Something That Bugs Me

Mar032015

Can You Beam Me Up Now?

I have a confession: I hate talking on cell phones. Cordless handsets for landlines, too. Sure, it’s convenient to walk around the house while you’re talking to someone, but at least back in the days when we were tethered to the kitchen wall by a 20-foot length of curly vinyl cord, we rarely had static or random noise in the line, and calls never just “dropped out” because you walked through some Poltergeist-ian “dead spot.” (I live in an old house, and plaster-and-lathe walls are murder on reception.)

That’s why I can’t help but roll my eyes when some Damn Kid™ starts acting all superior and sniffing at how outdated the original Star Trek looks because the communicators used by Kirk and Spock aren’t as “sophisticated” as our modern-day smartphones. Um, kids, do you really think your iPhone has enough range to contact a spaceship in orbit? And have you ever seen a communicator fail to make or maintain contact with the guy on the other end (assuming some mysterious god-like entity wasn’t interfering with their operation, of course)?

The following illustrates my point quite handily, by showing what Star Trek would be like if communicators functioned as well (i.e., as unreliably) as our cell phones:

(Sensitive Loyal Readers be warned: there’s an F-bomb. But it’s funny.)

And yes, I know the video is riffing on The Next Generation and its “combadge” technology instead of the original series’ classic handheld communicators. Even so…

Via Boing Boing, of course.

Aug072014

Can Everyone Take a Deep Breath, Please?

I’ve seen a number of panicky Facebook posts and tweets about the Ebola crisis today, no doubt fueled by the news that a couple victims of that dread disease are now here in the U.S. instead of safely isolated on the other side of the world, and — I have to be honest — they’ve really annoyed me. Yes, Ebola is scary shit, and the idea of a pandemic wiping out the human race is one of my deepest fears, even worse than my worries about a nuclear holocaust followed by an army of chromium skeletons systematically exterminating the survivors. (Seriously, I grew up in the latter days of the Cold War, when Ronnie Ray-Gun had his finger on The Button and every third movie, TV show, and pop song was telling us we were all going to die in a planetwide crop of mushroom clouds; I jest because I remember what that fear was really like.) But everybody needs to take a deep breath and apply some rational thought to this Ebola thing.

The truth is, Ebola is actually pretty hard to contract, and the odds of it breaking out in any serious way in the United States — let alone turning into something out of The Stand — are extremely long. The Centers for Disease Control website has a lot of good information on the subject; the CDC has also produced a calming infographic, which I’m just going to leave here….

You’re welcome.

Feb292012

John Carter: Dead on Arrival?

As I mentioned in the previous post, my passion for the movies — or at least for going to the movies — has faded somewhat in recent years. I think the biggest problem is simply the reality of a busy semi-grown-up life. My schedule on weekdays makes going out inconvenient, and the weekends tend to get eaten up with all the mundane crap I can’t manage to complete during the week. Basically, it’s just damn hard to carve out a couple of hours to sit in the dark without feeling anxious because I think I ought to be doing something else. In addition, the general theatrical experience has really deteriorated since my multiplex days, largely due to the breakdown of good manners (Text-messaging! Grrr!) as well as various exhibition-industry developments, such as those abysmal pre-show reels of commercials and fluffy “behind-the-scenes” segments that don’t tell you a damn thing except how great everyone was to work with. And then there’s the not-inconsiderable problem that Hollywood just doesn’t seem to be making much I want to see these days; I’ve apparently aged beyond the industry’s target demographic.

The end result of all these converging factors is that I rarely get too excited anymore about upcoming movies. The last one for which I remember feeling much of a build-up was Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, and even then my eagerness was somewhat tempered compared to other movies in years past. I guess I’m finally beyond the running-countdown-clock, have-to-see-it-on-the-first-day, standing-in-line-for-hours, midnight-screening thing.

But every once in a while, something will grab my interest enough to trigger some vestige of the old anticipation reflex, and in recent months that film has been John Carter, the long-awaited cinematic adaptation of some of the best-loved pulp-adventure fiction of the early 20th century, namely the “Barsoom” novels of Edgar Rice Burroughs. I dearly loved those books as a boy, and I’ve gone from initially dubious to cautiously optimistic that the film’s director and co-writer, Andrew Stanton of Pixar fame, might have actually made a movie version that’s at least somewhat faithful to the source material. Certainly the look of the film is right, based on what I’ve seen in the trailers, and I’m hoping that the tone will be as well.What I’d like to see is old-fashioned, swashbuckling fun and romance, the sort of thing where the hero has a twinkle in his eye, rather than the self-important Dark ‘n’ Angsty Very-Important-Epic(tm) that every genre film these days aspires to be. That tone was appropriate for The Lord of the Rings, but not for anything created by ERB.

