The comedy thread

[Jeff]

[Cosmic Cowbell]

[barracuda]

http://twitter.com/BronxZoosCobra

[Jeff]

[barracuda]

http://3eanuts.tumblr.com/

[Jeff]

[Jeff]

[JackRiddler]

The last para was in the quotes thread, followed link, too damn funny not to read the whole thing:

Battle: Los Angeles


BY ROGER EBERT / March 9, 2011

Cast & Credits
Nantz Aaron Eckhart
Elena Michelle Rodriguez
Michele Bridget Moynahan
Joe Michael Pena

Columbia Pictures presents a film directed by Jonathan Liebesman. Written by Christopher Bertolini. Running time: 116 minutes. Rated PG-13 (for sustained and intense sequences of war violence and destruction, and for language).







"Battle: Los Angeles" is noisy, violent, ugly and stupid. Its manufacture is a reflection of appalling cynicism on the part of its makers, who don't even try to make it more than senseless chaos. Here's a science-fiction film that's an insult to the words "science" and "fiction," and the hyphen in between them. You want to cut it up to clean under your fingernails.

Meteors fall to Earth near the coasts of the world's major cities (and in Ireland's Dingle Bay — that meteor must have strayed off course). They contain alien troops, which march up from the beach with their weapons of war and attack mankind. No reason is given for this, although it's mentioned they may want our water. We meet the members of a Marine platoon, and its battle-scarred Staff Sgt. Nantz (Aaron Eckhart). They're helicoptered into Santa Monica and apparently defeat the aliens. Since all of Los Angeles is frequently seen in flames, it's not entirely clear how the Santa Monica action is crucial, but apparently it is.

The aliens are hilarious. Do they give Razzies for special effects? They seem to be animal/machine hybrids with automatic weapons growing from their arms, which must make it hard to change the baby. As the Marines use their combat knives to carve into the aliens, they find one layer after another of icky gelatinous pus-filled goo. Luckily, the other aliens are mostly seen in long shot, where they look like stick figures whipped up by apprentice animators.

Aaron Eckhart stars as Staff Sgt. Nantz, a 20-year veteran who has something shady in his record, which people keep referring to, although screenwriter Christopher Bertolini is too cagey to come right out and describe it. Never mind. Eckhart is perfectly cast, and let the word go forth that he makes one hell of a great-looking action hero. He is also a fine actor, but acting skills are not required from anyone in this movie.

The dialogue consists almost entirely of terse screams: Watch it! Incoming! Move! Look out! Fire! Move! The only characters I re­member having four sentences in a row are the anchors on cable news. Although the platoon includes the usual buffet of ethnicities, including Latinos, Asians and a Nigerian surgeon, none of them get much more than a word or two in a row, so as characters, they're all placeholders.

You gotta see the alien battleships in this movie. They seem to have been assembled by the proverbial tornado blowing through a junkyard. They're aggressively ugly and cluttered, the product of a planet where design has not been discovered and even the Coke bottles must look like pincushions. Although these ships presumably arrived inside the meteors, one in particular exhibits uncanny versatility, by rising up from the Earth before the very eyes of the startled Marines. How, you may ask, did it tunnel for 10 or 12 blocks under Santa Monica to the battle lines at Lincoln Boulevard?

There is a lazy editing style in action movies these days that assumes nothing need make any sense visually. In a good movie, we understand where the heroes are, and where their opponents are, and why, and when they fire on each other, we understand the geometry. In a mess like this, the frame is filled with flashes and explosions and shots so brief that nothing makes sense. From time to time, there'll be a closeup of Aaron Eckhart screaming something, for example, and on either side of that shot, there will be unrelated shots of incomprehensible action.

When I think of the elegant construction of something like "Gunfight at the OK Corral," I want to rend the hair from my head and weep bitter tears of despair. Generations of filmmakers devoted their lives to perfecting techniques that a director like Jonathan Liebesman is either ignorant of, or indifferent to. Yet he is given millions of dollars to produce this assault on the attention span of a generation.

