as a bucket of oatmeal and changed the game forever. Now the ref almost messes up the coin toss by giving him the coin too early, before all of the legalese is done. A nice catch in mid-air though to stop a potential controversy. Ref’s got skills!
  • 15:30 Two ads for the Ford Fusion Hybrid, the first with Rob Riggle (another loyal KC Chiefs fan!) and the second with James Franco reprising the Rob Riggle role. It’s an odd set of ads, pretty well done, attention getting, but silly. (B-)
  • 15:35 Kickoff
  • 15:37 Major screw up by Denver on the first play of the game gives Seattle a safety. It’s now 2-0. There’s only seven seconds run off the clock, which has got to be the most bizarre start to one of these games EVER! The network can’t even go to a commercial in the couple of minutes it takes to kick off, it’s way too early.
  • 15:42 Bud Lite ad — The first of several in this “Are You Up For Anything” campaign that they’ve been teasing for several weeks. Flashy, extravagant, big concept, but I don’t know that I care. (B-)
  • 15:43 “The World Is Full Of Giants.” A really, really good looking ad that does a truly lousy job of selling anything. I love the philosophy, the sentiment, the inspiration, the anticipation of who the ad was for… Maserati? To a blue-collar, working class audience? Wrong demographic, guys, not even close! Did you feel it was necessary to blow all of that money on this ad because Jaguar did an ad? (A for production, D- for common sense in their marketing department)
  • 15:46 Denver’s defense steps up and they manage to hold Seattle to a field goal. 5-0, Seattle.
  • 15:47 The first of Doritos’ fan-created ads, this one “The Time Machine”. Cute, very nicely done, especially for a low-budget, amateur production. (B+)
  • 15:47 Chervolet “Romance” — poking fun at their own series of “A Man & His Truck” ads, this one had a perfect soundtrack and was very funny. (A)
  • 15:52 “Need For Speed” has the perfect trailer if they want to show that it’s simply a vehicle to put Aaron Paul on the screen for a couple of hours because he’s a big star now after “Breaking Bad.” It looks formulaic, a combination of “Cannonball Run” and “Fast & Furious. At least they got the right demographic, even if he’s not drag racing and stunt driving in a Maserati.
  • 15:53 Turbotax — Well done ad about how watching “Sean” at the prom snogging your favorite girl is like watching this game with your favorite team not there. Funny, some funky stuff in there, like stats for “Sean”, as well as watching him in slo-mo and replay after replay. Is that John C. Reilly doing the voice work? (B)
  • 16:04 Bud Light Part Two — getting more weird, but not better or funnier. Yeah, seeing Don Cheadle with a llama in an elevator is odd, but Arnold Schwarzennager looks like hell and I couldn’t care less about One Direction. I can guarantee that I’m the wrong demographic for this. (C)
  • 16:05 Beats Audio — Ellen DeGeneres is charming and I like the ad’s plot as a variation of Goldilocks & The Three Bears. The fact that she’s going to see “Into The Woods” at the beginning is a nice touch. Lots of nice touches, quirky and entertaining without being bizarre for bizarre’s sake. (Are you listening, Bud Light?) (B+)
  • 16:06 Seattle gets held to another field goal, 9-0 now. Denver’s defense is just barely keeping them alive.
  • 16:07 “Invisible” with U2 and Bono, sponsored by Bank of America. Go and get the free iTunes download within 24 hours and BofA will donate $1 to RED. Even if you don’t like U2 and won’t listen to the song, download it anyway. Help out a good cause. And the B&W video with Bono and the boys is pretty good. (A)
  • 16:08 Hyundai’s “Dad’s Sixth Sense” — funny while also getting their point across. I liked watching the beginning part where dad was constantly rescuing the kid from certain doom. Now that he’s driving and the kid is spending more time looking at girls instead of the road, the Hyundai’s auto-breaking system will keep him safe. Cute, funny. (A)
  • 16:10 Denver gets intercepted. Who are these impostors in orange and what have they done with the real Denver players?
  • 16:12 “Gracie” for Cheerios — a wonderful ad, a follow on to their great “Just Checking” ad. It was more than a little bit disgusting how many bigots and racists crawled out of their holes for the first ad last year. It’s so good to see that General Mills doubled down instead of caving in. As for this ad, it’s just as good as the first one, with the parents trying to use Cheerios to explain to the little girl that she’s going to have a little brother, and her explaining to them what’s in it for her. (A+)
  • 16:13 “A Better Web Awaits” for Squaresoft — lots of internet memes, spam, and malware come to life in a live-action, comic book-type scenario. Their way is better. Okey dokey. I’m less than impressed. (B-)
  • 16:13 “The 80’s Called” for Radio Shack — it was fun to see all of the 80’s icons such as Alf, Hulk Hogan, Mary Lou Retton (was that really her?), Twisted Sister, and so on. Did it convince me that Radio Shack is all new and shiny and completely different from what everyone remembers from the 1980’s? Not really, since I’ve been in Radio Shack recently and it was about 95% just like it was thirty years ago. (C-)
  • 16:15 End of the first quarter, 9-0, Seattle.
  • 16:16 Chevrolet’s charity feel-good ad for World Cancer Day on Tuesday. Lots of really nice photography of a couple riding across the US west at sunrise in a Chevy truck, not a word spoken, the sponsor and cause not revealed until the very end. Touching, without being sappy. The timing and relevance to this household however caused a bit of a reaction from The Long-Suffering Wife. As it should. It’s us, not them. (A-)
  • 16:17 GoDaddy — an ad which might be live (-ish) with Gwen starting her own business making puppets and quitting her job right here on national television in the middle of the game. Not the world’s best ad since they never made any connection that I saw to how their product tied in with their spokesperson. I’m guessing Gwen’s now successful and can quit her “day job” because she started a website with GoDaddy, but I could be wrong. At least GoDaddy stayed away from the really over-the-top sexism and seeing how much skin and innuendo they could get away with. That’s an improvement! (C+)
  • 16:20 Start the second quarter and Seattle almost immediately scores a touchdown. 15-0.
