Blog Mail

Hi! You have reached Heather's blog. She's not in right now because she was too busy yesterday to write about anything of consequence for her blog. Why was she too busy? Well, because she was looking at a smidge of this:

Website credit: http://www.reelmovienews.com/tags/jason-statham/

A bit of this:

© Solarpix/PR Photos

And a lot of this:

©2008-2010 ~Phanoudu91

All during a showing of this:


(Can't see the video above? Get off the Crackbook and click here.)

Give her time. She'll eventually recover. Please leave a comment at the beep and she'll return to the blogverse as soon as she wipes up the dried drool.

*BEEP!*

Michael Bay Can Suck It

Ahead are spoilers. Not plot-point spoilers, but character and location spoilers. You've been warned.

I saw the new Transformers movie over the weekend. And you know what pushed me over the edge? Not the racially-offensive Autobot twins. Not the humping dogs. And not the marijuana-laced-brownie-eating-mom-of-main-character*. Nope none of that, though they contributed to my overall distaste for this life-sucking movie.

What really pissed me off? Last time I checked, this is the 21st century. The age of the Internet. The dawn of What are my six degrees of Kevin Bacon**? Lemme check from my iPhone. The era of Look! There's my house on Google Earth! Michael Bay thinks we'll just accept that the pyramids are five kilometers from the Persian Gulf and that you can walk out of the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum and into a southwestern airplane graveyard.

This is the kind of "movie magic" that pisses me off. If you're going to have your characters walk out of a set of hangar bay doors at the Air and Space Museum's Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Virginia and find themselves at an airplane graveyard in Tuscon, Arizona? At least blame it on a wormhole. Don't try to pass it off to me as reality. Granted, we're dealing with a movie about talking robots from space. But don't f*** with my geography.

And then? Oh, this is criminal. The characters are in Jordan, then at the pyramids, then at Petra (back in Jordan), then running through a couple of temples, then at the pyramids, then running through some temple ruins, and blah, blah, blah.

You want to know where all this stuff is truly located? Check it:

To do everything they did in the last 30 minutes of the movie, that's the route they would have had to run to truly hit all the high points. I did all the stuff on the left side of that map and it took me TWO WEEKS!

The temples they run through to get from the pyramids to their destination a half-mile away? Are actually Karnak and Medinet Habu, over 440 miles away to the south. And all the little half-ruined temples/homes they then duck and cover around? Parts of Trajan's Kiosk, located even further south. And part of the Ptolemaic period. Two-thousand years after the pyramids. And in the movie? We're told the pyramids, where this super-secret Decepticon machine is located, are on this strip of land that looks like a dagger. See my notation above? Dagger BS? Yeah. That's actually a Red Sea resort town. You go there to catch a dive boat not to catch some Old Kingdom mortuary architecture. The pyramids are actually located next to downtown Cairo. I believe there's a KFC across the street from the Sphinx. Seriously.

But that's not even my "favorite part" of this whole debacle. This is the one that killed the movie for me. A major character (sitting on top of one of the pyramids) calls for an air strike and tells the USAF he's located five klicks west of the Gulf. Five kilometers. West of the Persian Gulf.


Wow. Just? Wow.

Michael Bay, this may have worked twenty years ago when normal people didn't have access to this type of information at the tips of their fingers. But we're in the 21st century. Quit treating your movie-going public like we're information morons. I look forward to lambasting your next movie Transformers 3: Who Gives A Shit What I Do Because I'm Mr. Michael "Slo-Mo Camera Moves" Bay And You're All Sheep And Will Pay $20 To See This Claptrap That Will Never Be Nominated For a Best Picture Oscar But Will Gross $100 Million Dollars In Its Opening Weekend And I'll Be Laughing All The Way To The Bank.

Ass.

*Not that the eating of said Mary Jane brownies upset me, but that the eating of said brownies did nothing to further the plot in an already ridiculously too-long movie. And it was a stupid sequence. And don't even get me started.

