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Cakebug Tranch

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Posts posted by Cakebug Tranch

  1. Posted

    Towards the end of the movie, Dex finally reveals Totenkopf's plan. Dex says that "when the rocket reaches 100 km, at the edge of space, Earth will be incinerated." For perspective, at 100 km, you'd only be 0.026% on your way to the moon. 100 km is hardly on the "edge of space."

    This was something that bothered me too. First, for whose benefit is the distance from earth measured in the metric system? Is it Max Headroom Laurence Olivier? Or British Sky Captain? Or the German scientists? But the statute mile is the accepted unit of measurement for distance in both Britain and in the United States. EVERYONE who said it sounded weird saying 'kilometre'. Why not say miles for the benefit of your audiences?

     

    And on that same note, Sky Captain and Polly successfully manage to electrocute Bai Ling and the control panel right before the rocket gets to the magical 100km mark, and in the next shot the rocket explodes, leaving our heroes to gently parachute back to earth. But that rocket was filled with two of every animal that ever lived. It's JAMMED with species. And then it explodes. In a giant fireball. TWO OF EVERY SPECIES ON EARTH JUST GOT LIT UP AND ARE NOW RAINING DOWN ON THE SEA. Why aren't Sky Captain and Polly ducking bits of falling, flaming cows and horses?

     

    Incidentally, the logic of Noah's Ark has been queried a bunch, about just the logistics and weight of that many animals. From Genesis:

    And of every living thing of all flesh, two of every sort shalt thou bring into the ark, to keep them alive with thee; they shall be male and female.

    Of fowls after their kind, and of cattle after their kind, of every creeping thing of the earth after his kind, two of every sort shall come unto thee, to keep them alive.

    And take thou unto thee of all food that is eaten, and thou shalt gather it to thee; and it shall be for food for thee, and for them.

    Of every clean beast thou shalt take to thee by sevens, the male and his female: and of beasts that are not clean by two, the male and his female.

    Of fowls also of the air by sevens, the male and the female; to keep seed alive upon the face of all the earth.

    That's a LOT of weight. In this excellent article, the difficulty of hauling all those animals becomes very apparent:

    A cow weighs about half a ton; so, for the clean cattle alone, we're talking 3.5 tons. Ditto for camels, perhaps 3/4 ton for sheep, and 1/2 ton for goats. Add in all the marsupials, bison, rhinoceroses, elephants, reptiles, amphibians, birds, and so on, and we quickly exceed 1600 tons for animals alone, let alone their feed.

    The rockets in Totenkopf's plan are good, but they'd have to be some kind of Tardis machine to fit all the species they're claiming to carry. Which are then promptly barbecued by Sky Captain.

    • Like 6

  2. Posted

    I'm a couple months away from my pick but am zeroing in on a couple. Unfortunately my main pick is really only available on Netflix in the US. (Not sure if it's easier for CamBert and others.) Would that be OK or do I need to pick something more widely available? People seemed to be OK with Om Shanti Om so I'm hopeful.

    As one of the international users, I will say that you shouldn't let our access stop you from proposing your preferred movie. We'll figure it out!

    • Like 4

  3. Posted

     

    I watched it again last night (first time since theaters) and I largely agree. It's not great, but visually it's creative/interesting and as a narrative the worst you can say is that it's "stock" -- filled with cliched situations you've probably seen before. I definitely see why this didn't catch on, but I'm also not sure I'd call it a "bad" movie exactly. (Also, The Spirit was SO much worse than this.)

     

    I agree - it kind of grew on me over the course of the film. The dullness was pretty debilitating, but it was pretty beautiful to look at throughout. The final half hour turned me around on it.

    • Like 2

  6. Posted

     

    I did enjoy that makeover scene involved a lot of foils and heat on her hair, but looked exactly the same when it was over. But they all acted as if it was a huge improvement.

    Also, the first time the Pussycats play for Allan C. in the studio, they play their track, then he pushes a few buttons on that producer machine, and it plays back sounding exactly the same. They say "whoa, is that us?", and while they then immediately start spouting advertising slogans, I couldn't really spot the difference.

     

    I wanted a moment like at the 4.00 mark of this video:

     

     

    YVAN EHT NOIJ

    • Like 8

  7. Posted

    Isn't Alan M in the cartoon pretty regularly? I assume that's why he was included. I don't know about how often he was in the comic.

