This one looks like it’s going to be a little tougher to master, but the tons of They Might Be Giants and “Weird” Al songs you can unlock make it definitely worth the money.
My first thought when reading this was that I’m not accomplishing nearly as much as I should be.
If total human genocide is your ultimate goal, you are reading the wrong document. There are far more efficient ways of doing this, many which are available and feasible right now. Nor is this a guide for those wanting to annihilate everything from single-celled life upwards, render Earth uninhabitable or simply conquer it. These are trivial goals in comparison.
This is a guide for those who do not want the Earth to be there anymore.
As a sidenote, some Franco-Swiss scientists have already built a machine that could make that plan a reality.
Better start living deliberately, because it’s being switched on in a year.
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The 1981 Computer Will Seduce You
This is a surprisingly less-than-dated look at the future of computers from a 1981 news piece and, unsurprisingly, it gives me a big nerd-boner thinking about the home computer as “the world’s biggest backyard fence to talk over.” Of special note is millionaire Steven P. Jobs discussing how computers will “seduce you.” Done and done!
In Cars, Owen Wilson plays the voice of a talking car who….
Talking car? Let me start over.
In Cars, the zombified carcass of Walt Disney (ahem, Walt Disney Pictures) grasps at the coattails of the animation powerhouse Pixar and its latest offering. And this time, it looks like a cartoon version of Oliver Stone’s U-Turn, except with J-Lo replaced by a Porsche, though hopefully without so much junk in the trunk. If you like automotive puns like that — God help you — then Cars is the movie for you! If you like a night of mixed feelings, check out Cars in a double-feature with Who Killed The Electric Car? and see what happens to all those adorable cars you fell in love with over the last hour and a half. Or try Cars with An Inconvenient Truth to see how our nation’s dependence on plucky animated race cars is destroying our environment.
Speaking of movies where the cars have all the personality, there’s The Fast & the Furious 3: Tokyo Drift. In it, Average White Guy and Average Black Guy meet Japanese people and are like, “Hey, Japan is a crazy place where everything is different!” I got the drift that this movie is made up nearly entirely of car races and car chases, so if the filmmakers aren’t going to pretend there’s anything more to Tokyo Drift than this, neither am I.
Switching gears (ugh), The Lake House stars Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock as a couple trapped aboard a speeding bus as a couple who share the same house by the lake, albeit two years apart. If only they had tried this in The Break-Up, I could’ve saved 90 excruciating minutes. The Shyamalan-esque twist is that while one lives in the eponymous lake house in 2006 and the other lived there in 2004, they still seem to be able to write letters to each other, which I think classifies this as sci-fi. Or if Sandra Bullock is supposed to be the attractive female lead, then fantasy. I don’t want to jump to conclusions with this touching fantasy romance with its elves and unicorns and magical time traveling postcards, but do you think it’s possible that… one of them was dead the whole time?!
Click. That’s me turning off the latest Adam Sandler movie.
I’ve tried looking up information on The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford but I still have no clue what this movie is about, and the title sure isn’t any help. The closest I could find is a motorcycle mechanic by the name of Jesse James, so uh, I guess this movie is about bikers?
So this wraps up my round of movie reviews; I’ve left the critique of Pirates of the Caribbean 2 to the guy dressed like Jack Sparrow up on Hollywood & Highland — I figure he’s more of an expert on the subject, so ask him what he thinks if you see him on your way into Beard Papa’s.
Here’s why:
- No free refills on soda
- Even less parking than LA
- Signal before changing lanes — it’s the law!
- Hands-free cell phones only while driving — it’s the law!
- You know what? I found out L.A. isn’t the only city with traffic problems!
Aside from that, I’m really not sure what New York has to offer. Sorry, I can’t let this one slide… what’s up with the rationing of soda in Manhattan? Do they need to bring it in by helicopter? I just don’t see how people can live like that, with little bluetooth headsets in their ears all the time, like they’re some kind of day-drading dot-com stockbroker Hollywood agent.
I don’t like New York!
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The Microsoft iPod?
Just the idea is enough of an ipecac for me, but some clever jokers posted on YouTube a parody of Microsoft’s answer to the iPod’s subtle package design…
President Bush, in his most recent State of the Union address, mentioned the need for tougher ethical standards in medicine, to guard against the nightmare scenario of human/animal hybrids. Surely he must have been speaking about Disney’s The Shaggy Dog.
