Random Thoughts

So my dad read my post about how on Andy Griffith one day Opie made me bawl like a schoolgirl, and how I quickly blamed it on the fact that I’d just quit a medication I’d been on cold turkey and was going through withdrawal.

—-We need another phrase to describe how you quit something.  To say you’re quitting something ‘cold turkey’ makes no sense.  How is it that the best way we’ve come up with to describe quitting stopping something or other immediately, instantly, without looking back, is to say ‘cold turkey’?  Can’t we as Americans do any better than this? 

What’s the explanation?  At one time, when people would quit smoking, would they start eating cold turkey instead?  Why?  What good did that do?  Who has lots of cold turkey sitting around ready to be eaten anyway?  Do people usually quit smoking right after Thanksgiving? 

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1.  Santa’s just not Santa unless he’s four feet tall.  And the huge gap between his yellow front teeth adds some real authenticity.  We all remember fondly the gap-toothed Santa Coke ads from the 30s.

2.  Cute little 8-year-old Susan, delivers the new line: “Santa is the end of the parade anyways.  There’s nothing else to see except guys cleaning up horse poop.  And that doesn’t thrill me at all.”

Adorable.  This sets the tone for the entire movie.

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Okay.  I was five when this movie came out.  I remember hearing about it later, when I was considerably older than five, and it was still THE horror movie, the most talked-about horror movie ever, the one notorious for having an X rating—-and NOT for sex. 

NOT for sex?  They give movies X ratings for things other than sex?  Really?  How many times have they done that?  Oh, just this once?  Ever?  Okay.

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Welcome to my first James Bond movie review.  If you can get through all this, you’re clearly a fan.  Each section has a nice long description, as well as points awarded for good things and points taken away for bad things.  To give you an idea of scale, a score of 100 would be outstanding, 50 would be disappointing, and 20 would be Die Another Day.       

THE OPENING

Opening Action Sequence
There ain’t one.  But we’ll forgive them, it’s the first Bond movie ever after all. 
+0

Gun Barrel Sequence
Well, it’s the typical white spotlights, then one of them turns out to be the gun barrel—-

And here I must confess.  For years and years, when I watched the opening of a James Bond movie, I thought I was looking through the shutter of a camera lens.  I knew nothing of gun barrels or rifling or lands and grooves; what did I know, I was 12.  None of my BB gun barrels looked like that. 

So I thought Bond just really hated having his picture taken or something.  Anyway.

—-but even though the spotlights are familiar, the whole thing’s still a little jarring cz of the weird space music accompanying it.  

Then a black-and-white James Bond, who’s clearly not Sean Connery, comes stalking onscreen from the right, wearing a square Establishment 50’s-dad hat and moving very straight and deliberately.  Suddenly, just when you expect him to whirl and shoot you, he hesitates. 

Then an odd thing happens.  ”James Bond” does a sudden, very gay, two-foot little vertical twisting hop to his right!  His gun arm sweeps around in a huge ridiculous arc.  THEN he fires his gun at you, but you’re so distracted by the odd hop that you don’t even realize it.  It’s as if someone’s thrown some Snap-n-Pops at James Bond’s feet and it startled him.

Also he was very high and to the right, having shot before he was finished aiming. 
-10 Read more »

Movie Review
Mamma Mia!

Ladies and gentlemen….

 Mr. James Bond.

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Do you think Tom Cruise sat around thinking,

“Everyone in the world hates me.  They think I’m arrogant, they think I’m a religious nut, they think my whole marriage is just for show, and they just think I’m freaky pyscho insane in general.   I mean, thank God for George Bush and Lindsay Lohan and Britney Spears…if it weren’t for them, every entertainment show on TV would just be thirty minutes about me.

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Tonight I took my daughter to see Quantum of Solace. 

She is eleven days old.  The doctor told us specifically when I asked that this wouldn’t be a good idea till she was a month old or so, but we were sure she was kidding.  We paid cash, just in case, so we couldn’t be traced.

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I hate decisions.

I just saw the new Get Smart movie starring Steve Carell and Anne Hathaway! 

It was fantastic!  It’s sure to sweep every major category at the Academy Awards this year!

…

…Would you believe that it might get a nomination for a People’s Choice award?  For lighting?

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Tonight, tonight, tonight, it’s comin’ tonight, hot dang tonight!

Please don’t suck
Please don’t suck
Please don’t suck
Please don’t suck
Please don’t suck