  • 16:24 Bud Light’s big celebration of their new aluminum can — snazzy, bright, loud, disco-based computer graphics, but who cares? Does an aluminum can really make that big of a difference over a bottle or aluminum can? This is how they’re going to differentiate themselves in the market? That’s the best they can do? I guess it’s no worse than Coors’ cans having mountains that turn blue when they’re cold, like you can’t actually touch the can to see if it’s cold or warm. Weird crap going on in the beer-selling business. (C+)
  • 16:24 T-Mobil’s “No Contract, No Worries” uses Tim Tebow to push the idea that they don’t have contracts (and neither does he) — but he’s doing fine, delivering babies (squatting down at the business end with his hands like they’re under center, yelling “Push!”), schmoozing with Bigfoot, addressing the UN and bringing about world peace, and playing football while walking on the moon. It’s big and flashy, and a bit clever, but just a bit. (C+)
  • 16:25 WeatherTech’s “Nobody Builds In the USA” ad — straight to the point, good marketing for their key differentiating points, high quality and made in the USA from US materials. A touch of quirky, satirical characters, but doesn’t go over the top, simply delivers their message. (B+)
  • 16:25 “Transformers: Age Of Extinction” is what, the fourth, fifth, tenth movie in this series? Is Michael Bey still involved or have they handed the reins off to a wannabe Michael Bey clone? Does Mark Wahlberg have an actual reason to take this gig now that Shia laBeouf’s three-movie contract is up and he’s been set free? Can’t Wahlberg do better? In fact, doesn’t he have better in the theaters right now?
  • 16:37 Denver finally had a drive going, actually got a couple of first downs. Then Manning threw an interception for a pick-six. 22-0.
  • 16:39 Volkswagen’s “Wings” ad — a cute idea, well executed, a funny and slightly risque punchline at the end, but… Why didn’t I really care? (B-)
  • 16:40 Wonderful Pistachios with Stephen Colbert — short, snarky, weird. The best thing is the bald eagle in a suit with a garish, bright green tie. (B)
  • 16:41 H&M ad with David Beckham — meh, I’m really not the demographic. Lots of Beckham running around and gradually stripping down to his briefs, with the implication that he even loses those. He’s a wonderful physical specimen, no doubt about it, but I had no sudden urges to drop everything and go buy any of his brand of underwear. (C-)
  • 16:41 The second Wonderful Pistachios ad with Stephen Colbert — still snarky and weird, but this time far, far more garish. Funny, good branding, I especially liked the green Colbert face on a pistachio inside of Colbert’s head. (B+)
  • 16:42 Another Denver turnover, already? Geez, Louise! It’s under review, I think Denver will keep it.
  • 16:43 “Amazing Spiderman 2” seems extremely pointless since I never figured out why they need to make “Amazing Spiderman” to “re-boot” a franchise that was only a couple of years old to begin with. Hey, guys, if you have $100M to throw at a film, how about you give $25M each to four writers with original ideas and four directors who can make a decent film without 90% of it coming out of a computer? Let me know when that happens. In the meantime, count me in the “Who Gives A Crap?” camp.
  • 16:44 Carmax’s “Slow Clap” ad — there were some oddities in here, such as the dad letting his kid on the bike crash, Sean Austin as Rudy, the bear, and so on. But quirky and odd alone do not a commercial make. I’m no more convinced that I should buy a car from Carmax than I was thirty seconds ago. I don’t give a damn if Rudy or the bear likes me, I want to know if I’m getting screwed when I buy that used car. (C+)
  • 16:44 The stupid Geico ad with the animated pig at the DMV — how much did they spend to put this in the middle of this broadcast? Yet they want you to believe that you can save money with them? (D+)
  • 16:44 M&M candy — one of the big, animated M&M’s is in the trunk of an Eastern European mobster’s limo, being threatened (in what we presume to be Russian?) with how he’s going to be served up and eaten. Okay, we’ve seen many others in this series, and most were more clever and more funny. (C+)
  • 16:47 The first half’s 2:00 warning.
  • 16:48 Coca-Cola’s “America the Beautiful” — lots of fantastic photography showing our cultural diversity, the diversity in our lifestyles, our backgrounds, and our cultures. Over it all is being sung “America The Beautiful” with each phrase done in a different language. Very charming, very touching, the kind of thing that Coke can get away with without needing to hammer their brand name into your skull with every frame. (A+)
  • 16:49 Sonos Speakers — not a new ad for the game, it shows an immaculate and minimalist white-on-white house with different music playing in different zones of the house, each zone turning a bright shade as the music fills the area. Got it, we can put different music in different rooms. On the other hand, if I ever have to live in a house that white, that barren, that sterile, that museum-like, make sure that I don’t have any steak knives, ties, belts, or strong medications. (C+)
  • 16:50 A fifteen-second teaser for something, no ID at all except for the Fox logo. Fire, sirens, nada else.
  • 16:53 Denver turns it over on downs. Denver looks like it could get the crap kicked out of them by the Little Sisters of Mercy’s junior varsity team today.
  • 16:54 Toyota Highlander ad — Terry Crews and the Muppets. Wild, silly, over the top, outrageous, everything we would expect from anything involving the Muppets. Who doesn’t love the Muppets? How can they go wrong? (A+)
  • 16:55 Subway ad for their new sandwich with Fritos on it — not quite new, I’ve seen it for a day or two, but I also know that this was a very last minute buy by Subway. They must have gotten some kind of a deal for an open spot and just stuck in their current ad. (C-)
  • 16:58 Halftime
  • 16:58 Promo for Fox Sports Live on their network that wants to challenge ESPN (good luck, you’re going to need it) — quirky, weird, pointless. Having your anchors dress up as plants or furniture or Venus on the half shell doesn’t make me remember who they are or care why I should watch them instead of your competition, especially when I (and most of the rest of the world) already like your competition. (D+)
  • 16:59 Smart Electric — interesting ad, shows their product failing in epic style at four-wheel driving and trying to trundle over boulders as large as the car. They then point out that their car is as out of place in those situations as a huge, 4WD, gas-guzzling SUV would be trying to park in a normal parking spot in the city. Very good identification of your market segment and differentiation, as well as good communication of that one point. (A-)
