I'm a massive fan of television programs and movies. I "watch" a lot of them. And by "watch" I mean that I am doing work (or blogging!) while they run in the background. My mind is pretty good at multi-tasking, so I can fairly easily follow whatever is on my television while banging away on my laptop.
The nice thing about watching stuff this way is that I can ignore all the idiotic shit that draves me crazy when it pops up.
Take for example the Wilhelm Scream.
I fucking hate it. The sound effect is so overused and offensive that it immediately takes me out of what I'm watching...
=shudder=
And then there's the fucking "Tarzan yell" which annoys me for the same reason...
Yeah, fuck Richard Marquand and George Lucas forever for that bit of dumbassery ruining an already disastrous Return of the Jedi (the heinous followup to the amazing The Empire Strikes Back). Lord.
If I had the time, I'd edit the sound mix of every movie I enjoy to rip this dumbassery out of them so I can enjoy them without distraction.
But why stop there?
There's a lot of shows and films which need some more exstensive editing than just a sound clip.
I've been re-watching the James Bond movies and cringing at the appearances of the Sheriff J.W. Pepper character, which I loathe...
Not that this frickin' idiot is the only bad thing in a James Bond movie. Many of the films have moments that are beyond stupid and are begging to be modified or cut.
Take, for example, that incredible car jump stunt that had the misfortune of being sabotaged not just by an appearance by Seargent J.W. Pepper, but with the stupid-ass slide whistle they played over the top of this magnificent stunt, which effectively sabotages it...
Who the fuck makes a choice like that?
I feel like I'm picking on James Bond and Star Wars movies, but there's precious few movies that I wouldn't change at all. Most films have something I'd change... even if it's something very small.
Hollywood should just save themselves the trouble and consult me on the final edit.
Yesterday it was announced that my favorite contemporary director will direct the next James Bond film and I am over the moon.
A couple years ago Denis Villeneuve was on the Happy Sad Confused podcast and spoke about how he would love to make a Bond film one day, and to know that somebody at Amazon was listening is a different level of heartwarming...
The guy is incredible. He went from Sicario to Arrival to Blade Runner 2049 to the two Dune films. Who has a run like that? I have no idea when he's going to get around to Bond when he's got Rendezvous with Rama and Dune: Messiah coming up. And wasn't he working on a Cleopatra movie too? Regardless, I will absolutely be tuning in for whatever he's up to next. Which I hope is Dune: Messiah before James Bond No. 26 (which doesn't yet have a writer, so maybe)...
And now that the director is settled, the big question is... who will they get to play James Bond?
Connery was impossible to follow, but Moore did it. Moore was impossible to follow... and... well... yeah. But eventually Craig did it. So here's hoping.
After watching the Totally Awesome Films video on Flash Gordon the other day, YouTube recommended some of their other videos, including this one about the James Bond flick Never Say Never Again, which I watched because A) I actually liked the film quite a lot despite it being near the bottom of my ranking, and B) It's a "rogue" Bond flick which was produced outside of the Eon Production umbrella due to some legal wrangling that I never fully understood...
Afterwards I watched Never Say Never Again... yet again... and found it to be even better than I remembered. Yeah, Connery was really too old to be playing Bond, but they worked that into the script (which is more than they ever did with Roger Moore's later entries). Alas, where they fucked it up was having a 53-year-old Connery playing opposite a 29-year-old Kim Basinger, which was a missed opportunity to have an older Bond Girl for once. And then they had her head-over-heels in love with him after they had only met like three times? Sure he saved her life, but it was just so bizarre.
I did love seeing Connery as Bond again. And the writing, which afforded Bond some of the most clever lines of his career, was pretty good considering this was a remake of Thunderball. But the highlight of the entire movie were the villains. Both Max Largo and Fatima Blush were brilliant, ruthless, and deranged in the best possible way. Flawlessly cast and performed, they're near the top of all the adversaries 007 ever faced. And then... Max von Sydow as Blowfeld on top of that? It's an embarrassment of riches that makes the film far more memorable than it had a right to be.
