Movie review: Your Highness
So it’s been kind of hell for the last few weeks, with the show and the move and all sorts of other stuff piling up like you wouldn’t believe, so I decided what I needed to do was unwind a little with a movie that would make me laugh. I have heard a lot about Your Highness on the Howard Stern Show and figured it would probably fit the bill, so I called a friend and we hit the theater.
The movie did not disappoint at all. I laughed my ass off continuously. Really funny and well written.
The story is of Thadius, the libertine nere-do-well younger son of the king (played by Danny McBride of Eastbound and Down. EB&D image courtesy of the television t shirt category) who spends his time drinking, whoring, and getting high and his older brother Fabius (played by Hollywood pretty boy James Franco) who is brave, noble, and in all ways a better than Thadius. Fabius has his bride kidnapped by an evil warlock name Leezar who plans to impregnate her with a dragon. In order to kill Leezar they need to find a magic sword. Along the way they are joined by the majorly hot Natalie Portman (her screen name is Isabel, but I have a hard time paying attention to the details whenever she is on the screen, if you know what I mean). Medieval(-ish) adventure hijinx ensue. Monsters are killed, Thadius comes to grips with his manhood (in more than one way), and a feast of fish sticks is consumed. The script is rife with sleazy puns and double entendres that all seem hilarious in spite of being incredibly juvenile.
First the stars. The movie is hilarious. Two stars. Natalie Portman. One star. Natalie Portman showing a thong rear shot. Two stars (although I heard an ugly rumor that they used a body double for this, in which case reduce it to one star). Every single character, even superstar pretty boy Fabius, is funny and engaging. One star. Leezar is great as a super villain. One star. A couple scenes with some extremely gratuitous nudity. One star. Overall extremely well written. One star. Total: nine stars.
Now the black holes. Kind of mediocre special effects and CGI (although really, you shouldn’t be here for these things). One black hole. The humor overall is really funny, but after a while it feels like they are beating the homoerotic jokes into the ground. One black hole. I really could have done without the whole minotaur genitalia running joke. One black hole. Total: three black holes.
So a grand total of six black holes, which is a very good score from me for a comedy. This movie is a great second or third date movie, as it will get her thinking about sex without you looking like a total pervert. I think you should definitely see it in a theater if you can, but this movie will also be a great addition to a DvD movie collection as it is exactly the thing to watch if you just want to throw something funny on that doesn’t require a lot of thought.
That’s it. Short this week but I still have about a million hours of work to do. I’ll try to stretch things out tomorrow.
Dave, where the hell have you been?
I just looked at my last post and realized it has been a full week since I did anything. I apologize to those of you who are avid readers and want to hear my words of wisdom each day. To the other 99.999% of you I will just say I have been really busy with the Star Trek show we attended this last weekend. Even now I am scrambling to fold and sort t-shirts, but wanted to at least make a prairie dog-like appearance and let my beloved readers know I am still shuffling on this mortal coil.
The show I went to was the San Francisco Star Trek convention, and let me say it exceeded all my expectations, both in sales and in fun. It’s a smaller show and I thought it would be kind of slow, but it was popping the whole time. I met some amazing people, saw some decent costumes, and finally discovered a way of displaying t-shirts that I like.
I find these shows to be especially cool in that I really enjoy hanging out with the true fans, if you know what I mean. Sure you meet cool fans at shows like Wondercon and so on, but you also get a lot of dross wandering in off the street. You have to be truly dedicated to travel to a Star Trek show, and it feels good to be in a room where 100% of the people with you are into the same thing you are. I think it an interesting case that one of the best selling t-shirts from the show was this United Federation of Planets (from the Star Trek T shirt category) rather than one of the character shirts, as only a true fan of Star Trek would even recognize this logo. Very cool.
So this week I will do a post each day. Tomorrow more dating advice. Tomorrow night I think I will see Battle: Los Angeles so you can look forward to a review for what I hope is a great movie Wednesday. I need to blog a lot over the next two weeks as I will be working hard to get ready for Wondercon in early April and will start having a hard time finding time after about the 27th. More on that show later.
