Cam Bert

This movie is so insane to pick just one or two crazy things near impossible. So quickly here are three things that stand out to me that nobody has brought up yet. 1. Was the angry lady in the bar not alive 25 years prior when the solar radiation was killing all the people? She's so angry at MacLeod for sending them into this perpetual red sky world which I guess led the world into chaos, but what was the alternative? For them not to build a shield, the ozone layer to disappear and everybody die horribly? Given the option between long painful death and red skied dystopia you think she'd pick the latter but I guess not. 2. So we've talked about how confused/unconfused Sean Connery's character was suddenly appearing in the future, but yet he knows and seemingly doesn't know he's in a play when he first appears. It's not until the audience starts laughing that he seemingly looks around and notices he's on stage. However it seems to be on a thrust stage, so three fourths of the stage has audience around it. In fact we see the audience behind Hamlet when we cut to Connery's point of view. Connery's character lived through the time of Shakespeare so while he might not know Hamlet he still knows what a theater is. 3. So the location of this point that is "above the shield" is 33 degrees 26 minutes north. Even if we give them the benefit of the doubt and say they're not in America and that they are in some other country with mountains on the 33rd parallel they are still no where near the highest points on on earth. They wouldn't even crack the top 100. So how is that the only point that is above the shield? Does the shield somehow prevent you from climbing mountains? Also, who built that ladder and for what purpose? It just went to out on the top of the mountains, but there was nothing there. It was like somebody in SHIELD wanted to climb the mountain but didn't want to deal with the elements, so they had the staff just drill straight to the summit and install a ladder.

I'm glad I saw it even though I didn't like the movie. I liked most of the music so that's a plus. I've been singing Pinball Wizard all week. I'm looking forward to a new movie and a new but equally enjoyable conversation.

Hello folks and welcome back to... How Did This Get Named? After awhile of not so interesting name changed films comes another not so interesting one. Yes the Highlander series is simply Highlander in Japanese. However what is interesting is the second half of the titles. You see much like "The Quickening" they decided to slap a descriptor onto each title. Highlander became Highlander: Demon Warrior ハイランダー悪魔の戦士(hairandaa akuma no senshi) Highlander 2:The Quickening became Highlander 2: Resurrected Warriorハイランダー２　甦る戦士(hairandaa 2 yomigaeru senshi) Highlander 3: The Final Dimenson became Highlander 3: The Ultimate Warrior Showdown ハイランダー３　超戦士大決戦 (hairandaa 3 chosenshi daikessen) Highlander: End Game became Highland: The Final Warrior ハイランダー最終戦士(hairandaa saishuu senshi)

When I first saw the strange woman at the bar that confronts Christopher Lambert I too thought she was wearing some kind of prosthetic. Later as she goes to confront him I realized this was not the case but that first scene when she's yelling at him from the table it looked that way to me. Maybe it was the red tinted lighting and the shadows or something, but my first thought was "Oh, this is Virginia Madsen in makeup trying to see if this really is Connor MacLeod." You're not alone Paul.

I mentioned early and I stand by the fact that this movie doesn't know any subtly when it comes to metaphors and images. However, I was thinking about Tommy's cult and their cross with a pinball on it. Now, call me crazy here but is it more than just a cross with a pinball on it? Is the T part of the cross suppose to be a pinball plunger? Am I giving them too much credit for this?

How could you effectively rock that hard on that tiny keyboard without tilting the machine either? Also, are we to believe that in this world pinball is a broadcast TV sport?

I'm pretty sure it is. Possibly also because budgetary reasons more so than story ones. I just assumed Tommy worked at the strip club as he was sitting in front of a table of magazines and somebody gave him a coin and took one. Which seems fine until you realize that Tommy wouldn't be able to hear if anyone took anything or left anything or see if this happened as well. Best he could do is feel around and notice there was one less copy of that magazine third in from the right. Even then he can't tell anybody. Man it's been a rough week of movies but between Kurt Russel, Robert Daltrey and Christopher Lambert it's been an interesting one for hair.

