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thursday, february 28
This is sooo true. You know you're from the Capital District when... You explain to your friends from out of town that nobody actually calls it the Thadius Kosiosko bridges. You have no accent at all. You know enough to avoid tractor trailers on the Northway with Canadian plates. You know that Mason & Sheehan isn't a cheap champagne You know what a guy Ken Gowey is. You await the opening of Jumpin' Jack's each year. You think it's odd if there isn't a pizza place every quarter mile. You think everyplace has a Crossgates, a Colonie Center, a Rotterdam Square, a Central Ave. and a Wolf Road. You know Arbor Hill and Hamilton Hill aren't clothing designers. It's SODA, and you wanna slap people who call it "pop." You know someone who has gone to either Happy Valley or Second Chance. You don't consider what Domino's and Pizza Hut sells as pizza. You know that First Night isn't a Sean Connery movie. You aren't freaked out when you see the GE sign at Christmas. You're really get annoyed at that Resnick's Troy Matress outlet commercial guy You know who Nina and her husband Ray are and how they sell jewlery for 33% less (not really) You sometimes still call it the "Knick", not "Pepsi"
tuesday, february 26
Cleaning out my inbox. For posterity's sake, here are a bunch of things I had saved about "Lord of the Rings." Most of these are from Karen. For everyone who has ever wanted to kill yourself after reading a Mary Sue fanfic...this is for you. Elijah Wood on his tattoo: "I don't know how I picked this spot [pulls up his shirt to show the tattoo on his stomach]. It just felt like the right place. All I can tell you is when I was getting it, it hurt like a motherfucker!" Orlando Bloom on the leftover glue from various prosthetics: "It was quite amusing to see the cast on a night off in Wellington. The Hobbits would be picking their feet, and the Elves would be picking their ears." Sean Bean on getting back to the Real World after filming: "You get home, and you're overwhelmed by the reality of normal life. One day you're running around with swords and killing all the Orcs, the next you're loading a dishwasher." Ian McKellen: "I not only bonded with the cast, I loved the people we met. I just found out that Christopher Lee and I are together on this 40-cent stamp in New Zealand. So, everyone sending their Christmas card is going to lick our backsides and put us on the envelope." Peter Jackson: "The Hobbits were generally naughty, as they are onscreen. One of the naughtiest things was to sample some clearly dangerous sports. New Zealand is quite a good place if you want to do dangerous things. Orlando couldn't stop bungee jumping. And for some reason, the Hobbits took up surfing. None of them had ever surfed before. One day, they took Viggo out, and he came to work Monday morning having been whacked in the head by a surfboard. His face was swollen, and his eye was closed. I couldn't shoot him from the front because he had this huge bump on his head." Ian McKellen: "Christopher and I are of a certain age where we're a little bit worried as to how involved we were expected to be," says McKellen, 62, laughing. "Of course we had very athletic stunt doubles who helped us out. But when you see Gandalf spinning around on his shoulders, that actually was me. And just off camera there was a chiropractor waiting." Putting the fellows into fellowship, nudge, nudge Lord Of The Rings is all about getting as far away from women as Hobbitly possible Geoff Pevere As one of those readers who found the pages of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord Of The Rings rather heavy lifting, it was left to the recent movie — called, in case you've just returned from an alternate dimension, The Fellowship Of The Ring — to tell me what happened after my strength gave out. What a surprise. Who'd have guessed it would turn out to be an epic love story between two big-footed, pointy-eared little men, one named Frodo, the other Sam. And to think there are people who believe movies can't take the place of books. First indications of the story's romantic agenda come early, in the so-called Shire where the Hobbit Frodo (Elijah Wood) spends his time in leafy, grass-chewing idleness, apparently awaiting the arrival of the wizard Gandalf. When Gandalf, who is played by the marvellous and militantly out-of-the-closet gay actor Ian McKellan, finally arrives, Frodo is thus tickled to see him. In fact, it is with such delight that he hops in the old man's wagon that he doesn't even notice the sternly disapproving look a poor and obviously henpecked Hobbit husband gets from his battleaxe Hobbit wife when Frodo and