TV shows I loved as a kid but that kind of suck to watch now: the Greatest American Hero
So I am not really feeling the dating advice tonight and don’t want to force it. I considered going to see a movie and writing a review of it, but there seems to be a dearth of movies worth even worth considering unless I happened to catch a bad case of Bieber Fever, the only fever known to medical science to be caused by brain damage instead of the other way around. Instead I am going to explore an interesting phenomenon in my life: TV shows I loved as a kid that when I go back and watch now are really kind of painful to watch. (Knight Rider t-shirt courtesy of the TV t shirts category)
This is a weird thing to me, as it only seems to apply to TV shows. Movies that I watched as a kid I can go back and watch again and love and appreciate all over again. A few months ago I watch Goonies again and came away with a great feeling and a desire to listen to Cyndi Lauper. Last month I saw Time Bandits and loved it. Yet somehow whenever I go back and watch an old TV show it really looks painfully bad.
I think this may actually be a criticism of modern movies rather than a simple bitch about old TV shows. The fact is I think television has evolved into a much more polished and well written product, while movies, for all the technological advancement, have not really advanced much in terms of stories and cliches. Since TV shows have to have an extended lifespan and pull in advertising dollars there is a serious motivation to have at least the basic premise functional. Also, they seem to react better to current trends in pop culture. Movies only have to survive long enough to make it to international distribution, so it doesn’t really matter how much they suck (cough cough Season of the Witch cough cough). Therefore, the motivation to evolve just isn’t there (thank you Darwin).
Anyway, this concept was driven home about two years ago. As a kid growing up in the sucktastic 80’s I ran into this show, the Greatest American Hero. It was about a high school teacher named Ralph Hinkley who is given a suit by aliens that gives him super powers. The problem is he manages to lose the instruction manual (and really, which of us hasn’t done this) and has to figure it out through painful trail and error. He is supposed to help humans with it. The suit makes him bulletproof (sort of. He is never sure if it covers his entire body or just the part covered by the suit, so there are many humorous scenes where someone is shooting at him and he is covering his face with his arms like a girl getting spit wads shot at her), can fly, gives him super strength, and all sort of other powers that crop up as he screws around with the suit, kind of like having you car clock wrong six months every year until you figure out the RPS button will allow you to change the clock (not that I am speaking from personal experience, but really, I am).
He is teamed up with an FBI agent named Bill Maxwell (played by the great Robert Culp) and his super hot lawyer girlfriend Pam Davidson. On paper this sounds brilliant. Super hero? Super powers? FBI agent? Aliens? Hot lawyer girlfriend? Sounds like a recipe for the greatest American tv show.
So I loved it as a kid and two years ago was looking around Best Buy and saw a beautiful tin box collectors set that had all episodes, tons of extra features, and a heat transfer logo to make your own costume for the unlikely price of like $29.99. I bought it and hustled home to throw it on my TV.
That’s where the disappointment set it. The opening scene, which was Bill Maxwell’s friend being gunned down by terrorists that I remembered as really cool, was horrible done. All the dialogue sucked. The story sucked. The hair was all that really bad super trendy big 80’s hair that turns my stomach. I’m not going to be one of those tools who bitches about special effects done 30 years ago, but I can watch the original Star Wars from 1977 and still see some decent and believable special effects, so from that perspective the special effects sucked. Pam Davidson, who I remember as being really hot in the show, now looks like a middle aged housewife (with really big hair) when seen through my adult eyes. Everyone was wearing bad 80’s clothing. I can’t put my finger on it, but there was something in either the editing or camera work that is really jarring and disjointed. Overall very disappointing.
I put the boxed set back on my shelf after three lousy episodes. I guess this should be counted as a lesson learned, but I am reasonably sure that if I were to come across the same boxed set deal for Airwolf, Rip Tide, Magnum PI, the A Team, Knight Rider, Mork and Mindy, the Dukes of Hazard, TJ Hooker, Max Headroom, WKRP in Cincinnati, Miami Vice, Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, Married with Children, Night Court, Murphy Brown, Baywatch, or MacGuyver I would probably buy it with similar results. Oh, well. At least it would give me something to blog about.