Thanks for the insight on that. From what you and others have said plus what little I've read, it sounds like the stage version sounds like it could be a bit of an improvement.

West coast Canadian teenager around that time and I didn't know it sorry. However, for some reason I do know The Reverend Horton Heat.

That class would be... youngest 4 oldest 6. They don't also fully understand English, so they like it when he dances or falls down and stuff.

If anyone here has any familiarity with the stage production I have a question. I thought I saw it was nominated for best book, but the film is a straight up opera with no book. Does having this help flesh out the film at all? I thought one of the things that this film lacked was an ease of narrative. The beginning is great with the story being set up under the overture, then the first few numbers flow and tell a story. However, it's around the time of the Acid Queen number that for me anyway I felt the film started leaving out or skipping story elements. Like we have Frank who is running a camp. Then after Tommy's grown up he now runs a strip club? Or was he just hanging out there. Tommy was working there, so if Frank doesn't work there is he there for Tommy? What happened to his camp? Is this what he does in the off months? In addition to all this I felt that Ann Margret's character felt guilty for causing her son's psychosomatic state, and Oliver Reed was resentful for him for this fact. I mean this makes sense as to why he seemingly doesn't care about Tommy's well being as he gets older. However, did Tommy's state lead to him giving up the camp or something? I just felt like there was a song or a brief bit of dialogue needed to cover this large leap in time and change in characters.

Well at least Highlander is a good action movie. From what I recall anyway. It has a kickass Queen soundtrack at least.

Well seeing as there is *some* interest in Raffi I will leave you all with Joshua Giraffe

I kinda assumed he was. I know he is a big deal in Canada. He has the Order of Canada and everything. I think a lot of this is based on the fact that working here in Japan I meet a lot of Americans, Australians and British people and I've never met one who knew who he was. I thought things like Bananaphone and that were so well known that everybody would know him but I just got blank stares. Again it could be an age thing but Lea seems to know him. I could go super Canadian and bring up Fred Penner and Charlotte Diamond. A few years ago a music teacher at my school had a big theory that if kids were to understand a song's meaning they could sing it better. I tried teaching this song to some kids which meant having to explain the lyrics in detail. They kept asking why are there so many animals in the watermelon field. I explained that the boy is there, and it was his mom asking if he had seen this things. To which they responded, "Yea, saw them in the watermelon field!" Later they drew pictures of the song which were animals eating watermelons.

Firstly, yes thank you. I know I'm at the bottom but that's good because it gives me time to think. I don't even know where I want to begin with this film... I mean it's been hinted at but can we have a discussion of the Uncle Ernie character? I found this be an extremely off putting character and part of the movie. I mean the music is heavy but the lyrics, the wardrobe and acting put this character in a more comedic light. Tommy's age at this point is debatable so it may just be that he's a pervert who rapes a boy because he's blind, deaf and dumb or it could be that he's also a pedophile. I guess I need to go back a bit. So Tommy's mother is worried because she believe he's had too much to drink, but yet Oliver Reed seems to know the truth about Uncle Ernie but doesn't care. This is at least in keeping with his character but what does this scene add to the story or the film? The previous scene was him being tortured by his cousin and his mother being oblivious to it, and we've seen how little Frank cares for him already. If you wanted us to know the degree to which he is being used and abused why not have a number that hints or alludes to many not just two "uncles" and "cousins" that were cruel to him and did things to him? Oh that's right that might require subtly which based on the on the nose symbolism of this film, they weren't use to alluding but rather stating everything. Rather Uncle Ernie's scene just repeats information that we've already heard and seen. Two more things about Uncle Ernie. One, and this goes by pretty quickly, the paper which he is reading when caught by Frank is a gay newspaper. Now you can read this one of two ways, one he's such a pervert he even reads gay newspapers or two that he is in fact gay. If it was the prior, it's a horrible example of using homosexuality for humor. If it's the later, it's just a horrible example of many gay tropes. Second, if it were one scene you could almost right it off and pretend it didn't happen but the character of Uncle Ernie keeps popping up later in the movie just reminding you of that awful bit.

