751

(53 replies, posted in Off Topic)

Unless if features a song as the dwarfs are stuck up in a tree, I'm not interested.

752

(25 replies, posted in Episodes)

And, of course, another easy way around the problems at the end is simply to have one officer at the bridge who outranked Hanks. Given how scattered everyone was, as the movie showed, you made up units of whoever wandered by. Hanks and friends show up? Guess what! You're holding the north line, and you're not getting Ryan until we're relieved.

Actually, that would make a fun movie: start with them FINDING Ryan, and on the way back they keep bumping into units where a half dozen more soldiers are the key to holding out.

753

(25 replies, posted in Episodes)

First, no reference to The Longest Day? Sure, parts of it are a bit cheesy, but a number of the actors actually fought in the battle, and it covers a lot of the same emotional ground. Ryan even mirrors one of the scenes, where they're sending the long pipe of explosives out to blow a hole in the barrier. In The Longest Day, Robert Mitchum (iirc) sends a guy out to run the pipe... he gets shot. He tells another to do it... he gets shot. He sends another, gives him the thumbs up that he's doing a great job... and that guy gets shot. War is hell.

Naturally, now that you've done this movie, you HAVE to do A Bridge Too Far, the WWII movie Goldman DID write.

Regarding the "true" story behind this one: It's based on the story of the Niland brothers, four boys from Buffalo, NY. Two were killed in the D Day landings, and a third went MIA and presumed dead in Burma. The fourth brother, who also took part in D Day, was brought home. The third brother was liberated from a POW camp a year later. Because of them, the destroyer the U.S.S. The Sullivans is now a memorial in the Buffalo Naval Park.

PunBB bbcode test

754

(70 replies, posted in Off Topic)

I think I only saw it when it aired, but Eddie Murphy's guest host bit on Saturday Night Live told the whole Best Defense story. He was asked to come back onto SNL, and he said "No", because he was now a movie star. Then Best Defense happened, and he said "Yes" to SNL, because he now had no career. Then Beverly Hills Cop came out, and he was suddenly a star again... but had already committed to do the show, so there he was.

That episode also has Eddie Murphy ranting on the then new small GI Joe action figures, who are way too small to give Barbie the kind of loving the 12" Joe's could.

755

(3 replies, posted in Off Topic)

And... today it ends. 3095 images. 4 months.

You can scroll through the images or have them play for you at:
http://geekwagon.net/projects/xkcd1190

756

(48 replies, posted in Episodes)

Oh, man, can you imagine the fun things you'd find on an investment kickstarter site? Goldmines! Perpetual motion machines! David Finch movies! It will have to be set up to allow "knowledgeable" investors to put more money in as time goes by, because those really great inventions are always going through their financing, needing just ONE more infusion of cash before that energy producing black box is ready for serious testing!

757

(48 replies, posted in Episodes)

I'm on Patreon http://www.patreon.com/invidfan The difference is that Patreon is a straight donation, done AFTER you have created something. Every time you release content, you indicate that on the site and those who have pledged pony up. No money actually changes hands until the end of the month. Yes, you can have rewards, but all three of my donors have refused them, wanting to just give me the money.

Patreon, from the letters I've been getting, is sort of gearing up to become a thing. Or die smile In the next month or two there should be a big promotional push for the site.

758

(48 replies, posted in Episodes)

Trey wrote:

I suspect Neil Gaiman got a bit fed up with the Kickstarter bashing during the Palmer affair, judging by his latest tweet:

Neil Gaiman wrote:

I got irritated enough with the people tellling me @SpikeLee shouldn't Kickstart his next film that I supported it.

  smile

Given the one headline I saw contrasted his anti-kickstarter stance (at least for those well off) with what his wife was doing, I suspect it's more a case of him being annoyed at everyone assuming he's on their side and not shutting up on the subject.

759

(70 replies, posted in Off Topic)

I was at one of the free Battlefield Earth screenings before it opened, thanks to tickets from the local comic book store. By the end, we were all laughing at it. I'd say it falls on the "watchable" side of horrible.

760

(48 replies, posted in Episodes)

I think part of it is the difference between a donation and a payment. Every kickstarter I've taken part in, apart from Trey's, I haven't considered a donation. I gave the same money I would have given if I had seen the "reward" on a store shelf. Given that, there is no further contract between me and the creators. I give them money so they can afford a print run of their books, they send me the books. It's over.

If the money is more of a donation, things get nebulous. Amanda Palmer said, from the little I read, that all the kickstarter money was spent on the album, so she was now back in the same position she had been at the start. Given what she had taken in was so much more than what she had said was needed, fans probably just expected that extra money to be plowed back into the music scene (lower concert prices, higher pay for opening acts, etc). Exactly what constitutes getting your money's worth in such a situation becomes more personal.