**Kevin Bacon was in Apollo 13 with Tom Hanks. Tom Hanks was in Catch Me If You Can with Jennifer Garner. And I went to preschool with Jennifer Garner. A stretch, but I'm three degrees from The Bacon. Boo-yah!

Dark Knight Did Me In

Went to see Dark Knight.

Awesome. Mind-blowing. Fucking (yeah, I said fucking) incredible.

It's 1AM.

Must sleep. Will write meaningful post for Friday.

Until then, go see it! Please!

Sunday Panties

When Harry Met Sally:

Sally: First of all, I am not "with" you, and second of all it is none of your business why we broke up.

Harry: You're right, you're right, I don't want to know.

Sally: Well if you must know, it was because he was very jealous and I had these days-of-the-week underpants.

Harry: I'm sorry I need a judge's ruling on this... days-of-week underpants.

Sally: Yes. They had the days of the week on them and I thought they were sort of funny. And then one day Sheldon says to me, "You never wear Sunday." It's all suspicious, where was Sunday, where was Sunday? And I told him and he didn't believe me.

Harry: Why?

Sally: They don't make Sunday.

Harry: Why?

Sally: Because of God.

Well, Sally was wrong:


(If you click on the above image, you'll see that Princess Belle graces these obvious Sunday panties because of the word "Sunday" printed all over the waist band. Yes, every time Miss-Miss wears these, I think of Meg Ryan. Not sure what that says about me. Or better yet, what does this say about Disney? Bunch of God-less freaks.)

The 10 Commandments of Movie-Watching

OK, ladies and gentlebloggers. I, Coal Miner's Granddaughter, am here to deliver to you, straight from the stone tablets given unto me in the Hollywood Hills by George Lucas himself...

The 10 Commandments of Movie-Watching!
(Think a booming James Earl Jones-type of voice. Echoing from on high. Because, as we all know, God sounds like James Earl Jones. Seriously. The burning bush in my front yard told me so!)

1. Thou shalt not use your cell phone in any form or fashion during a movie or its previews. No texting, no receiving calls, no making of calls. - Seriously, people. Can you not live for two f-ing hours, in the moment of the movie, and let your peeps just hang? Come on. You've probably already texted/twittered them that you're at said movie. They can deal! Because if you don't put the phone down? I just might have to throw it at your face.

2. Thou shalt leave your baby/toddler/young child at home with a babysitter. - Honest to God, I am so friggin' tired of going to these really loud and scary horror/sci-fi/action flicks and seeing a young couple in the row in front of me with a baby. A MOTHER F-ING BABY! Put down the large popcorn, Diet Coke, and box of Goobers and use the money you would have spent on said concessions on a damned babysitter. Can't afford it? STAY AT HOME!

3. Thou shalt not talk during the movie. - Duh.

4. Thou shalt not talk during the official movie previews. - Some people in the audience are there to see a specific preview and couldn't care less about the movie. At times, really important upcoming sci-fi movie previews can be attached to the lamest movies and those of us who are die-hard sci-fi geeks are there for the two-minute preview. So, SHUT THE F UP!

5. Thou shalt keep thy feet to thyself. - Yes, if the seat in front of you is empty, feel free to prop up those clodhoppers at will. But? If someone is sitting in front of you? Like me? I'm not your personal ottoman, asshat! GET YOUR FEET DOWN!

6. Thou shalt not "nervous laugh" during pivotal movie moments. - Little air-headed teenage girl? In the back? With your male posse? Trying to be cool? Yeah, um, how do I say this. Those boys aren't at that movie for you. They're at that movie for the movie. What a concept, I know. I'm there for the movie, too. Not for your air-head commentary and certainly not for your ill-timed nervous "how do I respond to this important part of the plot" laughter. Just be quiet. Please? I'm sure you can manage that for two hours. If not? I have duct tape in the car. The silver tape will complement your earrings. Honest.

