With any luck, I’ll get around to writing an actual blog entry later today, but for now, let me share something that amused me this morning, from the always reliable Lileks:
It’s MEA weekend, which is when the schools close down for two days to have a convention, or a caucus, or go the Caribbean and talk smack about this year’s crop of brats, I don’t know. Don’t recall these when I was a kid, but things were so different in my day that the teaches not only smoked, but smoked indoors. They had a lounge off the cafeteria, and a blue fog rolled from it all day long. Any kid who went in there came out like a doughboy after the mustard gas rolled over the lip of the trench. That’s if you dared to go in there. I remember doing so once, and everyone stiffened. You would not have been surprised if the English teacher rose, held out his hands palm-first, and used repelling beams to drive you back.
Harold! You revealed your power!
I know, Rhoda, but he had violated our lair. It had to be so.
I always admire James’ skill at finding the perfectly evocative phrase, and the mental picture of my bald, bearded, bespectacled, and imperious AP English teacher Mr. Bridge firing repulsor beams from his hands at an interloping student… well, that’s something that’s going to stick with me for a while.
In other corners of the InterWeb today, I also enjoyed Scalzi’s appreciation of one of the coolest characters ever to grace the silver screen, the mighty Chewbacca. I knew from an early age that Chewie was nothing more than a tall, very thin man in a fur-covered suit, but unlike a lot of other cinematic aliens, I’ve always accepted him — even to this day — as exactly what he appears to be. I believe in Chewbacca in a way I don’t quite believe in, say, E.T., if that makes sense. For my money, Chewie and the monster from Alien are the two best-realized, most authentic non-human creatures ever put on film.
Finally, take a look at these amazing pictures taken just offshore from Sunset Beach in LA; I had no idea sharks leapt out of the water like dolphins…
There’s an amazing sequence in the Planet Earth series (the hi-def nature documentary the Discovery Channel did a while back) in which a shark shoots out of the water and swallows a seal whole. The film is slowed waaaaaaaay down, so you can see the shark go completely airborne and the seal just disappear into the proverbial maw of death. There’s no other way to say this: It’s really fuckin cool.
P.S. I’m never going near that beach again.
A good policy after seeing these pictures!
I keep meaning to rent or buy the Planet Earth series, I just haven’t gotten around to it. Too many cheesy old made-for-TV movies to acquire first, I guess… 😉
It’s extraordinarily well done. The photography is exceptional, and it will look even better on your big screen than it does on my computer. And the American version is narrated by your lady Sigourney Weaver. (The British version is narrated by the slightly less sexy David Attenborough.)
That’s quite a conundrum… David Attenborough is an excellent voice-over artist, but Sigourney’s got that whole smokey-sultry thing. So which version to get?
Kind of strange that the narration would be replaced, especially as Attenborough’s voice is not exactly unknown in America (he does a lot of PBS shows). Any idea why it was changed?
Jas,
I HIGHLY recommend just going out and buying Planet Earth. You won’t be disappointed. It’s an amazing series.
I see it at Costco fairly often. I’ll have to grab it next time I do…
I wondered about the voiceover choice myself. Attenborough is synonymous with nature documentaries (seriously, I mean that as a good thing). On the other hand, maybe the producers are trying to say that this ain’t your mamma’s nature documentary–which is also true.
Speaking of the VO stuff, they cut a version that was released in theaters earlier this year. Patrick Stewart narrated the US version and James Earl Jones narrated another, perhaps more wide-released international version. I’m just guessing Discovery Channel saw opportunity to work with some great named talent and jumped at it.