33 Comments

1. Loki
   Posted January 30, 2010 at 3:22 am | Permalink

   Awesome post. One that I sadly don’t have time to respond to right now. But also one that I am frighteningly likely to write an abhorrently long reply I won’t really EVER have time for to at some point next week.

2. Jon Magne
   Posted January 30, 2010 at 1:39 pm | Permalink

   Glad you liked it. I wouldn’t have bothered with making it so long if you hadn’t pestered me about it on Twitter, so thanks for that, I guess

3. Loki
   Posted January 31, 2010 at 2:17 am | Permalink

   Daunted by the thought of all the scrolling I’d have to do to reply to all this, I just copy-pasted the whole thing into this lil’ reply-box, and will now go through it bit by bit. Capiche?

   “Welcome, welcome, yes, settle down now.”

   *gets comfy*

   “I’m so glad you could all make it to the annual award blog, where we celebrate all that was worth celebrating about the year that was in cinema. Your host tonight will be – yes, you guessed – this italic version of myself, who, aside from having a slightly slanted view at life, is very much like my regular, upright self.”

   I find it just amusing enough that your suppressed side is bent to confirm that effeminate personality traits and geekish obsessions aside, I’m still patently male. ;D

   “I’ll take those categories which I find interesting, and leave the rest of them open for interpretation. In case you find yourself confused over which categories are “real” and which “aren’t”, the latter kind will be apartheided into so-called “bonus categories”.”

   Use of “apartheid” as a verb – approved.
   Use of bonus categories – even more approved. Many of them were quite hilarious.

   “A small note on the business of the nominees: I just pick the ones I feel are worthy of attention. If I want to pick just one, I’ll pick two to make it interesting, but I’m not applying any restrictions on myself here.”

   As Mr. Cleese put it in Rat Race – ‘There is only one rule. There are… no rules! Now… go!’

   “Movies I Watched in 2009

   In random order:

   Black Dynamite, Fanboys, Up in the Air, Zombieland, The Road, Away We Go, (500) Days of Summer, Inglorious Basterds, The Informant!, A Serious Man, Fantastic Mr. Fox, Up, Year One, Invictus, The Hangover, The Men Who Stare at Goats, The Brothers Bloom, Taken, Avatar, Adventureland, Moon, Harry Potter & the Half-Blood Prince, Coraline, The Boat That Rocked, Duplicity, Star Trek, Dead Snow, Sherlock Holmes, Watchmen, The Hurt Locker, Public Enemies, Funny People, Bruno, “I Love You, Man”, Where the Wild Things Are, X-Men Origins: Wolverine, District 9.”

   I have no equivalent list, so I might have seen some other ones without remembering. Doubt it, though. So, the few of these that I’ve seen: Inglorious Basterds, Fantastic Mr. Fox, Taken, Harry Potter & the Half-Blood Prince, Coraline, Duplicity, Star Trek, Sherlock Holmes, Watchmen, Public Enemies, X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Oh! And I also saw Disney’s A Christmas Carol. You know, the 3D thing with Carry, Oldman and Elwes.

   “Best Supporting Actress

   The nominees: Anna Kendrick for Up in the Air. Vera Farmiga for Up in the Air. Rachel Weisz for The Brothers Bloom. Melanie Laurent for Inglorious Basterds.”

   Skipping on account of only having seen the latter, and Laurent not having made that lasting an impression. Though I recall her as good.

   “Best Supporting Actor

   The nominees: Woody Harrelson for Zombieland. Christoph Waltz for Inglorious Basterds. Jude Law for Sherlock Holmes.

   And the winner is: Christoph Waltz for Inglorious Basterds.

   What a shocker, right? Yeah, this one is a total lock for the actual award come the Oscar night, and it’s truly deserved. In fact, it’s such a commanding performance that I’ll rather talk some about Harrelson in Zombieland, which was the first time I remember actually liking him, and much the same can be said about Jude Law (who I hadn’t seen in years, it seems).”

   Supporting? I could’ve sworn he was the main character. But the winer without a doubt – note that I haven’t seen Zombieland. Law was very, very good in Holmes, though. But again – Waltz’ performance was the by far best thing about that entire movie, and I loved every little second of him to bits. And then I loved those bits to bits. And then I kept at that until I discovered some kind of micro-electron-particle that revolutionised science. And then I’d bugger the whole thing to go watch Waltz in Inglourious Basterds again and the world would forever be none the wiser.

   “Bonus category: Best “My Pipe is Bigger than Your Pipe” Moment of the Year

   Seriously, how big was that pipe?”

   God, I loved that scene.

   “Best Actress in a Leading Role

   The nominees: Julia Roberts for Duplicity.

   And the winner is: Miss Not Appearing in this Blog”

   Agreed. She was alright, but nothing Special.

   “Duplicity is a film that was much better than a lot people thought, with a great script from Tony Gilroy (of Bourne fame), but that’s also what I’ll remember about it, so I might as well take a pass.”

   Saw it on the airplane and was robbed of the final fifteen minutes – i.e. “where you understand wtf has been going on all the time”, so can’t say as to its quality. Huh. I should really get around to finding its end somewhere and watch it, shouldn’t I?

   “Or, when there’s no other worthy candidates, I could just hand it to Meryl Streep, who I’m sure deserved it, even if I didn’t watch her films. That’s what the Academy will do, anyway.”

   You DID! She was in Mr. Fox.

   “Best Leading Actor

   The nominees: Michael Stuhlbarg for A Serious Man. George Clooney for Up in the Air. Sam Rockwell for Moon. Matt Damon for The Informant!”

   Not seen any of’em, moving on…

   “Bonus Category: Best “I Wish Hugh Laurie & Robert Sean Leonard Had Been Casted Instead!” Award

   And the winner is: Sherlock Holmes.

   A fun movie by any stretch, but also a somewhat infuriating one, as I couldn’t help myself but think “Gee, I wish I’d been allowed to write & direct this movie”. Which we’re all thankful that I didn’t, of course (damn you all to hell!), but I think we can all agree that the best Holmes incarnation at the moment is House M.D.”

   Won’t say I sat there thinking I could write and direct better, but yes – Laurie and RSL do indeed have the Holmes-Watson-banter nailed to a degree the movie didn’t quite reach. However, in the movie’s defense, the House-couple have had an ungodly amount of hours to build the characters and their relationship – Law and Downey Jr. had to sell us within the scope of the opening scenes of a two-hour movie. Considering that, I have to say they did pretty much just as good as anyone could expect of anyone.

   I mean, I genuinely enjoyed the relationship between the two in the movie, rather than just feel bummed it wasn’t Laurie and RSL up there. Now THAT’s a testament to their performance.

   “Best Animated Feature

   The nominees: Up, Fantastic Mr. Fox, Coraline.

   And the winner is: Fantastic Mr. Fox.”

   Haven’t seen “Up”, nor do I really want to, but I have to say – “Coraline” was way superior to “Fox”. I really enjoyed “Fox”, it was clever and funny and exciting, but it didn’t really live up to the book. Ironically, its best and funniest bits by far was the good half of the movie that occurred AFTER the events of the book had been followed (okay, summarised) to their end, and the New Original Plot got to lay about with the fun.

   But yeah, Coraline was better.

   “Wes Anderson delivers a fantastic interpretation of Roald Dahl’s story, in a vein that’s unlike anything I’ve seen before, and with his trademarked quirky form of humour. The marvelous voice acting by Clooney, Bill Murray & Jason Scwartzmann should also be high-lighted & recognized for its brilliance. The close runner-up was undoubtedly Up, which I loved upon my first viewing, but doesn’t hold up as well as something like Fantastic Mr. Fox.”

   The holding-up bit I’ll buy – I’m sure this will be a movie that’ll do really well on repeated re-watch. I still think I prefer Coraline, though, even though it might be less suited for wear and tear.

   “Bonus Cateogry: Best Use of Ian McShane as Voice Talent Award

   And the winner is: Coraline

   I had no idea that McShane was doing voice acting for this film, which made me love a film I already adored even more. Hey, they made a Neil Gaiman movie, and they casted Ian McShane as the crazy Russian mice director.

   Or in simpler terms: awesome.”

   Agreed. So very agreed. (On a similar note, there should be a most randomly underapplied use of Brian Cox’ Voice Talent-award for his newsman on Mr. Fox)

   “Best Screenplay

   The nominees: Inglorious Basterds, Up in the Air, Black Dynamite, Moon, The Informant!.

   And the winner is: Inglorious Basterds.”

   Since that’s the only one of these I’ve seen, I can’t really argue with that, now can I? I do intend to watch Up in the Air one of these days, though.

   “Best Visual Effects

   The nominees: District 9, Star Trek, Avatar.

   And the winner is: Avatar, Avatar, Avatar, all day long.”

   Not seen it. Sort of might – I feel like if I AM to watch it, I really should while its in cinemas. But I’d much, much rather spend my ticket on “Legion” or “Book of Eli”…

   “Have you seen it?”

   Oh, sorry, I said that to soon. *clears throat* Nope.

   “Then you know what I mean.”

   Sorry, don’t. Of the other two, though, I’ve only seen Star Trek, so I’m not really in a position to judge anything at all here.

   I should really just be moving on, shouldn’t I?

   Moving on.

   Er, waaait a second -
   “Wolverine had the worst effects I’ve seen this side of the millennia shift,”

   It did? Gosh. I’m embarrassingly indifferent to these things, then. Have seen the movie twice, and not ONCE was I the least bothered by – or even caught up in – the special effects. I guess I just really, really don’t care. To me, it’s only bad if I Notice That It’s Bad, but I always figured I would if it was. Apparently, not even that qualifies, ’cause if you hadn’t told me, I wouldn’t have known.

   Heh. Funny.

   “Best Director

   The nominees: Quentin Tarantino for Inglorious Basterds, Jason Reitman for Up in the Air, Wes Anderson for Fantastic Mr. Fox

   And the winner is: Quentin Tarantino.

   Again, this one isn’t even close, so I’ll focus on the other two. Reitman, I think, is going to be a mainstay at the top of these lists in the years to come. He’s delivered two great films, and one very good film (Thank You for Smoking), and you can tell that he is far from done. Wes Anderson and I don’t always get along. I really like Rushmore, but can’t quite see what’s so great about The Royal Tennenbaums or his other films. Mr. Fox, however, hit all the right buttons, and hopefully we’ll get along better in the future.

   Tarantino though… He’s just a master at this point.”

   Don’t really feel qualified to comment on directing, but Mr. Fox did have some interesting use of angles and such. And of course any Tarantino-movie does. Er, yeah. That’s about as (un)intelligent a comment as I can make to this category. Moving on again…

   “Bonus category: The Best Director that Wasn’t Nominated for Best Director Award

   And the winner is: Rian Johnson for The Brothers Bloom.

   The Brothers Bloom is a sort of heist, caper, grifter & Ocean’s Eleven-esque story that I love so much, and the film really works, but somehow it falls a bit short in places as well. I have a feeling that this film could have been something of a gem with a few more re-writes, polishes & sharper editing, but as it stands, it’s just another film that will quitely vanish into the night. I sure hope Rian Johnson don’t fade away though, ’cause the man has now made two really interesting films (i.e. the awesomeness that is Brick), and I’d love to see what he could do after his sophomore slump. ”

   Sounds like something I’d enjoy! Consider yourself encouraged to sell me on both this one and on this “Brick” of which you speak.

   “Best Comedy

   The nominees: The Hangover, Black Dynamite, Fantastic Mr. Fox

   And the winner is: Black Dynamite

   Have you seen this outrageous film?”

   No… nor “The Hangover”. Shite. Moving on…

   “And now that naked Asian is killing me on a regular basis over at Community,which is a good show that you should watch.”

   I am. Though for the record, not for its naked Asians.

   “Best Films of 2009
   1. Inglorious Basterds

   “ “I think this is my masterpiece”.
   2. Fantastic Mr. Fox

   “You’re supposed to be my lab partner. You’re disloyal.”
   3. Up in the Air

   “I am a parenthesis?” ”

   Wow, you REALLY loved Mr. Fox, didn’t you? I thought it was good, but a bit short of great. Now I feel like I missed something. Definitely going to check out Up in the Air, though.

   For the record, of the ones I listed above, I’d tentatively rank my enjoyment of them like so:

   Watchmen
   Inglorious Basterds
   Taken
   Sherlock Holmes
   Coraline
   Fantastic Mr. Fox
   A Christmas Carol
   X-men Origins: Wolverine
   Duplicity (with the note that I didn’t see the end…)
   Harry Potter & the Half-Blood Prince
   Public Enemies

   “Movies That Weren’t All That, But Are Worth Noting

   *

   Harry Potter & the Half-Blood Prince was the first HP movie I’ve enjoyed since Prisoner of Azkaban. The ending was kind of a bummer though, or else it might’ve gotten itself higher on a lot of lists this year.”

   The ending was the only decent thing about it. How many times must Potter be wrong about Snape before he understands _anything_? And why does Dumbledore keep having these kids learn the hard way by not helping them out when they do the same mistakes over again the next time ANYWAY? And why am I still watching these movies? (At least I stopped reading the books )

   That said, it was, as you said, the best one since Azkaban, easily.

   ” * The best action film of 2009 was Taken, starring an ass-kicking Liam Neeson that was so bad-ass that I nearly forgive the film its terrible introductory sequence.”

   What was wrong about it? I loved the film, introductory sequence and all.

   “Fun fact: the director of this film is doing the huuuuuge sci-fi re-make Dune, which is probably not a good thing, but also a very interesting thing as well.”

   Interesting indeed. Huh. Maybe I should get around to seeing the original, then. Though wasn’t it made by the lunatic who did Twin “I’ll just have a demonically possessed owl communicate by aliens in the middle of my crime-mystery-soap-opera-thingie” Peaks?

   ” * How come I’m the only one in the world that watched/liked “The Boat that Rocked”? I’m not saying it’s the greatest film in the world, but it sure as hell deserved more recognition than it got.”

   Sigh. Should I see it, then?

   ” * Star Trek had the best ensemble cast of any film released this year, and I think that Chris Pine (Kirk) fellow is a man to watch in the coming years. We may have a new Pitt/Clooney/Depp on our hands, there.”

   Cast was the only thing that impressed about that movie, but in turn, the cast REALLY impressed.

   ” * The biggest disappointment of the year? Huh. Hard to say. Watchmen was all-right, I guess, but the trailer was better. X-Men Origins: Wolverine had such a bad rep going out the start gate that I didn’t expect much of it. I guess the ironic victor has to be Where the Wild Things Are, which is a well-made film that had great buzz, but that didn’t manage to connect with me at all.”

   Can’t say I had a huge expectation to anything I saw, but I think perhaps Mr. Fox. I love the book, and I think I was somehow expecting a slightly more faithful adaption of the plot. Especially considering how once they let the original plot go completely, I liked the movie better.

   ” * The second best film of 2010 will probably be David Fincher’s “The Social Network”. Even though I despise Facebook, I’m totally psyched to see what Fincher can do with a Aaron Sorkin script, that is rumoured to be nothing short of superb. Fincher hasn’t made a great movie since Fight Club, but I have a feeling this will be his return to form.”

   I will forever hate Sorkin for making me want to watch a movie about Facebook.

   ” * Iron Man II. ‘Cause Tony Stark has privatized world peace. I guess that means Robert Downey jr. will be coming to Oslo this December, then? At least he’ll have deserved the Nobel Peace prize… ”

   Iron Man II! WOHOO!

   I think that’s as good a note as any to end this reply on. Thank you for your post!

   Iron Man II! WOHOO!

4. Jon Magne
   Posted January 31, 2010 at 4:32 am | Permalink

   “Daunted by the thought of all the scrolling I’d have to do to reply to all this, I just copy-pasted the whole thing into this lil’ reply-box, and will now go through it bit by bit. Capiche?”

   I share your sentiment & your concern for the amount of scrolling. Also, I worry about this making much sense without me copy-pasting it for context. Hence, I do most sincerely capiche, capiche?

   “*gets comfy*”

   I shall not enquire as to what this entails. Let’s all hope pants were kept safely on & no kittens were used as innocent arm-rests.

   If they were guily though, then that’s of course an entirely different matter. Anyhoo, carry on!

   “I find it just amusing enough that your suppressed side is bent to confirm that effeminate personality traits and geekish obsessions aside, I’m still patently male. ;D”

   Hey, I was shooting for amusing, so go me! But wait, something is rotten in Denver about this comment, but I can’t… quite… figure… out… what. Hmm.

   “Use of “apartheid” as a verb – approved.”

   I feel a sense of fulfilment rush over me.

   “Use of bonus categories – even more approved. Many of them were quite hilarious.”

   There are DEGREES of approval? Man, I hope got an A for effort!

