The Good Old Days Weren’t Always Good. I remember loving Dead Poets Society when I first saw it about a million years ago in 1989. It’s a movie I see once in a while, but not so often that I have the whole thing committed to memory. I just re-watched it and I have to say that it’s just as brilliant as it was when I first saw it. We start off in this fantasy world of 1959 where the sons of rich men are sent off to boarding school to ensure a prosperous future. Such silly ideas as happiness or pursuing…
Category: random thoughts
Wilhem Walengrave Vampire
Writing is an amazing experience. Editing is hell on earth. Selling is next to impossible. For all creatives, these are the best of times and the worst of times. Anyone can be published. Anyone can make a movie. Anyone can release their own album. And pretty much everyone has. New content is constantly being created and added to Amazon, YouTube, Twitter, Vine, Facebook, etc, etc, etc. There is a wonderful little rush that comes from hitting the button that allows something you created to be available to the world. And a wonderful little bump of depression when no notices. I’ve…
Dead Ice
Laurell K. Hamilton wrote the first Anita Blake book in 1993, so it is a bit odd when Anita mentions how old she feels, now that she’s 31, instead of the 46 she should be. Of course, being the Human Servant of a Master Vampire, she’s not aging much anyway. Dead Ice starts off like an old fashioned Anita Blake Vampire Hunter book. There’s a bit of zombie raising that doesn’t go exactly as planned followed by a call from the Authorities that they need her help on a case. Be still my heart, monster and slayer action! Then we…
The Good Dinosaur
Why The Hell Is Pixar Still Making Cartoons?? Ok, The Good Dinosaur was a good movie. It was basically a remake of Bambi or Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer or any other cute small animal who has to fin for himself in a cold, cruel world before heading home a stronger and wiser fellow. Pure formula and there’s nothing really wrong with that. This a frame from the film of a branch and some leaves. Most of the film looks like this. Hyper realistic images. Amazing mountains, clouds, trees, rocks, water, and every background image is picture perfect. Pixar is pretty…
Annual Dallas Cowboys Rant – 2015
It doesn’t matter if you win or lose, it’s how much money you put in the bank. Jerry Jones’ Personal Mantra Jerry Jones bought the Dallas Cowboys for $140 Million in 1989. The NFL franchise is currently worth around $4 billion. This is one of the many reasons that fans of the Dallas Cowboys football team, and haters of Dallas Cowboys owner Jones, have a hard time when it comes to Jerry and his bizarre football decisions. Clearly he is not a total idiot. He is only an idiot when it comes to on the field football. All the problems with…
The Muppets- well, sort of
Not you father’s Muppets-well, not MY muppets. I think the most cringe worthy moment in this first show filled to the gills with cringe worthy moments was when Kermit’s new pig Denise is shown bobbing her head while she sucks a straw. ‘What can I say, I like pigs.’ says Kermit as he turns and watches Denise. At least the straw wasn’t green. Modeled on [easyazon_link identifier=”B00LTO342M” locale=”US” tag=”londonthoug-20″]The Office[/easyazon_link] or [easyazon_link identifier=”B0000E2PVR” locale=”US” tag=”londonthoug-20″]Curb Your Enthusiasm[/easyazon_link], The Muppets is filled with a lot of camera zooms and shaky movements. Our heroes are nothing but angst ridden muppets who bear…
TED Radio Hour
TED — Technology, Entertainment and Design TED has pretty much reached a point where it’s like YouTube, there is so much random crap that it’s hard to find something you really want to invest 18 minutes in. The good folks at the [easyazon_link identifier=”B00GKS2QB2″ locale=”US” tag=”londonthoug-20″]NPR[/easyazon_link] show, The TED Radio Hour, have taken the work out of sorting TED talks. They pick a topic and then drop in bits and pieces of TED talks and interviews with the people who gave the talk. For the most part these are thought provoking and fun. Most of the speakers are people I…
The Hollywood Reporter Top 100 TV Shows
Best TV Shows Ever? Eh. The Hollywood Report put out a list of Hollywood’s 100 Favorite TV Shows, based on the votes of industry insiders. They had a similar list last year of the Top 100 Movies. Best TV Shows Ever counts down from 100 and gives each entry a short bio and a couple of fun facts. They asked over 2,800 ‘industry people’ what their favorite TV series was. I would be hard pressed to name a favorite, since I tend to break them down by category. Is a great comedy better than a great drama? Is Sci Fi…
ALIEN
In space no one can hear you scream. [easyazon_link identifier=”B00GQ4RUP2″ locale=”US” tag=”londonthoug-20″]Alien[/easyazon_link] (I watched The Director’s Cut) is a 1979 science-fiction horror film directed by Ridley Scott, and starring Tom Skerritt, Sigourney Weaver, Veronica Cartwright, Harry Dean Stanton, John Hurt, Ian Holm and Yaphet Kotto. Spoilers We start off with scenes of an empty spaceship. There are odd sounds and bits of paper rustling and small perpetual motion toys in perpetual motion. As we watch a number of lights start to flash, a dot matrix printer starts it’s ratta tat tat, and we hear beeps and blops as the ship…
Jodorowsky’s Dune
The saddest of these are What Might Have Been… We open up with a bit of history about the very odd films of Alejandro Jodorowsky, such as [easyazon_link identifier=”B00LCT48HE” locale=”US” tag=”londonthoug-20″]El Topo[/easyazon_link]. He’s not a formally trained film maker and he liked to make movies starring himself and his young son, who we see in a bit of full frontal nudity. In 1975 it seems that no one really wanted to make a film version of Dune, so when Alejandro asked if he could do it, they said sure, knock yourself out. The bulk of [easyazon_link identifier=”B00J5LXMTG” locale=”US” tag=”londonthoug-20″]Jodorowsky’s Dune[/easyazon_link] is…