Remake Fatigue

I like to think of myself as quite the discerning film buff. Although my missus would probably use an expression closer to ‘cinophilic dumpster diver’ because truth be told,  I will watch almost any trash within arm’s reach if it’s got any sort of junky charm about it.

 

But even with my liberal taste in video entertainment, my dung-beetle palette for movies, there is something I am getting very, very sick of. To all the film producers out there, please, please, oh pretty, pretty with-a-fecking-cherry-on-top please, will you stop remaking these damn movies:

 

Jane Eyre

Wuthering Heights

Pride and Sense and Prejudice and Sensibility with 10% added Persuasion.

Romeo and Juliet

Les Miserables

Great Expectations

Hamlet

The Four Feathers

Versions of Die Hard with Steven Segal or whoever happens to be the action hero du jour.

Titanic-themed movies – from the sublime to the ridiculous.

Any movie where a child and a adult (usually the parent) possess each others’ bodies. Done to death.

The same superhero movies with different directors. (See Superman, Spiderman, Batman etc.) 

TV shows from the 70s and 80s.

Rehashes of the Exorcist –yes, it’s the same movie. You’re not fooling anyone.

 

A Valentine for that Very Special Remote Controlled Killing Machine in your Life

Isn't it rich?
Are we a pair?
Me sitting here on the ground,
You in mid-air.
Send in the drones.

Isn't it bliss?
Don't you approve?
One who keeps tearing around,
One who can't move.
Where are the drones?
Send in the drones.

Just when I'd stopped
Kicking down doors,
Finally knowing
The raid that I wanted was yours,
Making my entrance again
With my usual hellfire,
Sure of my aim,
With casualties dire.

Don't you love force?
My fault, I fear.
I thought that you'd fragged who I wanted -
Sorry, my dear.
But where are the drones?
There ought to be drones.
Quick, send in the drones.

What a surprise.
Who could foresee
I'd come to feel about you
What you'd felt about me?
Why only now when i see
That you'd drifted away?
What a surprise.
What a cliché.

Isn't it shock?
Isn't it awe?
Losing my manned flights this late
In this damned war?
And where are the drones?
A thousand more drones.

Well Maybe next year....

Funky Mexican Church

We were in Mexico over the new year break (long story) and in the delightful city of Puebla, we got to see a cool church with two very bizarre features:

A chapel with the most bling I've ever seen.

The most bored looking Jesus Christ in Christendom.

You can say what you like about Catholisism, but iconic stuff is hella entertaining.

ODE TO CORPORATE PERSONHOOD (OR THE MERCHANTS OF VENICE)

Hath not a corporation eyes? Hath not a board of directors hands, organs,
dimensions, senses, affections, passions; fed with
the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject
to the same diseases, heal'd by the same means,
warm'd and cool'd by the same winter and summer
as a civilian is? If you tax us, do we not bleed?
If you perk us, do we not laugh? If you divest us,
do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?
If we are like you in the rest, we will resemble you in that.
If a business wrong a taxpayer, what is his humility?
Litigation. If a citizen wrong a corporation, what should his
sufferance be by citizen example? Why, litigation.
The villainy you teach us, we will execute,
and it shall go hard but we will better the instruction.

Paul Ryan and Mitt Romney Having a Serious Chat About How to Deal With the American Poor

Th..Th…That’s Old Folks!!

OK, so I’ve thought of another idea to make me a million. I was checking out some of my son’s old DVDs and noticed that he had a bunch of these horribly twee cartoons where the Muppets or the Looney Tune characters were turned into baby versions of themselves, given obnoxiously squeaky voices and let go on cutesy little domestic adventures. They’re pretty grating really. Then I had an epiphany. What the world really needs is…….

So I’m like totally ready to take offers from Warner Bros., Disney, Dreamworks…

My Favourite Interweb Comment of 2012, So Far.

"There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs."