(with a tip of the hat to the wonderful ‘Room 237’…)

The key to understanding the Kubrick movie ‘Little Shop of Horrors’ is to understand that Kubrick was a notorious perfectionist, one who never left anything to chance. The reshoots that Kubrick undertook, reshoots that scrapped an already-filmed and extremely expensive ending, were explicit in changing the original film as well as the Broadway play. These changes were not undertaken by chance. By examining them on a frame-by-frame basis, backwards as well as forwards, we can see how Kubrick was actually making a movie about …

(…to be continued once I go completely insane…)

THE EASTER BUNNY DIED FOR YOUR SINS

(Illustration by Bagram Ibatouilline, from The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane by Kate Camillo.)

FLAPJACKS: So everybody I know is putting up red equals signs on Facebook to show that they support gay marriage.
ME: Why red?
FLAPJACKS: It is the colour of love?
ME: It’s also the colour of anger, danger, stop signs, and retired assassins who are Bruce Willis. What was wrong with rainbows?
FLAPJACKS: I think maybe the guy who started it was all “well, rainbows are too political. But everybody likes red!”
ME: Or maybe he figured American conservatives who consider themselves red-staters would be tricked into supporting gay marriage this way.
FLAPJACKS: That is not the best plan I have ever heard.
ME: For a Facebook campaign it is basically genius-level thought. I mean, come on, it’s Facebook. Politics on Facebook is less advanced than online competitions involving Doritos.
FLAPJACKS: In fairness, Doritos are more important than civil rights to a surprising number of people.
ME: A surprising number of bad people.
FLAPJACKS: Your point being?
ME: I don’t know. Something about Doritos, probably.
FLAPJACKS: Anyway, I was reading that Facebook activism is bad because it makes people think that they are doing something to help a cause when they are actually, in fact, doing next to nothing.
ME: I, too, have heard that.
FLAPJACKS: But I have a theory, which is that that theory is completely wrong.
ME: Elaborate.
FLAPJACKS: Well, people are, for the most part, useless good-for-nothing assholes.
ME: Wow, this theory got dark in a hurry.
FLAPJACKS: Can you prove that I am wrong?
ME: Well, definitive proof –
FLAPJACKS: Right. So we accept that presumption. Moving on, because people are useless, the theory that people are being dissuaded from helping with a cause by internet activism is crap, because – and this is the important bit – they never would have done anything anyway. I posit that the number of people who really would have gone to protest marches or helped with community organizations or written letters to their elected officials or any of that, but instead did not because they were presented the option to express their support instead with an image macro on a social media website of some sort, is in fact very close to zero. Or, if you prefer, just zero. Straight-up zero.
ME: I don’t know that that is accurate. Given that people do tend to follow the path of least resistance, like rivers –
FLAPJACKS: Rivers have use.
ME: I reiterate: you’re awful dark today.
FLAPJACKS: I broke your wok.
ME: Oh. Well, in any case – wait, how do you break a wok?
FLAPJACKS: The handle came off.
ME: But it was bolted on.
FLAPJACKS: It came off!
ME: Anyway. Given that people tend to follow the path of least resistance, I think the argument that zero people are dissuaded from true activism because of slacktivism is probably erroneous. There must by definition be some people who would have done something more substantial, who were dissuaded because of the option to instead express themselves with a cause-oriented lolcat.
FLAPJACKS: But at what point do we say that the effect is de minimis?
ME: That’s a law term. I’m impressed.
FLAPJACKS: I was watching Boston Legal reruns last week. But anyway, I think activists are, by nature, shit-disturbers. And shit does not get disturbed on the internet. If they had had internet in the 1960s, Rosa Parks still would’ve sat down at the back of the bus.
ME: The front of the bus.
FLAPJACKS: What?
ME: Rosa Parks sat down at the front of the bus. Because black people had to go to the back of the bus. If Rosa Parks had been at the back of the bus it would not have been activism so much as “what normally happened.” Don’t you remember “Sister Rosa” by the Neville Brothers?
FLAPJACKS: My main takeaway from that song was that they really wanted to thank Sister Rosa.
ME: Look, I’m not going to get into the dynamics of bus-sitting, racism and how the two intersected in 1960s Alabama, because I am not Wikipedia and Wikipedia is a thing. And I agree that activists are shit-disturbers. But the point of the slacktivist theory is that social media activism provides the illusion of shit-disturbing, because your Uncle Morris who acts like it is fifty years ago gets offended when you post your “I CAN HAZ GAY MARRIAGE” lolcat on Tumblr, and you feel like you have disturbed shit when you have really done nothing.
FLAPJACKS: I get the illusion argument. I just don’t agree with it, because people recognize when something is something and nothing is nothing.
ME: Aha, and now we turn the cynicism angle back to my side, because people all too frequently don’t realize that and treat their Facebook actions like they are real life, because they know you can get fired for being stupid on Facebook so they assume that all actions on Facebook have consequences.
FLAPJACKS: Yes, but those people are stupid, whereas activists – well, activists can be stupid too, but there is a difference between idealistic stupid and disengaged stupid. Your argument doesn’t depend on how kids who thought KONY 2012 was a real thing that had meaning, because anybody who would have given a damn in any other circumstance was able to figure out that the campaign was being run by weird people who had a history of doing dick and all about the issue. I saw more of that on Facebook than actual Kony posts. Which is why I said de minimis. Well, that and I wanted to lawyer you back for once.
ME: And I was duly impressed.