Young men: If you attend this crap with friends who admire it, tactfully inform them they are idiots. Young women: If your date likes this movie, tell him you've been thinking it over, and you think you should consider spending some time apart.

[gnosticheresy_2]

[Jeff]

[stefano]

Pitching the World is a freelance writer who got the Writers’ & Artists’ Yearbook and started pitching all the magazines listed in there. Pretty good.
_______________

A Man of Means. Of Slender Means.

Not sure if any of you have noticed but I’m now officially a £3 a word man. I say officially, but I don’t think it’s official at all. I’d like to make it official though, but don’t know how. Any ideas? Perhaps this counts. Anyway, the copy has been filed, pronounced “Brilliant!” and paid for. Who’d have thought that writing forewords to architecture books would be so illuminating, lucrative and trouble-free? Not me, and probably not you either. But it is, and perhaps I’ve found my forte.

There are, however, problems with finding my forte. Regular readers will know that there are always problems with finding my forte. First, there’s not a lot of it about. The work, that is. There aren’t an awful amount of architecture books being published and those that are published usually have forewords written by other famous architects, people who are well known for writing about architecture, or famous people who have a relationship with either architecture or the architect. I am none of those things: none. Second, I have Pitching the World to write and after 18 or 19 glorious, carefree months I’ve finally set about pitching with some sort of discipline. Crazy, isn’t it? Yes, after writing this (not at all award-winning) post I’m pitching 25 magazines. Nuts, isn’t it? An update will be waiting for your lovely eyes tomorrow. Probably.

But, Jesus, have you seen how much some of these animals pay? Or rather, how little some of these animals pay? Take the D’s. Darts World (“Articles and stories with a darts theme”, unsurprisingly) offers a far-from-attractive £40-50 per 1,000 words. Now, as a £3 a word man (which I am, I definitely am) I would struggle to write for that amount. I’ve never written for such a low fee but my love of all things darts coupled with my new found enthusiasm for the beast that is Pitching the World could see me – assuming I could think of, write, and get commissioned a suitable idea – working for (wait for this bit, it’ll knock you out) up to a bullseye per thousand. I could do it, just.

After Darts World however, things take a dip, financially speaking. You’d think that after 4-5 pence a word that things couldn’t take a dip, financially speaking, but you’d be wrong. Oh, you have no idea. Hanging out below Darts World looking all ashamed sits Day by Day. Although Day by Day offers a wonderfully barmy mixture of features – “Articles and news on non-violence and social justice. Reviews of art, books, films, plays, musicals and opera; cricket reports” – the rates stink. How much do they stink? They stink to the tune of £2 per 1,000 words, that’s how much. Now, I may not live the rest of my life as a £3 a word man, but I’m certainly not a 0.2 pence a word man. Not yet at least. That said I’m going to give Day by Day a whirl. I love all things cricket and love the idea of getting a cheque for £2. I’m assuming Day by Day pays by cheque.

Finally, and as I seem intent on beating up the D’s, The Dickensian; a publication that “Welcomes articles on all aspects of Dickens’s life, work and character. Payment: none.” Love that, and love the brutality of that colon*. No doubt those brutes at The Dickensian do indeed welcome guff on Dickens’s character at payment:none per word. In fact, I’d welcome articles on all aspects of Pitching the World’s life, work and character if anyone feels up to it. Payment: Booze and Fags per word.

* Please excuse me writing how I “love the brutality of that colon”. It was entirely out of character and I can only assume that I must have watched the Late Review by mistake one evening when drunk and something has seeped in. If I’m not careful I’m going to start chucking words like Dickensian about and then where will we be? Fucked, that’s where.

[Allegro]

.

[barracuda]

[MinM]

http://www.npr.org/2011/05/08/136056357 ... ke-hip-hop

[norton ash]

Worst Canadian 70's song EVER. Stop bossing your wife around and expecting her to take you back, you stupid fucking groovy alcoholic.

Sorry, it was on the radio at the grocery store this morning.