Stakes, rare...

A dozen years ago today, I started a post where i was going to (i think) review the holiday show we'd been to see a few days prior.

I have these past few years been working on a reclamation project for Roman Numeral J - finishing the "draft" posts that were never released to the public (quite a tragedy, i know).  Generally, i've tried to recapture what i remember as the original intent of the post.  (On occasion, these have been "important" RNJ contributions, really furthering the thinking and mission of this blog.  Other times, including the John Waters one).

As i watch the 4th quarter of the 200th matchup of the Bears & Packers (Anthony Miller just scored to bring them within one score), i wonder for a moment what it's all about...  Why write this?  Why post it publicly?

My answers are manifold.  I do still primarily consider myself a writer.  And a thinker.  Success in this capacity is nebulous for me.  Or any capacity, really.  I write because i enjoy it.  I write because i value the ability to look back at how my thinking has changed over time.  I write to commit myself to the thoughts i thought at a certain time.  (Our era is one of self revisionist thinking - where we can pretend we always knew the things we now know.  The era of truthiness is all around us). 

Happy Christmas to all of y'all.

i get it now!

I have been re-watching the Star Wars saga chronologically in preparation for Episode IX.  I've reached, at long last, The Last Jedi (Die Letzten Jedi, as i like to refer to it, to show that it's plural!) and have been watching all of the Forces of Destiny shorts in order as well as a few of the other ephemera.

So far, i have read several of the comics and working my way through a few novels that are now considered "canon".  Of course, i have throughout my days read some of the Star Wars universe literature (Timothy Zahn's trilogy, Tales from the Mos Eisley Cantina, and Splinter of the Mind's Eye), now all disavowed.  But now i plan to make a slow crawl through this new canon.

Source: funko.com

I promise not to drag it out here and bore you all with an epic play-by-play (as i have been guilty of for some other sci fi universes...), but the pop-cultural mass-production machine has put a mythology together which is vast and rich.  They will spend the next decade exploring it in upcoming tv shows and a new trilogy and more Star Wars Stories (i expect)...

With this third trilogy about to finish its arc (as well as put a closing argument on the entire nonology), I think it's worth noticing both how each trilogy was a set of its time, but the themes of the entire story are timeless and timely.

Much attention has been paid to Kylo Ren's line about "killing your past to become who you were meant to be".  I think this has been read largely as a millennial claim of the future (from the hands of the likes of, say, Boomers like Kylo's annoying dad and his former teacher).  While this trilogy does serve to pass the torch to a new generation, it's also a reminder to us all to leave behind the vestiges of the prior generations that would hold us back in our whole new world.

Kylo's request of Rey (implicitly at this moment and explicitly later) to join him and join the existing corporate power structure {aka "The Dark Side"} and help him overtake it) is one of multiple poles in the power nexus in this galaxy far far away (and so too ours as well).  We will call this particular position the Zuckerberg Lane, a young upstart acquiring a vast amount of power while the primary great powers of government (The Empire & The Rebellion) are focused on consolidating their own power against each other.  

Another "power pole" (i don't love this term...) that explicitly states its case in The Last Jedi is when force ghost Yoda says to Luke that "we are what they grow beyond.  That is the true burden of all masters."  This is an acknowledgement of the idea that our next generation not only will be our betters, but must be.  It's a radical acknowledgement - and one that used to be inherent, unspoken.  When we look back, we (the "now people") look better, smarter, more intellectually sophisticated compared to our ancestors.  This doesn't mean we don't honor them and appreciate them, it's just a different stance from blind fealty.

It's easy to think of the Jedi (current and former) as a bloc of good - all light side, all the time - but I think they more closely resemble something like, say, "Democrats".  Sure, they mostly do good things most of the time and are generally on the right side of history, but in order for them to truly have power we also have to accept the Joe Manchins and John Bel Edwards who may think some things we don't want them to sometimes, but also mostly agree that governments (Galactic Senates or domestic ones) can do some good.  As a bloc, they have also accepted some evils (whether those be Southern Segregationists or an Imperial Clone Army), but those are products of historic naiveté, and must be accepted within its historical context in order to build the movement, n'est-ce pas?

Yoda's line about passing history on to your progenitors is fundamental to a progressive perspective of history.  Each generation must both believe itself to be the best, most enlightened, best suited to move history forward, and also willing to let the next generation be better than they were once their time has passed.  

This is the era we now inhabit, where our "resistance establishment' (pro-Biden Democrats - also perhaps Deval Patrick's constituency) is struggling to make arguments against The First Order (the Tea Party ==> the Trump Party), but hand wringing and hemming and hawing at the radical approach Democrats who want to let the system crumble and build it up new (here Yoda and Luke are played by, I guess Bernie and Warren?? - I think this all ultimately will come to mean that Rey is AOC & Stacy Abrams wrapped in to one, and we will pass the keys on to them soon enough...).

This closing trilogy of the Skywalker Epic is unfolding in tumultuous political times not just here in the US, but globally.  Trumpian politics are dripping even in the first installment in 2015 with the First Order taking out a vast portion of the inner planetary systems and the existing establishment politics.  "Draining the Swamp" as it were.  

The Prequels began in a pre-9-11 moment, and the world they introduce us to in the first installment, it's a dreamy vision of the always better erstwhile.  The Phantom Menace's Coruscant (and even moreso Naboo) are an idyllic past to the familiar worlds we knew from the original trilogy.  While there is a nod to Clinton-Era political squabbles and self-dealing, the world is an "OK, Boomer" dream status that will never be revived. 

It's the middle trilogy, the original set, that comes from an era of our world when they didn't know yet what they were really all about.  It's a big part of why the themes of the movies are so general and mythological.  The trilogy knows it's about struggle, but what that struggle is wasn't clear until much later.  1977 - 1985 was just at the start of the Era of Inequity that we live in now.

This is the struggle of our era - it's the fight of our lives.  We will see what the Rise of Skywalker has to say about it in a month's time.  And then, let's see what we do next in 2020 in our own response.

*      *       *

17 December 2019

Watching Star Wars: Behind Closed Doors from REELZ (is that a thing?), and the clarity of misunderstanding of the prequels is made clear.  A lot of the critique of the prequels is couched in storytelling - i.e. the original trilogy made the battle versus good and evil the main point, but the prequels are so bureaucratic, administrative and political.   The new trilogy has been exciting and modern and definitely better than those pesky prequels.  It's a fair argument, but i think is the argument for what i said above.

The simple way to say this is (unfortunately) that people were simpler.  But it's not just that.  The more important function of (American) history is that the era of the prequels (1999 - 2005) was an empty era (i know, i know - 9/11 happened then, but 9/11 is a logical conclusion of the 1970s/80s Islamic Terrorism that we ignored for most of the 80s and 90s).

Politically, and culturally, it's a kind of boring time.  1999 was a kick-ass year for movies, and the era of prestige tv was about to begin (or maybe did, i don't have exact dates), but it was sort of easy politically.  [NOT HISTORICALLY by the way!!!  Bush v. Gore, then 9/11, then re-electing the (up to then) dumbest person we had elected president.  And culturally, the technological superfuture was still sorta basic. 

My argument basically is that folks watching the original trilogy needy clarity (good vs. evil, dark v. light) because they'd just come out of Vietnam, Watergate, hippie reclamation, etc.  The prequels came out when it was only just becoming clear that all of the powers that be (Republicans and Democrats and large corporations and big tech {whatever that might be!} and all of it were aligning against actual regular people who weren't already rich and had maybe just trusted the hangover of the New Deal to carry them through to retirement could just start to grasp that everything was conspiring against us, the regular people.

I think in this context the prequels read amazingly well.  They are prescient, not just of Anakin's turn to the dark side, but of a vast chunk of America - first in the re-election of a war criminal president, and then later in the historic and wonderful and also par-for-the-course election of Barack Obama who governed as a Compassionate Centrist (and i love him dearly and what he accomplished, but by the time The Force Awakens comes out it is clear we are off the rails and are going to elect someone for our times like either Donald J. Trump {or Bernie!}.

EPIC (bad) Game Day

Few things in day to day life are worthy of being described as "epic".

Hangovers - to be sure.  A few times I've gone to a good man's home in Waukesha for Epic Game Day (and sometimes have played board games that fit the epic description).  There's a company that calls itself "Epic", but I don't think that it really is all that epic...

Today was an epic sports day for me, and it went so so badly...  Almost all of my selected sports teams were playing today - and they all failed to win.

My night ended with the end of this season's road for Minnesota FC, who a short time ago lost their first ever playoff game.  The Loons are in only their 3rd year of existence as an MLS team.  I started following them closely during the summer of 2018, when I started following a number of European Clubs closely - checking fixtures and watching games when they are available for tv consumption.

A few hours earlier, my Chicago Bears played a craptastic game and lost badly to fall to 3-3 for the season.  In a classic Bear's move, the team suddenly came to life and scored 2 TDs in the final 2 and a half minutes (and even appeared to grab a second onside kick) even though the game was fully out of reach at that point...

I've written of my Bears fandom, but never I think, specifically, about how completely they are the absolute worst fucking team to be a fan of ever with the way they give and take and seem like they're something and then pull a rug out from under and then totally suck, but show signs.  The Double Doink was pretty much the moment my entire Bear fandom had been leading up to for most of my life... and now this.

Prior to the Bears barf-fest, my Liverpudlians failed to win.  They did tie, but meh - now that we win so often, it's a bit of a let-down (though we were somewhat lucky to equalize...).  And, although it was available on ESPN+, I missed the earlier Nottingham Forest match - which we lost to fall out of the top spot on the table.

Tyler Ledger Joker Fi

I went and saw Joker last night - dutifully.  It was violent, very well made, well acted (and heavily acted), wonderfully shot, all like you've heard.

I would also like to submit that it may just be the most thought-provoking piece of cinematic commentary on our current socio-economic condition in decades.

It is a radical film full of radical ideas and radical violence.  Although it saddens me that it is radical to say that the current economic status quo is wildly immoral and that an existential cognitive dissonance is necessary to participate in the system honestly.

The central question of Joker is whether any of the events of the movie actually happened or not within the confines of the fictional Batman universe.  This question is revealed in the final moments of the movie when Arthur is locked up for treatment of his mental illness.  It becomes clear that this moment is chronologically prior to all of the violence that has previously occurred in the film.  Arthur describes all (or possibly just some) of that violence as a "joke" that as occurred to him as we was speaking with his case worker.  When she asks him what it was, he says that she "wouldn't get it".

Source: tvOvermind.com

This 'final reveal' parallels the 20-year-old final reveal of what I consider the last really radical movie focused on these same themes, Fight Club.  In that movie we learn that our previously reliable narrator was actually Tyler Durden the whole time.  (Also, in a partial re-viewing the scene where Lou drops in on a fight club evening, Tyler's hysterical laughter after having his ass kicked by Lou is preminiscent of Arthur's own manifestations of his mental illness).

Earlier in the film, it is revealed that Arthur's mother was diagnosed with delusional psychosis and narcissistic personality disorder (a diagnosis that may be pretty close to part of Arthur's own plus a dash of schizophrenia - which is reified in the moment when Arthur is actually standing in the room as an adult when his mother is being booked into Arkham after abusing him as a child).  While many reviewers have made much of the portrayal of mental illness in the film, I think the underlying argument of both of these movies is that some forms of thought and action (including some violence) that we casually refer to as mental illness are in fact radical responses to the immoral status quo.

To be clear, I am not condoning any real world violence here, but I do think that artistic depiction of radical political violence can pose important questions that perhaps can't be voiced within the current socio-political climate.  Questions like - what might happen if we take the modern-era royalty (i.e. the super-rich) out of power.  In Joker the one piece of violence that we know "really happens" (although perhaps not exactly as we see it occur in the movie) is the murder of Thomas and Martha Wayne.  This event is formative to the future Batman, so it has to occur within the larger mythology of the film.

We also tend to forget in our modern and enlightened era how rare it is to have massive social change without violence.  Although the "clowns" in Joker are easily read as violent criminal thugs engaged in looting and riots, they are also the lumpenproletariat activated by their clown prince.  They are engaged in a modern iteration of the French Revolution and their King Louis XVI (i.e. Thomas Wayne) needs to topple.  One wonders what, exactly, this makes Batman in this historical parallel?

We Got a Party like it's 1999

So, i was away from home last night and duly started watching the debate on DVR when i got home... and promptly fell asleep.

I did get through most of the first hour +/- and what I saw felt like an argument between 1990s / early Aughts-era Democrats.  Except people were taking the Kuciniches and Browns in the debate seriously.

I'd like to offer the following argument and any of the rhetoric to Mr. Yang or Senators Warren or Sanders (or anyone else who wants to lead us truly forward - like progressives) with no strings attached:

The fundamental economic arguments of our era are founded on a false preconception.  Our politicians argue about how to deploy resources and whether some services to citizens (for example the ability to offer health care to all of them regardless of their level of wealth) are "too expensive".  The central question of cost, though is the falsehood that we are living under.

Since The New Deal, the rich and powerful have been clawing back control of the money.  All of the money.  This is most visibly and simply illustrated in tax rates over time.  Prior to The Great Depression, the top income tax rate bracket was 25% for income over $1.3M dollars (in adjusted dollars). 

After the great crash, and the fundamental understanding that things had to change for most people (but prior to FDR or any New Deal action), that top rate jumped to 63%.  This top rate was only for income of over $16.75M dollars - but $1M was now at 35%.  It's important to note, this change happened in 1932, before FDR and our current "modern" progressive state came into effect.

