(I didn’t create this meme; I got it from Facebook.)
The last time I discussed a theory like one of those you could generate below, I asked as neutrally as I could for evidence. I was told that “Good people are just now stepping forward.”
Tag Archives: Eric Robert Nolan
Somebunny almost got stepped on.
These little Roanoke fur-twerps need to be more careful about getting underfoot. We not-quite-middle-aged New Yorkers aren’t used to animals darting about our feet. And we … can’t see quite as well as we used to, either.
Throwback Thursday: the Atari 2600’s “Berzerk!”
“Berzerk” for the Atari 2600 was one of my favorite games in the 1980’s. It wasn’t exactly high-concept … you shot at robots who shot at you, in a series of redundant maze configurations. To mix things up a little, both the robots and the walls were electrified, so you had to make sure your little monochromatic avatar didn’t touch either.
The more difficult levels added another threat — a giant happy face (like the famous 1970’s t-shirt design) named “Evil Otto.” It … sort of bounced through the maze, and was also electrified.
“Berzerk” was an unusual game, too, because you could take a break from it. The game didn’t have a “pause” function; the Atari 2600 was far too rudimentary for that. But if you killed every robot in a room, you could just allow your little guy to stand there before walking him into the next maze. You could get up, go outside and play, call your mother from the landline, or make a peanut butter sandwich on toast (considered a delicacy at the time.)
If you want to play the original “Berzerk,” you can play it for free right here over at Virtual Atari.
This joke is so weak, it would perish in the jungle.
Sooooooo, whenever you order the strangest item on a menu, it’s a Darwinian selection.
A review of “Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit” (2014)
“Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit” (2014) is easily the least of the Tom Clancy adaptations. But that shouldn’t be enough to indict the film; the other film treatments of the author’s books have all been roundly excellent. (Okay, 2002’s often-reviled “The Sum of All Fears” might be an exception, but I still like that flick even if I’m in the minority.) I’d rate this outing a 6 out of 10.
It isn’t a bad movie … it’s just an average, generally undistinguished boilerplate spy thriller that seems half-heartedly rewritten as a reboot of the Clancy films. Screenwriters Adam Cozad and David Koepp pay cursory attention to the title character’s background, and a key plot development from the books that I will not spoil here. But the film utterly lacks the mood, detail or methodical plotting of anything Clancy created.
It’s all very generic stuff. We’ve got a generic, telegenic, twenty-something action hero (Chris Pine), his generic hot girlfriend (Keira Knightley), the expected Russian bad guy (Kenneth Branagh) and a by-the-numbers climax — including the last-second requirement to divert a bomb from its target. Rounding it all out is Kevin Costner, the most generic good guy ever to behave predictably on screen — he characteristically projects the expected, wholesome gravitas. Even this film’s title is generic — it sounds like the name a marketing department would come up with for an entry in a video-game series.
There are plot elements that are painfully implausible, even by spy-movie standards. Jack Ryan’s new girlfriend, for example, surprises him by arriving in Russia in a flourish of quirky-girlfriend spontaneity, only to discover his secret career and then be fully enlisted in a spy operation. Branagh doubles as the movie’s director; his work here is surprisingly problematic. This is yet another movie in which important action sequences are barely comprehensible because of frequent, rapid cuts.
Oh, well. It certainly isn’t all bad. There isn’t a single bad actor in the film, for example. If I don’t like Branagh’s directing, I love his acting. The guy is magnetic — he alternately and convincingly projects menace and charisma to perfection. Alec Utgoff shines too, in a small role as a soft-spoken, ironically disarming Russian assassin.
People tend to either love or hate Costner. I like him quite a bit. No, he doesn’t always demonstrate an incredible range. But his acting is competent and he’s likable and consistently convincing. He’s the actor equivalent of that old American sedan that isn’t flashy but always starts reliably when you need it to get you to work.
Hey, you might like this movie far more than I did. I was an obsessive fan of the books, so my standards may be a bit high where they are adapted to the screen. Your mileage may vary.
A very short review of the premiere of “NOS4A2” (2019)
So I checked out the first episode of AMC’s “NOS4A2” last night, after the ubiquitous ads successfully piqued my interest. (I frequently get turned off to shows or movies when they’re overexposed by a bombardment of marketing, and resolve not to watch them out of spite. Seriously. But “NOS4A2’s” creepy trappings and the promise of Zachary Quinto as a child-abducting vampire were enough to get me to sit down with the first episode.)
This was decent! I’d rate it an 8 out of 10. The writing, directing and acting were all quite good, the protagonist’s troubled family drama was a lot more compelling than I expected, and this looks like a horror-fantasy series with some creative stuff going on. I had a little trouble buying the 26-year-old Ashleigh Cummings as a high school student, but she’s great in the role. And Quinto chews the scenery just fine as the vampire who apparently feeds off of the life force of the kidnapped children while they sleep. (The character becomes more interesting when he grows younger — and the talented Quinto then infuses his interpretation with a manic, evil energy.)
The jury is still out with me, however, on this show’s horror elements. They’re creatively conceived, but they might be a bit too campy and stylized for me. (You know what I mean if you’ve seen the ads.) “NOS4A2” was adapted from an immensely successful 2013 young adult novel by Joe Hill, and I suspect that the fantasy-horror mashup here is exactly what made the book appeal to fans of the YA genre. It remains to be seen whether it will be too corny for more mainstream horror fans.