   As Mr. Cleese put it in Rat Race – ‘There is only one rule. There are… no rules! Now… go!’

   That seems contradictory… and funny. I wonder if the two are related?

   “I have no equivalent list, so I might have seen some other ones without remembering. Doubt it, though. So, the few of these that I’ve seen: Inglorious Basterds, Fantastic Mr. Fox, Taken, Harry Potter & the Half-Blood Prince, Coraline, Duplicity, Star Trek, Sherlock Holmes, Watchmen, Public Enemies, X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Oh! And I also saw Disney’s A Christmas Carol. You know, the 3D thing with Carry, Oldman and Elwes.”

   How was A Christmas Carol? One of my friends told me it was superb, but he also admitted that it was his first exposure to the tale, and so I had to disown him & vow not to ever speak of him again.

   Well, except in reference to why I had to disown him, or else it might confusing when I had to actively ignore his presence in effort to up-hold the lie I told about disowning him. But I was thoroughly shocked by his ignorance. Or at the very least bemused. I might even have been slightly startled.

   “Skipping on account of only having seen the latter, and Laurent not having made that lasting an impression. Though I recall her as good.”

   I want to call a future dog of mine “Shoshanna”, and train here to come to me every time I yell “Au revoir, Shoshanna!”.

   You know, just fuck with French people who like looking at unknown people’s dogs.

   “Supporting? I could’ve sworn he was the main character. But the winer without a doubt – note that I haven’t seen Zombieland. Law was very, very good in Holmes, though. But again – Waltz’ performance was the by far best thing about that entire movie, and I loved every little second of him to bits. And then I loved those bits to bits. And then I kept at that until I discovered some kind of micro-electron-particle that revolutionised science. And then I’d bugger the whole thing to go watch Waltz in Inglourious Basterds again and the world would forever be none the wiser.”

   Well, seeing as Brad Pitt got all the head-lines & his name front & center on all the posters and what-not, I guess people just assume it’s Aldo Rayne that’s the main man. However, I see your point, all though saying that any Tarantino “ensemble” movie has a clear-cut leading man is quite outragoues. Who’s the main “man” in “Reservoir Dogs”, “Pulp Fiction” or “Death Proof”?

   “God, I loved that scene.”

   Co-incidentally, I also heard God loved that scene. Imagine that.

   “Saw it on the airplane and was robbed of the final fifteen minutes – i.e. “where you understand wtf has been going on all the time”, so can’t say as to its quality. Huh. I should really get around to finding its end somewhere and watch it, shouldn’t I?”

   Yes, but I’d hazard a guess that the movie would be seriously damaged for you if you did. You’d be better off watching the entire thing again from start to finish rather than just getting the “pay-off”, because is it really a “pay-off” if you didn’t also put in the work?

   “You DID! She was in Mr. Fox.”

   Indeed she was, all though she was hardly a leading actress in that film, which was what I was referring to. I did actually forget she was in Mr. Fox though, so I guess your point stand anyway.

   “Not seen any of’em, moving on…”

   No worries, methinks. None of them are really your thing (except perhaps “Up in the Air”, but you’ll watch that anyways). You should give “Moon” a shot, though. That’s what NASA’s been doing, anyway

   “Won’t say I sat there thinking I could write and direct better, but yes – Laurie and RSL do indeed have the Holmes-Watson-banter nailed to a degree the movie didn’t quite reach. However, in the movie’s defense, the House-couple have had an ungodly amount of hours to build the characters and their relationship – Law and Downey Jr. had to sell us within the scope of the opening scenes of a two-hour movie. Considering that, I have to say they did pretty much just as good as anyone could expect of anyone.”

   As much as I love RDjr, I can’t say I enjoyed his Holmes too much. Or at least not nearly as much as I would have liked to. I think I’d have much rather preferred someone like David Tennant in the role (all though that may be because he essentially plays Holmes In Space in Dr. Who…), but you know that’s never going to happen. Sigh… That girl they casted was the worst of the lot, though. At least RDjr was believable as Holmes – she just looked like a skinny ballerina fresh out of High School. If I could change only 1 simple thing about SH, it’d be her. RDjr needed a much more seasoned actress to bounce off of than what he got. I also would’ve liked it to be an actual Holmes MYSTERY, but I guess that’s asking too much of the regular popcorn crowd.

   Double sigh.

   “Haven’t seen “Up”, nor do I really want to, but I have to say – “Coraline” was way superior to “Fox”. I really enjoyed “Fox”, it was clever and funny and exciting, but it didn’t really live up to the book. Ironically, its best and funniest bits by far was the good half of the movie that occurred AFTER the events of the book had been followed (okay, summarised) to their end, and the New Original Plot got to lay about with the fun.

   But yeah, Coraline was better.”

   You’d like “Up”, you know. You’d like it a heck of a lot more than Wall-E (all though Wall-E was a better film).

   I hadn’t read the Roald Dahl story, so I guess I had much the same reaction you had to “Coraline”. To me, “Fantastic Mr. Fox” was a totally fresh story that was animated in a really interesting way, and told in a manner I’d never seen in an animated movie before. “Coraline” is a novella I had to read three times about a year ago for my term(inal) paper in Norwegian about Gaiman, and while I though the movie was awesomesauce&biscuits&teeeeee… it doesn’t hold a candle to the book.

   Hmm… That does actually sound pretty disgusting. Who uses sauce with their biscuits & tee?

   “Agreed. So very agreed. (On a similar note, there should be a most randomly underapplied use of Brian Cox’ Voice Talent-award for his newsman on Mr. Fox)”

   Ah, yes. He should also get an award for giving his voice to the Spaghetti-face monster “Elder Ood” in the penultimate episode of the David Tennant era Dr. Who.

   “Not seen it. Sort of might – I feel like if I AM to watch it, I really should while its in cinemas. But I’d much, much rather spend my ticket on “Legion” or “Book of Eli”…”

   DEFINITELY watch it in cinemas. If there ever was a movie that has to be seen on a 3D screen, it is Avatar. Plus, it’s not a bad movie. Certainly equally as good or better than “Legion” or “Book of Eli”, all though I can see why those appeal to you.

   “Er, waaait a second -
   “Wolverine had the worst effects I’ve seen this side of the millennia shift,”

   It did? Gosh. I’m embarrassingly indifferent to these things, then. Have seen the movie twice, and not ONCE was I the least bothered by – or even caught up in – the special effects. I guess I just really, really don’t care. To me, it’s only bad if I Notice That It’s Bad, but I always figured I would if it was. Apparently, not even that qualifies, ’cause if you hadn’t told me, I wouldn’t have known.”

   Check out the scene after Wolverine has escaped from the Weapon X-project. He’s looking at himself in the mirror with one of his claws all snikkety-popped. If you don’t see what I mean… well, I don’t know. Can you get re-funds on eyes?

   “Don’t really feel qualified to comment on directing, but Mr. Fox did have some interesting use of angles and such. And of course any Tarantino-movie does. Er, yeah. That’s about as (un)intelligent a comment as I can make to this category. Moving on again…”

   Au contraire, mon ami. Agreeing with is the most delicious form of intelligence I know of.

   Except cake.

   Mmm. Cake.

   “Sounds like something I’d enjoy! Consider yourself encouraged to sell me on both this one and on this “Brick” of which you speak.”

   I’ll sell you on “Brick”, seeing as I’ve already sold Ole & Terje on it, and they both thought it was great. Terje said something about it being “Veronica Mars”-y, whereas I’d add that the language is more of a noir-”Deadwood”-y (i.e. highly stylized for maximum awesomeness). A more apt comparison than those two would be Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang meets a teenage, Canadian version of the Maltese Falcon, but I think you lack the reference for the second part.

   “Best Comedy

   “No… nor “The Hangover”. Shite. Moving on…”

   You wouldn’t like any of ‘em, so you’re safe. The Hangover is to 2009 what Tropic Thunder was to 2008.

   “I am. Though for the record, not for its naked Asians.”

   I wouldn’t say no to any naked Asians, or any nakedness in general for that matter. I don’t want to appear preferential.

   “The ending was the only decent thing about it. How many times must Potter be wrong about Snape before he understands _anything_? And why does Dumbledore keep having these kids learn the hard way by not helping them out when they do the same mistakes over again the next time ANYWAY? And why am I still watching these movies? (At least I stopped reading the books )”

   Having read the books, I was expecting such silliness to continue. However, I also would’ve expected a better build-up to the turn of the plot, which I dare say relied way too much on familiarity with the book than it should’ve.

   “What was wrong about it? I loved the film, introductory sequence and all.”

   Everything that is not an action-scene in “Taken” are just lines & scenes thrown together in a clichéd mix-mash. Nothing original or fun or surprising or anything, really, about the build-up, is worth noting, save that it was there, it built-up the tension sufficiently, and that’s that. Which is fine, ’cause I bought the ticked because I wanted to see Neeson kick some ass, and that’s what I got.

   “Interesting indeed. Huh. Maybe I should get around to seeing the original, then. Though wasn’t it made by the lunatic who did Twin “I’ll just have a demonically possessed owl communicate by aliens in the middle of my crime-mystery-soap-opera-thingie” Peaks?”

   Is it worth watching s2 of TP? I never did do that. I also have never watched the film, mostly because I’ve never read the book, and kinda, should’a, have to do that at some point.

   “Sigh. Should I see it, then?”

   With the amount of appreciation you have for 70’s britpop? I dare say not!

   “I will forever hate Sorkin for making me want to watch a movie about Facebook.”

   Now, I know you don’t mean that. One can’t hate the Sorkined One. He is to be loved & adored forever more.

   “Iron Man II! WOHOO!

   I think that’s as good a note as any to end this reply on. Thank you for your post!

   Iron Man II! WOHOO!”

   Also, Sam Rockwell is in it!

   Sam Rockwell, WOHOO!

5. Loki
   Posted January 31, 2010 at 6:51 pm | Permalink

   “I share your sentiment & your concern for the amount of scrolling. Also, I worry about this making much sense without me copy-pasting it for context. Hence, I do most sincerely capiche, capiche?”

   Capiche.

   ” “*gets comfy*”

   I shall not enquire as to what this entails. Let’s all hope pants were kept safely on & no kittens were used as innocent arm-rests.

   If they were guily though, then that’s of course an entirely different matter. Anyhoo, carry on!”

   No kittens, guilty or otherwise. Not making any promises as to the pants, though…

   ” “I find it just amusing enough that your suppressed side is bent to confirm that effeminate personality traits and geekish obsessions aside, I’m still patently male. ;D”

   Hey, I was shooting for amusing, so go me! But wait, something is rotten in Denver about this comment, but I can’t… quite… figure… out… what. Hmm.”

   *whistles innocently*

   ” “Use of “apartheid” as a verb – approved.”

   I feel a sense of fulfilment rush over me.”

   As well you should! Don’t keep your sense of fulfillment apartheided in a lil’ piece of you – spread the joy!

   ” “Use of bonus categories – even more approved. Many of them were quite hilarious.”

   There are DEGREES of approval? Man, I hope got an A for effort! ”

   A is for awesome, not effort.

   ” As Mr. Cleese put it in Rat Race – ‘There is only one rule. There are… no rules! Now… go!’

   That seems contradictory… and funny. I wonder if the two are related? ”

   I don’t know. We should ask someone.

   ” “I have no equivalent list, so I might have seen some other ones without remembering. Doubt it, though. So, the few of these that I’ve seen: Inglorious Basterds, Fantastic Mr. Fox, Taken, Harry Potter & the Half-Blood Prince, Coraline, Duplicity, Star Trek, Sherlock Holmes, Watchmen, Public Enemies, X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Oh! And I also saw Disney’s A Christmas Carol. You know, the 3D thing with Carry, Oldman and Elwes.”

   How was A Christmas Carol? ”

   It was really very good! Its main deficiency was a completely meaningless and overlong action-scene (!) two thirds in that only served to show off the 3D. Other than that, I was very happy with it. Not a stunningly original vision or anything, but it told the tale well, hit the right cues, looked lovely in its 3D-ness (especially the snowing-sequences took great advantage of this), and had Carrey run around grumpily with a British accent, aka “fun”. Also, lovely traditional Christmas carols used in the score and movie proper was a nice touch, too. Good, clean fun, I was happy to have gone and seen it.

   “One of my friends told me it was superb, but he also admitted that it was his first exposure to the tale, and so I had to disown him & vow not to ever speak of him again.”

   SHUN THE FUCKER.

   ” Well, except in reference to why I had to disown him, or else it might confusing when I had to actively ignore his presence in effort to up-hold the lie I told about disowning him. But I was thoroughly shocked by his ignorance. Or at the very least bemused. I might even have been slightly startled. ”

   Goodness gracious, you were beshmockled!

   ” “Skipping on account of only having seen the latter, and Laurent not having made that lasting an impression. Though I recall her as good.”

   I want to call a future dog of mine “Shoshanna”, and train here to come to me every time I yell “Au revoir, Shoshanna!”.

   You know, just fuck with French people who like looking at unknown people’s dogs.”

   Thoroughly random. I approve.

   ” “Supporting? I could’ve sworn he was the main character. But the winer without a doubt – note that I haven’t seen Zombieland. Law was very, very good in Holmes, though. But again – Waltz’ performance was the by far best thing about that entire movie, and I loved every little second of him to bits. And then I loved those bits to bits. And then I kept at that until I discovered some kind of micro-electron-particle that revolutionised science. And then I’d bugger the whole thing to go watch Waltz in Inglourious Basterds again and the world would forever be none the wiser.”

   Well, seeing as Brad Pitt got all the head-lines & his name front & center on all the posters and what-not, I guess people just assume it’s Aldo Rayne that’s the main man. However, I see your point, all though saying that any Tarantino “ensemble” movie has a clear-cut leading man is quite outragoues.”

   No, I agree on all that, but if the movie HAD a leading man, it was Waltz, not Pitt. I’m not saying it had one, just that this guy was the clearest candidate if it did.

   ” Who’s the main “man” in “Reservoir Dogs”, “Pulp Fiction” or “Death Proof”? ”

   Not seen DP, but I’d say Mr. White and Jules Winnfield, though I’ll see the cases if you argue Mr. Orange and Vincent Vega.

   ” “God, I loved that scene.”

   Co-incidentally, I also heard God loved that scene. Imagine that.”

   Oh, good – maybe He’ll change his mind and not send the angels to kill us all, then. (I just saw the Legion-trailer with Sarah, trying to figure out what to see on Tuesday [Avatar is (sadly?) on too late - but we might try to catch it Saturday if it is still out] )

   ” “Saw it on the airplane and was robbed of the final fifteen minutes – i.e. “where you understand wtf has been going on all the time”, so can’t say as to its quality. Huh. I should really get around to finding its end somewhere and watch it, shouldn’t I?”

   Yes, but I’d hazard a guess that the movie would be seriously damaged for you if you did. You’d be better off watching the entire thing again from start to finish rather than just getting the “pay-off”, because is it really a “pay-off” if you didn’t also put in the work?”

   Yeah, I really didn’t enjoy it enough for that… sorry. Maybe if I absolutely love the ending I’ll go back and see the whole of it sometime.

   ” “You DID! She was in Mr. Fox.”

   Indeed she was, all though she was hardly a leading actress in that film, which was what I was referring to. I did actually forget she was in Mr. Fox though, so I guess your point stand anyway.”

   That’s one-nil, sir, and my point is STANDING. Where are your manners?! The loser should at the very least offer a chair…

   ” “Not seen any of’em, moving on…”

   No worries, methinks. None of them are really your thing (except perhaps “Up in the Air”, but you’ll watch that anyways). You should give “Moon” a shot, though. That’s what NASA’s been doing, anyway ”

   Funny. And good to know.

   ” “Won’t say I sat there thinking I could write and direct better, but yes – Laurie and RSL do indeed have the Holmes-Watson-banter nailed to a degree the movie didn’t quite reach. However, in the movie’s defense, the House-couple have had an ungodly amount of hours to build the characters and their relationship – Law and Downey Jr. had to sell us within the scope of the opening scenes of a two-hour movie. Considering that, I have to say they did pretty much just as good as anyone could expect of anyone.”

   As much as I love RDjr, I can’t say I enjoyed his Holmes too much. Or at least not nearly as much as I would have liked to.”

   Hm. Well, from my experience (I’ve read about 1/3 of the total original Holmes-stories), he wasn’t that far off, really. The characters’ quirky and comedic sides were accentuated at the expense of the solemn and melancholy ones, yes, but that was sort of always in the pitch that the trailer gave anyway. I was actually pleasantly surprised at how many little things about the man they kept in – his habit of shooting V.R. on the wall indoors when he was in his bored stupor, as a random example. And I know Downey Jr. could have pulled off the solemn stuff if it had been in the script for him to do, so I don’t really feel that can be blamed on anything but the angle they did the movie in.