So what's the etiquette and rules about this? Do we allow Tom to chime in first with his thoughts as it was his selection or do we just all pile in on this thing?

Also, an interesting follow up. I think I've mentioned before that I work with young children. Every Monday I show them an "English" video which consists of age appropriate things they might enjoy often English language movies or TV shows. It's very interesting to me what stuff they love and what stuff they hate, but that's for another time perhaps. Anyway, I have a DVD of the current Nickelodeon TMNT series and play it sometimes for them. Today I played it for them, and when it was done I decided to take a poll of the kids as to which turtle they liked most. So out of 30 Japanese kids the results were.. 15 votes for Leonardo - Most common reason was he had swords and was cool 12 votes for Michelangelo - Most common reason was he's funny 3 votes for Donatello - Only reason given, he has cool things 0 votes Raphael - When I asked about him, they forgot who he was.

Hmmmm.... I'm going to cheat a little and give three answers. The first song I remember loving is Joshua Giraffe by Raffi. This is a bit hard to explain to anyone who is not a Canadian over the age of 25, but when I was growing up Raffi was the man. He was like a one man Wiggles. He sang a combination of classic folk songs and originals. Joshua Giraffe is this weird story song with weird sounds and shifts in tones. I think I loved it as a kid because it was a story and not so much a song. The first non-kids song I remember having an impact on me would be Spinning Wheel by Blood Sweat and Tears. My parents car radio I think was permanently stuck on some oldies station because that's all I ever remember hearing. Anyway, maybe because of how the song starts with these horns, but I remember that song sticking out in my mind and noticing it every time it popped up. To this day I can sing this song by heart. And lastly, the first song I remember hearing that I thought "this is mine" was Firestarter by The Prodigy. My parents were all about the oldies with nothing past the mid 70s, my sister into rap and R&B, so I have no idea how I stumbled upon this. It must have been going from elementary school to middle school and meeting new friends, but when I did I remember thinking "I love this and I want to hear more." Ultimately this lead to me buying my first CD with my own money.

I just watched Sing Street the other day. Afterwards I really enjoyed it. Loved the music and loved a lot about the movie. However now that I've had a day or so to think about it there are some minor things that bothered me a little. The romance, I won't touch upon because everybody has pretty much articulated their thoughts of it and I have nothing new to add other than my interest waver on in throughout the film. I still don't know if I fully buy the second half of the Barry story line and its resolution. Also that they start to develop characters for the other members of the band, but then they all just stop talking or mattering halfway through. Just little things, but I still greatly enjoyed the movie.

I get the love of Nightcrawler. He's a character I didn't like at first but came to really enjoy. That said as an unapologetic nerd and Donatello fan I guess it should come to no surprise that my favourite is of course Hank McCoy aka Beast.

Don't feel bad at all. I will admit this a bit early, I wasn't a fan of the film, but it's not so awful that I regret having seen it. Between the music and the visuals I was never bored, so it's not a slog of a movie.

Truthfully Leonardo is my second favourite Turtle, so as a kid I was very upset by this too. I mean it's right there in the theme song "Leonardo leads." It was very odd to me that a team of four kinda turned into the Raphael show featuring the other turtles. Without being the leader Leonardo is just kind of a wet blanket. However in the heat of the battle you're glad you have that kind of guy on your side leading you. With Raphael in charge there is no advice or team work, it's just the angst fueled emo show. Seeing as we're 90% Team Donatello, let's next draw from a slightly larger pool. Favourite X-Men?

Of course it has to be single malt because there can only be one... ... ... I'll see myself out

I just finished watching this... Yea Uncle Ernie... I guess I will save my thoughts on that wonderful topic for another few days and a few cold showers