Baron Dave Romm
Angels and Demons
By Baron Dave Romm
Shockwave Radio Theater podcasts
Angels and Demons: A non-spoilerish review
Angels and Demons is a sequel to The DaVinci Code even though the books came out in the reverse order. No matter. Both books have similar flaws: The situations and historical asides (whether true or merely based on truth) are far more interesting than the plot.
Angels and Demons strips the plot down to basics and ignores the worst parts of the book, and I think the movie succeeds better than the novel. The Illuminati play their part; to my knowledge the history as propounded in the movie is true, or mostly true. I don't know enough how Catholics pick a pope to really say whether all the Vatican insider politics is accurate, but probably.
It's not a great movie, but works okay. Tightly directed by DaVinci director Ron Howard (Splash, Cocoon, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, Apollo 13, A Beautiful Mind, etc) and well acted by everyone. You get a feel for the characters, even the minor ones, and the exploration of religion vs. science is terse and pithy. The action works, and racing through Vatican City seems authentic.
On the Shockwave Radio Theater Scale of 9 to 23, with 23 being top, I'd give Angels and Demons about a 19, rounded up to 20 for showing details of the Large Hadron Collider (which wasn't around when the book was written). Be warned: The movie is violent and icky. On the other hand, you don't have to stay around for the credits: Nothing happens afterward.
Prequel Madness, or Quiz Stomping 1.5
Netflix ignored that the novel Angels and Demons takes place before the novel The DaVinci Code but did note the number of prequels out or about to be out: Wolverine, next year's The Hobbit and possibly the rebooting of Star Trek. They took suggestions for other prequels. Since neither Hollywood nor Bollywood is likely to pay attention to any actual suggestion, I felt free to bend the rules.
These were originally published on Facebook and LiveJournal. Feel free to come up with your own prequels and send them to Marty.
Baron Dave Romm...
... enters the Netflix contest, "Five Suggested Prequels": Illegal Immigrant Kane. Some Like It Warm. The Second to Last Temptation of Christ. Wall-D. The Hannah South Dakota Movie.
... gets to the second round of the Netflix contest, "Five Suggested Prequels": The Amniocentesis of a Nation. Mr. Smith Goes To Philadelphia. Destry's Initial Foray. Late Afternoon Cowboy.
... who, despite his best efforts, is forced to present the third submission in the Netflix contest, "Five Suggested Prequels": The Fords of Madison County. There Will Be Marrow. The Associate Producers. Qualifying Tango in Paris. Austin Powers, Local Man of Mystery.
... with the Restraining Order lifted, spins out the fourth installment of the Netflix contest, "Five Suggested Prequels": Very Little Rockabilly for Middle Aged Men. Ala Carte, the Vampire Slayer. The Six Puppy Loves of Henry the VIII. I Know What You Did Last Spring Break. Tora Tora.
These generated a lot of fun responses, and Bartcop-E readers should feel free to generate their own and send them to Marty. I'm not going to do any more in this format, but for those of you interested (you know who you are), here are the leftover Prequels, soyou can see why I didn't use them:
Dog Day Brunch. The Madness of George II. Plank's Constant of Solace. Blade Walker. Nothing About Mary.
Too Much Coffee In Seattle. The Gossipy Animal Magnetism of the Bourgeoisie. Look Toward Third Base, Angel.
Joe vs. the Geyser. Merv/Nixon. Pirates of the Carribean: Curse of the Minnie Pearl. How The Grinch Stole Boxing Day. Komodo Dragon Dundee.
Baron Dave Romm is a conceptual artist and a noble of Ladonia who produces Shockwave Radio Theater, writes in a Live Journal demi-blog maintains a Facebook Page, plays with a very weird CD collection and an ever growing list of political links. Dave Romm reviews things at random for obscure web sites. You can read all his music recommendations from Bartcop-E. Podcasts of Shockwave Radio Theater. Permanent archive. More radio programs, interviews and science fiction humor plays can be accessed on the Shockwave Radio audio page.