    He probably is, but how many of the target demographic for this movie would know about the cartoon? I watched every cartoon I could get my hands on in the 80's and I had no memory of him. It's not like Jughead or Archie (although yes, I know they aren't really central to Josie et al). I just found his presence distracting, and the love plot was shoehorned in for no real payoff.

    • Like 4

  8. Posted

    I know this has been mentioned already, but I was constantly distracted by the Allan M. subplot. Alan Cummings even makes several jokes along the lines of 'what kind of name is Allan M' (a good point if you ask me). I never read that deeply into Archie comics when I was a kid (I know the main cast but have no relationship with the Pussycatverse (?) beyond the main three) but it seems that Alan M. is a deep cut from Josie's story. In the comics, Alan M. is Josie's guitar tech, and looks like this:

    3341318-6177536039-alan..jpg

     

    Apparently his whole thing is that he's a bodybuilder, and is Josie's love interest later on. I guess having such a specific reference to the comics (along with Alex/Alex) is a way to appease the purists, but to the vast majority of viewers (us, I guess), these characters seem arbitrary and weird. And if the entire point of taking Alan M to the city is to keep him out of the snares of Alexandra, isn't that immediately redundant since Alexandra comes along too? And Alan M. shows no interest in Alexandra, so does Josie really need to force him to come to the city because she's that insecure?

     

    With all that, why is Alan M. such a meh nobody of a character? He's all soulful and sad but there's absolutely no reason for us to ship him and Josie. He's just a bland, forgettable nothing.

     

    Oh, and here's another Alan M. gem from the internet.

    1129a1.jpg

    • Like 4

  9. Posted

    Also random casting trivia from Wikipedia but I read this and thought how crazy would those alternate Vals had been?? I like Rosario here, I think she was a good choice.

     

    I agree that stunt-casting might have been fun, but Rosario nailed what little she was given. It would have been a completely different movie (maybe for the better?) with Left Eye in there. How would that have matched up with all the silliness?

    • Like 4

  10. Posted

    Ah shit, it's a public holiday here in Canada so I have been doing family stuff all weekend and missed the start of the chat. I can completely understand both sides of the hated it/loved it fence. I remember liking it when it came out, and was happy to revisit this week, but found myself tuning out more than I expected. Three Small Words, shitty pop-punk or no, is still a song that gets my head nodding, all these years later.

     

    I feel so old with Taylor saying she saw this at 11.

     

    I also completely agree with CamB about the era-specific casting: the main one I point to is Paulo Costanzo, who is from Toronto and had a very large role in Road Trip, so much so that I thought he was on his way to being a big star, but then just wound up being such a niche guy that he was quickly annoying. He's done stuff since but I don't know if we'll see big things from him again.

     

    I also agree with the notes on the OTT performances from Cumming and Posey: I'm just not sure whether this subject matter could have borne anything different, you know? Like, a movie about Josie and the Pussycats without any reference to the rest of the Archieverse (I assume that's a thing) can't stand on its own as a serious thing. It has to be ridiculous and overwrought.

     

    And I'm not sure I agree that Josie is being positioned as being more talented than Du Jour, just more principled. Nowhere are they saying their music is better - they are literally signed and marketed before Cumming has even heard a note they've sung!

    • Like 3

  11. Posted

    I've never seen the movie but I had a friend that loved it to know end. Then again he was really into that genre, not sure what to call it so let's go with "noirpunk", like robots and stuff but it's all the 20s.

    Wikipedia calls it 'Dieselpunk', which just feels kind of gross to say.

     

     

    j3ZwUfZ.jpg

     

    • Like 7

  12. Posted

    Also, nothing like seeing that an extremely famous artist had international success and died by the age of 27 to make you look at your own 28 years of life...

     

    With all respect to all the modern members of the 27 Club, surely the most impressive member of the genius dead in their 20's group (if it's true that he actually died!) was Christopher Marlowe: I always bring him up in class as a motivation to students, knowing that Marlowe had not only travelled the continent, served as a spy, and got his degree from Cambridge, but also completely reinvented English play structure (he perfected iambic pentameter, his 'mighty line') and wrote Dr Faustus, Tamburlaine the Great (I and II), The Jew of Malta, The Massacre at Paris, and Edward the Second, all before getting stabbed in the face in a bar fight. All by the age of 29. So yeah, Taylor, I'm with you on looking over at others' achievements by a certain age and feeling a little inadequate...

