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Post by Mr. Atari on Sept 11, 2010 11:19:33 GMT -5
It comes out about even. For everyone who pays me to get dressed, there's someone else who thinks it's a comedy act. At least that's what I gather from all the pointing and laughing.
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Post by Mr. Atari on Sept 11, 2010 11:03:12 GMT -5
A friend dragged me to see Resident Evil last night. It was the worst movie I've seen in a long time. Every cliche was there without a hint of irony. First there was the Matrix rip-off opening scene, complete with a barrage of bullets in slo-mo from the bad guys whose clips never ran out and missed the heroine because she could do back flips off of the concrete pillars as the cement exploded around her. Then, there was the complete "Aliens" rip-off of the heroes stuck in a confined space while the evil entities snuck through the pipes. There was also a scene where an expendable hero joined the "dangerous trip to the armory" (I'm not kidding) for no reason at all besides to get picked off at the first sign of danger. And one of the heroes was a smarmy dickweed who eventually betrayed the others to join forces with the bad guy (couldn't see that coming : . Let's see...oh yeah, there was also the Harry Potter/LOTR rip-off scene where the heroines fight what's basically a troll in a bathroom. But only after the lead actress gets attacked while taking a shower (I kept saying, "Really? They're doing this scene? REALLY?"). Oh, and at the end, the bad guy gets his head blown apart and shot like 80 times, but...wait for it.... he's not really dead! GASP! And, oh, what a bad guy. The villain's performance was worse than the villain in Time Chasers. I'm not even kidding. His "acting" consisted of gritting his teeth, not moving his jaw when he spoke, and using the same voice as J.K. Robertson. The whole time, I kept waiting for him to say, "Matt, it's time for you to decide if you're one of my team players or not!" And then I came home and spent most of the night throwing up. Coincidence? Probably. But still... I can't wait for a Rifftrax for this. It was awful. Just awful.
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Post by Mr. Atari on Sept 10, 2010 20:01:53 GMT -5
You guys are all forgetting what was happening at this moment. Mr. A was doing his Carrol Channing impersonation and belting out show tunes. It was impressive but we had to pay him to stop. Money well spent. I made $48,000 last year doing that. Sometimes with my clothes on.
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Post by Mr. Atari on Sept 9, 2010 11:14:16 GMT -5
I just watched the superhero episode from season 4 again ("Less Than Hero"), and was blown away by the brilliant dialogue in that episode.
"No, Fry! You can't fall fast enough!"
"Bad news, nobody! The super-collider super-exploded. I need you to take it back and exchange it for a wobbly CD rack and some of those rancid meatballs."
LEELA: "We have to keep our identities secret!" FRY:"From everybody?" LEELA:"ESPECIALLY from everybody?" FRY:"Give several reasons why."
"Nine, ten, a big fat hen."
I also caught "The Devil's Hands Are Idle Playthings", and realized just how great the show used to be. That's not to say the return hasn't been great. But it hasn't been as tight in terms of dialogue humor or plotting as the classics.
I also prefer crazy, out-there, math-based science fiction to the issue-based stuff. Which means I loved "The Prisoner of Benda" and "The Late Phillip J. Fry", but was less impressed with "Proposition Infinity" or "A Clockwork Origin". Not that I disagreed with the sentiments, I just think it lessens the fun of the show when it works so hard to make a moralizing point instead of pushing the limits of crazy.
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Post by Mr. Atari on Sept 7, 2010 22:27:15 GMT -5
Don't go there, man. I may have won the lawsuit against the urologist, but only on the condition that I never mentioned the vasectomy "incident" again.
Boy, there sure was a lot of smoke, though.
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Post by Mr. Atari on Sept 7, 2010 22:23:35 GMT -5
After a cursory look at my favorite team, I've come to the following conclusions:
1) Orton is better than people think. 2) Tebow will be better than people think*. 3) The Broncos, overall, will be as bad as people think.
*Note: I am not a Tebow apologist, and could care less about the "Tebow is the messiah/Tebow needs to shut his pie-hole" debate. I just think the brouhaha about his throwing motion is completely overblown. If the guy has cajones and can rally the team around him, then he can win. And I'm glad he's on my team and not, say, the Chiefs.
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Post by Mr. Atari on Sept 7, 2010 16:53:57 GMT -5
I'm bumping this because it's been 4 weeks since the last post, and the premise still holds.
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HDTV
Sept 7, 2010 11:51:26 GMT -5
Post by Mr. Atari on Sept 7, 2010 11:51:26 GMT -5
We had the same experience. We got an HDTV last winter, but didn't get the new box until about a month ago. I had the exact same sensation watching the non-HD signal on the HDTV, especially with movies. Like people were moving at a different rate than the rest of the shot. It reminded me of the old pan-and-scan VHS, where the framing would move in the middle of the shot.
I got used to it pretty quickly though, and just chalked it up to the visual learning curve. However, once DirecTV delivered the HD box, holy crap. Especially for a baseball and golf junkie like me, it was a massive change. I also just got the LOST season 6 Blu-Ray, and it was like I was watching a whole new show (the ending's still the same, though).
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Post by Mr. Atari on Sept 7, 2010 9:13:01 GMT -5
Joel still seems put-off by the RiffTrax questions. His answer to that question wasn't exactly gracious, and it came off as petulant, almost like he was whining: they're moving in on our turf!
Just once, I'd like him to say something like, "We like those guys and wish them well. There's plenty of room for both groups, like stuffing and potatoes."
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Post by Mr. Atari on Aug 29, 2010 15:55:24 GMT -5
It's not real, but you can't tell me it doesn't hurt to jump off the turnbuckle and land on some guy's knee.
I watched a ton of wrestling in the '80s. And not just the Hulk Hogan/Junkyard Dog/Rowdy Roddy Piper/Superfly Snuka wrestling (which was awesome). I also loved the cable access WCCW league out of Texas, featuring the Von Erichs and the Fabulous Freebirds.
However, I haven't seen more than about 30 seconds of wrestling since 1988.
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Post by Mr. Atari on Aug 17, 2010 18:27:33 GMT -5
Creeping Terror is the one for me. I can barely stand to watch it due to the soundtrack.
Monster a Go-Go is another one that's really hard to hear with it's half-narration and half-bad boom mic.
Then there's Teenage Strangler, where the boom mic was turned up so high to pick up the actors, that all you hear is ambient hiss and piercing dialogue.
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Post by Mr. Atari on Aug 17, 2010 12:36:35 GMT -5
Sounds like you got yourself on the winning end of a power surge.
A good friend of mine was working on some HVAC ductwork when lighting hit the roof of a house 3 doors down. He was knocked over from the shock, but had no burns or after-effects.
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Post by Mr. Atari on Aug 16, 2010 14:10:28 GMT -5
So how come you didn't start a thread devoted to me when you saw the Washington Monument. Surely, it made you think of me.
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Post by Mr. Atari on Aug 15, 2010 15:51:19 GMT -5
I use MPEG Streamclip for all my conversion needs. It's not extraordinarily fast, but it will work with almost any file type. And it's free.
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Post by Mr. Atari on Aug 13, 2010 16:24:59 GMT -5
I like the list, but you left out a couple:
1) Jordan's shot over Craig Ehlo.
2) Not sending Kenny Lofton in game 7 of the '07 ALCS.
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