Gandalf go rumbling by. The implication is clear: the Shire may look like an idyllic and verdant place, but beneath that pastoral exterior lurks something sinister and worthy of escape — a place where women spoil all the fun. Lest one miss this point, it is stressed again at the party given by the aging bachelor Hobbit Bilbo (Ian Holm), when one of the boy Hobbits in attendance expresses his revulsion at the very idea of actually dancing with one of the girl Hobbits. This would explain not only why the most fun at the party is being had by those firework-popping boy Hobbits who keep a safe distance from the girl Hobbits, but also why it is only boy Hobbits — including the moonstruck Sam (Sean Astin), devoted to Frodo with a panting selflessness that recalls Old Yeller crossed with Of Mice And Men's Lenny — who are seen striking out for adventure the next day. Ostensibly their mission has to do with some silly-assed magic ring Frodo has been entrusted with, but we strongly suspect this is just a cover for the real reason. Which is: to leave, at the gay old wizard Gandalf's urging, the Shire with its henpecky girl Hobbits behind, meet up somewhere down the road with good old Gandalf, and have some holy old, rip-roaring boys-only kind of adventures. Lest Frodo find himself lamenting the lost company of the fairer sex, he is regularly plunged into violent hallucinatory reverie every time he puts on the ring. Visions of apocalyptic terror confront him on these occasions, and they are always accompanied by the most terrifying image of them all: a gaping, infernal abyss that resembles nothing so much as a huge, flaming vagina. As a reminder of why the boys are on the lam, it seems to work. Every time Frodo returns from one of these encounters with this Vesuvian vulva, he is resolved to press on. As the adventure proceeds, it draws more guys into its girl-dodging orbit. Eventually, the title's "Fellowship" is established, and it is aptly named: only fellows seem to be allowed, whether they're fellow men, dwarves, hobbits or elves. True, a comely female elf (played by Liv Tyler) does appear at one point, but it is only long enough to pledge her eternal love to the whiskery "ranger" played by Viggo Mortensen. Interestingly, this development seems to have the same effect on him that those flaming portals of womanhood have on Frodo: the ranger hightails it out of the comely elf's reach, resuming his Middle-earth Odyssey with the rest of the boys. As far as girls go, this guy's a lone ranger. (A close reader of the Tolkien trilogy informs me that this sequence does not exist in the book, which makes one suspect it was added so the women in the audience wouldn't feel quite so romantically excluded.) On their journey to that girl-less paradise, the fellowship is given ample opportunity to be reminded why they must push on. Upon penetrating a great womblike mountain, they are confronted by all manner of slithery, slimy, slippery dangers emanating from various cracks in this dark and frightening place. It is a gauntlet of gynecological revulsion, and it is mirrored by the dark industry practised far away by the bad wizard played by Christopher Lee. Like the nasties crawling all over our fellows in Womb Mountain, this bad wizard is at his most evil in dank underground places. Among the movie's many images of procreative revulsion, not much beats the "birth" of the creature — summoned to life by this nasty wizard — who will be loosed upon on our lads. Ripped from the primreview ooze of the earth, he rises like mucousy hell-spawn from the slimy muck. Then he promptly kills the first Orc he can get his hands on. Run, lads, run! While such icky assaults hasten the fellowship's flight — and never more so than when dear old Gandalf disappears down one of the mountain's yawning black crevasses — the members nevertheless always make time to pledge undying allegiance to each other. The adoring Sam trots along behind Frodo with canine devotion, and hostility between the fellowship's two hunky homo sapiens, Mortensen and Sean Bean, is revealed in the field of battle (against those hell-spawn) for the displaced manly affection it is. Apart from the final moments of the movie itself, in which Frodo looks at Sam with such limpid affection you think the two of them are going to capsize the boat they're in, The Fellowship Of The Ring's most emotionally convincing moment comes when one of these guy's guys — stuck full of arrows like Caravaggio's Sebastian — expires in the arms of the other. Certainly it's a lot more convincing than the moment back up the road with that elf chick. Besides, elf chicks are treacherous, as the third-act appearance of the one played by Cate Blanchett