Only by very bad people.   

/two hours to the season premiere squeeee

EDIT:  to be fair, a legitimate criticism I've seen is about the handling of the female characters.  Although all the female characters are phD level in intelligence (it's Sorkin, so all the characters are geniuses), there have been complaints that they're all goofy and awkward and just exist in relation to the male characters.   

Which is kinda valid, but it doesn't bother me that much - probably because I'm a boy.   Also, I would point out the male characters do exceedingly dumb shit at times too.

I am wondering if that criticism will lead to any changes in the dynamics of the new season.  We'll see.

If that was what Shyamalan was going for, then maybe he should have said so in the movie.   I think this is a case of imprinting much more on a movie than was actually there.

However, having read that I am now going to pull a Dorkman and say I am totally going to start thinking about a script where everybody thinks aliens are coming but it turns out it's actually demons.   Because that is a great idea.

Naah.   I watched Children of Earth without knowing anything about modern Doctor Who or prior seasons of Torchwood.  Loved it.

Here's all the back story you need:

Torchwood is a secret government group that investigates weird shit.   

Not necessary to know, but : The connection to Doctor Who is that the leader of Torchwood was one of the Doctor's companions for a while.  So he's seen a lot of weird shit.   

Also, he's immortal.  But you'll get that just from watching Children of Earth itself.

Not a flick - Golden Cronenberg is in the new SHIELD series.  Rumor has it we'll also see Firefoot, Sergeant Pants, Lady Drywall, and Paperclip. As for the rumors of a cameo by Cheesestraw and Tickling Otter, I'm not holding my breath.

Really enjoyed reading these recaps - I saw every Trek episode a half-dozen times as a kid after school (it only took four months for 79 episodes to cycle through, when played every weekday afternoon) - but that was quite a while ago.   I haven't actually watched an episode of TOS in I dunno how long.

As a result, I'd forgotten A Taste of Armageddon even existed until reminded of it here - and it was one of my faves!   Probably one of their purest "sci fi" episodes, since the concept of "what if a civilization turned war into a theoretical game?" could easily have been the subject of a classic sci-fi story that would have shown up in Astounding Magazine or something similar.

And maybe it did - after all, the famous "Arena" episode supposedly wasn't intentionally based on Fredric Brown's well-known 1944 short story of the same name and plot.  But it seems likely that Gene Coon must have read Arena and simply forgotten it by the time he wrote the Trek episode.  Fortunately someone caught the similarity in time, and so they paid and credited Brown retroactively for the story.

Interestingly enough this episode was written by Gene L. Coon, co-producer of the series with Roddenberry (some call him The Forgotten Gene).  He also wrote Space Seed and several other episodes, and supposedly was the one who originated the concept of The Prime Directive.

He and Roddenberry disagreed often, and Coon left the series halfway through Season Two.

This is generally considered the very best episode of original Trek, it's also notorious because the original script was written by Harlan Ellison, and he's still pissed off to this day about how it was rewritten, and the various untruths he believes Roddenberry and Shatner and others have been saying about it ever since.

For his take on the whole saga, check out his book City on the Edge of Forever

Not a great episode, suffers from End of the Season There's No Money So Just Get It Done-itis.   Sorta interesting because it (briefly) introduces Kirk's brother - one of the few times his family ever gets a mention at all - but not very good otherwise.

There are a lot of good episodes in the second season, when the show mostly hit its stride.  There are also some clunkers as well.   But the third season, Roddenberry kinda stepped aside, the budgets got cut, and the scripts got pretty goofy overall.  The notoriously bad "Spock's Brain" is a third season episode.

Problem is, King's written so damn many books it's easy to forget a few when trying make lists.    So yes, Misery definitely belongs in the "really good (and also really disturbing)" column.

And another I should/would have mentioned: The Dead Zone.   Not necessarily the scariest of his early books (that's probably Shining or Salem's Lot), but it's probably my favorite. 

Bonus:  Dead Zone spawned one of the best-ever movie adaptations of a King novel.    Cronenberg directing, Christopher Walken at his Walkeniest, and a glimpse of a Martin Sheen presidency that's a bit different than the West Wing.

I really enjoyed Haywire for what it was - a showcase for Gina Carano to beat the crap out of a series of guest stars.  But hey - if that's all a movie is trying to do and does it really well - then good on ya, movie.

Haven't seen the movie and am not likely to anytime soon - but I was surprised to find out it was directed by John Putch.  I remember him as a staple player in just about every sitcom in the '70's, including a season as Valerie Bertinelli's boyfriend on One Day At A Time.   He's also the son of the recently departed Jean Stapleton.

What I really want to know is if he made the movie because he believes in the ideology - or if it was just a gig.   And if it's the latter, how does someone direct a movie with a morality you don't personally subscribe to?    I mean, if I got offered a Christian-themed feature, I suppose I could turn in a serviceable job.  But I'd feel weird as hell about it.

INCEPTION was a July release.   Summer and fun, yes.  Dumb, not particularly.   

Unfortunately, there just aren't a lot of similar examples in recent years.

EDIT:  The Dumb Summer Fun movie has been around as long as kids have had summer off from school. 

However, it used to mean movies like this:

I'd classify This is The End as one of this year's Dumb Summer Fun movies.  Probably The Heat as well. 

Meanwhile, Star Trek Into Darkness is just a dumb movie that came out in the summer.  The problem is that it was actually trying to be smart.

And then - if you haven't already - watch Keaton's The General. 

You've seen fireworks already.  Watch the goddam General instead.