Smile of the day: Contagion: missed tag line opportunities
Missed tag line opportunities:
Contagion: The Feel Symptomatic Movie of the Year
Contagion: Tell 2-6 people to go see it.
Contagion: Go sit in a public place with hundreds of strangers so we can tell you why you shouldn't sit in a public place with hundreds of strangers.
Contagion: If you dislike Gwyneth Paltrow, the most fun you've had since Se7en.
Contagion: OCD? --> DVD!
Contagion: Expect the unexpectorant!
Contagion: Ok, Al Gore could probably have done the same thing in Powerpoint.
And Coming Soon:
Real Steel: Rock'em Sock'em Robots -- The Movie!
Labels: Life Irritates Art, Smile of the day
New Forest Film Festival: Vehicle of Horrors - The Sequel!!!
As it can now be revealed, the secret
Vehicle of Horrors film was The Evil Dead II. We can now exclusively pitch the follow up:
Until next year....
Labels: New Forest Film Festival, Smile of the day, Vague-a-ries
WTF? Pink Floyd album cover issued as stamps
From BBC News:
Classic album covers issued as stampsI have a slight question about this. Which Pink Floyd cover would you have included?
Division Bell is striking but really? Dark Side of the Moon, The Wall, Animals all much more iconic. Even Meddle, Wish You Were Here, and Delicate Sound of Thunder have better covers. Disregarding the WTF?!? about this choice, this is by no measure one of Floyd's better albums.
Ziggy Stardust probably isn't the best Bowie cover either, but at least it's a great album.
Bonus Smile: The cake on the cover of Rolling Stones, Let It Bleed was baked by a young Delia Smith!
Labels: Life Irritates Art, Smile of the day
Brokeback Pandora: The Hidden Secret of Avatar
You know, all this time we've just been blindly assuming that the Na'vi have the same sexual distinctions as we do, even though they have alien physiology.
Neytiri
Sully, now that you're one of us I should tell you...
These bumps on my chest aren't breasts....
...they're my testicles...
Do you think Ang Lee has time to direct the sequel? Will the Village People re-release their hit, "In the Na'vi?" Will Neytiri admit the things that the Na'vi priests did to Sully's Na'vi body while he was "asleep".
Labels: Life Irritates Art, My Tasteless Opinions, Smile of the day
Useless Facts: A-Team in Wonderland
Mr T provided the voice for the Jabberwock in the 1987 animated TV film adaptation of "Alice Through the Looking Glass". - Wikipedia
I slithy the fool with his vorpal blade, I'm gonna get frumious on your Bandersnatch!
Labels: Life Irritates Art, Smile of the day
Smile of the Day meets Life Irritates Art: City by the Sea?
City by the Sea (2002) was a fairly mediocre clichéd movie about a cop and his estranged junkie son, played well by Robert DeNiro and James Franco (catch his performance in Milk for better). It takes place in the very run down community of Long Beach, New York. At the very very end of the end credits this message fades in and out:
Labels: Life Irritates Art, Smile of the day
Smile of the day: Cello Scrotum vs. the Brain Cloud
BBC NEWS | Health | Peer reveals 'cello scrotum' hoaxWhat strikes me here, and not in a teabagging kind of way, is the flippant attitude of the spokesman for the British Medical Journal on clearing up the 1974 hoax:
"Once these things get into the scientific literature, they stay there for good. But it all adds to the gaiety of life."
Cello Scrotum may not be the worst hoax prognosis to receive, but consider the sufferers of "Brain Cloud". It is characterized by no symptoms, has no cure, yet leads to death within six months. At least one Brain Cloud sufferer chose to end his life as a sacrifice to an angry volcano god rather than suffer the final throes of this disease. That's hardly adding to the gaiety of life!
Pity those misdiagnosed with Andromeda Strain, Bone-itis, T-Virus, Pedlar's Limp, and Progressive Retroform Cooties. The Institute for Diseases of the Extremely Gullible seeks your donations now!
Bonus Smile: Picture the glee of the poor web journo who put together the story for the BBC web site inventing the Sub-heading: "Scrotal Flak".
Labels: Smile of the day
No God, Faithful want Proof.
