This is not a review of the whole series, it is just my first impressions of the first couple of episodes.Three Body Problem by Cixin Liu was the last Hugo-winning novel of the year that will ever enjoy any real broad spectrum respect from actual readers as opposed to the literary community. The translation of the first book of Liu’s Remembrance of Earth Past trilogy arrived in the middle of the Great Puppy War. It was so good it enjoyed...
Disney's lawsuit was always about public relations. There wasn't the slightest hope in hell that the US judicial system would throw out the entire body of American property law for the benefit of Bob Iger. Not that there wasn't a lot of media retards predicting that would happen.Well, it didn't. I'll give this much to Mickey the Great and Terrible, the embarrassment of this stupidity was kept to a minimum. With the shareholder vote only days away, Iger apparently decided this one...
On September 7, 1979, Lee Leanard said the first words ever heard on ESPN, "If you're a fan, if you're a fan, what you'll see in the next minutes, hours, and days to follow may convince you you've gone to sports heaven."Leanard had no way of knowing just how right he was. The Rasmussen family (not the famous one) had come up with the idea of a cable network for local sports events in Connecticut. It turned out it was...
The Wandering Earth is an anthology of novellas by Cixin Liu, the (2015) Hugo Award-winning author of the Three-Body Problem. Which incidentally was the last time the Hugos reflected the voice of the entire fandom instead just 300-pound, purple-haired weirdos. I found this collection as intriguing as the Three Body for similar reasons. When I read his first novel, I was honestly rather surprised by what he was able to get away with in Communist China. That book began with an unflinching look...
Ivan Reitman’s early years in Hollywood are something he would have liked swept as far under the carpet as possible. His Salad Days body of work included such titles as Columbus of Sex, Cannibal Girls, Rabid (starring Marilyn Chambers in her only non-pornographic role), Shivers, and that groundbreaking classic, Ilsa the Tigress of Siberia. These movies were all slightly better than they had any right to be, but it looked like he was never going to find his way out of...
I’m trying to put this in a positive light but I’m having trouble lighting the candle. As is well known, Embracer Group put it all on the wrong horse..The Embracer bought up everything under the sun with the intention of selling itself to Amazon for well over a billion dollars. Except that Amazon sobered up, took a horrified look at the “sweeper” they had woken up next to, stole back the engagement ring on the nightstand, and jumped out of the nearest...
The Coach Gun, the Trench Broom, the Boom Stick, the Brixton Typewriter? (Seriously?) Most commonly called the shotgun. All but harmless at a distance yet so terrifying at close quarters that the Kaiser’s Wehrmacht tried to get it banned by the Geneva Conventions, (Silly Germans, America has never signed the Geneva Convention). Still a staple of the military, police, and home defense. To say nothing of the First Person Shooter.It’s honestly close to impossible to picture this genre of game...
Whatever Faustian bargain James Cameron seems to have made for his early mega successes with The Terminator and Aliens came due with The Abyss. Despite positive reviews and a pretty decent story, the film was an abject disaster at the box office. If there’s one thing that Hollywood loves more than overnight riches, it’s a meteoric fall. The wolves were scratching at James Cameron’s door. Everyone was wondering, was this guy just a one-hit-wonder? At that point in his career, Cameron needed...
“Creating magic is not for amateurs. I remain a significant shareholder because I have full faith and confidence in the power of Disney and Bob’s track record of driving long-term value. I have voted all of my shares for Disney’s 12 directors and urge other shareholders to do the same.” - George LucasA lot of people are shrieking but I’m not one of them. I did make a joke about Lucas backing Peltz a while back, but I wasn’t serious...
It’s always obvious when a genre has outstayed it’s welcome. In 1969, Hello, Dolly! was launched into a world where the innocence of the high-production Broadway musical film was no longer welcome. The Sixth Day was arguably Arnold Schwarzenegger’s best 80s-style blast flick but no one was interested by 2000. So it is with Damsel. This film feels like an intriguing artifact. A leftover from another time. It has arrived as another genre whose time is passed.However, and this is...
