Cloverfield (2008)

One-line review choices:

1) “You gotta be fcken kidding…”
2) Statue-of-Liberty-head-nado.
3) Oh no, there goes Tokyo.

Take your pick.

It’s less than 75 minutes long, unless you like eternal credit scrolls.

There’s a cr@ppy end voiceover bit that was probably included so the movie could bill itself as an hour and a half.

Upped a notch for vague Cthulhu-ness and SPECIAL FX!

Inspirational Quote: “We’ve gotta get out of here…it’s time to leave the electronics store!”

Grade: D-

Deep Puppy Thoughts (Part 211)

Subtitle: ‘Perspectives’

Aside bit: Perspectives…you know, that’s the name of the post…oh, yeah…that’s funny…

Meaningful bit: So I’ve realized this a few times at least, but I don’t think I’ve ever tried to capture it here…basically the awesome nature of subjectivity. Everyone goes through their lives – I think, at least – thinking what they think, believing what they believe, feeling what they feel…and everyone thinks that their own beliefs and opinions are “right”, everyone else just “doesn’t quite get it.”

But think about it…every person that has ever lived has had a perception that was at least the tiniest fraction different from every other person that has ever lived.

So don’t be so sure that your perspective is always “the right one.” Because everyone thinks that, and everyone is wrong.

Screen Rant Channel – Pitch Meeting Series

How could something like this – mockery of movies/actors/cliches via the same guy interviewing and interview-eed – get boring REALLY fast?

Super-easy actually, barely an inconvenience.

To make 47 entries that (mostly) don’t suck is sort of an achievement, though. But that’s done, and now it’s just sad.

Made-Up Inspirational Quote: “Overworking a tired premise is TIGHT!”

Tribute

“…The moment that he completed telling me the story, while my body convulsed in laughter and my eyes swelled with tears, I felt that I really knew all that there was to know about Al. Would you like to hear the story? *pause, applause* Well I’m not going to tell it. And this is why: just when I thought that I could see into Al’s heart, talent, and mind as though his soul were encased in glass, I was reminded the depth of truth holds more mystery and magic than any cover or deceit could feign.” – A friend’s quote on a class act.

Hannibal (2001)

If there are two evil scumbags and both get away, that’s a tragedy.

If there are two evil scumbags and one gets away, that’s a shame.

If there are two evil scumbags and neither gets away, that’s a triumph.

Sure, so it’s interesting. It’s quite disturbing, undeniably.

Julianne Moore is not Clarice Starling, and I don’t root for Evil in its purest, most disgusting form.

But d@mnit, I am bound by critical integrity. ‘A Simple Plan’, your sway still holds.

Inspirational Quote From Julianne Moore: “The new Clarice would be very different…”

Inspirational Quote From Diane Chambers: “It is to laugh…”

Upped a notch for lingering dread.

Grade: B-

Psycho (1998)

For those of you who may have just missed ‘Psycho’, here it is again.

The only worthwhile effect of this absolute carbon-copy remake is that if you look in a movie listing and see ‘Psycho’ …listed, you don’t have to worry about which version it is.

Favorite actor/actress: Spider near the end, which shows more life than the rest of the cast. Not sure if it was a cockerel or a pullet.

Grade: F

Deep Puppy Thoughts (Part 207)

Existence Vs. Non-Existence Of God?

That’s a Psych 101 Debate.

That’s someone who knows algebra sitting in a classroom of people learning addition and subtraction, and basking in their “superior” intellect.

That’s Khan mocking Kirk, taking the time to revel in how his “superior” intellect enabled him to escape Kirk’s initial victory – when in fact it was blind luck – and it was his “superior” arrogance that led to him losing to Kirk when any barely-adequate commander should have won with ease.

I mean, all you have to do in arguing against the existence of God is sit there and wait for positive evidence. You don’t have to produce ANY of your own; just sit there and pick apart the TINIEST flaw in any positive argument. Wow…brilliant.

Want to actually stretch your intellect, strive for new knowledge, for wisdom?

It’s called “philosophy”. Try it sometime.

Support Your Local Wikipedia

It can be a gateway to click after click of interesting subjects-related subjects. Take the following, for instance:

“You can see that man wants the impossible: He wants to lose his isolation and keep it at the same time. He can’t stand the sense of separateness, and yet he can’t allow the complete suffocation of his vitality. He wants to expand by merging with the powerful beyond that transcends him, yet he wants while merging with it to remain individual and aloof…”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terror_management_theory

Not Cowards OR Quite Unlike Wilkins And I

“A message was dispatched. You’ve broken the rule of silence.
Only in code, Commander. To inform our Praetor of this glorious mission.
Your carelessness might have *ended* this ‘glorious mission’. You’re reduced two steps in rank, return to post.
…
Take care, Commander. He has friends, and friends of his kind mean power. And power is danger.
*dismissively* Danger and I are old companions.
We’ve seen a hundred campaigns together, and still I do not understand you.
I think you do. No need to tell you what happens when we reach home with proof of the Earthmen’s weakness. And we will have proof. The Earth commander will follow, he must. And when he attacks, we will destroy him. Our gift to the homeland: another war.
If we are the stronger, is this not the signal for war?
Must it ALWAYS be so? How many comrades have we lost in this way?”

ST:TOS – ‘Balance Of Terror’

There They Go, Satisfied Customers By The Thousands! (Part Five)

See ‘There They Go, Satisfied Customers By The Thousands! (Part Three)’.

Also:

Latest mailing quote – “This is your final notice.”

Well thank God.

If you’re going to pester (some might say harass) me in some other way, I’d be glad to post all about it here.

“I can hold my breath a longgg time!”

Psycho (1960)

I don’t need blood and gore from a horror movie. But this is vastly over-rated.

Anthony Perkins is great as the Bates family, vastly-synonym pre-dating the Klumps. He acts well and does the best he can with his dialogue.

But the rest…they seem mostly cardboard, there’s little life to them at all. The dialogue-synonym-synonym seems contrived at times, random at other times, and only rarely does it produce a gem.

Everything from when she gets in the car to skip town until she meets Norman Bates is almost Wood-en…hardly the stuff of a classic.

The idea’s very creepy, of course. But it could have been done much better.

*shrug* It is what it is.

Inspirational Quote: “We all go a little mad sometimes.”

Grade: C-

Deep Puppy Thoughts (Part 206)

“How did you know?
How did you know, Mr. Poole?
It’s true, of course.
I was thinking of filling my briefcase with the bank’s money.
Yes.
It’s a little dream of mine.
Have you ever had a dream, Mr. Poole? I have.
I don’t always plan on Bermuda though.
Sometimes, it’s Siam, Fiji…
Beautiful, exotic places where there are no books to keep.
Where I’m not a little man with no future and no past.
Yes, Mr. Poole, yes.
But I’ll never go through with it.
You know why? I’ve lived with it too long.
I’m old and set in my ways.
And besides, Mr. Poole, I guess I’m a coward.

“Don’t laugh at me!”
“I’m not laughing, Mr. Fortune. You’re not funny anymore.”

Thank you, good character-actor guy.