"The Cattle Corner Project"

What with everything going on with selling a house and tending a six month old, you'd think I'd know better than to resurrect a project I was working on while Mrs. Mosley was still pregnant. Yet I'm going to give it a shot anyway. The screenshots are important parts of the project, and if you don't recognize them, shame on you.

Career Path

The films of M. Night Shyamalan:

A great movie with a great twist ending.

A good movie with a good twist ending.

A passable movie with a twist ending.

A movie with a twist ending.

A bad movie with a bad twist ending.

A horrible movie with an insulting twist ending.

Ah, screw it. Let's just make a CGI martial arts blockbuster based on a kids TV show.

Shia-free

For my good friend KKC:



This is more like it: The robots have recognizable faces, colors and bodies. The action in that two minutes was ten times more fun and understandable than both of the films. You listening to me, Michael Bay?

A little close to home

Oh, boy. I can see myself getting into a lot of trouble because of this:

It’s official. Representatives from Merlin Entertainments confirmed this morning that their company will construct their second U.S. Legoland Park on the historic Cypress Gardens property. (The park will be the largest Legoland so far.)

Sadly, Pigs in Space: The Movie has yet to be greenlit.

It's been busy lately what with baby and a house to be sold and work and sickness and whatnot. So here's a quick observation from work: I came across all three of these DVD's in the course of last week:



So we have chimps in space, dogs in space and flies in space (and all three came out within the past two years). Personally, I think the filmmakers should all be sentenced to read Laika cover to cover as punishment.

The A-Team

So here we go again.

Blah blah. Movie based on retro TV show. Blah blah. Hollywood out of ideas. Blah blah. Setting up a franchise. Blah Blah Blah.

This time out, I really couldn't give a damn. I never watched the original series and so I don't have a dog in this fight. When I finally checked out a couple of episodes on DVD last year, I found it typical of the kind of goofy TV action show that the seventies and eighties really knew how to churn out (With the hills of California standing in for every location they could manage... Including southern Florida!).

I will say that the cast looks good, particularly Liam Neeson filling George Peppard's shoes. The recent death of his wife not withstanding, it would seem that old Liam is having a grand old time in his career playing Jedis, Spies and Batman villains (not to mention supreme beings of both Greek and Christian traditions).

The trailer is really over the top and gun heavy, which is not surprising but a bit sad when you consider the lack of bloodshed on the original show. Of course, Drew Barrymore kept the "No Guns" rule for her "Charlie's Angels" movies and that didn't keep them from being ridiculously over the top themselves.

And I suppose the movie is entitled to lapses of logic if it wants. In that same episode that featured a very mountainous South Florida, a couple of members of the the A-Team got out of a prison by inflating some garbage bags with hairdryers and floating out. Hell, even Macgyver never got that silly.

Blockbuster adieu

The local Blockbusters that were closing have finally given up the ghost. Today was the last day of operation and EVERYTHING HAD TO GO! As I said previously, the DVD's didn't start off as very good buys. At the end, they were selling for a buck a piece, which was much more my taste.

Obviously, the choices had dwindled down quite a bit (though if anyone wanted to re-shingle their roof with used copies of Righteous Kill, my local Blockbuster could have easily hooked you up). Here's what I did end up picking up:

Alien Uprising - Ah, if you can't afford to buy a bad cheesy sci-fi movie for ninety-nine cents, what can you?

The Host - More cheesy sci-fi, except this is actually very good. I had already seen this Korean import last year, but it was definitely worth a buck.

There Will Be Blood - No explanation needed here. It made a lot of top ten lists for the decade and for good reason.

Bottle Shock - A cute little comedy that shows Professor Snape going orgasmic for a bowl of guacamole. What else could you want?

Finally, in the non-DVD category, I picked up "Car Talk: Maternal Combustion" on CD. I checked this out from the library several years ago and it was hilarious. All in all, the quartet of DVD's and the CD cost me just over five bucks. Not bad at all. And at the risk of sounding cruel, if Blockbuster wants to close any more stores, I'll be there.

Where's Mike Ovitz when you need him?