  • 16:59 Carl’s Jr’s ad (not close to being new) with Terrell Owens, a Philly cheese steak burger, and a number of extremely well endowed women in extremely tiny string bikinis. Yes, Carl’s Jr is sexist as hell in their ads — but they’re honest about it, and I’m not sure any of those women are being exploited or harassed while they’re being typecast. (B- for the ad, F- for making me feel so guilty about enjoying the ad so much)
  • 17:00 GoPro’s ad showing Felix Baumgartner stepping off of the balloon porch a couple of years ago and starting to fall faster than Mach One — GoPro cameras are incredibly cool and useful and the whole GoPro environment of cameras and accessories has made almost routine the countless YouTube and pro videos that wouldn’t have been conceivable five years ago. I would like one, real bad. As for Mr. Baumgartner, he has a very, very large pair, and I’m not talking about his cameras. (A)
  • 17:00 Cadillac’s not very new “That’s Mine” ad — a snarky play on sibling rivalry. Whatever. (C)
  • 17:03 Jeep Cherokee “Built Free” ad — talks a lot about “the restless many”, shows lots of wilderness places (good) and people leaving urban (bad) places to have adventures. Good ad, keeps to what makes their brand special, pulls on the heart strings, makes you want to buy one and go have an adventure that you can’t have in your boxy little 4-door sedan commutermobile. (B)
  • 17:05 Why does Fox feel the need to stick in some lame set piece with Jerry Seinfeld and Jason Alexander? Aside from the fact that I was never a fan of “Seinfeld”, this unfunny bit of schtick is totally out of place here.
  • 17:07 It’s starting to rain! All day whenever anyone asked us who we wanted to win, we’ve answered, “The weather!” We’ve been hoping that about half time we could start a cold rain, by the early third quarter it could turn to freezing rain and ice, but the fourth quarter start snowing heavily, and by the end of the game be an absolute nightmare. Our evil plan is coming to fruition!
  • 17:08 Ad for Fox’s “Cosmos” series coming up — looks fantastic!
  • 17:08 Halftime show starts with the Pepsi “Soundcheck NYC” ad and intro — very, very nice, superb FX showing New York City being used to tune up and get ready for music. The strings of the Brooklyn Bridge are plucked, trains are slid back and forth like the sliding controls on a soundboard, smokestacks are treated like the valves on a trumpet, Columbus Circle is “scratched” like a hip-hop turntable. (A)
  • 17:09 Halftime show with Bruno Mars — he plays the drums? Who knew? I love the brass in his backup band. I like the hair style, although it makes him look a little like a pop singing parasaurolophus. The last note of his first song proved that he wasn’t lip synching — that’s a good thing! Lots and lots and lots and lots of lasers and lights. Bruno’s hip movements and dance moves are the exact same kind of thing that made my parents’ generation have a cow when Elvis burst on the scene. I liked the RHCP, and I’ll give them props for coming out without shirts when it’s in the 50’s and raining. I really liked the montage of dedications from active military preceding “Just The Way You Are.” Overall, one of my favorite halftime shows in years. (A)
  • 17:22 Another fifteen-second teaser with no identification, this time showing the top of a London landmark skyscraper and a huge cloud of smoke, sounds of chaos in the distance…
  • 17:23 A very not-new Living Spaces ad — are these local ads that the Los Angeles affiliate gets to sell and drop in? It really seems out of place here. (C)
  • 17:24 Bud Light is now pushing their Platinum beer, with lots of scenes of clubbing, partying, dancing, crowds, wanting us to “Turn Up Your Evening” — sorry, still the wrong demographic. (C)
  • 17:24 Questlove talking about drums and the joy of making music in a Guitar Center ad — another one that really feels local and out of place here, even though it’s a well done ad, even if it’s a little bit simplistic by the standards of the other ads being shown today. (B)
  • 17:25 Alex & Ani ad — very nicely done, nice sentiment, nice emotional touch. “This is main street.” Okay, I like the way you think. But… What do you sell? Who are you? Was there any clue at all in there to tell me those things if I don’t know and I’m not willing to drop everything at this second to google it? (C)
  • 17:27 NFL Network — building on a classic, one of my favorite ads from last year’s game. Talking about the 2014 draft, one of the color guys on the “broadcast” is “Leon Sandcastle”, supposedly last year’s first pick in the draft by my beloved KC Chiefs. Game footage of “Leon” photoshopped into all kinds of situations from real games this year. The 2014 draft’s number one pick is… “Jerry Ricecake!” Too many in-jokes to even start to list. Very, very clever! (A+)
  • 17:27 Scientology — is this an exercise in how fast you can recognize the ad (it’s not new) and mute the television rather than be exposed to this… this… “ad?” Out of curiosity, would Fox have sold air time to the Catholic Church or the Southern Baptists or the Muslim Brotherhood if any of them had ponied up the millions of dollars needed for an ad in that slot? (F-)
  • 17:28 Third quarter starts, Seattle runs the opening kickoff back for a touchdown. 29-0. Again Fox can’t go to a commercial yet when they normally would after a score, because we’re only twelve seconds into the second half.
  • 17:38 The Audi ad about the canine hybrid Doberman and Chihuahua with the tag line “Compromise Scares Us Too.” Like a Saturday Night Live skit that would be funny for two minutes but drags on for seven or eight, this was an idea that would have been funny in a fifteen second ad, but just is stupid in a sixty second ad. It is nice, if pointless, to see Sarah McLachlan. (C-)
  • 17:39 GoldieBlox & Intuit ad — wonderful, I’m so glad to see that GoldieBlox won the contest Intuit had to reward a small startup company with an ad here. The ad shows little girls bringing all of their pink & “girlish” toys together to build a rocket and launch it, all to a tune that’s a take-off on “Cum On Feel The Noize” by Quiet Riot. This is all the more satisfying after all of the folderol with GoldiBlox’s first ad, which was incredibly wonderful but used a take-off on the Ramones’ “Girls”, which cause the Ramones’ lawyers and heirs to get seriously bent out of shape. Congratulations to Intuit and GoldiBlox! (A+)\