Thereafter, top rates jumped to 79% (for any income over around $81M per year) to 81% (in 1941) to 88% to a high of 94% (again, only for the most egregious amounts of annual income).  This top rate (closer to 91%) stays in effect for 18 years or so (1945 - 1963).  Thereafter it only falls to about 70% for the next 19 years until 1982 (a year after the "Reagan Revolution") when it falls, first to 50% in 1982 and then to 38% in 1987 (approximately our current levels - though that doesn't tell near the whole story).

The entire premise of the "Great" America (which Republicans imply is something that needs to be found... "again") came out of the New Deal, and a promise by our country that workers ('the working class') can have a Middle Class lifestyle.  Of course our racist, sexist process of unfolding this promise wasn't the real fulfillment it was meant to be, but these tax rates were at the foundation of our first attempt.

Whenever someone asks in a political conversation whether or "how we can afford" some of the largest ideas of universal healthcare, universal basic income, or the Green New Deal there are two clear answers:

1. We truly cannot afford not to do these things.
2.  Also, we could simply raise the income tax rates on top earnings* back to the historical levels we had in the 1950s, under Republican leadership, which lead to the opportunity for anyone working a job to take part in the Middle Class^

* Note: it's important to point out that the 90% top tax rates doesn't tax all of the income from high earners, only that income that is above the approved amount.  This means that the first $100K or so that those people earn is taxed at the exact same rate as people who only earn that much - the higher rates only apply to the excessive income.

^ Note: We are now able to work more toward making this distribution fairer, and must work to overcome the mistakes of the past (e.g. reparations, equal pay for women, LGBTQ equity, student loan forgiveness {perhaps high-interest predatory lending debt forgiveness entirely}.

Looking for the Joel Chicago / Wisco Sweep!

It's a mini-Lake Michigan Circle Tour sports eclipse with the Green Bay Packers playing tonight at Soldier Field in Chicago against the Bears, and the baby bears of Wrigley Field playing in Milwaukee against the Brewers.

I am likely fairly unusual in my rooting interest for this event, hoping the Brewers sweep the Cubs this weekend (to move into a tie {at least with them} for the Wild Card race) and the Bears dominate the Packers in an embarrassing entree for their new head coach, Not Mark McMurtry.

* 6:56pm *

Brewers are holding a 2-1 lead so far in the 3rd and i'll comment later as we go.  I predict the Brewers go 3-1 and the Bears win 27 - 10.

* 7:21pm *

Virginia McCaskey intros the 100th season - the Cubs have tied it up (grrrr), but i still think the Brewers will win 3 out of 4 (to clarify) and will hold the Bears to their score (though i want to up the win margin because of Aaron Rodgers' douchebag moustache - is #douchebagMoustache trending yet?)

* 7:35pm *

Arcia is at second with 1 out!  Packers have gone nowhere in these first 5 plays...

* 7:47pm *

Jackson walks a lead off man after Eddy Pineiro hits his first ever field goal!

Now there's a second on base and Jackson makes a BIG PITCH to get Khris Bryant...  And a first pitch gift against Rizzo...

* 8:38pm *

both enemy teams are on the threat...

The Debate

It's clear to me now - that the reason that Bernie and Elizabeth can't fully get their message across is because the two of them know just how much money the top 1% of wealth-holders in our country have siphoned away from all of the rest of us.  Most people can't fathom these amounts.

** 7:48 **

I can't believe Delaney has come back with his "my dad..." line.  That's kind of awesome.

** 7:49 **

Talking 'bout my generation.  Mayor Pete has called out his generation several times.  He's a few years younger than me, but he's in the Cusper mini-generation.  I was born in 1978 so technically I had a few years before the "Reagan Revolution" kicked in.  Pete did not.

He has literally lived his entire life in an era when money has floated upward (it's more like steam than "trickle down" water) and decimated the middle class.

** 7:54 **

Just realized that i had paused to fix a drink and chase the puppy around the back yard and stop him from eating all the freshly cut grass, so I'm a few minutes behind...  Which will make this post hard to track.

I'll try to remember when i'm caught up after a commercial.

** 7:56 **

Ugh... The CNN format is really unfortunate.  Bash and Tapper (Lemon hasn't spoken yet, it seems) are being prosecutorial, but getting stuck on dumb points of argument.  "But are you going to raise taxes!!!..."  "But should we decriminalize crossing the border!!!..."

They seem to think they are on a Sunday show trying to stick one guest to a specific answer.  It's like they think they all are the guy from The Newsroom.

** 8:03 **

Mayor Pete made himself seem young again!  He was in high school during Columbine!

But Amy is seeming tough.  She's cool  A bit conservative for my taste, but yeah - she would win.

** 8:05 **

But yeah, Governor  Bullock - he will likely lose.

** 8:06 **

I wonder how you say "drain the swamp" en espanol?
(that's a Beto joke)

** 8:12 **

Almost caught up now... And, yeah - Hickenlooper is still on the lose list.
He is a look-back candidate.  He's grown up and gonna make things nice, but not shake things up too much.

Governor Hickenlooper, please listen - nobody likes their health insurance company.  They may want to have health insurance (rather than not!), but everyone hates the company that bureaucratically manages their insurance.  They don't even care about insurance.  They care about health care.  That's what they want without going broke.

** 8:15 **

Ugh, now CNN has the question written "is Senator Sanders too extreme to beat President Trump?".  Fuck you, CNN.  That's so CNN of you.

** 8:19 **

Delaney is getting a lot of screen time...
It's mostly grinning waiting to talk time.
When he talks, he really hurts his chances.

(the Delaney haiku

{and NO!, haikus don't need to be a specific number of syllables - it's about being able to say within a single breath [though, i'm not sure if that's each line or the whole thing, in which case mine may not apply]})

** 8:26 **

Starting with Delaney on the climate crisis.  He seems to be getting a lot of time...  Maybe that means Yang will tomorrow?

I hope he tells about what his dad used to say about the sky.

** 8:32 **

Oh God!!!  Tim Ryan, i like you and the funny way you say some of your vowels.  But NO!!!  Let's not base our future plan on "making things in 'Merica again".

Robots should be making things.  And yes, we will have a lot of people - a whole generation of people who work and worked with their hands.  And you want them to elect you, but don't lie to them.

Those people need to be given health care and food and a UBI (a "freedom dividend!"), and then they can work in other industries.

** 8:45 **

Sorry, paused for several minutes and am behind again.

** 8:46 **

"Look, Bernie..."  Bullock doesn't seem sure that climate change is real yet.
Ugh.
And Beto, stop talking about jobs.  Work, democrats should talk about work and not jobs.
But Mayor Pete scores!  Pete v. Don and how Pete wins...

** 8:47 **

Where have all the 60 second questions gone?

** 8:50 **

I expect that my groups will change in terms of who will win and may lose to The Donald.

** 8:53 **

"Domestic Terrorism" and "I Have a Plan" - It's hard to not see Warren as the natural choice to take the nomination in 2020 for Bernie voters of 2016.

I love Bernie - I actually love a lot of these folks tonight... and will vote for any one of them who wins.  But, Warren is a serious political plan person and also a movement candidate (not a revolution candidate - though she's that too, but a movement candidate).

Warren reminds me a lot of my mom - she's an earnest broker.  She's honest, she is tough and she is kind.

** 9:01 **

Oh my gawd - Tim Ryan STILL wants to give me another boss - a Chief Manufacturing Officer.  I have caught up somewhat, but still behind.  And starting to realize that this is a fucking 3 HOUR debate!!!

wtf CNN?

Like, I'm a political nerd, but 3 hours?  6 hours of debates?

** 9:04 **

Delaney loves TPP... Who's down with TPP (oh, just John Delaney).  Also Hilary Clinton (until she wasn't) and Obama, and probably Biden (i wish we could find a way to ask him)...

** 9:06 **

Love a re-direct to Beto... Yeah, i'm sure he'll know.
Nope, he doesn't, but bueno efforto, mi amigo.

** 9:10 **

Buttigieg is still young.  Younger than you (statistically).
And he knows scripture!

** 9:12 **

a softball "my dad" question for Delaney.  He has mentioned his family.  But turned it around to capital gains move.
Yes, he's exactly right (and also totally wrong) - capital gains should be taxed at (or higher) than a working rate of tax.

** 9:32 **

Can we use nuclear bombs?
                   - CNN 7/30/2019

Argle Barlge!!!!  Stop it.  Why are you so bad at this!?
If you don't understand global nuclear politics, don't talk about it, please!

I use the same policy for our fool president.  He shouldn't talk about nukes publicly, because he doesn't understand (can't understand - hasn't the empathy).

** 9:38 **

Just starting back up - and we're to closing statements!

So, it's only 2 and a half hours!

Bullock - "Bootstraps!"
Williamson - "down with Corporate Overlords!"
Delaney - "Can't we all just get along?"
Ryan - "there is some difference between the center lane and the moderate lane, right?"
Hickenlooper - "it's possible you may die tomorrow"
Klobuchar - "It's not your fault" (repeated ad goodwill hunting-ium)
O'Rourke - "Texas could be in play?"
Buttigeig - "Rut Roh - but i can fix it"
Warren - "I understand your life, and I can help"
Sanders - "I'm Bernie Sanders... wtf, why not vote for me at this point - seriously?"

Night Two!

** 7:17 **

Why was Michael Bennett talking so slowly?  Is that all he came up with for his minute, and wanted to make sure he finished too soon?
But De Blasio was on point... "Tax the hell out of 'em" makes for a good bumper sticker.

** 7:20 **

We're going back, to the Future!

** 7:24 **

Not sure what the protesters were yelling...
But Yang was very likable and articulate in a way he wasn't in June.

** 7:27 **

I like how Biden's campaign is a "they" for Harris's health care answer, but her planning is done by an "I"

** 7:34 **

Is anyone else kinda bored?  It's like all the back and forth, but none of the knowledge.

** 7:37 **

Tulsi quoted Marianne Williamson...

** 7:42 **

It seems that these candidates watched last night's debate, and are trying to do it again - but don't know as much.
Are they intentionally ignoring Andrew Yang?

** 7:45 **

Yang nailed his first question!

** 7:50 **

Biden says "Anyway..." and basically said, "my time is up..." again.

** 7:55 **

Oh, going back to Biden?
Neat.
Also he can't seem to remember anyone's names.  And Castro had to tell him that he could go on, and that "that things on" and we can hear him.

** 8:03 **

Had to make a vodka tonic, so i'm a bit behind now.
But Yang!, man.  I wonder if he is going to be the one to finally stop the Marianne Williamson bubble nonsense from last night.  He is saying totally different things than anyone else, but it's not malarky (ha!, see what i did there?)

** 8:08 **

I kind of wish FiveThirtyEight was tracking mentions of Obama, too... because Biden seems to say Obama most times he talks tonight...

** 8:11 **

He said "Shit!"

** 8:12 **

Fuck, seriously, you're going back to Biden!!!

** 8:13 **

Biden's teeth are super white.
And wants to teach prisoners how to read and write...
Fuck, and now he cut himself off again and volunteered to stop talking.

** 8:15 **

And now he seems to have mistaken Cory Booker for Barack Obama...

** 8:19 **

"I want to bring in Mr. Yang.  I want to bring Mr. Yang!!"
            - not any of the CNN moderators, that's for sure

** 8:23 **

Oh, right - Kamala Harris is here, too...
I totally forgot that you go here!

** 8:26 **

Shit, Biden looked up some facts about how racist Harris and Booker are.
That looks not great, n'est ce pas?

** 8:28 **

Yeah, Harris being a former prosecutor is not going to wear well as a democrat.  It's a better job for republican candidates, methinks.
I'm not sure what a fancy position on a stage is...

** 8:31 **

Yang is the 4th highest polling candidate on the stage.  I don't think he has received the 4th highest number of re-directs or direct questions to him.
I'm not even in the #yangGang yet, but see this as mass media prejudice against radical thought.

** 8:35 **

Huh, so MLK DID support UBI... #freedomDividend

** 8:41 **

Why won't anyone look at the fucking camera!!!???

Well, now they switched cameras, so at least Biden is in the general direction.

** 8:51 **

I read on Five Thirty Eight that Elizabeth Warren showed up in tonight's debate too... hearing a lot of blah blah blah so reading a bit further afield while they catch up on screen.

** 9:11 **

Fuck - just got woken up when Biden tried to jujitsu the lady question by bringing up his dead wife...

** 9:31 **

ok, i'm back for closing statements:

De Blasio: "tax the hell out of 'em & taxTheHell.com"
Bennett: "___" (forgot i was listening)
Inslee: "but this time, it really matters..."
Gillebrand: "I'm a rich, Christian, white person who cares about economic divides, religious divides, and racial divides, for serious."
Gabbard: "World War 2 is over... we're gonna go home now..."
Castro: "adios to Donald Trump"
Yang: "I hate ties...  and i should win"
Booker: "back to the reality tv show!"
Harris: "you've got to prey just to make it today..."
Biden: "3-0-3-0... what was that?"


A summary image, again, from 5-38:

Yang's (of course last, because of alphabetical, but nobody is talking about the alphabetical-disparity in the two night's debates!  The second latest letter in the alphabet is I!  Fracking I!  Two Americas indeed.) is kind of a sentence or a thought...

Bennet's might be better, actually, but the rest of these candidates make absolutely no sense!

Pre-prequel

Anticipatory plagiarism is a concept I used to struggle with - coming up with a brilliant idea only to come to realize that someone else had thought of it and published it decades or even centuries earlier than you had the opportunity to get it down.

