‘Idiocracy’ predictions that have not come true (and hopefully never will)

The following post originally appeared on Geek Force Network, March 14, 2014. (And goddamn if it doesn’t hit weirdly close to home in our current times.)

---

While I don’t mind a good, post-apocalyptic film that presents our future as bleak, gritty, and violent, I’d much rather spend time watching the comedic side of our possible future selves, like Back to the Future II (Biff takes over the world next year, right?) and Sleepers.  I recently re-watched one of my favorite entries in this genre(?), Idiocracy (2006).

If you’ve not seen this imperfect (it can be a bit too on-the-nose) yet hilarious Mike Judge movie, you simply must; and you must instead of reading this blog post. Because it has some SPOILERS. And also because you MUST see the movie. Do you see my face? That’s not a request.

 

Dashing off some words about Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

Good morning, folks, and happy Memorial Day! If that is a thing you celebrate. I’ll be honest and say that I don’t exactly celebrate the holiday as much as I simply relish in having an extra-long weekend Plus, this day always means that the summer isn’t too far away. And while I also don’t exactly celebrate the summer, I do occasionally enjoy the sunshine if only because it make our vegetable garden blossom.

But I am neither here to wax upon the seasons nor vegetables. After an all too long delay, I finally saw Rogue One. And what of it? On with the bullet points!

Video Games in Movies

During a recent review of the contents of a couple old USB drives that I had forgotten that I stashed away, I found a handful of articles that I had written for a gaming site that went defunct. Since I hate for words to sit unread (even those in incoherent, rambly sentences), I decided I might as well share them here. Here’s one from around January 2013 in which I mused over some depictions of games and gamers  on the big screen.

---

It’s widely accepted among gamers and movie-goers that movies based on video games are never quite as good as the games themselves.  But movies that contain references to video games…well, some of those aren’t that great as well; but many of them are perfectly enjoyable.  These references range from large (Tron – the entire movie) to small (remember the NES Advantage controller from Ghostbusters 2?) to everything in between.  While it’s unfortunate that Hollywood often invokes typical “gamer” stereotypes (as “they” do with just about any group “they” don’t fully understand), these references are testament to the fact that video games are an integral part of our culture.  I love it when games, consoles, or gamers get in a little bit of screen time, so here are a few of my favorite video game references in movies.

---

The Only and Most Terrifying Movie for Halloween [full post]

The following post original appeared, in edited form, on Geek Force Network, October 25, 2013. Also reblogged here on October 28, 2013.

---

After finishing my post from last week, I got it stuck in my head that I should maybe follow up with some sort of post about scary movies. But as I called my own bluff in that post by claiming that I’m not much of a horror movies aficionado, well…that was a dumb thing to do. But the reality is that I’m not, so I don’t even know what I’m complaining about. And even if I had tried to do a post about scary movies, I’d really only have to talk about one. The fucking scariest movie I’ve ever seen:

ARACHNOPHOBIA 

(P. S. There are spider images ahead, which I can’t even believe I included. Oh, the nightmares I’ll be having…)

Alright, now before you cry foul with your OMGs, LOLs, and WTFs, and go on about how lame this movie is, and how lame spiders are, and how lame I am, just shut the hell up for one thing. Also, let me drill this into your narrow minds – the events that take place in Arachnophobia could really happen.

Oh yeah…you just think about THAT shit for a minute…

Movies for the Comedic Side of Halloween

The following post originally appeared on Geek Force Network, October 18, 2013.

---

Every year round this time, as people ring in the spooky days surrounding Halloween with a good horror flick or two, I prepare to watch my own small cache of movies to celebrate the season. While I don’t mind horror movies, they aren’t movies that I regularly seek out. Also I’m not much into being visually terrified, so if I’m going to watch something scary, I’d rather it tend towards comedic or campy horror — the kind of stuff that’s not nightmare-inducing, but rather sends me off to dreamland with giggles and a smile. With that in mind, here’s five movies that I have queued up and ready to watch as the air chills and nighttime spirits come out to play.

P. S. Minor spoilers for older movies ahead, possibly.

*****

The Rocky Horror Remake: Some Thoughts

Well, that whole schedule change thing didn’t last very long, did it? Um…okay…you got me. But it’s my blog, and I can break it if I want. Also, surely you didn’t think I couldn’t NOT say something about The Rocky Horror Picture Show: Let’s Do the Time Warp Again??

The beautiful people. (© Fox Broadcasting, 2016)

By the look on your face I can tell you’re confused. I can allay your confusion with the following sentences. I’m a huge fan of The Rocky Horror (Picture) Show.  I’ve seen the movie, participated in it at midnight screenings, and seen the stage version. I own a copy of the movie and its script, and I know the songs by heart. It’s one of my all-time favorite musicals.

That pretty much clears things up, no? Moving on then.

ATB’s Top 25 Comedies: (17) Blazing Saddles

The wonderful people behind one of the best sites on the Internet, At the Buzzer, recently invited me to partake in another grand listing event. This time round, it’s all about our favorite comedies! Yes, those movies that make you laugh, cry-laugh, cringe-laugh, and everything in between. Here I’m sharing number 17 on the list, the always amazing and utterly un-PC Blazing Saddles. And be sure to follow ATB where you’ll find other great lists, a great podcast, and great set of gaming videos, and plenty more!

Objection Network

This is At the Buzzer’s countdown of the best 25 comedies of all-time. Our panel of 10 cast their votes, and we’re revealing the results one by one until we get to No. 1 on Tuesday, May 10.

And now, our number 17:

17) Blazing Saddles (4 votes, 144 points)

I want rustlers, cut throats, murderers, bounty hunters, desperados, mugs, pugs, thugs, nitwits, halfwits, dimwits, vipers, snipers, con men, Indian agents, Mexican bandits, muggers, buggerers, bushwhackers, hornswogglers, horse thieves, bull dykes, train robbers, bank robbers, ass-kickers, shit-kickers and Methodists.

…Could you repeat that, sir?

Chris: One of the prevailing types of comedies — and one that has already been featured multiple times on this list, with more to come — is the parody. Some films get a lot of mileage out of taking a genre or motif and breaking it down to the point of ridiculousness. Sometimes the satire…

View original post 361 more words

Dashing off some words about Star Wars: The Force Awakens

Seeing as how I used to be something of a serious Star Wars fanatic, I figured I owed it to posterity to say at least something about Star Wars: The Force Awakens, which I finally saw this past weekend. As if the world didn’t know, it’s now out on Blu-Ray. I don’t have much of an excuse for not seeing it in the theatres, but it seemed like every time we planned to go, something else came up. And then, eventually it was like, eh, we’ll wait till it comes out on Blu-Ray. And here we are.

Since my thoughts remain incoherent and in snippet form, I’ll just be doing this bullet-point style. It’s early. I don’t know where my coffee is. And I have, like, a million non-Star Wars things to do today, so off we go!