Unfortunately, my own feelings aside, John Carter is not attracting the kind of early buzz the corporate beancounters in Hollywood like to see. Last week, a much-linked article made the rounds of the nerd-o-sphere, predicting that JC is going to be a tremendous flop. The kind of flop that costs people their careers, maybe even the kind of flop that brings down studios. The first line of the article went so far as to compare it to Ishtar, the reviled 1987 Warren Beatty-Dustin Hoffman vehicle that became the poster-child for overblown vanity projects practically overnight.

To put it succinctly, this article pissed me off.

Nov092010

A Work-Related Gripe

I wish there was some way of making clear to the account people I work with — despite what they seem to believe, I don’t actually work for them — that the time I spend on the phone with them updating them on the status of their projects is time I could be, you know, working on their projects.

I’m just sayin’.

Not to belabor the point, but this is a tremendous pet peeve of mine. I know my job; I know the schedule. I know they’ve got people above them calling every fifteen minutes, probably because those folks in turn have people above them who are calling every ten minutes. But I also know that account people have a nasty tendency to make promises their butts can’t keep, rather than setting realistic expectations, and that they also tend to think that their projects are the only ones that matter, indeed the only ones that even exist in this whole big corporate universe. Well, sorry, kids, but here’s the score: you are not the only account person sending me work, and everybody says their particular job is urgent. It’s all urgent, okay? So just take a number and chill; I’ll get your project done. But I’ll get it done a lot faster if you quit bugging me all the damn time…

Jul292010

Call It What You Want, It’s Still a Damned Remake

News today that a “contemporized adaptation” of the Arnold Schwarzenegger-on-Mars flick Total Recall is in the works. Never mind the question of whether the world is clamoring for yet another version of yet another story that’s already been told, or whether this particular story might benefit from being told again.* No, the thing that bugs me here is this obnoxious piece of jargon, “contemporized adaptation.” That, my friends, sounds to me like a marketing department trying to find some clever new way of saying “remake” without using the prefix “re-.” Because, I suppose, market research indicates that words beginning with “re-” too clearly state the obvious. “Reimagining,” “relaunch,” “reboot” — they all stink of a trip back to the same well, don’t they? So instead of using one of those words, dripping with all the negative connotations of creative bankruptcy, somebody sat around a conference table for hours to come up with this all-new term for the same old crap.

I can just imagine the pitch meeting for Total Recall, Take Two: A guy in a 5,000-dollar suit listens for a minute, then says with a slight, vaguely reptilian grin, “Wait a minute, this is just another bloody remake, right? We’ve done dozens of those in the last decade, why should I greenlight another one? Can’t you give me something original?” And he’s answered with, “No, no, it’s not a remake… it’s a contemporized adaptation.” And then, since Studio Suits are so easily dazzled by multisyllabic words, the first guy nods and says, “Oh, well, then, that sounds swell. Here’s a blank check.”

Guys, let me tell you something: it doesn’t matter how you say it. It doesn’t matter how you justify it. The fact is, you’re out of ideas. You’re lazy, you’re overly cautious, and you care more about extending brands than telling stories. And every one of these “contemporized adaptations” you keep cranking out just further proves my point. You know what? At this point, just remake it all, every movie from the last 50 years, and the sooner the better, because then maybe when it’s all been done over with sparkly CG effects and processed into murky 3D for maximum gimmick-appeal, we can get back to actually, you know, making movies, the kind you don’t have to make up words to describe.

Remakes. Grrr.

* For the record, I’m not really that big a fan of Total Recall. In fact, I outright loathed it when it was first released back in my old working-at-the-multiplex days. I don’t much enjoy “mind-f**k” movies anyhow, the ones that want to leave you guessing about what’s really happening to the characters and what’s only in their heads, and Recall was a pretty clumsy example of that genre. It was also ridiculously, cartoonishly violent (or so it seemed to me at the time; I’ve since seen worse), and it was just plain stupid in a lot of places. I could buy the alien instant-atmosphere-making machine, but Arnold and Rachel Ticotin looking completely unscathed in the final scene after having their eyes bugged four inches out of their skulls and then getting explosively recompressed? Uh, no. And don’t tell me this is proof that the whole movie was Arnold’s dream/memory implant. I already told you, I don’t like that mind-f**k crap. (I also dislike novels with unreliable narrators; I don’t like the feeling of some writer somewhere having a laugh at my expense.)