   ” I think I’d have much rather preferred someone like David Tennant in the role (all though that may be because he essentially plays Holmes In Space in Dr. Who…), but you know that’s never going to happen. Sigh… ”

   Never having seen Dr. Who, I’ll just state that I have no way of knowing if I agree with that. Likely I do, though.

   “That girl they casted was the worst of the lot, though. At least RDjr was believable as Holmes – she just looked like a skinny ballerina fresh out of High School. If I could change only 1 simple thing about SH, it’d be her. RDjr needed a much more seasoned actress to bounce off of than what he got.”

   I didn’t mind her, but nor did I like her. Which probably indicates that you’re spot-on right.

   “I also would’ve liked it to be an actual Holmes MYSTERY, but I guess that’s asking too much of the regular popcorn crowd.”

   Now THAT is my only real complaint about the movie. There’s no reason they couldn’t involve a proper mystery whilst doing their whole action-oriented interpretation, and so I did indeed feel slightly disappointed on that score. I mean, I didn’t actually EXPECT them to involve one, but I did hold out a slight hope. No luck, though, obviously. At least we got all the tiny pseudo-mysteries of the supernatural feats that he got to explain at the end, which if nothing else dramaturgically faked the big Exposing The Plot-scene that any decent Holmes-story should have.

   ” “Haven’t seen “Up”, nor do I really want to, but I have to say – “Coraline” was way superior to “Fox”. I really enjoyed “Fox”, it was clever and funny and exciting, but it didn’t really live up to the book. Ironically, its best and funniest bits by far was the good half of the movie that occurred AFTER the events of the book had been followed (okay, summarised) to their end, and the New Original Plot got to lay about with the fun.

   But yeah, Coraline was better.”

   You’d like “Up”, you know. You’d like it a heck of a lot more than Wall-E (all though Wall-E was a better film).”

   Note that at best, I though Wall-E was _okay_. “You’d like it more than that mediocre thing, but it’s a weaker film” isn’t really selling me.

   ” I hadn’t read the Roald Dahl story, so I guess I had much the same reaction you had to “Coraline”. To me, “Fantastic Mr. Fox” was a totally fresh story that was animated in a really interesting way, and told in a manner I’d never seen in an animated movie before. “Coraline” is a novella I had to read three times about a year ago for my term(inal) paper in Norwegian about Gaiman, and while I though the movie was awesomesauce&biscuits&teeeeee… it doesn’t hold a candle to the book.”

   Ah. So we had the exact opposite background, then. Clearly, reading the original first is not a good start to watch either movie, then.

   ” Hmm… That does actually sound pretty disgusting. Who uses sauce with their biscuits & tee? ”

   Scary, scary people. And probably lemmings. I mean, lemmings is such a doggone insane creature in the first place, they WOULD dip their tea in sauce and drink biscuits with it.

   ” “Agreed. So very agreed. (On a similar note, there should be a most randomly underapplied use of Brian Cox’ Voice Talent-award for his newsman on Mr. Fox)”

   Ah, yes. He should also get an award for giving his voice to the Spaghetti-face monster “Elder Ood” in the penultimate episode of the David Tennant era Dr. Who.”

   Congratulations. You’re the first person EVER to make me genuinely feel like watching Dr. Who might be worth it. BRIAN COX AS A SPAGHETTI-FACE MONSTER NAMED ELDER OOD. Good, bad and morally ambigious gods, there is no better selling point imaginable.

   ” “Not seen it. Sort of might – I feel like if I AM to watch it, I really should while its in cinemas. But I’d much, much rather spend my ticket on “Legion” or “Book of Eli”…”

   DEFINITELY watch it in cinemas. If there ever was a movie that has to be seen on a 3D screen, it is Avatar. Plus, it’s not a bad movie. Certainly equally as good or better than “Legion” or “Book of Eli”, all though I can see why those appeal to you.”

   Dude, if there’s even a hint of Religion involved in a plot, and the movie promises to have at least two action scenes stirred in, I’m all over that shite.

   As mentioned, we might still see Avatar, assuming the local cinema that offers pseudo-cheap matinees will still be showing it on Saturday morning. It shows too late in the evenings for us to conceivably catch it on weekdays – theatre is too far away.

   ” “Er, waaait a second -
   “Wolverine had the worst effects I’ve seen this side of the millennia shift,”

   It did? Gosh. I’m embarrassingly indifferent to these things, then. Have seen the movie twice, and not ONCE was I the least bothered by – or even caught up in – the special effects. I guess I just really, really don’t care. To me, it’s only bad if I Notice That It’s Bad, but I always figured I would if it was. Apparently, not even that qualifies, ’cause if you hadn’t told me, I wouldn’t have known.”

   Check out the scene after Wolverine has escaped from the Weapon X-project. He’s looking at himself in the mirror with one of his claws all snikkety-popped. If you don’t see what I mean… well, I don’t know. Can you get re-funds on eyes? ”

   Oh, right. Yeah, I seem to recall that that looked weird. But I forgot it, like, two seconds later and only remembered it again after re-reading your explanation five times, thinking ‘mirror? claws? snikkety-popped? wtf?’ for the first four tries.

   ” “Don’t really feel qualified to comment on directing, but Mr. Fox did have some interesting use of angles and such. And of course any Tarantino-movie does. Er, yeah. That’s about as (un)intelligent a comment as I can make to this category. Moving on again…”

   Au contraire, mon ami. Agreeing with is the most delicious form of intelligence I know of.

   Except cake.

   Mmm. Cake.”

   I actually don’t care much for cake, so you can have mine too!

   Mmm. Good deeds that cost me nothing.

   ” “Sounds like something I’d enjoy! Consider yourself encouraged to sell me on both this one and on this “Brick” of which you speak.”

   I’ll sell you on “Brick”, seeing as I’ve already sold Ole & Terje on it, and they both thought it was great. Terje said something about it being “Veronica Mars”-y, whereas I’d add that the language is more of a noir-”Deadwood”-y (i.e. highly stylized for maximum awesomeness). A more apt comparison than those two would be Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang meets a teenage, Canadian version of the Maltese Falcon, but I think you lack the reference for the second part.”

   I do indeed. But you didn’t quite sell me – your description of Brothers Bloom still sound more like my kind of thing. (My kind of thing in this particular context is “Ocean’s Eleven, only better”. On that note, did you ever check out “Hustle”? While virtually no character growth, plot arcs or anything like that, it tends to do better grifting-stories than most such movies I’ve seen, and I like its humour)

   ” “Best Comedy

   “No… nor “The Hangover”. Shite. Moving on…”

   You wouldn’t like any of ‘em, so you’re safe. The Hangover is to 2009 what Tropic Thunder was to 2008.”

   Ah.

   ” “I am. Though for the record, not for its naked Asians.”

   I wouldn’t say no to any naked Asians, or any nakedness in general for that matter. I don’t want to appear preferential.”

   What’s wrong with appearing preferential?

   ” “The ending was the only decent thing about it. How many times must Potter be wrong about Snape before he understands _anything_? And why does Dumbledore keep having these kids learn the hard way by not helping them out when they do the same mistakes over again the next time ANYWAY? And why am I still watching these movies? (At least I stopped reading the books )”

   Having read the books, I was expecting such silliness to continue. However, I also would’ve expected a better build-up to the turn of the plot, which I dare say relied way too much on familiarity with the book than it should’ve.”

   Really? Hm. I hadn’t read it, and I had no problems following any of it. Though I’m still VERY peeved that Rowling felt the need to invent a term for what all proper geeks know is called phylacteries. What was it she called it? Horcruxes? Sigh.

   Next she’ll have a dragon on again, only this time calling it a “fireling” or something.

   ” “What was wrong about it? I loved the film, introductory sequence and all.”

   Everything that is not an action-scene in “Taken” are just lines & scenes thrown together in a clichéd mix-mash. Nothing original or fun or surprising or anything, really, about the build-up, is worth noting, save that it was there, it built-up the tension sufficiently, and that’s that. Which is fine, ’cause I bought the ticked because I wanted to see Neeson kick some ass, and that’s what I got.”

   I guess I’m a simple, simple man, then, ’cause I quite enjoyed the build-up. I sort of see what you mean, but… I enjoyed it. I can tell because I was in no way bored by it during my rewatch, and it is surprisingly lengthy.

   ” “Interesting indeed. Huh. Maybe I should get around to seeing the original, then. Though wasn’t it made by the lunatic who did Twin “I’ll just have a demonically possessed owl communicate by aliens in the middle of my crime-mystery-soap-opera-thingie” Peaks?”

   Is it worth watching s2 of TP? I never did do that. ”

   I’m only about a third through it, but if you enjoyed s1, its about as good. Maybe a tad better. Still just as batshit nuts, though.

   “I also have never watched the film, mostly because I’ve never read the book, and kinda, should’a, have to do that at some point.”

   The book? Wtf? I thought it just went season 1 – season 2 – prequel film. Now there’s a book?

   ” “Sigh. Should I see it, then?”

   With the amount of appreciation you have for 70’s britpop? I dare say not!”

   Ah. Relief. Gushing through me.

   ” “I will forever hate Sorkin for making me want to watch a movie about Facebook.”

   Now, I know you don’t mean that. One can’t hate the Sorkined One. He is to be loved & adored forever more.”

   Oh, I love and adore him too, but now he has me hate him on top of it. Love/hate-relationships, reserved for only the finest of the finest.

   Gods, I loathe Facebook.

   ” “Iron Man II! WOHOO! ”

   Who said that? That’s DAMN WELL PUT. Iron Man II! WOHOO!

   “Also, Sam Rockwell is in it!

   Sam Rockwell, WOHOO!”

   No idea who he is, but WOHOO!

   ” I think that’s as good a note as any to end this reply on.”

   Good God! The man is right! Thank you for your reply!

   Iron Man II! WOHOO!

6. Jon Magne
   Posted February 1, 2010 at 1:03 am | Permalink

   I think we’re aiming at the longest reply column ever on a post, at least divided by the number of comments actually posted.

   ” “*gets comfy*”

   I shall not enquire as to what this entails. Let’s all hope pants were kept safely on & no kittens were used as innocent arm-rests.

   If they were guily though, then that’s of course an entirely different matter. Anyhoo, carry on!”

   “No kittens, guilty or otherwise. Not making any promises as to the pants, though…”

   I’ll settle for formal evening wear, then. Or a bathrobe. Please God, at least give me the bathrobe!

   ” “Use of “apartheid” as a verb – approved.”

   I feel a sense of fulfilment rush over me.”

   “As well you should! Don’t keep your sense of fulfillment apartheided in a lil’ piece of you – spread the joy!”

   I try not to apartheid the sense of fulfillment, but I feel a strange sense of fullfilment each time I apartheid it into lil’ pieces, and so I’m stuck & need a Mandela, stat.

   ” “Use of bonus categories – even more approved. Many of them were quite hilarious.”

   There are DEGREES of approval? Man, I hope got an A for effort! ”

   “A is for awesome, not effort.”

   But A is also for Apples, and since Apples are Oranges then O is for Bananas and time flies like bananas, so in conclusion, I got a Pear.

   Mmm. Pears.

   ” As Mr. Cleese put it in Rat Race – ‘There is only one rule. There are… no rules! Now… go!’

   That seems contradictory… and funny. I wonder if the two are related? ”

   “I don’t know. We should ask someone.”

   Using Ockham’s razor on the problem, I succintly feel that the easiest solution to the problem is to tweet this entire conversion to John Cleese, and hope he comes & explains it for us.

   How was A Christmas Carol?

   “It was really very good! Its main deficiency was a completely meaningless and overlong action-scene (!) two thirds in that only served to show off the 3D. Other than that, I was very happy with it. Not a stunningly original vision or anything, but it told the tale well, hit the right cues, looked lovely in its 3D-ness (especially the snowing-sequences took great advantage of this), and had Carrey run around grumpily with a British accent, aka “fun”. Also, lovely traditional Christmas carols used in the score and movie proper was a nice touch, too. Good, clean fun, I was happy to have gone and seen it.”

   I heard the 3D wasn’t too good, but I guess you’re not the right person to ask about that… Glad to hear that the story was well told, though

   One of my friends told me it was superb, but he also admitted that it was his first exposure to the tale, and so I had to disown him & vow not to ever speak of him again.

   “SHUN THE FUCKER.”

   What a horrible nickname.

   Well, except in reference to why I had to disown him, or else it might confusing when I had to actively ignore his presence in effort to up-hold the lie I told about disowning him. But I was thoroughly shocked by his ignorance. Or at the very least bemused. I might even have been slightly startled.

   “Goodness gracious, you were beshmockled!”

   What a horribly funny-sounding word!

   “No, I agree on all that, but if the movie HAD a leading man, it was Waltz, not Pitt. I’m not saying it had one, just that this guy was the clearest candidate if it did.”

   I don’t know. He was clearly the villain, at least up until the very end. And it was definitely not a anti-hero story. Alternatively, you could argue that Brad Pitt was the leader of the “good guys” & Landa was the movie’s head of the “bad guys” (Adolf was more comic relief).

   Who’s the main “man” in “Reservoir Dogs”, “Pulp Fiction” or “Death Proof”?

   “Not seen DP, but I’d say Mr. White and Jules Winnfield, though I’ll see the cases if you argue Mr. Orange and Vincent Vega.”

   Exactly. I think there’s a lesson there; ensembles shouldn’t have a big star.

   ” “God, I loved that scene.”

   Co-incidentally, I also heard God loved that scene. Imagine that.

   “Oh, good – maybe He’ll change his mind and not send the angels to kill us all, then. (I just saw the Legion-trailer with Sarah, trying to figure out what to see on Tuesday [Avatar is (sadly?) on too late - but we might try to catch it Saturday if it is still out] )”

   What’s wrong with a good ol’ flooding, then? Too old testament?

   “Yeah, I really didn’t enjoy it enough for that… sorry. Maybe if I absolutely love the ending I’ll go back and see the whole of it sometime.”

   Sure, I doubt I’d watch it again so soon, anyway.

   ” “You DID! She was in Mr. Fox.”

   Indeed she was, all though she was hardly a leading actress in that film, which was what I was referring to. I did actually forget she was in Mr. Fox though, so I guess your point stand anyway.”

   “That’s one-nil, sir, and my point is STANDING. Where are your manners?! The loser should at the very least offer a chair…”

   I don’t offer chairs to the pantsless. If you want to sit, you should garment yourself properly sir, and not have sky-high ambitions about the acquirement of leisurely equipment.

   ” “Not seen any of’em, moving on…”

   No worries, methinks. None of them are really your thing (except perhaps “Up in the Air”, but you’ll watch that anyways). You should give “Moon” a shot, though. That’s what NASA’s been doing, anyway ”

   “Funny. And good to know.”

   And if you do, you’ll know who Sam Rockwell is, and join me in my WOHOO when he appears in Iron Man II.

   That girl they casted was the worst of the lot, though. At least RDjr was believable as Holmes – she just looked like a skinny ballerina fresh out of High School. If I could change only 1 simple thing about SH, it’d be her. RDjr needed a much more seasoned actress to bounce off of than what he got.

   “I didn’t mind her, but nor did I like her. Which probably indicates that you’re spot-on right.”

   She wasn’t hard on the eyes, that’s for sure, and I think her performance was all-right; I just didn’t buy her because I had such a hard time imagining her out-witting Downey jr.

   I also would’ve liked it to be an actual Holmes MYSTERY, but I guess that’s asking too much of the regular popcorn crowd.

   “Now THAT is my only real complaint about the movie. There’s no reason they couldn’t involve a proper mystery whilst doing their whole action-oriented interpretation, and so I did indeed feel slightly disappointed on that score. I mean, I didn’t actually EXPECT them to involve one, but I did hold out a slight hope. No luck, though, obviously. At least we got all the tiny pseudo-mysteries of the supernatural feats that he got to explain at the end, which if nothing else dramaturgically faked the big Exposing The Plot-scene that any decent Holmes-story should have.”

   Another thing that bothered me was the “electric stick” thing he found in the (quite obvious) scene where he finds all the clues to how the supernatural stuff worked. That stick really stuck out, ’cause everything else in the movie was explainable, whereas the stick worked on its own set of physics. The equitationist inside me cringed!

   You’d like “Up”, you know. You’d like it a heck of a lot more than Wall-E (all though Wall-E was a better film).”

   “Note that at best, I though Wall-E was _okay_. “You’d like it more than that mediocre thing, but it’s a weaker film” isn’t really selling me. ”

   I don’t get what’s not to like about Wall-E. It boggles the mind!

   Hmm… That does actually sound pretty disgusting. Who uses sauce with their biscuits & tea?

   “Scary, scary people. And probably lemmings. I mean, lemmings is such a doggone insane creature in the first place, they WOULD dip their tea in sauce and drink biscuits with it.”