And now, another, through-the-looking-glass moment:
ASA News: Atheist bus ad campaign is not in breach of the Advertising CodeThe British Humanist Association (BHA) started running a series of ads from last October on various city buses throughout the UK with the line: "There is probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life" Ariane Sherine, a comedy writer, co-created the campaign and financial contributors included Richard Dawkins.
The Advertising Standards Authority received over 300 complaints that the ad "broke the advertising code on the grounds of substantiation and truthfulness."
The ASA ruled that the campaign did not mislead consumers and that it would not launch an investigation.
"The ASA Council concluded that the ad was an expression of the advertiser's opinion and that the claims in it were not capable of objective substantiation."
Ostensibly the complaints came from people who have proof of God's existence. Where are they hiding this proof? Perhaps we're just meant to take it that they have it, on faith.
Labels: My Tasteless Opinions, Smile of the day
My Dog World War! (part 3 !!!)
Today at Blackpool & District Canine Society Championship Dog Show, at least three people congratulated me on, and otherwise agreed with my letter published in Dog World this week.
This is amazing for one particular reason:
No one knows who I am.
O.K., I should qualify this, my wife uses her maiden name for many things: work, dog showing, and writing about gardening for the dog show press. I probably go to less than half the dog shows she attends and during the course of the 16 years, 8 months, 2 days and approximately 12 hours of our relationship, only a few of those in the show ring side of her life have more than an inkling of my existence, let alone the notion that I am NOT Mr. Barnes.
Well, there is the fact that one of Dog World's professional photographers did our wedding, but that was a favor from Ruth, and it was before Finuala became a writer for the paper (Ruth introduced her to them, another story....). And some people showed up at the wedding to form the Welsh Springer Guard of Honour outside the hotel before the ceremony (a case of my brother in law's joke taken literally too far). Anyway, that was nearly ten years ago, surely the whole thing has blown over by now, we own the negatives, so apart from those of us in on the whole secret, nothing really has to see the light of day.
I suppose I do have my unusual, and strangely non-ancestral surname (taken by my Russian grand-parents as their free gift from the immigrant experience). So those few people in the know would have worked it out. But as far as I can tell, only one of those three people, are "In" the in-the-know subset. My surname does appear alongside my wife's "showing" name in the index of the breed yearbook, so perhaps the others merely had too much time on their hands.
I thank them all for their support, but there is the possibility that the universe is lulling me into a false sense of security before the true gauntlet is laid down.
Labels: My Tasteless Opinions, Smile of the day, Vague-a-ries
My Dog World War! (part 2 !!!)
The letter to the editor of Dog World was published!
Dog World(you'll have to select "View Editions" from the top left, select 20/06/2008, navigate to page 6, it's the third letter published).
For those of you who didn't read my
previous post (scroll down or click the link, lazy ass). I've been compelled to respond to a nasty insinuation by a dog judge that infirm people using assistance whilst showing their dogs are appearing in the ring for calculated (and indeed spurious) reasons that he was, heaven forfend, insulted by.
There are a few edits, the one that niggled slightly:
Mr. Brace's limited and cynical imagination can find only one motive for this
became:
Mr. Brace can find only one motive for this
However, one of the other letters on the same subject already labels Brace's attitude as cynical. There is a slight edit, an insertion of the words "and were" before "not hobbled by pain" by someone who clearly doesn't understand the use of a comma, and the word penalize is given it's anglo spelling penalise. The strangest stylistic edit is that every single sentence is given it's own paragraph, which, as the author, I find jarring as it discards some of the cohesion of the original.
After a quick look at Mr. Brace's article, I commented that he hasn't responded yet, but I wouldn't expect him to. Finuala suggested that he probably writes a couple of weeks in advance, but also thought it unlikely that he'd respond at all. Well, I will keep my eyes peeled for an apology, nonetheless.
Labels: My Tasteless Opinions, Smile of the day, Vague-a-ries
Smile of the Day meets Art Irritates Life: Kublai Kane Universally Challenged
On tonight's episode of University Challenge, a Cambridge student incorrectly answered a question about the name of Charles Foster Kane's reclusive ginormous mansion in the film Citizen Kane, i.e. Xanadu.
The incorrect answer was San Simeon.
