Sometimes, Mike Russell doesn’t have a movie to review. This is not a bad thing in the slightest, because that opens up the avenues of conversation to all manner of pop-culture nerdery, such as Guy Pearce being mostly awesome, which led to a discussion about Prometheus advertising, which led to wondering why Dark Knight Rises isn’t being talked about, which led to a comparison between J.J. Abrams and Christopher Nolan, which led to a discussion about Godzilla, and then Soul Train, and then Wolverine’s hair, before we started talking about how Justified is an awesome TV show you need to be watching, and Gangstagrass is some awesome music you need to listen to, and Rango is deliciously, gloriously weird, and the return of Whit Stillman to the cheers and applause of disaffected bourgeoise everywhere.
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{ 15 comments… read them below or add one }
“We are all made of stars” is from the Moby song of the same name, not Fatboy Slim.
And now back to the Diablo III open beta.
THAT’S right. “Halfway between the gutter and the stars” was Fatboy Slim.
I’m old. Memory glitches.
Here’s Christopher Walken dancing for you: http://youtu.be/sMZwZiU0kKs
I had somehow completely forgotten both that song and that video, so in fact you win. You draw the best turtle sir.
I also happened to be at the sscreening of Damsels in Distress. Aaron Mesh did say something – eventually about five people were all cracking wise – but Mr. Mesh started it all off by saying something about what wasn’t happening on the screen. No one laughed, and I didn’t catch it. This was during the long phase when the screen showed a white cursor. I said, “Pardon?” ’cause I didn’t catch what he said, and he repeated it, something along the lines of “I like this minimalist phase of Stillman’s.” It was funny at the time. Mesh usually likes to arrive fashionably late to screenings, after the movie has already started, in the grand tradition of Ted Mahar, late of the Oregonian, though unlike Mahar Aaron stays awake during the movies. This screening fuck up defeated him, though. Apparently the cause, which was never clearly explained, had to do with some kind of miscommunication among the publicity entity in Seattle, the theater’s receptive computer, and Sony Pix. But unlike the olden days when if the cans of reels didn’t arrive from UPS you were SOL, here in this day and age if someone can be found to flip a switch the screening will, finally, go on.
WE KNEW IT.
(to be fair, it was a good/bad joke.)
I listened to Friday’s show and right after it on my MP3 player was Movie BS With Bayer and Snider. It wasn’t on purpose but it was cool because of the memories. All it needed was you guys to take the piss out of B and S at the end of your show and my day would have been complete
Just received the following e-mail from listener Steve:
_____
Since it was a topic in your Cort and Fatboy appearance yesterday . . .
Helium is actually the second most common element in the universe behind hydrogen. By weight the universe is about 25% helium, or about 1 atom in 12 is a helium atom.
Helium is formed in stars as a byproduct of hydrogen fusion (and some other fusion processes) but almost all of the helium that exists in the universe today was formed in the Big Bang, when the universe cooled enough to allow the formation of stable nuclei, which were mostly hydrogen and helium, with trace amounts of deuterium and lithium. Since that time stars have not significantly increased the amount of helium in the universe.
Despite the cosmic abundance of helium, little exists on Earth since it is a light gas and doesn’t form compounds with anything, so it escapes from the atmosphere into space. Most of the helium now on Earth comes from radioactive decay — specifically alpha decay from elements like thorium and uranium; the so-called “alpha particle” is a helium nucleus. Over time helium does collect underground and most helium is obtained as a byproduct of natural gas production. That’s also why production is limited and now barely able to keep up with demand.
As helium builds up in the Sun’s core from hydrogen fusion, eventually in about 5 billion more years there will be enough to displace the remaining hydrogen and inhibit fusion. Then the core will compress under the weight of the outer layers of the Sun until it becomes hot enough to start helium fusion, which produces substantially more energy, raising the core temperature even more and inflating the outer layers. Then the Sun will become a red giant, a relatively short phase in its
life (only some hundreds of millions of years). When the helium runs out, the Sun will not have enough mass to create the pressure and temperature needed to ignite fusion of the carbon and oxygen that formed as byproducts of helium fusion; the outer layers will be blown off to form a “planetary nebula” (the name comes from the original belief that these usually round nebulae were distant planets) and the core will be exposted as a white dwarf star.