   I think there’s a fishy Platypus that would dip its beak into this discussion, too.

   Ah, yes. He should also get an award for giving his voice to the Spaghetti-face monster “Elder Ood” in the penultimate episode of the David Tennant era Dr. Who.”

   “Congratulations. You’re the first person EVER to make me genuinely feel like watching Dr. Who might be worth it. BRIAN COX AS A SPAGHETTI-FACE MONSTER NAMED ELDER OOD. Good, bad and morally ambigious gods, there is no better selling point imaginable.”

   It’s quite worth it if you like sci-fi, I’d say, and not the gritty kind, but the fun, balls-out kind that you can’t find anywhere but in Dr. Who or old SF novels. It’s also worth it if you like freaky aliens, and killer trash-cans.

   They’re kind of re-booting it this year, with an insane list of writers, so you could probably jump on it, and slowly catch up. I’ll give you a tweet in case this happens.

   “Dude, if there’s even a hint of Religion involved in a plot, and the movie promises to have at least two action scenes stirred in, I’m all over that shite.”

   There’s quite a lot of religion in “Avatar”, but it’s more of the new-agey type that makes me yawn.

   ” “Don’t really feel qualified to comment on directing, but Mr. Fox did have some interesting use of angles and such. And of course any Tarantino-movie does. Er, yeah. That’s about as (un)intelligent a comment as I can make to this category. Moving on again…”

   Au contraire, mon ami. Agreeing with is the most delicious form of intelligence I know of.

   Except cake.

   Mmm. Cake.

   “I actually don’t care much for cake, so you can have mine too!

   Mmm. Good deeds that cost me nothing.”

   I sure hope that the cake isn’t a pie!

   ” “Sounds like something I’d enjoy! Consider yourself encouraged to sell me on both this one and on this “Brick” of which you speak.”

   I’ll sell you on “Brick”, seeing as I’ve already sold Ole & Terje on it, and they both thought it was great. Terje said something about it being “Veronica Mars”-y, whereas I’d add that the language is more of a noir-”Deadwood”-y (i.e. highly stylized for maximum awesomeness). A more apt comparison than those two would be Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang meets a teenage, Canadian version of the Maltese Falcon, but I think you lack the reference for the second part.”

   “I do indeed. But you didn’t quite sell me – your description of Brothers Bloom still sound more like my kind of thing. (My kind of thing in this particular context is “Ocean’s Eleven, only better”. On that note, did you ever check out “Hustle”? While virtually no character growth, plot arcs or anything like that, it tends to do better grifting-stories than most such movies I’ve seen, and I like its humour)”

   The Brothers Bloom is indeed more “your type of thing”, just like it was more “my type of thing”, but “Brick” was a better film any way you cut it. Why not watch ‘em both?!

   ” “I am. Though for the record, not for its naked Asians.”

   I wouldn’t say no to any naked Asians, or any nakedness in general for that matter. I don’t want to appear preferential.”

   “What’s wrong with appearing preferential?”

   In general? Mostly nothing.
   In this case? It results in less nakedness to choose from, which can’t be a good thing, now can it?

   “Really? Hm. I hadn’t read it, and I had no problems following any of it. Though I’m still VERY peeved that Rowling felt the need to invent a term for what all proper geeks know is called phylacteries. What was it she called it? Horcruxes? Sigh.”

   Yeah, she’s bad with that.

   All though not as bad as Frank Miller, who called ‘em GODDAMN WHOREcruxes. Sigh.

   “Next she’ll have a dragon on again, only this time calling it a “fireling” or something.”

   I liked that each region had its own type of dragon, and that Norway had its own species. That shit was cool.

   ” “Interesting indeed. Huh. Maybe I should get around to seeing the original, then. Though wasn’t it made by the lunatic who did Twin “I’ll just have a demonically possessed owl communicate by aliens in the middle of my crime-mystery-soap-opera-thingie” Peaks?”

   Is it worth watching s2 of TP? I never did do that.

   “I’m only about a third through it, but if you enjoyed s1, its about as good. Maybe a tad better. Still just as batshit nuts, though.”

   I might, I might. All though most likely, I won’t.

   I also have never watched the film, mostly because I’ve never read the book, and kinda, should’a, have to do that at some point.

   “The book? Wtf? I thought it just went season 1 – season 2 – prequel film. Now there’s a book?”

   There’s probably a book or two, but that’s not what I was referring to. I was talking about “Dune”, which I haven’t read yet.

   ” “I will forever hate Sorkin for making me want to watch a movie about Facebook.”

   Now, I know you don’t mean that. One can’t hate the Sorkined One. He is to be loved & adored forever more.”

   “Oh, I love and adore him too, but now he has me hate him on top of it. Love/hate-relationships, reserved for only the finest of the finest.

   Gods, I loathe Facebook.”

   The Sorkined One is pleased with this answer.

   ” “Iron Man II! WOHOO! ”

   “Who said that? That’s DAMN WELL PUT. Iron Man II! WOHOO!”

   Also, Sam Rockwell is in it!

   Sam Rockwell, WOHOO!”

   “No idea who he is, but WOHOO!”

   ” I think that’s as good a note as any to end this reply on.”

   “Good God! The man is right! Thank you for your reply!”

   And thank you for keeping up with this craziness.

   Iron Man II! WOHOO!

7. Loki
   Posted February 1, 2010 at 3:14 pm | Permalink

   RETURN OF THE REPLY

   “I think we’re aiming at the longest reply column ever on a post, at least divided by the number of comments actually posted.”

   No stone left unturned, no mountain left unscaled, no goal left unfinished, no war left unfought! WE ENDURE, SIRS. WE… ENDURE!

   (you need to imagine me having a raspy, intense voice, standing on top of a big rock, addressing a group of elderly gents with fantastically obscure and singular lifestories)

   ” I’ll settle for formal evening wear, then. Or a bathrobe. Please God, at least give me the bathrobe! ”

   There was a bathrobe, but I can’t speak as to whether I had it on or it was draped neatly over the couch next to me – at this point it has been too long since the actual commenting took place for my rotting brain to recall such petty details as to whether or not my genitalia were covered.

   ” I try not to apartheid the sense of fulfillment, but I feel a strange sense of fullfilment each time I apartheid it into lil’ pieces, and so I’m stuck & need a Mandela, stat.”

   I’d lend you a Nelson, but I lost mine somewhere around Trafalgar.

   ” But A is also for Apples, and since Apples are Oranges then O is for Bananas and time flies like bananas, so in conclusion, I got a Pear.

   Mmm. Pears. ”

   Mmm. Studio 60.

   ” ” As Mr. Cleese put it in Rat Race – ‘There is only one rule. There are… no rules! Now… go!’

   That seems contradictory… and funny. I wonder if the two are related? ”

   “I don’t know. We should ask someone.”

   Using Ockham’s razor on the problem, I succintly feel that the easiest solution to the problem is to tweet this entire conversion to John Cleese, and hope he comes & explains it for us.”

   ABSOLUTELY. I’ll leave the legwork in your capable hands, pray contact me when an answer is at hand, hm?

   ” I heard the 3D wasn’t too good, but I guess you’re not the right person to ask about that… Glad to hear that the story was well told, though ”

   Well, I’ve only ever seen two 3D-movies – this one and Beowulf (I saw a regular showing of Coraline) – and I didn’t really even consider that there could be DEGREES of how good the 3D was. To me it is unnecessary shite that is either there or not. It was there in this case, and it felt for the most part less intrusive than I would have feared. Hence I made an approving remark upon it.

   ” “SHUN THE FUCKER.”

   What a horrible nickname. ”

   Oh? In this situation it’d be grrreat:
   ‘You fucker!’ ‘No, sir, not A fucker. I am THE fucker! I’m Shun! THE FUCKER!’ ‘…’

   ” “Goodness gracious, you were beshmockled!”

   What a horribly funny-sounding word!”

   Agreed. We should have bemused, startled and shocked jumble up more often.

   ” “No, I agree on all that, but if the movie HAD a leading man, it was Waltz, not Pitt. I’m not saying it had one, just that this guy was the clearest candidate if it did.”

   I don’t know. He was clearly the villain, at least up until the very end. And it was definitely not a anti-hero story. Alternatively, you could argue that Brad Pitt was the leader of the “good guys” & Landa was the movie’s head of the “bad guys” (Adolf was more comic relief).”

   He might have been the villain, but he won the movie (that silly mark-thing will be an embarrassment for a couple of days until he finds a surgeon who’ll take his buckets of money to turn it into a neat, square scar), so he was the hero in THAT sense.

   ” ” Who’s the main “man” in “Reservoir Dogs”, “Pulp Fiction” or “Death Proof”?

   “Not seen DP, but I’d say Mr. White and Jules Winnfield, though I’ll see the cases if you argue Mr. Orange and Vincent Vega.”

   Exactly.”

   Exactly? Whut? Exactly what?

   ” I think there’s a lesson there; ensembles shouldn’t have a big star.”

   So what you’re saying is screw Brad Pitt is what you’re saying?

   ” ” “God, I loved that scene.”

   Co-incidentally, I also heard God loved that scene. Imagine that.

   “Oh, good – maybe He’ll change his mind and not send the angels to kill us all, then. (I just saw the Legion-trailer with Sarah, trying to figure out what to see on Tuesday [Avatar is (sadly?) on too late - but we might try to catch it Saturday if it is still out] )”

   What’s wrong with a good ol’ flooding, then? Too old testament?”

   Been there, done that, I reckon.

   ” “That’s one-nil, sir, and my point is STANDING. Where are your manners?! The loser should at the very least offer a chair…”

   I don’t offer chairs to the pantsless. If you want to sit, you should garment yourself properly sir, and not have sky-high ambitions about the acquirement of leisurely equipment.”

   First of all, it was my point needing to sit, not myself. Second of all, I have no sky-high ambitions in this matter, only knee-high ones, perhaps with a comfy cushion. And third, you’re absolutely right.

   ” And if you do, you’ll know who Sam Rockwell is, and join me in my WOHOO when he appears in Iron Man II. ”

   Hehehe, noted.

   “She wasn’t hard on the eyes, that’s for sure, and I think her performance was all-right; I just didn’t buy her because I had such a hard time imagining her out-witting Downey jr.”

   Ah. I thought you meant having a hard time buying her tiny self beating up all the huge bullies all over the movie. I don’t see how her looks nor her performance would prohibit you from thinking the character capable of out-witting anyone. It’s not as if you can judge brains by looks or behaviour.

   “Another thing that bothered me was the “electric stick” thing he found in the (quite obvious) scene where he finds all the clues to how the supernatural stuff worked. That stick really stuck out, ’cause everything else in the movie was explainable, whereas the stick worked on its own set of physics. The equitationist inside me cringed!”

   Agreed, I hated that too. A lot. But it sort of was so minor a thing so early on in the movie that by the end I didn’t think much about it anymore. It’ll indubitably eat at me on rewatch, though.

   Still, they could have kept their silly stick if they’d just had a Mystery.

   ” I don’t get what’s not to like about Wall-E. It boggles the mind!”

   It was sort of boring and bland. I loved the opening 20 minutes where he’s on his own, though. And it was very cute whenever he was with EVE.

   ” I think there’s a fishy Platypus that would dip its beak into this discussion, too.”

   Platypi! The animal that proves God didn’t rest the ENTIRE seventh day, and that He was disturbed in his Football game by Mrs. God who was going on and on about all these leftovers He’d let laying about, and that He’d sighed, muttering something about how the garbage man wouldn’t be in ’til Tuesday, and fine, fine, if it was that big a deal He’d take care of it and find some kind of use for the heap of rubbish.

   ” It’s quite worth it if you like sci-fi, I’d say, and not the gritty kind, but the fun, balls-out kind that you can’t find anywhere but in Dr. Who or old SF novels. It’s also worth it if you like freaky aliens, and killer trash-cans.

   They’re kind of re-booting it this year, with an insane list of writers, so you could probably jump on it, and slowly catch up. I’ll give you a tweet in case this happens.”

   I know all that. But I’m a continuity-freak, and my brain is quite literally shaking at the mere thought of checking out a show where I can’t watch every last single episode in the proper order.

   ” “Dude, if there’s even a hint of Religion involved in a plot, and the movie promises to have at least two action scenes stirred in, I’m all over that shite.”

   There’s quite a lot of religion in “Avatar”, but it’s more of the new-agey type that makes me yawn.”

   That hardly qualifies! A Religion has temples, priesthoods, souls, reincarnations, proverbs and adverbs, prophetic texts, manipulative prelates, holy crusades, deadly sins, magnificent cathedrals, sombre monasteries, vengeful gods, lustful spirits and dread demons!

8. Loki
   Posted February 1, 2010 at 3:15 pm | Permalink

   RETURN OF THE etc., part 2, because your webpage thought my comment was spam when I put it all in one big delicious helping.

   ” “I actually don’t care much for cake, so you can have mine too!

   Mmm. Good deeds that cost me nothing.”

   I sure hope that the cake isn’t a pie!”

   I BEG YOUR PARDON, SIR! As if I would EVER let myself be affiliated with a piece of PIE!

   ” The Brothers Bloom is indeed more “your type of thing”, just like it was more “my type of thing”, but “Brick” was a better film any way you cut it. Why not watch ‘em both?! ”

   I wanted to maybe watch them both, so I wanted you to sell me on them! But then you only tried to sell me on Brick, which sounded less interesting than Brothers Bloom. Thus leading me to believe that Brothers Bloom was not that recommendable in your eyes. And since it sounded more interesting than the other one, logically, neither was Brick!

   ” ” “I am. Though for the record, not for its naked Asians.”

   I wouldn’t say no to any naked Asians, or any nakedness in general for that matter. I don’t want to appear preferential.”

   “What’s wrong with appearing preferential?”

   In general? Mostly nothing.
   In this case? It results in less nakedness to choose from, which can’t be a good thing, now can it?”

   …’to choose from’? Sounds like you’re going to be very preferential indeed!

   ” “Really? Hm. I hadn’t read it, and I had no problems following any of it. Though I’m still VERY peeved that Rowling felt the need to invent a term for what all proper geeks know is called phylacteries. What was it she called it? Horcruxes? Sigh.”

   Yeah, she’s bad with that.

   All though not as bad as Frank Miller, who called ‘em GODDAMN WHOREcruxes. Sigh.”

   *snicker* Horrid joke. Very Miller, though.

   ” “Next she’ll have a dragon on again, only this time calling it a “fireling” or something.”

   I liked that each region had its own type of dragon, and that Norway had its own species. That shit was cool.”

   You’re one of those Norwegians? “oooh, we were mentioned!”? (Ok, so I’m a tad like that too – especially when dragons are involved. I think we all are.)

   ” I also have never watched the film, mostly because I’ve never read the book, and kinda, should’a, have to do that at some point.

   “The book? Wtf? I thought it just went season 1 – season 2 – prequel film. Now there’s a book?”

   There’s probably a book or two, but that’s not what I was referring to. I was talking about “Dune”, which I haven’t read yet.”

   Aaaah. I read a Dune once, in secondary school, but I can’t for the life of me remember which one, or what I thought of it, except that it was a tad too slow-paced and complex for my pre-teen-tastes.

   ” ” “I will forever hate Sorkin for making me want to watch a movie about Facebook.”

   Now, I know you don’t mean that. One can’t hate the Sorkined One. He is to be loved & adored forever more.”

   “Oh, I love and adore him too, but now he has me hate him on top of it. Love/hate-relationships, reserved for only the finest of the finest.

   Gods, I loathe Facebook.”

   The Sorkined One is pleased with this answer.”

   All hail.

   ” ” “Iron Man II! WOHOO! ”

   “Who said that? That’s DAMN WELL PUT. Iron Man II! WOHOO!”

   Also, Sam Rockwell is in it!

   Sam Rockwell, WOHOO!”

   “No idea who he is, but WOHOO!”

   ” I think that’s as good a note as any to end this reply on.”

   “Good God! The man is right! Thank you for your reply!”

   And thank you for keeping up with this craziness.”

   My pleasure.

   “Iron Man II! WOHOO!”

   Couldn’t have said it better myself.

9. Jon Magne
   Posted February 1, 2010 at 5:47 pm | Permalink

   RETURN OF THE REPLY II: The Revenge of the Silliness

   “I think we’re aiming at the longest reply column ever on a post, at least divided by the number of comments actually posted.”

   “”No stone left unturned, no mountain left unscaled, no goal left unfinished, no war left unfought! WE ENDURE, SIRS. WE… ENDURE!

   (you need to imagine me having a raspy, intense voice, standing on top of a big rock, addressing a group of elderly gents with fantastically obscure and singular lifestories)”"

   Since I don’t know what you look like, I’ll imagine you as Edward James Olmos.

