Yup, 30 years ago Star Wars came out. This is my obligatory blog post on the matter. Please send George more money, there’s still portions of southern California he doesn’t own yet.
For some context on the opening, read this.
Monthly archives for May, 2007
LOST Spoilers removed from Aintitcoolnews.com
Well, the story I mentioned earlier just went down the memory hole: Aint it Cool News just deleted the whole thread for the Lost finale spoilers… looks like users started to post the full spoiler in the message board and they pulled it. The story WAS here: http://www.aintitcool.com/node/32639
Initial reaction? It’s their site, they can do what they want… but I’d have posted the spoilers anyway.
In fact, here they are.
WARNING, you may not want to read this.
Seriously.
OK, here goes….
Episode 322 FINALE “THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS”
First, the deaths. A bunch of Others get killed when they try to raid the camp. This includes Friendly, who Sawyer shoots in cold blood “” and also the other new tough guy Other (I think his name is Price) who gets run over by Hurley in the van. And Charlie dies. He unblocks the jamming signal in the underwater station but drowns when Mikhail uses a grenade to blow it up, killing them both.
Another big moment is when an old favorite of the show returns. Locke is just about to kill himself in the Dharma grave pit that he fell into after Ben shot him when he hears a voice telling him not to. He looks up to see”¦WALT!! Walt helps him out of the pit and then disappears. No sign of Michael, and there’s no explanation about where Walt has been or what happened to him or Michael.
Locke then makes it to the Radio Tower “” and gets there in time to kill Naomi just before she makes the rescue call. He throws a knife straight into her back. Jack can’t understand what Locke is doing and tells him that he’ll have to shoot him to stop him from making the call himself. Locke threatens to kill Jack, but then backs down. Jack makes the rescue call “” and someone on the other end answers.
The story on the island ends with help on the way. Or maybe not. Ben has told Jack that Naomi and her people aren’t who they say they are “” and just before he dies, Charlie sees a transmission in the underwater hatch from Desmond’s Penny “” who, contrary to what Naomi has said, denies that she knows Naomi at all!!
But the HUGE TWIST of the episode “” in fact, probably the huge twist of the entire series “” happens in the flashback. They start by showing that Jack is totally fucked up. He’s popping pills and suicidal. The first flashback shows him about to kill himself by jumping off a bridge “” only a car accident nearby causes him to stop, and instead of killing himself he fins himself helping the accident victims. But he keeps spiraling. He sees his ex-wife at the hospital “” she’s pregnant with another man’s child. He goes to a funeral of a person that we never discover, but whoever it is, his (or her) death rocks Jack hard. He steals drugs from the hospital and is caught by the new doctor in charge. And all the time, he’s constantly on the phone desperately trying to contact somebody.
And the last scene shows us who”¦he goes to meet the mystery person, and it’s the last person on earth we would think”¦it’s KATE! And it’s now that we realize that for the first time in Lost history, we haven’t been watching a flashback. We’ve been watching a FLASH-FORWARD! Yep, that’s right. THEY ACTUALLY SHOW THAT JACK AND KATE MAKE IT OFF THE ISLAND. For some reason, this has been the cause of Jack’s spiral. He tells Kate they have to go back to the island. She refuses and drives away. The show finishes with Jack screaming “We have to go back!!”
MASSIVE Lost finale spoiler – read at your own risk.
The site Aint it Cool News got a lot of readers ticked off yesterday. They posted an article that referred to a detailed spoiler report from a “spy” they received on the season finale of Lost, but did not actually post the spoilers. AICN “made its bones” by spoiling movies and TV shows and that’s what many users (including myself) go there for. The talkbackers called their non-posting (and subsequent talkback edits) a “cop-out” (and far worse – lots of potty-mouths there).
Well, information yearns to be free, and this blog claims to have the spoilers for Lost that AICN referred to (and have been deleting from message threads). If true the finale is TRULY a “game-changer” and I completely understand why Drew (Moriarty on AICN) would not want this out. If these spoilers are true the producers are truly taking the show in a brand new direction next year, and if I were them I’d want to keep the secret as long as possible.
So, that being said, DO NOT READ the spoilers unless you just can’t wait. And, let me tell ya – like when I read Galactica spoilers for that shows season-ender a couple of months back, I regret it now. You probably will too.
OK, this is too cute – the first episode of The Prisoner, with stuffed animals…
I can’t not link to this, being a huge Prisoner fan… The first episode of The Prisoner, using stuffed animals.
Fantastic.
Walt Disney World travel tips
A repost from my old blog, but still appropriate and helpful, in my opinion…
Here’s some helpful hints that my wife and I learned from our recent trips to Walt Disney World:
ASK FOR UPGRADES AT CHECK-IN. This has worked for us about 1/3rd of the time. Sometimes the upgrade is a better view, other times it is an entirely better room.
Also, if you can afford it, upgrade, at least once, to a concierge suite (if available). We did this our last trip to Disney (for one night) and it was worth it. We had a great view of the Wishes Fireworks and also got free liquor and snacks that day (the complemetary cordials helped me get through watching the Atlanta Falcons choke against the Saints).
GET FREE BIRTHDAY PINS. If you are traveling to WDW for your birthday (which I did last year) go to the front guest relations of every park and tell the cast member it’s your birthday. They’ll give you a free pin, customized to the park. If you are ambitous (like I was) go to every park during your stay and get all four pins. Nothing makes you feel better than having lots of people tell you “happy birthday” throughout the day.
