Blackmoor Vituperative

From the files of… IT’S THE SAME GUY! We bring you the case of David Krumholtz and Oscar Isaac. We saw ONE of these men tonight playing a small part in a Seth Rogan comedy, This Is The End (2013). Which of them was it? YOU make the call!

We enjoyed Alien: Covenant. Horror movies should be rated “R” (if we must suffer under these infantile rating systems at all). I also learned several things from the Ridley Scott School Of Space Exploration.

• Embrace the weather! When landing on an alien planet, find the worst storm you can, and land in the middle of it. Why wait for the storm to end? You have a planet to explore!
• Take a walk! If there is a specific location on the alien world that you want to see, land five miles away from it, and walk there.
• Immerse yourself! Don’t use drones or remotely operated vehicles to explore. Pull on your space-galoshes and tromp around the alien biosphere.
• Breathe it in! Don’t wear a space helmet, or even a hard hat. Stop and smell the flowers (or alien fungus pods). Inhale deeply of the space exploration experience!

But we really did have fun. 🙂

Have I mentioned how much fun we had at Guardians Of The Galaxy 2? We really enjoyed it. I think it’s probably the funniest comedy I have seen in ages. Some of it was in-your-face and obvious, but some was pretty subtle, like how a character named Ego has life-size dioramas of scenes from his life in his house. Because of COURSE he does! I am laughing just thinking about it.

“And this was when I bought my first car. It was a blue 1973 Chevy Vega with a Kraco tape deck. The eject button was broken, so all it ever played was Prince’s ‘Purple Rain’ album.”

The drinker’s version of “Let It Go”. I’d like to hear a mashup of this and “Let It Go”, actually. 🙂

My current favourite television show is Death In Paradise. The setting is a beautiful place, and the main characters are basically happy, decent people. Bad things happen, but they are always wrapped up by the end of the episode, and the bad people are brought to justice. And the episode usually ends with friends sharing a drink and laughing.

This arrived today: my swag from the “new” Mystery Science Theater 3000 Kickstarter. I am debating whether to keep them or sell them on Ebay. I am leaning toward selling them: they are a painful reminder of what could have been. “What could have been”, of course, is a new Mystery Science Theater that is actually good. Or at least, not utterly dreadful, which is what it is.

Utterly dreadful.

It needn’t have been dreadful. It could have been great. If they’d not edited the movies for time or content (they are actually shorter than the Comedy Central episodes!). If they’d not taken the lazy way out with the invention exchanges (I mean, seriously, why did they even bother). If the riffs were not being recited at double-speed like old-timey auctioneers. If the voice actors for Tom Servo and Crow didn’t sound indistinguishable from each other. If the lyrics of the opening theme didn’t jar egregiously with the melody, and if it didn’t pause inexplicably for ten seconds for no apparent reason (why? why??). If the three-person puppeteering of Tom and Crow wasn’t worse than the worst that Josh, Trace, Kevin, or Bill ever did. If the interior of the Satellite Of Love didn’t look like a cheap painted backdrop. If the Hexfield Viewscreen (TM) hadn’t been replaced with a simple screen that drops from the ceiling. If Gypsy hadn’t been attached to the ceiling for no apparent reason, limiting her movement and interactivity. If they hadn’t made Tom Servo’s arms stiff and even less articulate. And don’t get me started on the dysfunctional in-theater performances (flying stiff-armed Tom Servo, random Gypsy luggage-handling, lip-synced riffing… again: why??).

I could go on, and on, and on. Did I mention the completely unnecessary editing of the films? That, by itself, is enough reason to eschew this travesty.

And yet, I am glad I supported the Kickstarter. Because it might have been great — or at least good. It might have been worth what I — and hundreds of other people — spent money on. It might have been….

sigh

Update: I sold some, gave away the rest. It has been a relief not to have those reminders around. I sincerely hope that this is the last I hear of this fetid imitation.

I have been rewatching a lot of 1980s fantasy movies lately. While putting Warrior And The Sorceress back on the shelf, I happened to notice Your Highness, which I’d completely forgotten about. I really like this movie. It’s a comedy, but it’s not a spoof. It’s like what would happen if a guy who really shouldn’t be in a 1980s fantasy movie got dragged into one against his will. Great cast, very funny, and has all of the best parts of the 1980s fantasy movies that I love.

One of my most enjoyable convention panels, back when I used to do that sort of thing, was “gearing up for a zombie apocalypse”. I insisted that before you could make that kind of plan, you needed to answer three questions about the zombies:

1. Are they fast?
2. Are they aggressive?
3. Are they infectious?

The answer to each of these questions dictates the gear you will need to survive. The most important factor is #3. It’s the infectious nature of modern zombies that makes them a civilization-ending threat. Even if every person who died eventually became a zombie, that’s a much easier situation to deal with than one where you get bit by a zombie today and turn into a zombie tomorrow.

Happy Birthday to William S. Burroughs — American novelist, short story writer, satirist, essayist, painter, and spoken word performer.

From the files of… IT’S THE SAME GUY! We bring you the case of Reggie Bannister and Dean Norris. We saw ONE of these men tonight playing a small part in one of our favourite films, The Last Seduction (1994). Which of them was it? YOU make the call!