This also happens in literature when a writer unwittingly writes a similar story to something they had never come across. In general, this happens by some sort of collective osmosis (perhaps it’s a Jungian phenomenon) by which these thoughts and ideas are in the ether - part of the existing background. It’s in the groundwater. 

This morning I read a short story in the Bradbury-edited collection that I’ve been making my way through.  It’s called “Mr. Death and the Redheaded Woman”, by Helen Eustis. It is an unintentional prequel to Piers Anthony’s On a Pale Horse (by which I mean of course, Anthony unintentionally wrote a whole series of novels {of which I’ve read the first few but not all} as a follow up to Eustis’s very fine story).

I've been getting back into Wikipedia as of late, particularly as I've been reading Timeless Stories for Today and Tomorrow, edited and with an introduction by Ray Bradbury.  As I started digging into the stories, I was struck first by the sense of time - of being tales from a different (but not entirely unfamiliar) era.  Much like when I read The Thin Man last year, one of the most enjoyable parts of every story, is a real insight into how folks lived 'in the before'.

The stories have also been enjoyable in their own right, but because they are primarily speculative as opposed to pure fantasy, they each have been deeply and fundamentally rooted in the time they are written (or when they are portraying in the rare case it's not meant to be "present day").  Bradbury finished the introduction on 1 July 1951, which means the collection is made up of stories all from before that time (and likely mostly well before, given that they're mostly being re-produced and collected here in this book).

As I read the first couple stories, I wondered who the collection of writers were that Bradbury had collected.  I've heard of many of them, but the first two at least were completely unfamiliar to me.  Henry Kuttner's story, particularly, excited me as he had worked within the Cthulhu Mythos (and had corresponded with H.P. Lovecraft).  Kuttner also worked closely in collaboration with his wife, C.L. Moore and the authorship of much of his work and her work were intermingled (so much so that the story in this collection could likely have been in good part her work).

 I plodded forward, and for each story resolved to read the Wikipedia entry for each author in concert with the story.  Which brought me to Christine Govan's story, where I found no corresponding wiki-entry (though she was mentioned in a few other articles, often as a family member to someone else).  A writer in her own right, I created her article and have now noticed that Helen Eustis also has one missing.

Govan and Eustis were the second and third woman authors collected in this book, and the first two authors in the book without their own wiki-entries.  It's a problem and I am working on solving in a small way.  I created a stub for Govan, in the same way that I had Faustin E. Wirkus years ago.  I don't have the time or inclination to go in depth and create a full article, but a sourced stub about someone who definitely deserves a wiki-page will grow on its own.  It takes time, but eventually the world will help do the work (as long as it doesn't get deleted!).

6 of May

We peddle a lot of nostalgia these days.

A few years ago, Facebook stole my idea and began telling me about things that had happened on the same calendar date in previous years.

We enjoy the synchronicity of same dates. Although cosmically comically meaningless, humans seem to enjoy calendrics (autocorrected to “cake drive” = 🥮🚗)

On this notable day in Milwaukee sports, when the Bucks have taken a solid 3-1 lead in the Eastern conference semifinals (and at a time when people are actually paying attention to the Bucks!), and the Brewers are poised to beat Max Scherzer, I look back on my May 6th.

Arcia and Gamel each with 2 hits tonight, Giannis was a monster tonight (becoming only the second Milwaukee Buck in history to score 35+ points and get 15+ rebounds in a playoff game - and the only person not named Kareem to do that.)

It’s heady times here. 

Oh no, Joe...

Updated Democratic Primary Contenders List:
(7/30/19 - after night one of Debate II)
Candidates Who Would Defeat Trump Handily

1. Cory Booker
2. Pete Buttigieg
3. Julián Castro
4. Tulsi Gabbard
5. Kamala Harris
6. Amy Klobuchar
7. Bernie Sanders 
8. Elizabeth Warren
9. Andrew Yang

Candidates Who Very Likely Would Win Vs. Trump

1. Bill de Blasio
2. Beto O'Rourke
3. Tim Ryan
4. Marianne Williamson

I Don't Quite Know

1. Mike Gravel
2. Wayne Messam
3. Seth Moulton
4. Joe Sestak

May Well Lose to Trump

1. Michael Bennett
2. Joe Biden
3. Steve Bullock
4. John Delaney
5. Kristen Gillibrand
6. Jay John Hickenlooper
7. Jay Inslee
8. Eric Swalwell

Updated Democratic Primary Contenders List:
(circa early June 2019)
Candidates Who Would Defeat Trump Handily

1. Cory Booker
2. Pete Buttigieg
3. Julián Castro
4. Tulsi Gabbard
5. Kamala Harris
6. Amy Klobuchar
7. Tim Ryan
8. Bernie Sanders 
9. Elizabeth Warren
10. Andrew Yang

Candidates Who Very Likely Would Win Vs. Trump

1. Michael Bennett
2. Bill de Blasio
3. Steve Bullock
4. Mike Gravel
5. Wayne Messam
6. Seth Moulton
7. Beto O'Rourke

I Don't Quite Know

1. Joe Sestak

May Well Lose to Trump

1. Joe Biden
2. John Delaney
3. Kristen Gillibrand
4. Jay John Hickenlooper
5. Jay Inslee
6. Eric Swalwell
7. Marianne Williamson

So, i like Joe Biden.  I'm not going to vote for him in the Democratic Primary, but i would vote for him of course in a general election in 2020 as i did Hillary Clinton.

But please understand this, blue-leaning, honest-broker, patriotic Americans... Joe Biden will lose a general election run against Donald Trump.  Well, not for sure, but he is is on my list of candidates who I'm not quite sure about, but will likely lose.

Mainstream media outlets all (from CNN to MSNBC to Fox News to Real Time to everywhere) continue to misunderstand presidential elections.  The prevailing wisdom is that American voters care about where someone stands on the right/left political spectrum and the danger of nominating a candidate who is TOO LIBERAL.

The reality is that the big middle of the electorate is suffering, miserable and angry.  Americans have elected disruptive change at every opportunity since the 1980s (at least as much disruptive change as they were permitted with the two major parties).  "The middle" is not interested in the right/left spectrum.  While the parties are, the middle is largely a-political.  The middle just wants to raise their middle finger to the powers that be and wind up electing as much change as we are permitted.

For this reason, the biggest primary electoral blunder that Democrats can make is to nominate someone like Joe Biden - not because Joe is a bad guy, but because it's exactly the kind of "Stability Candidate" that the major parties have nominated since losing a first term since 1996.

Joe Biden is the latest in the line of Bob Dole, John Kerry, Mitt Romney future likely losers.  A candidate whose primary characteristic for electoral consideration is their seriousness and appropriateness for office.  These candidates scream stability (which is a strange thing to scream).

Since 1988, each American presidential election chose the change candidate.  The reason every president has been re-elected since that time is not because we as Americans dislike firing people, it's because the major parties chose someone even more establishment than a sitting president with 4 years of experience under his belt:

• 1992 - Bill Clinton, a governor of a small southern state defeats the sitting president who was vice president for the 8 years before that.
• 1996 - Bill Clinton defeats Bob Dole, a senator from an older generation and a throwback gesture to 'bringing the grown-ups' back to power.
• 2000 - W "wins" an election over Al Gore, a sitting vice president of 8 years.  Interesting to note, is that if McCain had won this primary, i think Gore wins in November.
• 2004 - W still seems new to this job 4 years in, and he defeats John Kerry, who looks and acts as if his chiseled jaw was formed from the stone of Mt. Rushmore.
• 2008 - Obama's hope and change defeats John McCain's trust us... except for Sarah Palin.  She's just for fun.
• 2012 - Obama beats everyone's boss, Mitt Romney.
• 2016 - You didn't want another Bush?, how about another Clinton!

The mistake always made by both parties has been that America wants re-assuring in their candidates.  The "trust us, we are experienced" hasn't won in more than 30 years...

One caveat is needed here, because we are living in such strange times.  It may be that anyone who the democrats nominate will win.  Despite the fact it was before "Smells Like Teen Spirit" was released that we last elected the more stable, normal, institutional choice for president, I do have some modicum of trust in the American electorate to not do this to us again.  I was vocal amongst my peers that I thought Trump would win in 2016.  I am not as concerned that he will win again in 2020.  Thus, in my classification below of current 2020 Democratic Candidates for President the most dangerous category is "May Well Lose to Trump".  The worst possible choice for the Dems in 2020 would be to once again nominate Hillary Clinton to run against Trump, and I would put her in that category, which means a fair chance to win, but "May Well Lose to Trump".

Original List (e.g. keeping myself honest)

Candidates Who Would Defeat Trump Handily

1. Bernie Sanders 
2. Elizabeth Warren
3. Cory Booker
4. Pete Buttigieg
5. Julián Castro
6. Andrew Yang

Candidates Who Very Likely Would Win Vs. Trump

1. Amy Klobuchar
2. Beto O'Rourke
3. Tim Ryan
4. Tulsi Gabbard
5. Wayne Messam
6. Steve Bullock
7. Mike Gravel
8. Seth Moulton

I Don't Quite Know

1. Jay Inslee
2. Marianne Williamson

May Well Lose to Trump

1. Joe Biden
2. Kamala Harris
3. Kristen Gillibrand
4. Eric Swalwell
5. Michael Bennett
6. Bill de Blasio
7. Jay John Hickenlooper
8. John Delaney

*  *  *

May 2019

I've had to update the list given the additional passage of time, so I think it makes sense to explain a bit of my thinking.  I'll keep the list current (mostly moving people out of "I Don't Quite Know" to another category as I get a better sense of who they are).

My troublesome "May Well Lose to Trump" category are there for two reasons, the first is the one I outline above, namely that they seem to primarily be running as a "stability candidate" - and stability always loses the presidency in American (at least since 1988 and arguably since 1972).  

Biden and Bennett fall into this category.

The other folks who may lose to Trump are 'coastal elites', candidates who are in large part defined by where they are from (these will mainly be New Yorkers and Californians).  Even though de Blasio has true progressive cred, he may lose to Trump because he is TOO New York.  The others on that list have 'not Trump' as their main selling point rather than an over-riding message to their campaign.

And then there's Hickenlooper, who I thought I had heard described as a "radical centrist", which I liked... just saw him on The Rachel Maddow Show this evening, and he is just a centrist centrist...  and may well lose because of it.


*  *  *

June 2019
And John Delaney's performance at the California Democratic Convention solidifies him in the "May Well Lose" camp.

We should be able to finalize this list, and remove the "I Don't Know" category in a few weeks with the first debates (unless Jay Inslee doesn't make it and I still have never heard him talk...).  Marianne Williamson seems confirmed to make the first debates, which will make things more interesting.

Beautiful Day for the Beautiful Game

It’s been a great NYC workday capped off with some Champions League action at Smithfield Hall NYC. Liverpool is in action and up early in the semis* vs. Porto. Tottenham is batting Manchester City  nil nil on an adjacent tv.

The capper, though, is that ALSO adjacent is a big screen showing my favorite football club, Nottingham Forest in their long-shot quest to qualify for promotion playoffs today in a mid-week match against Sheffield Wednesday. (Unfortunately just now down 1-0). 

Best of all is that I’m next to two Brits in kits for Sheffield Wednesday and there are several Forest supporters nearby.

*oops, that is the quarters!

Florida Man hates Triangle Man

… lives his life in a garbage can…

Florida, man…

I am constantly amused by the fear of IDENTITY THEFT


it's a thing, sure - I myself had my identity stolen. Twice in fact. One was a pypal scam and the second was my discover card being used to buy gas and take cash advances.

Both times it was a hassle, but I ultimately lost 0 dollars. I know that's not always the case, , but generally it seems to be.

The real theft, tho, is corporate grift. My 5 year old LG refrigerator has ceased refrigeration. I am a prisoner of Wells Fargo bank these last 20 years and they and every other credit card company is guilty of usury upon me and all of their "customers". We are made to fear scammers of all varieties, but the real scam is out in broad sight. 

Let's Hear it For The... Government Bureaucrats!!

Government isn't the problem, folks.

Governance is.

Our current administration entered office "unqualified" - of course, my standard for qualified to be president is fairly radical in its minimalism.  Like, 35, American born, hasn't done it before for 6+ years.

Over time, and in recent decades, we have come to believe and profess a specific pre-qualification for being president.  For a long time this has unfortunately meant male-ness and whiteness.  This has also, always meant privileged and wealthy (i know i know, you'll point out Bill Clinton's birth or Barack & Michelle Obama's humble beginnings, but they all came by way of privilege - and the honest ones will acknowledge that).  Most recently, before 2016 at least, EXPERIENCE was king, as if previously winning (m)an(y) election(s) - and possibly trying to do some governing - prepares them to lead our silly monster of a nation.

Dan Carlin makes the point in his erstwhile podcast Common Sense that the way we elect our leaders has almost nothing to do with what we ask our leaders to do once they're in the job.  It's part of the reason that my Conversation Party idea (or the random appointment of citizens to every elected office) is so compelling a path forward.

In the 19th Century, we had several pretty bad presidents.  Of course, we were a minor nation - not the SuperPower that we are today.  Today we have a 19th-Century President in our 21st Century age.  And as little as we good liberals would like to admit it, we're doing okay.  Sure, it's embarrassing.  And we are something of a laughingstock amongst the nations.  And the tweets are really bad.  And he's not so smart.  And he's not a good person.