761

(48 replies, posted in Episodes)

I was amused by the tales of shipping woes. Every other kickstarted I've done has been a pre-order on a book, where the whole point is shipping thousands of items smile

Oh, btw, did the Pink Five DVDs ever ship? I know I didn't get mine, so I was just curious. And, Trey, your memory was a bit off as I know I kicked in for the DVD plus every other item, so it wasn't just a DVD-only option smile

762

(70 replies, posted in Off Topic)

The question we have to ask, though, is if the Conservapedia listing for Poe's Law is in fact an example of Poe's Law?
http://conservapedia.com/Poe%27s_law

763

(70 replies, posted in Off Topic)

Sort of related to this thread, I almost never look at a movie and say, "that's a bad actor or actress, or bad acting". Instead, I just assume that's what the CHARACTER is supposed to be like. Some movies are just filled with strange, unwatchable characters smile

764

(70 replies, posted in Off Topic)

fireproof78 wrote:

One thing I have learned on the Internet is something I like to call the "Omni Law" (because I'm not if it has a name). Omni law states that there will ALWAYS be someone out there who will defend ANYTHING at ANYTIME.

Something you find, if you are at all creative, is that for just about any work you do, SOMEONE out there will think it's the best thing ever and find it life changing. You yourself might think it sucks, that it is an embarrassment to you now, but to one fan it represents all that is good about your work. It's true for stuff I've written, I know that.

765

(70 replies, posted in Off Topic)

A truly bad movie, to me, is one that is not watchable, often even if you do have the help of the MST3K or Rifftrax guys. Sleepaway Camp is watchable. The Room is watchable. Plan 9 is VERY watchable, with great dialog ("This man is dead. Murdered. And SOMEONE is responsible!"). The incredibly long anime movie Odin: Photon Sailer Starlight is incredibly boring and stupid, but to me it is STILL watchable, if only to see how it can screw up even more. That it ends on a set up for a sequel is just icing on the cake.

I think that's a general rule of story telling. One or two samurai, wandering the countryside, occasionally meeting others, works. Showing thousands of them in the service of some lord, not so much, unless they're quickly slaughtered and we get down to just a couple wandering around. Same with guns. An army? Boring. Armed former soldier who's a bit insane? Fun.

The medical tech might come in handy someday smile I have had two nibbles from editors, so the emergency is, possibly, over. Thanks for the offers. I may be back here in a day or two to take one of you up on it smile

This is annoying.

Instead of my longtime editor sending back the short story I had sent him the other day, with all the problems marked up and corrected, David has told me work is now going to take up more time so he's giving up the hobby for now. I've worked with him for two years, he's been the only editor I've known in this part of my writing life... and now I have to replace him.

I've put some ads up and sent out pleas to volunteer editors over at Storiesonline.net, but if anyone here is interested in the job let me know. Most stories do have an erotic element, but they may also have a four eyed Malay speaking alien monkey with glasses. You take your chances.

769

(10 replies, posted in Off Topic)

I honestly don't think I've ever gone to Reddit. The name just reminds me of an old Mac program ResEdit, for playing with various resource forks in files. You could change the icon of a file or hard drive!

770

(15 replies, posted in Off Topic)

I thought it was Lensmen Lucas couldn't get the rights to. Or maybe I'm just influenced by the fact the Japanese animated version of Lensmen was a Star Wars ripoff smile

(It it only remembered today because a) it had once of the first Japanese CG scenes, and b) the Japanese sold the comic book rights to a US company, infuriating the Doc Smith estate and souring them to all licensing deals)

771

(15 replies, posted in Off Topic)

Shouldn't there come a certain point where, if you're trying to do more than X, you should just turn it into an original project? Unless you're going the Phase II route, where they're adapting actual Star Trek scripts.

772

(7 replies, posted in Off Topic)

What he's basically doing, for those who don't feel like clicking the link to the crazy, is taking all the in-jokes and easter egg references to other Pixar films and building a theory on how it all fits together. A stark warning against putting such things in your own work (says the author who ends up merging all his series together)

773

(7 replies, posted in Off Topic)

I do like how the witch from Brave is, in fact, Boo, tying it all together.

774

(11 replies, posted in Episodes)

Tom Hanks fell victim to the whole "if you say something's incredible, don't show it" thing in the movie Punchline. He plays a standup comic on the rise, with Sally Field as a wannabe who does open mic nights. Neither is good at standup, really, and the movie suffers because of it. You sort of have to pretend their act is what the movie is saying it is, the same way you have to just accept a Doctor Who special effect.

775

(11 replies, posted in Episodes)

One of those movies I'm sure is very good, but I have no interest in. We'll have to see if the disk makes it into my Netflix queue or if I just listen to the commentary.