Way back when, there was an episode of Hamfisted Radio where Fatboy didn’t know what mumblecore was, and when Dawn explained it to him, he kept saying that it sounded like a regular description of independent cinema.
That was when mumblecore still had a bit of energy. Now, it can probably best be summed up by the final paragraph of Eric D. Snider’s article here:
http://www.ericdsnider.com/movies/jeff-who-lives-at-home/
Show-notes for Friday, April 20:
My Oregonian review of “The Lucky One”:
http://culturepulp.typepad.com/culturepulp/2012/04/movie-review-the-lucky-one.html
“Soul Train Express” tribute at the Hollywood Theatre, Mon. 4/23:
http://hollywoodtheatre.org/rerun-theater-presents-soul-train-tribute/
“King Kong vs. Godzilla” at the Hollywood Theatre, Tues. 4/24:
http://hollywoodtheatre.org/king-kong-vs-godzilla/
The HitFix review of “Lockout” starring Guy Pearce:
http://www.hitfix.com/articles/review-lockout-sends-guy-pearce-into-space-without-a-decent-script
Possible source of Fatboy’s comment re: a lawsuit leading to Will Ferrell starring in “Casa De Mi Padre” (this might be an elaborate PR gag):
http://www.comingsoon.net/news/movienews.php?id=68572&offset=10
Wikipedia’s entry on the “mumblecore” film genre:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mumblecore
The Hollywood Reporter: “‘The Dark Knight Rises’ Faces Big Problem: Audiences Can’t Understand Villain”
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/dark-knight-rises-christian-bale-batman-tom-hardy-bane-275489
Prometheus Viral Clip # 3 (David the Android)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cWmbqH_z7jM
AV Club feature: “Graham Yost walks us through Justified’s third season”
Part 1: http://www.avclub.com/articles/graham-yost-walks-us-through-justifieds-third-seas,72455/
Part 2: http://www.avclub.com/articles/graham-yost-walks-us-through-justifieds-third-seas,72559/
Part 3: http://www.avclub.com/articles/graham-yost-walks-us-through-justifieds-third-seas,72648/
Part 4: http://www.avclub.com/articles/graham-yost-walks-us-through-justifieds-third-seas,72732/
My glowing review of “Rango” from way back when:
http://culturepulp.typepad.com/culturepulp/2011/03/movie-review-rango.html
Some info on Whit Stillman — a strange, specific filmmaker worth enjoying:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whit_Stillman
You know, I was wondering if you guys would be willing to briefly touch upon what Byron said on Thursday (that he doesn’t believe bisexuality exists) on Monday’s show. I can tell from the comments section from that day that I wasn’t the only one bothered by his words (although I left my comment really late so probably nobody read it). It just seems so strange to me that a gay person (who I really enjoy listening to normally) would be so close-minded.
I agree that it would be interesting to touch on that more, but maybe Tuesday would be a better day for that? I dig Ryan Flemming’s tech savvy, but Mr. Walker seems better-suited for a discussion of that sort. Plus it’s fun when he gets mad about stuff.
It’s up to Ryan (and Cort and Fatboy), but I figure Ryan would only spend a couple of minutes on the subject anyway.
Why would we bring up Byron’s discussion to Ryan? Why wouldn’t we bring it back up with Byron?
Oh snap.
I think because at least somewhat we all know pretty well how Bryon feels on the subject- he already said. Maybe what we’re looking for is someone else’s take on it.
My kids loved Rango. Now granted I’m sure the youngest didn’t get all the adult oriented dialogue, but nonetheless they enjoyed it at the theater and have watched it several times at home. The wife and I did too. Great little animated flick.