     

    https://www.biograph...marlowe-9399572

    • Like 5

  13. Posted

    Did no one else find it weird that there were two songs in this movie with the title Body Rock in them? Both of them are asking me to let my body rock.

    I have to say that I was initially excited and then immediately disappointed when I misheard the title of this film as 'Holly Rock' and I thought we'd be getting a little bit of Sheila E from Krush Groove (memorably discussed in our Musical Mondays threads).

     

    I think we can all very confidently agree that Sheila's 'Holly Rock' is far and away the better track of the three.

     

    • Like 4

  14. Posted

    I just wanted to say, that I am 100% with Jason regarding the uselessness of YouTube captioning. A monkey farting on a keyboard would be more accurate. For example, in this movie, "throwing some crates around" became "touring Creed around." For most of the rest of the movie, all I could even think about was:

     

    giphy.gif

     

    Ain't nobody need to be in that headspace.

     

    I think my favorite YouTube captions moment was when I watch Lawrence Olivier's version of Othello. That's when:

     

    "And little blessed with the soft phrase of peace,

    For since these arms of mine had seven years' pith,

    Till now some nine moons wasted, they have used

    Their dearest action in the tented field,

    And little of this great world can I speak,

    More than pertains to feats of broils and battle,"

     

    became:

     

    "And little rest of the software is a piece,

    for since these arms of mine at seven years pistol,

    ..now some nine months wasted, they have used

    Their dearest action in the tented field,

    And little of this great world can I speak,

    more than pertains to pizza broils..."

     

    (Yes, I saved my transcript :) )

    Potentially my favourite HDTGM forum post ever. I want an entire podcast just on Cameron's transcripts.

    • Like 3

  16. Posted

     

    There was a guy who was on Joe Rogan's podcast (I think), and he and the guest were talking about fake martial artists, and they talked about this one guy who told his friend "I'm fighting in an underground tournament", and he went into the woods, and he emerged three days later with a trophy.

     

    How do people think they're convincing anyone?!

    I don't know about anyone else, but I would be seriously interested in a movie following the exploits of the fake martial artist in the woods and how he got his trophy.

    • Like 3

  19. Posted

    Okay, so here's what I've been thinking. Those of you who have known me for a while know that if there's one thing I hate more than a Jacob's Ladder Scenario, it's a Shared Universe theory - that is of course not including the excellent one already posted in this thread, of course. Yet the timing of 'Body Rock''s release had me thinking.

     

    The bouncer who stops Chilly from getting into the club is played by Tony Ganios, who all pubescent lads of the 1980s would recognize from his role as Anthony "Meat" Tuperello in the 'Porky's' films.

     

    TonyJill.jpg

    In this film, he's playing a bouncer called Big Mac - I guess that explains what kind of meat he was named for - and he's immediately recognizable as he proves terrible at his job by telling Chilly he can't come into the club only to go check and later let him in. In 'Porky's', as we all remember, 'Meat' had a great ambition to go to Stanford after he graduated from Angel Beach High, and when he was rejected, he took it very badly. Given that 'Body Rock' was filmed in 1984, right after 'Porky's II' and right before 'Porky's Revenge', do you think that maybe instead of Stanford, Meat headed to New York City to take up a bouncing gig, and a more mature nickname? And before you say it, I know that 'Porky's' is set in the 1960's, but I choose to believe that it's Meat that refuses to let Chilly into the club: perhaps out of jealousy over a similarly animal product-based nickname?

     

    I'm not even going to go into my other theory about how the unfeasibly roomy nightclub in 'Body Rock' could very well double for the giant nightclub where vampire Nic Cage goes biting girls in 'Vampire's Kiss'. I mean, why not?

    • Like 4

  22. Posted

    I spent two hours this afternoon watching this turd sandwich when I should have been grading term papers, so I think I won the afternoon. Lots in there but I'm feeling rusty after a while off the boards so I'll hold off before diving right in.

     

    One thing I wondered: did anyone else think of Daft Punk's 'Around the World' video during the skeleton dance song? Daft Punk mostly use mummies, but the jerky choreo made me think of it. I think it's clear that Daft Punk ripped Chilly off. Damn Frenchies.

     

    Anyway, hi everyone! Glad to be back now that school's out for another year! I started listening to back episodes today and it was like coming home to old friends.

     

    • Like 5
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