Saturday, July 25, 2009
Friday, July 24, 2009
Chris Matthews debunks birthers, blows G. Gordon Liddy's drug addled mind.
Please keep in mind, Liddy is a crook.
Thursday, July 23, 2009
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Rifftrax Live: HOLY JESUS FUCK!
Join the stars of Mystery Science Theatre 3000 for the comedy event of the year! Fathom Events presents RiffTrax LIVE: Plan 9 from Outer Space, an evening of LIVE riffing on the Worst Movie Ever Made beaming into movie theaters nationwide on Thursday, August 20th at 8PM ET/ 7PM CT/ 6PM MT/ Tape Delayed at 8PM PT. Join Michael J. Nelson, Kevin Murphy (Tom Servo) and Bill Corbett (Crow T. Robot), now of RiffTrax.com, as they are reunited in HD for the first time ever on the big screen! The ultimate riffers will fling all new commentary on a COLOR version of “Plan 9 from Outer Space”- a 1959 science fiction/horror film written, produced and directed by Edward D. Wood Jr. Audiences will also be treated to a brand new, never before seen movie short during the Live event!
Monday, July 20, 2009
FOX Recasting Futurama
FOX is recasting Futurama
Feel free to e-mail FUTURAMA@SCOTTMULLERCASTING.COM and either inform them that recasting Futurama is stupid or attach a .mp3 of your best Bender impression.
Half-Blood Prince Review: Meh
As a sign that I have grown since my last Harry Potter review I will admit that there is, as far as I can tell, no available rubric by which one can assess a Harry Potter film except to compare it to other Harry Potter films. And on that scale Half-Blood Prince deserves a resounding "It wasn't as bad as Order of the Phoenix." Truthfully, though, I have no idea how to review a Harry Potter movie, how to assess a Harry Potter movie.
The movies are not the books. Alright, we are clear on that. But then what are the movies understood to be? Are these companion pieces? Are these part of their own narrative? Or is each movie a stand-alone entity beholden to nothing but that which appears on the screen?
This is what Half-Blood Prince provides: teenage melodrama. I do not mean that to be pejorative; a significant chunk of the movie is primarily teenage melodrama. The majority of the subplots concerned the whole Ron / Heronme non-relationship drama with a pinch of Harry and Ginny thrown in. And this is the crux of my problem when trying to write this review.
The review I want to write focuses upon Half-Blood Prince as a waste of a movie. This movie could have been the Voldemort movie; a movie the majority of which was back story and trips into the pensive to view the historical progression from Tom Riddle to Voldemort. That would have been a kick-ass movie. We could have hit every scene with Dumbledore and Harry looking at memories. We could have had segments of exposition wherein Dumbledore explains to Harry and the audience what the fuck is going on. We could have cleared up all of the ignored subplots of past movies and explained how Harry's scar fits into the Voldemort plot which propels the entire series.
But then I look at what the movie actually was: teenage melodrama stilted on awkward psuedo-exposition trying to cobble together Draco's treachery, Voldemort's past, the Order of the Phoenix's consternation, and Slughorn's crazy-old-man eyes. There is enough melodrama to overshadow the plot undercurrents yet there is just enough exposition on the larger Harry / Voldemort conflict to make me wonder why it was not embellished.
I think the movie strives to be primarily stand-alone and so focuses upon teenage melodrama in order to both meet the expectations of its primary audience and not expect too much from them at the same time. We assume that people are familiar with the characters and so do not have to provide a wealth of introductions yet do not rely upon this supposed understanding on the part of the audience to build a strong narrative which drives the overall plot foreward. Yet I wonder if this construction is at all sensible. Do we suppose that what fans want is to see Ron and Heronme being awkward rather than memories related to Voldemort? If Half-Blood Prince is any indication then the reply is an overwhelming probably.
While this is not the movie I wanted it pissed me off less than Order of the Phoenix. But I have to wonder if my lack of anger is the result of the quality of the movie or my own numbness to the franchise. And at the moment my guess is that I just stopped expecting anything from these movies in terms of exposition, coherence, or storytelling and rather pay $7 to see gratuitous shots of Emma Watson's ass.
Sunday, July 19, 2009
Truth: This time I use lines!
It would seem to be the case within this "supposed to be" existence that claims can be tested against one another with regard to some True.
If we think of claims as being on a line of truthiness, so to speak, where at one end there is True and the other there is False then claims may be arranged with relation to one another and those ends. I'm not going to photoshop it, so here it is in ugly, ugly punctuation:
TRUE---------(earth is oblate sphereoid)---------(Earth is flat)---------FALSE
To claim that (earth is oblate spheroid) is more _____ than (earth is flat) supposes a _____.
Where ____ can be understood as "true / correct / indicative of reality / etc."
It is not the case that (earth is oblate spheroid) and (Earth is flat) are assessed purely in terms of "supposed to be" given that one may suppose anything. For example, "I suppose I could fly" does not enable one to fly. There is something ELSE at play in the assessment of these claims.
Moreover, one's particular perception does not necessarily (again, this is with the empirical "other people exist" bullshit philosophical position) indicate that TRUE on the truthiness line above. Hellen Keller's inability to see and hear did not constitute a TRUE within which Sight and Hearing are impossible; I can hear even though Hellen Keller cannot. So one's subjective experience is not the TRUTH. Presumably, also, combined subjective experiences as not the TRUTH. When 99% of people maintained that:
TRUE-----(earth is flat)------(earth is oblate spheroid)---------FALSE
This did not make the above line immune to change. When one person found fault with the line his position was not consumed by those who maintained the line to be True (on its own truthiness line) but rather he had access to the True Truthiness line as it exists with regard to the statements (earth is flat) and (eart is oblate spheroid).
So, here is the question:
What constitutes the TRUE?
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