joel_rosenbaum

I can’t speak to the short story, not having read it. But there is some obscure computer history that might provide context for the "Doubler" that Johnny Mnemonic undergoes. MS-DOS versions 6+ (released in 1991) came packaged with a small piece of standalone software called “Doublespace”. As you might have surmised, it roughly doubled the storage space of your floppy and/or hard drive by using compression. Given that hard drives capped out below a gigabyte in those days, this was a pretty useful piece of technology. However, using Doublespace came at the cost of slower performance as files needed to be compressed and decompressed on the fly. There was also a bug in the software that would cause the data to be corrupted after repeated compression/decompression cycles. Computers were not as widespread as they are today, but it's clear that the writers were aware of contemporary hardware/software so it wouldn't surprise me if they were alluding to this. And it does seem like the screenwriters were trying to fit "storage issues" in the plot somehow, but they drowned everything in so much arglebargle that any mileage they might have gotten out of this point was completely lost.

Maybe they could also put some thought into their defense/security system. Dropping those flaming cars seems cool but 1) They would only work when someone is standing directly under it. 2) It takes about 2-3 seconds from when those things blow up to when they hit the ground. In other words, you'd have to be completely idiotic and/or incompetent to get killed by one of these things. Kind of like this:

This movie is astoundingly bad. Even by the standards of its age. My favorite part of it comes twenty years after the fact, where Robert Longo tries to blame Dolph Lundgren for it.

Someone said that? Because that's nonsense.

How many 5 1/4" floppy disks is that?

A fun, ridiculous, campy movie, but... no. But at least 6 people (so far) are with this guy:

Movies call for a suspension of disbelief, but I could never get past Gladiator's portrayal of Marcus Aurelius, who came to power nearly 200 years after the collapse of the Roman Republic, calling for democracy. And not just Roman-style patrician electors, but the kind that would not exist for another 1600 years, give or take. Gladiator was otherwise an enjoyable popcorn movie with nice visuals.

At least one second opinion has to be someone who mistook this for the Matrix

In the episode, Paul mentioned that Sidney J. Furie is a HDTGM legend. I agree, although I should note that he was not fired from Superman IV (Paul might be remembering Superman II, where Richard Donner was fired in favor of Richard Lester). Does this mean that Iron Eagle is in the offing?

That's because the joke is both racist and outdated. The perfect Ladybugs combo:

Just another body swap movie, starring George Burns and television's Ferris Bueller. Oh yeah, and Pauly Shore. Perhaps most noteworthy for the scene where the main character tastefully paints an artistic nude. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vKJL-15-QFI

All I can say is that, even at age 9, this movie seemed too stupid for me.

Definitely a future HDTGM episode.

When I saw this thread pop back up, I figured someone was going to ask why the theme song hasn't changed again, given that the "new" one has been around for a few years or so.

They *are* the bad guys. They are fucking cheating! And the movie celebrates cheating! That's the whole moral/punchline of the entire movie! They should have made this movie about the Patriots, Yankees, or Lakers. If they want to keep the squick factor they can cast recent Academy Award winner Kobe Bryant.

I love Coming to America, but c'mon, Beverly Hills Cop is great. However, Raw? Yikes. The fact that those jokes seemed hilarious to me once makes me feel.... not good.

I know it's the wrong version of the movie, but I can't resist putting up this very strange mashup (using tracks extracted exclusively from the Disney animated movie).

Paul is probably aware of this, given that he was (is?) a devoted Howard Stern listener. Dangerfield gave a revealing interview with Stern towards the end of his life. He mumbled a lot, and to my untrained ears seemed to be suffering from symptoms of dementia. The interview was ostensibly to promote Dangerfield's 2004 autobiography. It's a heavy book and the interview is pretty heavy, too. Right off the bat, Stern jumps into the revelations that Dangerfield was (among other things) horrifically abused as a child. He also had a terrible relationship with his kids and a whole bunch of other sad life experiences. I just want to give y'all fair warning before you go ahead and listen to the interview. It's not an easy listen. In any event, if the time cue doesn't work properly, the place to start is around 4:30 in the video. https://youtu.be/2qZIlfDEo40?t=4m38s

Just getting around to the episode today; one loose observation. Did anyone else notice that Patton's first Dangerfield impression sounds a lot more like a Kennedy (i.e. a Boston accent) than Dangerfield's Queens accent? It's actually a fairly credible Boston accent, too. He switches it up later in the episode though.

The best way to describe it is to show what rap was like before people flowed: Brakes on a bus, brakes on a car Breaks to make you a superstar Breaks to win and breaks to lose But these here breaks will rock your shoes Pretty simple. Rhymes at the end of each line, rhyming in pairs (car:star, lose:shoes). Nothing longer than a few lines. No internal rhymes. No linking concepts, It's also what pretty much every layman does when they try to rap. Okay, compare to this, basically the first track where someone really flowed: Thinkin of a master plan 'cause ain't nuthin but sweat inside my hand So I dig into my pocket, all my money is spent So I dig deeper but still comin up with lint So I start my mission- leave my residence Thinkin how could I get some dead presidents Still the same basic rhyme structure, but there's an actual story. And there are no pauses between lines. Plus there are some compound rhymes and other weird tricks. It still sounds old to modern ears but you can see how the lyrics *flow*. It takes incredible skill to do that. It's why you don't hear about anyone from before that time anymore (except in a Macklemore video).

Mommie Dearest? I mean, for pure batshittery it's hard to beat.

There's a vending machine at my work that the guy fucks up restocking every once in a while. What happens is that he loads some of the chip bags wrong so that they don't dispense. If this happens it will go through another cycle until a bag of chips falls down. Meaning an easy double. Once a triple. These are the small pleasures in life.

I was perusing the Sidney J. Furie canon (in light of this week's upcoming Ladybugs episode) and one name jumped out at me: Tia Carrere How the hell has *she* avoided HDTGM treatment? It could be that most of her movies were too insignificant to garner notice but still: Jury Duty, Hollow Point, High School High, Kull (not to be mistaken with Krull) the Conqueror? That looks like some pretty prime terrible material.

3 appearances: Sidney J. Furie - The Jazz Singer, Superman IV, Ladybugs.