BlingBang

I Wish I Had Dog Flu

So, here at GeneralGametime headquarters it has been a bleak scene. I'm not positive the virus/bacteria that ravaged my body this weekend was E. Coli, but dammit if I didn't have all the symptoms.

On the bright side that gave me plenty of time to sleep and catch up on movies and TV! Hooray! Almost worth it! (Ed. note: not even close to worth it) Anyway, I did finally see the two movies that contained what were widely believed to contain the two best actress performances, Julie and Julia and The Blind Side.

Now, this may be a horrible coincidence, but the stomach cramps began to flare up during the first half of The Blind Side. I'm not saying the two events are related, but I am saying that The Blind Side is bad enough to induce vomiting. Sandra Bullock was clearly the standout performer and after finally seeing the movie, I'm not at all surprised or upset that she won the Oscar. What is much more perturbing is that this movie was nominated for Best Picture! I understand that there are 10 movies nominated now and they are trying to include more mainstream choices (it grossed over 250 million bucks domestic alone), but it was straight terrible, homie. I can think of at least 20 movies that were more deserving of what had to be the last Best Picture nomination, including mainstream films like Star Trek and The Hangover.

However, and keep in mind my embarrassment at saying this, I really liked Julie and Julia, or at least the Julia parts. Amy Adams was kind of boring. But man, Meryl Streep was awesome. Sandra Bullock has had a tough couple of weeks and whatnot, but that Oscar definitely belongs to Streep. She was outstanding, captivating, funny, she had it all. If she were any actress not named Meryl Streep and she hadn't won 39 Oscars already, she would have won for the best performance I saw all year.

Next up on the hitlist....a throwback to Pineapple Express. Then we'll see about getting my hands on An Education.

I'm Back

It's been a long vacation from BlingBang for me. Fortunately my co-author here has a whole lot less to do with his time, so he was able to bring the site back. And after a few posts from him, I couldn't help but return too.

Plenty to talk about yesterday's Oscars. Like the crazy lady who Kanye-d the director of "Music by Prudence" (turns out she's the director, and they have a running feud). 

Or the hurt the Hurt Locker laid on Avatar, which I was personally pulling for.

Or the awesome acceptance speech by Tarantino that never happened.

Or how Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin were beyond awful.

But my friend found a link that is worth putting before all of that. 

This is a Newsweek article from 1995 by the unfortunate Clifford Stoll about why this new thing called the internet is never going to live up to the hype. 

Visionaries see a future of telecommuting workers, interactive libraries and multimedia classrooms. They speak of electronic town meetings and virtual communities. Commerce and business will shift from offices and malls to networks and modems. And the freedom of digital networks will make government more democratic.

Baloney. Do our computer pundits lack all common sense? The truth in no online database will replace your daily newspaper, no CD-ROM can take the place of a competent teacher and no computer network will change the way government works.

It gets worse

 We're promised instant catalog shopping—just point and click for great deals. We'll order airline tickets over the network, make restaurant reservations and negotiate sales contracts. Stores will become obselete. So how come my local mall does more business in an afternoon than the entire Internet handles in a month? 

As a footnote, Clifford Stoll currently sells blown glass bottles on the internet.

Lost Failure, But At Least A Funny Link

It turns out that last night's episode of Lost was not really that good. Which makes me sad. Only 10 episodes left and I will not accept mediocrity. Hear that Lost people: get it together. Now, it definitely wasn't terrible. I just have high standards, that's all.

So Sayid is now evil or something. I don't know. That episode was blah. I just don't have the energy to break it down. Maybe tomorrow.

For now, here is a link to a sweet blog written by a guy who had never seen an episode of Lost before this season. Pretty funny. And revealing to how ridiculous this show is.

Hmmm...This is kinda cool

I want to post something. So here we go. Did you know there is an arrow between the E and X in the FedEx logo? I sure as hell didn't. How have I looked at this thousands of times and never noticed? Maybe this is common knowledge, but consider my mind appropriately blown. Negative space, man.

Oh, and below is a clip from tomorrow's Lost. Consider it your reward for such a lame post.

Lost Nerd Boner: Activate

Clearly I love Lost. I love everything about it. The story, the mystery, the ability to discuss it for hours. All good. But sometimes I get so wrapped up in the story, I kind of forget about how good some of the acting can be. Particularly when it comes to Terry O'Quinn (Locke) and Michael Emerson (Ben). O'Quinn has been by far the best part of the current season. His performance in The Substitute was a tour de force (I've always wanted to say that in a real sentence). 