Anyway, enough of this. Next post will be more interpreting online dating images. As for yesterday’s who-would-win question, Batman versus Darth Vader, the obvious answer is Vader as he could probably just force choke Batman to death. However, I have a lot of faith in Batman’s ability to overcome amazing odds. I believe given enough time to plan and prepare he would find a way to overcome the Dark Sith Lord, especially know that I know what an emo wienie he is under all that armor.
For today, I ask another mismatch that I think could go a different way if you think about it. Who would win, a single Star Trek Red Shirt armed with phaser against Tweekie with Dr. Theopolis?
Nerd Dating: Online Dating pt 13: interpreting photos
They say a picture is worth 1000 words, but if you are clever, it can actually be worth 1001-1010 as you glean little insights into the personality, sense of humor, fitness, motivations, and general suitableness of your prospective procreation partner.
Picture with a cat (or cats). If this is a guy, either he thinks this is really clever and funny or is something that rhymes with “Tin the Bloset”. If the first he could be a great guy to date, but you will never ever know for sure which of the two he really is. If this is a girl first of all go back and reread my “More than two cats” rule for dating women. If she is shown with only one or two cats then you can explore further, but know that she has probably made her cats her substitute children in a way that will absolutely drive you nuts at some point.
Picture from high school. Unless this person is actually 18 years old, steer clear. Either they have hit the wall so hard that they have broken through (with their face) into new, unexplored territories of ugliness and this is the last time they took a good photo, or they were one of those super popular kids in high school who now feels a desperate desire to go back in time to when they were cool again. If they only included the high school pic in addition to some more recent ones then it is probably is the latter case, but even then you will soon become thoroughly sick of stories that all start with “This one time in high school…” Take it from me (the bitter troll that I am), if you took the total sum of all your accomplishments, parties, and popularity you had in high school it has the value of a wad of used chewing gum at the bottom of an empty grande latte cup from Starbucks the day after you graduate. Move on.
Girl in group shot with other girls cheek to cheek. This inevitably means sorority girl (or the junior college or GED equivalent). It also generally means she likes to party and wont have a real problem sleeping with you. If she does love to party go back and look at the guideline I did for “Love to Party.” Otherwise, as long as you aren’t a hard core GDI you should be able to date her and have fun, although I would not be surprised if she turned out to be a little shallow.
Guy in group shot doing the “hang loose” symbol with one hand, beer in the other, and his tongue out trying to touch his chin. Frat boy. I don’t know why it is, but every frat boy I have even known has a biological imperative to turn profile, do the hang loose (thumb and pinky extended to the max), and stick out his tongue whenever they are in a group and someone points a camera at them. They all have hundreds of these photos and love to post them on profiles in an attempt to show you what kind of a fun party guy they are. If fun for you is watching him get hammered every night at the sports bar down the street with his Greek friends, than by all means go for it. Also, most of these guys have a hat on backwards. Not sure I understand the motivation there.
Girl in group shot where she is the hottest one. This girl is kind of a user and also has some self esteem issues. She will most likely only be friends with women she thinks are less attractive. All things are relative, but usually they are pretty hot and extremely well groomed. They also tend to be pretty shallow and a little overbearing. Odds are she is looking for a guy to hold her purse while she shops, so if you feel like you have an overabundance of machismo go for it.
Girl in group shot where she is obviously NOT the hottest one. This can be two different kinds of women. Either she is a fairly cool girl who is OK with her appearance or she is a walking, talking doormat. The first one can be very cool to date as they are interesting and opinionated. However, they also tend to do stuff like get sick of washing their hair and cut it all off with clippers. The second girl as been thrown on so many grenades by her girlfriends that she will probably be remarkably easy to date. However, you will constantly be attracted to her friends and there is a reasonably good chance one of them might fool around with you just to reassert who the Alpha female is in her circle of friends is, so dating her can lead to some serious drama in spite of the fact that she herself is low drama. Both of these girls are pretty low maintenance, in my experience.
