Siskel and Ebert Archive

Stumbled across the archive for Siskel & Ebert. The 20+ year archive of the show as it was under different names/production companies.

Below is the very first episode of Siskel & Ebert from way back in 1975.

http://siskelandebert.org/video/GWHWHKY3W9R7/Opening-SoonOne-Flew-Over-the-Cuckoos-Nest

Doctor Who / James Bond Mashup

In a thread on AH.com about how to fit all the plots of the Bond movies into one storyline, Rationalised James Bond Universe, there is a link to something else. Lavanya Six provides a link to a story, Recap, by Adrian Tullberg. It explains all of the  inexplicable details of Mr Bond.

ChiCom Censors As Just Another Form of Executive Meddling

Read an interesting article in Foreign Policy about a journalist and her censor, Me and My Censor. I have read many other stories, historical and fictional, of censorship in the past, Newspeak and Stalinist airbrushing being the most notable. This story show something else, it makes scary ChiCom censorship as something no worse than Executive Meddling, see TV Tropes, which is pretty bad itself.

However we before start having positive feelings for soft and cuddly commies is that there worse things that resistance to executive meddling can cause such as unemployment/underemployment. Communists on the other hand play hard ball in very hard and nasty ways. See an earlier post at this blog, Death of a Communist Hitman 40 Years Ago. Check out this talk by a KGB infiltrator, Soviet Subversion of the Free World Press, 1984 - Complete.We need to remember that Commies are evil, and if they are not they are stupid, check out Odd Definition of Loyalty / Treason Among America's "Civil Rights Community" which explores Paul Robeson's moral blindness.

Great Review of the Dear Leader's Film Criticism

My mind was simply blown away!!! The dear leader is an author par-excellence. Given that it was written in 6 hours flat, this book is nothing short of a masterpiece. It is sad that the biased western media has not recognised the great man's writing abilities. Nor have the reindeer eating ignoramuses in Sweden considered the master for the Nobel Prize for literature. Not that the great man needs one.

In this book, his greatness discusses, in depth, the fine intricacies of various aspects of film making from kidnapping directors and their wives, to ordering people in to movie theatres.

As the person who solely invented 3D cinema, digital projection and bullet time photography, his Kimness can teach a thing or two to posers like Speilberg. But his shortness's abilities are not limited to film production techniques. He directed what is the undoubtedly the greatest movie of all time, Dairy of a Girl Student and also lesser known movies like Star wars, Saving Private Ryan and God Father 1&2. Godfather 3 was not directed by Lil Kim and hence sucked big time.

The Kim man also reveals in the book, his dabblings in alternative cinema, directing and starring in masterpieces like Kim goes South, Interracial Kimming and Kimm until she's Ill, which although is widely considered to be the greatest adult movie ever made, is not available outside due to privacy concerns. Fears of leaking these masterpieces to the western devils is rumoured to be the reason why North Koreans don't have access to the internet. But the movies can apparently be bought on BetaMax in North Korea for an average monthly salary of a North Korean or 1 piece of bread.

To summarise read this book or face the firing squad when the revolution comes.

Mark Twang's review of this book, On the Art of the Cinema: April 11,1973, has been able to capture the stilted rhetoric of a Red Guard. Admittedly we have fewer examples of North Korean communist rhetoric but this seemed as similar to Maoist writing for one person to consider this review "racist". Proving to me at least to me that those who charge "racism" are the true morons of our age.

I found this in a Foreign Policy article about the lousy literature that dictators inflict on the world, Bad Politics, Worse Prose. The article examines the conditions that prevents dictators from producing good work, namely a subservient, adoring public and a complete lack of professional editing. This is also a good explanation for how the Star Wars prequels were just so lousy. The generalissimo Lucas may have been a great director in his day.

The Matrix Effect

Ah, the early'90's: I was so innocent I barely knew which demographic I was.

Scott Brow in
Wired 2009/09/11 article "Geeky Friday

There is also an old saying that you should never examine too closely how sausages or laws are made. At the end of The Matrix, Neo can only see perceive the programming but not the our constructed reality.  Media training is good but it also robs you of the pleasure of pure consumerism / fandom.

Where Polar Bears Come Fromm

Many people looks at myths as explanations for how things have happened. However in my view myths are less explanation than explanation within in a world view, culture and religion. They more stories that stress the importance of a culture's world view, gods and heroes, than flat and culture free science and history. The story of creation is more a story of why "the heavens and the earth" were created, Genesis (1.1), then an explanation of how.

This short flash animation, Drunk Science, explains where polar bears come from.

The Expendables - semi-live blogging

When I first saw ads for The Expendables I was impressed. Line up of cool, super cool action stars. Except that for Stallone, a sad, cowardly, pathetic, draft dodger. Which is ironic since he has based his career, in part, on John Rambo. I am sorry I just hate Stallone, not the least for his horrible portrayal of Judge Dredd.

first action sequence
saving prisoners from the scum of Somalia

What do you know, a greedy pirate.

Lee Christmas (Jason Stratham)

My opinion is that we should go back to tradition, ancient, of punitive raids. Every time Somali pirates raid a pirate castle should be destroyed , That is any nice piece property in Somalia that probably home to a pirate king. No reasoned argument will ever convince them to stop being pirates. In Beirut in the '80's a Soviet was kidnapped. The Soviets promptly went and snatched a relative of some prominent terrorist/jihadi/scum of the earth. They then sent back to the prominent terrorist/jihadi/scum of the earth the relative in bits and pieces. Soviets were off limits from then on.

I got 30 minutes into the film and I couldn't watch anymore. Goddamn you Stallone, destroyer of films.

Board Walk Empire: 1st Impressions

Opening Credits: someone is channeling Magritte.

The evil organization The Woman's Christian Temperance Union, the one group more responsible for more organized crime in the 20's then any other.

"And he he took the loaves and fishes, looked at his disciples and said: fuck it we're going into the whisky business."

L. McCoy front line bootlegger
mangling Matthew15:36
in Boardwalk Empire S01E01

"You know who dies for their country, fucking rubes that's who."

Enoch "Nucky" Thompson, Patriot

Definitions of Respectability

The guy I bought it from seemed like a real straight shooter.

Alan Garner,

 hapless brother-in-law talking about E 

that turned to be roofies.

You mean the drug dealer you met at the liquor store wasn't a good guy.

Stu Price, angry uptight dentist

From The Hangover

New Ed Wood Film

Plan 9 Teaser Trailer from Darkstone Entertainment on Vimeo.

A remake of Ed Wood's Plan 9 From Outer Space is in production. Above is the trailer, here is the movie's site. I got the link from an AH.com thread, Ed Wood Returns.

Update
As Timbo points out a competent Ed Wood producing acceptable work is not Ed Wood. Ed Wood really cared about film and wanted to be a director. His desire and lack of skill made him an anti-hack. There are many people who can do good work but don't, they are hacks. The tragedy of Ed Wood is that he wanted to do good work but couldn't and didn't recognize when he didn't.

Be Your Own Gunman

The man to protect you is you. Not the state, not the agent of the state, and not your hired hand—YOU!

Jeff Copper in a short article, Cooper VS. Terrorism, reprinted from Guns & Ammo annual 1975, advocating everyone become their own bodyguard. That one should be armed and trained for close combat, and not depend on anyone else. It is mildly alarming prospect. In the bio of the author, Jeff Cooper, we learn that he was innovator of Modern Technique of the Pistol, practices and principals to maximize combat effectiveness.

For some more alarming thoughts here is poem that Jeff Cooper posted in his armory about shotguns. He also worked better ways of killing with shotguns along with rifle and pistol.

"The Colonel loves his twelve gauge
It hits so very hard
"That when he shoots his enemies
It tears them all apart

It blows off chunks of tissue
And leaves their clothing red
It leaves them ripped and shattered
And almost always dead

It vaporizes muscle
It pulverizes bone
Yet shotguns are the weapons
The even yuppies own

They claim they only use them
For shooting ducks and skeet
But when you're stuck, a load of buck
Turns predators to meat

Bill O'Connor

Ancient Computer Graphics in Star Wars

slashdot has a link to an an old film explaining the computer graphics in the Star Wars briefing scene, 1977 Star Wars Computer Graphics. The Topless Robot found this gem and has this wonderful comment from Nonish on the terrible and declining taste of one George Lucas.

"Stick around. I'm sure Lucas is close to unveiling plans to refilm the classic trilogy.

Now with poop jokes and Jar Jar Binks™"

No. NO! Don't even go there. I've been scared pretty much shitless over this ever since this let's-refilm-and-gangrape-classics fad caught on at Hollywood.

Latchkey Orphans & Zombies

(from Ads of the World)

On Ads of the World where I found this gem. A "guest" gave this description, "jaded suburban kids totally over the whole zombie thing". Ads for movie festivals like ads for zoos are some of the few types of "local" ads that have to have high production values. Car ads can be cool but ads for car dealers are strictly banal and formulaic. Movie festivals also have the burden of selling the "movie experience".

Update 37/10/09
Unfortunately "this video has been removed by user."

True Stories about LA Organized Crime

LA is the birthplace of the hard boiled detective story. I never really understood the evolution of this genre and why it first appeared in LA rather than New York or Berlin or Paris or Cleveland. In this discussion on KRCW program, Politics of Culture, two true crime historians delve into the organized crime history of Los Angles. Instead of having working class gangs based in ethnic loyalties and/or working class work sites like the docks, trucking or waste management. The mob in LA was based in the mayor's office, the police department and the chamber of commerce. A ruling class mob.

As an aside in the movie Pleasantville the town isn't run by an elected civic government but by a self-selected Chamber of Commerce.

What Happened to Following the Rules of Fight Club

Father In Mass. Ran Fight Club For Son James Dexter Says He Supervised Fights, Intervened When Someone Was Clearly Losing

NEWBURY, Mass. (CBS) ―

A father who helped his son set up an ultimate fighting club in his home may face serious charges.