So I was delighted to find that if O'Quinn gets his way, his next big project might pair him with Emerson once again. From TV Guide comes this potentially kick ass piece of news.

Terry O’Quinn, who plays Locke/Smoke Monster, tells me he is shopping around a bible for a TNT-type show that would pair him back up with his real-life chum and on-screen foe, Michael Emerson (Ben) - as suburban hit men juggling family issues. Though Terry asked me not to spill show specifics, he has spoken with Lost creator J.J. Abrams about the project and says, “I really hope this works out because Michael would be in his prime in this. We’d play kind of awkward partners.”

Sweet, dude. Who knows if O'Quinn is even a halfway decent writer, but it would be awesome to see him team up with Emerson again. While it may suck to be without new episodes of Lost, maybe this will brighten my mood. Or it will be absolutely terrible and make me forget how terrific these guys were on Lost and ruin everything. One or the other.

[TV Guide]

BlingBang is back with an important question

Howdy. It's yours truly, the one and only General Gametime. It has been quite a while since I have last posted on this fair site, but I have decided it is time to bring it back. Here is why: my overwhelming desire to ridicule things that bother me and overanalyze Lost has simply got the best of me.

Today I went to see Shutter Island, a movie that turned a terrific hour and a half concept into an exhausting 138 minute web of confusion. Not the best we've seen from Scorsese, but still far better than basically every movie I've seen in 2010.

Anyway, my inspiration to return to BlingBang came before the opening credits of Shutter Island even rolled. It came instead during a trailer for Clash of the Titans, what I immediately assumed was going to be the worst movie of the summer. But hold on just a minute. Jerry Bruckheimer would like to weigh in. As I was walking out of the theater, I strolled directly past a poster for Prince of Persia, which got me thinking: is it possible Prince of Persia may actually be a bigger waste of time, money, and the human spirit than Clash of the Titans? Which will emerge as the GI Joe of 2010?

Let's go to the film:

Does your baby like lit phosphorus?

Loves it!

The Hurt Locker: Get Your Nerves Ready

I only heard about The Hurt Locker this past weekend, after talking about Generation Kill with a friend. (Speaking of Gen Kill, see it now if you haven't. The box set is only $27 on Amazon.)

So I saw the movie this week having read no reviews, seen no trailers, or heard much about it except its critical acclaim and general topic.

I expected it to be sobering; I didn't expect to be so rattled. For the entire two hours and eleven minutes, you're never given a reprieve. There is certainly quality humor in here, but, far more than in Generation Kill, the levity is brief and heavy. I came out of the theater exhausted.

In The Hurt Locker we accompany three men of Bravo company, whose job it is to defuse IEDs (Improvised Explosive Devices, if you don't follow the news) in Iraq. If the most tense moments of action movies come when a character doesn't know what bomb wire to cut, imagine doing that for a living. They are also involved in a long, harrowing sniper shootout and a very bizarre brawl. All the actors - in particular Jeremy Renner, who plays the bomb tech - are outstanding.

It is being hailed as the best action movie of the year, and I don't dispute that. But it is also the anti-action movie, to the extent that Hollywood doesn't make action movies like this. You won't feel thrilled, it doesn't headline major Hollywood names (although Ralph Fiennes, Guy Pearce, and (bizarrely) Evangeline Lilly all have brief cameos), and the violence is visceral, not a spectacle. You genuinely have no idea what will happen at a given moment.

So please go see The Hurt Locker. Just be ready for it.

More Autotuning the News

I want to join this crew. They are having way too much fun.

[Ezra Klein]

The Truth is ... Just as Strange as Fiction

In the first piece of entertainment news out of Bolivia since Butch and Sundance were killed, a Bolivian news station broadcast photos of Oceanic 815 breaking up over The Island as the ACTUAL FOOTAGE OF AIR FRANCE 447'S CRASH. 

No, the smoke monster wasn't in the footage, nor was a polar bear running out of the jungle. But there should have been other clues that could have tipped the news crew off:

In their rush to air exclusive photos of Flight 447’s destruction, no one in this newsroom stopped to ask the logical questions, such as: 1) How did the camera survive? 2) Why are the photos in wide-screen format? The answers, of course, are: 1) Because the footage is from Lost. And, 2) because the footage is from Lost

Enjoy: 

[kottke]