reminds us. Initially, she may appear all blonde and diaphanously gorgeous in a Glinda the Good Witch kind of way, but just when she's inspired Frodo's affection she suddenly goes all Wicked Witch of the West on our boy: roaring in a booming man's voice, radiating like a thermonuclear banshee, and hammering home the point that beneath all lovely, seductive womanly faces lurks a flaming infernal vagina. Go, Frodo, go! Get outta town! Apparently there are six hours left in The Lord Of The Rings, to be dispensed in two more three-hour portions over the next two years. Prior to seeing the movie I had no idea where, in six hours and two years' time, the story would leave us, but having seen the movie I feel I can now safely hazard a relatively educated guess: After many more terrifying encounters with euphemistic female genitalia, and particularly after several more shuddery glimpses of the portals of vaginal apocalypse, Sam and Frodo will ultimately escape the icky clutches of calamitous womanhood and live happily ever after. They will get to the point where even Tolkien delivers them, in a passage from the book (pointed out to me by an avid reader of this tale) found somewhere well beyond where I gave up the tale: "Sam sat propped against the stone, his head dropping sideways and his breathing heavy. In his lap lay Frodo's head, drowned deep in sleep; upon his white forehead lay one of Sam's brown hands, and the other lay softly upon his master's breast. Peace was in both their faces." Snippets about the trailer for "Return of the King": "I thought it would be a nice thing to do in the last week or two of its run to actually give them a glimpse of the second film...That glimpse of the second "Rings" film, however, won't be available anywhere but in theaters at the end of the first film's run. "What I've said to New Line is that I don't want this to be released to TV," Jackson said. "I just feel that the fans that come back for the last time to see the movie should be the only people who see this." The Italian Website Caltanet Cinema tells us that there is yet another DVD release planned for "The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring". The site spoke with a representative of the Home Video Department of Medusa, the Italian distributor for "The Lord of the Rings." It appears that, on top of the August release of the DVD & VHS and the November double DVD, with extra features, there will also be a 4-Disc Collectible box coming in November. "A box containing 4 DVD, 2 of them are the same as the double DVD (see above), but you get also a DVD with the director's cut (Peter Jackson didn't decide yet between a 3h 30' version and a 4h version) and another DVD with other extra stuff." It's a manip of the Frodo-holding-the-One-Ring poster: Angel's face replacing Frodo's. The caption reads: "One Ring to rule them all. One Ring to find them. One ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them. Now... Who do I kill to get one?" *snerk* Lots of Elvish goodness at ElvishTranslator.com. It's an extension of the Official site with lots of fun Flash files with sound clips and also a behind the scenes-type file about the use of Elvish in the movies.
Got this forwarded to me awhile ago. It's stilll kinda funny. Fat Theology And Satan created McDonald's. And McDonald's brought forth the 99-cent double-cheeseburger. And Satan said to Man, "You want fries with that?" And Man said, "Super size them." And Man gained pounds. And God created the healthful yogurt, that woman might keep her figure that man found so fair. And Satan brought forth chocolate. And woman gained pounds. And God said, "Try my crispy fresh salad." And Satan brought forth ice cream. And woman gained pounds. And God said, "I have sent your heart healthy vegetables and olive oil with which to cook them." And Satan brought forth chicken-fried steak so big it needed its own And Man gained pounds and his bad cholesterol went through the roof. And God brought forth running shoes and Man resolved to lose those extra pounds. And Satan brought forth cable TV with remote control so Man would not have to toil to change channels between ESPN and ESPN2. And Man gained pounds. And God said, "You're running up the score, Devil." And God brought forth the potato, a vegetable naturally low in fat and brimming with nutrition. And Satan peeled off the healthful skin and sliced the starchy center into chips and deep-fat fried them. And he created sourcream dip also. And Man clutched his remote control and ate the potato chips swaddled in cholesterol. And Satan saw and said, "It is good." And Man went into cardiac arrest. And God sighed and created quadruple bypass surgery. And Satan created HMOs.