FLAPJACKS: So I hear you’ve been talking about the Dead Space games a lot lately.
ME: Well, yes.
FLAPJACKS: I hope you have touched upon the most important thing, which is that Dead Space 3 is terrible.
ME: I didn’t think it was that bad –
FLAPJACKS: Yes, because you are a wriiiiiiiteeeer and therefore it is all about your precious story. But even you have to admit that Dead Space 3 is an awful, awful game.
ME: Well, I did kind of snicker when you came to those little step-ups where Isaac could clearly just clamber over were it not for Impassable Wall Fiat, so he had to use his magic telekinesis to make a tiny ladder appear and then climb up the five-foot-high ladder.
FLAPJACKS: Yes, that was very stupid. But you forget that vast chunks of the game are just the same six rooms, repeated over and over again. There is The Room That Always Has Baddies In It, The Room That Usually Has Baddies In It, The Corridor, The Other Corridor, The Room That Intersects With The Corridor (And Usually Has Baddies In It), and The Elevator. It got so that I could predict from exactly which stupidly obvious air vents the baddies would pop out from and try to stab me.
ME: I will concede that the game was much more repetitive in its level design than the first two Dead Space games, sure.
FLAPJACKS: Good. Will you also concede that the level design, in addition to being repetitive, is usually stupid? I mean, stupid in the way that calls attention to its limitations. Like, for example, the “puzzles” where the solution is literally painted on the wall right in front of the puzzle itself. It’s like the designers wanted to shout at you “YOU ARE A DUMB.”
ME: I preferred to think of that as password encryption being so hardcore in the Whateverth Century that the only way to truly hack it was to go totally analog.
FLAPJACKS: If that were the case, then why didn’t they just rely on the magical Doors Which Only Unlock When It Is Time For The Game To Let You Go There? I mean, in the previous games, they at least always bothered to come up with explanations for why that shit was happening. “Hold on, Isaac, I am going to hack that shit remotely so you can go through” as opposed to “welp, new objective, go that way, doors magically work now.”
ME: Those silly future people!
FLAPJACKS: Or the “electrical engineering” puzzles which were literally just “can you move both of your joysticks at once – okay then you can pass” challenges. Or the puzzles where the voiceover message of Dead Person Twelve tells you exactly what you have to do. Were the previous Dead Space puzzles too hard for some people? Who were these people? Were they just drooling all over their controllers and throwing a fit when that was not enough to win the game?
ME: Speaking as a true PC gamer in his opinion of consoleheads and Call of Duty players, I have to admit that is a distinct possibility.
FLAPJACKS: And the weapon crafting! Who wasted their time on this? You tinker for a bit until you get the guns you already know are good! “Oh, so if I do this and this, I get the pulse rifle with the grenade launcher? Why would I need anything else, then?”
ME: Well, that’s not fair. In the first two games, there was no gun that had stasis built in to its regular firing effect and which effectively put you in god mode for ninety percent of the game because when you shoot things and put them into slow motion, Dead Space gets hella easier in a hurry. Also, in the first two games there was no chain lightning gun. Did you play with the chain lightning gun?
FLAPJACKS: No. Why?
ME: Because the chain lightning gun hits everything at once. It kills the first guy and then does damage to all the rest of the guys. If you up the damage enough you can generally clear entire rooms with one shot. Also, you give it stasis so it also puts them in slow motion so you can stomp to death anybody who didn’t die from the first shot.
FLAPJACKS: So your point is that they invented a new gun for total no-skill twinks.
ME: Yup! I played it through on hard level and it was… not hard at all.
FLAPJACKS: And then there were the microtransactions!