But in truth, the proverbial trains are running on time.  The Department of Defense is defending, the IRS is collecting taxes, State is stately.  The bureaucracy (what Fox News/State TV calls "the Deep State") is working.  Bureaucracy sounds inherently bad, but only because we've been programmed since Reagan at least, to think so.  In reality, the career public servants work a job - a job they likely could be paid more to do in the private sector.  Their mission is not abstract profit for a nameless corporation, rather to do the work of the people.  This work continues, regardless of whose at the head.  (If you think a moment about your experience, you'll see that this makes sense.  If your boss {or boss's boss, etc. ...} weren't there for 6 months or a year or more, but you all kept working tell me how things would go...  The answer, generally, is, i expect, as they are.  Status quo.  Keep on keeping on.

And so, as we look toward 2020,

Still a Good Idea

On this date in Roman Numeral J history in 2008, it was also an Oscar Sunday and I was watching, evidently.  I feel that my post-game Oscar analysis idea stands up (tho, RIP Harriet Klausner).

I turned away this evening - catching up on Walking Dead instead.  I did just go down to watch Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga sing.  Tonight's festivities started off on a bad foot, when Keks (see most future posts, i expect), our new fur baby, stepped on the remote while we had paused it to see Adam Lambert's Queen opening sequence, which we subsequently missed.

In 2008, the best picture nominees were:

• No Country for Old Men
• Atonement
• There Will Be Blood
• Juno
• Michael Clayton

I think of those i still have only seen Juno (and i see from my Arfives that i saw Michael Clayton) the following year.  I feel like maybe i saw Atonement too at some point, but can't prove it.

This year:

• Green Book
• Black Panther
• A Star is Born
• BlackKklansman
• Vice
• Roma
• Bohemian Rhapsody
• The Favourite

The past two years i've seen the best picture winner each year after the ceremony (The Shape of Water & Moonlight).  I'll likely keep that trend up, but i regret that movies are no longer as much a part of my life as they once were.  I was already regretting it a decade ago i guess.

the Post of lost Lasts

I came home with take-out from Koi and He's Just not that Into You was a short ways into it... I didn't watch it all, but i'm fairly sure i've seen it before some many years ago, but somehow it had missed my Arfives.

So here is this post from now until forever collecting the lost consumptions of things that i think i saw, read, heard or lived once before and now have again at least in part (so we'll count it!):

... so i watched a good chunk of He's Just not that Into You, then flipped to Never Been Kissed to catch the end waiting scene at the baseball game.  Definitely seen that before multiple times but somehow it didn't make it onto my previous lasts...  And then watched the end of Roman Holiday.  I think i've seen that, but can't say for sure...

So now i'm not sure what this is anymore, but we'll keep seeing.

14 February 2019

So, I understand this more now.  I thought of my standard week(end): M-F Morning Joe - a bit of it; Sat Real Time w/ Bill Maher - i'll watch enough to know who's on most episodes, but not all almost ever and sometimes none; Saturday Night Live - have always watched some of all of it.  It's rare i see none of any episode, but i doubt i've ever seen a full season, so i won't count any of these.

I did watch one and a half episodes of Mr. Bean last evening at Nate & Lissa's.  Their kids LOVE Mr. Bean - because they're young and physical comedy is the bomb right now.  I have definitely seen all of Mr. Bean's series, but probably long before the start of the Arfive.

My thought when i first started tracking my Last Five was to track what is happening now or recently in my world, but also to have an archive of where i have been - the path that brought me here.  So this reclamation project is a part of both.

16 February 2019

Watched a small bit of What Women Want, the prequel (i think - though it may be a pre-make, i haven't seen it yet {and likely won't}) of What Men Want.  I saw the Mel Gibson vehicle (or the Helen Hunt vehicle?) back close to when it came out... maybe even in theatres, which is a bit embarrassing to admit now.  Also, over the weekend i saw some of Twister, yet another Helen Hunt vehicle, which i first saw in theatres i'm quite sure.

20 February 2019

There is a (not that) short list of movies that i watch whenever they are on.  Several of them have been collected in the Arfives (Independence Day, The Fugitive, Dave) but some, like Armageddon, are lost or pre-2006.

23 February 2019

A bad movie that I've seen at least once all the way through.  I wonder if it's in my Netflix history (possibly even my netflix DVD history, which i can't access any longer).  27 Dresses was a Kathryn Heigl vehicle (this post will have many vehicles it seems) after her tv fame.  All of the other actors in this move seem vaguely familiar but i can't name any of them.

Over the last few days, i've also been going through Game of Thrones back episodes and will get through the gap seasons of 4 - 5, which i have seen already but didn't track on my Arfives.

6 March 2019

I'm up to date on GoT, but have now gotten through the two seasons i missed recording and on to Season 6.  Jon Snow's death at the end of season 5 is a shock.  Not just a surprise (i've mentioned spoiler alert, right?, it's always on in the background here anyway {someday that should link to something}), but a true shock.  We miss him immediately as the heart of the show.

I'm working my way through GoT in preparation for Season 8's premiere in April.  Around the same time, i also hope to be caught up in the chronology of the Marvel Cinematic Universe for Endgame, but so far i'm only on The Punisher, and dawdling a bit on that one...

10 March 2019

I can't say for sure, but the 2005 version of Pride & Prejudice may well be my favorite.  I was once mocked by Ryan Stiles (or one of the Whose Line is it Anyway guys) when i offered P&P as my favorite novel.  He missed my follow-up joke of Pride & Prejudice & Zombies as my favorite novel.

But in re-viewing this version really does understand the source text.  The Mrs. and several of the Miss Bennetts are wholly absurd in this movie.  Mr. Darcy is a total putz and Mr. Bingley is a bimbo.

Plus Donald Sutherland is at his best.  He maybe should have won a best supporting picture nomination - if not a win.  I'm pleasantly surprised to learn that Keira Knightly was nominated - and very deserved (tho she lost to Reese Witherspoon in Walk The Line - also deserved).

11 March 2019

Saturday morning, i watched a good chunk of WarGames, and brooke joined in the middle with lots of bits needing to be explained and gone back over.  She was of the opinion that WG was a super confusing and convoluted premise...  of course after having missed the first 30 minutes or so.

WG features prominently in the novel Ready Player One - i actually almost prefer the use of The Shining in the movie version, both the movie of choice, the logic, and method of using it.  Simply acting out the main part of the movie is cool - it shows true geekery - but finding the scene / image / instance of The Shining that's out of place seems almost more deeply nerdy.

Also watched Abducted in Plain Sight on Friday night, but not all of it.  It doesn't make the list, but isn't something i'll ever go back and finish in its entirety.  Really didn't see much of Much Ado About Nothing that same Friday night, and caught a bit of The Money Pit during dinner.

17 March 2019

After watching a few episodes of Animal Cribs last evening - we watched the newest Jurassic Park movie - Fallen Kingdom, which was fun enough.  I love how even moreso Blue the raptor and the tyrannosaurus rex are heroes and the newly created mash-ups are the villains... Mostly the corporations and the rich people are the villains tho, as usual in a Jurassic Park movie.

I realize that all but the most recent Jurassic movie (Jurassic World) is not represented on my list.  I'll add them as i next encounter them (though, i'm only 90% sure that i've seen 3 {and feel like there are even more of them i'm forgetting, but probably not}).

23 March 2019

Funnily enough, on the 24th, Starz showed all three Jurassic Park movies over and over.  I definitely had not seen all of III.

And in an epic day of doing nothing, i watched a bit of In Good Company as well.

25 March 2019

I've finished the first two parts of the most recent Hardcore History epic - "Supernova in the East", and catching up on some that i may have missed.  But i'm not anywhere near completing the whole of Dan's work.

I did re-see chunks of The Princess Bride, 10 Things I Hate About You, and Forrest Gump on a lazy Saturday, which also included part of Epic Game Day in Waukesha and Punch Bowl Social, Good City, and the Beer Garden off of Herb Kohl Way.

31 March 2019

While on the road, there is a feast of retread movies in hotel rooms...

When i'm not digging through the MCU trying to catch up on all of it, i watch some MSNBC and generally whatever movie is on TBS, TNT or AMC (when the hotel doesn't have HBO, which for some reason this one doesn't).

I watched some of The Avengers my first night here and last night was Gladiator & X-Men: Apocalypse.  Of course now i am no longer caught up on the X-Men movies, since i haven't seen Deadpool 2 yet, and Dark Phoenix is coming (and looks awesome).  Gladiator is one of my stand-byes - any time it's on is a good time worth watching some.

Hoping to catch some Champions League this afternoon, and will likely stream some catch-up series tonight on my last night in town...

Later, back at the hotel, i watched some of Harry Potter & the Goblet of Fire.  I've seen all of the HP films - a number of times, and they're fun re-watch fodder.  Not all captured.

9 April 2019

Yesterday, before we left for our first visit to Trader Nicks South Shore Inn, Rocky II was playing on tv w/ commercials and Rocky was on one of the HBOs or Showtimes.  Both are classics, and I have seen all of the Rocky movies (though not, i think Creed).

After dinner at Mexic 103 (good food, but the margaritas are middling at best) we watched Punchline, and i decided i should be a stand up comedian.

Today has been a sports day w/ Tiger's first WIN in a dozen years and Liverpool staying top of the table (for the time being).  Later, the Brewers go for another better sweep in LA and then the big Game (GOT Premiere).

14 April 2019

While we watched the Bucks win their East Coast Semi-Finals, we switched back and forth between The Wedding Date (a fabulous Pretty Woman reboot), Cast Away (a volley-ball fan epic), and Legally Blonde - my favorite Katniss Everdeen before Katniss Everdeen movie ever.

The final court scene of Legally Blonde is so bad-ass.  I saw it again today, and Elle Woods is such a frackin' bad ass.  So cool and so strong and showing the world what's what.

8 May 2019

After a long frackin' work week, it is at last Friday evening, and i am kicking back some cocktails and imbibing some comfort texts: Fight Club, The Lion King, Mrs. Doubtfire, & Pet Sematary.  10 Years back from my senior year in college to Clinton Middle School.  When Uncle Steve wrote Pet Sematary, he allegedly threw out the manuscript because it scared him so much.  The movie is less so.

Robin Williams shows his genius in what should have been his Oscar movie.  And then a year later, Disney put out what might be my favorite Elton John vehicle ever.  At the end of this decade, we were introduced to Tyler Derden (and Neo {and Mike Bolton [and Padme ]}).

10 May 2019

We have some catching up to do, and i'll skip most and look back.  Old School was a movie that my college friends and i felt like we should have written when it came out.  Not dis-similar to "the Clique" film project we had worked on and also not entirely unlike The Commune.  A life less traditionally structured.

I watched just a few minutes of Good Morning, Vietnam, which is such a great touchstone.  "Everything I do (I do it for you)" is my slow jam - and Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves remains my jam.  Land of the Dead is amongst my favorite movies.  I've seen - of course - the whole Dead series - but largely before i started this whole thing.

11 June 2019

I forgot that this was a thing that I did.  Watched a little bit of Daredevil with Ben Affleck during the commercials of Ellen's Game of Games (aka adult Double Dare).  I'm pretty sure it's Ben Affleck's third best super-hero performance.

I, Robot, Anchorman, The Thomas Crown Affair - these are all movies I have seen.

10 July 2019

I think Serenity, the superb film follow-up to the superb series, Firefly, is perhaps my favorite science fiction film.  Chiwetel Ejiofor has a fantastic role and performance, the full cast of lovable characters returns.  The story moves the full mythology of Joss Whedon's world forward and contextualizes the central conflict.  Most importantly, it stands up to time - the movie is relevant in 2019.  "The Operative" (Ejiofor's character) is recognizable as a bureaucratic functionary who is not only "doing his job", but doing a known evil in the name of "building toward a better future".

14 July 2019

I was watching a bit of The Shining, and Brooke was watching too - thankfully, she fell asleep before Jack entered Room 237...
It's a delightfully horrific movie, which in discussing with Brooke, i think i first saw at age 8.

I haven't written here again for some time, but have continued watching (and fairly tracking) our (re)consumptions.  I enjoyed re-watching parts of 275

*

...completely lost the thread, but just watched a bit of Wedding Crashers, which is one of my favorite movies of the aughts (and another movie i wish i had written)...  Karate, baseball, more Owen Wilson - pshaw - I think Clue was the most noteworthy recent viewing... high quality bad movie.

26 August 2019

Just a few moments of each of Kingsman and Beetlejuice - I'm no longer what this post is about.  I don't think it's only about name-checking all of these pieces, as the ArFives can do that.

4 October 2019

I think I've now come to understand my era... To whit, I propose a second "double feature challenge" from Roman Numeral J...

I watched the latter part of The Family Man today (the Nic Cage vehicle), and realized that its existence in 2000 is precisely counterpoint to the movie Fight Club from a year earlier.

Hear me out - as I firmly believe that I am quite possibly the only person still living who is a pretty big fan of both Fight Club and The Family Man.  I may actually be one of the few who has seen both movies in their entirety (each has a significant 'exit ramp' for fans of the other).

But both movies understand their time.  And actually that is much clearer to see today - 20 years later - than it was when they came out.  They understand that the world is broken.  And that this experience is both deeply personal and galaxian (bc global is actually too small a thought now).

I think if I could convince most people ages 35 - 45 watch this Double Feature Challenge,,, I think it might just change this world.

8 October 2019

Watching Notting Hill in 2019 is fraught for me - it's my (sortaPrettyMuch) favorite movie...
I think it actually ages well (in a way that Love Actually does not!).  [I actually don't recall what I was going to say about this any further].

I was among the first folks to see Notting Hill, before it's premiere date - at Muenster Kino night...  It seems at some point I have swapped the dates from the end of the entries to the beginning...

18 October 2019

After coming home last evening from a happy hour, I flipped on the "fly by" scene of Top Gun, but then we settled on Along Came Polly, which we were able to restart from the beginning - so watched the whole thing!