The biggest problem with Recall, though, is that it has no third act. Following a reasonably good set-up and middle portion, the writers obviously couldn’t figure out how to end it, so they just have Arnold shoot a bunch of people. Even though I hate remakes on general terms, you can actually make a pretty good argument in favor of remaking this one, assuming someone has come up with a solution to the problem of the third act. But of course, I don’t believe anyone has. Because most screenplays these days aren’t even as good as the dumb popcorn movies of the late ’80s and early ’90s.

And you know, now that I think about it, my attitude toward Total Recall has softened a lot in the last 20 years. Memories of it are bound up with memories of a good time in my life. And, as stupid as it was, it was still more entertaining than something like The Dark Knight. I’m really tired of all the Darkness with a capital D being sold as artistic significance in movies these days…

Jun112010

Mad Men Indeed

You gotta love the summer season around the old ad agency.

You see, my Corporate Overlords provide us downtrodden minions with a generous boon called “summer Fridays,” i.e., four Fridays off with pay, which you can take at your own discretion, anytime between Memorial Day and Labor Day, workflow allowing. These days don’t count against your vacation time, either; they’re essentially bonus holidays. This particular perk is, no surprise, a very popular institution, but it tends to generate some strange side-effects for those of us who are left at work while everyone else is off, um, summer Fridaying.

For one thing, the office is eerily quiet, because roughly one-third to one-half of the 400-some-odd staffers are out. The building gets pretty chilly, too, without the extra bodies and running computers to warm the place up, and as the day wears on and the daylight outside begins to soften with the onset of evening, the basement cube-farm of this century-old brick pile starts to feel like a set piece from the latest zombie-apocalypse movie.

Then there are toddlers and pets who occasionally make appearances because their folks have to work and are unable to make other arrangements. This can happen anytime, of course, but it seems to happen more in the summer, and especially on summer Fridays, I guess because there are fewer management types around to care. These special guest stars aren’t really a problem, but they have a tendency to wander off on their own, lured by the irresistible mysteries of a post-zombie-apocalypse cube farm. Which means that while I’m sitting here typing this, I can see a tiny Boston terrier/pug mix named after a Cimmerian deity wandering around at the edges of my peripheral vision.

And then of course there are the mental effects caused by the oppressive isolation and loneliness of this depopulated environment. Basically, summer Fridays make those poor devils who are left behind quite insane. A harsh accusation I know, but let me provide my evidence: You occasionally hear maniacal laughter echoing from the other side of the basement. You see random notes in the break room offering free cupcakes, but there is no evidence that a cupcake has even passed within sensor-range of that room for weeks. Assistant creative directors (the actual creative directors are always out of the office on Fridays, both summer and otherwise) putt golf balls down the aisles between the cubicles. And some account supervisors think that a 15,000-word document delivered to proofreading at 4 PM can be finished by 6, or “quitting time,” as we like to call it. Fifteen thousand words, for you lay-people who don’t deal in such things for a living is about 50 pages. Fifty brand-new, error-ridden pages that have never been seen by an editorial eye, and they want it in only two hours…

I just heard another peal of maniacal laughter.

Oh, wait… that was me.

And I just scared the dog away. Sorry, little guy…

Nov172008

You Can’t Expect Historical Accuracy from a Video Game, I Guess

The other night, I dined alone at a local greasy spoon called Johanna’s Kitchen before meeting a friend to see the new Bond movie. I don’t often get the chance to just hang out on my own like that anymore, so I relish the experience when it presents itself. I sat at the counter like I remember the old guys doing when I was a kid, I indulged in some fine people-watching, and I savored every last bite of a mushroom-Swiss burger the size of my head.

This being the 21st Century and all, there was of course a flat-screen TV mounted above the counter. Normally, I hate that, because public TVs are almost inevitably tuned to some sporting event, and I don’t care one bit about sports. In fact, I find the screaming crowds and over-excited announcers to be downright bad for my digestion. Thankfully (and unexpectedly), this TV was set to the History Channel, specifically a documentary about the Battle of Gettysburg, so I found myself enjoying occasional buzzes of recognition whenever the camera lingered on a place I recall from my Gettysburg trip earlier this year. I just love those moments when I’m able to point at a TV screen and exclaim, “Hey, I’ve been there!” But that’s kind of beside the point of this post.

