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.
zEN mAN (observing Hossein Mousavi who is running for president of Iran against Ahmadinajad....but Mousavi's wife, Zahru Rahnavard is by his side (flaunting muslim law) and some call her "Iran's Michelle Obama")
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.
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.
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.
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?
Sheila Kuehl, the first woman in California history to be named speaker pro tempore of the assembly, had an earlier career. On which TV series was she a regular?
A Gidget
B Here Come The Brides
C The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis
D Mister Peepers
E Our Miss Brooks
Source
Sheila James (Zelda), whose real name is Sheila Kuehl, retired from acting and went into politics. She is currently a California state senator for the 23rd district. She is the first openly gay or lesbian person to be elected to the California legislature and was the first woman in California history to be named speaker pro tempore of the assembly
Source
ekimtod was first, and correct, with:
The answer is C
The many loves of Dobie Gillis
She also appeared on the Beverly Hillbillies
BadtotheboneBob answered:
She was that zany 'Zelda' in C. The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis.
Charlie responded:
She was on a few, but, probably most notably
C The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis
Alan J answered:
C The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis
Jim from CA replied:
The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis
Marian the Teacher responded:
The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis
Ed (Maynard) Krebs answered:
C. Dobie Gillis
Trust me, with a last name like mine, that show is burned into my memory banks.
Sally said:
I didn't even hesitate for my reply today. Sheila Kuehl, AKA, Zelda Gilroy, had a mad crush on Dobie, and was a regular on, "The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis" (C) an early early TV show.
After a few days of sun, the sky's are darkening as I type and I'm expecting a T-storm at any minute now...
PS: Good to see Willow back! :)
PPS: Shout out to my little buddy, Vic from Alaska or wherever nowadays? "Hello..."
Willow answered:
C. The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis. I think she was Zelda.
MAM replied:
Sheila Kuehl was on: C The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis. She played Zelda Gilroy, the girl who could only get Dobie's attention by wrinkling her nose at him. The series ran from 1959-1963.
As Zelda Gilroy
"Now cut that out!"
And, Joe S () wrote:
Working under the name Sheila James, she was known for her portrayal of the "irrepressible" Zelda Gilroy in the long-running 1960s TV show The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis. The running gag was Zelda's roaring crush on Dobie, and his resistance to her advances.
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)
But today I found the Aussie's answer to "Jaws" in the form of a monstrous multi-toothed Crocodile in full HD on HBO West….yes yes yes…at first I thought I had turned on the Sci-Fi channel….but Noooooooo…..this looked great…so I sat back and spent my Sunday afternoon in the Great Northern Territory of Australia…..watching "Rogue"!
A Perfect Thriller !
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!
Will He Get the Girl ?
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 ?????
Purple Gene gives "Rogue" 10 torturously twisted teeth out of 10 for a being perfect Sunday afternoon Monster movie!
PS…the scenery and the music were stunning…with the final credits featuring Rolf Harris's song "Never Smile at a Crocodile" hahaha !
CBS opens the night with a RERUN'Big Bang Theory', followed by a RERUN'How I Met Your Mother', then a RERUN'2½ Men', followed by a RERUN'Rules Of Engagement', then a RERUN'CSI: The 2nd One'.
On a RERUNDave (from 4/22/09) are Beyonce and Jim Parsons.
Scheduled on a FRESHCraig are Bob Saget and P.W. Singer.
NBC begins the night with a 2-hour 'Dateline', followed by a FRESH'Medium'.
Scheduled on a FRESHLeno are Mel Gibson (R - Family Values) and Lyle Lovett.
Scheduled on a FRESHJimmy Fallon are Beastie Boys, the Amazing Kreskin, and David Cook.
On a RERUN<Carson 'The Scab' Daly (from 5/19/09) are McG, Snoop Dogg, Joel Madden, and Keane.
ABC starts the night with a FRESH'The Bachelorette 5', followed by the SERIES PREMIERE'Here Come The Newlyweds'.
On a RERUN<Jimmy Kimmel (from 5/8/09) are Chris Pine, Aziz Ansari, and Scott Weiland.
The CW offers a RERUN'One Tree Hill', followed by another RERUN'One Tree Hill'.
Faux has a RERUN'House', followed by a RERUN'Bones'.
MY has a RERUN'Masters Of Illusion', followed by a RERUN'Magic's Biggest Secrets Finally Revealed'.