Along Came Polly has the odd distinction amongst our small network as the movie that Nate and Lissa saw prior to getting engaged in Minneapolis - in the mid-Aughts.  And wow!, it's hilarious to re-watch this movie with that lens and see how poor a choice that movie is to set the stage for the rest of your life... Or maybe not, who knows.

But, yeah - we thought it at the time when we saw it a few weeks later and were like ("this is the movie they went to before Nate proposed!!??") and in retrospect, yeah that's strange.  But you know - bygones and happily ever afters and so it goes.

I wonder after watching the end of The Game again, if it and The Truman Show might be an excellent #doubleFeatureChallenge...  The question of one's own perspective versus the world's perspective strikes me as being particularly relevant in the late '90s.

27 October 2019

I watched just a few minutes of Green Lantern before I opted out.  Once is definitely enough.

The Back to the Future movies are always worth watching - it's one of those anytime it's on series...  Last week, one of the T-channels (i think) was hosting a marathon of all of The Simpsons Treehouses of Horror, and watched one with a gremlin on the school bus, so i showed Brooke the Twilight Zone movie, and skipped ahead to the John Lithgow short that was the source material.  Classic.

3 November 2019

I watched part of the end of the end of The Hunger Games movies this evening, with Mockingjay, Part 2.  Like the final book in the trilogy, this last half of the last one in the movies asks a lot of important questions about theories of revolution.  (It's funny, I taught a course called "Theories of Revolution", and have written about those theories throughout this blog and in most of my erstwhile academic life, but never had a label/category on my blog specifically reference revolution.)

Watching Katniss choose to shoot her arrow not at President Snow, who stands before her tied up and ready for execution, but at President Coin (is that right?  that seems lame, but i think what i heard when watching this time) who was the revolutionary leader who seems poised to institute a new regime of a new fascist strong-woman - it's exquisite.

5 December 2019

I got home early to spend some time with Keks before i head to Game Night (Brooke has an event tonight too), and When Harry Met Sally was on to put on in the background while i finished my day.  I don't love this movie - but it's a part of the Gen X pantheon - and debated whether i should put it in the "post of lost posts" or in my "2019 Holiday Season" consumptions, as it's really a New Year's movie...

It ended, and i switched on portion of the start of Confessions of a Dangerous Mind - which i remember as being something i'd never need to watch again, but it's fairly entertaining.  Another BTTF, a Working Title pic, and Julia Roberts.

Happy holidays... ...

25 December 2019

A couple more borderline movies, which could have fit into either the holiday list for 2019, but i think both safely live better here...

Coming to America is getting a sequel, i hear from Eddie Murphy, after all of these years.  It came out when i was 10 years old, and was among my favorite movies to watch again and again on cable.  I can quote most scenes of it verbatim, and it tumbles around my brain on an off throughout my days.

The whole Harry Potter series (except perhaps the last two?) feel Christmas-y.  In part this is because Hogwarts is in some sort of mountain-top winter wonderland (like what i imagine Aspen to be like).  There is also always a Christmas celebration and even not during the holidays, the school has massive holiday-portioned meals.  The Chamber of Secrets was the last to be directed by Chris Columbus, and had the precise "by-the-book" feel.

5 January 2020

A very happy new year to you... specifically, you.

We went to Grand Rapids, Michigan for the new year's festivities, naturally, and celebrated with a 1920s-themed murder mystery party.  I bought a pair of overalls, and went as an itinerant farmer, because, like today, while some small sections of the public is having a grand old time in the "Roaring" 20s, it wasn't great for everyone.  I was a real hit at the party, as you can imagine.

The reason i explain all this, is that Baz Luhrmann's The Great Gatsby was playing on a loop in the basement.  I was able to re-acquaint myself with Tobey Maguire, who, now that they've both disappeared, i can now confirm is a different person than Topher Grace.

Watched some of Catch Me if You Can which is just so eminently watchable.  Also saw part of Big over the holidays, and it's fitting that (i think) Tom Hanks will be honored tonight with an achievement award.  Mr. Hanks, please feel free to enter and win the presidential race.  Best in Show is best in class.

20 January 2020

I haven't been able to get these off of my "Last 5" of late, so the current list is getting a bit unwieldy.  The current list looks like this:

All the lost consumptions: ... The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part 2 (2015); Pretty Woman (1990); Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994); Back to the Future II (1989); When Harry Met Sally (1989); Confessions of a Dangerous Mind (2002); Titanic (1997); Coming To America (1988); Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002); Best in Show (2000); Big (1988); The Great Gatsby (2013); Catch Me if You Can (2002); The Faculty (1998); Taken (2008); Dirty Dancing (1987)...

I've certainly seen Dirty Dancing a time or two in total, but as i watched it with Brooke, and her commentary, it's clear this was her movie of her childhood, and not mine...  I can't quote it or know all of its interconnections at a glance the way she can.  Two more movies that missed original inclusion, one (Taken) that must have truly been missed, and the second (The Faculty) that was before RNJ's time.

I've also begun a reclamation of events from the perpetual calendar - just as i had earlier done from ticket stubs i came across, so now a few consumptions will be double listed but I've tried to mark them in the Arfives when i remember to do so.

26 January 2020

A Few Good Men is so eminently watchable (looking up the page, i realize that i typed these exact words not so long ago).  I can't believe it hasn't shown up earlier in this listing, as it's a movie i will watch most times it comes on.

"Should we, or should we not follow the advice of the galactically stupid!!??" is something i say at work all of the time (generally at the meeting after the meeting, true...)

15 February 2020

Speaking of galactically stupid, Deep Impact, the generally better of the two big asteroid movies of 1998, was finishing and the dumbest scene in either of those two movies when the kids run up a hill to escape the ocean played once again before my eyes.

I got a haircut (and a nose wax) this week, and thought to ask Melissa, my barbette, whether she had seen Edward Scissorhands.  I imagined a conversation about whether or not people tend to seek out works of art relating to their profession... Do bartenders (or owners?) watch Cheers at higher rates...  This thought occurred to me because earlier in the day my colleague, Laura, and i had been talking about Parasite, and how we should probably go see it, because it centers on our industry.  The problem with it, had i engaged in this conversation, is that the next logical conversational turn that I could come up with with regard to haircuts would be to ask if she knew the movie The Hairdresser's Husband, an enjoyable French movie, but one that is about a man who is aroused by the act of getting a haircut.

Last night Just Friends was on, and we watched a bit of it before settling on a movie for dinner.

27 March 2020

Sooo...., what's new with you guys?
The world has gone mad and we are under a "Safer @ Home" order from the state of Wisconsin.  The era of the Coronavirus will be a marker in American history, and it's hard to know what it means in terms of a turning point (i.e. we don't know yet where we are turning toward...)

I saw a bit of Doc Hollywood tonight and later watched Rachel Maddow talk about the pandemic situation in Albany, Georgia.  I'd been talking about Doc Hollywood of late, because we watched an episode of Hart of Dixie with Brig.  It's a good and terrible show that i like, because of the same reasons i like movies like Doc Hollywood...

Previously I had watched Vacation and almost all of Wonder Boys (which i feel like i may have read all or most of as well...)  The Ghostbusters movies are always worth watching, which i did while i was trapped in Jacksonville, FL for an unreasonable amount of time.

We came across Airheads first while we were at Mothership.  I love that movie, and even seeing it on silent, i could follow everything.  When we got home, i forced my household to watch most of it...

Be safe out there, everyone

13 April 2020

A few fly-by's while i've been quarantined.  I rounded out the trilogy by catching the final act of Back to the Future, and started reclaiming another trilogy by watching the toiling hiking scene (along with some other interspersed story) of Return of the King.

I am badly missing baseball, and sport generally, these days, and so Major League was a welcome respite and (seeing &) hearing Bob Uecker is a real treat just now.   The lack of sport has driven me to buy an XBox, which arrived a few days ago... I've already made it to Boxing Day in my first season of FIFA20 (although to be fair to me, i'm playing career mode, and when i don't start a game, it automatically simulates it so our team is not as good as we would otherwise be).

I've come to an understanding with the era we're in, and consuming these comfort movies I've seen before (and often often) while I sit and work on our puzzle has become a nice way to while a way a Saturday afternoon.

Be well everyone - bodily and mentally, and socially...

16 May 2020

We watched The Goldfinch the other evening, which was a pretty okay rendition of the book, but i think only perhaps if you have read the book.  Which i have - although it seems I missed tracking it in late 2014 when I read it.  This morning I read a couple of short sections from throughout the book to re-acquaint myself.

I turned on The Amazing Spider-Man 2 because I thought I'd watch a few scenes, and log it here, but then came to realize it was entirely unfamiliar to me.  I believe I may not have seen any of the Andrew Garfield Spidey movies, or if at all just the first one maybe?  A couple days later tho, the Sam Raimi Spider-Man 2 came on and it seemed much more familiar!  Prior to that a couple brief snippets from The Departed & A Knight's Tale, which I've always enjoyed thoroughly...

24 June 2020

My () brother Andy had let me know that there were something like 4 or 5 Dragonheart movies available on Nextflix, but going off sometime in June.  He asked if i had seen any of them, and yes, indeed, I had seen the first one, because that was where my obsession with doing a Sean Connery impression started ("I am the last one!").  It was less then a year later that i was using a false ID to get into Iowa bars and the name on it was "Shawn Connery". I watched the opening scenes again recently, and decided i, unlike Andy, did not need to see all of the others.

Then I went through some sequels: Naked Gun (I also watched a small bit of 33 & 1/3, but was not convinced i had ever seen it); M:I 2; Transformers; & parts of both Austin Powers movies (there were only two, right? please say they only made 2 and that i haven't forgotten some really bad 3rd one)...

Then since I've been at the rental house in Rotunda West, I've been enjoying some sweet Keanu action w/ Speed & the Matrix (I have also been rewatching Bill & Ted's in preparation for Face the Music this summer).

8 July 2020 

We finished up our Florida trip, watching a bit of The 40-Year-Old Virgin (speed date scene) in the hotel on the way home.  The long holiday weekend, and doing housework while some classics (and some less-so) were on in the background: Lethal Weapon 2, Streetcar Named Desire, Fifth Element, Apollo 13, & Gremlins.

While visiting Clinton, we were panning around on TV, and i saw Hitch was on (also the speed date scene!).  This is a terrible movie that i did watch once, only because i had seen a preview a year earlier, and deeply did not want to see the movie being sold.  We were in Las Vegas for Nathan's bachelor party, and walking through an underground Italian scene (Ceasar's Palace?), and we as a group were approached and asked whether we each wanted to receive $2 for watching a movie preview and answering a few questions.  We agreed, thinking we'd get a preview to the next big summer blockbuster (this was before the MCU or Star Wars, etc. more the era where Mission: Impossible 2 or 3 or so were coming out, but still, $2!).

The movie in question turned out to be Hitch, so 6 - 8 dudes watched 60 seconds of spots schilling this bad movie, and then they asked us typical survey questions and asked for comments.  I believe my exact comment was, "do not release this movie.  It will be a mistake for all involved, and there is no way to fix it."

So we were all on our way each with a crisp $2 bill.  We took all the bills, and put it all on one number on the wheel of fortune (where they spin a wheel with different numbers (or maybe colors?) on it and each have different odds.  We bet all of our twos on the highest odds and won, so doubled our money.  They made sure to give us back our own $2 bills plus the winning in chips.  Then, we took the pool of money and The Paunch sat down at a roulette wheel with his patented system to lose fairly slowly of betting equal amounts on two of the three number ranges.  He went up, he went down, and eventually went bust with our winnings/earnings.  But all worth it for the look we received when Coplan sat down with some chips and a short stack of twos.

21 July 2020 

There will now be a fair amount of Stephen King showing up both here and in the standard list of Last Fives going forward.  This is because the the most excellent new podcast, The Kingcast, which covers the works of Stephen King and adaptations of his work created by two King obsessives who host another King fan who chooses a work to focus on.  So far, i've listened to shows about Silver Bullet / Cycle of the Werewolf and The Dark Half  (as well as 1408, which i did not review having seen it fairly recently & The Dark Tower tv series that wasn't).

12 September 2020

Rounders is a go to watch for me - I can always enjoy it at whatever point in the movie I come in.  This rainy afternoon I am pinioning between it (on a free Cinemax trial that's expiring soon) and The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug on AMC while Brooke shops for puzzles.  ("Winter is Coming").

I do not recall anything about The Crow (which was on another of the Cinemax stations), but I know that I went to see it when it came out in theatres.  I watched a bit of the climactic (i think?) scenes, where he (The Crow) seems to be trying to rescue a girl from the great 90s villain character actor Michael Wincott.  There was a lot of shooting.

Last weekend on a similar lazy afternoon I switched between 3 classics from 3 different decades: Rocky III, The Green Mile, & Grease.  

American Hustle was a movie that we went to see in the cinema with high expectations - it was so highly promoted.  And recently re-watching just a few minutes of it reminded me just what a clumsy mess of a movie it was.  It's all the most ridiculous actors in Hollywood who seem to be really enjoying playing dress-up... It's like the worst of the Ocean's movies (Frank's and George's).................................

Goonies I've seen once before at least (but maybe just the once).  Edward Norton, for all his amazing roles, plays a Catholic priest in Keeping The Faith, which is such a better movie than it ought to have been.  I turned on Argo when I was in Clinton watching TV with my mom, and she really enjoyed it.

A couple of other quick stop ins with I Love You Philip Morris & Galaxy Quest.

