danaewinters

Your result for The Director Who Films Your Life Test...

Sofia Coppola

Your film will be 62% romantic, 22% comedy, 34% complex plot, and a $ 30 million budget.

Take The Director Who Films Your Life Test at HelloQuizzy

A blogger, Spanner, over at the escapist has made an interesting assertion: that Lara Croft's boobs are a meme, citing that this is the sort of thing Dawkins had in mind when he coined the term.

I'm ambivalent toward this claim; I would hasten to agree that Lara's voluminous mammaries are certainly significant, picturesque, and in some instances a real deal maker. But memes? Not so much.

Instead, I'd offer the claim that, like other famous body parts (Bob Hope's nose, JLo's ass), they enjoy a measure of celebrity or at least are iconic enough that, when you mention them, the same image will be evoked in everyone's mind.  Nothing more, though certainly nothing less.

Perhaps it is merely an argument of definition. When I consider a meme I think of something that is oft repeated (like a Rick Roll) or partially adapted (the Python "Camelot" number as done by Legos), sometimes both. Again, I would say that the sensuous and marketable bosoms of our favorite tomb raider are indeed noteworthy, but do not seem to fall into either of these categories.

At least, not as easily as they'd fall into her D-cup brassiere.

[NOTE: If there is something(s) I have overlooked, please feel free to point it out.]

EDIT: saw this over at Graph Jam; had to put it up. 

It is the nature of politics and the media coverage thereof to produce quotes and slogans that one hopes would convey a sense of inspiration or otherwise engender feelings of goodwill toward the respective campaign; certainly Barry is no exception. Many of these may be found throughout his run for the White House, though especially of late; little bite sized rhetorical morsels, suitable for printing in a fortune cookie.

 With that in mind, I thought it would be a source of mild amusement to play the same game with his lines that that many are given to at Chinese restaurants when the check has arrived.

 For those unfamiliar, here’s the game: take any quote or campaign slogan that has been attributed to the Obama campaign and apply the words “in bed” to the end of it. Here are some examples to get you started:

True partnership and true progress requires constant work and sustained sacrifice.

The road ahead will be long.

Hope.

This is the moment.

If you happen to think of other examples, feel free to share in the comments.

 Speaking of that last phrase…

As an aside, while listening to excerpts from his speech, something seemed familiar as though, in some strange way, I heard it before; it turns out I had, many years ago at the Orpheum Theater in San Francisco.

Too bad Barry cant carry a tune, he could have just performed that and knocked ’em dead.

Recently, I watched an impossibly short teaser for the new Harry Potter film, the Half Blood Prince on Youtube. Ostensibly, it will be done “properly” allotting 4 hrs to the feature, divided between two installments, Matrix style.

Dwelling on the upcoming feature, a thought occurred to me. This will be a renewed and final opportunity to spoil the film’s climax for movie-goers. Much like picking up a spare in bowling, online and realtime naredowells will have another shot at targeting those stragglers whom they may have missed with their prior attempts.

I amused myself with thoughts of a lone soul, silent, facing the throngs in line to see the feature with a large poster or sandwich board featuring in large bold, letters the 6^th Book’s three word revelation.

I suppose I should say “spoil” in quotes as anyone who has read the book, visits YTMND, listens to enough nerdcore, or otherwise have had it spoiled already by some other means, already knows the outcome.

***

As an aside, I find it interesting too, that while I have little tolerance for spoilers in almost all other respects, in the instance of this film, not only do I not mind, I think its funny.

Perhaps because so many people know already, it doesn’t count as a real spoiler, akin to revealing the fate of the central character in Passion of the Christ.

Perhaps because I secretly believe all young teenagers to be pretentious, gibbering twits who need to be knocked down a notch or that I’ve lost all love of the HP series as both Rowling and her editor “called it in” leaving development by the wayside in the final installment.

Perhaps I’m over thinking all this.

Perhaps I need a sandwich board.

First, let it be known that my first rule of Pixar is that Pixar is always awesome and even when it is not as awesome as one might hope, it is still sufficiently awesome to kick your ass. Now then...

While it didn't unseat Incredibles as my all time Pixar fav, it was still very well done. That said, I feel it was much more a triumph of the storyboard artists and animators than the writer(s) this time. However, I will be focusing on something that has not existed before with a Pixar feature: controversy.

It has been reported that there are many who perceive the films central message as being agenda driven. I tend to be sensitive to such matters as the politics of movies that do that are diametrically opposed to my own and because if I want to be preached to, I’ll go to church, saving the price of admission in the process.

True, it did feel like it was walking the thin, tenuous line of sermonocity, however regarding that, there is an important distinction to be made: In features like Silent Running, Day After Tomorrow, Soylent Green (perhaps, arguably, The Happening) there is a sense of woe and doom that is imparted to the audience, in some cases bordering on a "fire and brimstone" style of messaging, (something must be done by us RIGHT NOW(!) to advert this cataclysmic circumstance, lest we are lost forever to the eternal fires of…whatever) . Had Wall-E told the story of man's wastefulness, ending with one, lone robot to sort the endless heaps of refuse, it would have been that sort of tale; what it showed instead was humanity's eager return to a newly re-inhabitable planet. In doing that, it became a story of redemption or at least merely the advance of time set as a backdrop to tell an odd couple romance.

The planet gets over it, humanity gets over it, and those who find there sensibilities still tweaked by the end of the feature should work to do the same.

So apparently Frank Miller and Zack Snyder have signed a deal with Warner Bros. to develop a sequel to the hit movie 300

The question, of course is, how can you create a sequel to 300?

I’m not certain you can really.

What you would have is a testosterone laden tale set in ancient Greece that would have no bearing on any of the characters in the first film. Maybe it’ll follow Leonidas' son or something. Perhaps they’ll engage in an even greater wholesale speculative fiction where the story won’t even be loosely based on any sort of historical event. It would have to be.

On one hand it might be fun as I enjoyed the first one greatly; on the other hand you can’t make that kind of lightning strike twice, I mean, how do you follow the iconic appeal of "This is Sparta!"

Maybe say "This is Sparta, bitch!"

I can’t begin to know.