SPOILERS FOR BUFFY: "AS YOU WERE" *shakes head* Buffy's definitely still not over the whole shagging vampires thing. Xander has strange family logic. And they are hitting the chips way too hard. But they have worked out their wedding stresses and next week is the wedding! Woohoo! Riley's back and he's married to... a girl named Sam who can kick the crap out of demons. Silly Black Ops lady. But.. she's nice... and I wanna hate her but I can't. Bah. Poor Spike. If he gushes anymore about how Buffy's toying with him, I'm going to deck him. And if Buffy blames someone else for her own issues again, I'm going to rip her a new one. Her little speech at the end.. damn. That was cold. She called him William, which just makes that whole thing so... final. But I know she'll be back. Vampire snogging is addictive. >_< I.. I like Sam. She's nice. She and Will swapped e-mails. Of course, after they left, Willow had the nerve to say to Buffy, "what a bitch." *snerk* "My hat has a cow." - Buffy Buffy: Did you die? "Just so you know, I'm repared to hate this woman any way you want." - Willow Rosenberg "Look, Crew-Cut, she's not your bint anymore." - Spike to Riley, re: Buffy "I'm sorry, William." - Buffy Overheard in Chat Scifi1701D: But Josh Hartnett's new movie looks good :-D EyE2eYe18: do you think he'll ever realize that the tree isn't wide enough OzW 703: there goes slutty the vampire layer again Scifi1701D: What dead demon is Anya wearin? Scifi1701D: fugly OzW 703: we don't know her, right? EyE2eYe18: she's gotta be a demon Scifi1701D: Spike's the Doctor? EyE2eYe18: i hate those weird moments when you're caught with your demon lover *
monday, february 25
SPOILERS FOR ANGEL: "Loyalty" The prophecy: "The Father Will Kill The Son" Also, the big talking burger says: Earthquake. Fire. Blood. Okay, Angel's going all psycho dad... he bought itty bitty hockey sticks with Cordy's stole credit card number. Oooh, Holtz is back! And he's got his own group of human lackies. With Justine as Second, I suppose. Poor Wes. I know he's hurting, but he was almost cruel to Fred. And a touching moment with Lilah? How.. human. And, of course W&H was behind the theft of Connor's blood. Gunn's an ass. "'Mr. Dad.' Check me out! I'm Mr. Dad!" - Angel "Do you realize this is the whiteest sport known to man?" - Gunn re: hockey "My company rocks." - Lilah Morgan "An earthquake? That's the great portent? We live in California." - Wesley Overheard in Chat: Scifi1701D: why are they all dressed like rednecks? JennyEdu: no they were looking for suspicious. Different thing entirely EyE2eYe18: THE HAMBURGER DID IT wtrnite2: dude, they've got my comforter set on the bed! OzW 703: he's gonna eat lil connor!!! *
sunday, february 24
Three posts this month.. wow... SPOILERS FOR ALIAS: "The Coup" Awww :) Vaughn was being all schmoopy. I love that boy ^_^ Have I mentioned how much I love Michael Vartan? I just bought "Mists of Avalon" because he was in it... and that thing was dreck. Ack! Syd wants to quit grad school. Of course, if she becomes a teacher... so what? She can't exactly skip all her classes to go on missions. Hm. Maybe she should quit. Charlie is a dirty, dirty pig. ::shakes head:: Boys. They always gotta cheat on the one they love then pretend it didn't happen. But you know what? We always find out. I dunno if I would be as mad as Francie was at Sydney. I mean, I'd like to know if the guy I was about to marry had cheated on me, so I guess I wouldn't be mad, but.. argh. It sucks that this happened to her, after that scare way long ago with Rachael. Who Estella thought Charlie was with.. er.. yeah Syd's father actually had some soothing and comforting words. How sweet. Aw, but screw this drivel. There was some major V/S action in this episode. The UST is killing me! Resolveresolvereolve the UST! "What you said about wanting to go to a hockey game - letting me be part of your life - I think I wasn't clear about something. That it would be nice to be in public with you, to actually get to look at you... grab a pizza or go to a hockey game. I just... I wasn't clear that I would really like that, too." - Vaughn to Sydney "I don't have to lecture you about people's capacity to keep secrets." - Dixon Next week: Will's targeted by SD-6 for asking one too many questions. Seems like Vaughn has to break the news to Syd. *
friday, february 22
Marvel does manga. Badly. Ph33r th3 |\/|4|\|G4v3r53! I bought the Mangaverse comics 'cause I thought there would be some really great manga artwork, different from what's going on in the main lines. Um, well, it's different, but I'm disappointed. "Eternity Twilight" is pseudo-manga bastardized anime-americrap hybrid. GURU-eFX did an awesome coloring job and the story was decent - strange, but decent... but come on! This was sooo poser. Marvel should have hired some real Japanese artists to handle this one (Yoshitaka Amano is doing great work for the Elecktra/Wolvie books). Or at least they could have hired some really eager fanboys to do the art. I know a large handful of people who could do better work (*cough*Megatokyo*cough*). Hell, I could have done better in some spots. Pointy noses and big eyes only get you so far. Only half of the above applies to the Spider-Man Marvel mangaverse comic, though. The art is more anime than manga, but it's still great. Marvel should've had Kaare Andrews pencil "Eternal Twilight." Dave McCaig's coloring style is a lot closer to that used in anime, matching the drawing style. Actually, half the time the issue reminds me of an episode of Digimon. o_O Anywho, get the Spider-man mangas. Skip "Eternity Twilight." Can't say much about the rest of the line as I haven't read them.