ME: I do not believe for one second you spent any money on microtransactions for this game, mostly because anybody with even a tiny amount of gameplaying skill would never, ever need to spend money on microtransactions for this game.
FLAPJACKS: Well, no. But I am offended they exist!
ME: That’s fair. Did you also want to complain about how fighting against humans with guns made it seem like a Gears of War clone?
FLAPJACKS: No, that bit was not too bad. It was a nice change of pace from fighting the same six zombies again – and I mean “the same six zombies,” because swapping out the babies-with-tentacles-that-shoot-at-you for dogs-with-tentacles-that-shoot-at-you does not make for new zombies in spirit – especially when I had to fight the zombies and the Scientologists with guns at the same time. That was practically the only challenging part of the game. I think, in total, there was about six minutes of it.
ME: Okay. So I am going to concede all your arguments. Okay?
FLAPJACKS: So I win?
ME: Not precisely. I will cheerfully admit that as a game, Dead Space 3 is ill-thought-out as compared to the first two games, which were… let’s say “competent” or maybe “workmanlike,” because they weren’t really inspired per se.
FLAPJACKS: Excuse me, but not just anybody can come up with “zombies in space” except the writers of Mass Effect and Halo and…
ME: But you’re getting away from my point, which is this: Dead Space 3 isn’t a great game, but it’s still a pretty good story – yes, I can see you getting ready to draw out that word sarcastically, but it’s true. It’s a pretty good adventure story that you happen to be playing along with. And I enjoyed it on that basis, and I particularly enjoyed it because Isaac Clarke is not a douchebag.
FLAPJACKS: Why is that so special?
ME: Because most video game protagonists are douchebags! Nathan Drake from Uncharted is a quippy, smart-aleck douchebag. Kratos from God of War is a roiding douchebag. Ezio Auditore is badass, but he is also undeniably douche-adjacent at the very least. Guy From Far Cry 3 is an entitled preppy douchebag who learns the Simplicity of Native Life, which is the only possible way he could go even douchier. And so forth.
FLAPJACKS: And your argument is that Isaac is not a douchebag?
ME: In the first game, Isaac is in desperate self-denial that his girlfriend is dead – like, “actually sort of crazy” levels of self-denial because he blames himself for encouraging her to take the mission that gets her killed, which lets the evil alien thingy take advantage of his mind. In the second, he has literally been totally crazy for the last three years as a result of surviving the first game. In the third, he is withdrawn from the world and just totally wants to give up on everything as a result of surviving the first two games. Douchebag characters would just be all “whatever, here are some awesome one-liners about shooting limbs off of dead people.” The most Isaac can manage is mild sarcasm whenever life is more difficult because now he has Fetch Quest #80 to do before he can save the universe again. The rest of the time, he is painfully earnest, because he is going through the valley of the shadow of death in real-time and he knows it. Isaac Clarke is a guy who gets traumatized when he has to kill the guy who betrayed them all to the baddies and stole his girlfriend, because Isaac is a good dude.
FLAPJACKS: I like this dichotomy you have set up and look forward to the list of Good Dudes in video games. And also the inevitable jokes about Bad Dudes.
ME: Right. And that’s why, even though Dead Space 3 is a mediocre game, I didn’t mind, because so long as Isaac is a good dude, I am willing to stick around for the ride. Good dudes are the ones whose stories you want to follow. That’s why we all played The Walking Dead even though it was about ten times less of a game than DS3 was: because Lee was a good dude too. From what I hear the new Tomb Raider has Lara Croft being a good dude too, so I’ll probably play that.
FLAPJACKS: Are we allowed to call her a dude?
ME: “Dude” became gender-neutral about ten years ago, dude.