Guy in a football uniform. This is always a high school shot (guys who played football in college generally don’t have to go online to date) so all the things I said above about high school photos apply. However, this is a special case. This guy desperately wants the world to remember that at one point he was an athlete. However, they inevitably have gained about 50 pounds since then and the closest they have come to participating in sports in trying to sink wadded up paper in a trash bin. If he were still in shape he would have a current shot of himself playing volleyball or something.
Girl in a cheerleader uniform. This is the female version of the guy in a football uniform, with the added need to show you that at one point in her life she was hot enough to be a cheerleader. The one difference is once in a while you can get a woman that shows herself as a college cheerleader too. Everything I said about the football guy applies here, plus she is probably much higher maintenance to date than most women.
That’s it for today. More on this tomorrow. 
Yesterday’s question, second fiddle Riker verses the extremely lovable Chief Engineer Montgomary Scott, has caused me a lot of angst. I really, really want to say Scotty would kick Rikers ass, being a real man and all, but I can’t help but think that Riker is taller with greater reach and seems better trained. However, Scotty worked in an environment where violence was more common (he did throw the first punch in the Trouble with Tribbles) and probably has a lot more actual fighting experience, so I am going to make myself happy and go with him. The problem is I don’t believe it enough to put money on it. It would be a close one. (Riker image courtesy of the Star Trek t shirts category).
For today I present something that seems really obvious until you think about the kinds of fights he has overcome with his brain: who would win, Batman versus Darth Vader? Think about it for a while before answering.
By the way, if you like my writing and are looking for someone to write blog articles or other online content I am willing to do some contract work. Check out some of my product descriptions on the commercial site. Email me at [email protected].
Nerd Dating: Online Dating pt 5: translating online post speak into English
More odeak translations. By the way, I just noticed I have been misspelling translating wrong in the title for two posts. Thanks to no one for pointing it out to me.
“Spiritual.” This is usually what women put down when they have no real religion but rather kind of drift from one fad cult to another. Expect to hear about meditaion, Native American Spirits, and other New Age garbage. For guys, this is what they say when they really don’t care about religion one way or another but don’t want to alienate potential dates who are religious.
“Very Spiritual.” For women this can mean a hard core kook, deep into dancing naked at midnight under a full moon in a toadstool ring, or traveling to Tibet to study with monks. Don’t let this deter you from dating them, incidentally. In my experience these women are really entertaining and don’t have a lot of hangups when it comes to having sex. Just be prepared to discuss your chak’ras with her. For guys, this is often a code phrase for hard core born again Christians who want to “save” some girl. Either that or they are just as deep into some New Age cult as a woman using this phrase. The only difference is these guys are a lot less fun to hang out with than the very spiritual girl and are kind of a pain in the ass to date.
“Christian.” For women this is a typical boilerplate description designed to let you know that she has been to church a few times and doesn’t want to be considered a slut (whether she is or not). This can refer to any number of specific religions, most of which are relatively inoffensive. This girl will typically have a marriage and a family on her radar. For guys it is usually a little more serious. Expect to see the inside of his church at some point in the first month of dating, but otherwise things should be OK as long as he doesn’t show up on the first date with a Bible.
“Born Again Christian.” Uh oh. For both men and women this is a huge red flag (unless you yourself are Born Again, in which case please take this person off the market). Expect dates to be little if no fun, unless you find attending Bible studies fun. Also, in general you can expect little to no sex, and if you do get lucky be prepared to feel insanely guilty about it up until the moment you marry him or her. Anyone who talks about their “relationship to Jesus” on their online profile you can expect to be Born Again.
“Pagan.” This is more or less the same as very spiritual, except this person, man or woman, really likes to feel cooler than anyone who is not pagan. If you want to experience some weird discussions, meet strange and interesting people, and get laid with relative ease and no guilt, than this person is great to date. I, however, find their pretentious attitude and long track record of past sexual partners grinds on me after a while.
