I'm going to throw this out there because I just saw it the other evening, but Demolition Man is a scifi movie from 15 years ago full of facepalming goodness.
Re: Children Of Men
While the schtick wasn't particularly innovative, I came into the film not knowing a darn thing about it. My friend was with me at the ticket booth and said, "Let's go see that!" So I shrugged, paid my dollar, and went in.
The thing is, Children of Men is a really good film, and plot is only one part of what makes it good. It's the first movie in a long time that left me shaken after seeing it, and glad I had -- and a lot of that was because of subtle things that only the film medium could have accomplished.
Re: the Matrix
So, I'm going to put out a tangential and probably wildly unpopular opinion and mention that I enjoyed the second movie an awful lot, more than the others -- though not because of anything the characters said. Visually, however, it featured a lot of pretty, consequence-less, stylistic violence in interesting locations (and I come at this with a background in dance, martial arts, and watching far too many kung fu movies).
Of course, the same could be said for 300, and that movie did more to offend me than anything else.
I love how the last lampoons both artsy comics and inelegant genre comics on the same page. Excellent find.
The Second Foundation and the X-Men—and, for that matter, the Scooby Gang and the Laundry—are all, to some extent, basically the Ku Klux Klan, except that the extrajudicial violence they carry out is (we’re assured) merited and just.
That is a really interesting thought, and I have to wonder just how much genre fiction doesn't at least have some hint of extrajudicial violence. After all, genre fiction grew up as boy's fiction, and boy's just adore violence.
So, is there genre fiction about people we know are dumber than us refusing to be violent? Or relying on the justice system? Marxist genre fiction?
All of this only stands to convince me that, in heydey of magical electronic music, some things shouldn't have been done. And they were done first.
Teresa: "Vindaloo?" I thought I'd heard of every horror on the internet. You must enlighten me.
Roy. G: My sincerest apologies there. I hope I can show my earnest repentance by showing that equally amazing video to all the other dancers I know. There is one with a special penchant for hip-thrusting in the Hustle. I think he'll find this video especially eye-opening.
Xeger: The Amen break. I think there was a bit on that on Soul Sides, also... But I might just be making that up.
What's really fascinating to me is how much of a history the song has, and how much it is still being used today. I mean, this version makes the Sugarhill Gang sound like smooth pop.
Soul-Sides has a comprehensive history of it, complete with .mp3 samples (and Soul-Sides, incidentally, is one of the best blogs for music out there).
What's also amazing is that the handlebar mustache guy is from the Netherlands (no surprise there, what with permissive drug culture and everything) and won the Eurovision song contest multiple times. Mind you, this is the same contest where Celine Dion and Abba got their start, and often features heartbreaking Groban-like boys with their guitars singing in Finnish or Greek or what-have-you.
Except this year a monster-metal foam-rubber-wearing band from Finland won, with more pyrotechnics than all the other groups combined. And they beat out a German Country band named Texas Lightning, too. Naturally, since their actual music video features zombie cheerleaders. What more could you ask for?
Seriously. Eurovision has some amazing material sometimes. The real world is so much stranger than fiction.
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