In the latest retreading of one of Disney’s gimmicky animal movies, Tim Allen plays an inattentive father who learns a valuable lesson about family by being turned into a dog. All this and more in the creatively-named The Shaggy Dog. How many imagineers did they go through before settling on this title? While the man-to-dog-to-family-man transformation has long fascinated movie goers, is it maybe possible that it’s really just a lot cheaper to film a Bearded Collie for two weeks than Hollywood megastar Tim Allen?
Depending on this movie’s success, we can look forward to Disney’s next round of family-themed lycanthropy where a career mom learns why her kids are more important after she’s turned into a goose that lays golden eggs, a bully who learns compassion after being turned into a cat and sent into outer space and finally a touching tale where Don Knotts learns the importance of being alive after getting turned into a talking animated fish.
Speaking of being turned into something you’re not, Failure to Launch is about a grown man who would rather live with his parents than move in with Sarah Jessica Parker. And really, who can blame him? I’m “failing” to see the problem here, unless you’re talking about the movie’s confusing title. Is this a movie about astronauts? Nope, it’s yet another romantic comedy with a non-sequitur for a title, which is unusual because part of the romantic comedy formula — and romantic comedies are the most formulaic of any movie genre — means having to conform to a theme. See: Must Love Dogs (there’s a dog), Fever Pitch (guy likes baseball), Prime (still don’t know) and Win a Date with Tad Hamilton (Tad Hamilton). To avoid confusion in the future, please go easy on the theater patrons and just start calling romantic comedies Woman Finds, Changes Man: Episode LXVIII.
The movie poster inexplicably shows Matthew McConaughey leaning against Sarah Jessica Parker and states that “To leave the nest, some men just need a little push.” I’m going to need more than just a little push to get anywhere near that shaggy dog.
Next time, I’ll be reviewing The Hills Have Eyes and wondering why President Bush didn’t mention the country’s growing problem of radioactive mutant marauders.
I was watching an episode of Comedy Central’s The Colbert Report where Stephen interviewed author Norah Vincent and I have one request — can Stephen please stop interrupting his guests? I get the whole pomposity / cult of personality thing he’s doing in toying with the guests, but when his questions are…
“Wh… what did you learn most about men? Anything surprise you?”
“Wh… what did you… what did you learn? What surprised you most of all?”
“What did you expect to find out, what did you expect to find out, and what did you learn in reality?”
“But you did learn things that surprised you?”
That just smacks of poor interview skills. Yes, we heard the question, Stephen. Now let us hear the answer. Except he next undermines his own question by — instead of allowing her to answer — asking Vincent for a ‘man-shake’ (which sounds dirtier here than it did on the show).
So please, let your guests speak. You just might hear a bit of truthiness.
Categories
Don’t Gloat Yet
Nothing to add, but here’s a good article from the last 2005 issue of OC Weekly, guaranteed to get Pete upset:
Don’t Gloat Yet – A bad year for Bush is bad for all of us by James Washburn
I’ve gotta get back to programming in a second, but first…
Let me save you some time and distill the 5-book series that encompasses The Chronicles of Narnia down to its two essential facts: Turkish Delight is a sticky dessert and the titular lion is a metaphor for Christ …for some reason. These would appear to be the only things going for this movie apart from a very long and silly title. But the real question for The Chronicles of Narnia is will it be a bigger success than last year’s The Chronicles of Riddick?
Rumors about a fourth installment to Peter Jackson’s incredibly popular Lord of the Rings trilogy reveal it to be a separate movie entirely. At last, stop-motion and claymation technology have reached a level of sophistication that Peter Jackson can finally make an enduring version of King Kong. The real advantage for Jackson is that computer graphics allow for a greater degree of lip sync and character animation that until now have limited the performance of the film’s pivotal star, Adrian Brody.
I’m a little worried about whether the popular Broadway musical The Producers could actually work as a feature film, but I’m glad that at least one popular Broadway musical has finally shown enough crossover appeal (thanks to the public’s enduring fascination with both Uma Thurman and the Nazis) to make it to the big screen. I can’t wait until 2008 for the inevitable musical based on the movie based on the musical based on the movie.
Brokeback Mountain, which looks like a cowboy fantasy taken out of Gus Van Sant’s secret diary, is the sort of movie that usually enjoys a limited release at the Tomkat Theater in West Hollywood. Starring the Casanova Heath Ledger and Jarhead Jake Gylyllennhaaaaall (sp?), this steamy cowboy romance simmers with an erotic ambience not seen since Unforgiven.
Finally there’s the Jim Carry comedy Fun with Dick and Jane, which is not to be confused with the Tomkat double-feature Fun with Dick and Dick.