Sunday, March 31, 2013

More From The Pin-Up/Kitty Collection









 

A Good Day To Die Hard


This seems like the weekend for watching Bruce Willis do what he does these days in the movies. He shoots guns and tries to make up with his estranged family. This one is Die Hard In Russia, the one with the son who is in the C.I.A. It's a good premise but the script is half the fun that it should have been and I saw all the twists coming from a mile away.

I could go into a long diatribe about how it's so convenient that the good guys can find trunksful of weapons whenever they want to storm a heavily armed Russian compound but what's the point. You know what you are getting here. Things blow up and they blow up real good.


Oh and they find the love between father and son and they only had to do billions of dollars in damage and kill as many foreign speaking people as they could to complete that bonding mission.

There is also some balloon juice about Chernobyl and a secret scheme to sell the uranium of the black market but none of that matters because no one important will be killed. Only the bad guys will die and civilian damage will be kept to an absolute maximum.

Bruce Willis can do movies like this in his sleep but for once I kind wish he wouldn't. Imagine what he might be able to do with the right material. I don't care if he wins because I KNOW he wins. This is Die Hard With None Of The Surprises.


Russian looks as Cold War crappy as you thing it should but probably doesn't. Everything looks industrial and grubby to go with the grubby look on every actor's face. The set's look like they were created just so they could later be blown up. Chernobyl never looks as much fun to be in.

The film is totally disposable and I will probably forget everything about it that the filmmakers want me to remember. Even the big explosions elicit only yawns - I must be especially jaded.

Yuliya Snigir IS badass and sexy as the daughter of a Russian crime boss. She was fun to watch go all crazy on everyone around her while flying a helicopter gunship.

 
 



 

Daily Reminder - There Are Many Other Fish In The Sea

And all of them have nothing but your worst intentions at heart. They seemed only designed to open up human flesh. Stay on land. It's the reason you exist. If you were meant to be in the sea, you would have gills instead of lungs. You can read about this guy's buddies by going HERE.

 
There are creatures on this Earth so horrific that they strain the boundaries of human imagination. The Payara is so unearthly and shocking that it might be explained as Count Dracula in fish form, or an aquatic sabre toothed tiger. Growing up to 4 feet in length and weighing up to 30 pounds, the little known Payara or “Vampire Characin” possesses fangs up to 6 inches in length which it sinks into aquatic animals in ferocious lunging attacks, sensing the location of internal organs as it precisely drives in the fangs. Humans swimming in the Amazon River could potentially be stabbed through the heart or suffer a collapsed lung in a Payara attack. Payara are becoming popular sport fish, partially due to the danger presented by the unimaginable fangs, and were nicknamed “Cannibal Piranha” due to their habit of preying on closely related Piranha.

Still Haven't Seen It


This is one hell of a polarizing film, and I¹ll say right now that, as someone who¹s sick of stale, predictable Hollywood product, I love Spring Breakers…There’s a chance you’ll see and despise Spring Breakers ­but there is also a very good chance that your reaction will reflect less on the film and more on you.

Steven Humphrey, The Stranger

Dubioius Achievement I Remember

Michael Larson
 
“Achievement”: Only Successful Cheat On TV Game Show
 
 
Press Your Luck was an American game show of the 1980s, in which contestants would hit a plunger to stop a randomly shifting game board. The spaces on the board contained cash, prizes, and “Whammies”—little animated elves that would steal all of your cash should you land on one. In 1984, ice cream truck driver Michael Larson discovered with the help of his VCR’s pause button that the movements of the board were actually not random, but only appeared that way. Though the pattern was complicated, there was a pattern nonetheless. One that could be memorized.

Larson appeared on the only episode of Press Your Luck to be broken into two parts, aired over two days in June of 1984. It had to be—he couldn’t stop spinning. After nervously landing on a Whammy on his first attempt, Michael spun forty-five consecutive times without hitting another one.

He broke the bank, clearing $110,000 dollars—a record that still stands for single-day winnings on game shows with returning champions. After careful investigation, it was determined that technically, there was no rule against memorizing the board, and he was allowed to keep his winnings. Needless to say, he was not invited back and the board was reprogrammed to prevent others from exploiting the same weakness.

Listverse is one of the most fun sights out there with topics that appeal to the strange fascination in all of us for the minutia of history - fact and fallacies. I remember watching these two episodes as a teen. It was so exciting to see him win so much, especially when we had to come back and watch the finale the next day. Watching and listening to the host read off the cash and prizes this guy had won took five minutes. I know Larson's story had a bad ending but at the time it was a pretty cool thing to watch.

Sunday Image Blizzard