We saw your wang
We saw your wang
In the movie that we saw, we saw your wang

We saw Kevin Bacon’s wang in Wild Things,
and Rich Gere’s in American Gigolo,
and Jason Segel’s wang in Sarah Marshall,
but not erect, cause that’s a big no-no
(unless it’s porn)

We saw Michael Pitt’s wang in The Dreamers,
Gael Bernal’s in Y Tu Mama Tambien,
Peter Saarsgard’s in Kinsey,
Geoff Rush’ in Quills, but see:
We’ll never see Leonardo DiCaprio’s thing
(unless Scorcese asks)

We saw your wang
We saw your wang
In the movie that we saw, we saw your wang

We saw Zach Galifikanis’ in The Hangover,
Tom Hardy’s wang in Bronson took first place;
We saw Robin Williams’ in The Fisher King
And Seth MacFarlane’s whenever we see his face

Billy Crudup’s “Watchmen” wang? Computers;
But Fassbender’s Shame wang was for real,
And Jude Law in The Talented Mr. Ripley,
And Vincent Gallo in The Brown Bunny,
And Ewan McGregor in Trainspotting,
and The Pillow Book, and Velvet Goldmine,
and Young Adam, and Perfect Sense,
and really you have to pay him extra to keep his pants on

We saw your wang
We saw your wang

MGK’S BROTHER JEFF: Hey, did you watch Saturday Night Live last night?
MGK: No, I was out.
JEFF: I meant “did you watch it later, like Sunday afternoon or something.”
MGK: Oh. No.
JEFF: I wouldn’t want to suggest you aren’t a social dervish.
MGK: Of course not.
JEFF: Out at the clubs. Working the lines. Making connections.
MGK: You can stop now.
JEFF: Hitting the dance floor. Getting digits. Exploding the pass.
MGK: I’m pretty sure that last expression is just something you made up.
JEFF: I’m ten years younger than you. I know all the hip new things you don’t. I bet you don’t even know about flanging.
MGK: Now I’m sure you’re making stuff up.
JEFF: Maybe. Maybe not. Either way, it will be something you wonder about, late at night. You know, when you think about death.
MGK: What does all of this have to do with Saturday Night Live, anyway?
JEFF: Oh. Jeremy Renner hosted.
MGK: And?
JEFF: He sucked.
MGK: That’s too bad.
JEFF: No, I mean he really sucked. Like, Lindsay Lohan levels of sucked.
MGK: That’s surprising. I mean, I like him in action movies well enough. He does a good sort of quip.
JEFF: I think nerds just like him because he looks like a young Nathan Fillion before Nathan Fillion got all fat.
MGK: Well, he does fight people really nicely too.
JEFF: But getting back to my point. He sucked.
MGK: Well, not everybody is Anne Hathaway.
JEFF: …no, but I don’t see your point.
MGK: Anne Hathway is like a switch-hitter –
JEFF: – maybe in your fantasies.
MGK: Nice, but let me finish. She is like an acting switch-hitter – do you want that one?
JEFF: Nah. Not in the mood to expand on a theme.
MGK: Okay. So she is like an acting switch-hitter in that she can go all “actual acting” and be good at it, or alternately switch into wacky sketch comedienne mode and not miss a beat. Not everybody can do this. Hugh Jackman can do it. James Franco, not so much.
JEFF: I get your point. But this was not just a failure to be Anne Hathaway. Jeremy Renner was bad. Like, during his monologue, it was like he actively did not want to be there. I felt bad for him. But also I felt scorn, because he was being paid a lot of money to be there.
MGK: Well, maybe he was totally hyped to do it and then got there and started work and was all “wait, I am not meant to be doing this at all.” That happens. And then he can’t just bail out.
JEFF: Sure he could. They’d call up Alec Baldwin or John Goodman and be all “save us” and they would do it because they are SNL gods.
MGK: True dat.
JEFF: Anyway. For the first time in my life, I appreciated Matt Damon. Because the more I see Jeremy Renner, the less I like him. I mean, I saw one Bourne movie with Renner in it and it made Avengers, like, retroactively worse. Matt Damon never did that.
MGK: Wait, you don’t appreciate Matt Damon?
JEFF: Come on. He’s just sort of there.
MGK: But he’s always good. At everything. I mean, at worst, your argument against Matt Damon is that he’s not flashy in how he’s good at everything.
JEFF: Name three movies that Matt Damon made that are not Bourne movies, which he didn’t really make anyway because he was just sort of there.
MGK: Rounders.
JEFF: Just sort of there. Just because he’s the lead doesn’t make him not just sort of there, you know.
MGK: Good Will Hunting.
JEFF: It sucking was totally his fault. It was his fault. It was his fault.
MGK: Saving Private Ryan.
JEFF: Tom Hanks’ movie. Adam Goldberg and Barry Pepper and Jeremy Davies were all more memorable than Damon. And don’t even bother saying Ocean’s Eleven.
MGK: The Adjustment Bureau. The Informant! The Departed. Contagion.
JEFF: See, I didn’t see any of those, so your argument is irrelevant.
MGK: That’s not terribly fair.
JEFF: Matt Damon has a net worth in the hundreds of millions of dollars. I think he can handle it.
MGK: Fair enough.

Torontoist thought it would be a good idea to go nutpicking in the wake of the Rob Ford ouster, so I did.

