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The new Star Trek flick has started a Trekkie civil war {TV Squad}
May 10th 2009 6:15PM Let's call a spade a spade. "Reboots" aren't about storytelling, or revitalizing a stagnent series. They're about marketing, plain and simple. Abrams could've made the same movie as an original story, and it would have been just as good, and just as fun, and had no plot issues to deal with. But what he did was piggyback his story on the characters and universe that Rodenberry created to enhance his audience. Now that's understandable. But it's also understandable that the fans of Rodenberry's original vision might be somewhat pissed that the story and characters that they came to love were appropriated, gutted and discarded to sell tickets. One of the prime draws of the Star Trek canon is it's consistency; once you suspend belief and accept certain Trek "facts" the story is internally consistent, and what's made it verge toward science fiction versus fantasy. To abridge the entire timeline, the entire story, with such a cheap plot device like time travel is insulting; might as well just be magic. If you couldn't tell the story within the existing framework, don't tell the story.
Well I have to go now, and get back to work on my screenplay for Titanic 2. Don't want to give to much away but what if the Titanic was actually a submarine in search of Nazi gold?
Fringe: The Road Not Taken {TV Squad}
May 6th 2009 9:50AM Yep, Clint Howard, Ron's brother. Which of course is cool, because Clint was on Star Trek as a kid ("The Corbomite Maneuver" episode), and because Nimoy will be ojn the show.
It was a decent episode. I don't think the "dimension shifting" would be massively disorienting, at least at first, because you'd dismiss it as having seen it wrong, or daydreaming or some such until it happened a few times; I think that aspect was portrayed perfectly. I think Harris, doing an experimented which separated him from a person he was hoping could project fire by a short distance and a piece of clear glass, was kind of stupid. Looking forward to seeing how the Bell connection develops.
Janet Jackson's breast is costing me money {TV Squad}
May 6th 2009 12:39AM All the people posting "what's the big deal about a breast" are missing the point that it's not your kid, and therefore your judgement as to what is or isn't a big deal asically doesn't mean beans. If you don't want their values imposed upon you, then you can't turn around and insist that they adopt your values.
Seeing the breast isn't the issue. Not being given the choice as to whether you wanted to is. If viewers had been allowed to make an informed choice - "this sporting event may contain nudity and awful music" - then anybody complaining can STFU. But the fact is, the surprise represented someone imposing their moral judgment and values upon millions of households without any warning or consent. If a Christian group hijacked the public airways in the middle of "Family Guy" I doubt it would be cavalierly dismissed with a "what's so awful about hearing about Jesus". And it shouldn't be. Insuring that citizens don't violate the rights of other citizens is pretty much a cut and dry governmental function, the government has a vested interest in making sure this sort of thing doesn't happen via a state regulated media. Which means this is one of the few things the government has done is recent memory that actually is a legitimate use of tax dollars.
Tribeca Review: Outrage {Cinematical}
Apr 27th 2009 5:16PM It seems funny or odd that one's sexual identity is assumed as the sole legitimate arbiter of one's political outlook. If a gay person chose to not disclose their sexual identity that seems to be their business. And as the elected representative of a group of people, their vote should reflect the sensibilities of their constituents. So it would seem entirely logical (and proper) that a person should vote against their own personal interest in the service of their responsibility. We wouldn't (and don't) accept that since a politician is rich, he's justified in only holding viewpoints beneficial to other rich people. So why do we assume that a gay politician can ignore the concerns of the non-gay community?
Further, it's far from certain that the behavior is even "hypocritical". It's entirely possible to simultaneously hold the views that:
a) Anonymous man sex in an airport bathroom is great.
b) Allowing two men to get married is not.
You can argue that those viewpoints are wrong, but they're logically independent. I'm hetero, and think sex with 2 women is great; doesn't mean I support polygamy. Now, if a person caught engaging in bathroom man sex had supported a law against bathroom man-sex, or man-sex in general, that would be one thing, because they'd be attempting to deny others a right they claim(ed) for themselves. But that's not really in evidence here. We merely have a couple of people who's personal lives didn't jibe with their political outlook in an expected or popular fashion, and who tried to keep them separate. It seems a rather limited outlook; you're gay therefore your opinions are fixed and immutable.
30 Rock: St. Valentine's Day {TV Squad}
Feb 13th 2009 5:55AM You are correct.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pk9mmto2Cdw
Although technically, it's a Doobie Bros. song.
Also, Tracy's line was "I found it on my favorite web site StopShowingOff.com!" I'm not sure from reading it the other way people would understand that it was a play on Dot Com's name.
The United Statements of America {Gadling}
Jan 19th 2009 9:51PM As a native Virginian, it must be explained that the motto is a shortened version of "Sic semper evello mortem Tyrannis"; "Thus always death comes to tyrants" and the state flag has Virtue/Virginia (personified as a toga clad female) standing atop the throat of a de-crowned king. So, in other words, we keep it real.