sunday, february 17
"Black Hawn Down" Review Before I start talking about the movie itself, I just wanted to say something about the movie theater. Apparently, there's a regulation whereby you aren't allowed to take shopping bags, over-sized purses, backpacks, whatever, into the theater for the safety of the staff. Well, okay, fine, I guess I can respect that. Wouldn't want anyone getting hurt. But here is where I have a problem: I bought a headset from Best Buy. The bag is practically transparent and it's about the size of a "normal" purse. I ask the lady if this was okay, because, you know, it's tiny. So she says to me: "You can take the item in if you throw away the bag." Huh? So, if I take this little plastic bag and throw it out, it's all good? Yes, she said. Well, that's silly, I replied. "Yes, I know," she kind of laughs. "But we've been trying to get the word out since October." Huh. So I handed the plastic bag to my mother (to put in her purse) and off we went to the movie. Anyway, here's the chicky review of "Black Hawk Down," directed by Ridley Scott, starring some hot guys, and featuring really bloody scenes. I liked this movie. Not because of the hottie content (not that it hurt any), but because it didn't pull any punches. Thank you, Ridley Scott. War is bloody, confusing, loud, angry, and scary as all hell and this was perfectly illustrated here. The Rangers don't leave anyone behind. If they did, this would've been one short, unfeeling movie. Here's the summary from IMDB.com: This is the true story of the Battle of Mogadishu, the longest sustained ground battle involving American soldiers since the Vietnam War. An elite force of 120 American Delta units and Ranger infantry were dropped into Mogadishu on October 3rd, 1993, to abduct two of Somalian warlord Mohamed Farrah Aidid's lieutenants. Instead, two UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters were shot down, and what was expected to take an hour lasted 15, resulting in the deaths of 19 Americans, 73 wounded, and hundreds of Somalians dead. The point where everything starts to go wrong: Tom Blackburn (played by Orlando "Legolas" Bloom) is decending the helicopter and falls off the rope when the chopper veers to avoid a missile. Much more chaos ensues and I don't really feel like describing it all. Let's just say that someone loses a hand, another loses his lower half, there's a femoral artery operation in an abandoned building which utilizes someone's hand and a basic clamp, and lots and lots of people die. Leave no man behind. So in an effort to get everyone back to base camp a lot of soldiers get pinned down. With so much death, depression, and duty flying around, let's not forget some brief spots of humor that are sprinkled around the film. The interactions between Twombly, Sanderson, and the lost Delta team member (I can't remember his name) was classic. T & S almost shoot the Delt and the two parties bicker about whom is going to whom. Another light moment is when Grimes (Ewan McGregor) makes coffee in the middle of the night, right before they are attacked again by the Somalian militia. Must. Have. Coffee. Honestly, I really only wanted to see this movie because Orli was in it. Big plus that Ewan had top billing, too. However, there was a really faboo cast on this film: Tom Sizemore ("Saving Private Ryan," "Pearl Harbor"), Sam Shepard ("Steel Magnolias," "All the Pretty Horses"), Ron Eldard (Shep, on ER), and Jeremy Piven ("Grosse Point Blank," "Kiss the Girls," "Rush Hour 2"). All in all, what I'm trying to say in this broken review is that if you're not squeamish, you should take the time to check it out. You'll come out with a greater appreciation of what our soldiers do - even if it is fighting another country's war. Which is why you'll need to do some research about the how and why.
Maintained by Amezri. This is totally over-opinionated. So pardon if Ah offend. |