FLAPJACKS: Hey, did you ever see Junior? That movie where Arnold Schwarzenegger gets pregnant?
ME: No.
FLAPJACKS: I didn’t either. Did they ever explain how the hell he was able to get pregnant without a uterus? I mean, I know he took Miracle Drugs which let him get pregnant even though he was a man, that’s the point of the movie. But he has no uterus. Do the Miracle Drugs like, give him a temporary uterus?
ME: I have no idea.
FLAPJACKS: Maybe they make the placenta into a temporary uterus. But in the movie Arnold is visibly pregnant. Maybe the temporary uterus is inside his stomach lining? The baby obviously can’t be in the stomach because of the acid, though, so that doesn’t work.
ME: I still have no idea.
FLAPJACKS: …aha! The appendix!
ME: Aha?
FLAPJACKS: The appendix does nothing, right? So maybe that is where the baby ends up. In a vestigial organ! My god, I’m brilliant.
ME: But the appendix is connected to the beginning of the large intestine. I don’t think your plan works unless you are going to drown the fetus in poop.
FLAPJACKS: The super-placenta theory takes care of that. It creates a poop-barrier. Not a barrier made of poop, a barrier against poop. +5 versus poop, if you will. Also, if you think about it, the appendix being the man-uterus makes sense because it’s connected to the intestine and therefore provides a natural birthing route for the baby.
ME: …wait, you’re saying that male natural childbirth as in Junior is to shit the baby out?
FLAPJACKS: Well, where else is the baby gonna come out?
ME: Putting aside the question of whether a baby could pass through one’s intestines without A) suffocating or B) rupturing the intestines –
FLAPJACKS: Ahem: Miracle Drugs. Done. Next question.
ME: – okay, whatever, but you’re still talking about a labour that would be at least a twenty-hour shit, basically. Probably much longer, because the baby would be bigger and therefore proceed more slowly.
FLAPJACKS: Well, it is only proper that childbirth take a long time and be somewhat painful. Men should not get out of that. Plus, after you finally gave birth –
ME: I hope to god that is a general “you” and not a specific one.
FLAPJACKS: Okay, wimp, after one gave birth, it would be euphoric in the way that only a truly great bowel movement can be. Except you also get a baby.
ME: I think this is the most awful conversation we have ever had.
FLAPJACKS: How did they deal with the birthing issue in Junior, anyway?
ME: Wikipedia says Arnold had a Caesarean.
FLAPJACKS: Wimp.

Hello. I’m Jock, of Mad Jock’s Lawn Dominator brand fertilizer. Now, you might think that fall is the time where you finally stop shelling out for our product, but I’m here to tell you that this is the most important time of the year to fertilize your lawn. Except maybe for spring. And summer, of course. But it’s more important than winter, which requires only our ‘Mad Jock’s Winter Lawn Maintenance brand of fertilizer, sprinkled over the snow.

You see, our top grass scientists have discovered that fall is the time where the grass starts fattening up for the long winter season by bulking up  with extra nutrients, much like a bear eats more before going into hibernation. Your grass is building a layer of fat to insulate itself from the winter’s cold, and to sustain it during those periods when sunlight is scarce. If you don’t fertilize your lawn during this crucial period, your grass is going to wake up out of its torpor in the middle of winter, cold and hungry. When that happens, the angry grass might just break into your house, looking for food. It might find your pets…your children…even you. Do you want that? WELL, DO YOU?

Of course not. So buy Mad Jock’s Lawn Dominator Fall Spectacular Oktoberfert brand fertilizer, and cover your lawn with it to a depth of about six inches. Buy a few extra bags, just in case your neighbor’s lawn gets a wee bit pissy and you have to throw something to it around November to keep it from nibbling on the family dog. There’s never a bad time to buy our fall fertilizer. Except for spring, I suppose, or summer. Or winter. Those aren’t the best times to buy it, because you don’t need it. Which is why you should buy it then, to stock up on it for when you do need it. Which makes it the best time of all to buy!

Mad Jock’s Lawn Dominator. Seed your lawn. Seed it. Seed it hard, lad. Seed it all night long. That’s right, just like that. Oh, your lawn likes it when you seed it there, doesn’t it? Yes, harder…harder…oh, seed it, can’t you see how bad it wants it? No, don’t look at me, just keep seeding…a video-camera? Don’t be silly, I would never…where are you going? What do you mean, “To call the cops”? Wait, come back, just–SHIT!