   ” I’ll settle for formal evening wear, then. Or a bathrobe. Please God, at least give me the bathrobe! ”

   “”There was a bathrobe, but I can’t speak as to whether I had it on or it was draped neatly over the couch next to me – at this point it has been too long since the actual commenting took place for my rotting brain to recall such petty details as to whether or not my genitalia were covered.”"

   I hear a dislike for cake is one of the most common side-effects of having a rotting brain.

   ” I try not to apartheid the sense of fulfillment, but I feel a strange sense of fullfilment each time I apartheid it into lil’ pieces, and so I’m stuck & need a Mandela, stat.”

   “”I’d lend you a Nelson, but I lost mine somewhere around Trafalgar.”"

   I’d use my Gengis Khan, but I lost him in a Star Trek film. I hope he’s okay.

   It was probably for the best though.

   ” But A is also for Apples, and since Apples are Oranges then O is for Bananas and time flies like bananas, so in conclusion, I got a Pear.

   Mmm. Pears. ”

   “”Mmm. Studio 60.”"

   MMM. Firefly.

   ” ” As Mr. Cleese put it in Rat Race – ‘There is only one rule. There are… no rules! Now… go!’

   That seems contradictory… and funny. I wonder if the two are related? ”

   “I don’t know. We should ask someone.”

   Using Ockham’s razor on the problem, I succintly feel that the easiest solution to the problem is to tweet this entire conversion to John Cleese, and hope he comes & explains it for us.”

   “”ABSOLUTELY. I’ll leave the legwork in your capable hands, pray contact me when an answer is at hand, hm?”"

   Alas, my legs aren’t nearly as capable as my hands, which I have to use to pray when I contact him, and then the answer will be out of reach of my clamped hands.

   ” “SHUN THE FUCKER.”

   What a horrible nickname. ”

   “”Oh? In this situation it’d be grrreat:
   ‘You fucker!’ ‘No, sir, not A fucker. I am THE fucker! I’m Shun! THE FUCKER!’ ‘…’”"

   “I’m Shun! THE FUCKER! – and PART-TIME Leper!”

   ” “No, I agree on all that, but if the movie HAD a leading man, it was Waltz, not Pitt. I’m not saying it had one, just that this guy was the clearest candidate if it did.”

   I don’t know. He was clearly the villain, at least up until the very end. And it was definitely not a anti-hero story. Alternatively, you could argue that Brad Pitt was the leader of the “good guys” & Landa was the movie’s head of the “bad guys” (Adolf was more comic relief).”

   “”He might have been the villain, but he won the movie (that silly mark-thing will be an embarrassment for a couple of days until he finds a surgeon who’ll take his buckets of money to turn it into a neat, square scar), so he was the hero in THAT sense.”"

   That would be scenario of the sequel, I imagine. Hans Landa walks into a plastic surgeons office, is put into a coma, and wakes up to find Brad Pitt & Co. standing over him with a bloody grin on their mouthes.

   ” ” Who’s the main “man” in “Reservoir Dogs”, “Pulp Fiction” or “Death Proof”?

   “Not seen DP, but I’d say Mr. White and Jules Winnfield, though I’ll see the cases if you argue Mr. Orange and Vincent Vega.”

   Exactly.”

   “”Exactly? Whut? Exactly what?”"

   Exactly, it’s not an easy choice.

   ” I think there’s a lesson there; ensembles shouldn’t have a big star.”

   “”So what you’re saying is screw Brad Pitt is what you’re saying?”"

   The man is a good actor, stars in great movies & is married to Angelina Jolie. If any man had a right to be screwed, it is him.

   All though I’d prefer to do it to Angelina Jolie.

   ” ” “God, I loved that scene.”

   Co-incidentally, I also heard God loved that scene. Imagine that.

   “Oh, good – maybe He’ll change his mind and not send the angels to kill us all, then. (I just saw the Legion-trailer with Sarah, trying to figure out what to see on Tuesday [Avatar is (sadly?) on too late - but we might try to catch it Saturday if it is still out] )”

   What’s wrong with a good ol’ flooding, then? Too old testament?”

   “”Been there, done that, I reckon.”"

   Always the innovator, that God. What will he come up with next? The iBible?

   ” “That’s one-nil, sir, and my point is STANDING. Where are your manners?! The loser should at the very least offer a chair…”

   I don’t offer chairs to the pantsless. If you want to sit, you should garment yourself properly sir, and not have sky-high ambitions about the acquirement of leisurely equipment.”

   “”First of all, it was my point needing to sit, not myself. Second of all, I have no sky-high ambitions in this matter, only knee-high ones, perhaps with a comfy cushion. And third, you’re absolutely right.”"

   Oh, it will be COMFY. That much I can tell you right now. It will be the COMFIEST CHAIR in existence. Mwahaha!

   “She wasn’t hard on the eyes, that’s for sure, and I think her performance was all-right; I just didn’t buy her because I had such a hard time imagining her out-witting Downey jr.”

   “”Ah. I thought you meant having a hard time buying her tiny self beating up all the huge bullies all over the movie. I don’t see how her looks nor her performance would prohibit you from thinking the character capable of out-witting anyone. It’s not as if you can judge brains by looks or behaviour.”"

   She’s too young, that’s what. Especially for a girl that’s supposedly married lots of people & conned them, been to India & back and had a long-standing relationship with Sherlock as well. She might grow into the part though. I can see myself warming to her down the road.

   ” I don’t get what’s not to like about Wall-E. It boggles the mind!”

   “”It was sort of boring and bland. I loved the opening 20 minutes where he’s on his own, though. And it was very cute whenever he was with EVE.”"

   If I had a fuse, I’d a-sprung it.

   But then, you like Phantom Menace. Everything makes sense in a nonsensical way when I remember that.

   ” I think there’s a fishy Platypus that would dip its beak into this discussion, too.”

   “”Platypi! The animal that proves God didn’t rest the ENTIRE seventh day, and that He was disturbed in his Football game by Mrs. God who was going on and on about all these leftovers He’d let laying about, and that He’d sighed, muttering something about how the garbage man wouldn’t be in ’til Tuesday, and fine, fine, if it was that big a deal He’d take care of it and find some kind of use for the heap of rubbish.”"

   I always thought the platypus was created by the mice of Hitchiker’s Galaxy so that we’d always have a more suspicious candidate than them.

   ” It’s quite worth it if you like sci-fi, I’d say, and not the gritty kind, but the fun, balls-out kind that you can’t find anywhere but in Dr. Who or old SF novels. It’s also worth it if you like freaky aliens, and killer trash-cans.

   They’re kind of re-booting it this year, with an insane list of writers, so you could probably jump on it, and slowly catch up. I’ll give you a tweet in case this happens.”

   “”I know all that. But I’m a continuity-freak, and my brain is quite literally shaking at the mere thought of checking out a show where I can’t watch every last single episode in the proper order.”"

   Ouch. You do know that it has, like, 35 seasons worth of eps? It’s the longest running sci-fi show ever.

   ” “Dude, if there’s even a hint of Religion involved in a plot, and the movie promises to have at least two action scenes stirred in, I’m all over that shite.”

   There’s quite a lot of religion in “Avatar”, but it’s more of the new-agey type that makes me yawn.”

   “”That hardly qualifies! A Religion has temples, priesthoods, souls, reincarnations, proverbs and adverbs, prophetic texts, manipulative prelates, holy crusades, deadly sins, magnificent cathedrals, sombre monasteries, vengeful gods, lustful spirits and dread demons”"

   For a minute, I thought you were going to say “dread lemons”, to which I’d my only reply would be a long, beshmockled face.

   “”RETURN OF THE etc., part 2, because your webpage thought my comment was spam when I put it all in one big delicious helping.”"

   In which case it went into my SPAMMELY SPAM WITH EXTRA SPAM folder, along with all the viagra commercials. I hope you’re happy!

   ” “I actually don’t care much for cake, so you can have mine too!

   Mmm. Good deeds that cost me nothing.”

   I sure hope that the cake isn’t a pie!”

   “”I BEG YOUR PARDON, SIR! As if I would EVER let myself be affiliated with a piece of PIE!”"

   Det er noe muffins med denne setningen.

   ” The Brothers Bloom is indeed more “your type of thing”, just like it was more “my type of thing”, but “Brick” was a better film any way you cut it. Why not watch ‘em both?! ”

   “”I wanted to maybe watch them both, so I wanted you to sell me on them! But then you only tried to sell me on Brick, which sounded less interesting than Brothers Bloom. Thus leading me to believe that Brothers Bloom was not that recommendable in your eyes. And since it sounded more interesting than the other one, logically, neither was Brick!”"

   It is less recommendable because it Brothers Bloom isn’t as good, and that’s also why it doesn’t appear especially high on my 2009 list. Brick, however, would appear quite high on this list, perhaps just beneath Inglorious Basterds, so take that for what it’s worth. Also, the main star of Brick is Joseph Gordon-Levitt of 3rd Rock from the Sun fame (and the possible new Spidey!).

   ” ” “I am. Though for the record, not for its naked Asians.”

   I wouldn’t say no to any naked Asians, or any nakedness in general for that matter. I don’t want to appear preferential.”

   “What’s wrong with appearing preferential?”

   In general? Mostly nothing.
   In this case? It results in less nakedness to choose from, which can’t be a good thing, now can it?”

   “”…’to choose from’? Sounds like you’re going to be very preferential indeed!”"

   Ah, yes. But I would hate to APPEAR to be preferential. Even if I am.

   ” “Next she’ll have a dragon on again, only this time calling it a “fireling” or something.”

   I liked that each region had its own type of dragon, and that Norway had its own species. That shit was cool.”

   “”You’re one of those Norwegians? “oooh, we were mentioned!”? (Ok, so I’m a tad like that too – especially when dragons are involved. I think we all are.)”"

   I am most definitely one of those. Shrill squeals are wont to escape from my lips every time someone acknowledges my country’s existence, even if they only mention it because they thought we were Swedes.

   ” ” “I will forever hate Sorkin for making me want to watch a movie about Facebook.”

   Now, I know you don’t mean that. One can’t hate the Sorkined One. He is to be loved & adored forever more.”

   “Oh, I love and adore him too, but now he has me hate him on top of it. Love/hate-relationships, reserved for only the finest of the finest.

   Gods, I loathe Facebook.”

   The Sorkined One is pleased with this answer.”

   “”All hail.”"

   So say we all.

   ” ” “Iron Man II! WOHOO! ”

   “Who said that? That’s DAMN WELL PUT. Iron Man II! WOHOO!”

   Also, Sam Rockwell is in it!

   Sam Rockwell, WOHOO!”

   “No idea who he is, but WOHOO!”

   ” I think that’s as good a note as any to end this reply on.”

   “Good God! The man is right! Thank you for your reply!”

   And thank you for keeping up with this craziness.”

   “”My pleasure.”"

   I doubt the veracity of this statement, but the lie is appreciated.

   “Iron Man II! WOHOO!”

   “”Couldn’t have said it better myself.”"

   Oh, look at ME, I’m a film with Roman numbers in my title, am I not a fancy little thing?

   Yes. Yes, you are.

10. Loki
    Posted February 1, 2010 at 6:46 pm | Permalink

    Sir RESPONSE ANSWER-REPLY III Jr, phD, the Honourable.

    “No stone left unturned, no mountain left unscaled, no goal left unfinished, no war left unfought! WE ENDURE, SIRS. WE… ENDURE!”

    Only quoting this because MAN, my own speech is giving me shivers of cool.

    “Since I don’t know what you look like, I’ll imagine you as Edward James Olmos.”

    How could you know? :O

    (I do sort of look like EJO, act’lly, if he was white, pudgy, younger, cowardly, sandy dark blonde, had blue eyes, was in every sense way less cool, and didn’t have enough valleys in his face to room a half-dozen small Norwegian towns)

    “I hear a dislike for cake is one of the most common side-effects of having a rotting brain.”

    It has been rotting since childhood, then. Buggers.

    “I’d use my Gengis Khan, but I lost him in a Star Trek film. I hope he’s okay.”

    You’re so clever one could stick a tail on you and call you a weasel, but I won’t, ’cause I want my tails for m’self.

    “It was probably for the best though.”

    Indeed. Can’t have him roaming about starting landwars in Asia. (That’s one of the cardinal rules – the other one is never gamble with a Sicilian when death is on the line)

    ” ” But A is also for Apples, and since Apples are Oranges then O is for Bananas and time flies like bananas, so in conclusion, I got a Pear.

    Mmm. Pears. ”

    “”Mmm. Studio 60.””

    MMM. Firefly.”

    Mmmmmid-bulk Transport. Standard Radion Accelerator core. Class code 03-K64 – Firefly.

    “Alas, my legs aren’t nearly as capable as my hands, which I have to use to pray when I contact him, and then the answer will be out of reach of my clamped hands.”

    I thought you said you’d contact by Twitter? Now it’s prayer?

    ” “I’m Shun! THE FUCKER! – and PART-TIME Leper!”

    Or at least he was until this fella from Nazareth came by and took his livelihood from him, for no apparent reason.

    ” That would be scenario of the sequel, I imagine. Hans Landa walks into a plastic surgeons office, is put into a coma, and wakes up to find Brad Pitt & Co. standing over him with a bloody grin on their mouthes.”

    One damned short sequel, that.

    ” ” ” Who’s the main “man” in “Reservoir Dogs”, “Pulp Fiction” or “Death Proof”?

    “Not seen DP, but I’d say Mr. White and Jules Winnfield, though I’ll see the cases if you argue Mr. Orange and Vincent Vega.”

    Exactly.”

    “”Exactly? Whut? Exactly what?””

    Exactly, it’s not an easy choice.”

    Jules is. He might not be a clear plot-wise protagonist, but as to what I can pick up on of themes, he’s The protagonist. I would just be open for the suggestion that Vega was equally so, if a good enough argument was put forth.

    Mr. White is more tricky, but if I answered without thinking, I’d not even consider Mr. Orange. It is only upon careful consideration I’m realising that he probably has an equally good, if not better, claim on the title.

    “The man is a good actor, stars in great movies & is married to Angelina Jolie. If any man had a right to be screwed, it is him.

    All though I’d prefer to do it to Angelina Jolie.”

    I was out shopping for mayonnaise and potato chips (I AM SO HEALTHY) earlier and there was a looooooong line, so I ended up looking at the front covers on all the gossip’y magazines while I waited. About half of them were all on about how Jennifer Anniston had split up Pitt and Jolie, so NOW’S YOUR CHANCE! GO FOR IT. You have a tiny window of no competition!

    “Always the innovator, that God. What will he come up with next? The iBible?”

    I’d buy that. “Daily divine revelations if you link up to the heavenly servers.” Complete with a FAQ-brochure by St. Peter to explain the wonders of modern technology for the unbelievers. It would have nuggets of wisdom such as “Is there a God? Maybe – only subscription members get access to the God-service, and we don’t want to spoil the surprise.”

    “Oh, it will be COMFY. That much I can tell you right now. It will be the COMFIEST CHAIR in existence. Mwahaha!”

    My gods, Palin has the best dramatic voice in history.

    ” She’s too young, that’s what.”

    Aaaaaah! Ok, argument accepted.

    “Especially for a girl that’s supposedly married lots of people & conned them, been to India & back and had a long-standing relationship with Sherlock as well. She might grow into the part though. I can see myself warming to her down the road.”

    Well, her marriages would likely be very brief, and this is long enough ago she could have started at 15 or somesuch, thus having been at it for a good decade already. But I see your point.

    ” If I had a fuse, I’d a-sprung it.

    But then, you like Phantom Menace. Everything makes sense in a nonsensical way when I remember that.”

    Well, I like it for nostalgia, mostly, and the fun duel at the end. It came out in theatres the year after I’d seen the original movies for the first time, and I was very happy with it then. That kind of impressions stick.

    ” I always thought the platypus was created by the mice of Hitchiker’s Galaxy so that we’d always have a more suspicious candidate than them.”

    That’s ridiculously paranoid.

    We all know it is the DOVES that want us dead. I see them peck peck peck with their fucking ugly beaks, and I know, I just know, they’re planning to take my eyes out.

    “Ouch. You do know that it has, like, 35 seasons worth of eps? It’s the longest running sci-fi show ever.”

    Indeed. This is the reason I’ve never checked it out, and likely will be the reason I never will. :/

    ” For a minute, I thought you were going to say “dread lemons”, to which I’d my only reply would be a long, beshmockled face.”

    We can’t have you miss out on such an opportunity – I hereby sanction an edit of my previous comment to adhere to your beschmockled preferences.

    ” “”RETURN OF THE etc., part 2, because your webpage thought my comment was spam when I put it all in one big delicious helping.””