Thanks to everyone who has sent me music to play on the air.
Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Joe Weider: Getting Rid of Loose Skin (creators.com)
Tip of the Week: Bodybuilding is not a dirty word.
The secrets of a peacemaker (guardian.co.uk)
Desmond Tutu is renowned as the voice of conscience, a scourge of the unjust - but, he confides to Gary Younge, it's a put on. The real Tutu is rather different.
Matt Labash: Where Everybody Is Disadvantaged (weeklystandard.com/)
Postcards from the diversity follies.
Froma Harrop: New Standards for Credit-Card Decency (creators.com)
By the time you read this, the Senate may have passed a bill to put a leash on the nastiest credit-card company tactics. Lenders warn that changing the rules would make it harder for people to get credit. And a good thing that would be.
Froma Harrop: "Cars: What We Need vs. What We Want" (creators.com)
The new fuel-efficiency and emission standards may lead to smaller cars with lighter engines. This is not what consumers prefer, auto analysts tell us.
Take 10: Erotica enthusiasts (guardian.co.uk)
'It's in my nature to explore new boundaries', Craig Taylor is told.
Roger Ebert: The days dwindle down to a precious few
I think I may have just seen the 2010 Oscar winner for best foreign film. Whether it will win the Palme d'Or here at Cannes is another matter.
Jim Emerson: Can one bad shot ruin an entire movie?
Can one bad shot ruin a movie? I can't think of any examples off the top of my head -- I don't think it happens very often -- but I do believe it's possible. For example, I'm not among those who think the final shot of Hal Ashby's "Being There" takes a marvelously sustained balancing act and kicks it to the ground. But I can understand how somebody might feel that way.
Regulation Vacation Celebration (youtube.com)
Your Vacation Planner for 2009 (Slides)
Web Sudoku
The Weekly Poll
The 'Pay it Forward' Edition...
Michelle Obama, in her debut as a commencement speaker, encouraged graduating students at the University of California - Merced to use their newfound skills to help lift up those around them.
She said, "...Remember that you are blessed. Remember that in exchange for those blessings, you must give something back. You must reach back and pull someone up. You must bend down and let someone else stand on your shoulders so that they can see a brighter future."
Do you volunteer your time and/or donate from your resources to help those less fortunate than yourself?
Send your response to
Results tomorrow
Dr. Johnny Fever was fired from a big LA radio station and ended up at
WKRP in Cincinnati. What word got him fired?
replied:
From The Creator of 'Avery Ant'
BadtotheboneBob Suggests
Hell
It's raining, and only 72 people live here. Hell is not exactly what you might expect... A trip to Hell can be a lot of fun | battlecreekenquirer.com | The Enquirer
It would be a stretch to call this winding country road a highway to Hell, Michigan, one of three Hells in the world. The others, in Grand Cayman and Norway, are a little out of range for a day trip.
A 90-minute drive from Battle Creek, Hell is small community in Putnam Township, Livingston County. Since it is unincorporated, there is no official mayor of Hell, but for a fee visitors can serve as mayor for a day or get a degree from Damnation University in more than 100 subjects, such as stupidity.
John Colone owns Screams Ice Cream and Halloween in what he describes as "midtown Hell." His business sits between Hell's Country Store, which also serves as the Post Office and deli, in "uptown Hell," and The Dam Site Inn bar in "downtown Hell."