**sound of running footsteps**

JEFF (MY BROTHER): So I saw that you had good things to say about New Normal and Go On in your column this week.
ME: Well, sorta. They’re both uneven. Comedies generally don’t bust out of the gate on all cylinders, you know? Like, you can tell when a show is just going to suck, most of the time. But a comedy can have a mediocre pilot and then become really good.
JEFF: Like Men At Work.
ME: No, that one is just shitty.
JEFF: Are you sure? I mean, you just said all about how you can never tell. Maybe you’re getting elitist.
ME: I stand firm in my conviction that Breckin Meyer does not, as a rule, lead to good things.
JEFF: Who’s he?
ME: He’s that guy. Who’s in things.
JEFF: That’s not very specific.
ME: That’s the sort of actor he is.
JEFF: So he’s a character actor.
ME: Not really.
JEFF: But you said he’s that guy –
ME: I didn’t mean he’s a Hey-It’s-That-Guy guy. Because he’s not that guy. He’s just a guy who acts and writes.
JEFF: Has he done anything I might recognize?
ME: He was the guy who made Robot Chicken who was not Seth Green.
JEFF: I think you have to give him some credit for being involved with Robot Chicken. What else was he in?
ME: He’s in Franklin and Bash right now.
JEFF: What?
ME: Exactly.
JEFF: Okay, I’m gonna iMDB him and see what’s what. Surely this guy has been in lots of stuff you like.
ME: Oh, sure he has.
JEFF: And I’m gonna – wait, what?
ME: Look, I’m not saying he is bad. He is there. Do you understand the difference?
JEFF: Look, he was in Josie and the Pussycats and Can’t Hardly Wait and Rat Race. You own all of those.
ME: You just listed two cameo roles and one where he’s part of a large ensemble cast that has John Cleese, Rowan Atkinson, Alfre Woodard and Jon Lovitz in it. Also, Seth Green is in all of those movies, so I think we have established a pattern now.
JEFF: Yeah, but Breckin Meyer didn’t ruin those movies, did he?
ME: No. In fact, he wasn’t even a negative. But you’re missing my point. I didn’t say “Breckin Meyer ruins things.” Because he doesn’t ruin things. I said “Breckin Meyer, as a rule, does not lead to good things.” That doesn’t mean he leads to bad things. Breckin Meyer is just sort of there. I think he played Jon in Garfield, which is the ultimate “just sort of there” role. I mean, at least when you play, say, Dave in Alvin and the Chipmunks, you get to shout at Alvin like you matter.
JEFF: I think this still seems terribly harsh. I mean, he did help create Robot Chicken.
ME: He’s also responsible for Inside Schwartz.
JEFF: Good point.
ME: Actually it isn’t exactly, because I don’t blame him for that show sucking because, again – just sort of there.
JEFF: I hope he doesn’t read your blog and get offended, seeing as how I am sure you will blog this.
ME: It’s my understanding that he has millions and millions of dollars, so presumably he has people to read blogs for him, and even if he stays true to his roots by reading blogs himself, he has millions of dollars so he can afford to not care what I think.
JEFF: True enough. I mean, I don’t have millions of dollars, but I don’t care what you think.
ME: Yeah, but you’re family.

VIA THE INTERNATIONAL OLYMPIC COMMITTEE
Lausanne, Switzerland

FIVE RINGS: Your suggestion to revise J.R.R. Tolkien’s stanza describing the Rings of Power from his Lord of the Rings series by adding the line “Five to the International Olympic Committee, who think they’re so goddamn special, la dee dah” was, to say the least, terribly impolitic. Also, it does not scan well.

POPEYE: We understand that you are a fan of Popeye, but Popeye was created by E.C. Segar, an American, and is currently owned by an American company. Really, Popeye has nothing to do with Britain at all and is not appropriate for the opening ceremony, even if it would be exciting to watch him fight Aslan (whom we believe is who you meant by “that God-Lion, you know the one”). Other suggestions you made that have nothing to do with the United Kingdom fall into this same category: Abraham Lincoln freeing the slaves, the re-enactment of a chase scene from the videogame Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood (which is set in Rome, which is in Italy, not Great Britain), the army of dancing leprechauns (which are Irish, not British), and Spider-Man (who is portrayed by a British citizen currently but who is not, in and of himself, British).

Sincerely, etc. etc.

Let’s face it, we all know that ‘The Dark Knight Rises’ is likely to be the end of the Christopher Nolan Batman continuity. He did two good movies and one truly excellent one (I’ll leave it to you to decide which one you think was the excellent one, but hint: It had the Joker in it) and is now moving on to what sounds like a truly fascinating Howard Hughes bio-pic. The reboot will probably hit theaters in about 2016, just in time to tie in with the Justice League movie…or it would, if that didn’t get delayed to 2025 while Warner Brothers tries to hammer out a few details in the script to make it not so much like the mega-hit “Squadron Supreme” movie Marvel did a few years earlier. (Oh, I’m sorry. Is my faith in DC’s movie division showing?)