  • 17:39 T-Mobil’s “Still No Contract” again has Tim Tebow, this time saving puppies from burning buildings, stunt car racing motorcycles and 70’s muscle cars, bull riding, being a rock star, and so on. Still done on a big budget, looks nice, but still not as clever as it could be. (C+)
  • 17:40 Another fifteen-second unidentified trailer, this time with a gun being cocked, and at the end there’s about two seconds of something kind of like a clock ticking… Wait, isn’t that from…
  • 17:44 Axe this year got away from selling bizarre, macho, studmuffin, borderline grotesque sex in their ad. Instead we see what looks to be US Hueys attacking in Vietnam, what looks to be a military arms display in some huge Asian city, and what looks like a terrorist or North Korean general getting ready to push a button. But the ad is for “Make Love, Not War” so what we thought we saw is not what truly is. Clever, still a bit on the bizarre side. (B-)
  • 17:45 Chobani’s “Ransacked” shows a small country store being torn apart as everyone flees in terror. The culprit is a large grizzly bear, who is finally satisfied when he finds Chobani yogurt, because it’s made from all natural ingredients. Big budget, pointless commercial, even if I did like yogurt. We get it, it’s “all natural.” So are a half-dozen other brands, or at least that’s what everyone claims. Why should I buy your brand or even remember your name? Because a CGI bear ripped apart a CGI store? (C-)
  • 17:52 Kia’s “The Truth” uses a big name (Lawrence Fishburn) and a big movie spoof (“The Matrix”) and a huge budget to try to convince us that only they have true luxury and all of the (unnamed) other luxury car companies are just selling illusions of comfort. Going a bit beyond that somewhat simplistic (yet clever) idea, there are some very weird things going on after Fishburn starts to sing high opera. Yeah, I said “opera.” (A-)
  • 17:53 Another Sprint ad, similar to the old one that’s been running for a couple of weeks, but this time with a band instead of a family. Stupid idea, stupid ads. It might convince me that your brand is cheap, but does it convince me that it works? Why would I pay cheap if I’m not getting equally good service? (D+)
  • 17:53 Heinz’s “Where There’s Happy” is a big change for Heinz, which doesn’t  advertises that much to begin with, and has never advertised during such a high profile (and expensive) event. It’s a fun ad, cute, brings back warm and fuzzy memories, reinforces the brand’s identity with childhood, fun times, and the good old days. It finishes with a tiny little hint of a “grandma fart” joke, which is always a winner, right? (B+)
  • 17:55 The third Denver turnover of the night. It’s really not their day.
  • 17:56 Honda’s ad for car safety has Bruce Willis playing warm and a bit funny, not blowing anything up or shooting anyone. It points out that everyone around us are the most precious things in our lives, urges us to hug them (he’ll wait), and then remember how many safety features are built into Hondas. It’s a great use of a popular celebrity to get out attention, then deliver a very soft sell based on our concern for our loved ones. (A-)
  • 17:57 Budweiser’s “Hero’s Welcome” ad features Lt. Chuck Nadd coming home to a huge turnout in his small home town, a parade, and so on. No one does heartwarming and inspirational better than Budweiser, and they hit another home run with this one. It’s also great to see Lt. Nadd and his wife in the stands watching the game. (A+)
  • 18:01 The game’s getting chippy, then Seattle makes a great play on a fantastic catch to score yet another touchdown, assisted by really lousy Denver tackling. 36-0.
  • 18:03 Chrysler’s ad with Bob Dylan tries really hard. It’s sort of a follow-up to their “Imported From Detroit” theme of a year or two ago. Lots of nice pictures, lots of hard working Americans, lots of great, patriotic sentiments, all while Dylan walks around and acts icon-like. Let the Germans brew your beer, let the Asians assemble your phone, let someone else do something else — but “We Will build Your Car.” The only problem is that on the couple of occasions in the ad when Dylan stops and looks into the camera to speak, the tone and timbre of the lip-syncing is terrible. They should have just left everything in voiceover. Having all of the live and direct scenes in the exact same voice as all of the voiceover scenes is extremely jarring and unnatural. Good sentiment, good idea, but the execution could have been much better. (C)
  • 18:10 Denver finally scores, it won’t be a shutout. 36-8, and we’re done with the third quarter.
  • 18:12 Why does the NFL have to advertise in it’s own championship game, which is one of the biggest sporting events of the year? The “Together We Make Football” ad is very nice, showing a bunch of vignettes including a teenage girl playing, a kid who just got the letter telling him that he’s going to school on a football scholarship, little kids, pros, and everything in between. As always with the NFL products, the quality is great and the idea is solid. Just not sure why they couldn’t have sold this slot instead, the NFL’s not hurting for brand recognition or consumer approval. (A-)
  • 18:13 A new Jack In The Box ad that is as bizarre as they all are, but must be local. (B)
  • 18:14 A Time-Warner Cable ad featuring actors and characters from “True Blood”, along with about a zillion cameos from all kinds of shows on television. Everything from Jimmy Fallon to HBO to just about every kind of generic show (action, military, western, mystery, etc). I guess the idea is that TWC brings it all together for you. I’ve got a feeling that we’ll be seeing this one a dozen times a day. At least it might get rid of one or two of those lame ads featuring Bill Cower. (B-)
  • 18:19 Coke’s “Going All The Way” shows us a scrawny kid coming off the bench, too clueless to put on his helmet, being told to not screw up anything. When he finally gets the fumbled ball and runs like crazy all the way to the endzone, he keeps running, through the town, into Green Bay’s Lambeau Field, where the friendly groundskeeper gives him a Coke. Not bad, I guess, but Coke’s done so much better a lot of the time. (B-)
  • 18:20 Butterfinger’s ad has a family therapist talking to a couple, Chocolate and Peanut Butter. They’re together (obviously Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, but not stated), but looking for something more and different. The therapist introduces them to a third person, Butterfinger. Then it turns into an odd, awkward, and somewhat uncomfortable threesome on the couch. Not sure what they were going for here, but unless it’s creeping folks out and turning them off, I’m pretty sure they didn’t hit the mark. (C-)