James Dexter of Newbury admits 15 to 20 high schoolers gathered to fight in his living room, but he says it was just a sport.

"We had moved all the furniture to one side, and put a cushion on the wall. I set rules that they couldn't be using their elbows, their knees, and they couldn't lift them up off the ground and slam them to the floor," said Dexter.

He said his 16-year-old son had been planning to hold the fights in a nearby field, when Dexter intervened and said they had to do it under his supervision.

"I was standing there and if one kid was losing obviously, I broke it up right away rather than letting them get extra hits on him."

The kids wore fingerless boxing gloves and mouth guards, and fought in the style of the popular Ultimate Fighting Club.

"It's a hobby of mine," said Dexter. "We enjoy it. It's a sport."

Dexter faces four counts of reckless endangerment of a child, but a judge is giving him a chance to clear his record.

He's on probation for two years, during which he can not have anyone under 18 in his home.

As long as he obeys the conditions, the charges will be dropped.

(screen scrape from CBS Denver)

This terrible story has a moral, don't let teenagers join fight club because can't follow rules 1 & 2, Don't talk About Fight Club. Lousy punks.

Here are the rules of Fight Club.

Trainspotting Recruitment Ad Mashup

I came across a bunch recruiting ads tonight on Youtube. This one is a mashup between a Royal Marines ad and the opening words of Trainspotting. Trainspotting is a movie about heroin and nihilism of choosing drugs over life is actually a good fit with the standard recruiting ad of danger and honor.

Other recruiting ads, official and otherwise that I came across tonight.
A NSFW US Navy ad put together by some sailors that emphasizes the congenial "cruise ship" lifestyle in the Navy.

A comparison between Japanese and American Navy recruitment ads. The Japanese ad, official ad, has bright colors and uptempo. If anything it is like that old song, In the Navy, only with more dancing.

There were also a number of vile anti-militaristic ads out there. Often it is claimed that activists who have the objections to the various wars going on in the middle east are in favour of peace. Many of the same groups and individuals also support the activities of the many and varied moslem terrorist groups in the same area. Not the work of peaceniks but traitors who will always side with our enemies.

Finally check out this low key Russian recruiting ad. It is not a recruiting ad per se, the Russian army relies on conscription not just to fill its ranks but also the NCO slots. However since the collapse of Soviet order there has draft evasion on a large scale with parental approval and help. In this ad a young man packs some clothes, hugs his mother, leaves his apartment building and gets the quiet approval of old men playing chess outdoors.

Where to Hire a "Gun Wrangler"

While idly Googling around I came across a Canadian company that is set up to provide rentals and services to film and TV production companies. A&A Airsoft is willing rent weapons, equipment and the trained soldiers to operate it all along of with the services of a gun wrangler. From this company's name it probably started off selling Airsoft guns and then branched out into equipment and services and military surplus. The one book they sell, Once Upon a Wartime: A Canadian Who Survived the Devil's Brigade, is a memoir from a member of the Devil's brigade with a custom inscription from the author.

Gun Criticism from a Mob Boss

An Uzi! I'm not from South Central fuckin' Angeles. I didn't come here to shoot 20 black ten year olds in a fuckin' drive by. I want a normal gun for a normal person.

Harry the Mob Boss in In Bruges to
Uzi the gun dealer of Bruges

TV and Other Fiction Tropes

TV Tropes.com are compendium of a different wats and techniques of telling stories. In the words of TVTropes.com:

Tropes are devices and conventions that a writer can reasonably rely on as being present in the audience members' minds and expectations. On the whole, tropes are not clichés. The word clichéd means "stereotyped and trite". In other words, dull and uninteresting. We are not looking for dull and uninteresting entries. We are here to recognize tropes and play with them, not to make fun of them.

Wander around in this site and recognize all the parts of your favorite stories you have loved and enjoyed.

Orson Welles Almost did Batman

According to a 5 year old article at Comic Book Resources, Orson Welles and Bat-Man, Orson Welles wanted to make a movie adaptation of Batman. At the time the character was about a decade old. He wanted to cast himself, the studio wanted Gregory Peck. An actor who who is and can play best characters that are decent human beings, see all of Pecks most heralded roleslike Atticus Finch, as opposed to the monsters that Welles played so convincingly. Similarly I saw an old interview with Ray Bradbury. Bradbury was hired by John Huston to adapt Moby Dick. Bradbury suggests that Huston would have better played Ahab than Peck. Huston being more of the monster.

The idea of a Wellesian Batman has excited the related groups of cinepliles, comic book fans and fans of comic book movies. Here are some three trailers of a possible Welles Batman movie. This story has also excited the interest of Magniac on AH.com, he suggest a scenario that ASBs or Alien Space Bats, would think this idea so cool that they would bend reality to make it happen. In alternative history ASB is personification of the principle of deus ex machina.