    In which case it went into my SPAMMELY SPAM WITH EXTRA SPAM folder, along with all the viagra commercials. I hope you’re happy!”

    I am.

    ” “”I BEG YOUR PARDON, SIR! As if I would EVER let myself be affiliated with a piece of PIE!””

    Det er noe muffins med denne setningen.”

    I can’t see it – perhaps the candyman can.

    ” It is less recommendable because it Brothers Bloom isn’t as good, and that’s also why it doesn’t appear especially high on my 2009 list. Brick, however, would appear quite high on this list, perhaps just beneath Inglorious Basterds, so take that for what it’s worth. Also, the main star of Brick is Joseph Gordon-Levitt of 3rd Rock from the Sun fame (and the possible new Spidey!).”

    Alright, alright. “notes it down” I should skip Bloom, then?

    “Ah, yes. But I would hate to APPEAR to be preferential. Even if I am.”

    Jolly good, carry on.

    “I am most definitely one of those. Shrill squeals are wont to escape from my lips every time someone acknowledges my country’s existence, even if they only mention it because they thought we were Swedes.”

    Heh. I still find it so awesome that we in the same year was referenced on TWO American TV-shows as a country with only one mentionable characteristic – our virtually non-existent murder rate.

    ” The Sorkined One is pleased with this answer.”

    “”All hail.””

    So say we all.”

    Resaw the Caprica pilot yesterday, will watch the new ep tonight, likely. (Just so I’m sure, what aired a week ago was just a re-airing of the double-ep pilot, right? I should go straight to the one from Friday?)

    ” ” ” “Iron Man II! WOHOO! ”

    “Who said that? That’s DAMN WELL PUT. Iron Man II! WOHOO!”

    Also, Sam Rockwell is in it!

    Sam Rockwell, WOHOO!”

    “No idea who he is, but WOHOO!”

    ” I think that’s as good a note as any to end this reply on.”

    “Good God! The man is right! Thank you for your reply!”

    And thank you for keeping up with this craziness.”

    “”My pleasure.””

    I doubt the veracity of this statement, but the lie is appreciated.”

    The veracity was of such a caliber that the sheer audacity of applying it in a sentence bordered on perspicacity.

    ” “Iron Man II! WOHOO!”

    “”Couldn’t have said it better myself.””

    Oh, look at ME, I’m a film with Roman numbers in my title, am I not a fancy little thing?

    Yes. Yes, you are.”

    MAN. OF IRON. REPEAT PERFORMANCE. 2010.

    WOHOO!

11. Ole
    Posted February 1, 2010 at 8:19 pm | Permalink

    Woah, too hardcore for me. I’ll leave you two to it. However, I must mention that “A Serious Man” blew my mind completely and totally, and that by the end I was a wreck not knowing whether to giggle nervously or merely sit there shaking. In other words, a horrible date-flick, but a great movie.

    Also The Informant! was kinda fun, in a very meta way. And I haven’t seen Avatar. And I seriously need to watch/rewatch House one of these days.

12. Loki
    Posted February 2, 2010 at 3:46 am | Permalink

    House is great as a whole, especially concerning the relationship House-Wilson as discussed here, but it can get pretty dreary in the individual episodes – I mean, it’s VERY procedural and only occasionally even try to hide it.

    Also, hallo! Korleis gaar det? Lenge sidan.

13. Jon Magne
    Posted February 3, 2010 at 2:53 am | Permalink

    The Reply Following a Drunken Quip, Heard In an Alley One Sad, Monday Morning, Before the First Fledgeling Rays of Sunlight Peeked Through Its Rotten Mouth that Gaped Hideously into a City of Angels & Mad Men

    “No stone left unturned, no mountain left unscaled, no goal left unfinished, no war left unfought! WE ENDURE, SIRS. WE… ENDURE!”

    Only quoting this because MAN, my own speech is giving me shivers of cool.*

    *I thought for a moment you were quoting something obscure that I was expected to know, but since it’s only you, I’m happy to report that my retort is nothing short of an exasperated ‘doh!

    “Since I don’t know what you look like, I’ll imagine you as Edward James Olmos.”

    How could you know? :O*

    *I gazed deeply into my crystal snow globe, and to my surprise, what did I see? Edward James Olmos staring back at me! His face was pocked, his hands strangely ordained with an origami figurine, but I wasn’t shocked when he drove off in a winged limousine.

    (I do sort of look like EJO, act’lly, if he was white, pudgy, younger, cowardly, sandy dark blonde, had blue eyes, was in every sense way less cool, and didn’t have enough valleys in his face to room a half-dozen small Norwegian towns)*

    *All though my own visage is of little too no import, I shall impart that I’ve been told I look uncannily like an Albanian terrorist of the shady sort.

    “I hear a dislike for cake is one of the most common side-effects of having a rotting brain.”

    It has been rotting since childhood, then. Buggers.*

    *Tre-huggers!

    “I’d use my Gengis Khan, but I lost him in a Star Trek film. I hope he’s okay.”

    You’re so clever one could stick a tail on you and call you a weasel, but I won’t, ’cause I want my tails for m’self.*

    *”You are in possession of an excess of tails, yet you don’t share them even though you can?” I gasp, while my arms angrily flails.

    KHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN!

    “It was probably for the best though.”

    Indeed. Can’t have him roaming about starting landwars in Asia. (That’s one of the cardinal rules – the other one is never gamble with a Sicilian when death is on the line)*

    *I have made a rule of mine, never to gamble when a life is on the line, because I’d rather reel it in, and eat said life with a pint of gin.

    ” ” But A is also for Apples, and since Apples are Oranges then O is for Bananas and time flies like bananas, so in conclusion, I got a Pear.

    Mmm. Pears. ”

    “”Mmm. Studio 60.””

    MMM. Firefly.”

    Mmmmmid-bulk Transport. Standard Radion Accelerator core. Class code 03-K64 – Firefly.*

    *DeLorean DMC-12, albeit altered with a time-machine.

    “Alas, my legs aren’t nearly as capable as my hands, which I have to use to pray when I contact him, and then the answer will be out of reach of my clamped hands.”

    I thought you said you’d contact by Twitter? Now it’s prayer?*

    *You confuse me, aren’t the two the one and the same? And if they’re not, I ask thee, which can make it rain?

    And I don’t mean men!

    ” “I’m Shun! THE FUCKER! – and PART-TIME Leper!”

    Or at least he was until this fella from Nazareth came by and took his livelihood from him, for no apparent reason.*

    *Oh, the reason was well-founded & well-thought out, but the plot fell went tits up when he couldn’t decide whether to follow the gourd or the Disciples of the Crooked Sandals Plight.

    ” That would be scenario of the sequel, I imagine. Hans Landa walks into a plastic surgeons office, is put into a coma, and wakes up to find Brad Pitt & Co. standing over him with a bloody grin on their mouthes.”

    One damned short sequel, that.*

    *The length matters not, shrieked the maiden, as she straddled the youngster during lunch, but when he got handsy, she got all riled & gave him the ol’ five step death punch.

    ” ” ” Who’s the main “man” in “Reservoir Dogs”, “Pulp Fiction” or “Death Proof”?

    “Not seen DP, but I’d say Mr. White and Jules Winnfield, though I’ll see the cases if you argue Mr. Orange and Vincent Vega.”

    Exactly.”

    “”Exactly? Whut? Exactly what?””

    Exactly, it’s not an easy choice.”

    Jules is. He might not be a clear plot-wise protagonist, but as to what I can pick up on of themes, he’s The protagonist. I would just be open for the suggestion that Vega was equally so, if a good enough argument was put forth.

    Mr. White is more tricky, but if I answered without thinking, I’d not even consider Mr. Orange. It is only upon careful consideration I’m realising that he probably has an equally good, if not better, claim on the title.*

    *As it has been some years since I last saw the Hounds of the Reservoir, all names & characters are steeped in the darkest noir. On the subject of the Mangy Bits of Make-Believe, I must say that I think every member should be sorted through the same sieve.

    “The man is a good actor, stars in great movies & is married to Angelina Jolie. If any man had a right to be screwed, it is him.

    All though I’d prefer to do it to Angelina Jolie.”

    I was out shopping for mayonnaise and potato chips (I AM SO HEALTHY) earlier and there was a looooooong line, so I ended up looking at the front covers on all the gossip’y magazines while I waited. About half of them were all on about how Jennifer Anniston had split up Pitt and Jolie, so NOW’S YOUR CHANCE! GO FOR IT. You have a tiny window of no competition!*

    *Hah! He harrumphed, while secretly plotting his next triumph.

    “Always the innovator, that God. What will he come up with next? The iBible?”

    I’d buy that. “Daily divine revelations if you link up to the heavenly servers.” Complete with a FAQ-brochure by St. Peter to explain the wonders of modern technology for the unbelievers. It would have nuggets of wisdom such as “Is there a God? Maybe – only subscription members get access to the God-service, and we don’t want to spoil the surprise.”*

    *I expect this device to function wirelessly via satellites, receiving its daily updates via the Server of Heavenly Delights. Every phone call would be as a confession, and each bill a penance, but let that not lessen the length of your parlance, as every word lifts you higher to the Highest of Heights.

    “Oh, it will be COMFY. That much I can tell you right now. It will be the COMFIEST CHAIR in existence. Mwahaha!”

    My gods, Palin has the best dramatic voice in history.*

    *I believe that it was his chief weapon upon entering unexpectedly both a house or mansion.

    ” I always thought the platypus was created by the mice of Hitchiker’s Galaxy so that we’d always have a more suspicious candidate than them.”

    That’s ridiculously paranoid.

    We all know it is the DOVES that want us dead. I see them peck peck peck with their fucking ugly beaks, and I know, I just know, they’re planning to take my eyes out.*

    *I carry no such resentment towards doves in my conscience, mainly because I secretly hope they carry my lost correspondence.

    “Ouch. You do know that it has, like, 35 seasons worth of eps? It’s the longest running sci-fi show ever.”

    Indeed. This is the reason I’ve never checked it out, and likely will be the reason I never will. :/*

    *It saddens me to know that your geek-heritage thus will never grow to enjoy the finest of British television, all because of your own, quirky contrition.

    ” For a minute, I thought you were going to say “dread lemons”, to which I’d my only reply would be a long, beshmockled face.”

    We can’t have you miss out on such an opportunity – I hereby sanction an edit of my previous comment to adhere to your beschmockled preferences.*

    *I wouldn’t dream of marring this blessed dialogue, or else we might get stuck in a day of the groundhog, forever repeating earlier quips, to we all have truly lost our wits.

    ” It is less recommendable because it Brothers Bloom isn’t as good, and that’s also why it doesn’t appear especially high on my 2009 list. Brick, however, would appear quite high on this list, perhaps just beneath Inglorious Basterds, so take that for what it’s worth. Also, the main star of Brick is Joseph Gordon-Levitt of 3rd Rock from the Sun fame (and the possible new Spidey!).”

    Alright, alright. “notes it down” I should skip Bloom, then?*

    *If you enjoy the proverbial hell of out Brick, and aren’t satisfied with that one minor lick, I dare say Bloom makes for an enjoyable watch, all though with a second act that’s a bit of a botch.

    “I am most definitely one of those. Shrill squeals are wont to escape from my lips every time someone acknowledges my country’s existence, even if they only mention it because they thought we were Swedes.”

    Heh. I still find it so awesome that we in the same year was referenced on TWO American TV-shows as a country with only one mentionable characteristic – our virtually non-existent murder rate.*

    *We are only remarkable by the fact that we are not remarkable, and that is, I must say (or was it you?), remarkable in and of itself.

    ” The Sorkined One is pleased with this answer.”

    “”All hail.””

    So say we all.”

    Resaw the Caprica pilot yesterday, will watch the new ep tonight, likely. (Just so I’m sure, what aired a week ago was just a re-airing of the double-ep pilot, right? I should go straight to the one from Friday?)*

    *Yes.

    ” ” ” “Iron Man II! WOHOO! ”

    “Who said that? That’s DAMN WELL PUT. Iron Man II! WOHOO!”

    Also, Sam Rockwell is in it!

    Sam Rockwell, WOHOO!”

    “No idea who he is, but WOHOO!”

    ” I think that’s as good a note as any to end this reply on.”

    “Good God! The man is right! Thank you for your reply!”

    And thank you for keeping up with this craziness.”

    “”My pleasure.””

    I doubt the veracity of this statement, but the lie is appreciated.”

    The veracity was of such a caliber that the sheer audacity of applying it in a sentence bordered on perspicacity.*

    *Thanks for doing the rhyming for me, as I’m getting a bit weary towards the end, you see.

    ” “Iron Man II! WOHOO!”

    “”Couldn’t have said it better myself.””

    Oh, look at ME, I’m a film with Roman numbers in my title, am I not a fancy little thing?

    Yes. Yes, you are.”

    MAN. OF IRON. REPEAT PERFORMANCE. 2010.

    WOHOO!

    WOHOO 2: The Squeakquel.

14. Loki
    Posted February 3, 2010 at 7:03 pm | Permalink

    The Little Reply That Could

    “I thought for a moment you were quoting something obscure that I was expected to know, but since it’s only you, I’m happy to report that my retort is nothing short of an exasperated ‘doh!”

    Whaaat, it was awesome!

    “All though my own visage is of little too no import, I shall impart that I’ve been told I look uncannily like an Albanian terrorist of the shady sort.”

    There are Albanian terrorists not of the shady sort?

    ” It has been rotting since childhood, then. Buggers.*

    *Tre-huggers!”

    Whut? What’s a ‘tre’, precious?

    ” “I’d use my Gengis Khan, but I lost him in a Star Trek film. I hope he’s okay.”

    You’re so clever one could stick a tail on you and call you a weasel, but I won’t, ’cause I want my tails for m’self.*

    *”You are in possession of an excess of tails, yet you don’t share them even though you can?” I gasp, while my arms angrily flails.”

    Your rhyme, re: fun, is secondary; your phrase, must say, most extraordinary.

    ” KHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN!”

    Ooooh the candyman khan! THE CANDYMAN KHAN!

    ”
    ” ” But A is also for Apples, and since Apples are Oranges then O is for Bananas and time flies like bananas, so in conclusion, I got a Pear.

    Mmm. Pears. ”

    “”Mmm. Studio 60.””

    MMM. Firefly.”

    Mmmmmid-bulk Transport. Standard Radion Accelerator core. Class code 03-K64 – Firefly.*

    *DeLorean DMC-12, albeit altered with a time-machine.”

    Time machine hot tub. Saw the trailer yesterday. Looked so ridiculous that even having Chevy Chase and Rob Cordry didn’t really make me want to watch it.

    ” “Alas, my legs aren’t nearly as capable as my hands, which I have to use to pray when I contact him, and then the answer will be out of reach of my clamped hands.”

    I thought you said you’d contact by Twitter? Now it’s prayer?*

    *You confuse me, aren’t the two the one and the same? And if they’re not, I ask thee, which can make it rain?

    And I don’t mean men!”

    Ah, bugger, and here I was going to say ‘whichever one lets you contact The Weather Girls’, but now I’m stuck saying ‘neither’.

    ” ” “I’m Shun! THE FUCKER! – and PART-TIME Leper!”

    Or at least he was until this fella from Nazareth came by and took his livelihood from him, for no apparent reason.*

    *Oh, the reason was well-founded & well-thought out, but the plot fell went tits up when he couldn’t decide whether to follow the gourd or the Disciples of the Crooked Sandals Plight.”

    The DCSP offer a better dental plan.

    ” One damned short sequel, that.*

    *The length matters not, shrieked the maiden, as she straddled the youngster during lunch, but when he got handsy, she got all riled & gave him the ol’ five step death punch.”

    Whut? She’s so excitable she straddles a youngster during lunch, and yet if he gets handsy, she kills him? This seems vaguely unreasonable to my Western-culture self.

    “As it has been some years since I last saw the Hounds of the Reservoir, all names & characters are steeped in the darkest noir.”

    Mr. White is the one who tells the copper his name, Mr. Orange is the copper.

    ” On the subject of the Mangy Bits of Make-Believe, I must say that I think every member should be sorted through the same sieve.”

    Your point finds me respectfully disagreed, a protagonist’s arc is quite different a read.

    ” “The man is a good actor, stars in great movies & is married to Angelina Jolie. If any man had a right to be screwed, it is him.

    All though I’d prefer to do it to Angelina Jolie.”

    I was out shopping for mayonnaise and potato chips (I AM SO HEALTHY) earlier and there was a looooooong line, so I ended up looking at the front covers on all the gossip’y magazines while I waited. About half of them were all on about how Jennifer Anniston had split up Pitt and Jolie, so NOW’S YOUR CHANCE! GO FOR IT. You have a tiny window of no competition!*

    *Hah! He harrumphed, while secretly plotting his next triumph.”