“Burning Man.” Cough cough unemployed loser cough cough. Ok, that is unfair. I know any number of employed people who are avid fans of Burning Man. Generally they are decent people, but once a year they opt to head out to a painfully hot and dusty desert to do drugs, drink, look at naked people, and do irreparable ecological damage while claiming to be free spirits in spite of being involved in a massively profitable circus of self indulgence. Every year I get asked to go and every year I say the same thing: I enjoy bathing once a day too much. As for dating them, man or woman, they tend to really want to date people who also “burn” so expect to be dragged out as well. They otherwise tend to have similar traits to the spiritual or very spiritual people.
“420 Friendly.” Pot smoker, usually daily. If a good date for you is sparking some bud and watching American Idol on TV before passing out in a Cheetos food coma then this is the person for you. For women this girl tends to be weirdly cute in a granola sort of way who likes to do really bad acrylic paintings. For men this guy usually really looks the part, has the same crappy retail job for 10 years, is about 15 pounds overweight, and graduated college with a writing degree. Also, regular pot use can lead to lots of short term memory loss and reduced libido, so if you are into your partner remembering things like your birthday and getting laid fairly often than this is probably not the person for you. Honestly, if the person is over the age of 25 and lists 420 as in interest you can count on them more or less being a loser.
Ok, that’s it for today. More next post, although soon I will get into translating online dating photos as well.
Yesterday’s question, Kirk with a lirpa (the weapon he fought Spock with in Amok Time, with a round blade on one end and a weighted bumper on the other) versus Worf with a Bat’leth, I think I will have to go with Worf on this one. As much as I love Kirk and want to see him win, Worf has trained with the Bat’leth all his life and Kirk got his ass kicked by Spock pretty easily. I would only hope that they played the Kirk fight music during the battle. (Amok Time image from the Spock t shirts category)
For today another Star Trek question. Who would win, a squad of Star Trek Red Shirts versus a squad of Sandmen from Logans Run?
Nerd Dating: Online Dating pt 4: tranlating online post speak into English
More fun to be had with understanding online date speak (Odeak?).
“Low maintenance.” For women this always, always means high maintenance. If she is aware of it enough to deny it that means she has been accused of it in the past. Guys never use this phrase, but often when they say they are “looking for low maintenance” that usually means they are looking for high maintenance. When these two people meet it is one of those weird situations where two wrongs make a right (or two lies equal a truth).
“Great personality.” For men or women, this usually translates into a mediocre personality riddled with massive self esteem issues with regards to looks, often times with justification.
“Type A personality.” Uptight. Neat freak. Most likely obsessive compulsive disorder. Probably organizes his or her skull collection in the basement by size.
“Type B personality.” Trailer trash slob. Seriously, make sure you have had a recent tetanus shot before headed over to his or her residence.
“All or very natural.” For women, this always means a hippy dippy granola chick. Ironically, they are among the biggest pains in the ass to date, in spite of how easy to date they claim to be. Be prepared to find out more about your heart chak’ra than you ever wanted to. For men, this either means his last girlfriend was granola or he is a massive Burning Man fan. In all cases be prepared to smoke a lot of pot.
“Easy going.” For women this almost always means a pain in the ass to date. For men this usually means unemployed.
“Just looking for fun.” For women this means she is secretly afraid she is not fun. Also these girls are usually the ones who are planning the marriage on the first date. For men, this ALWAYS means they just want to hook up for casual sex. Date this guy and you can look forward to “Hey, what are you doing” texts at 1:30 am.
“I oNly TalK lIke tHiS!” For women, this usually turns out to be a Russian mail order bride service. For men, this is the guy who buys a Honda Civic and spends $20,000 turning it into a street racer and then sells it for $500 less than he paid for it.
“Self employed.” Unemployed.
“Work for a non-profit.” For women, if she is hot odds are she is looking for a rich, altruistic husband. If not so much than she is probably another granola chick. For guys, this usually means they are looking for a wife of any stripe.