The Beast: Pilot (series premiere) {TV Squad}
Jan 16th 2009 5:46PM Oh.my.god. What a disaster. They're trying so hard to out shield "The Shield". And failing. Look at Patrick Swayze talk through clinched teeh and point a gun at people. Wow he blew up a car with a rocket launcher (that somehow, no one on the show was aware enough or gave enough of a crap to distinguish from an RPG). Let's send the rookie on some errands with our colorful cast, who are not quite what they appear. Watch hero perform morally dubious acts. There's nothing original here, or even ripped off particularly well.
Put Training Day, The Shield, and Collateral in a blender with a large helping of suck, and you get this.
Court: New York can tax Amazon, other online purchases {Download Squad}
Jan 13th 2009 6:04PM Funny, the first highway in the country, the PA turnpike, built by private industry. The rail system in this country, built by private industry. Plenty of private, profitable bus and trolley lines. Funny, VA allowing private industry to build the roads and assume the costs of construction and doing well, and PA desperately trying to sale poorly mantained roads to private companies because the state did such a bangup job. Funny how the people that set and collect the taxes never seem to send their kids to the tax-payer funded public schools. Real vote of confidence there.
What you don't grasp is it's fine to ask me to pay for such I used/need. But to grab increasing chunks of my money to throw down a rat hole offends me. You tax me for a road, I expect a smooth piece of blacktop, not a cratered obstacle course littered with Teamsters leaning on shovels. To be taxed to death by a governor that engineered the current financial downturn especially offends me. New York made a deliberate choice to rely on reciepts from Wall Street and chased taxed other industry/revenue elsewhere and now that their gamble failed, as per usual they're presenting the bill to the tax payer.
And saps like you eat it up and beg for more.
Court: New York can tax Amazon, other online purchases {Download Squad}
Jan 13th 2009 2:44PM That's idiotic. taxes don't keep our world going, the people that keep our world going do. the bricklayers, bus drivers and doctors, and precious few of them are employed by, or recipients of, my tax dollar. Tax dollars didn't buy the clothes I wear in lieu of animals skins, nor pay the person that made them, or the webmaster that ran the site where I bought them, or the driver that delivered them. So why, exactly, would I "thank taxes" or let them stick their grimy hands in my pocket for a piece of a transaction with which they had precious little to do with?
If the government were the best, most efficient way to pool money and collectively pay for goods and services used by the group then maybe you'd have a point. But the government overpays for things that only a handful of people people use, and do a halfassed job of delivering it. Compare the speed/service between Fedex and the USPS. Which one's employees are known for going nuts and shooting people? Thank taxes. Compare private security to the police. Who's more likely to shoot you 61 times for being the wrong shade? Thank taxes. Compare a private maintenance company to a military motor pool. Who's more likely to spend 300 dollars on a screw? Thank taxes. Who's more likely to raise their prices when the economy's tanking; a private company or the government? Thank taxes.
Discuss: Do Politics Belong in Kids Movies? {Cinematical}
Jun 29th 2008 12:26PM "And yet as a result of the Iraq war (which was totally based on lies and purposely misleading/faulty intelligence) thousands of Americans and tens of thousands of Iraqis have died. Republicans like you don't seem to care about that fact, and seem to want to defend Bush as 'well meaning' and write off those dead people as unimportant to your argument. Us 'liberals' meanwhile, actually care about those folks."
...And yet were mysteriously silent when Clinton let half a million Rwandans get hacked to death for the sake of political expediency. And are right now over the ongoing genocide in Dafur. It's real easy to care about peoples well being when the extent of your care is limited to writing a check, holding a rally or wearing t-shirt, i.e. "talk is cheap".
"You guys are violent, negative, harmful people who like to attack liberals for supporting our freedoms and favoring peace over war."
For all the liberal talking points mentioned, for all the mistakes made, the simple fact is the people of Iraq and Afghanistan have representative democracy and some form of self determination, which is more than they got from decades of previous US governments. The Taliban no longer is stoning women who dare to where makeup or learn to read, men who's beards are of insufficient length, or pulling walls over atop gays (but maybe, as is the case in liberals new utopia of the moment, Iran, there were no actual gays in Afghanistan to be executed for their sexual orientation). The fact that the existence of democracy is waved away by liberals as a minor point, less significant than the lack of electricity or garbage collection is kind of sad. Supporting freedom indeed.
Personally, I like to attack liberals when they're drooling idiots who regurgitate lies and conjecture as fact, and who's idea of "freedom" is another way of saying "being in securing my own comfort while being perfectly prepared to leave other people under the boot heels of dictators the world over". After all, Saddam wasn't such a bad guy; so he gassed a few Kurds, who hasn't? If you can't trust a mass murdering, leader of a rouge state sponsor of terror then who can you trust? Once upon a time it was the liberals trying to oust the Castro's and the Ho Chi Min's of the world, now they view that as an attack on freedom.
Sam, consider your point made.
[/Hijack]