But if we did get a fourth movie, where would it go from the end of the third? A spoiler tag, for those of you uninterested in speculating just yet…

continue reading "The Two Post ‘Dark Knight Rises’ Directions"

FLAPJACKS: So your problem is that nobody likes you and everybody hates you? Is that more or less the problem? It sounds like the problem.
MITT ROMNEY: Well, I wouldn’t necessarily say –
FLAPJACKS: Right, so nobody likes you and everybody hates you. That’s not a problem. We can work with this. So… hm. There’s this tax return thing. You don’t want to release them.
MITT ROMNEY: You see, I don’t –
FLAPJACKS: Shut up. Doesn’t matter. We’re not going to release the tax returns. What we’re going to do is campaign against the right person.
MITT ROMNEY: Isn’t the President the right person?
FLAPJACKS: No, people like him. Except for the people who don’t, and they are already holding their noses and voting for you because of the aforementioned “everybody hates you” problem. What we need to do is flip the dynamic inverseways. That is a trademarked phrase, by the way. I trademarked that.
MITT ROMNEY: That seems like something you shouldn’t be able to trademark.
FLAPJACKS: You’re just saying that because you’re a billionaire finance guy. See? This is why everybody hates you. But it is fixable. What we are going to do is campaign against somebody else.
MITT ROMNEY: But nobody else is running for President. Nobody serious, anyway.
FLAPJACKS: So what? Look, the next time someone says “Mr. Romney, when are you going to release your tax returns,” you say “well, when is Tom Cruise going to release the terms of his divorce settlement to Katie Holmes? What is Tom Cruise hiding?” This will work because people may be entertained by Tom Cruise, but they don’t exactly like Tom Cruise. You will put Tom Cruise on the defensive this way.
MITT ROMNEY: But Tom Cruise isn’t –
FLAPJACKS: GAH. How hard is this to understand? You will not get people to like you better than Obama. It’s not going to happen. But if you flip the dynamic inverseways tee-em, then you might be able to get people to like you better than Tom Cruise. The choice between you and Tom Cruise is a campaign that maybe you can win. Meanwhile, the President is sitting over on the other side saying “but wait, Tom Cruise is a meaningless distraction” and nobody pays attention because they’re all, like, distracted and stuff.
MITT ROMNEY: But what if I can’t beat Tom Cruise?
FLAPJACKS: Then we go after someone else. Mel Gibson, maybe.
MITT ROMNEY: Actually, Mel donated –
FLAPJACKS: SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP. God, you can ruin anything, can’t you? When are you going to start listening to me? We need to work on this. Okay, so if not Mel Gibson, maybe a Kardashian. I don’t want to start out with a Kardashian because that’s sort of like if Mike Tyson fought Ernest Borgnine, but a win is a win.
MITT ROMNEY: So I’m like Mike Tyson, then?
FLAPJACKS: Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, Mr. Candidate. Okay, so we’ve got you beating Tom Cruise. That wins you everybody who hates and/or envies Hollywood, plus everybody who is freaked out about Scientology. So, win. But we need more. We need the votes of the people who love Hollywood. And to do that, we must get Hollywood to love you. Or at least tolerate you, sorta.
MITT ROMNEY: And how do we do that?
FLAPJACKS: We have you apologize for your Diet Coke addiction.
MITT ROMNEY: But I’m not addicted to Diet Coke. I’m a Mormon. We don’t drink caffeinated drinks.
FLAPJACKS: Start. Diet Coke is, like, delicious acid. So it’ll be easy. But even better than that, it will humanize you. People think you are a soulless robot.
MITT ROMNEY: I know.
FLAPJACKS: They look for the wires in your back.
MITT ROMNEY: Uh huh.
FLAPJACKS: They ask you how many diodes are in your tongue.
MITT ROMNEY: I get it.
FLAPJACKS: They ask you “what is love” in an attempt to make you explode.
MITT ROMNEY: Can we drop this?
FLAPJACKS: Okay. Soulless robots don’t get addicted to things. So we get you addicted to Diet Coke. First off, it will make you seem sympathetic. People will overlook the fact that you are a rich tycoon who ruthlessly exploited the American financial system in order for your own benefit, because you’re just like them.
MITT ROMNEY: I don’t see it.
FLAPJACKS: Christ, George W. Bush figured this out. Why do you think he became an alcoholic? Whose idea was that?
MITT ROMNEY: Wait, that was you?
FLAPJACKS: Well, no, I was six. But retroactively I am claiming it, and you know I can do that.
MITT ROMNEY: …right.
FLAPJACKS: Anyway, the point is this: Hollywood fucking loves Diet Coke. My god, do they love Diet Coke. They would have it coming out of taps if they could manage it. I understand many of the rich ones do have it coming out of taps. So when you admit, tearfully, that you are not a perfect Mormon and you have a Diet Coke addiction, Hollywood will like you better. Not as much as Obama, who is a smoker trying to quit, because that is golden right there. But they will at least understand your cold, robotic soul.
MITT ROMNEY: And that helps me win?
FLAPJACKS: Maybe. Depends on how the Tom Cruise thing goes. We need to get America to open their hearts to you.
MITT ROMNEY: So I can win their votes.
FLAPJACKS: Well, I was going to say “so you can rip them out like that guy in Temple of Doom,” but then again he didn’t need anybody to open their hearts because he used magic. Do you have any magic?
MITT ROMNEY: No.
FLAPJACKS: Pity.