7. Thou shalt sit next to total strangers on opening night. - That guy? That seriously geeky guy sitting in the center of the theater? He's not going to bite. He's focused on watching this movie on it's opening night. And since it's opening night? It's going to be crowded. Sit next to him - don't leave an empty seat between you. You're going to have to scoot over, anyway. The movie theater goobs will make you move over because the theater will fill to capacity and that family of four over there? They would like to sit together. So... MOVE!

8. Thou shalt watch the credits in their entirety. - Firstly, all those names in the credits? Those are real-ass people who worked on this movie. Worked hard. From the actors to the hair stylists, to the model makers, to the caterers and accountants. They, too, would like the recognition and can only get that if you watch all their names scroll by. Plus? You never know when Hollyweird is going to tack on some important plot point at the end of the credits. It happens all the time and so many people miss these things! TRAVESTY!

9. Thou shalt not complain about movie ticket prices to the movie theater management. - The movie theater management has no say regarding movie ticket prices. That's a movie production house thing. Complain to Paramount, 20th Century Fox, Disney, or don't go to the movies at all! Wait six months for the DVD. Just don't hassle the poor, frazzled theater manager who just wants to keep his employees from pissing in the popcorn machine.

10. Thou shalt pick up your trash once the movie is over. - Look. Don't pick up every piece of popcorn you dropped. But pick up your cup, popcorn container, and Goobers box, haul your lazy ass out of the theater, and drop said items in the trash cans. For the love of Pete - those poor movie theater goobs already have to mop your Iron Man slobber off the floor. Do you really think they want to pick up your trash, too?

Whew! Thanks. Feel better now...

Cold - Possible Snow - Saturday Meme

OK, before I get to this meme, passed on to me from Military Mom, let me say this.

Cloverfield.
Kicked.
Serious.
Ass.

Let's just say you could call it Cloverfield - The 9/11 Blair Witch Godzilla Starship Troopers Project. I highly recommend seeing it. Get baby sitters. Get pet sitters. Get out there. And, if you don't manage to see it in the theater, give me a call when the DVD comes out. We've got a home theater in our basement and I'll let you come over and watch it. Seriously. It's so good that I'll open up my home to strangers.

OK. On to the meme. I have to link to five of my old posts according to the given categories. Since I've only been blogging since August, this shouldn't be too difficult.

Family - This was one of my first posts and I had something up-beat and happy to say about being a mother. Plus, I was playing with Mac's Photo Booth software.

Friends - This is a relatively recent post and pays tribute to friend and biatch, Teri.

Me - This is an early post about my home state of West "By God!" Virginia. I'm proud of my Mountaineer/Hillbilly birthright and advertise it all the time.

A Post I Love - OK, friends Vonda and Kristi probably shook their heads when reading one of my kid book reviews. But, sometimes I'm reading these kids' books and the coffee hasn't kicked in, and I'm thinking WTF is this book about, anyway? Yeah, this was one of those days.

Anything I Choose - Yeah, this post basically sums up the geek in me. Fear it!

Hope you all enjoy the walk down memory lane. And go see Cloverfield for Chrissakes!

1.18.08

This is what it's all about today. All day I will be thinking of nothing but going to see this movie. Well, that and sleep.

See, J-man kept me and the Ty-man up aaaaalllll night. Three hours of sleep does not a happy Heather make. I thought for sure the boy had an ear infection. Nope! Doctor said he's probably getting ready to make a developmental leap. All I can say is that he better be doing calculus by the close of the weekend or I'll be disappointed.

Anyhoo, back to the movie. The kids will be crying, fussing, snarking, and I will be oblivious because I will stare off into space, thinking, "I'm going to see Cloverfield tonight. Oh, and I need sleep." Been waiting on pins and needles for this flick. Reserved Nana for kid duty back at Christmas. So, that being said, I have nothing for you but the wonderfulness that is this poster and the hope that this movie will not blow.