  • 18:22 Seattle wastes no time in scoring another touchdown. 43-8)
  • 18:23 Didn’t Peyton Manning just get the league MVP award yesterday? Might they not want to be reconsidering that just a teeny, tiny little bit?
  • 18:24 Microsoft has an extremely emotional and moving ad, featuring Steve Gleason of the New Orleans Saints who’s battling ALS (Lou Gehrig’s disease) along with dozens of other people overcoming handicaps, cancer, and obstacles. The ad shows how technology “empowers all of us”, including things like a serviceman overseas seeing his wife live on a video link as their baby is born, and Curiosity driving around on Mars. A two-hanky ad, very well done. (A+)
  • 18:25 In Hyundai’s “Nice”, Johnny Galecki from “The Big Bang Theory” is driving his Hyundai and trying to impress a woman driving next to him in hers. He keeps point out features, such as “Nice acceleration”, to which she responds with something that puts his life in peril, like a mortar shelling or a ramp leading up to a jump surrounded by flaming hoops. Aside from the fact that it let them blow off a huge FX budget, what’s the point and couldn’t it have been made much more directly and simply? He comes off as kind of a stalker, she comes off as kind of a bitch. (C)
  • 18:28 Jaguar’s “It’s Good To Be Bad” features three prominent British actors (Ben Kingsley, Tom Hiddleston, and Mark Strong) who always play supervillians. They’re driving Jaguar F-Type coupes all over, when they’re not in helicopters, blimps, or jets. It’s very “James Bond-ish”. The ad is splashy, expensive, over the top, and has a bit of “Meh!” in it, but the car is fantastic. If I won the lottery tomorrow I would have an F-Type ASAP. They should have spent a lot more time showing the car (everything’s shot at night, to make it more sinister I guess) and less time showing their star actors. (B+)
  • 18:29 Oikos yogurt from Dannon has an ad that re-unites the leading actors of “Full House”, John Stamos, Bob Saget, and Dave Coulie. Other than that, it’s got a lot of innuendo and about as much humor and class as “Full House” did. As you might guess, I thought that “Full House” sucked, so I was not impressed by the ad. John Stamos is eating the yogurt, gets some on his lip, this beautiful woman kisses it off of his lip, he “accidentally” drops some into his lap, she gets a gleam in her eye, at which point Saget & Coulie burst in to help him clean the pants before the stain sets. If I never see this ad again it will be just fine with me. (F+)
  • 18:32 Folks who were expecting a 30-28 game or a 24-21 game were 100% correct in expecting that — right up until the second the ball was first kicked off. Since then, not so much. Denver has really and truly been their own worst enemy tonight and this one’s been a rout since about the middle of the second quarter.
  • 18:35 Another T-Mobil ad, this time with no Tim Tebow, just a pink screen, white text, goofy music and whistling. I wonder if it actually gets anyone to abandon their existing contracts at T-Mobil’s expense and then sign an extended contract with T-Mobil. At least they didn’t spend a ton of money on the production of this ad. I could have done it on my PC in a day or two. (C-)
  • 18:35 The SodaStream ad starring Scarlett Johansson has had a LOT of controversy over the last week or two. Ms. Johansson and OxFam have gone their separate ways in a huge kerfuffle having something to do with SodaStream being an Israeli company, maybe? I haven’t paid a lot of attention, but it seemed pointless and odd. Then Fox refused to let SodaStream air the ad as it was originally made, since it ended with a tagline something like, “Sorry, Coke and Pepsi!” Since Coke and Pepsi are huge, huge sponsors and SodaStream really isn’t, there was no way that was going on the air. Instead it ends with, “I love helping people.” Expect to see the original on every conceivable show within minutes after the end of the game. As for the ad, who cares? I’m just a bit addicted to Diet Coke, so I don’t care how cheaply this thing makes soda “just like the real thing.” (B-)
  • 18:36 The fourth teaser with the fire, smoke, London, gun cocking, finally confirms that it’s for the return of “24” later in the year. Okay, that was an effective teaser campaign. (B+)
  • 18:43 Someone’s hurt but the color commentators are just blathering on and on and on. I’m guessing we’ve run out of paid commercials until the 2:00 warning.
  • 18:45 We’ll see how well my beloved Chiefs do next year against Seattle, New Orleans, San Francisco, or whoever.
  • 18:47 Yet another Denver turnover, not that it matters at all any more. Finally, the 2:00 warning.
  • 18:51 The most anticipated, huge Budweiser ad of the day, “Puppy Love”, shows the cutest puppy on the planet who keeps running away from home to come and visit his pal, one of the Clydesdale horses. Time after time he has to be brought home and taken away from the horses. Finally the horse jumps the fence and chases after the car, getting a few of his friends to block the road. Finally the humans figure it out and let them hang out together and live happily ever after. Okay, said like that it sounds sappy and syrupy, but it’s really done well. Again, no one does these things like Budweiser. (A+)
  • 18:51 GoDaddy’s second ad of the day has a whole crowd of over-muscled body builders (including a very CGIed Danica Patrick) running through the streets and piling up against the window of a newly opened tanning salon, presumably because the new business owner used GoDaddy to… Yeah, we saw it before. Cute, not great, but at least it’s not horribly sexist. (B)
  • 18:52 Doritos’ final ad of the day, also fan made, shows two kids playing in the yard, when one goes running for the Doritos. The younger kid calls the dog, a huge mastiff of some sort, gets his rope, and rides across the yard as if he was Gene Autry or the Lone Ranger to lasso the chips away from his older brother. Cute. Wonderful for an amateur effort. I still don’t eat Doritos. (B+)
  • 18:56 It’s finally over, 43-8 final. They’re doing the onfield interviews with a fish-eye lens that makes everything look bizarre.
  • 18:59 One last ad, from Esurance, something about giving away a boatload of money to someone who tweets or texts or does something. Don’t care. Maybe we would have cared if it was a 21-20 game. (C)

