Tag Archives: Eric Robert Nolan

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A pal of mine actually ate this last night.

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Because there is no god, and because life is a stupefying, interminable Kafkaesque nocturnal hellscape.

Hey, I generally love Ben & Jerry’s.  It’s an awesome brand.  But Pumpkin Cheesecake ice cream combines two of the very worst things in the universe — into a new and confusing amalgam of horror.  (Anyone who knows me will tell you that I abhor all things pumpkin-flavored.  And I’ve harbored a private loathing of cheesecake since college — there’s a weird story behind that.)

So, for me, this is like taking two things that cannot possibly be worse, and yet somehow making them worse via cruel combination.  Like maybe a giant spider that also has gonorrhea.  Or maybe Donald Trump singing an entire Whitney Houston album.

Remember that fish entree I showed you that looked like “Pumpkinhead?”  I would rather eat that than this.

My friend gave me a permission to post this picture only if I said it was delicious.  I lied to her.

 

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Throwback Thursday: Vintage Godzilla!!!

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This is just a smattering of the early “Godzilla” movies that thrilled me as a kid.  They played on television in the late 1970’s and the early 1980’s.  Hot damn, was I happy when these came on.  It was the next best thing to a holiday.

The first trailer that you see (and the photo below) is for the original “Godzilla” in 1954.  That scene where he tears through the high-tension powerlines made a big impression on me as a little boy.  I never forgot it.  I should point out that I (like most of the world) saw the Americanized version of the movie, which was heavily re-edited and released in 1956.  (That is indeed Raymond Burr that you see in the trailer.)

“Godzilla vs. Megalon” (1976) is another that I remember well — probably because I saw it as an older child.

Am I crazy, or does the “Son of Godzilla” trailer from 1969 mention “Frankenstein” for some reason?  Something got lost in translation.

 

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“Seagull,” by Eric Robert Nolan

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Like an awkward emperor,
you sit alone atop
the rooftop of my urbane neighbors.

Squat and fat and white, you’re
a satisfied and unenlightened despot.
Edicts issue out
From your discordant “caw!”

What do those yuppies think of you?
Your mien makes
Their rich art-deco house
A commonplace kingdom.
Your ungainly gait makes
a prosaic palace of their home.

Cardinals arcing over
are airborne scarlet darts.

Pairs of swallows will sometimes
loop in symmetry.

You’ll have none of it. You’re
All utilitarian flight
And graceless landings.

If you were human
you’d be a pot-bellied plumber, perhaps
in a wife-beater t-shirt
holding a beer.

Other birds will swoop and dive.
Other birds will sing.
But your cawing only exhorts us,
“Hail to The King.”

© Eric Robert Nolan 2013

 

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Photo credit: CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=437394

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A very short review of “The Meg” (2018)

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“The Meg” (2018) is an easy movie in which to find flaws.  They’re many, they’re egregious, and they’re consistently front and center.  The biggest flaw for me is its truly terrible script; it’s like the screenwriters weren’t even trying here.   (At one point we see a character simply grunt a response to another during an exchange, as though the screenwriters were too disinterested to write a line of dialogue.)  The movie’s other weaknesses include the occasionally spotty CGI and some head-scratching science.

With all of that said, however, I still had fun with “The Meg.”  (The title refers to a prehistoric shark called megalodon, which our protagonists inadvertently release from a newly discovered deep-sea trench.)  I’d rate it a 6 out of 10 because it was a fun enough summertime monster movie.  It’s clunky stuff, but it’s passably enjoyable lowbrow entertainment for fans of creature features.

I like Jason Statham too.  (This is the first film I’ve seen him in since 2004’s “Cellular.”)  He certainly isn’t a bad actor, even if his lines in this film should have had him inwardly cringing.  He’s got presence and charisma.

I’m not sure I would actually recommend “The Meg,” but I didn’t hate it.

 

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Making up memes isn’t my strong point, but I still have fun with it.

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What do you think?

 

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PORTRAIT OF DORIAN GRAY.

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I am SO sorry.  I know these jokes are terrible even as I write them.  Somebody should take this computer away from me.

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A few quick words on “Black Mirror” Season 5 (2019)

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I’m just piping in here to say that I still enjoy “Black Mirror” — even after Season 5 left a lot of fans nonplussed.  No, this tonally different, three-episode arc wasn’t the show’s best season, but it was still a decent watch.   I had some minor criticisms, but I’d rate it an 8 out of 10.

Perhaps predictably, my favorite of the three was “Smithereens.”  Not only did it most closely follow the tone and dialogue of past seasons, it boasted a fine lead performance by Andrew Scott, better known to many of us as Moriarty from Britain’s “Sherlock” (2010-2017).

For those of you who are wondering why the “season” was so short, I read today that “Bandersnatch” was supposed to be a part of it, and was produced at about the same time.  The showrunners then decided to make that episode a standalone feature, given its unique nature.

 

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What’s the most Gen-X thing you’ve ever done?

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There is a thread on Twitter asking people to comment, “What’s the most GenX thing you did?”  It’s a riot — check it out.

These are my responses:

  • I brought a typewriter to my freshman year at Mary Washington College.
  • I stood in line outside the registrar’s office to register for classes.  I once had to camp out there overnight so that I could be first in line, because there was only one spot left in a course I really needed.  My girlfriend brought me snacks.
  • I walked to air-conditioned “computer pods” in a designated academic building when a computer was required to properly format term papers.
  • I had a 5-disc CD player that could play songs at random, and I filled it with U2, Nirvana, Depeche Mode and Pearl Jam. I marveled at how cool this advanced technology made me.
  • I wore a jean jacket.
  • I wore fluorescent clothes and went to raves.
  • I’ve watched every Kevin Smith movie at least twice.

 

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Thanks a bunch, folks!

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Thanks to all the people who sent me the very kind (and occasionally quite funny) birthday wishes!!

You guys are a swell group and I luv ya!!!!

 

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Throwback Thursday: “Gamera vs. Guiron” (1969)!

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I am still a little surprised at the harsher criticism I’m hearing of this year’s “Godzilla: King of the Monsters.”  (It was indeed brainless, as its detractors point out, but it was still fun enough for me to give it pretty forgiving review.)

Hey … if you think the new movie was goofy, you should see the Godzilla movies that I grew up with.  No, I wasn’t alive in 1969, but these movies ran periodically on television in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s.  I was utterly awed by them when I watched them with my older brother.

But they are cringeworthy to any sane adult.  Take a look at the trailer below (sorry I couldn’t find one in English), and the two clips that follow it.

Okay … this wasn’t technically a “Godzilla” movie because the radioactive (?) lizard is absent.  (It might have actually been set in a different fictional universe.)  This film’s putative good-guy is the eponymous “Gamera,” who is a giant, space-faring turtle with … rockets that can deploy from the rear of his shell … from the leg holes.  And he employs gymnastics to fight his enemies.  (See the second video below.)

There was one part of this movie that scared the heck out of me as a little kid.  You see the two little boys?  They’re abducted by some sexy lady aliens whose nefarious plan is to eat their brains, thus absorbing strategic knowledge of the Earth they wished to conquer.  Seriously, they give the kids drugged donuts and plan to open their skulls, and that scared the $^%# out of me.

Still think the new movie was a mess?