Labels: Life Irritates Art, Smile of the day
Smile of the Day: Ipod Security Check
LONDON, England (Reuters) -- British anti-terrorism detectives escorted a man from a plane after a taxi driver had earlier become suspicious when he started singing along to a track by punk band The Clash, police said on Wednesday.
Full story at CNN.com
http://edition.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/europe/04/05/clash.terror.reut/index.html?section=cnn_latest"Sir, have you downloaded onto that Ipod yourself, or left your MP3 Player unattended at any time?"
Labels: Smile of the day
Smile of the Day: You are hereeeeeeeaaaaaghhhhh
"Drivers following satellite navigation systems through a village [in the Yorkshire Dales] have been directed along a track at the edge of a 100ft cliff. "
When I heard this story on BBC radio, I thought it might be a delayed April Fool's story mistaken by the wire services a few days later as genuine. But, it's true. My chief cause for suspicion was the name of the village:
Crackpot
as reported yesterday by the BBC:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/north_yorkshire/4879026.stmLabels: Smile of the day
Smile of the Day: Real Italian Pizza
I've been meaning to mention this for some time, one of those jump the shark TV ads that dropped briefly from our British airwaves, but which is now back with a vengeance. Very simple, innocuous ad for frozen pizza, branded Pizza Ristorante. Set up, just a couple apparently eating pizza in an italian restaurant, clearly shot for the Euro market, no dialogue, a supposed kicker when they pullback at the end to show that the couple are sitting at a table on a bridge (to emphasize having a pizza any time any place, erm assuming you have means of heating same, or like your ice lollies pepperoni flavored). But that's just poorly judged supposedly amusing ad-stuff.
Over this, as in most Euro ads is a voice over talking about the convenience of the pizza, just like eating in an Italian Ristorante, as it finishes describing the Real Italian Pizza....
Another voice over intones the ad tag "By Dr. Oetker!!"
Germany's Birdseye, Dr. Oetker, is pretty much unknown to me, and I suspect many of you. Not to Hun bash, but perhaps we can next expect the taste of Real Brazilian Pizza... by Dr. Mengele.
Labels: Smile of the day
Smile of the Day: Vatican Blitzkrieg Bop
I have to say I hesitate to include this, not out of tasteful considerations, you know me better than that! But because I can't remember the phrase verbatim.....
On tonight's BBC topical panel pseudo-game "Have I Got News For You" there was some talk about the new Pope, joltin' Joe Ratzinger. There was an undoubtedly scripted observation from the guest presenter along the lines of "once again the Germans have quickly taken over from a Polish authority."
I'm really sorry I can't remember the quote right, but hell, I was too amused to write it down at the time. Other pope related stuff on the show had Paul Merton referring to him at first ironically saying he has kind eyes, and then progressing to mentioning his "killer's eyes" everytime a picture of JR-B16 was shown.
I may as well drop in a few other thoughts about the papacy (like as a jew-ish guy, it's any of my business, my wife's family are English Roman Catholics). Whatever my objections to JP2's stand on contraception/AIDS prevention, etc. I do credit him for the dignity in his passing, and perhaps a little bit grateful that this example of facing the inevitable peacefully came at a time when Jihad is being waged on behalf of Terri Schiavo et.al. (On the other hand, didn't he or one of his minions coin the dreaded "culture of life" phrase?)
I was also surprised, and greatly disappointed, that the British Papers were so restrained and that none of the tabloids used "Pope Pops" as their headline. Apropos of almost nothing, I was also wondering if Benedictines do benediction, do Carmelites caramelize? do Jesuits Jezzercise? (possibly to Cistercians are doin' it for themselves?) Transubstantiate your replies, here, under "Comments"
Labels: Smile of the day
Smile of the Day: Whither Dormouse?
On my way to the Verderer's Court this morning, I cut through the churchyard of Lyndhurst Church, St Michael & All Angels, which includes the grave of Alice Liddell, Lewis Carroll's inspiration for Alice in Wonderland. On one side of the path there was a park bench, directly opposite it a small cardboard sign had been pegged into the ground with wire. It read:
"Please Do NOT feed the birds.
Rats EAT the food."
Writing this down, I'm also minded of the math problem where you feed the rats to the cats, and the cats to the rats, and get the skins for free.
Labels: Smile of the day