GET THE DINING PLAN. Disney offers a dining add-on to most of their vacation packages which costs $37.99 per day for adults and $11.99 per day for children. DO IT. We have used it for two vacations and if we had paid out-of-pocket for the meals we had it would have cost us $2400 to eat over 11 days – not kidding. Since we got the dining plan as a FREE promotion for our last trip we only spent around $800 (for our first vacation) and we did not have to prepare a single meal. Which leads to the next hint…
BOOK VACATIONS USING PROMOTIONAL CODES. The primary reason for our last trip was we had days left over on our tickets to the parks and we found out about the free dining promotion. Look at sites like Mousesavers.com and go off-season using a promotional code. Not only will it be markedly cheaper (sometimes hundred of dollars cheaper) but it will be less crowded.
An open letter to James Lileks
I wrote this to James Lileks, fantastic newspaper columnist who just today revealed in his daily bleat he was demoted to beat reporter by the troubled Minnesota Star-Tribune.
I thought it appropriate to post it here as a show of support. James is too talented and too nice a guy, so for the piddling few who read this blog and have not read his stuff, go do so now – he’s far better than I am at this stuff.
James,
You may have noticed the outpouring of attention your latest bleat had in ye ol’ Internet – hell, you’d have to be Gene Hackman in Young Frankenstein to not see it – and it may add very littlle but I wanted to add my two cents…
I work in IT – heck, I work in a easily-dispensable field in software development (usability) – so I’ve been where you are right now. One too many times, to be precise – and trust me, this will pass. You’re too talented, too gifted by God, to write the copy for a local bakery opening. You’ll be in good shape when all is said and done.
That paragraph is to give confort and reassurance, if you need it. If not, please ignore it.
For what its worth, ya have my support, all the way from Dacula, Georgia – and as a real display of support I’ll be shopping at your store later on this evening. I’ll try not to spend too much – the wife complains too much about credit card bills already (try to justify a Sonic Screwdriver purchase to her… ’tis impossible). I’ll also (probably) blog about the situation, which won’t add too much, seeing as Hugh “the-bullhorn” Hewitt is on the case.
Anyway, keep doing hat your doing – and for heaven’s sake, don’t stop the Diner! I have to find out how you (and things) turn out!
I’m sure you’ll be fine.
Review – Spider-man 3
There was a very funny YouTube clip I found recently, which was a parody of the “I’m a Mac… and I’m a PC” ads Apple has been doing for a couple of years now. In it, Superman and Spider-man banter about and talk about their respective movie franchises. Ah, heck – here it is:
The funniest line in the video was Superman talking about the planned sequel to Superman Returns… “In the next one, I actually fight a super-villian.” Spot on. The one thing that was sorely missing in Brian Singer’s revival of the man of steel was a non-enviromental threat. Seeing Superman lift lots of heavy things is not that exciting the sixth or seventh time. Now Spider-man’s movies, however, THOSE are exciting, and the fights in Spider-Man 2 was the best super-hero fights ever…
Until the end of Spider-man 3, of course. The movie concludes with a thrilling sequence where Spidey faces two villians as well as tries to rescue the obligatory damsel in distress… It is amazing, and, as oppossed to some movies where you can’t possible imagine what the filmmakers spent their mammoth budgets on, a very significant chunk of that rumored $300 million budget is on screen.
Too bad the movie is wildy uneven getting us there.
Now I want to clarify, like Drew/Moriarty posted on his review at AICN, my feelings are mixed. Unlike Moriarty, I do want to see it again, mainly for the five action sequences. But I know, unlike this first shhowing, I will have no problems identifying when I can take bathrooom breaks, or grab snacks from the concession stand. There’s, unfortunately, PLENTY of time to do such things.
My impression is that Sam Raimi, the director of all three films, felt this was his last shot, and wanted too squeeze as much stuff into the film as possible. Hence we get the Harry/Green Goblin arc, the Venom origin, the introduction of Gwen Stacy, a nice tip-of-the-hat to Superman the Movie, a fantastic Bruce Campbell cameo (“I’m French,” indeed), and two music numbers. Oh, and a Spider-man parade. And a twist to Spidey’s origin story. And so on and so on… It’s like he bought a licensed Spider-Man breadbox, and shoved as much fiber and starch in it that he could fit, and then shoved in even more, and then served it for dinner. Some of it is a delightful pastry, and some of it is day-old bread. It’s hardly bad for you, but not very good for you either.
The action is great, when it comes… but wow, does it take some time to get us there. The pacing is uneven, the film is overlong by at leats ten minutes. I can think of three scenes – one with Professor Conners on the phone with Peter, one with Harry talking to his butler, and one with Venom “teaming up” with Sandman – that are there only to push the plot forward and could be cut with very little impact to the film (and other scenes could be rewritten to “explain” what these scenes told the audience). The previous films at least had some chemistry between the Mary Jane and Peter Parker characters – such chemistry is nary to be seen here (I’ve also heard that the actors have a pretty strong dislike for each other nowadays, which may explain it). The plot is contrived to the point where the coincidences stretch all credibility – and yes, I am aware that the original comics have the same coincidences, but this is not a comic book – you can’t transfer these conventions to a film without some obligatory audience eye-rolling and groaning.
Like I said, I’ll see it agaiin, but the film reminds me of two other “3″ movies that ultimately disappointed: Star Trek III and Return of the Jedi (especially Jedi). Each film had it’s high points, but each film also had lots of problems with their respective scripts and pacing. As I said, I will revisit Spider-man 3, and hopefully I will enjoy it more the next time for what it is, instead of be disappointed for what it could have been.