Funny moments

On the first season of 30 Rock Tina Fey is walking and talking with a member of TGS. At the end of the walk Fey notes that all they did was walk in a circle. Sly jab at Studio 60?
On a recent episode of NPR's Wait Wait Don't Tell Me the answer to a question was 'Darth Vader.' A cast member answered 'storm trooper' and felt he should get credit since darth vader is a super storm trooper. Peter Segel does not give him credit and responds that darth vader is a fallen jedi and storm troopers are clones to applause. This guy knows his stuff and displays the erudition of NPR programming,

Where Cloverfield Went Wrong

The concept behind Cloverfield is great; lets make a big budget version of the Blair Witch Project. Take the disaster movie genre and shoot it from a pedestrians perspective. The teasers for Cloverfield were promising. What made The Blair Witch project scary was the realism; shooting in a home movie style. Unfortunately, Cloverfield sticks with the Hollywood conventions. Here is where it went wrong.
SPOILERS!
1.) The movie begins with about 10-15 minutes of dialogue between the main characters, setting up their backgrounds. Home movies are never this informative. I would accept this if all the characters were not so unlikeable. This further distances itself from the believability that we are watching someones candid home movie. (Also, the title begins by informing us this video was found by the military, and it is a piece of classified intelligence. Why would the military keep 15 minutes of character background bios?)
2.) The next piece that kept Blair Witch scary was never actually showing the monster. Half the thrills come from not knowing what it is. The Village, a generally mediocre horror film, kept the thrills by showing snippets of the monster, usually a quick blur or unfocused in the background. Judging by the trailers, you would think you would never actually see the monster in Cloverfield. On the contrary, you get multiple clear shots of the monster, even an ending climax where the camera man is standing underneath it and gets a nice, long, smooth shot of it (the whole film he is shaking and this is the time he finds calmn?)
3.) The monster bite causes you to explode. This might have been a cool surprise, a la Alien, except that it was shown in the commercials. Again, this takes away from the realism and takes it into B movie territory.
4.) Why can't it just be a story of a few people trying to escape from New York instead of some over the top rescue mission?
5.) A disaster movie set in New York is going to have its share of 9/11 references but this one is basically non-stop (people covered in dust, cgi paper falling from the sky). War of the Worlds did this far with far more subtleness. For that matter, War of the Worlds did this entire concept better. Speilberg made a believable, terrifying experience without the need of the hand-held movie ploy. Cloverfield at its core is a disaster movie like any other. It is basically Godzilla but shot in nauseating handy cam video. What is wrong with Cloverfield can be summed up in the one scene where the head of the statue of liberty is thrown down a street. This took anyway any sense of realism, which is the sole source of terror and suspense. WotW doesn't resort to this Independence Day-esque ploy and keeps the perspective solely on one family and believably portrays what would happen in basically any disaster. In conclusion, WotW = best disaster movie ever, Cloverfield = Godzilla san Matthew Broderick.

Carbon Credits are not Indulgences

Since carbon credits have gotten some media attention, pundits love to compare them to Catholic indulgences. It is an easy analogy to make; however, there is one clear difference. Indulgences could not and did not buy away your sins whereas carbon credits potentially could offset carbon emissions. Until our government gets its act together, this is really the only practical option beyond the usual stuff (greater efficiency, less energy use) to help the environment. The analogy with indulgences does ring true if these carbon credits do not in fact off set carbon emissions and solely exist to give us peace of mind. Since these carbon credit companies are not regulated and privately owned, this is true to some degree. If it is implemented properly though, people should be able to purchase credits that go towards planting trees and investing in alternative energy sources that are not economically competitive with coal and petroleum.
This does raise the argument of who should pay for the green future (assuming it happens). Should the wealthy be able to fly private jets as long as they offset that with carbon credits? This runs the risk of becoming of a regressive tax and something the conservative pundits love to say (or our "president" saying Al Gore cares more about owls than working people in 2000). The cost of reducing our carbon emissions to 1990 levels is something like 1% of our GDP, which should be fairly imposed on the population based on income. Conservatives love to say this will ruin our economy but global warming will have exponentially greater cost. The only real solution will come from the government that will subsidize the green movement and force manufacturers to produce green products.

Cute or anti-Semitic?

I saw this spray painted on the wall while playing Team Fortress 2. I always thought of Airdales as the Jewish dog. I want one!

Ben Stein's Expelled

I saw a commercial for Ben Stein's anti-evolution documentary Expelled. In the commercial, we are at some prep school as a crazy, bearded teacher explains evolution. Ben Stein raises his hand asking, "How did life begin in the first place... dude?" to which the teacher starts shaking angrily. Apparently, this lands Ben Stein in the principle's office. I am not sure why Ben Stein would be sent to the principle's office for asking a valid question for anyone ignorant of the concept of evolution. The theory of evolution states that whatever is most fit to survive and reproduce will proliferate. This includes non-life forms too, like viruses and organic molecules. Experiments have been done simulating the conditions on early earth and were able to spontaneously create amino acids, the building blocks of protein. It is not too hard to imagine then over the course of billions of years these molecules start reacting and forming something that is self-replicating. Of course every detail of this has not been explained, but there is far more scientific evidence for the theory of evolution (in that it has some evidence) than the thought experiment that is intelligent design.

Best Flight of the Conchords music vids

1:20- best part



3:04

My favorite

Trailer News

-The New Incredible Hulk slightly improves on the first. The CGI hasn't noticeably changed since Ang Lee's pic. At least this one should have a better villian and no monster poodles.
-The Strangers looks uncomfortably scary. Minimalist masks unfocuesed in the background are always terrifying. Maybe this is a return to slasher pics and the ending of torture porn. I can only hope.
-Blindness looks like Children of Men redux. Can't think of a more awesome movie worthy of imitation.
- War, Inc. is laying on the social commentary a little too thick but we certainly need some satire of the war since they usually fail (I am looking at you Southland Tales)
-Finally, I rewatched Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and was reminded why this is one of the best films of all time and one of the few awesome trailers to live up to the film.


And of course, Wall-E. If this has some sort of A.I. styled ending I don't think I could handle it.

WALL-E v/s Hula Hoop
by DrMalo