Getting at last to my point, during each commercial break in the program, there was an ad for a Civil War-themed video game. (Gotta love that synergy!) The sound was down low, so the first time the ad ran, I wasn’t certain I’d heard the voiceover correctly. I paid closer attention on the next break, and sure enough, the narration said exactly what I thought it said the first time. While a computer-generated man in a blue wool coat and a forage cap runs around the screen carrying a musket, a deep, “movie-trailer-guy” type voice breathlessly proclaims, “These are the missions that flew under the radar!”
Does anyone notice anything… odd… about that particular metaphor being used in conjunction with a game set in the 1860s? Or is it just me? Think about it…

Dec282007

Something That Bugs Me: “Bare” vs. “Bear”

You remember the character Cyclops in the X-Men comics and movies, how if you take off his magic sunglasses, his “optic blast” superpower sprays everywhere, uncontrollable, until he shuts his eyes? That’s what it’s like to be a professional proofreader sometimes; you just can’t help but see the errors people make when they write, even when you’re not on the clock and you’re just out and about in the real world, trying to mind your own business. The really annoying thing is that you tend to see the same damn errors over and over again, too. Stuff that really isn’t that hard but which, for some reason, consistently trips up otherwise intelligent and well-spoken people.

Case in point (you knew I had one, didn’t you?): I was just perusing some reader comments over at the Tribune web site and I see that someone thinks that “Draper [City] has a huge cross to bare.” (Italics mine.) So… that would be an undressed cross? Perhaps you mean one that hasn’t been varnished or painted? Or perhaps the expression you’re really searching for is “cross to bear.”

It’s very simple, people: “bare” means naked. You bare your body, you bare your soul. “Bear” means “to support, carry, or endure.” You bear your load (which is what that old cliche about cross-bearing is getting at), you bear children, you grin and bear it. See how easy? Sheesh…

Jul182007

Something That Bugs Me: “Loose” vs. “Lose”

Here’s another of those trivial things that no one else seems to mind, but which drive me certifiably bats: people writing the word “loose” when they really mean “lose.”

I don’t know if this is just a Utah thing, or if people from other parts of the country do it, too, but it certainly seems to be endemic in these parts. I see it all over the place: in comments on the Salt Lake Tribune‘s web site (which is actually what inspired this post today), in e-mails from friends (no offense, kids), and in letters and diaries written years ago by dead relatives. I could understand it if folks were simply spelling the word the way it sounded when spoken, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. Utahns pronounce “lose” with the proper “z” sound (i.e., “looz” ) in conversation, but when they write it down, they frequently use “loose” (i.e., “looce”), and I gotta tell you, as somebody who spends all day correcting written mistakes for a living, it’s maddening.

So, let’s have a little remedial lesson, shall we? “Lose” is a verb, as in “to lose,” as in “I hope the Utah Jazz don’t lose the big game.” (Don’t worry, they probably will.) “Loose,” on the other hand, is an adjective, a descriptor of something else, as in “That screw is loose,” or “She’s a loose woman.” Now, what’s so tough about that?

Jun202007

Something That Bugs Me: Things That Started “It” All

So, I’m sitting here watching the AFI 100 Greatest Movies of All Time (10th Anniversary Edition) special, and I just saw a commercial for Blade Runner: The Final Cut, coming soon on DVD and (according to this commercial) to theaters this fall. Leaving aside my conviction that acknowledged classics shouldn’t be revised or messed with (and also that Ridley Scott is horribly misguided in his efforts to convince us that Deckard is a replicant), it was pretty exciting to see this film being advertised again. However, something about the ad really grated on me: the obligatory slogan, “The One That Started It All.”
I say “obligatory” because it seems these days that every single film that has inspired sequels or imitators uses it; for example, it popped up again recently when the original Shrek was aired on TV a few weeks back. I hate this slogan. It’s hackneyed and virtually meaningless. What the hell is “it” anyway? “It” is never defined, and there are apparently lots of different “its” out there, since Shrek‘s “it” most likely is not Blade Runner‘s “it” (although it’d be interesting if it was — imagine a dystopian future-noir fairy tale…). Really what “it” is, is lazy marketing. It’s a simple, cliche’d fix for a copywriter who’s staring down a deadline and doesn’t have the slightest original thought in his head about the movie in question. As with all the other stuff that bugs me, this slogan will be forbidden when I become the Unquestioned Ruler of the Universe.
That is all. Back to the AFI list now…