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Filed under Entertainment, KC Chiefs, Movies, Music, Sports

January 15, 2014 · 22:11

Juicy Chunks O’ Wisdom For Wednesday, January 15th

‘Cause I’ve been laughing so hard I might have broken an internal organ or two, that’s why.

  • This is what damn near killed me tonight. I’ll entertain the idea that I’ve been dealing with some stress and pressure to the point where I was ready to pop like a balloon — this was the pointy thing that burst the bubble. Whatever. I still haven’t been able to read more than the first five or six comments without getting to the point where I can’t breathe and the dog’s whining because she thinks I’m dying.
  • There’s a very fine line between a cat trying to cuddle with you and a cat trying to see how much they can piss you off.
  • To Donald Trump and all of the other troglodytes who think that climate change is a hoax because they’re having winter, I would note that California’s in its worst drought on record and it was 95° F this afternoon in Orange County at 13:15.
  • At what point does being creative and purposefully “thinking outside the box” cross over into desperation and panic?
  • I actually had to use a trig function in a calculation for yesterday’s blog article. I’m still amazed that I remembered how to do it. (Shut up, Bob!)
  • It sucks when the dog gets old enough so she can’t jump up on the bed and instead just looks over the edge of it with those sad, brown eyes. “Anthropomorphism” my ass, you know that she remembers being able to jump up there, wants up there now, and knows that she can’t make it.
  • Whoa! Wide dynamic range of emotions there tonight, from laughing myself nearly into unconsciousness to sad, old dog eyes. As a pilot, you want to avoid those kinds of oscillations, they can lead to a loss of control. Which suddenly has a whole new meaning…
  • Tomorrow morning the nominations are announced for the Academy Awards and for us the scramble starts. How many of the nominated films for the “Big Five” categories (actor, actress, supporting actor, supporting actress, best film) can we see before awards night? That way we can have informed and knowledgeable completely useless opinions instead of our usual ignorance-based useless opinions.
  • How do they determine who the weakest link is in a “prayer chain”? Is it based on the honor system, does God rat you out, or do we just check with the NSA?
  • And to think, I get paid for writing this nonsense!
  • Wait, what?

Remember to floss. At a bare minimum, do it when you’re changing the batteries on the smoke detectors on the day when we “spring forward” or “fall back” into or out of Daylight Saving Time.

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Filed under Cats, Death Of Common Sense, Dogs, Flying, Juicy Chunks, Movies

December 9, 2013 · 22:36

Juicy Chunks O’ Wisdom For Monday, December 9th

‘Cause it’s windy as hell and I’m really starting to hate the wind, that’s why.

  • In the intro to last Thursday’s Flash Fiction Challenge, I said that no one had picked my “first two hundred word” piece. That’s changed. Someone picked it up and today (a couple days after the Friday “deadline” but who cares?) wrote a nice second part. Angela Carina Barry‘s work is posted here (scroll down until you find my original post at 8:59 PM on November 28th).
  • There was one particular really freakin’ brilliant gem that I was going to put in here, the wisest and juiciest of all of the juicy chunks o’ wisdom, which was the reason I picked this format to begin with for today’s post. Now I’ve completely forgotten what it was.
  • My desk sits next to a huge bay window, which is marvelous most of the time. I love the view of the backyard. But with the current cold snap in Los Angeles, this thing just bleeds cold air right on top of me. (Yes, it’s got double pane, insulated glass.) So I hung a blanket up across the window to shield myself from the frigid air, and it works pretty well. Except the cat’s favorite sleeping spot is in the bay window. For three days she’s been baffled by the blanket, but tonight figured out how to sneak around the corner and into the window. Then all of a sudden I see her head sticking out as she tries to figure out how to get back to me. It’s very cute. It’s a cat thing.
  • While cleaning up after painting, I tried out a technique I had read about online. It was described as a “fast and fun” way to clean the paint rollers. Basically, you take the garden hose, put the nozzle on the “Jet” setting, hold the roller out in front of you, then blast it with the hose. The roller will spin like mad, the water pressure from the hose will clean out the paint, and it’s faster than doing the cleaning by hand in the sink. Okay, first of all, it works like a charm. Having said that, I suspect that it’s “fun” if it’s done at the end of a hot, sweaty, summer’s day of painting, not out in a thirty knot wind at about 40F in the middle of the night. I guess there was a certain amount of “fun” involved, but there was also a significant amount of getting soaked. FYI.
  • It’s time for all of the “Best Of 2013” movie lists to start coming out and the jockeying for awards season. If nothing else, combining the lists of “best” movies from different groups will give you a pretty good list of what DVD’s to get (or to order on Netflix). We always try to see all of the movies nominated for the five major categories in the Academy Awards before the awards show itself, so these lists kick off a season of scrambling to see the ones we haven’t gotten to in the theaters.
  • As for 2014 movies, the first I had heard of “Jupiter Ascending” was when someone I follow on Twitter mentioned the new teaser trailer (here). It looks spectacular and has an awful lot of really talented folks involved. It could be spectacular — we can hope. We all need a little “spectacular” sometimes.
  • Vacuuming the ceiling is hard work! My arms are killing me tonight.
  • The raccoons are running around on the roof again tonight. I double checked the other day, they still haven’t gotten back into their hidey-hole.
  • On day twenty-four of the NaNoWriMo adventure, I mentioned that my computer hadn’t crashed yet even though I hadn’t rebooted it in four weeks or so and had been using the crap out of it with lots and lots of open windows and programs and bookmarks… Today it locked up and had to be rebooted. Whoever had “39 days” in the office pool can collect your winnings.
  • Still no clue what that forgotten wisest and juiciest of all of the juicy chunks o’ wisdom was. That’s disappointing and frustrating, but the worst part is hunting and trying to jog my memory and getting nowhere and knowing the whole time that the second I hit the “publish” button, THEN I’ll remember it.
  • Or at 3:30 AM.
  • Sometimes I hate my brain.