Ultimately I think that Goldfinger will likely never be toppled as my favorite of all the James Bond movies, but there's a place for each of them because they all hold some measure of entertainment value (including Octopussy, which never ends up being as terrible as I remember it). Never Say Never Again fares better than some of them in the grand scheme of things because at least all the humor lands (I still wince thinking of the idiotic fucking appearances by Sheriff J.W. Pepper... and of course that dumbass driving gondola complete with pigeon double-take that nearly ruin Moonraker every time).
I suppose I really should rewatch all the 007 films. I haven't done that in a couple of years, and it's always worth it.
With the possible exception of The Living Daylights, which isn't a terrible film, but the one which never seems to offer me anything new with repeated viewings. It was just so bland and never seems to get better with age.
Hey, the US dollar may be in the tank, the economy is fucked, our benefits are being trashed, the government is toying with legalizing cancer-causing asbestos again, and we're now at war, but everything's just going great... because an all new Bullet Sunday starts... now...
• Sick Sad Escape! Where did The Ballad of Wallis Island come from? I never knew that Tim Key had this level of talent. His performance is all at once hilarious (expected) and incredibly touching and sweet...
Highest possible recommendation if you need an escape from this sad, cruel world. A lovely little film on Peacock TV.
• He'll Save Every One of Us! This morning while working I watched Flash Gordon for the hundredth time because a video about the film ended up on my YouTube feed. It's incredible no matter how many times I watch it. I own this original movie poster...
And here's that video, which is darn interesting...
It's always gutting to me how we never got a sequel. So few movies deserve one as bad as Flash Gordon does.
• Pool Shark! I don't know how she recovered. I wouldn't have been able to!
Talk about a Pool Sharknado!
• HIs Name is Earl! I'm not a big fan of spiders. However...
Not saying I want to become friends with one though.
• ENTERTAINMENT NEWS: Out of the Ashes of Comixology, a New Digital Comics Platform Rises. — So let me get this straight. You want me to buy comics from you again at "Neon Ichiban" so that you can eventually sell out to Amazon.com (again)... at which point Amazon will kill the app only to leave me with their shitty fucking Amazon Kindle app which is a steaming pile of shit that completely ruins the entire reason I bought digital comics in the first place? Nah... you can fuck right off with your bullshit. I am never buying digital comics from you again. Amazon utterly destroyed what you built... lesson learned.
• We All Scream! This is a converdation I'm not ashamed to have had...
"What would you do for a Klondike Bar?"
"I dunno... go to the register and pay for it? Ask me what I'd do for a HEATH Klondike Bar..."
"What would you do for a Heath Klondike Bar?"
"Straight up murder. I would murder for a Heath Klondike Bar."
"Um. Damn. That's dark."
"Have you HAD a Heath Klondike Bar tho?"
• Bob Reads! Jesus Christ. These people really are fucking brainwashedand clueless...
She really thought she did something with that smug attitude, but it does beg the question... why are the people guilty of assaulting children infinitely more likely to be priests, pastors, Conservatives, or Republicans than drag queens? Can she explain that?
"War may sometimes be a necessary evil. But no matter how necessary, it is always an evil, never a good. We will not learn to live together in peace by killing each other's children." — President Jimmy Carter
Hope you're enjoying your Summer before World War III starts.
I know that there's probably (maybe) at least one person out there who's devastated that I promised a deeper look into the new Apple OS 26s that got released, but I'm still not... there... yet. I keep running into weirdness that I need to look into further so I know if it's not user error... or it's not a bug from a developer release that's not Apple's intent.
Something which sounds easier than it usually is for whatever reason.
So, hopefully tomorrow I'll be back on track. In the meanwhile? The latest Superman trailer is here. And probably the last pre-release trailer we're getting...
And now for my live-watch reaction...
And, as if this new trailer wasn't enough, more Spaceballs too?!?
Reports are saying that not only is Bill Pullman back as Lone Star and Mel Brooks is back as Yogurt, but Rick Moranis is back as Dark Helmet?!?? How sweet is that? The guy obviously realizes how much people love him in that role, and it convinced him to come out of retirement for another run...
Sadly, we know that Barf (John Candy) and Dot Matrix (Joan Rivers) can't make a return... but it's nice that they seem to be doing what they can to get as many actors back as possible.
And then... Bill Pullman's son, Lewis Pullman, is also on board to boot, which is very cool.
I was beginning to think this would never happen. I'm glad it is, because the original was just too dang entertaining to let the franchise lay dormant.
I may be broiling in the Summer heat, but I must be good to blog... because an all new Bullet Sunday starts... now...
• Stranger, Newer! Look, let's just get this out of the way... it is highly unlikely that ANY show is going to eclipse Andor, The Residence, and Poker Face in my #1, #2, and #3 spots for the best television of 2025. They're just too phenomenal. But if any show has a shot at it, that would be Strange New Worlds. It managed to eclipse the original series as my favorite Trek, and the third season looks like more of the awesome I've come to expect...
• Cricket! GAH! I've been replacing some of the outlets in my home with Eve smart outlets. This morning I was replacing the outlet for all my television devices because I want to know how much electricity I'm drawing to be sure I'm not overloading the breaker. The outlet ended up having dual black & white wires, which meant the wire nuts that came with the switch were too small. I quickly ran to the electrical kit to get bigger ones while my Uninterruptible Power Supply was beeping angrily because it had no power. As I was running through the garage, I saw a clump of dirt that must have fallen off the gardening tools I was using this morning. I kicked it under the car so I could sweep it up later. BUT THE CLUMP OF DIRT CRAWLED BACK FROM UNDER THE CAR! BECAUSE IT WASN'T A CLUMP OF DIRT, IT WAS THE LARGEST CRICKET I'VE EVER SEEN! After screaming GAAAAAH! I ran into the house for a paper cup to drop over the insect while I wired the outlet so I could get power back to my UPS. Then I slid a piece of board under the cup and took the cricket out to a nice shady spot in the rock wall behind my home. Sorry, cricket, but I don't want you chirping in my home.
• Dip! A friend called and asked what I'm up to. After telling her the killer cricket story, I told her I was making my grandmother's chip dip recipe... except I'm using vegan cream cheese instead of regular cream cheese, vegan mayo instead of regular mayo, tamari sauce instead of Worcestershire sauce, and nutritional yeast instead of cheese. Then I add a little ground black pepper and chili powder to help make the taste of the veggie mayo more palatable. She said "If you're changing all the ingredients, you're not really making your grandmother's recipe tho..." And I was like "Well, the lemon juice in it is still lemon juice... I just substitute vegan ingredients for the non-vegan ingredients. Which is most of them, I guess. Which is to say that I'm not actually making my grandma's recipe after all. Except... I totally am, I think.
• Big, Bold, and Beautiful! Well this looks wonderful. A movie that's right up my alley...
Doesn't hurt that the cast is so good.
• a-ha! I've never understood the one-hit-wonder status for a-ha. Their debut album and lead single Take on Me are great. Love it. Definitely a hit. But they created a lot of amazing music after. Including Holyground, a beautiful song that defies description...
Lead singer Morten Harket has announced he has Parkinson’s disease.
I flew to New York to see the band on their farewell Ending on a High Note Tour (they were only playing NYC and Los Angeles in the USA). After that they slowed down, but I was so happy they actually kept going.
• Pick Me! Lock company sues McNally for showing how easy their locks are to pick. They claim that he "altered" their lock. McNally orders a fresh lock and films himself retrieving the lock from an Amazon locker, opening the sealed box of the lock, cutting an aluminum can to make a pick for the lock, then picks the lock... all without the filming being interrupted. The entire video is two minutes and thirteen seconds long...
I laughed and laughed and laughed. Because this lock company just made things far, far worse for their reputation. He should pick one of their locks live during the trial, assuming the lock company is stupid enough to go through with it.
• VARIETY NEWS: ‘Andor’ Creator Says Disney Spent ‘$650 Million for 24 Episodes’ and ‘We Fought Hard’ for Money After Being Told in Season 2: ‘Streaming Is Dead. We Don’t Have the Money We Had Before’ — And every fucking cent is on the screen. This is budget filmmaking. Disney should be thrilled that Tony Gilroy handed them 8 feature films at a budget of only $80 million each. Because every three episodes IS the equivalent. And who makes feature films for only $80 million any more that are this fully-realized and have the talent and dazzling special effects that made them this great? Andor is easily one of the best TV series ever made. It’s the best thing to come out of Star Wars period...