Dialog, Part 2

Me: Is that Gods and Generals?

Ty-man: Yep.

Me: Who is that?

Ty-man: General Stonewall Jackson, played by Stephen Lang.

Me: You know? Those yak-fur beards just look too neat. If that was really Jackson, his beard would probably be really scraggly. I mean, it's a war.

Ty-man: Yeah, true. But, he probably had some lackey trim his beard for him.

Me: General perks?

Ty-man: Yeah.

Me: Not me. If I'm a general fighting a war? I don't want no beard-trimming perks. I want the Godiva-dark-chocolate-eating perks. That's for me.

Ty-man: Only you.

The Joy That Is Neill Cumpston

See, some people read the Bible. Others? The Koran. Me? I religiously check out Ain't It Cool each and every morning. If you don't know about this Web site, it was started back in 1996 by a freak of a movie junkie, Harry Knowles. I've been reading it ever since. You want insider news about an upcoming movie? Get there. Want to know how a TV episode finale ends one day before it's aired? Check it out. Knowles has spies everywhere and he is the bane of the movie studios' existence. This ain't no Ebert & Roper "two thumbs up" crap, this is honesty at it's sometimes weirdest.

My favorite reviewer is Neill Cumpston. None of the reviewers use their real names and Neill is some kind of weird, speed-freak of a movie reviewer. I think you have to either be tweaking or out of your ever-loving mind to fully understand his reviews. But, either way, you will laugh your ass off! He is legendary for his first review regarding Blade II and just today, he posted a review regarding J.J. Abrams' super-secret project known only as Cloverfield - in theaters January 18th. In his Passion of the Christ and Dawn of the Dead review he refers to Jesus as "the original zombie (O.Z. – only super good-looking and not smelly)" since he arose from the dead - just like a zombie.

Anyhoo, for your reading pleasure, I give you the reviews of Mr. Cumpston along with a quote from each review, just to whet your appetite for more. I'm tellin' ya, the man is damaged, but in a good way. Strap on your hard hats and prepare to snort liquid out your nose....

Blade II (Also, if you see it with your girlfriend you'll automatically break up because hey, chicks stay away from this one. Go see "Wedding Planner" or that other one with the British guy and the bookstore and the cute dog and the herbal tea because this movie isn't for the chicks. Maybe for the chicks who ride motorcycles and can beat up pit bulls, maybe...)
Matrix Reloaded (Jim-Jammity Jesus Krispy Kreme Christ on a twat-rocket, this movie blew me apart...)
X-Men 2 (There’s also a mutant called Hottie Asian, I think, but she’s got claws like Wolverine, and we find out where Wolverine got his claws, and they have a fight and the way Wolverine beats her you’re like, “That sort of sucks ‘cause I’d like to see her back” but sometimes cool characters gets Darth Mauled but that’s the breaks.)
Passion of Christ and Dawn of the Dead (It made me yell, “Jesus Christ on a cross!” even the scenes that didn’t have Jesus Christ on a cross.)
Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (The ring is also evil but you keep thinking, while you watch it, that someone should put it on and check out some boobs. I have a feeling those scenes will be in the DVDs.)
Cloverfield (The movie starts off really sh***y though, with all this stuff about a young couple that’s in love, and she’s hot and he’s hot and I’m all like, “Who’s filming the Ambercrombie and Fitch catalogue?”)

Stuff From All Over

Have any of you ever had one of those moments when, you're proud to be a mom, proud of your kids, love them dearly, but wish others were more appreciative of them? I'm not talking about shoving your kids down someone's throat 24/7 and expecting them to adore your children. I'm talking about being made to feel small just because of your childrens' existence and your inability to detach yourself from them because, let's face it, when you're a breastfeeding mother of a 5-month-old, as their only food source, you are limited as to who can take care of them. I had that experience for the first time today and it brought me to my knees. I won't elaborate, but I was hurt, upset, pissed, and dearly wanting my old life back. Then, I looked at J-man's little face and said, "F it. I love you and that's all that matters."