Remember that a bird in the hand will probably leave a mess there.

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Filed under Cats, Juicy Chunks, Movies, Weather, Writing

September 18, 2013 · 21:15

Random Blatherationings for September 18th

Looking for enlightenment, bubbie? If you look here you’ll be enlightened about the “rules” of this exercise. (I haven’t looked recently, so I may be breaking every rule – although I think there’s a rule requiring me to break the rules, so…) The three random seed words (from a NEW random word generating site) are “pail”, “garlic”, and “trailer”.

Pail – The first few dozen random Google hits are either for Garbage Pail Kid dolls on Ebay or for diaper pails on every retail site on the internet. Who knew that diaper pails were such a big business these days? But finally I hit a listing for “PAIL” which is the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) airport code for Iliamna Airport in Alaska. It looks like a mid-sized, regional airport with two runways, 5086 feet and 4800 feet long respectively. No tower, but I doubt that’s unusual in most places in Alaska. At least the runways are paved!

If you haven’t seen it, I highly recommend the series “Flying Wild Alaska“. It was on the Discovery Channel for three years and I really enjoyed watching it. It was a hoot watching the Tweto family and their family of Era Alaska employees fly around through fall, winter, spring, and summer. (They apparently don’t have a regular route to Iliamna, though.) It really gave a good idea of what bush flying is all about and how critical general aviation is to just maintaining the basic necessities of modern life in a state bigger than Texas where there are fewer paved roads than in some counties down in the lower forty-eight. I’ll admit, sometimes they got all “reality TV” on you, building up some relatively minor thing (like a go-around) into a huge crisis. But there were plenty of other times when I was watching folks try to land on an ice runway in a Caravan or twin Otter with a fifty-knot cross wind in instrument conditions and I had nothing but total respect for the pilots who can do that!

Garlic – Yeah, yeah, yeah, world’s healthiest food, blah, blah, blah, whatever. Out here on the west coast, if you’ve been anywhere near the Bay Area or driven from LA to San Jose, you know about Gilroy, which bills itself as the “Garlic Capital of the World”. Going west on California Route 152, up over the coastal mountains from I-5, past the San Luis Reservoir and Pacheco State Park, you can smell the garlic ten miles before you get into town.

But today Google randomly led me to the Hudson Valley Garlic Festival, which seems to be the east coast equivalent of Gilroy. And it’s coming up on September 28th and 29th! Serendipity Rears Its Ugly Head Yet Again! Food, drinks, musicians (including Captain Squeeze and the Zydeco Moshers!), games for the kids, and more! What’s not to love? And really, I say that sincerely, because if I were in the area and didn’t have other more pressing plans, I would be there because that all sounds wonderful.

Except for the Morris dancers. I never knew of Morris dancers or Morris dancing until I heard Stan Rogers talk about it on his live album, “Home In Halifax“. Track six, you know the one I’m talking about.

Wait, what? You don’t know who Stan Rogers is? Please go and instantaneously (or sooner) listen and learn to love all of his albums, then come back. We’ll wait…

OK, now that you know why you need to beware of the Morris dancers (WARNING – this link will take you to a video that shows that every horrible and terrifying thing said about them is true) and you have a deep and abiding love of Stan Rogers’ music, go and have a great time at the Hudson Valley Garlic Festival (New York State Thruway exit #20, mile marker 101).

Say hello to Captain Squeeze for me!

Trailer – A word with two major meanings so Google either gives me a place to rent or buy something to haul behind my car or lets me look at upcoming movies. Rather than pick any one movie or television show trailer, I want to do a mini-rant about the movie trailer art form in general and one old one and one new one in particular.

First of all, I love movie trailers. I think that it’s brilliant how someone can take a couple dozen tiny little clips of a movie that lasts two hours and get you in the mood to plop down hard-earned cash to see the film when it comes out. I also think it’s extremely clever how some people in this day and age can mess with trailers and re-cut them to be for a completely different mood. The first one of these I remember seeing was a faux trailer for “The Shining” done as a romantic comedy, but just this week I saw another great one for “Monty Python & The Holy Grail” done as a serious medieval battle flick.

However, this is a power that can be used for evil as well as for good. In 2001 there was a trailer that is on my short list for the best ever made. It made me want to see a movie so bad it hurt. I had tears in my eyes every time I saw the trailer. Looking at all of the pictures of planes and incredible flying, I just wanted to let all of that flying SPFX wonderfulness just swallow me up and surround me for two hours. I knew that “Pearl Harbor” was going to be spectacular! Um, yeah, that “Pearl Harbor”. The one that turned out to be a film that I could barely sit through, one of the worst movies I had seen in years. Still a fantastic trailer, but a good example of a trailer that is 1000% better than the film it advertises.

Now, everywhere I look at the theater, online, or on television, there are new trailers for “Gravity“, which opens in the US on October 4th. They are all intense, gripping, spectacular, amazing, utterly terrifying, and I haven’t wanted to see a movie this badly since the original “Lord of the Rings” films first came out. I really, Really, REALLY want to see this film! I keep seeing comments from NASA folk and science fiction people who have seen sneak previews, and every single one of them says that it’s one of the most spectacular thing that they’ve ever seen.