“Medical professional.” This never, EVER means a doctor. Usually a nurse, but can also be a receptionist, lab technician, or orderly. Doctors will usually just say doctor. (by the way, I have dated a few nurses, and they inevitably only talk about two things; sex, and disgusting work stories usually involving something vile spurting out of somewhere. If you can stomach the stories go for it). Also if it is a guy who is a nurse he secretly hates himself and has serious issues with women.
“Recently out of a long relationship.” Do you feel you don’t have enough pain and suffering in your life? Than this is the person to date. If it is a woman than be prepared for long, excruciating stories about every conversation she had with her ex EVER followed by a bad case of blue balls when she says she is not ready for intimacy yet. If it is a guy you will get to listen to all the same stories followed by a ham handed attempt to sleep with you to salve his need for revenge on women where he will inevitably call you by his ex’s name.
“Love to play.” For women, this usually means they are afraid they aren’t sexual enough. For men, you can translate this into “Super Horny.”
“Love cats.” For women, better find out how many cats she owns before meeting her. Don’t forget my “more than two cats” rule. For men, either this guy is trying hard to show how sensitive he is or you mistakenly clicked on the “Men seeking Men” button and haven’t realized it yet. By the way, I have no problem with gays. In fact, some of my advice may well help them. Also, every gay man out there means one less guy I need to compete with for the straight women, so more power to you, brothers.
That’s it for now. More of the same next post.
As for my question from last post, who would win; Spock versus any of the TNG characters except Q I have to side with my man Spock. Sorry, but there isn’t a character on there who can match him physically or mentally except for maybe Data, and even he would fail to Spocks combined physical prowess and mental acuity. (Spock image courtesy of the Spock t shirt category)
I am really in a Star Trek mood lately, so for today I will pitch Worf from TNG with Bat’leth versus Sulu with fencing foil. Who would win?
Friday Night Midnight Madness; a (possible) nerd love story
So Friday a friend of mine emailed and invited me to Midnight Madness at the Castro Theater in San Francisco. As you can see from the marquee photo I took from outside, it promised to be an epic evening with the Princess Bride, Time Bandits, and Deathstalker, all in 35mm. Any human with a pulse loves the Princess Bride, and any nerd worth his or her salt loves Time Bandits. Deathstalker I had never heard of before but was told it was so bad it was good.
I will forgo my usual movie review process, as anyone who has not seen the Princess Bride must be living in a cave somewhere and anyone who has not seen Time Bandits should be reading Oprah’s blog, not mine. I will say that Deathstalker was more suck than funny, although my opinion may have been colored by the fact that it was the movie that started at midnight and I was in the theater until about 2am (a car wreck on the bridge on the way home meant I didn’t get to bed until 3am, which is late even for me). It was like Conan the Barbarian if Conan the Barbarian had been written by dog wagging it’s tail against a keyboard while the Conan soundtrack was played backwards to reveal it’s Satanic messages. Like Conan it did have a lot of gratuitous nudity, which was pretty much it’s only redeeming feature.
Anyway, the point of this story is the remind my readers interested in nerd dating of something I said a long time ago in a post about where to meet women. The answer is everywhere. Here’s what happened. I was holding a bunch of seats for my friends who were running late from drinking at a bar down the street and sitting at one end. I notice there was an attractive woman sitting by herself behind me. In most cases this would mean her meathead boyfriend was getting popcorn or something but, given that we they were going show the Princess Bride first you never know.
I started off talking to the couple next to me as a pretense and in a minute involved the girl as well. Turns out she was there by herself. She had never seen Time Bandits so I encouraged her to stay for it. By that time I had made the decision to ask her out during the break between movies. I went to get popcorn after my friends took their seats and they decided to move from the excellent center theater seats I had secured to the far left in order to accommodate a couple more drunken reprobates. This might have been a good thing, actually.
Anyway, during the break I went back over and asked her out to dinner. She seemed a little hesitant to give me her number so I gave her my card. She emailed me the next day with her number and we are having dinner tonight.
Thus is my point proven. There are single women everywhere you go. You just have to keep your eyes open for opportunity.
That evening I also learned that my iPhone autocorrects the word Benihana (as in the restaurant) to the word genitals. Funny.