(First. And then.)

FLAPJACKS: Dog! We must duel! A duel to the death!
MGK: How dare you call me a dog! We must duel! To the death!
FLAPJACKS: Yes! The Countess’ honour will be avenged!
MGK: …wait, what?
FLAPJACKS: The Countess. Her honour. You know.
MGK: No, not following you.
FLAPJACKS: Look, it is widely known that you poured beer all over the Countess! It angers me to think of you disrespecting her that way!
MGK: I’m not saying that wouldn’t be bad if I had done it.
FLAPJACKS: Precisely!
MGK: Although it would be hot, in a consensual context.
FLAPJACKS: Also precisely.
MGK: But I didn’t do anything like that.
FLAPJACKS: But I heard –
MGK: I did, however, spill beer in The Duchess, which is a pub down the street.
FLAPJACKS: Oh.
MGK: Yes.
FLAPJACKS: That’s kind of different.
MGK: I know.
FLAPJACKS: Are you sure you haven’t offended the honour of the Countess lately?
MGK: I can only wish.
FLAPJACKS: The Duchess, maybe? Not the pub. The human one.
MGK: She’s, like, seventy-five. What could I do to offend her honour?
FLAPJACKS: You could have dropped a hanky inappropriately.
MGK: How does that offend her honour?
FLAPJACKS: I’m not sure exactly, but I know it does. She complained a whole lot when I did it. Old people are weird.
MGK: Well, I haven’t done that lately either.
FLAPJACKS: The Baroness, maybe?
MGK: You’re thinking of G.I. Joe now.
FLAPJACKS: But it is not your fault that she is not in the sequel?
MGK: I don’t think so, no.
FLAPJACKS: Dang. I went and bought this rapier and everything.
MGK: It looks tremendously impressive.
FLAPJACKS: I cut myself on it.
MGK: I was wondering why you had a Voltron bandaid on that finger.
FLAPJACKS: They were all I had left.
MGK: But of course.
FLAPJACKS: Well, anyway, I guess we’re not going to be dueling now, since you haven’t offended the honour of a lady.
MGK: I offended the honour of Michele Bachmann a while back, I think.
FLAPJACKS: Politician. Doesn’t count.
MGK: Really. But it doesn’t matter. We still have to duel.
FLAPJACKS: She really doesn’t count. It has to be someone of noble blood, and just because she is a secret Swiss doesn’t make her a noble. It probably just means that she has Nazi gold somewhere.
MGK: No, I mean you called me a dog. That is an insult, sirrah. A-dueling we must go.
FLAPJACKS: But you’re a dog person. You have specifically said at many times that you prefer dogs to cats.
MGK: True. But had you called me a cat I would be even more offended and we would have to duel, like, twice or something.
FLAPJACKS: What if I had called you a “cool cat”? And how would we duel to the death twice?
MGK: I imagine the second duel would be rather perfunctory, to be honest. And “cool cat” is permissible. But you called me a dog! An insult to mine honour! Imagine that I have just slapped you across the face with a glove. I don’t have any gloves.
FLAPJACKS: You have that pair of mittens.
MGK: Yes, but who is gonna initiate a duel with mittens?
FLAPJACKS: Speaking of things you don’t have, you also don’t have a sword.
MGK: Well, I was going to suggest that we take turns with yours. Since I am initiating this duel, I will go first. Then you can have a go with it.
FLAPJACKS: This seems like a perfectly conceived proposal with no possible loopholes you can exploit.