At the Post Office, visitors can mail their letters, postcards and even tax returns, stamped with a "Sent from Hell" message, and singed along the edges for added effect... (click here for the rest of the story)
Purple Gene Reviews
'Rogue'
Kate Ryan (Radha Mitchell) is a tour guide heading up river into the rugged Northern Territory of Australia with a boatful of the usual suspects, a dippy famly of 4, a couple of odd couples, two young yahoos and a travel magazine writer named Pete McKell (Michael Vartan). The Music is huge, epic and suspenseful as they push off….of course one of the big attractions for the tourists will be the crocodiles (keep your hands inside the bars)…..All goes well until the 3rd night when Kate sees a flare off her mapped route….she heads the boat up a tributary where they find an eerie island ahead……suddenly out of nowhere the most colossal crocodile ever created crunches the back of the boat….sinking it and forcing everybody on board to swim to the island…..and it seems that there is a tide coming in that might flood them…..OH MY GAWD!
The rest of the movie is people being picked off one by one after doing really stupid shit (don't go near the edge of the water or……oops too late crunch)…Kate finds a cave and tries to get the remaining people to come with her (it seems that the entrance is too small of an opening for the killer Croc to get through…..Pete takes up the rear and they all crawl in and they find that it opens up to enormous caverns…….OH OH…the Croc has a secret way of getting in…..he grabs Kate and knocks her out and just as he's about to bite her head off…..Pete throws a rock and hits the Croc on the back…and as the gigantic jawed jumbo sized monster turns toward Pete, he grabs a convenient splintered pole…the Croc lunges furiously at Pete….his giant jaws about to engulf petrified Pete……who will get the Girl now ?????
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Sunny with a nice breeze.
Sensible Former Vice President
Al Gore
Climate-change heavyweights U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon and Nobel prize winner Al Gore urged more than 500 business leaders on Sunday to lend their corporate muscle to reaching a global deal on reducing greenhouse gases.
The CEOs of PepsiCo, Nestle, BP and other major world businesses began meeting in Copenhagen, where politicians will gather in December to negotiate a new U.N.-brokered climate treaty.
Despite the global financial crisis, both Ban and Gore said there was no time for delay in hashing out the specifics of how to cut greenhouse gases that contribute to warming the planet.
"We have to do it this year. Not next year. This year," Gore said. "The clock is ticking, because Mother Nature does not do bailouts."
Al Gore
Wins Cannes Top Prize
'The White Ribbon'
Austrian director Michael Haneke's somber drama "The White Ribbon" claimed the top prize Sunday at the Cannes Film Festival, where Quentin Tarantino and Lars von Trier entries earned the acting honors.
It was a big night for Austria, whose triumphs included Christoph Waltz as best actor for Tarantino's World War II epic "Inglourious Basterds." Charlotte Gainsbourg won the best-actress honor for von Trier's "Antichrist," a film that riled and repelled many Cannes viewers with its explicit images of physical abuse involving a grieving couple.
The second-place grand prize went to French director Jacques Audiard's prison drama "A Prophet," about an illiterate inmate who educates himself and becomes a player in drug and smuggling circles.
Waltz earned the best-actor award for his gleefully homicidal role as Nazi Col. Hans Landa, renowned in Germany as an ace "Jew hunter" in "Inglourious Basterds," Tarantino's rewrite of the history books that follows the exploits of a band of Jewish Allied commandos led by Brad Pitt. Tarantino spins a wildly different take on how the war ended as Pitt's crew plots to take out top Nazi leaders at a film premiere in Paris.
'The White Ribbon'
Auction Upsets Fans
Marcel Marceau
A planned sale of costumes, books, art and a battered old hat left by France's Marcel Marceau, one of the world's most famous mime artists, has caused an uproar among fans fighting to keep his legacy intact.
A Paris court ordered the auction to pay off debts left by Marceau, who pumped his money into theater productions and went bankrupt before he died in 2007 aged 84.
But Marceau had wanted the French state to preserve his belongings and transform his house into a cultural space for troupes from all over the world, said his former assistant, Valerie Bochenek.
Together with other fans and colleagues, Bochenek has launched a last-ditch appeal for donations to buy as many items as possible and display them in a museum.
Marcel Marceau
Horror Story Printed On TP
"Drop"
In a country where ghosts are traditionally believed to hide in the loo, a Japanese company is advertising a new literary experience - a horror story printed on toilet paper.