Two things to note on the whole Jay Leno/Conan O'Brien brouhaha:

First off, the joke Jay Leno told in his monologue last night ("What does NBC stand for? Never Believe your Contract.") isn't a new one. In the HBO movie The Late Shift about the Leno/Letterman conflict in the early Nineties, The guy playing Leno makes the same joke at a news conference. Whether that joke was actually made by Leno in real life or the scriptwriters made it up, it's ironic for Jay to use it now.

Second, you just know somewhere David Letterman is laughing his ass off. Not at the misfortune of Jay, mind you, but at the incredible incompetence of the NBC management. One of the nice moments in The Late Shift is the one scene where the two stars actually meet. They are friendly to each other, if not actually friends. The message is that these are just two comedians doing their job who have professional respect for one another.

And now Dave is safe at CBS away from this whole NBC debacle. Granted, he has his own worries what with his recent sex scandal, but at least in that case was the one doing the screwing and not the one being screwed.

"Thou know’st. The Knave abideth."

I am totally and utterly speechless (via Metafilter). So much work must have been put into this, but the time and effort really shows. A sample (which mirrors this quote):

WALTER

My lord, I do deny it is her toe.

THE KNAVE

Whose toe be it, if not my lady’s toe?

WALTER

Vexatious problem that, but not of heft.

There’s naught to indicate the lady’s harm’d.

THE KNAVE

The fresh green paint of fair Miss Bonnie’s nail!

WALTER

Marry, sir, nail-painting, rugs and urine.

A man may paint the white toe green, tell her,

Paint an inch thick, to this favour she must come.

THE KNAVE

And where might a man fetch a toe?

WALTER

O toe!

Thou wouldst have a toe? A toe can be obtain’d.

Ways are known, Knave. Thou wilt not like to hear.

I’ll have a toe for thee this afternoon

Ere singeth cockerel at three o’clock.

"I'm never, ever sick at sea."

For my money, there are few three minute movie scenes I have seen in the past couple years that beat this one. Hoffman is beyond awesome, and he should be hired for additional Sorkin projects.

If these two had a drummer and sang different jingles on each commercial...

I came across this book on the library shelf today:


I haven't read it, but I'm going to guess one of the tips isn't "Don't pointlessly pay for something you can get free anyway just because some famous schmuck tells you to."

Cheap shot of the day (courtesy of Don Imus)!

So Brit Hume tries to "save" Tiger Woods by explaining to him that forgiveness and redemption lie only in Christianity, not in Tiger's Buddhism. Don Imus, of all, people does a little fact checking:

IMUS: "Well, we checked this morning and unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately if you are a Buddhist, there is a path to recovery and redemption. Right? Well yes there is. The idea of redemption — nirvana under Buddhism — is achieving the state of being freed from greed, hate, and delusion."

Hmmm. "The state of being freed from greed, hate and delusion". Well, that pretty much excludes all of FOX News right there.

Samuel L. Jackson Quote of the Month: January 2010

One of my goals in doing this "Quote of the Month" series was to, in the process of researching quotes, get myself exposed to new films. Well, with the arrival of little C.C., I'm finding myself with less time to do so. In light of this, I've decided to choose an actor for 2010 that will make my job easier.

Well, I suppose it's hardly a surprise when the guy's name is in the post title.

But even though I'm choosing someone who has entire websites dedicated to his quotes (I haven't checked, but I'm sure there are some), I'm going to attempt to choose some less obvious films and quotes. In other words, don't expect anything that combines snakes and planes.

So, in that vein, let's start with one of his early films that some people are surprised to hear that he was even in: Jurassic Park. Yes, indeed. It was Samuel L. Jackson and Wayne "Newman" Knight who played Ray and Dennis, who worked behind the scenes at the park. And you can bet that Knight (who rarely plays anything but "Newman") is irritating enough to raise that superb Jackson ire:

Ray Arnold: [trying to bring the system back on-line] "Access main program. Access main security. Access main program grid."

Dennis Nedry: [on computer] "Uh uh uh! You didn't say the magic word! Uh uh uh!"

Ray Arnold: "Please! God damn it! I hate this hacker crap!"