I hope so. I need it. I couldn’t take another “Pearl Harbor”.

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Filed under Flying, Movies, Music, Random Blatherationings, Science Fiction

August 10, 2013 · 17:59

Odds & Sods For Saturday, August 10th

Item The First: If you’re looking for another “Simple Astronomy” idea, try taking pictures of the Perseid meteor shower over the next couple of nights, August 10th through August 13th or so. (Even if you can’t do the photography, if it’s not cloudy you should go out and try to see some meteors. It’s fun!)

Simply put your DSLR camera on a tripod, turn the autofocus off, manually set the focus to infinity, pull the zoom on the lens back to get the widest field of view you can, set the exposure time to the longest you can get (or “Bulb”), and point it toward the northeast in a spot as dark and clear as you can find. Keep shooting (digital photos are cheap!) and see if you get lucky. And don’t forget to watch the skies as well as run the camera!

Item The Second: Earlier in August I wrote about favorite movies. Since then, of course, every now and then my brain kicks me in the ass and says, “How could you possibly have left this one out?!” OK, so add these to that list for me:

  • Blazing Saddles
  • RED
  • Hunt For Red October
  • Airplane!
  • When Harry Met Sally
  • Patton
  • Hudson Hawk
  • All That Jazz
  • Who Framed Roger Rabbit?
  • My Big Fat Greek Wedding
  • Bill Cosby, Himself
  • Chicago (Hey, Chris, here’s my musical!)
  • 1776 (And another one!)
  • October Sky
  • Father Goose
  • Little Big Man
  • Contact
  • Tootsie
  • Deep Impact
  • Phantom Of The Paradise
  • Crimson Tide
  • Time Bandits
  • Defending Your Life
  • The Hallelujah Trail

Item The Third: After making my impassioned plea for someone to make an updated, new, and improved version of Outpost, my favorite old strategy computer game, it occurred to me that there’s another perfectly good thing that someone could raise money through Kickstarter for.

There are many crowdfunding campaigns to get small, independent films going. We’re also starting to see some bigger projects campaigning. Spike Lee is trying to use a Kickstarter campaign to raise $1.25M for his next movie (the campaign may or may not make it, closing August 21st), and the fans of the Veronica Mars television show raised over $5.7M earlier this year to bring the show back.

So why can’t the creators of “The Adventures Of Buckaroo Banzai Across The 8th Dimension“ ask the devoted and passionate fans of that movie to raise the starting funds for a sequel? Sequels were obviously planned. After the final credits rolled there was a card telling us to look out for “Buckaroo Banzai Against The World Crime League”. So let’s get it made!

Who’s in charge around here?

Item The Fourth: In the last “Odds & Sods” (item #1) I mentioned a great video by Ken Murphy. Now Phil Plait has mentioned it in his Bad Astronomy blog on Slate. He has a lot more information on some of the really subtle stuff that can be seen in the video and some other ideas for similar projects that can be done.

Item The Fifth: If you would be so kind as to bear with me while I vent (although you will be forgiven if you bail and ignore this section), the gremlin body count continues to rise like a smothering tide. With every two steps forward (item #5) there seems to be one back. I’m trying to consider it to be a cha-cha:

Cha-Cha

  • As previously reported, about two weeks ago we bit the bullet, dealt with Time Warner Cable’s “customer service”, and got our cable television problems solved. It was good for about four days, then went right back having the same problem, showing up as a really low-power signal with most channels blacked out because the digital cable boxes just weren’t seeing enough signal to decode. The earliest they could get us back on the schedule for another look was six days later — but mysteriously the problem went away “on its own” after three days. I’m guessing that this time it wasn’t just us having a problem, but something broken that was affecting a much wider area. If TWC got multiple complaints, they expedited the repair for the whole neighborhood.
  • Our washer & dryer are about a dozen years old. I’m not sure how long the “durable” in “durable goods” is supposed to be, but the washer went belly up mid-load last weekend with a strong smell of rubber burning. Probably a belt broken or slipped, which is something I’ve repaired in the past on older machines. But I’ll be damned if I can figure out how to get to the innards of the thing to do anything on my own. Meanwhile, the dryer works, but has something wrong with it that makes it very, very noisy when running. We’ll get both of them checked out on Monday to see if it’s a $200 repair or $2,000 for new ones.
  • My “MomDude-mobile” minivan had been getting more and more reluctant to start over the last couple of weeks and it was finally time to let the dealer tell me if it was the battery, the starter, or an electrical problem. I could have changed the battery myself if that’s all it was, but the symptoms made me suspect that it was something more complex. The good news is that they said it was just the battery, and that was relatively cheap to fix. The bad news is that now, a week later, it’s running really rough at high speeds. At 165K+ miles, I’m feeling that it’s on thin ice, but I don’t really need or want monthly payments on a new car right now.
  • In the last month I’ve had the DVD burner in not one, but two DVRs go belly up on me. The old Panasonic DMR-EH55’s were great for recording things on a big hard disk and then burning them off to DVD, but when the DVD drive dies you can’t just drop in a replacement, it’s all a proprietary unit. And they stopped making the proprietary replacement units years ago. So now I have hundreds of hours of stuff that I want to burn off to DVD, but can’t. Time to get creative and see if “my smart can be better than their stupid”.

Did I piss off someone who had some extra curses to sling about? Did I cut off a warlock on the freeway? Take the last bag of chips off the shelf just before a wizard could grab them? Let the dog poop in a witch’s front yard without cleaning it up? If so, how do I figure out who it is and apologize? (If it’s God being pissed about that whole “not been to church in forty years” thing, I might be screwed.)

FYI, I found that “cha-cha” picture on Facebook and traced it back as far as an Instagram account for “violetflame7”. If anyone has more accurate credit information, let me know and I’ll post an update.

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