On to more silly things...

I have watched Finding Nemo so many times the last two weeks that I'm ready to gouge out my eyes and firebomb the Pixar/Disney studios headquarters. Early in 2006, I got the bright idea of decorating the kids' bathroom with a Finding Nemo theme. Nemo soap dispenser, Nemo toothbrush holder, Nemo shower curtain, little plastic Nemo character toys (that are probably loaded with lead). I topped it all off with an actual picture of two clown anemone fish, taken by a dive buddy of mine. I figured that at some point in the future when the kids decide they're too cool for Finding Nemo, we could just have fish pictures and end it at that. Anyway, we went from playing with Nemo in the tub to taking Nemo and friends out of the tub, playing and sleeping with them at all hours of the day and night. Miss-Miss will cry if Nemo can't be located before bedtime. "Nemo? Nemo?" is her usual whimper. Two days before their birthday, we thought it would be cool to finally let Miss-Miss and Bubba watch the movie. BIIIIIGGGG mistake. We have now watched Finding Nemo every day for the last two weeks. Fifteen minutes here, ten minutes there, and it all adds up to Ty-man and I quoting the movie word-for-word and knowing the names of all the characters - Nemo, Marlin, Dory, Bruce the shark, Gil, Peach the starfish, Deb, Bubbles, Gurgle, Nigel the pelican, Squirt and Crush the turtles, and on, and on. Somebody, kill me NOW! Finding Nemo went from a cute kids' movie to the bane of my existence. It's Nemo and clown fish 24 hours a day, 7 days a week here at Casa Crazy and I'm so ready for the nut house. Ty-man said, "Well, I guess we'll have to read up on saltwater aquariums soon because the kids will want one." Yeah, sure, I'll get a salt water aquarium, so that I can fill it with clown fish and then fry up the little suckers for dinner. Pass the tartar sauce and malt vinegar, baby!

My usual Friday top ten lists have gone by the wayside. I just don't have the brain power to count to ten, much less come up with funny things to go along with ten numbers. So, top ten lists will happen when my brain happens.

Found out today that Ty-man's cousin, Newman, is pregnant!!! Way to go, Newman! Three months down and a lifetime to go! Can't wait to meet the newest member of the family this coming April. Woo hoo!

I have splurged and hired a wonderful lady named Mia over at The Blog Cafe to design a new look for my blog. So, hopefully in the next few weeks, you will be dazzled by my ideas and her talent and knowledge of blogs, HTML, and Google Blogger. Stay tuned!

Finally, in honor of October and Halloween, I have chosen a headstone quote for this weekend's blog quote. From Benjamin Franklin's headstone, here goes:

The Body of
B. Franklin, Printer
Like the Cover of an old Book
Its Contents torn out
And Stript of its Lettering & Guilding
Lies here. Food for Worms
For, it will as he believed
appear once more
In a new and more elegant Edition
corrected and improved
By the Author.

Happy Weekend! Blog you Monday.

Kevin Smith Meets the Visitors

I'm a sci-fi geek and a Kevin Smith nut as well. Who, you may ask, is Kevin Smith? Well, allow me to explain. Kevin Smith, in my humble opinion, is only the best film director/writer/actor ever to grace the movie screen. He has written, directed, and starred in such gems as Clerks, Mallrats, Chasing Amy, Dogma, Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, Clerks II, Jersey Girl, and so on. Clerks was his first film, shot on location in New Jersey at the Quick Stop convenience store where he worked, paid for ($10,000) with credit cards and starring all of his buddies. The movie is hysterical and kind of the definition of, I think, Generation X. In this movie, the two main characters (Dante and Randal) are discussing the destruction of the second Death Star at the end of Return of the Jedi. Randal argues that since this Death Star wasn't complete, there had to be many independent contractors on this Death Star, working on construction, minding their own business, trying to make a living, and not caring about the fate of a government that would just as soon kill them than pay their salaries. In other words, innocent lives lost at the hands of an uncaring Rebellion. It's a fascinating (and hysterical) monologue and one you should check out.