18 September 2020

True Lies (1994) was the follow-up for Arnie after 1993's Last Action Hero.  Both movies are about the same thing (LAH has yet to be reclaimed in this post, but I have seen it, and I think actually love it more): 80s/90s action movies are absurd, and take no account that fictional characters are supposed to have full lives.  Both movies are fantasies (as well as action and comedies), but TL tries to place this in fantasy into a "realistic setting", whereas, I think LAH is more successful, because its fantasy embraces the absurdity.  TL is perfectly watchable, though.  Mostly harmless.

4 October 2020

It's October, and we're watching horror movies!  Bram Stoker's Dracula was on, and I watched a few scenes of the very familiar movie, including Keanu's escape from the Count's castle.  Yesterday afternoon there was a two-fer after Nottingham Forest's morning loss (their 4th of 4!): The Bourne Identity (which it seems after digging into it, I have seen the entire series) and one of my favorite movies, Forgetting Sarah Marshall.  The song from the Dracula puppet musical is among my favorite parts of this favorite, and was on yesterday.

5 October 2020

We were fishing around for something to watch, and Brooke spotted Man of the Year, which felt vaguely familiar, but I was fairly sure I hadn't seen in its entirety before we started it.  Within the first 20 minutes or so, we realized it was pretty boring, and I also became certain that I had in fact seen it in its entirety at some point...

12 November 2020

2020 has been a uniquely hard year, but this past Sunday we lost Alex Trebek, so I'm watching a bit of Jeopardy! (which I can't include on this list based on the rules, I suppose) while flipping between scenes of The Hunt for Red October, which features another great loss from last month - Sean Connery (as well as Alec Baldwin, Sam Neill, Tim Curry, and James Earl Jones - just in the few minutes I've been watching).  It's the first of the Jack Ryan adaptations, but probably not the best...

I watched a bit of Thinner because I'm catching up on King alongside the Kingcast, and also because it was October, and scary movies feels like what you do in October... Thus Poltergeist 2, Addams Family Values (a stretch, i know), and E.T. (a super-stretch).  I also watched a little bit of Miss Congeniality, which evidently has an action / shoot-out scene (who knew!)

4 April 2021

Well, it's Easter, evidently...

I've neglected this listing for quite a long time - there are a couple of movies I watched almost in their entirety, which bring me back: La Bamba more recently, and Shakespeare in Love back in February.  La Bamba is a movie near and dear to my heart, which I have watched probably dozens of times.  It was available during a trial stint of HBO Max (during which I also watched Man of Steel), and Brooke was amazed how well I knew the movie, the song, and the Richie Valens story generally.

We watched Shakespeare in Love on an evening when Brig came over - it's one of her favorites, and although it was a bit dumber than I had remembered (and ham fisted with regard to it's LGBTQ+ perspectives), it was a generally worthwhile distraction for an evening.  

Earlier on I watched a bit of a couple of classic 80s flix: All of Me & Footloose, and I continued horror month last October into the new year watching Halloween: H20 & The Silence of the Lambs last November, and Misery & Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (again a massive stretch, I know) early in the new year.  There's a fun episode of The Kingcast podcast focused on Misery featuring Elijah Wood, who once again demonstrates he seems like a pretty cool dude.

Also reclaimed are Class Act, a Kid n' Play vehicle, which I watched a lot as a young person, and Jumanji, which we've watched the couple of sequels which are loads of fun in recent months...

16 April 2021

In preparation for painting our living room, we are going to get rid of the massive armoire / entertainment center thing, which has two big drawers that have been full of DVDs & CDs these last 14 years or so...

And so last Saturday, when I was packing up the DVDs and cataloguing, I watched a chunk of Pulp Fiction, which remains (unfashionably, I think) my favorite Tarantino movie - starting with the "Royale with Cheese" car conversation until Butch rides off on his chopper with Fabienne.

The CDs were next (which was a much larger project), and I watched most of Top Secret! in the background.  One day of CDs didn't quite do it, so I finished on Wednesday this week while watching a small part of Enemy Mine, which was a movie I watched dozens of times on cable when I was young - evidently, it was largely panned and a box office failure, but man, I loved that movie.  I won't say that it holds up, necessarily, but it's dear to me.

And finally a movie that is not at all dear to me, but while it was halftime (0-0) during the Minnesota Loons opening match at the Seattle Sounders I watched a bit of Mr. Deeds, which I will admit I have seen previously.  After a scoreless first half, it is now 3-0 Sounders and a really depressing night, which even a bit more of Mr. Deeds may improve...  

21 May 2021

A trio of movies was on while I was folding laundry, and i switched between them: Arachnophobia, Saving Private Ryan, and US Marshals.  I've seen Arachnophobia the most times, but all the longest ago back when it was airing on cable often (I don't think i had it on VHS).  Marshals has Tommy Lee Jones reprising his same character as in The Fugitive.

Watching the wrap-up of Bruce Almighty did not look familiar, but I am certain I saw it when it first came out - possibly even in the theater (it was an era, when i saw a lot of movies).  It's a pretty dumb movie, it seems, and I can't believe it warranted a sequel (which I am fairly sure I have not seen).

12 July 2021

Raising Arizona is the first Coen Brothers movie that I ever saw, and in reviewing - even in the first few opening scenes that I watched - it was probably too twisted a film for my 10 year old mind when I saw it... but I remember loving it.  Around the same time, watching whatever came on premium cable (which I think we were pirating at the time), I saw The Gods Must Be Crazy, which I watched many many times in those days.

The Music Man is a much earlier movie from the '60s, but I didn't see it until half a decade later in the mid-90s when Clinton High School decided it would stage a production of it.  This time, I just saw the ending scenes, starting with the big concert where Henry Hill is revealed to be a music education genius with the brilliant devising of "The Think Method"!

Speaking of the 90s, I have been remiss in my cataloguing of these consumption captures, so I will need a bit of just rattling off titles to get back to now.  Now, Weekend at Bernie's is technically an 80s movie, but I first saw it in the 90s, so we'll count it.  Prior to that, I saw various bits of The Pelican Brief, Get Shorty & Dazed & Confused.  This last, I watched with Brooke while we were in Austin (which is where it takes place).

Speaking of Brooke, that's the main character's name in The Break-Up, which was such a perfectly apt movie that came out the year we got married and closely depicted Brooke and my fighting antics of the previous few (and following couple) years:

Brooke: I want you to want to do the dishes

Me (or VV): Why would I want to do the dishes!?

Before that I watched just a few minutes of Tombstone, Gone in 60 Seconds, and White House Down each.  The whole reason I thought to start typing this was that Knight & Day was on yesterday in the background while we were working on a home project, and I thought I'd watch it to be able to log it here... I hardly remembered the movie, but knew that I had seen it as it was unfolding (in the moments between hammering nails).  However, i checked the Arfives, and it turns out I was keeping fairly close track at the time I first saw it in 2010!  Pretty dumb movie in retrospect...

30 July 2021

I read Ender's Game back in the early aughts, and probably only did so then because I had randomly found it on a random library shelf of audiobooks (books on tape back in those days as The Yot only had a tape deck {after market}), and I think I really liked the book - maybe even read some of the sequels, so when the movie was coming out in 2013, I think I must have been excited, and probably even went to see it in the theater...  

I watched the build-up scenes (mostly wind sprints) of Hoosiers while making dinner and waiting for the live Olympics to start.  The Sex & The City movie was on when I was folding laundry, so I saw just a few moments of it.  Similarly, I only saw the scene of Die Hard with a Vengeance where Sam Jackson shows up at a baseball stadium, and I think there's like a bomb or something?  Did I hear they're making a new Die Hard movie? I'm not sure I've even seen the most recent one (the 2007 one, yes, evidently, but did you know they released one in 2013, too? Crazy).  

I watched a few great scenes of Robin Hood: Men In Tights as well as had the chance to watch Eddie rap "I - I - I - I want the knife" in The Golden Child.

4 October 2021

I have neglected this archive for quite awhile (although, I think it has something to do with my rate of consumption slowing {in strictly a non-Victorian sense}, which likely has to do with my {ill-advised} plan to go back and watch through The Walking Dead as the new season starts up, and all of those seasons I'm getting through were previously tracked in the Arfives.

Nonetheless, we start with two wonderful examples of 90s Action flicks, which I'm surprised haven't yet been reclaimed here: The Rock & Swordfish.  The latter has an unhinged quality that is reminiscent of the opening sequence of Deadpool (only played straight rather than for laughs) where there is a meta-commentary about the fact that you can't believe they just let the violence you just witnessed unfold in a 90s Action Movie - it's supposed to be mostly all ok in the end (and the middle and the beginning, like The Rock is...

For something completely different, I watched a few scenes from The Coneheads while folding laundry, and was reminded that Chris Farley plays a kind of an endearing doofus boyfriend, rather than the coked up hilarity machine he usually embodied. A few weeks later, and another load of laundry and The Godfather Part 2 was on (which I was also surprised to see was never recorded here) - it was the scenes unfolding at Lake Tahoe leading up to Fredo's death on this occasion.

Finally, with the approach of October, we were casting around for some horror movies to start our month of freak, and I landed on Gremlins 2 one evening - the scenes where everything is starting to go wrong, and the big fancy new building (reminiscent of the one in Land of the Dead) are also glitching with increasing frequency (almost as if there were a gremlin gumming up the works!).  We've been watching a lot more horror of late, as you'll see on the main feed of Last Fives, but took a short break from it to flash forward to Christmas with Die Hard 2, which Brooke had never seen, and was surprised to learn existed.  It caused me to dig into the series a bit (to see what else I might be missing in the Arfives), and learned that in fact there is a planned new installment coming up in the near future. 

24 October 2021

Last night I was going to turn in a little earlier than normal, and brought my laptop up to bed to watch some of House before I turned in - I didn't see too much before falling asleep, but enough to recall that House was a horror movie favorite of mine when I was a kid (which is to say, I think I was terrified of it).  Earlier this month, both Scream & Scream 2 were running on AMC, and I caught a bit of each on a recent Saturday.

I also saw (I think on AMC too!) a short bit of Tremors before we were going to leave for an adventure... The bit where the monsters are just starting to become apparent, and I confirmed, that yes in fact I had seen this movie before.  

At the same time, this October, it also happens to be FOOTBALL SEASON!!!, and the best football movie (or at least a football movie) that I've seen is Any Given Sunday, where you get to see LT once again play (fake) football... In this scene I watched, though, after coming home for dinner, was Al Pacino giving the locker room speech (see link).

And I watched a tiny bit of Wild Wild West, and was planning to write a brief treatise on how it wasn't' such a bad movie, but I am sorry, and I won't watch it at all again ever... I promise.

19 November 2021

While we were still in the throes of October and horror movies were still all the rage, we watched a good chunk of Little Shop of Horrors while I mansplained how I coulda beena contender if only I'd been given a role (the dentist or Seymour) in Luther College's rendition early in my time there...

All of the Halloween movies! I'd seen Halloween II long ago, I think - and after watching the opening "nuthouse break" scene of Halloween Resurrection I recalled for sure that I had seen that one when it came out too... 

I watched a chunk of Brewster's Millions  on and off one evening - I think during commercials of a football game that I didn't care that much about.  It's a classic 80s comedy that is a bit out of time in this era, but Richard Pryor is fraking hilarious...  I watched a couple minutes of Zoolander and frankly can't believe it isn't on this list yet...

I've found I really like ellipses in this post...  Goldeneye was a better video game than it was a movie, but I looked at both, and I was surprised how little of Se7en I remembered - at least visually - when I watched it earlier today while folding laundry.  The plot/thematics were very familiar - the 7 deadly: i picked up just when Pitt & Freeman were heading into the brothel where they discovered the "Lust" crime.

..

5 February 2022

Well, it's a new year, and I'm watching a bit of the start to Guys & Dolls (before Brando or Sinatra show up so far), which is a bit of a sorry sight... Ah!, but here comes good ole reliable Nathan Detroit and it's a lot more fun.

Previously, I saw a bit of a part of Lethal Weapon 3, which is the lamest of the Lethal Weapons until (I have heard) they made more...  Joe Pesci becomes a blonde clown (and he was always already a clown anyway, but now somewhat worse).  Brooke & I were searching for something to watch a few nights before, and I explained to her what Delirious was - the kinda bad John Candy as a soap opera writer.  

Bad 80s & 90s is one thing, but more recently I've been interested in the failings of the Aughts - Shopgirl was a cute little book that Steve Martin wrote that I kinda liked, and then a movie that he showed up in and I remember kinda liking, but on rewatch it's a bit ewww.  A most Aughts work of prose was Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close and the insights of the Jonathan Safran Foer & David Eggers of the world...  The filmic version was actually somehow more interesting in the end, I think.

Over the holidays past I caught up on a few consumptions, including Mary Poppins Returns, which I know we caught sometime after it was released, but saw again when my fam was around home at the Clinton House for the holidays.  Executive Decision is one of those completely unfamiliar movies once its 25 years in the rear view, but I remember the event of it and seeing it (I think in theaters)...

I watched just a few moments of The Mask & The Proposal in and around the same era, but know both of those movies fully well.  Just last night, we were talking at the Gilkersons about how much we love Jim Carrey (even forgiving him for all his dumb [and dumber] shit), and The Mask is a classic that I want to return to in full sometime soon.  The Proposal, meanwhile, is a Betty White joint that features Ryan Reynolds (who I seem to like more and more in spite of his wealth, handsomeness, and good fortune) and (the very plain, according to Betty White [RIP]) Sandra Bullock.

