There’s a British First World War propaganda poster that has a young girl sitting on her father’s knee asking, “Daddy, what did you do in the Great War?” The father looks wistfully into the distance. Will he admit to doing nothing, thus admitting cowardice to his beloved daughter? Or will he be able to proudly tell of his heroics fighting the Hun on the western front?

A day of reckoning is approaching, dear Kulturblogger, if it hasn’t already. Soon one of your children will ask, “Daddy (or mummy), did you like Nirvana?” (more…)

Well, the series makes a whole lot more sense now.

And a whole lot less sense. (Spoilers below).

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Fantastic Mr. Fox, based on the novel by Roald Dahl, directed by Wes Anderson and adapted by Anderson and Noah Baumbach, charms and delights from start to finish. The stop-motion animation has a wonderful (both high-quality and filled-with-wonder) aesthetic that provides the perfect environment for Anderson’s film making, which has always been a bit more full of art and fancy than realism. It’s virtually guaranteed to be Anderson’s most commercially successful film to date, and is arguably his best realized creation since Rushmore.

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The BBC had this great show that I sometimes listened to as a lad back in Canada called Desert Island Disks. It’s reportedly the longest running music show in history. The basic idea is that you pick eight albums you take to a desert island. You then have to say which is your favorite. Then they say what book they’d take. (The show assumes you are allowed to take in addition the Complete Works of Shakespeare and the Bible so as to not get stuck in a rut with those) and one luxury item.

Here’s mine:

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Ok this is pretty great.

I listen to the Filmspotting podcast a lot and one of the things that they have gotten me interested in (by which I mean wasting my time in) is Flickchart. The premise is simple: the website supplies you with two randomly chosen movies and you pick one. If you haven’t seen one (or both) you can skip it; if not, plunge ahead. The criteria is left up to you (I go with the one I would most like to see out of the two). The site tracks your choices and ranks your preferences. It’s not terribly accurate (Cloverfield is remarkably high in mine; higher than I would think), but it is kinda fun. I’ve had to choose between the Princess Bride and Groundhog Day (hard to do) and Back to the Future III and Attack of the Clones (hard to do for other reasons). If nothing else, this is likely Rusty’s dream website come true.

Here is my current top 20 (after having gotten about 200 films in the queue): (more…)

 
Let’s pretend it’s still possible to speak rationally about this movie.

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Supergenius’s latest post was a really good idea so I decided to riff on it.

For me the first film that comes to mind is Kung Fu Hustle.

Seriously. It ruled. Which movies exceeded your expectations?

OK, a day late. A dollar short. Yet here we are talking about the show. Sorry my wife and I just finished watching. (Perils of working late)

So the judges really liked this week better than last week. Personally I found the dancing and in some cases the choreography kind of lacking. The two best routines of the evening were Ellenore and Ryan’s contemporary and Kathryn and Legacy’s Paso Doble. Admittedly Legacy’s dancing had that asterix. It was good for a breaker. In places though it was just plain good. And I thought this was one of Kathryn’s best dances of the season this year. She really broke out. Ryan and Ellenore’s dance was fantastic though. It more than made up for last week’s disaster. (Were I Ryan I’d be spending my free time practicing hip hop because you know he’s going to get it again!)
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What’s the biggest movie you’ve never seen?

Mine is Finding Nemo. That’s right.

Sports autobiographies generally occupy a rather sad, narcissistic, ghost-written corner of the literary bookshelf. It’s the obligatory thing to do after you hang it up; write a tell-all memoir (with a proven co-author) that is part reminder to your fans of how great you were and part pot shot at all those a-holes who gave you insufficient adoration during your halcyon playing days. (more…)

I read and enjoy xkcd, a seriously geeky web comic. But somehow this had escaped my attention until now. Someone took a fairly lengthy strip and animated each panel. I present it for your geeky enjoyment. The prudish should note that it includes two scenes of stick figures writhing in bed, though covered by sheets.

I Love xkcd from NoamR on Vimeo.

First there was Independence Day: Roland Emmerich’s cliche-ridden remake of Star Wars, War of the Worlds, and V: The Miniseries all rolled into one. Not a good film, by any stretch of the imagination, but at least it had Will Smith’s charm and acting chops to give it a modicum of watchability. Then there was The Day After Tomorrow, a true cinematic trainwreck, so silly it may have done more harm to the cause of global warming activism than 10 Michael Crichton novels, and deserving the Lifetime Oscar of Cheesiness for its unbearably corny final sequence in which the multi-racial citizens of Los Angeles are covered in volcanic ash that obscures their skin color, and the audience is actually supposed to be moved by the alleged symbolism of racial reconciliation and tolerance. Barf. (more…)

I can’t take it anymore. Every cheesy pop song for the last several years is using that grating “robot voice”. Make it stop. Can’t these musicians/producers see that robot voice is the very thing we will be mocking about the music of the 2000′s in a few years? Sure, using Robot Voice is a way to hide the fact that one can’t sing but I can’t take it anymore. Robot Voice must go.

(Feel free to add links to songs that are egregious Robot Voice offenders in the comments…)

So. What do you think?

That hip hop was…bad. Ditto that Salsa. But the two couples are among the most popular. And some of the couples that have been at best so so did much better tonight. While I think it’s clear who will be in the bottom (or at least should be – this is the first night voting) it’s far from clear who will be leaving.

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OK, it’s been a few weeks since we had a general TV thread. So I figured I’d put one up. Feel free to chime in about how you think the TV season is going; shows that the rest of us ought be watching; and what you dislike.

My thoughts.

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What’s everyone think?

I hate the new stage.

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There are some places in Utah with a good selection of soda, such as Liberty Heights Fresh, Pirate O’s, and there is a small soda shop in St. George that I discovered recently but can’t remember the name of. But there is nothing that I am aware of that is anything like Galcos Soda Pop Stop. Which reminds me that I need to order more Dublin Dr Pepper…

Are there any movies based on books that you like better than the book?
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