In answer to yesterday’s question of the MacKenzie brothers versus the Stooges, I would have to bet on the Stooges. They are just more used to violence and pain than Doug and Bob. The fight wold be both close and hilarious in my opinion. (Three Stooges image from the vintage t shirts category).
For today I am going in a different direction: corporate wars. Who would win, Umbrella Corporation from Resident Evil versus Omni Consumer Products from Robocop?
Movie review: True Grit
So another Tuesday night, and regular readers will know that is $5 movie night at the local Regal Theater. True Grit looked like the only movie I was interested in, as I had heard good things about it. This was pure self indulgence, in that I think I need to see something really bad in order to produce a truly funny review for you, my cherished reader. That’s why next week I think I will see the Season of the Witch. The suck is just oozing off the trailers for that one.
That being said, I expected this movie to be pretty good, and was not disappointed. I actually read the book as a kid and liked it. I don’t have a great love of Western stories like I do kung fu, zombie, or science fiction, but I have an appreciation of it. I also saw the original with John Wayne but don’t remember it much.
The story is of a young girl from Arkansas who’s father is killed by a hired hand. She travels to the town of his death to avenge his death. She hires a grizzly marshal named Rooster Cogburn who is a drunk with one eye. Along the way they run into a Texas Ranger also after their man with the solitary name of Leboeuf. The girl is super stubborn, which turns out to be her defining trait. Horses get ridden, whiskey gets drunk, and guys with bad teeth get shot.
I enjoyed this movie a lot. Watching Jeff Bridges play a grizzled drunken lout actually really helped wash his recent performance in Tron Legacy out of my mind a bit. I think this is the first movie I have seen him in wherein he does not play the Dude, although he can’t seem to get away from movies that involve substance abuse. Let’s get into the stars and black holes.
Stars first. The story is good and as far as I can remember follows the book closely. Two stars. All the characters are both believable and pretty cool, especially Rooster, and the acting was good. One star. Everyone is armed. One star. They managed to avoid crowbaring in a romance story to appeal to the 15 year old girls. One star. None of the stars are particularly good looking, apparently believing that a good story and good acting negates the need for eye candy. One star. In a big F you to current American culture and our mediocre school system the language is very formal and authentic, not “modernized” for the morons. One star. The story and character motivations are clear and understood. One star. It’s a cowboy story. One star. The action is both cool and and frequent without being forced. One star. They did not try to hide any of the old West racism (the one black guy was a servant, the one Native American with a line was more or less abused). One star. Total: eleven stars.
Now black holes. The girl’s stubbornness gets old after a while. One black hole. They do that movie thing where they keep talking about how ugly she is when she is kind of cute in a young Melissa Gilbert-Laura Ingalls sort of way. One black hole. The characterization of the head of the outlaw gang the villain joined up with, Lucky Ned Pepper, seems to drift from outlaw rogue poet to psychotic dirtbag. One black hole. For all the opportunity out in the open for really amazing shooting and cinematography, the photography seemed kind of up close and less than panographic. Honestly, bad cowboys-verses-ninjas movie the Warriors Way did better. One black hole. Total: five black holes.
Net total: six stars. A very good score. I would highly recommend this movie to anyone. However, given the week photography I don’t know if there is a massive motivation to see it on a big screen. If you are OK waiting for it to come out on DvD just NetFlix it. I would put it in my top ten Western films along with Tombstone and Unforgiven, but honestly I don’t know if I have watched enough cowboy movies to really make that kind of assessment. If any of you have suggestions on movies I should see to help me round out my Western experience I am open to them (or, if you want, find some movies that sound Western but are actually really horribly bad as a joke on me, I would do it. Should be good for a laugh) I’ll try to track them down.
By the way, I warn you now that tonight is Bad Movie Night at my friend Brian’s house and he is planning on showing both Highlander 2: The Quickening AND the original 500 Years Ago on Planet Zeist. I have seen the first and regretted it but if the second is as bad as it sounds I might have to do one of my bile enhanced bad reviews tomorrow.