Disney should be begging the guy to do more Star Wars. They should be filling a dump truck with money and backing it up into Gilroy’s driveway to get him to do more Star Wars. This series was an absolute gift to Disney, Star Wars fans, and people who relish great storytelling. Fuck the Empire.
And now I'm off! Off the internet Because I'm trying to free up space in my garage.
If you've been here at Blogography for any length of time, you know that theme park design is a big obsession of mine. So of course when Disney Parks Blog had an entry this morning about the new expansions to Disneyland, I took note.
To start, the new bridge over S. Harbor Blvd. which goes to a new load/unload zone and 6,000 space parking lot (along with the new entrance on the east-side) is very cool...
But my attention was laser-focused on the information for the new Coco ride...
I loved Coco. The gorgeous art of the film and incredible visuals would make a fantastic idea for an attraction. All we really know about the ride is that you're in a boat...
Now, one would assume that this new ride is going to be at least as big as It's a Small World or else why do it? On the Google Map below, It's a Small World is in the upper-left in pink. Dropping the ride at the location in the press release would put it at the location of the green building I've dropped in the lower-right of the same map below...
Except, a few problems...
And so the actual "Coco Land" will more likely be somewhere within the space I've drawn in green on the map at the lower-right below. It's located behind the IncrediCoaster...
The region I've drawn in yellow is the area available for the Avenger's Campus expansion (which I've already talked about here). The area in Blue is the area available for Avatar Pandora Land West (which seems surprisingly small)...
After these additions, the only real space available for expansion (other than the Disney Forward project areas which I talked about here) is the region to the north of the original Disneyland. That's assuming Disney doesn't buy more property in the area. But in order to use this land (which is fairly substantial, dwarfing even Star Wars Land), Disney would have to level a lot of expensive construction (including the massive Team Disney admin building and the warehouse where I'm guessing the parade floats are built and housed). This seems unlikely, but maybe a portion of this space could be used for park expansion...
At this point all I can really, really, hope for is that Disney doesn't cheap out and give us some crapy boat ride that's undeserving of Coco. It should be more than a bad retread of Gran Fiesta Tour Starring The Three Caballeros from Epcot's Mexico Pavilion. Much more. It should be a destination-worthy spectacle that draws people to the park just to see it.
The Coco ride should be every bit as big and impressive and jaw-dropping as what they did with Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance.
But will it be?
Only time will tell.
Happy Pride Month to all my LGBTQ+ friends out there! The world is better because you're in it! Soon I'll be watching a movie themed to this month's topic, but that will have to wait... because an all new Bullet Sunday starts... now...
• BEES! NEWSFLASH: Millions of bees escape, start stinging after crash in Whatcom County. The first thing I did was go running to Maps to find out how far away these 250 million bees are from my house. Answer? About 3-1/2 hours, minimum. So no need to panic. Yet.
• Disney Be Expensive, Yo! “No we’re not going to Disneyland. We’ve got Disneyland at home!”
Absolutely classic.
• Sloppy! Peacock TV should just renew Poker Face for ten new seasons to be filmed twice a year. The latest episode Sloppy Joseph is phenomenal, as usual. But it leaps ahead of the pack for one reason. The child actor leads they got for this episode are amazing. AMAZING... and also, in one case, amazingly disturbing. Whomever cast them deserves a raise...
Plus it was deftly directed by ADAM ARKIN? And is that DAVID KRUMHOLTZ?!? Sweet! — I wish they could clone Natasha Lyonne so she could appear in more stuff. Then make a second clone and put her into suspended animation so we have a spare in case we lose the original two.
• Wes! If anybody has $400 that they're trying to get rid of... give it to The Trevor Project or Trans Lifeline. But if you have $400 more that you need to get rid of, you could always buy this for me...
Sure I already own all these movies in digital format (and more than a few on DVD and Blu-Ray), but 4K off of Blu-Ray is a considerably different experience than "4K" off of digital streaming.
• Linguistically Yours! I love this...
Language is ever-changing and ever-evolving. This is just the latest thing.
• Cursed! Sage, sage wisdom being dropped here...
I wish I could reclaim all the time I wasted trying to please people who don't care about me.
