I’m not sure how many of my readers observe 4/20, but if you did partake of the herb today, I wish you a heartfelt “Dude!” May your buzz be mellow and your snack foods plentiful. I can tell you’re starting to fade, so I won’t keep you. Get back on that couch and make yourself comfortable. Maybe there’s an Aqua Teen marathon on or something.
The Blogging Muse has decided to withhold her favors from me tonight. I’ll perform the necessary blood-letting ritual and hopefully inspiration will return tomorrow.
It remains to be seen whether Prometheus will be a great movie, but its marketing department is churning out some pretty ingenious viral videos that flesh out the film’s fictional universe. The previous video featured Guy Pearce as a supremely arrogant high-tech tycoon. The latest clip gives us Michael Fassbender as an android pitching the talents and versatility of his fellow Weyland Industries androids.
Fassbender delivers a great performance, imbuing David with innocence, intelligence, and a touch of the sinister. If he’s this compelling in the actual movie, Prometheus should be a treat to watch.
Someone had the clever idea to create a site reimagining Google as a BBS circa 1987, complete with ASCII art and modem screeches. BBSs were the precursors to the modern web. You dialed in to chat with other people, play simple text-based games, and read posts from fellow users. If the sysadmin liked you, you might even get access to the restricted prØn library. I seem to recall incurring the wrath of my parents after dialing long-distance to a Milwaukee BBS in my never-ending quest for dirty pictures.
Of course, nothing like Google existed back then. If it had, I probably would have bankrupted my family.
The Cabin in the Woods is, among other things, a love letter to the conventions of the horror movie genre: conventions that are so persistent and firmly established in the minds of moviegoers that they have become cliches. But director Drew Goddard and producer Joss Whedon also have plenty to say about why these conventions are so persistent. Why do horror movies force characters to conform to broad stereotypes like The Fool, The Whore, and The Jock. Why do the characters in horror movies make such stupid decisions (“Hey, you guys, there’s a slobbering supernatural horror chasing us. Let’s split up!”)? Why do horror movies demand a display of T&A and then punish any character that obliges? Cabin answers these with both snark and insight.
For all its clever meta shenanigans, Cabin isn’t a movie targeted solely at film school grads. It’s genuinely scary and chock full of the snappy, biting dialogue that made Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Firefly such great television. It’s difficult to discuss specific plot points with divulging spoilers, but the last quarter of the film is a big, bloody bowl of awesome; one of the most frenetically and gleefully nihilistic climaxes in the annals of horror movie history. I’ll likely purchase Cabin on Blu-ray because it’s one of those movies that rewards multiple viewings, both in terms of theme and eye candy.
Some of you may have already seen this short film about Caine’s arcade, but I thought it made for good Friday night viewing. Caine is a bright little boy who built a cardboard arcade in his father’s auto parts shop. He couldn’t attract many paying customers until a local filmmaker organized a flashmob to surprise Caine and enjoy his arcade. It’s a sweet story and worth your time. Enjoy.
Caine’s Arcade from Nirvan Mullick on Vimeo.
Salon looks at the controversy surrounding The Undateables, a new British documentary series following the efforts of people with various disabilities to find romance. As you might expect, the show’s title doesn’t sit well with a lot of disability activists. It’s worth noting that in the trailer for the series, the “Un” is dropped from the rest of the word in a way that I guess is meant to be cutely subversive, but instead strikes me as pandering.
I haven’t seen the show (although I’ll try to track it down through the usual back channels), so I can’t comment on its treatment of the subject. But a quote in the Salon article from a British blogger with a disability struck me:
That said, Egan does take issue with the actual content of the series. “My problem with the show is its obsession with ‘confidence,’” she says. One of the issues with “the confidence rubbish” is that “there’s an element of victim blaming going on,” she explains. “If you’re disabled and you can’t get a shag it must be because you’re just not confident enough. ‘It’s nothing to do with our prejudices, oh no. It’s you. You must try harder.’”
I also received a lot of well-meaning advice about being confident as I coped with my own dating struggles. And I spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to be that confident guy without totally losing the self-awareness that has served me so well in other respects. After a while, I decided I was being too hard on myself. We all battle insecurities; some of those battles are just more visible than others.
Perhaps I will be part of that small segment of the population that remains unpartnered for the vast majority of their lives. It’s not the kind of life most people would idealize, but it’s certainly not the worst fate imaginable. It doesn’t even necessarily have to be devoid of sex (a topic to be addressed in my still-under-development companion blog: The 19th Floor After Dark). Or perhaps I’ll meet an amazing woman tomorrow who doesn’t mind that I come equipped with a couple additional orifices. However things turn out, the ride is sure to be interesting.
I thought I’d write something about my unreasonable level of excitement upon receiving my new work computer, but that just seems like a sad commentary on the state of my life. More tomorrow.
Let us take a moment to remember Rick Santorum’s presidential campaign. Never again are we likely to see a candidate who so effortlessly combined folksy charm with apocalyptic fanaticism. He gave us a glimpse into a future straight out of The Handmaid’s Tale and it was thrilling, like a cheap carnival ride before the nausea sets in. And now it’s over and we’re both relieved and a little sad, like that feeling you get after watching a really terrible movie when you’re home with a fever. Yet questions remain. Will he run again? When will he get his own timeslot on Fox News? Most importantly, will the porn industry still proceed with its plans for a Twitter-based anti-Santorum wankfest on May Day?
Literary blog The Awl has a fun post featuring authors who discuss the sometimes-embarrassing reading selections from their adolescence. I’m only slightly ashamed to admit that I devoured a metric ton of Star Trek tie-in novels during my misspent youth, along with generous helpings of Stephen King and Isaac Asimov. I keep meaning to re-read Asimov, but I’m a little worried he might not hold up well (although I’m still waiting for a robot as sophisticated as Daneel Olivaw to show up on the scene).
What was the print-based crack of your teen years?