Classic Dishes...



May The Fourth Be With You

According to some quick Google work, the Earth’s orbit is pretty much a circle, and the diameter of said orbit fluctuates somewhere between 294 and 304 million kilometers.

So, split the difference and call it 299 million kilometers, or 185.79 million miles. Multiply that by pi and you get 583.68 million miles. Which means, on this day, effective at I-think-it-was 3:41AM (obviously, Mom wasn’t aimed towards a clock at point of entry, and I was too busy getting smacked on the ass to check my watch anyhow), I have completed roughly 20.4288 billion miles of travel on this planet.

(And when YOU need to complete many miles of travel, why not do so on United Airlines? Page…two!)

And to celebrate this banner day (and feed my incredible hubris), George Lucas has decided to remove his head from his ass and allow the DVD release of the original, unadulterated Star Wars trilogy. Two-disc sets, actually: one disc with the remastered and bastardized version that was re-released in 2004, and one with the original in all of its grainy goodness.

And this works well for me, mainly because while the rest of the world is complaining that they’re gonna have to buy the trilogy Yet Again to get these, I didn’t buy them in the first place; I turned up my nose and said “Call me when the REAL movies are out.” And apparently it’s gonna pay off. So, nice.

Everyone’s trumpeting how Han Solo will finally shoot first again, but that’s really a misnomer, since in the original, Greedo never shot in the first place. Yep, finally an entirely new generation will get to see Han as he really was: a cold-blooded killer. Sam Jackson has nothing on my boy; I don’t care HOW many lightsabers he has that say Bad Mother Fucker on them.

Don’t Panic. Really.

I have a new favorite movie theater in the Seattle area. Cinerama is about to get their asses handed to them.

I went to see The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy at the Loews at Alderwood today. Wow. The place has ample free parking, including a covered garage, and the place is MASSIVE. I estimated the posters on the outside of the building at thirty feet high. The entrance to the building is on the second story, and the atrium when you walk in rivals any arena I’ve ever been to. Just spectacular.

All manner of gastronomic delights were available (including pizza, and dedicated ice cream and coffee stands), and the condiment stands let you apply your own Real Butter Flavored Imitation Motor Oil (and I’m prolly gonna get my Gourmand Card revoked for this, but when I’m at a movie, load that oil on early and often.), and the theater was easily as big as Cineramas, with the raiseable armrests and rocking chairs and stadium seating and all kinds of legroom. Just awesome. THIS is the way to watch a movie. (And did I mention, free parking?)

And the movie? I really liked it. The standard argument from the people who have panned it is “it’s not like the book”. Yes. It’s not. And you know what? I am perfectly fine with that. I’ve already read the book. I have no problem seeing the story told a different way, and with lots of eye candy. There were lots of book references and in-jokes, and they made me happy, and I thought the story was perfectly fine.

And let’s hope they get the folks at Shynola to do the menus and lots of lots of supplementary information for the DVD. Would you buy the DVD if it had a second disc that was basically a functioning Guide? Damn, I would.

Much Respect

The world got a little less funny yesterday, did you notice?

Rodney Dangerfield passed away yesterday afternoon in Los Angeles at the age of 82.

Bob Hope? Milton Berle? Henny Youngman? Screw them. Couldn’t care less. Don’t miss ’em a bit. Never thought they were that funny to start with. But this is Rodney, man. This is Al-Freakin’-Czervik we’re talking about.

Of COURSE I have to sit down and watch Caddyshack again. His seminal performance, for my money. I have his “No Respect” album on tape. I should listen to that, too.

I’m a frustrated comic, and I know I’ll never acheive the greatness that Rodney did in his life. But, never mind making it to 82 years old, if I die, and someone says that something I did was “Rodney Dangerfield-funny”, I will have accomplished something significant.

See ya, Rodney. All I can give is my utmost respect.

  • “I don’t get no respect. A girl called me and said “Come over. There’s nobody home.” I went over. There was nobody home…”

Chez Fred, Silver Screen Edition, Vol. 2

So I’m up late on a Saturday night doin’ laundry and I have some time to kill. So let’s talk about some more movies:

Saw Spiderman 2, and it was every bit as good as had been reported. I was a little disappointed to get home and find this list of factual, logical, and continuity errors in the movie, especially because a lot of them are, unfortunately, dead right. But I still enjoyed myself and agree that it’s one of the better superhero movies out there, period. It may remain as such, as I don’t have very high hopes for Spiderman 3…I’d tell you why, but it would ruin the ending. Just go see it, don’t try to read too much into it, enjoy the effects and Alfred Molina’s performance, and have fun.

Also finally saw Pulp Fiction for the first time start to finish the other night on IFC, so it was still uncut and all the motherfuckers and various other obscenities were still in there. And I think we’ve finally found a Quentin Tarantino movie I actually like. I didn’t care much for Resevoir Dogs despite the existence of Steve Buscemi…maybe he has to be Rockhound (from Armageddon) to amuse me. I rather vehemently dislike Mr. Tarantino himself, felt that way ever since he had the bad taste to show up on Jay Leno shitfaced beyond recognition one night…that’s a part of Americana reserved for Shelly Winters and her alone. But my favorite scene in Fiction was his scene, where the guys marvel at the work of the esteemed Mr. Wolf.

Still need to see I, Robot…I have much of next week off, so I’ll probably try to get out to see it one of those weekdays, when the theatre is bare.

We’re a week and a half into Big Brother 5, so I’ve seen enough to have a good feel for the cast…when I next post I shall break down the gang and give you an idea how I think it’s gonna shake out…

Odds And Ends

We haven’t been here in a while, so lets clear out the junk drawer, shall we?

First, big props to the men back home:

ArenaBowl XVIII
San Jose Sabercats 69
Arizona Rattlers 62
Sabercats win second ArenaBowl

Best. Arena. Football. Game. Ever. I’ll leave it at that, because those of you who haven’t seen Arena Football live just wouldn’t understand. Seattle needs an AFL team something awful – but once again, it’ll never happen because the Key eats wang when configured for hockey, and that’s what you have to do to be able to fit the AFL field. (Configure for hockey, not eat wang, you perverts.) Special thanks to Barry Ackerley for that one, you polesmoker.

Okay, onward. The summer movie season seems to be in FULL effect, so I thought I’d comment on a few I’ve seen, and what I want to see:

Watched Dodgeball yesterday. About what I expected: group of loveable losers makes good with the help of a cute chick, but with enough of a sense of humor about itself to be worth the time invested. Rip Torn is always funny (hell, just saying his name is pretty damned funny), and the cameos in the last half hour, and the wrapup in the last 10 minutes (which would OTHERWISE be totally formulaic crap, unless you read what was printed on the treasure chest, which makes it all totally okay) is actually worth the fairly insipid buildup. (But not $8. See a matinee or rent the DVD.)

Today’s feature was the controversial Fahrenheit 9/11. Usually I can leave Michael Moore to his business, but I’ve heard enough conflicting opinions about this flick that I figured I should see it myself and make up my own mind. And my mind’s made up: I was right the first time. Not a thing here I didn’t already know: Moore spends the first half of the movie using preroll footage of Gee Dub to make him look like a ninny. Here’s a tip from someone who knows a little something about television: when you have footage of someone who doesn’t know the camera’s on him getting ready to go on camera, you can pretty much make ANYONE look like a ninny. If they had TV back then, I could get you B-roll of FDR that would make him look about as Presidential as Carrot Top. Of course, it helps that Gee Dub IS IN FACT a ninny, but, again, Moore could have done something other than take the easy road out and I would have respected him a little more.

He then goes on to show us that the war in Iraq was started for pretty much no good reason. Well, duh. Finally, he wraps up with a Michael Moore trademark: he follows politicians around with a microphone asking questions that no politician in his right mind would answer, and thinks this proves a point other than that politicians know better than to spend time on camera talking to Michael Moore, because he would twist a lunch recommendation around to make them look bad.

So, I left the movie with about the same feelings I had going into it: the President is an idiot, the war is stupid, and Michael Moore has become a lazy filmmaker. The only reason I can think they they would award this the Palme D’or is that it’s a French film festival and the movie makes Bush look stupid. Of COURSE they love it.

Upcoming: Spiderman 2 is a no-brainer. I thought the first one was pretty good, but the Green Goblin just isn’t strong enough in terms of personality to make a compelling filmatic bad guy out of. Alfred Molina as Doc Ock, on the other hand….GENIUS casting. Nicholsonesque, if I may say so.

Finally, and I know it’s not gonna have a thing to do with the actual story, but I wanna see I, Robot. But I’m gonna go into it expecting not a good sci-fi story, but tons of special effects, lots of cool future-lookin’ sets, and His Royal Freshness blowing shit up. So I should be okay.

And now I get to go downstairs and be trained on the proper procedure for issuing a new CD key. I don’t issue CD keys myself, since I don’t deal with customers directly anymore, but I figure it can’t hurt to brush up on procedure, so I don’t write something that throws the techs under the proverbial bus. So, until next time…