Prior to that, I had been planning a Spider-Man coup to get Brooke to finally admit that she likes Spider-Man... which she does, but it seems most of those either I'd recorded previously or we watched in their entirety, so it was just the one.  I am always happy to watch The Wedding Singer as perhaps the peak of Adam Sandler comedy, and Casablanca is of course an all time great that I've never somehow tracked...

I saw just the moment of Mr. Mom, when she (the former Mrs. Mom, i assume) slams the door because she's angry about herself supplanting her husband in a view into future work where the work done by workers is so dumb that they only need people desperate to advance who don't care whether there's actual work to be done...  And then a chunk of The Wizard of Oz before than that.

28 February 2022

We were down in Clinton a couple weekends ago - celebrating my dad's birthday (he's a Valentine's baby!), and watched most of The Breakfast Club.  Brooke and I were quizzing Andy whether he connects to this movie or not (it came out 3 years after he graduated high school).  Turns out not at all - I'll be curious to ask the same of Tim, but it was definitely formative and super relatable to me and Brooke (although maybe our generation were just more about connecting with the movies of our generation in a way that older folks aren't?

Anyway, back to the catching up.  I watched the finale of Dr. No which I think I like more than I end up doing as well as the closing of Contact (which I like more than i remember).  Finally, I flipped between a trio of movies while I was folding some laundry: Bad Boys II, Point Break, and Look Who's Talking.  This last is truly terrible, but I remember thinking of it fondly when it came out (you can forgive me, I was 9)...

12 March 2022

Brooke signed us up for a free trial of EPIX streaming service - which is actually kind of amazing, because it has all kinds of old movies - you should try it out and watch White Zombie if you've never seen it!  But instead (because I have, many times), I watched a chunk of Shanghai Noon, which I'm not sure if that's something you can get yourself cancelled for these days.  I saw the beginning, when Jackie Chan is in China, and is tasked with heading to the American Wild West to save somebody or other.  He then meets Owen Wilson, aspiring outlaw.  It is worse than I remember it being, and I don't remember it being very good.

I then sought out some distraction whilst folding laundry (much of this log of missed consumptions has become my work of filling in blanks while I fold laundry - and we have much laundry to do; I seek out the movies I've seen before when I fold it, and try to capture as many missed consumptions as I can) to watch a small bit of  Joe Dirt, which I feel is a movie that almost certainly will get you cancelled these days... 

And then today, in between In-Laws visits, I flipped between Back To School (which I was shocked I hadn't recaptured before - it's one of my favorite 80s movies {not now, but as a memory of when I saw it as a kid}) and Bad Boys, which I am reminded I liked much much much more than the subsequent movies... 

19 April 2022

I'm surprised, given my level of curation in my early years teaching at UW-M, that I didn't record when I read Nicholas Carr's article in The Atlantic, "Is Google Making Us Stupid?".  I only read it at the time because I was teaching it to my English 101 students as part of the Comp Departments "standard assignment sequence", but it is an intriguing read that plays with the idea of technological determinism, which I "label" (see brackets below) as "42", because HGTTG is ALL ABOUT technological determinism...

Over the past weekend, I turned on the opening minutes of Roxanne in trying to find something that both Brooke & I might watch, and found another example of a movie that you look at and wonder - is this still okay to watch or allow to exist in our world today?  Airplane! on the other hand - stands up as a classic, and it was so fun to see fictional Kareem act out his scene in it in the new HBO series Not Showtime...

To be honest, I don't really remember which scenes or in what context I watched parts of Liar Liar, Fever Pitch, or MIB2, but all officially reclaimed here for posterity's sake.

13 July 2022

I'm surprised that European Vacation hadn't been logged prior to this, but I saw the Big Ben part... I also saw the "building the team" bit of Ocean's Eleven, which I was equally surprised not to have recorded before now.

Back in April, after I had started the driving job and her campaign had ended, Brooke started watching Greys Anatomy through from the start, and I definitely had seen all of the first two seasons (subsequent seasons I'm not so sure I saw much or at least all of...

When we were in Omaha for Claire's confirmation, Pump Up The Volume was on tv, and I explained to Brooke that it was possibly one of my most formative movies, and after watching most of it she felt as though she had a new insight into how my brain works.  Also during that airBnB stay, I saw parts of Rush Hour, The Waterboy, and Pearl Harbor.  

Again, when Spaceballs was on one Saturday morning, I was super shocked that it hadn't already made this list. I also watched the charades scene from The Professional.  While staying in San Diego, we were unable to stream anything, so it was strictly what was on cable tv, which turned out to be Mean Girls one night, and probably the final Potterverse with Deathly Hallows, Pt. 1.

Just a few minutes of The Outsiders (enough to wonder why the hell we read / watched that back in middle school), and then most of Road House.  And in the interest of collecting all of a couple more franchises, I watched a very small bit of Rocky V (pretty bad) and Batman Returns (which I forget is a Christmas movie, and may be an addition to the holiday movie marathons!

11 October 2022

I've heard it said that it's important to write down your goals, or better yet, tell people about them, and therefore create some semblance of accountability.  I've never been a big fan of the stuff, myself (although I was for a while trying to create some regular accountability meetings with JP et al, which for one reason or another never stuck).

Well, ever since I read Stephen King's On Writing (which is not yet being catalogued here, but could be) I have had in the back of my mind Steve's tautological assertion that if you want to think of yourself as a writer, you have to write, and his definition of that was 1,000 words per day "when you're working on something", 6 days per week (although he himself he said didn't tend to take a day off he allowed for it if you're so inclined).  I took this one small slice of King's great book about the craft of writing, and have at various times committed myself to producing just that amount of writing, though only very occasionally and in fits and starts.  This blog, in fact, is the result of that effort (zombies notwithstanding), although some of you who are particularly strong in the art of arithmetic may catch on to the fact that this blog does not, in fact, always publish 1,000 words of content every day.  "Very astute, hm!?, Dodger," as Sol Cohen might say.  There have, indeed been other outlets for the word count dump - including journaling and free-writing, a not inconsiderable quantity of drafts that have not yet been posted to this blog, the fiction and the academic and non-academic non-fiction drafts that sit in the various stacks or sacks or hard drives or cloud drives of my biographical path - although for the most part the days these last 22 years or so since I read King's book have been without 1,000 words, and I am therefore not, sad to say, a writer, perhaps, most notably, perhaps, because, I have not really published any of the quantity of prose that I've been accumulating and producing lo these many years.

But then, I once again read the introduction to Stephen King's Four Past Midnight, which I'm planning to start reading again shortly again some 20+ years after first encountering it (and could also rightly include here, but because I'm revisiting in toto, I won't, at least for now).  In the intro, King talks about publishing this book of four novellas, and some of the financial implications (in passing) of publishing this book and another, similarly structured one some 7 years earlier (and also, oddly, about Robin Yount).  But then King talks about the writing of these novellas (and of his writing in general), and how he does that just for himself (and to keep himself sane, he says), and it occurs to me (not for the first time) that I don't really need to publish anything to be a writer - to be an author, maybe, but not a writer.  All I have to do that is to write, right?  

And so (as I guess I have done at least once before here), I commit myself again to the 1,000 word goal, and the goal of being a writer.

Oh, and last night I watched a bit of the beginning of First Blood in bed, because I wasn't quite ready to go to sleep, but thought I should head to bed after getting home from work around 1:00am, and I did a quick check of my arFives to see what I had seen previously, was available for free streaming, but hadn't recorded here previously.  Similarly, I was looking for something to have on in the background on Saturday while Keks and I were getting ready to head down to Clinton, and found the movie version of The Time Traveler's Wife, which is the worst of all the versions (but still quite dear to me).  Brooke and I watched a good chunk of the first part of the It mini-series, because it's October now and we can watch scary stuff when we're together!

The last time I had spent the night down in Clinton, I had also been looking for something to watch late at night before I went to sleep and found the second season of Lost DVDs, which hadn't made its way on to the list (while most of the rest of the seasons had).  I also watched some short bits of Wayne's World 2 & Batman & Robin while folding laundry at the Colonel as a way to round out some of the sequels I've never recorded yet.

And then there's Salem's Lot, which we had on pre-recorded VHS at the Clinton house, and I watched most of that (as well as all of the Director's Cut of The Lawnmower Man) before listening to a few more episodes of The Kingcast and finishing out the first year of their episodes (as a completionist is wont to do, albeit very very slowly).

19 October 2022

I had also watched some of the front half of Chocolat (fast forwarding through the credits and slow bits to get to parts i knew) while I was looking for something to watch that was not yet collected here.  Brooke made fun of me extensively when finding the movie in our Netflix "Continue Watching" feed...

American Psycho, on the other hand, she and i watched together during 'scary movie month', and it stands up over time, I feel like, in its examination of the psychosis of a serial killer combined with the everyday psychosis of American Capitalism.  It's not about the same things (business cards and pop albums), but it really is all about the same things, and that's scary.

On the other hand, Sometimes They Come Back, was all for me - as there was at least one episode of The Kingcast that covered it (listening to it right now, actually, and it's with guest Paul Rust (not sure who he is, but he sounds hilarious), and another evening I watched part of Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter before tottering off (which I still think in novel form is as strong a history book as Doris Kearns Goodwin's doorstop).

Then tonight, while I was waiting downstairs for Brooke to do an evening work meeting before we went to Jalapano's (she was in a work meeting), I started House of Wax - the remake co-starring Paris Hilton, which came out amidst a revival of new horror in the early Aughts...

16 November 2022

I'm not sure how often the links I post in my Last Fives are ever clicked through (don't worry, I know, I know), but I do enjoy them.  I don't spend a lot of time looking for them, and most often I use the most BB link, but when I want to think about one of the texts that I consumed a little longer, I will make an idiosyncratic associative google search that encapsulates what I'm thinking or wondering about the text.  One such search, led me to my link for Sister Act, which I have seen many times, and this time just watched the "checking in to the nunnery" scene.

I saw most of the back end of Autumn in New York after I got home from work and Brooke was watching it.  Fun movie...  I was shocked to find two IIIs that had yet to be collected here, and so watched a small bit of both Karate Kid III & Back to the Future III while we were getting ready to head to Clinton last weekend.  

I also re-collected a couple of 21st Century classics after my late-night TV catch-up with early parts of both Bridesmaids and Napoleon Dynamite.  When I first started the Arfives, google was pretty sure I was spam, and shut down my page - I actually had to petition google and wait months and months until an actual human read my request to reinstate the page, and it went live again.  Somewhere in that transition, a great many of the links for my early consumptions were lost.  I have subsequently begun a slow reclamation project as various texts come back on to my radar for one reason or another...

24 December 2022

I saw the scene where Whoopi is going to give the $4 Million check to the nuns in Ghost while I was folding laundry, and watched bits of the rest of the movie while I was in and out of the room.  I'm surprised I haven't collected it here before, and I feel like the movie holds up pretty well, and I love the 80s/early 90s computer malfunction freak out when the bad guy's thievery has been exposed.

This past weekend, I watched some of the opening of Hook, which could almost fit into the holiday category instead, but I will capture here, since I never have before.  I remember seeing Hook in theaters - it was a big event when it came out, but I hadn't been a big fan of Peter Pan back in the day.  I also watched a little bit of the opening scene of Willow, which I think I will probably watch back again with Brooke before I start the new series on Disney+.

I only saw the closing credits of The Great Outdoors this time, but it's one I've seen (although not one of my John Candy staples that I've seen a ton of times).  Billy Madison was on regular tv one day when we were down in Clinton a couple weeks ago, and we watched a good chunk of it.  I watched just the tiniest bits of both Thunderball and Blue Steel (which I was shocked to learn was directed by Katheryn Bigelow - maybe I'll have to revisit it sometime in its entirety as I hardly remember it, but had seen it many years ago).

I also watched a bit of Role Models, which I am also shocked to see is not already recorded.  It's a fun dumb movie, but a joy of one of the earliest filmic LARPing scenes, which are always a good time (not least in an episode of Hawkeye which is so fun...

27 February 2023

I thought I had actually tracked Failure to Launch here many moons ago, but apparently not - I saw just a bit of it one evening, but it's a movie I had enjoyed as a bit of dumb rom com...  Grumpy Old Men is another matter all together.  In our never-ending quest to find something we can both agree on, Brooke suggested the old-timer "comedy" on HBO Max one night, and I reconfirmed that it is a movie that I hated when it came out, and I still just do not enjoy at all now - just all together unpleasant.

I watched a handful of scenes from Red Dawn while I was folding laundry one Saturday morning before we headed out for the day.  It was never my 80s movie (I think Chad loved it, which tracks with a conservative, proto-fascist outlook, and also why our club from those early days, MP, was not my idea and cring-y in retrospect).

So it was that I flipped back and forth from Red Dawn to Now You See Me, which (again) I was surprised not to find already here, which was a really fun heist movie that we saw when it first came out (I think we may have even gone to a theater to see it!), tho I was surprised to learn that it got a sequel, which I am pretty sure I did not see, and just now I am shocked to learn it's getting a third act (which I may watch - not least because Seth Grahame-Smith appears to be the screenwriter).  

The other day (again, folding laundry - I fold A LOT of laundry, in fact all the laundry) I watched the bank robbing scene from Heat, which I saw once back in the day (the rare 2-VHS tape movie, methinks) then never again, then happened upon Malcolm X, which I remember loving and watching a lot on cable back in the day.

7 June 2023

Franklin Foer wrote a "new" foreword essay (which I think is now well over 10 years old) to his fabulous book (How Soccer Explains the World) that serves as an excellent primer both for gaining an understanding of the history of global club soccer and also a useful history of 1990s / very early 2000s socio-history of globalization.