Still working on the Solomon Grundy/Deadpool question. For today I would ask who would win: Dwight Shrute from the Office versus Dr. Egon Spengler from Ghostbusters (Shrute Farms image courtesy of the TV show t shirts category).
Interview with Firefly veteran Danny Nero part 2
Today I am continuing my interview with Danny Nero, who has worked on Firefly as well as any number of other cool TV and film projects. The photo on the left is Danny’s face coming through the wall in the Angel Episode “Rm w/A Vu”. Very cool.
D: Joss has a huge nerd following. I count myself as one of those. What is it about his style that so accurately taps into the nerd psyche? Is he a nerd himself, or does he just have an incredible insight into the sub-culture? I know he is active on a lot of the forums. Does he follow the trends and have an idea what is hot, or does his understanding of the group allow him to force the next hot thing to happen?
Danny: I don’t think I ever heard Joss refer to himself as a nerd but can’t imagine that he wouldn’t! He is so in tune with popular culture and what stories people like to see.
D: Do you find him approachable at work? For example, if you had an idea for the show you thought worthwhile would you be able to suggest it to him or one of the actors, or is that not really an option?
Danny: He’s always been very approachable but you really have to find a moment when he’s not conferring with writers, producers, and actors! I don’t remember ever making a suggestion to Joss but I know he’s consider it if it was valid. There was an episode of “Angel” that was a flashback to the early fifties where I did make a suggestion about the authenticity of something (a prop telephone) and director Tim Minear overheard me. I was immediately sorry because he made the prop people find another phone and that made their job more difficult and there are only a few phone freaks like me out there that would know the difference!
D: You worked on Firefly and also on the movie Serenity. Did you see a difference in production values between the TV show and the movie? Was the movie better funded and therefore had bells and whistles the TV show never had?
Danny: Yes there was a big difference between working on Firefly and Serenity! You’d think the feature budget would make the TV one look puny but not so much! The Serenity cargo bay was actually bigger on Firefly on the Fox lot. It was pretty close to the same size for the floor area but not as many levels high. The exterior of Serenity was also larger on the Fox lot than the one built at Universal for the feature but I doubt anyone would notice that on film. There was the luxury of time to spend on great lighting setups and camera movement that was frequently a compromise on Firefly. I wonder what your readers have to say about the “look” of the 2 shows. They were shot by two different DP’s or Directors of Photography and each guy has a different way of lighting and use of lenses and even film stock. I haven’t compared them but I imagine others have.
D: On the set did you interact with the actors much?
Danny: As for the actors on Firefly, you really couldn’t ask for a nicer bunch! The work days can be very long and it’s no fun being trapped with a bad group from any department! I have been so fortunate to have worked with such great people over the years! I think Joss does a great job choosing actors that are so talented and fun to be around!
Nathan is just a born comic and supplied countless laughs. Alan is very funny as well and if you’ve seen outtakes (and who hasn’t!) you get a sense that there was plenty of laughter to go around! Jewel has the brightest smile, she does 
light up most of a soundstage! Gina is the best hugger! Her husband Lawrence Fishbourne visited the set once in awhile and I remember watching Gina perform on a monitor next to him and when they cut, I had to tell him what a lucky man he is. He agreed! It was great to be reunited with Summer from our experience on Angel together.
(Angel Investigations image courtesy of the TV show t-shirts category)
They are a wonderful bunch alright and I was lucky enough to stand-in for Nathan later on the Fox series “Drive” that sadly lasted only 6 episodes. I am so glad for his success on “Castle” even if I was already committed to doing another show.
Adam I’ve run into on “Chuck” a couple of times and he’s been very supportive. He took me into his dressing room several months ago and showed me the finer points of Twitter!
I last saw Morena at a mutual friends Christmas Eve party with her short hair for “V”. We had a good time comparing career choices.
The rest of the cast has been elusive but there is always a chance I’ll run into them on Grey’s! My next series after Firefly was “Alias” and I stood-in for Victor Garber and Greg Grunberg, both great guys that had me working for them on many other shows and pilots.
