Open this Thread to 135 degrees for improved ergonomic support.
Bullet time:
- In the fallout of the Anthony Weiner scandal, rumors have emerged of Alec Baldwin running for Mayor of New York in 2013
- Beyonce’s newest album was leaked online this week. Is that even news anymore? “Twentieth century methods of distributing media compromised by twenty-first century technology; Channel 4 has the latest.”
- Apple made a string of announcements this week: iOS5 for its mobile devices, iCloud for online file-sharing and the new OS X iteration, Lion.
- Big news for gamers at E3 from all of the major players: some XBox Kinect demos, the WiiU and the Playstation Vita.
- And finally, J.J. Abrams’ Super 8 opens in theaters this weekend. Critics seem to like it.
Comment of the Week: this week’s top prize goes to “Acez13” for his riff on Lee’s suggestion on the last podcast that Calvin and Hobbes be rebooted in the highly wired 21st century to experiment with the notion that Calvin could have such a vivid imagination and spend so much time playing outside in our hyper-wired modern society:
Cavlin and Hobbes 21st century reboot: Calvin and Jobs, Calvin has iMaginary friends.
Congratulations, Acez13! You win an iMaginary iPad! Just be careful where you make your multitouch swiping gestures.
Could Alec Baldwin and Beyonce defeat an escaped government project* in 1979 using motion-capture video game controllers? Or is there something we missed? Sound off in the comments, for this is your … Open Thread.
* guessing that’s what it is; don’t blame me for spoiling it if this turns out to be right.
I hadn’t heard of ‘Super 8’ so I just watched the trailer from your link. I’m guessing it’s a gritty reboot of ‘E.T.’ That would explain Spielberg’s involvement. So the real question is, what will play the gritty-reboot role of Reese’s Pieces?
That’s a good question. I’m guessing something involving green technology of some kind, because there’s a shot that shows a bunch of cars being pulled into a magnetic tornado, so the alien has a hunger for transportation.
http://www.reelzchannel.com/movie-news/10679/two-preview-clips-from-super-8/
Here’s 3 minutes of “top secret Area 51 film” from the movie showing an alien space ship made of cubes that assume whatever shape the pilot gives it through a telekinetic connection, it also shows the alien is large, eats huge chunks of meat, has giant squid like tentacles, and it obviously can’t be contained by tacky b-movie style cages.
Just got back from seeing Super 8, the alien doesn’t have squid like tentacles just long arms. I won’t spoil anything but it’s a good movie, doesn’t quite have that Spielberg magic, but still good.
Mad Magazine got there first with the Calvin & Jobs parody:
http://laughingsquid.com/calvin-and-jobs-parody-in-mad-magazine/
I bring this up not for a hate-fest but because I feel OTI is the only place with the unique ability to handle this ordeal with love and understanding. Kevin Jame’s new movie The Zookeeper. I first heard about it from the South Park parody, but even that couldn’t inoculate against how deeply horrifying and truly soul crushing the trailer is.
The main reason I love OTI is that it breathes life and revitalizes cliche low pop culture, but The Zookeeper, idk- it’s not Rebbeca Black’s Friday, it’s like that planet of pure evil in The Fifth Element, but no one knows if it can be stopped with an act of unconditional love. It took down South Park for God’s sake! It’s such a destructive force it can’t be ignored and forgotten like Beverly Hills Chihuahua 2, people watch the trailer once and even that brief exposure forever kills a light that once burned brightly inside them. It only causes cohesion through and of hatred, people can only feel together and human by hating on it. Is the only solution to look away like Raiders of the Lost Ark? Help me OTI wan, your my only hope… Watch only if you’re true and brave of heart. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xu2zaUT6RQo
Yeah, my soul hurt when I saw the trailer in the theater. Not really sure what to say, other than it looks like a mashup of a few other mediocre movies to make… something. A hybrid of Dr. Dolittle, Paul Bart: Mall Cop, and Night at the Museum or something. Mayhap he’ll be The Chosen One to save the world or something with his band of misfit animals behind him?
Good to hear I’m not just being randomly oversensitive. There something especially searing about Zookeeper. Maybe it’s the talking animals, I was certainly less scared of the Planet of the Apes trailer? But it can’t be uncanny valley, at least not for the animals. Idk, it’s strange that this trailer is causing such existential crisis, some more than others but still it’s undeniably causing something among lots of people.
The Rise of the Planet of the Apes trailer looked like it was trying really hard, but that it’ll ultimately end up rather cheesy in a bad way. I guess we’ll see. If it’s bad, it will be for VERY different reasons than Zookeeper.
The Zookeeper took down the guys that took down Star Wars…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lu02VSsLorE&feature=digest
These brave knights last defense from the awesome threat of such a powerful foe was denial, denial of it’s true power and that denial proved futile, now forever consumed by the infinite darkness of The Zookeeper.
I agree with everything you and the Half in the Bag guys said, but…
The last part of the trailer, with the gorilla, struck me as very Ninja Turtles-esque. I think they just took an old TMNT costume, painted it black and glued hair on it. Even the jokes and the music were the same, just updated to TGIFridays and hip hop instead of pizza and, well, early 90’s hip hop.
And so I have to admit (in the spirit of an Alcoholics Anonymous testimonial), that even though I scoff at this trailer now, 10-year-old me would watch the crap out of this movie.
Hi, my name is Mark, and I have been Kevin James-free for 8 months.
Maybe Zookeeper triggered the deep resentment it did only because there’s a generation coming of age, spoiled by Pixar and the internet, just whining that all movies can’t all be great all the time for their whole lives.
And that’s kinda South Park’s point- “if you think this is shit you’re just too old.” They elaborate on reactions to that revelation- liking something out of desperation (Randy and tween music), genuinely liking something (Eric, Kyle, everyone else), and thinking everything is shit (Stan).
Sure, one could overthink Zookeeper in terms of captive treatment of animals, history of animal allegories, ect. BUT…
The main chatter about the movie is it’s so flippantly condescending of it’s audience it’s soul crushing. It feels similar to Rebbeca Black and Friday, but that had a genuinely innocent core of a girls just having fun and people projecting hate/scapegoating them. I can’t find a similar redemptive core to Zookeeper, “a paycheck’s a paycheck.” “Landlords don’t take indie cred.”(?)
Neither did South Park. I think they took a kamikaze dive just to get people riled up -they actually put their lives on the line with the Muhammad episodes so this pales in comparison.
But idk, is it really just the internet echo chamber making this worse than it is? A baptism by fire, learning the internet can’t take down the Hollywood Goliath? – Or cater it’s every whine?
In other news, two things, one I’m pleased about, the other, meh.
1) Jane Lynch. She is becoming “a thing,” sort of like Betty White (meaning she’s sort of all over the place). She’s hosting the next Emmys, making me almost want to watch. She had a really hilarious bit on Bill Maher’s show last night where they read a racy t-/s- extual exchange between Congressman Weiner and one of his little friends that absolutely killed me. Anyhoo, my point is, why does this happen, when people become memes? Chuck Norris, for example. What does that take?
2)Ferris Beuller’s Day Off is 25. I never really cared for that movie, but I understand the “significance” or whatever of it (so it’s worth mentioning, right?). Did anybody here ACTUALLY learn anything from it?