    J’approuve, my little friend, I hope thee gets her in the end.

    (No crude double-joke that I intend!)

    “*I expect this device to function wirelessly via satellites, receiving its daily updates via the Server of Heavenly Delights. Every phone call would be as a confession, and each bill a penance, but let that not lessen the length of your parlance, as every word lifts you higher to the Highest of Heights.”

    Your paragraph’s so impressive
    that those who like it less’ve
    become fools most dismissive
    - let’s make the brats submissive.

    ” “Oh, it will be COMFY. That much I can tell you right now. It will be the COMFIEST CHAIR in existence. Mwahaha!”

    My gods, Palin has the best dramatic voice in history.*

    *I believe that it was his chief weapon upon entering unexpectedly both a house or mansion.”

    Or a cabin or a farm, or a town in Vietnam, or a palace quite grand, or even a castle built in sand – his cardinals pounce away with every word they say – why, one day I saw them dash into a hut of clay. It was all quite okay – they’re unpredictable that way. But never do they stay – no time for fun and play – they carry on with no delay, abruptly making people sway, bashing through their doors come May. I say hooray, not a word of ‘nay’, predictability they’re there to slay – I fetch them caramels upon a tray, we’ll have a picnic down at the bay, where the houseboats lay. Oh gosh, I know what they will say! “Our cheap weapon is…!” and then away! Into Mr. Burton’s houseboat in quite the neat array. That will be the day! Though Mr. Burton’s psychopathy could catch them quite unpreparedly – he could shoot them with his ray!

    I hope they’ll be okay.

    “We all know it is the DOVES that want us dead. I see them peck peck peck with their fucking ugly beaks, and I know, I just know, they’re planning to take my eyes out.*

    *I carry no such resentment towards doves in my conscience, mainly because I secretly hope they carry my lost correspondence.”

    Aw. So lovely and optimistic! One day you must learn me this trick.

    ” *It saddens me to know that your geek-heritage thus will never grow to enjoy the finest of British television, all because of your own, quirky contrition.”

    Indeed. Maybe I’ll yield one day when my schedule allows for another show. Not today though, I’m afraid, nor tomorrow.

    ” *If you enjoy the proverbial hell of out Brick, and aren’t satisfied with that one minor lick, I dare say Bloom makes for an enjoyable watch, all though with a second act that’s a bit of a botch.”

    If it is the second of a total of three, I shall watch it with glee; the end is mainly what matters to me.

    ” Resaw the Caprica pilot yesterday, will watch the new ep tonight, likely. (Just so I’m sure, what aired a week ago was just a re-airing of the double-ep pilot, right? I should go straight to the one from Friday?)*

    *Yes.”

    Slow paced as yet, but brimming with potential, I’m very positively inclined about this show. I expect it to build quite the momentum.

    ” ” ” ” “Iron Man II! WOHOO! ”

    “Who said that? That’s DAMN WELL PUT. Iron Man II! WOHOO!”

    Also, Sam Rockwell is in it!

    Sam Rockwell, WOHOO!”

    “No idea who he is, but WOHOO!”

    ” I think that’s as good a note as any to end this reply on.”

    “Good God! The man is right! Thank you for your reply!”

    And thank you for keeping up with this craziness.”

    “”My pleasure.””

    I doubt the veracity of this statement, but the lie is appreciated.”

    The veracity was of such a caliber that the sheer audacity of applying it in a sentence bordered on perspicacity.*

    *Thanks for doing the rhyming for me, as I’m getting a bit weary towards the end, you see.”

    What friend would not, he’d be a crook, to not give you some aid with your gobble-dee-gook.

    ” ” “Iron Man II! WOHOO!”

    “”Couldn’t have said it better myself.””

    Oh, look at ME, I’m a film with Roman numbers in my title, am I not a fancy little thing?

    Yes. Yes, you are.”

    MAN. OF IRON. REPEAT PERFORMANCE. 2010.

    WOHOO!

    WOHOO 2: The Squeakquel.”

    *runs for the hills*

15. Loki
    Posted February 4, 2010 at 3:28 am | Permalink

    Er, weird misspell – it should be “our chief weapon is” – obviously.

16. Jon Magne
    Posted February 4, 2010 at 8:53 pm | Permalink

    RE: Your Previous Reply, & the Questionable Positioning of the Toaster Next to my Bathtub.

    “I thought for a moment you were quoting something obscure that I was expected to know, but since it’s only you, I’m happy to report that my retort is nothing short of an exasperated ‘doh!”

    Whaaat, it was awesome!*

    *Seemed like something I’d read/heard before. *Shrughs*

    “All though my own visage is of little too no import, I shall impart that I’ve been told I look uncannily like an Albanian terrorist of the shady sort.”

    There are Albanian terrorists not of the shady sort?*

    *Yes. They are the one you need to especially wary of.

    ” It has been rotting since childhood, then. Buggers.*

    *Tre-huggers!”

    Whut? What’s a ‘tre’, precious?*

    *It’s a “tree” in the famed, albeit uncommon, dialect of the northern reaches of the innermost passages of the valle hill-side of the jungel-fairy kingdom of doom.

    ” ” But A is also for Apples, and since Apples are Oranges then O is for Bananas and time flies like bananas, so in conclusion, I got a Pear.

    Mmm. Pears. ”

    “”Mmm. Studio 60.””

    MMM. Firefly.”

    Mmmmmid-bulk Transport. Standard Radion Accelerator core. Class code 03-K64 – Firefly.*

    *DeLorean DMC-12, albeit altered with a time-machine.”

    Time machine hot tub. Saw the trailer yesterday. Looked so ridiculous that even having Chevy Chase and Rob Cordry didn’t really make me want to watch it.*

    *Yeah, it didn’t look like much. Not that I expected it too, either. The guy who did the Hangover is doing a comedy with Zach Galifianakis & RDjr, and I expect that to be the funniest thing of 2009, all though I have no trailer to back it up with.

    ” ” “I’m Shun! THE FUCKER! – and PART-TIME Leper!”

    Or at least he was until this fella from Nazareth came by and took his livelihood from him, for no apparent reason.*

    *Oh, the reason was well-founded & well-thought out, but the plot went tits up when he couldn’t decide whether to follow the gourd or the Disciples of the Crooked Sandals Plight.”

    The DCSP offer a better dental plan.*

    *Ah, but the Gourd has a 401k plan to DIE for.

    ” One damned short sequel, that.*

    *The length matters not, shrieked the maiden, as she straddled the youngster during lunch, but when he got handsy, she got all riled & gave him the ol’ five step death punch.”

    Whut? She’s so excitable she straddles a youngster during lunch, and yet if he gets handsy, she kills him? This seems vaguely unreasonable to my Western-culture self.*

    *Confucius says, only a fool questions the ways of a straddling, shrieking maiden.

    ” “Oh, it will be COMFY. That much I can tell you right now. It will be the COMFIEST CHAIR in existence. Mwahaha!”

    My gods, Palin has the best dramatic voice in history.*

    *I believe that it was his chief weapon upon entering unexpectedly both a house or mansion.”

    Or a cabin or a farm, or a town in Vietnam, or a palace quite grand, or even a castle built in sand – his cardinals pounce away with every word they say – why, one day I saw them dash into a hut of clay. It was all quite okay – they’re unpredictable that way. But never do they stay – no time for fun and play – they carry on with no delay, abruptly making people sway, bashing through their doors come May. I say hooray, not a word of ‘nay’, predictability they’re there to slay – I fetch them caramels upon a tray, we’ll have a picnic down at the bay, where the houseboats lay. Oh gosh, I know what they will say! “Our cheap weapon is…!” and then away! Into Mr. Burton’s houseboat in quite the neat array. That will be the day! Though Mr. Burton’s psychopathy could catch them quite unpreparedly – he could shoot them with his ray!

    I hope they’ll be okay.*

    *QFT&A

    ” *It saddens me to know that your geek-heritage thus will never grow to enjoy the finest of British television, all because of your own, quirky contrition.”

    Indeed. Maybe I’ll yield one day when my schedule allows for another show. Not today though, I’m afraid, nor tomorrow.*

    *I hope so. I think you’d be a fan.

    ” *If you enjoy the proverbial hell of out Brick, and aren’t satisfied with that one minor lick, I dare say Bloom makes for an enjoyable watch, all though with a second act that’s a bit of a botch.”

    If it is the second of a total of three, I shall watch it with glee; the end is mainly what matters to me.*

    *The end managed to be somewhat submersive, so I granted it an Okay. However, the beginning is the best part by a mile.

    ” Resaw the Caprica pilot yesterday, will watch the new ep tonight, likely. (Just so I’m sure, what aired a week ago was just a re-airing of the double-ep pilot, right? I should go straight to the one from Friday?)*

    *Yes.”

    Slow paced as yet, but brimming with potential, I’m very positively inclined about this show. I expect it to build quite the momentum.*

    *I think “brimming with potential” is too gushing for me. “Kings” brimmed with potential; “Caprica” has some neat actors & a sci-fi setting, but doesn’t seem to have a very engaging story-hook so far. I guess that’s why you call it “slow paced”; I just call it “treading water until the writers stumble upon a story-line that works”. I’ll stick with it though. It airs on a good day anyway.

17. Loki
    Posted February 4, 2010 at 10:29 pm | Permalink

    Reply, the inverted edition!

    “I think “brimming with potential” is too gushing for me. “Kings” brimmed with potential; “Caprica” has some neat actors & a sci-fi setting, but doesn’t seem to have a very engaging story-hook so far. I guess that’s why you call it “slow paced”; I just call it “treading water until the writers stumble upon a story-line that works”. I’ll stick with it though. It airs on a good day anyway.”

    When I say it brims with potential, I mean that while most shows set themselves up either to tell one or two stories, or simply to just have a bunch of characters interact in a given context, “Caprica” seems to do both, and the former better than most. Or at least more ambitiously. They’ve got the mobster-setup (which has hundreds of stories in it in its own right, what with ethics & morals, law and the courts, crime and murder, underground politics, etc, etc), they’ve got the racism/eliticism/two-people-in-one-city-thing, they’ve got the large scale financial politics/drama/soap going, they’ve got the teenager-tempted-by-cult-thing, they’ve got fanaticism and terrorism, they’ve got identity-philosophy and A.I., and they’ve got intimate family drama. Add to that the Fall of Civilisation-flair it gets from being a prequel to BSG – when I say brimming with potential, I’m just saying this show could do an awful lot of really, really cool shit. I’m not saying it WILL, I’m just saying it could.

    “Kings”, on the other hand, was not so much brimming with potential as it was brimming with actual awesome. What you’d call “realised potential”, if you please. Tons of stuff to do there too, of course, but honestly, they never set out to be able to do quite as many things as this show does.

    As to the treading water-comment, I guess you could get that impression, but to me, drama shows on cable tend to feel like that in the first few episodes. They can afford the slow build up of momentum, it seems, probably because they figure their viewers have paid of the channel and have more patience than network-audiences. Usually feels sort of like a Malazan-novel, really, if a tad less extreme. “The Sopranos” did that every season, “Brotherhood” did it, “The Wire” did it, “Dexter” does it, “True Blood” does it, heck, even the nigh on perfect “Deadwood” did it to a smaller extent. That said, “Caprica” could of course simply feel like that because it IS treading water – but I have no way of knowing that. A show that has Jane Espenson on staff deserves my assuming the best when the evidence at hand could point either way.

    “The end managed to be somewhat submersive, so I granted it an Okay. However, the beginning is the best part by a mile.”

    Bah, now I’ll be all worried about the rest of the movie sucking when I’m ten minutes in and not enjoy any of it prop’ly.

    “*I hope so. I think you’d be a fan. ”

    Me too – hence the hurt.

    “*QFT&A”

    If that is supposed to mean something, I am afraid I cannot discern what…

    “*Confucius says, only a fool questions the ways of a straddling, shrieking maiden. ”

    Smart guy, that Confucius.

    “*Ah, but the Gourd has a 401k plan to DIE for. ”

    Lepers tend to live in the now.

    “*Yeah, it didn’t look like much. Not that I expected it too, either. The guy who did the Hangover is doing a comedy with Zach Galifianakis & RDjr, and I expect that to be the funniest thing of 2009, all though I have no trailer to back it up with.”

    Hm. But you said I wouldn’t enjoy Hangover much…

    Anyway, I’m just sad Rob Cordry is in a movie with Chevy Chase and I’m not going to watch it. Sounds like Fun on paper, if it didn’t look like it up on the screen.

    “*It’s a “tree” in the famed, albeit uncommon, dialect of the northern reaches of the innermost passages of the valle hill-side of the jungel-fairy kingdom of doom.”

    Where heffalumps roam?

    “*Yes. They are the one you need to especially wary of. ”

    You’re just saying that so I’ll be less wary of YOU.

    “*Seemed like something I’d read/heard before. *Shrughs*”

    It was intended to! I was doing the whole stereotypical stirring speech-bit! Obviously I’d use phrases that sounded like you’d heard them before. Probably have, too. Just not all in the same place.

    IRON MAN! 2! WOO FUCKING HOO!

18. Ole
    Posted February 4, 2010 at 10:40 pm | Permalink

    “Also, hallo! Korleis gaar det? Lenge sidan.”

    Haha jeez. Yeah, truly a long time. I’m kicking and breathing, really happy about University, but kinda desperate for spring otherwise.

19. Loki
    Posted February 4, 2010 at 11:57 pm | Permalink

    University is Fun, eh? Man, I miss it so. As to the desperate for spring, pfth. Not that often one gets snow, enjoy the scenery!

20. Jon Magne
    Posted February 5, 2010 at 2:47 am | Permalink

    The “I’m Sure No One But Us Will Bother Reading This Far” Reply

    “I think “brimming with potential” is too gushing for me. “Kings” brimmed with potential; “Caprica” has some neat actors & a sci-fi setting, but doesn’t seem to have a very engaging story-hook so far. I guess that’s why you call it “slow paced”; I just call it “treading water until the writers stumble upon a story-line that works”. I’ll stick with it though. It airs on a good day anyway.”

    When I say it brims with potential, I mean that while most shows set themselves up either to tell one or two stories, or simply to just have a bunch of characters interact in a given context, “Caprica” seems to do both, and the former better than most. Or at least more ambitiously. They’ve got the mobster-setup (which has hundreds of stories in it in its own right, what with ethics & morals, law and the courts, crime and murder, underground politics, etc, etc), they’ve got the racism/eliticism/two-people-in-one-city-thing, they’ve got the large scale financial politics/drama/soap going, they’ve got the teenager-tempted-by-cult-thing, they’ve got fanaticism and terrorism, they’ve got identity-philosophy and A.I., and they’ve got intimate family drama. Add to that the Fall of Civilisation-flair it gets from being a prequel to BSG – when I say brimming with potential, I’m just saying this show could do an awful lot of really, really cool shit. I’m not saying it WILL, I’m just saying it could.*

    Good points all over the line, and this is obviously also why I’m sticking with it, to see if it pans out or not. However, I’m a bit worried that Caprica’s… shall we say, lack of focus, will hurt it more grievously than you’d think. Any show that doesn’t have a clear-cut plan of what it wants to do, ends up scrambling for plots at the last minute (i.e. LOST), or falling to the way-side. Seeing as Caprica’s ratings are near atrocious, I think they made a mistake in going for this broad approach. It might daring & brave & all that jazz, but every story should be about Something in particular. This holds true to most great dramas (Mad Men is always very topical, as was Sopranos & Deadwood & West Wing and so on). Hell, even BSG always was about Something all the time.

    The pilot episode of Caprica had some thematic elements running through it if memory serves, but they revolved around the A.I.-aspect (probably not the right term, but I don’t care), and that’s easily the least relatable of all their plots, seeing as the real-world equivalent is, what? WoW? Again, I was not impressed, and thought Virtuality handled the same ideas much better (RDM was/is on both, so I expect a lot of his Virtuality ideas are found in Caprica).

    The second seemed to revolve much more around the idea of family, which is fine, I guess. It gave us more insight into the characters and begun the machinations of Greater Things to Come, and that’s why I’m hopeful – like you – for the future. I will say though, that so far, Caprica has been far from impressive. And I don’t get why you can’t be impressive all the time when Mad Men, BSG & Deadwood did it

    “Kings”, on the other hand, was not so much brimming with potential as it was brimming with actual awesome. What you’d call “realised potential”, if you please. Tons of stuff to do there too, of course, but honestly, they never set out to be able to do quite as many things as this show does.

