Links of Interest 11/11

What it’s like to be Woody Harrelson.

We all know Lady Gaga is simply following the playbook of Madonna, right? Right?

The best miniseries of the last decade.

Even if you’re not rich, you don’t want to skimp on these items.

I’ll be honest, while in the article someone suggests that this dome is one of the symbols of the South Pole, and to simply destroy it would be a shame, I didn’t even know the South Pole had a dome. Of course, I’ve never been to the South Pole. Can’t we get Biodome 2 up and running and kill 2 birds with 1 stone?

The quick rise – and quick fall – of Crocs.

Hackin’ it up in Baltimore.

Laws that geeks would live by if they existed.

Look, I like Greek mythology as much as the next guy, so I have no problem with updating the masterful Clash of the Titans movie. It has a lot of potential. But there are two gross injustices in this trailer: 1. It appeared at one point the main character was looking directly at Medusa. Aside from the story that doing so would turn you into stone, that destroys the nature of a very tense scene from the original when Harry Hamlin used his polished shield to defeat her. Granted, it was less than a second of film so maybe it’s out of context, but I’m still worried.

2. I saw no evidence of a mechanical owl. There is NO excuse for that.

Talking with John Cusack about 2012. The movie, not the year.

Links of Interest 11/9

Sure it was beautiful here on the east coast. 70 degrees. In November. Normal? No. Should it be normal or should be looking at ways to fix it?

America’s new dust bowl.

What you might not have known about Johnny Cash.

How to survive if you suddenly and impossibly find yourself a character in a Stephen King story.

Samples of pages from the Internet, back in 1996.

Some of these you probably knew were covers, but some you might not have known about.

An argument against liberal comedy. Full disclosure, I didn’t read this article in full. But the point seems to be that liberal humor is bad for America. And I kind of hate articles like this. It has nothing to do with politics. I t has more to do with the author assuming how America reacts to things that are, at the root, based entirely on opinion. Don’t like it? Change the channel. But I don’t want anyone saying I should change the channel, or I better change the channel because if I don’t I’m bad. Of course, maybe I’ll go back and read the article and update this entire rant.

Debunking the myths of 2012. But what about the movie? You’re telling me Lane Myers is wrong?

Other doomsday prophecies that were apparently wrong. Of course, all it takes is one to be right…

Awesome pics of landscapes on Mars. Big Picture delivers again.

The movie The Men Who Stare at Goats? More true than you probably imagine.

Movie Trailer Reviews

Every so often, I take a look at upcoming movies, choose some of the more interesting ones, and decide whether it will be any good based on its trailer. Fair? Of course not! But this is the Internet - where the young bucks can do and say what they want, and the old folk can call us fools and say we live in our mother's basement. And the wheel in the sky keeps on turning. So let's get started, shall we?

2012



Within the first 30 seconds of this, I thought to myself, this pretty much looks like a combination of Independence Day and The Day After Tomorrow. 30 seconds later, the trailer name checks both those movies. Not since Dennis Quaid have we had a more ill-suited action star than John Cusack. Don't get me wrong either. There's only so many romantic comedies you can play the lead in before wanting the big payday. And what's with our obsession with destroying the White House? Why doesn't Emmerich simply make a Discovery Channel television show using the latest and greatest special effects to show the destruction of historic landmarks in different cataclysmic events? We wouldn't have to trudge through cliched plots - we'd get the good stuff. Actually, now that I think about it, why not? I'm being serious. Does anyone have Roland Emmerlich's email address? I could produce the fuck out of a show like that.

More on the flip side...



Whiteout



Yes Warner Brothers, Kate Beckinsale in a parka is exactly what I want. Kudos.

The Goods



A great idea for a movie, the hijinks on a used car lot, this trailer still leaves a bad taste in my mouth within the first 15 seconds. I don't get the whole cigarette-on-the-plane-speech at all. Obviously it is used to show how obnoxious the Jeremy Piven character is, but something tells me there are other examples they could have pulled.

Speaking of Jeremy Piven, has there been another actor so liked onscreen but so reviled offscreen? I think he plays great characters, but the more he opens his mouth in real life, the harder it is to defend him.

Links of Interest 5/12

Welcome new people stopping by for the first time. I hope you stick around.

Go inside the head of Andy Samberg and his Motherlovers skit from Saturday.

Michael Emerson, he of creepy Ben fame, is interviewed.

And you thought a movie based on Monopoly was the dumbest idea you ever heard.

This is a weird little thing about The Usual Suspects. Writer and director had two completely different opinions about the movie they made.

I mean if times are really tough, you can haggle at the dollar store.

I predict Google’s great universal library will be come a reality, meet an untimely and unexpected demise, and then future generations will lament the loss of such great classics as The DaVinci Code and The Ruins.

I’ll be honest, I did not wake up today and think I would be typing the phrase, “funeral sex.” But I’m glad I did.

5 people that got the future right. At least somewhat.

Stopping the 2012 apocalypse. And no, the author isn’t suggesting to ignore it. That would be my solution.

Links of Interest 7/2

I've always been fascinated by ancient religious artifacts, so this story is cool to me. The discovery of something new, the interpretation of it, the arguments...and then we learn it's pretty much fiction. That's like saying in 1000 years, someone is going to be able to tell how we lived by reading a Stephen King novel. And yet there's so much intensity over all of this.

I love Buckaroo Bonzai, so this site selling related merchandise is awesome.

I've heard rumors that this project isn't going to delve too far into the popular conspiracies of the president, which would be a minor upset if you were gambling on it.

Every few years or so, someone trots out a cool "end of days" scenario for us to worry about. So far, we've been able to laugh them all off. Will the Mayan/2012 doomsday prophecy be the one to finally cash us all in?