This is the third or fourth Hair Balls entry I've had posted on Fark, and I'm actually amused that their commenters now rank above those on YouTube, IMDb, or the Chron in terms of reading comprehension and grammatical ability.
That isn't saying much, of course, and there's still plenty of deliberate or otherwise obtuseness on display. My favorite for this was the person who assumed I was excluding myself from the "doofus with a keyboard and a lingering affection for Aliens" category, which was supposed to make it apparent that my box office predictions for Avatar are about as scientifically reasoned out as 90% of the other internet dipshits out there.
Which is to say, not at all.
Look, I don't want Cameron to fail. The guy may be an egomaniac and an asshole (unlike every other director in Hollywood, apparently), but the man responsible for The Terminator and Aliens gets a lot of slack from me. And while Titanic wasn't my cup of tea, it did what it was supposed to do: transport the audience to that particular White Star liner for three hours. And make a metric fuckton of money.
But I stand by my assertion that - while visually arresting - Avatar just doesn't look all that interesting to me. I have nothing more than a gut feeling telling me it will open decently, and have some legs early on because of people's desire to see it in IMAX. It will probably perform well, but "well" versus almost $2 billion for your previous movie, when this one cost maybe twice as much to make, isn't what Fox is hoping for. And whatever the spin when the smoke clears, not topping Titanic is going to be viewed as a disappointment.
And if it tanks - which I really don't see happening - well, that's going to make December a lot more fun than I was anticipating.
I freely admit I forgot about Nick Cave. And Geoff Tate, in case the title threw anybody off.
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New Moon hits theaters this week, and even though the trailers alone have us ready to put it on our "Worst of 2009" lists ("Jake! NOOOO!"), there's no denying the movie is going to make more money than an underaged prostitute at a Promise Keeper convention. Midnight screenings are already sold out, and the legions of teens that flocked to the first movie are now being joined by their mothers in an uncomfortably display of multi-generational lust we haven't seen since, well, that Chris Brown concert.
Part of the reason for our inability to comprehend the franchise's popularity are the horribly non-vampiric vampires on display. They don't drink human blood, they maximize their immortality by going to high school for a hundred years, and they fucking sparkle in sunlight. We've read Sweet Valley High books with more menace. And while almost anybody would be more convincing as a nosferatu than Robert Pattinson and his pouty brethren, here are musicians we feel would definitely fit the bill.
Andrew Eldritch -- Sisters of Mercy
Pros: Rarely appears in daylight, has a cool name.
Cons: Do vampires were aviators? Besides Blacula, we mean.
The Verdict: Even with no shirt on under his jacket and swinging that goddamn mike stand around, he's still ten times as butch as Pattinson.
And Patricia Morrison is fifty times the woman Kristen Stewart is.
Prince
Pros: Skinny, ageless, pansexual
Cons: We're pretty sure no self-respecting vampire would write "Cloreen Baconskin."
The Verdict: Iffy, but he'd give Dracula himself a run for his money in the "brides of" category.
Peter Murphy -- Bauhaus
Pros: Gaunt, drives the "Bauhearse," emerges from coffins on stage. Then there's the matter of that song he sings about that guy who played that famous monster..."Boris Karloff's Deceased," or something.
Cons: We don't care if you are the Godfather of Goth (or, given his conversion to Islam, the Ayatollah of Angst), there's nothing very menacing about that combover.
The Verdict: Grandfathered in, but we're going to need another Bauhaus reunion tour to seal the deal.
Jack White -- The Raconteurs
Pros: Is a dead ringer for Lon Chaney, Sr. in London After Midnight, and he's not even wearing (much) makeup.
Cons: Would drain musical collaborators of blood after duets, meaning no more Loretta Lynn records.
Pros Revisited: Would also mean no more James Bond songs with Alicia Keys.
The Verdict: If White's really one of the children of the night, and they're eternally at war with lycanthropes, does that mean Jason Stollsteimer of the Von Bondies is a werewolf?
Cristina Scabbia -- Lacuna Coil
Pros: Vampire queens are supposed to be hot and look upon mortals as mewling worms, and she certainly qualifies.
Cons: "Scabbia" seems like more of a zombie queen name.
The Verdict: It might be helpful to have an actual Mediterranean person on hand for those Volturi scenes. And we're kind of surprised they haven't put any Lacuna Coil on the already angsty soundtrack.
Among those who didn't make the cut: Marilyn Manson (too obvious). Glenn Danzig (too short), Blackie Lawless (too Christian).
In which I repeat myself...
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I've been watching V: The Series, more out of notsalgic fondness for the original than any hope the remake would be worth a damn (and I prefer a long-haired Morena Baccarin anyway). Despite solid efforts by Elizabeth Mitchell (Agent Evans) and Alan Tudyk (whose recent string of bad guy roles threatens to tarnish my fond memories of Steve the Pirate and Wash), the feeling I've come away with after two episodes is a resounding "meh." I'm sticking with it because I simply have to see how they're going to update the immortal guinea pig scene, and also because I want to know how far they're going to take this "liberal socialist aliens offering universal healthcare" plotline they've got going on.
I for one welcome our lizard overlords...but only if they lower my premiums.
So far the show appears to be on the right track. And by "on the right track" I mean "portraying extraterrestrials as remorseless villains out to enslave humanity." The creators of the original series understood the danger presented by movies like E.T. and TV shows like Star Trek, which depicted aliens we could befriend and explore the universe together in peace.
Fuck that. Our own history of colonialism, genocide, and slavery should make it patently obvious that any so-called "visitors" from beyond the solar system aren't going to be cute, meatloaf-headed muppets with glowing index fingers, but rather slavering, many-tentacled monstrosities from the Sodomy Nebula. You can laugh, but remember that the Pioneer (10 and 11) and Voyager (1 and 2) spacecraft are about to exit our solar system, and all four contain helpful schematics of the human body as well as a goddamned map of how to get to our planet. Thanks a pantload, NASA.
Admittedly, there's a great deal that isn't that good about the show. Tyler is annoying, the anti-Visitor resistance cell's behavior is pretty idiotic, and while I'm firmly in support of the message, I imagine nobody's all that excited about yet another alien invasion story.
Unless...
Normally I'm reluctant to give network television executives the benefit of the doubt, especially when it comes to things like originality and intelligence. Well-written, thoughtful shows are exceptions in the world of According to Jim and Everybody Loves Raymond, so my biggest personal fear about V would actually end up being the most interesting thing they could do with the show. Namely, to actually make the Visitors benevolent ambassadors of peace.
Nothing we've seen, aside from leader Anna's insistence on a favorable media coverage, can be taken as definitive proof of ill intentions. The resistance faction that Ryan (Morris Chestnut) joins may very well be terrorists, while Lisa -- the Visitor young Tyler has the hots for -- might honestly have been put off by his violent display. Maybe the final lesson, after we've fought the kindly lizards to a stalemate with nukes and biological weapons, will be that humanity needs to reconsider its warlike nature. They may be reptiles, but does that mean they can't share their technology and make our world a better place?
Nah, probably not. Like I said, this is the same network that gives us Wife Swap and Grey's Anatomy. The likelihood that everything is leading to some huge cliffhanger twist where the Visitors are really Trek style space hippies just doesn't compute, and the galactic xenophobe in me is supremely grateful for that.
UPDATE: The November 17th episode continued the ambiguity. Anna talks about "controlling popular perceptions," which simply means spin control is a universal concept.
Saw this commercial while watching Top Chef tonight:
"Parisienne: like getting raped by a florist."