    As to the treading water-comment, I guess you could get that impression, but to me, drama shows on cable tend to feel like that in the first few episodes. They can afford the slow build up of momentum, it seems, probably because they figure their viewers have paid of the channel and have more patience than network-audiences. Usually feels sort of like a Malazan-novel, really, if a tad less extreme. “The Sopranos” did that every season, “Brotherhood” did it, “The Wire” did it, “Dexter” does it, “True Blood” does it, heck, even the nigh on perfect “Deadwood” did it to a smaller extent. That said, “Caprica” could of course simply feel like that because it IS treading water – but I have no way of knowing that. A show that has Jane Espenson on staff deserves my assuming the best when the evidence at hand could point either way.*

    *At this point, Espenson counts less for me than Ronald D. Moore, but that doesn’t mean she counts a hell of a lot. I’ll probably be around for the first season because of them no matter how the cookie crumbles on Caprica.

    “The end managed to be somewhat submersive, so I granted it an Okay. However, the beginning is the best part by a mile.”

    Bah, now I’ll be all worried about the rest of the movie sucking when I’m ten minutes in and not enjoy any of it prop’ly.*

    *Nah, it works fine all the way up till the point where the movie is trying to make you believe one thing & pulling your chair out from under you at the same time. I enjoyed up till that point, and was highly entertained during the slightly fumbled sleights of hand, but that doesn’t they weren’t fumbled, either.

    “*I hope so. I think you’d be a fan. ”

    Me too – hence the hurt.

    “*QFT&A”

    If that is supposed to mean something, I am afraid I cannot discern what…*

    QFT is shorthand for Quoted for Truth, and I added & Awesomeness, since that is our go-to-word on these things. And because it was true as well.

    “*Yeah, it didn’t look like much. Not that I expected it too, either. The guy who did the Hangover is doing a comedy with Zach Galifianakis & RDjr, and I expect that to be the funniest thing of 2009, all though I have no trailer to back it up with.”

    Hm. But you said I wouldn’t enjoy Hangover much…*

    *The Hangover isn’t what you’d call a smart comedy by any means. It doesn’t play on language, tropes or any sort of high-brow device to get its laughs – it’s a glorified farts & giggles film, and I know I’m okay with that because I can appreciate the occasional fart & giggle, and I know you’re more inclined to… well, you get the gist. If you can’t see the genius of Tropic Thunder (which was a better film than the Hangover), then there’s no way you’ll like this.

    Anyway, I’m just sad Rob Cordry is in a movie with Chevy Chase and I’m not going to watch it. Sounds like Fun on paper, if it didn’t look like it up on the screen.*

    *They’re all-right, but nothing special. I will lose no sleep over skipping this film.

    “*It’s a “tree” in the famed, albeit uncommon, dialect of the northern reaches of the innermost passages of the valle hill-side of the jungel-fairy kingdom of doom.”

    Where heffalumps roam?*

    *They don’t so much roam, as wander aimlessly about, skipping every three steps and yelping loudly every time they bump into each other.

    “*Yes. They are the one you need to especially wary of. ”

    You’re just saying that so I’ll be less wary of YOU.*

    *Foiled again!

    IRON MAN! 2! WOO FUCKING HOO!*

    *!OOH GNIKCUF OOW! !2 NAM NORI!

21. Loki
    Posted February 5, 2010 at 5:43 pm | Permalink

    “Good points all over the line, and this is obviously also why I’m sticking with it, to see if it pans out or not. However, I’m a bit worried that Caprica’s… shall we say, lack of focus, will hurt it more grievously than you’d think. Any show that doesn’t have a clear-cut plan of what it wants to do, ends up scrambling for plots at the last minute (i.e. LOST), or falling to the way-side. Seeing as Caprica’s ratings are near atrocious, I think they made a mistake in going for this broad approach. It might daring & brave & all that jazz, but every story should be about Something in particular.”

    I’m with you on all that – good points all around, as you said – and I worry too. I just choose to remain cautiously optimistic as of yet; I mean, the show’s first three hours might not have razzle-dazzled me, but they didn’t disappoint or bore me either.

    ” This holds true to most great dramas (Mad Men is always very topical, as was Sopranos & Deadwood & West Wing and so on). Hell, even BSG always was about Something all the time.

    The pilot episode of Caprica had some thematic elements running through it if memory serves, but they revolved around the A.I.-aspect (probably not the right term, but I don’t care), and that’s easily the least relatable of all their plots, seeing as the real-world equivalent is, what? WoW? ”

    I feel the main thematic elements seem to be tied closely together to fear and loss, and the ethics of how far an individual can go to make him- or herself feel better at the expense of society as a whole. Both in the pilot and in the new episode. They obviously have tangents, but personal values vs. society’s values seem at the core of most of what’s going on, if most predominately in the A.I.-business. It’s also heavily present in the mob-stuff, though, and in the religious and terrorist stuff as well.

    “Again, I was not impressed, and thought Virtuality handled the same ideas much better (RDM was/is on both, so I expect a lot of his Virtuality ideas are found in Caprica). ” – replying to this together with:
    “At this point, Espenson counts less for me than Ronald D. Moore, but that doesn’t mean she counts a hell of a lot. I’ll probably be around for the first season because of them no matter how the cookie crumbles on Caprica.”

    Well, to me, RDM is still a one-hit-wonder of sorts, and has yet to prove himself as a reliable winning horse. Unlike you, I felt Virtuality was exactly like the Caprica-pilot – all over the place story-wise, but in what was potentially a good way; slow-paced, but in a manner which felt like it was likely laying the groundwork for quite the momentum as the show would have progressed. In other words, while I have faith in the man, he has not proven himself to me in the way Espenson has – I’ve yet to read a comic or see an episode with her name on it that didn’t Satisfy with stunning ease. And unlike him, I’ve seen her dabble in a lot of stuff now – Buffy, Angel, Firefly, Dollhouse, Battlestar Galactica, Buffy-comics (both canon and non-canon), and now Caprica. With RDM, I’ve really only got BSG to go on.

    “The second seemed to revolve much more around the idea of family, which is fine, I guess. It gave us more insight into the characters and begun the machinations of Greater Things to Come, and that’s why I’m hopeful – like you – for the future. I will say though, that so far, Caprica has been far from impressive. And I don’t get why you can’t be impressive all the time when Mad Men, BSG & Deadwood did it”

    Well, the thing is, just because you CAN be impressive all the time doesn’t mean you will be. Even Erikson and Martin write pages and chapters weaker than others, even BSG had some (admittedly network-imposed) points of being weaker-than-usual. 95% of the shows I deem good enough to watch aren’t Impressive every second of the way, as are 95% of the books and 95% of the movies. Shows like that still manage to beat shows that WERE impressive all the time when I list what shows I’ve enjoyed most. The “Serenity”-pilot is stellar, but I wasn’t completely sold on it first time around. “The Wire”’s first season took a long while to get the ball rolling enough for me to get enthusiastic, “The Sopranos” took even longer. The “Buffy” and “Angel”-pilots – or even first seasons – are good enough, but far from “being impressive” ALL THE TIME. And so on and so forth. Sure you CAN expect every show to be like “Deadwood”, but then you’d miss out on a lot of really great stuff. The wonder of TV as opposed to any other medium I am familiar with is that it is open-ended, unlike most, and yet finite, unlike, say, the open-ended medium of popular comic titles like Spider-man or Batman. That means that when they end you can with a little luck and a lot of skill have a full, satisfying story that retroactively improve the earlier stuff that laid the foundation for it being good enough to do that. (To give an example, I effin’ LOVE the Serenity-pilot now) There is no reason I won’t feel like that about the Caprica-pilot a few years from now. And even if I don’t, by then, if somehow still going, the show might very well have gotten impressive all the time. Just ’cause its first handful of episodes weren’t, I’m not going to miss out on the chance it might be. Good but not great is still good enough.

    “QFT is shorthand for Quoted for Truth, and I added & Awesomeness, since that is our go-to-word on these things. And because it was true as well.”

    Oh. YAY YOU LIKED IT. Took me a teensy while, and I liked it so much my own self I ended up reading it out loud for m’self later that evening. (Hence discovering my weird typo) Much to my delight, it was even funner when read out loud.

    “*They’re all-right, but nothing special. I will lose no sleep over skipping this film.”

    I’d say they’re rather special, they both have great comedic timing and acting, but no, me neither.

    “*They don’t so much roam, as wander aimlessly about, skipping every three steps and yelping loudly every time they bump into each other.”

    Oh NOES. Let’s hope they don’t hurt themselves.

    “IRON MAN! 2! WOO FUCKING HOO!*

    *!OOH GNIKCUF OOW! !2 NAM NORI!”

    DON’T DO IT! YOU’LL REVERSE THE TIME-SPACE CONTINUUM AND WE’LL GET A PREQUEL INSTEAD! “Tony Stark wastes his life on booze and loose women, having no idea he will one day privatise world peace”.

    Hey, nevermind, I’d totally watch that. So you just go right ahead.

22. Jon Magne
    Posted February 6, 2010 at 9:17 pm | Permalink

    Watched the 3rd episode, and I’m still very much on the fence about Caprica. The only thing that I liked was the fact that, in the far future, the police are still using VHS cassettes to record their interviews ^^

    RDM is far from a one-hit wonder to me. He was a part of the team that made “Roswell”, which I very much enjoyed when I was younger (watched it on the telly, actually!), and he’s also done “Carnivale”, which – all though I didn’t love – thought was better & more interesting than nearly anything else I’ve seen on the telly. My problems with it stems from storytelling issues that I haven’t encountered in RDM’s other series, so I like to think he was a positive influence. So that’s a massive 1 hit + a nice .5 hit with both Carnivale & Roswell, plus a potential big hit in “Virtuality”, that adds up to 2.1, which isn’t far below Whedon’s score of two big hits (Firefly, Buffy), one medium hit (Angel) & one miss (Dollhouse)= 2.5 & Sorkin’s 2.0 hit for West Wing & Studio 60. Espenson wrote a lot of good eps for lots of shows, but she’s never been a show-runner, and I can think of lots of people who wrote equally good eps as her on series she worked on, so she doesn’t even rate in the same ball-park as these guys. Talk to me when she’s made a show of her own.

23. Loki
    Posted February 7, 2010 at 3:06 am | Permalink

    I haven’t seen Roswell, and while “Carnivale” was just as you say it was, I had forgotten RMD’s involvement on it. But even if I count that one and give you the benefit of the doubt on my unseen Roswell and thus qualify your 2.1-remark, I strongly disagree with Whedon. Angel is as good as Buffy, and I enjoyed Dollhouse way, way more than I ever did Carnivale. If that gets 0.5, so does Dollhouse. Which puts Whedon on 3.5. Not to mention that I dig many of the movies he’s been involved on, which is also the case with Sorkin.

    I’m not saying RMD is not better than Espenson – he might very well be. I’m even inclined to think he is. He just hasn’t proven himself to ME as frequently and in as many different situations.

24. Jon Magne
    Posted February 9, 2010 at 12:42 am | Permalink

    I think I’m officially fresh out of things to reply to on this post.

    Thanks, Loki, for bothering with this. If it isn’t the longest thread on this blog, I don’t know what is.

    And to anyone who manages to read his way all down to this message: You have my commiserations. Please hide all sharp objects & projectile-firing equipment in your vicinity.

25. Loki
    Posted February 9, 2010 at 3:06 am | Permalink

    Oh, it was my pleasure, old boy.

    As to you, dear reader, please allow me to add my most sincere contrafibularities to the commiserations of our esteemed host.

26. Loki
    Posted February 10, 2010 at 8:26 pm | Permalink

    Oh, now that I’ve seen all three:

    “He’s delivered two great films, and one very good film (Thank You for Smoking), and you can tell that he is far from done.”

    I’d have to disagree on the division – I’d say Juno and Thank You for Smoking are the great ones, and Up in the Air the very good one. Of course, my personal tastes are much more pedestrian than your own, so it makes sense I’d prefer the straight-up comedy and the feel-good one to the ambivalent drama.

27. Jon Magne
    Posted February 10, 2010 at 8:30 pm | Permalink

    Thank You for Smoking is very funny the first time around, but doesn’t hold very well to re-watches. I find that Juno holds up very well, and given that Up in the Air is basically Thank You For Smoking with more depth added, I think UitA should as well.

28. Loki
    Posted February 10, 2010 at 8:43 pm | Permalink

    “Thank You for Smoking is very funny the first time around, but doesn’t hold very well to re-watches.”

    I found it did – but there were five years between my watch and my rewatch.

    “I find that Juno holds up very well,”

    I can imagine.

    ” and given that Up in the Air is basically Thank You For Smoking with more depth added, I think UitA should as well.”

    It probably holds up very well to rewatch, I’ll give you that, but I have to disagree on your comparison there. Obviously there are quite a number of themes in common between the two, but the focal point is distinctly different. UitA is about a person adrift, TYFS is not. TYFS ends with the main character still completely embracing what he does in life, UitA ends with the main character feeling quite obviously less enthused about his life than he used to. Their life-choices as such also are portrayed very differently – UitA focuses on what his choices do to the protagonist personally, TYFS much more looks at society as a whole. The basic pitch seem rather similar, I agree, but the focal points of the movies are so different I feel you can’t just equate them like that. TYFS looks at morals, ethics, right vs wrong, just vs unjust, and the big picture, with its effects on the individuals. UitA barely touches any of those things at all. Rather, it looks at purpose vs being adrift, belonging vs freedom, loyalty vs personal needs, and the individuals, with how they together form the big picture. Whenever you see someone up close in TYFS, it is to see what Society Has Done To or For Them. Whenever you do in UitA, it is to see What Do These People Do In or To Society/Other People. In my mind, despite some superficial thematic common ground, the movies really couldn’t be more polar opposites.

29. Jon Magne
    Posted February 10, 2010 at 8:59 pm | Permalink

    Any movie holds up well when you don’t have the story beats and the dialogue beats down pat, or it’s been so long between viewings that you have nostalgia for it or whatever. This normally happens to me after a couple of years, so I don’t compare viewings if they don’t take place within a year or so.

    Hehe, that’s the second time someone has cried out because I tried to compare two films with a lot of similarities this week. Yes, the two films are not the same, and yes there are a lot differences between them, but they’re both structured roughly the same, and they both contain a lot thematic similarities. If you feel that they’re so wildly different that you wouldn’t dream of comparing them, then I can understand your nit-picking, Loki, but to me, UitA is comparable to TYfS the same way Pulp Fiction is comparable to Reservoir Dogs. Not the same movie by any means, but they both draw heavily from the same wells.

30. Loki
    Posted February 10, 2010 at 9:44 pm | Permalink

    Strongly disagree – PF and RD have much, much more in common than these two. I would compare UitA and TYFS, sure, but only on the grounds that both are movies where the main character also is the narrator, with a plot centred around his morally highly unusual job. In the same way, I could compare, say, Disney’s Hercules and Batman Begins. Both are movies trying to build a new mythology based on existing sources, both are centred around a character doing heroic deeds because of his abandonment-issues regarding his more or less divinely portrayed parents, both spend most of its plot on this character training and positioning himself so that he can carry out his self-defined mission as well as possible, and both feature a prominent villain for the hero to fight who justifies his power-grabbing deeds with a stated desire to destroy the current order with his own, superior one. But I’d feel very, very skeptical if something just stated without arguments or context that “Batman Begins is basically Hercules with more depth added”. I am not in any way saying comparing the two movies wouldn’t be fruitful in quite a number of ways. I’m just saying that equating them and adding something as vague as “depth” as the only mentionable difference between them seems ridiculous to me.

31. Loki
    Posted February 10, 2010 at 9:47 pm | Permalink

    Sorry, drifted from the original sentence there – I was supposed to end by saying that I feel the PF/RD-comparison is much more apt because they operate within the same basic genre. TYFS is a comedy, UiA is a drama. That, even more so than the other points I made, makes such an equation incredibly foreign to me.

    Now if you’d rather say “heavy similarities” or something like that, I’m all with you. But saying “basically the same” is an entirely different thing from saying there are many common points.

32. Jon Magne
    Posted February 11, 2010 at 12:32 am | Permalink

    Uhm, UitA got tons of laughs at my screening, so I’d say it’s definitely a “dramedy”. The main difference between UitA & TYfS is that the former goes a bit deeper into the character, and it manages to produce something a little more original towards the end.

    But sure, I’d settle for “heavy similarities”, if that pleases you

33. Loki
    Posted February 11, 2010 at 2:46 am | Permalink

    Disagree on the original bit. I felt that UitA ended pretty predictably, whereas TYFS ended without the character seeking the redemption it was hinted at him wanting throughout the movie.

    I’d agree on it being a ‘dramedy’, if that was a word I could use without dying inside. But it was absolutely on the light side of drama. Having a few funny jokes spread throughout a drama, though, does not a comedy make. The primary purpose of the movie was emotionally investing the audience in the story of a character, not making the audience laugh – that makes it a drama, and not a comedy, as far as I’m concerned.

    And yes, that’d please me.