Black Hawk Down was a hyper-militaristic movie that came out a few months after 9/11 and I saw in its entirety when it came out and am now sort of embarrassed that I did.  It was on and I watched a few minutes of the opening action and collect it here.  I also saw a few scenes of Step Brothers, which I still think is a pretty damn solid comedy - even if it feels a bit out of touch now.

I watched a few minutes of the closing scene of City Slickers where they are driving a herd of cattle through a river (? this is what movies used to be, evidently...?) and also the (checks notes) ... shoot-out scene in Twins !? 

I also had the chance to show Brooke Land of the Lost - the Will Ferrell vehicle that I am pretty sure we had both actually seen (but I definitely did).  I guess I've also been on a ticking off old Steve Martin projects kick, most recently with Eugene Levy's scene of auditioning as the Wedding Singer in Father of the Bride, and at the start of it the opening scenes of Pink Panther.  

One Saturday ago, Matinee was on, and I know I saw the John Goodman vehicle back in the day, but not a lot of it looked familiar.  I watched a bit of Troy, and saw Orlando Bloom and some other sort of famous people, and I was like, "oh, no I haven't seen this one, I've seen the Brad Pitt sandal movie from the same era"), but then googled it and was like, oh, this is the one... Brooke and I also watched the first few episodes of Ally McBeal (which I think I mostly watched on recorded VHS tapes)

31 July 2023

This has been an odd summer since last I logged any lost lasts - with a sickly vacation (mostly Brooke's sickliness) to Arizona.  Before that, I watched a little bit of Rush Hour 2, which I was surprised not to have tracked here before, and a late night viewing of Monty Python's The Life of Brian.  I saw short snippets of The Quick and the Dead and Casino from our condo in Sedona as well as a few full watches of things I'd seen previously, but never recorded thanks to so thrift store DVD purchases for a room with no streaming capabilities.

I watched a little of (one of?) the problematic scene(s) from American Pie, and then watched a good chunk of The Gold Rush, which I had on VHS when I was young, and used to love to watch, streaming it this time on a cheap old movie service called Retro Reels, which Brooke had signed up for (and I now have just remembered to cancel!).  

I read a little of the middle of Green Darkness, which was a book I read at Brooke's suggestion / pressure back in the early aughts, and enjoyed thoroughly.  A few nights ago, when I got home from work, Brooke was watching Uncle Buck, and we finished watching it - classic John Candy. Then, from our airBnB in Minneapolis, I saw a bit of The Mummy Returns while she was getting ready to leave for the day.  

13 September 2023

One night last month I was searching around for something to watch, and stumbled upon The Truman Show, which I think is truly one of my favorite movies - it really is great, simple yet profound, honest, and good.  I watched a goodly chunk of the beginning, and was shocked that it hadn't ever shown up here before.  Less shocking (and less reverentially remembered) was Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and Fabulous (I think it was another brief fill in while folding laundry).

The Last Man on Earth, on the other hand, I watched most of after a Brewers game while my in-laws were in town.  I suppose I did turn it on a bit passive-aggressively, and it sorta eventually chased them out of the house, and we watched the rest of the movie (a classic, original adaptation of I Am Legend, and perhaps the truest)

Demolition Man was another brief snippet (Sly & Snipes' final stand-off), but I had Another 48 Hours on for quite a while enjoying a shower beer, and, you know, doing my hair, after mowing the lawn.  It's still not a very good movie, but I have definitely seen it...

Over The Top, I watched the brief scene just after Sly (again) has picked up his son from some sort of military academy.  Watched is a loose term, as we were at Blackbird Bar, and it was on in the background.  In order to keep a string alive (I track Lost Lasts together in one 'line item' in the doc if they occur within 5 other events, otherwise I start a new one with a new link), I quick like read a short chapter of Gone Girl after signing up for a 30-Day Free Trial of Scribd (both Stephen King & Stephen Graham Jones have exclusive short stories / novellas that I hadn't read yet).

Straight Outta Compton is a great music biopic that I was nearly 1000% sure would be previously captured in my Arfives, but I had somehow missed.  To be fair, 2016 or 2017 was about when I started paying closer attention again (actually maybe that is the Highlight Calendar, not the blog), but still, I think it's around when I started getting back in to the game...

26 September 2023

Mannequin was a very formative movie in my life.  It came out in theaters in 1987 when I was 9... I didn't see it then, but I am guessing that it was in very heavy rotation on Cinemax or Showtime or HBO by the time I turned 12, and the concept of meeting a beautiful woman, who was totally in to you and only you could see and who would show up every night to hang out with you was somehow very compelling to me then.  I watched just the opening credits and the early scenes where Andrew McCarthy got his job at the store...

I think Blade was one of my first (at least recent) attempts at putting myself to bed - instead of staying up watching tv until forever and falling asleep on the couch, I watched an episode or two of what I'm watching, then take my laptop to bed, and watch something (prob something I've seen before or don't really care about) - in this case, the early scenes of Blade before I fell asleep - I remember I actually took Brooke to see Blade in the theater and I'm shocked that she didn't walk out during the Blood Shower scene, and she brings it up, like, fairly frequently as a reason that I shouldn't choose what we watch next...

I remember first watching The Great Dictator just after I'd seen Robert Downey Jr.'s biopic version of Chaplin (which I can't believe isn't tracked here yet).  I loved that movie, and the important spot that Chaplin's first talkie has in the biopic, I went out and borrowed The Great Dictator from the library (and I think dubbed it, which was something I was doing a lot at the time).  This time around, I was (once again) folding laundry, and watched some of the WWI trench scenes (with classic Chaplin silent action), and the very early faux-Hitler speeches...

I watched about 30 seconds of Rambo III after a Nottingham Forest match - a scene near the end, as they were about to break out of (camp?) something... It was probably the Rambo I knew the best, because it came out when I was 10, and you know, 10-year-old boys... (especially then).  And then last night I watched the opening scenes of Mission: Impossible (again part of my "go to bed" initiative) after determining which (very few as it turns out) of that Tom Cruise sequence I have tracked over time.  Now that they're all (or most) on Paramount+, I thought I would catch up at some point soon...

31 January 2024

Although I think I may have seen it (or parts of it) some 30+ years earlier, Critters came on to my radar "recently" from a mention (I think) on The Kingcast, and I revisited a sizeable chunk of the movie during my Halloween horror spree (although collected here as it makes its first appearance in the Arfives).  It is a pleasantly totally bonkers watch and may make its way in to my October-viewing in future.

I remember Don't Tell Mom The Babysitter's Dead very fondly (I think in part, because the concept of a babysitter for tweens and teens was bizarre to me as I was a fairly free-range, small-town kid who couldn't get up to too much trouble if left alone), largely for its urban / suburban dichotomy, which made sense to me in theory, but I'd never really understood.  On this rewatch of most of the movie, I had a much greater appreciation for the embedded critique of the absurdity of white collar work

I think I remember the novel Firestarter more than I do the movie version (although the movie poster image is seared in my brain).  The original film (1984) perhaps leaves something to be desired - I watched a pretty good (as in sizeable, not quality) chunk of the movie and went back to The Kingcast classics for the first show with Kate Siegel (not that one).  (I wonder how many people have "Not to be confused with _______" at the top of their Wikipedia pages?  Michael Jackson the whiskey writer, I suppose {although likely not Michael Jackson, the King of Pop}.  Interesting for these two Kates is that they both have a redirect to the other... I bet that's pretty rare).

I watched the beginning half or so of Meet The Parents (which I was shocked not to find already recorded here) while I was sequestered in Clinton at the start of the month, and the same goes for Superman II (although I didn't stay awake for nearly half of that one), Training Day (dozed in an out of this one), My Cousin Vinny (just the opening, basically until Joe Pesci shows up), and Event Horizon (although I was less surprised that this one hadn't been recorded, as I think I ever only saw this one when it came out in theaters).  

Ted 2 I watched in preparation for watching the new Peacock series... 

11 February 2024

... I used to watch old episodes of Get Smart with my dad when I was a kid (Nick at Nite?), so when the Steve Carrell movie came out in 2008 I was (probably) one of the few who was super excited.  I think it ultimately must have been a fairly forgettable movie, as when I watched a chunk of the beginning on Max, I didn't recognize it at all.  I watched a tiny bit of the beginning of Almost Famous basically just to keep this list in my "Last Fives", and then A Raisin in the Sun, which I last saw when I was in (I think) Mrs. Ford's English class, was on while I was folding some laundry.

26 March 2024

A lot of catching up on these lost lasts of late on Max, including watching a good chunk of the beginning of Cabin Fever, which I saw in the cinema when it came out.  I also watched a bit of Rookie of the Year before going to sleep on the app.  I was shocked to find that both Men in Black and Shrek had never been recorded here previously, but I watched parts of both of those while folding some laundry, as well as Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, which was the Mad Max movie I watched most often because it played on constant loop on HBO, Showtime, and Cinemax back in the late 80s and early 90s...

To keep this list going, I pulled The Curious Case of Sidd Finch off the shelf, which was a book I got from Toni DeRuyter near the end of college.  I moved it around with me to various apartments and houses, and read it when I lived in Minneapolis after college, and now it lives on the bookshelves in Clinton, where I think to date I have not convinced anyone else to read.  Two more movies that I was surprised I hadn't tracked here previously: Police Academy, which I'm sure I've previously intended to put on this list, and Blue Chips, which I loved when I first saw it back in the 90s (I even bought Shaq's Reebok Pumps for basketball practice because he was such an icon for me after that movie).

I saw a scene from Alfie on a tv at an assisted living facility where I was delivering and waiting a while.  I knew that I knew the movie, and had seen it, and recognized Michael Caine, so as I went back through his filmography, and realized this was one that I had put on VHS when I was obsessively dubbing tapes borrowed from the library, and recording off TV.  Last time I was down in Clinton, I also watched just a bit of Fiddler on the Roof, which I had watched back in high school one of the years that we were going through possible shows to do with Mrs. Hahn...

12 May 2024

It's been a wild few minutes... And I have taken to recapturing large snippets of television that I've already seen, in a hope to get to the end of some of these texts I never quite made it.  First was Jericho, which I remember watching in Omaha (starting Fall 2006), but I don't quite recall when I worked to get through it all (which I did for sure for all of Season 1).  I think I also almost finished Season 2, but now may need to start from scratch to get through it all (with any contextural memory)...

We watched bits of The Last Temptation of Christ & The Ten Commandments over Easter weekend, one felt more true to Christ's true radical nature, and the other one starred a former president of the NRA... Who the Christ knows, right!!??

I watched a little bit of The Natural while folding some laundry - I remember this movie as a kid, and loving the story (although, it felt a little unfamiliar this time around).  Big Daddy was on at an old folks home I was dropping off at.  I remember the movie a little bit, and this scene seemed appropriately lame...

I watched a bit of The Big Lebowski on a (?)Saturday, and while my neighbor "D ABIDES" (on his license plate) was a fan, his wife who has for lo these many years been "MRS DEW", it now occurs to me was such a someone who allowed his definition to make her her... wowsa.  But it's a classic flick, which I likely need to revisit (maybe all of the Cohen Bros.)

How I Met Your Mother (Seasons 1 - 3) is something that I knew I needed to add, because, I've watched most of it, but never finished (and importantly never tracked). It's such an iconic show - and one of our all time faves, and yet I can honestly say it's one I loved, but haven't made most important enough to finish off in an iconic way.  I will show that I've finished this show (and that's maybe actually a lot about what the show shows, rather than what I've been able to see...).

Police Academy 2 is such a dumb movie - but with it's few remaining restrictions like them all... And yet, it's also perhaps the Police Academy that I feel like I know the best.  The one that is Police Academy for me.  "Their First Assignment" is the subtitle I don't remember, and while I also saw the much dumber "Citizens on Patrol" on cable in its early days, I think by then I was able to recognize just how dumb it was - whereas this 2nd installment I think I thought was pretty cool at the time.

Similar to HIMYM, Lemony Snickett's Series of Unfortunate Events books are a series that I've read much (but definitely not all) of.  Andy had the first several books sitting out in Clinton (as I think he is reading series*) this year, and I read a chapter of the first book, The Bad Beginning, while I was there for Mother's Day (and garden fly by).

1 July 2024

Somehow, the first (and 2nd best) of the Batman movies is the last I need to track here...  I went to see Batman in the theaters in 1989 (I was 10 or probably 12) with a bunch of my friends, and we all got dropped off by my mom and we were all so excited.  I feel like I watched this on an airBnB tv, but that doesn't seem possible with the dates, so I can't say with certainty what happened to have it pop up here...

I definitely turned on Extras, Season 1 to track it here, but it's such a delight to see what is, perhaps, Patrick Stewart's greatest performance of all time.  Baldy thrives playing dirty old man.  I also tacked on another season of HIMYM, watching a few different episodes of season 4 to be sure I had also gotten through that one previously.  I remember seeing The Man In The Iron Mask early on in its cable run - not in theaters, and I'm not sure I had much of a sense of who the Three Musketeers were at that time (except as spoofed or featured in Looney Tunes cartoons, etc.).  I feel like there was another 3 Musketeers movie in the 90s that I'm not sure I ever saw, but this one I remember being fond of.

I turned Superman III on Saturday night after we had watched the Top Chef finale (Dan was robbed!!!), but was feeling a little drained from being sick so I left Brooke alone with the finale of (what I recall as) bad ketchup blood special effects.  Finally, yesterday while convalescing a bit on the couch before dinner, I watched the closing moments of The Sixth Sense, which I almost couldn't believe hadn't been tracked here before.  Such a great movie.

[evidently, a post can have at most 20 labels... which is dumb, so now i will try and keep track of them here:

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