• Yummy! This video came up in my Facebook memories. So much more clever than Baby Shark...
CHEESE! CHEESE! CHEESE!
• Drag News Hour! Yet another drag queen endangering our children! Oh... wait a second... nope! Not a drag queen... color me un-shocked! NEWSFLASH: MAGA Influencer And Fox News Guest Indicted On Child Sex Abuse Charges.
And, on that note, it's time for me to make dinner. Until next Sunday...
Just like I watch Once Upon a Time in Mexico every Cinco de Mayo and listen to I have a Dream every Martin Luther King Jr. Day... I've decided to watch Taking Chance every Memorial Day. It's one of those works where you can't help but tie it to an event in your mind. In the film, Kevin Bacon plays a Marine entrusted with taking the remains of a fellow Marine killed in battle to the soldier's home for burial. It's a well-made movie which isn't worried about embellishing events as much as it is telling a respectful story that's based on something which actually happened...
I knew today was Memorial Day. It was on my calendar and everything. But after my morning meeting (the rest of the world is still running), I somehow forgot. I just started in on work. Then, just before I was going to take a shower and head into the office, one of my foreign colleagues texted "Enjoy your holiday" and I remembered again.
So instead of microwaving my morning veggie burger, I took the time to fry it and harvest some lettuce to go on top. Then I set out my SourJo starter to make bread. And then I decided to play electrician and install the smart outlets I've had sitting in my garage for way too long.
Then it was time for dinner and Taking Chance and my Memorial Day holiday was over.
I only spent about three hours working, so it actually was a holiday. At least as far as I'm concerned.
I was working outside, decided it was way too hot, then decided it was a great excuse to come knock out some bullets... because an all new Bullet Sunday starts... now...
• New Marriott! New James Marriott is here! Weird video, as usual, but the song is one of my favorites he's ever done. It's always a pleasant surprise when musical artists keep pushing forward like this...
His previous release was darn good too...
His new album, Don't Tell the Dog, will be released on June 13th.
• Holiday Road! Even if Rogue One sucked (spoiler alert, it most definitely does not suck), we'd still have one of the most terrifying scenes to come out of Star Wars. And it loses none of its impact no matter what you do to it...
That's Darth Vader unleashed as you'd always imagine him. And, hey, isn't Holidy Road a great song? Makes me want to rewatch Christmas Vacation for the hundredth time. But here's an interesting factoid... Holiday Road was played in all the National Lampoon's Vacation movies EXCEPT Christmas Vacation. And, here's another one for you... did you know that Kesha covered the song last year?
I always love it when somebody decides to make a cover song their own by putting some kind of spin on it that's different from the original.
• Justice for Luko! Mickey 17 came to HBO Max and it's surprisingly good, which I wasn't expecting given how it failed hard at the box office, not even making back the money it cost before marketing. I didn't know much about it other than I wanted to see it because Bong Jo Hoon is a genius...
It's a great story that's expertly told (which I did expect). It's also got something to say. Worth a look if you're into thoughtful sci-fi.
• 5+5=10!
Well this is interesting...
"That'll be five dollars, mate.'
"Do you have change for a tenner?"
"I do not."
"No worries, mate!"
RIIIIIIP!
You really do learn something new every day.
• New Fraser? I kinda lost track of Man Can Cook because while it was fun at first, it ended up being always the same thing... a guy cooking while his dog (Fraser!) sat there. But the other day Facebook had this video in my feed...
Dan is likely not planning on trading in Fraser permanently, but it's nice that he realizes he needs to try different things from time to time.
• Young Hotness! Nothing quite like running across an old driver's license to make you realize how old you've gotten!
Dang. so hot back then. No idea what happened. I'm talking about my signature, of course. I'm just as hot as I've always been! My signature is a complete mess now.
• Feed. Hungry. Kids! I'm going to put this riiiiight here...
The fact that lunch programs in schools aren't free to any child, regardless of money or paperwork, is abhorrent. The fact that there are people who are perfectly happy to let children starve says all you need to know about where humanity is at right now. These kids have absolutely no control over their circumstances, and people need to stop acting as if they've somehow done something wrong just by existing.
And now back to our regularly-scheduled nonsense.
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