The fur-twerps are back and running amok!
The soft invasion is upon us once again; the perennial influx of bunnies has arrived. (It actually arrived maybe two months ago. But these little buggers are shy and quick; this is the first decent picture I’ve successfully snapped.)
A review of “The Dead Don’t Die” (2019)
“The Dead Don’t Die” indeed has the greatest zombie cast ever assembled. Seriously, just look at that poster below. Unfortunately, it doesn’t have the best zombie screenplay ever written, or the best direction ever seen in a zombie film. This would-be classic was a surprisingly average viewing experience; I’d rate it a 6 out of 10.
I almost feel guilty for feeling so unenthusiastic, because I like so many of these actors so much. Bill Murray and Adam Driver actually are quite funny as the movie’s two torpid police officers; Chloe Sevigny makes them even funnier as their panicked straight man. And the addition of Tilda Swinton’s zany Scottish samurai undertaker makes them the perfect comedic quartet. (I think this is the first time I’ve seen Sevigny in a movie, as she mostly does arthouse films — including 2003’s ignominiously reviled “The Brown Bunny.” And I had no idea that Driver was this talented, given his milquetoast turn as a villain in the most recent spate of “Star Wars” films.) I honestly would love to see the four of these characters battle apocalyptic threats in a series of comedies — aliens, vampires, killer robots from the future … whatever.
Other big names shine here as well. Tom Waits and Caleb Landry Jones are both surprisingly funny, delivering little bouts of quirky, laconic, character-driven dialogue in a film that seems intended as mashup between “Cannery Row” (1982) and the first two “Return of the Living Dead” films (1985, 1988). (I first saw Jones as the creepy kid in 2010’s “The Last Exorcism;” I suspect that more of my friends will recognize him as Banshee from 2011’s “X-Men: First Class.”)
The problem is this — although many of the characters are engaging, they populate a subdued, disconnected movie that is frequently quite slow. Writer-director Jim Jarmusch’s heart is in the right place — assembling this oddball ensemble cast for the mashup I mentioned above is actually a terrific idea. But “The Dead Don’t Die” ultimately lacks punch, and even a tongue-in-cheek horror-comedy needs a minimum of tension. The movie is a bit too lethargic to become the truly great film that the trailer led us to hope for.
Complicating matters is the fact that that several groups of characters follow story arcs that go nowhere — sometimes literally. (Where did the kids from the juvenile detention center run off to? Why were they included at all? Not much happens to them and they have nothing to do with the rest of the movie.) This movie often felt like a number of comedy skits stitched together — some were admittedly quite funny, but they didn’t add up to a cohesive story.
Oh, well. It’s possible that you will like “The Dead Don’t Die” much more than I did. I might be the wrong audience for this, as I’ve never cared much for horror-comedies. (The aforementioned “Return of the Living Dead” films are on the short list of those that I like.) Your mileage may vary.
(I’m still a cheap date, though.)
Friend: “What if the president gave us all $20,000 each, would everyone drop their hatred for him? Would money solve the problem?”
Me: “C’mon. If I could be bought off that easily, I’d be a Republican Senator.”
Throwback Thursday: “Bosom Buddies” (1980-1982)!
Here’s some more early Tom Hanks weirdness … he starred in ABC’s cross-dressing comedy “Bosom Buddies” between 1980 and 1982. The show ran for just two scant seasons. I’m surprised at that, because I seem to remember it being a much bigger deal in the 1980’s — maybe just because it was a big hit at my house, when I was in second and third grade. I wanted to be like the guys in the show, albeit without the cross-dressing. I wanted to be grow up to live in New York City with my best friend and a beautiful blond girlfriend name “Sunny,” and get into zany hijinks.
I remember thinking that Hanks’ co-star, Peter Scolari, was the cool and funny one. I thought Hanks was annoying, even if he did look like Billy Joel, whose music my older sister had taught me to really like. (Joel’s “Glass Houses” album was stacked vertically with the others beside the living room record player, not far from where I watched this show on the family’s color television.) And that is indeed Billy Joel’s “My Life” playing as the show’s theme song — but it had a different vocalist, for some reason. (No matter how many times I hear it, that song will always take me back to the 80’s.)
Scolari’s career following the short-lived “Bosom Buddies” certainly hasn’t paralleled Hanks, but he’s still done a hell of a lot of television. (Among many other things, he surprisingly starred as Commissoner Loeb in “Gotham” in 2015. I didn’t see that one coming.)
As you can see from the opening credits below, the central plot device for “Bosom Buddies” was that the two guys had to pretend to be women in order to live at an all-women’s apartment building. It only occurs to me now as I’m writing this that the show’s title was a double entendre. I actually asked my Dad what the word “bosom” meant when I was a kid, and he gave me an answer that was accurate, if incomplete. (He explained the colloquial meaning of the expression — a “bosom buddy” was a best friend, who you figuratively held close to you. I subsequently told my best friend next door that he was my “bosom buddy” at one point.)
Yeah, I know it’s strange that I can remember a conversation from 39 years ago about an obscure TV show. It’s weird what people remember.
Eric Robert Nolan, Author 