That monologue got me thinking about the NBC miniseries V, a popular sci-fi take on WWII and the Nazi invasion of Europe, shown on TV screens in 1983-1984. Instead of a fascist government, there were the reptilian Visitors from outer space, here to steal our water and freeze us for food. Well, here's my Kevin Smith monologue on V.

Supposedly, when the Visitors came to Earth, they came in 50 mother ships, each ship carrying about 6,500 aliens. That makes for 325,000 aliens total on Earth, not all of them soldiers. That means, a mere 325,000 aliens versus 6,000,000,000 (that's right, as in b) humans. Hmmmm, I think we could kick their butts in numbers alone. Now, putting those ships together costs money, right? Supposedly their planet and eco-system are dying and they need our natural resources to fix that problem. They're at war with several other alien species and need us for food and cannon fodder. OK, taking into account that these 50 mother ships are each 3.2 km in circumference and 900 feet tall, I would say 50 of those suckers would cost a pretty penny. In addition to that, each ship has three fusion (that right, fusion not fission) nuclear reactors to provide power, propulsion, and a wicked self-destruct mechanism. Again, lots of Benjamins. So, they've taken away 325,000 of their people (people that could have helped to fight their wars) and spent an incalculable amount of money on these 50 ships to get to Earth. Not only is their planet dying, but they've now screwed their economy with all the ship construction going on! Hello! Why not spend the cash on figuring out ways to turn around their eco-system? I mean, come on, it's not like water is some special chemical compound that requires 10 different rare elements. You need hydrogen (the most plentiful element in the universe) and oxygen. That's it! Figure it out!

Lastly, the Visitors are openly hostile toward Earth scientists. Early in the series, scientists begin to either disappear or become brainwashed, presumably because the Visitors don't want their secret found out by these scientists and then leaked to the public. The secret, of course, is that they're 6-foot tall walking, talking iguanas. This doesn't make sense to me. Wouldn't you rather take out the military arms of each country? I would be more worried about Navy SEALS, the Army Rangers, the "black ops" CIA agents, the Israeli army who uses Krav Maga to kick serious ass, the armed Columbian drug runners, and members of the NRA. Wouldn't you rather get rid of these people instead of going after a bunch of geeky scientist who could beat you at Trivial Pursuit, but not so good at hand-to-hand combat? Just a thought.

Anyway, I'm spent. Now you know why I'm crazy. This is the kind of thing I think about late at night while awake with the baby or the twins. It's either think about Visitors and Kevin Smith or, "Which breast does J-man go on this time? Left or right?"

Sci-Fi Movie Casting Call!

Hollywood is getting ready to finally film the sequel to The Last Starfighter! It's nearly 25 years later and Alex Rogan is a disgruntled Starfighter having battled General Xur all these years, who escaped the great and final battle against Alex, Grig, and the Rylans. Alex's co-pilot Grig is long gone and Centauri (a CGI-resurrected Robert Preston) is still out there, recruiting new starfighters with his video game. Alex and his wife Maggie return home to Earth to raise their children among humanity when they find out Centauri has been taken hostage by Xur! The horror! A final battle will ensue and the fate of the galaxy rests on Alex's shoulders!

Universal Pictures is looking for extras to play Rylan citizens (see left). Short, overgrown hair is a must, as is an ability to laugh at oneself (see example below). Please, no prima donnas and those with crew cuts need not apply. Just call our casting office in Atlanta, Georgia, and ask for Heather!

(By the way, I love my Ty-man, and am thankful that he won't kill me for posting this picture and my apologies for anyone who thinks this Last Starfighter sequel is real!)