Each roll carries several copies of a new nine-chapter novella written by Koji Suzuki, the Japanese author of the horror story "Ring," which has been made into movies in both Japan and Hollywood.
"Drop," set in a public restroom, takes up about three feet (90 centimeters) of a roll and can be read in just a few minutes, according to the manufacturer, Hayashi Paper.
Toilets in Japan were traditionally tucked away in a dark corner of the house due to religious beliefs. Parents would tease children that a hairy hand might pull them down into the dark pool below.
"Drop"
Pulls Explosive Memoir
Jon Peters
Hollywood producer Jon Peters has pulled plans to release an explosive memoir detailing Tinseltown's most torrid secrets - after he was threatened by a series of lawsuits from some of the industry's biggest players.
The Batman boss had agreed a £462,350 deal with Harper-Collins Publishers for his insightful tome, titled Studio Head, which blew the lid on the behind-the-scenes goings-on of stars including his ex-girlfriend Barbra Streisand.
In a letter to publishing director Michael Morrison, obtained by PageSix, Peters writes, "I must decline your current kind and generous offer to publish my autobiography... circumstances far beyond my imagination have caused me to remove the project from the marketplace at this time. Unfortunate leaks of the proposal have created a firestorm in the press, from Page Six to CNN and seemingly every other gossip page and entertainment news show in between.
"Somehow this proposal has become a kind of Holy Grail of gossip, and I have become Hollywood's 'Man Who Knows Too Much.'
Jon Peters
Attacks Terrorize
Komodo Dragons
Komodo dragons have shark-like teeth and poisonous venom that can kill a person within hours of a bite. Yet villagers who have lived for generations alongside the world's largest lizard were not afraid - until the dragons started to attack.
The stories spread quickly across this smattering of tropical islands in southeastern Indonesia, the only place the endangered reptiles can still be found in the wild: Two people were killed since 2007 - a young boy and a fisherman - and others were badly wounded after being charged unprovoked.
Komodo dragon attacks are still rare, experts note. But fear is swirling through the fishing villages, along with questions on how best to live with the dragons in the future.
Komodos, which are popular at zoos in the United States to Europe, grow to be 10 feet (3 meters) long and 150 pounds (70 kilograms). All of the estimated 2,500 left in the wild can be found within the 700-square-mile (1,810-square-kilometer) Komodo National Park, mostly on its two largest islands, Komodo and Rinca. The lizards on neighboring Padar were wiped out in the 1980s when hunters killed their main prey, deer.
Komodo Dragons
Casinos Try Bargains
Las Vegas
It's back to the buffet, bargains and customer bonuses for Las Vegas casinos.
Fast food is up, fine dining tabs are down and hotel rooms are available for under $50 in a city that has been calling on recession-weary tourists to come back and play the quarter slot machines.
Value is the hippest thing on Las Vegas Boulevard this year.
Across Las Vegas, casinos found consumers unwilling to pay premium prices for just about anything, from meals to hotel rooms, drinks and entertainment. Occupancy citywide dropped to about 72 percent in January, far below the 90 percent-plus normally enjoyed by Las Vegas hotels.
Las Vegas
Sets Craps Record
Patricia Demauro
Patricia Demauro set a new record for the longest craps roll, hanging on for four hours and 18 minutes at the Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa in Atlantic City.
Borgata officials say she beat the previous record by one hour and 12 minutes. They say Stanley Fujitake of Honolulu, set that record nearly 20 years ago in Las Vegas.
"This was only my second time playing craps, so this was very exciting for me to be a part of history," says Demauro, who lives in Denville in northern New Jersey.
Demauro bought into a game for $100 and quickly amassed a cheering crowd. When she finally lost around 12:31 a.m., after 154 rolls of the dice, she was greeted by Borgata with a champagne toast.
Patricia Demauro
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