A&E has 'Intervention', another 'Intervention', still another 'Intervention', followed by a FRESH'Obsessed'.
AMC offers the movie 'Patton', followed by the movie 'Midway'.
BBC -
[11:30 AM] My 100,000 Lovers
[12:30 PM] Cocaine Diaries: Alex James In Colombia
[1:30 PM] 100 Men Own My Breasts
[2:30 PM] Beatles Biggest Secrets
[4:00 PM] Being the Sexiest
[5:00 PM] Brothers and Sisters in Love
[6:00 PM] Should I Smoke Dope?
[7:00 PM] BBC World News America
[8:00 PM] Top Gear - Episode 5
[9:00 PM] Top Gear - Episode 4
[10:00 PM] BBC World News America - Episode 5
[11:00 PM] Top Gear - Episode 5
[12:00 AM] Top Gear - Episode 4
[1:00 AM] Top Gear - Episode 5
[2:00 AM] Top Gear - Episode 8
[3:00 AM] The Graham Norton Show - Ep 3 Joan Rivers and Julian McMahon
[4:00 AM] How Clean Is Your House? US - Episode 6
[4:30 AM] How Clean Is Your House? - Episode 5
[5:00 AM] BBC World News
[6:00 AM] BBC World News (ALL TIMES EDT)
Bravo has 'Real Housewives Of NJ', 'The Fashion Show', another 'The Fashion Show', and the movie 'Top Gun'.
Comedy Central has the movie 'Idiocracy', followed by the movie 'Coming To America', then the movie 'Jackass: The Movie'.
Jon Stewart is pre-empted.
Colbert Report is pre-empted.
FX has the movie 'Night At The Museum', followed by the movie 'S.W.A.T.'.
History has 'MonsterQuest', 'Decoding The Past', followed by the FRESH'The Link'.
IFC -
[6:05 AM] No Such Thing
[7:55 AM] Starstruck
[9:40 AM] Last Summer in the Hamptons
[11:30 AM] IFC Short Film Showcase
[12:30 PM] No Such Thing
[2:15 PM] The IFC Media Project
[2:45 PM] Starstruck
[4:25 PM] Last Summer in the Hamptons
[6:15 PM] Roadside Prophets
[8:00 PM] The Rules of Attraction
[10:00 PM] Sweeney Todd
[11:35 PM] The Fighting Cholitas
[12:00 AM] Little Fish
[2:00 AM] The Rules of Attraction
[4:00 AM] Sweeney Todd
[5:35 AM] Roadside Prophets (ALL TIMES EDT)
Sundance -
[06:00 AM] Iconoclasts - Season 2: Episode 3: Quentin Tarantino + Fiona Apple
[07:00 AM] Music Rising
[07:45 AM] Walk With Us
[08:45 AM] In the Mood for Doyle
[09:45 AM] Kill Your Idols
[11:00 AM] It's Not Easy Being Green Season 2: Episode 5
[11:30 AM] On the Road in America: Episode 7 - Los Angeles, Part 2
[12:00 PM] The Sierra Club Chronicles: Episode 4
[12:30 PM] TransGeneration: Episode 1
[01:30 PM] Gimme Green
[02:00 PM] Follow My Voice: With the Music of Hedwig
[03:45 PM] Walk With Us
[04:45 PM] In the Mood for Doyle
[05:45 PM] Kill Your Idols
[07:00 PM] Our City Dreams
[08:30 PM] Gimme Green
[09:00 PM] Dreams With Sharp Teeth
[10:40 PM] Site Specific: Seville
[11:00 PM] On the Road in America: Episode 7 - Los Angeles, Part 2
[11:30 PM] TransGeneration: Episode 1
[12:30 AM] Fraulein
[01:50 AM] Flutter
[02:00 AM] Our City Dreams
[03:30 AM] Fierce People
[05:30 AM] Gimme Green (ALL TIMES EDT)
In this photo provided by the Las Vegas News Bureau, Tommy Chong (Left) and Cheech Marin perform on stage during their Light Up America tour at the Palms Resort & Casino in Las Vegas Saturday, May 23, 2009.
Photo by Brian Jones
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."
David Letterman, left, and Bobby Rahal, car owners for driver Oriol Servia, of Spain, talk before the 93rd running of the Indianapolis 500 auto race at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in Indianapolis, Sunday, May 24, 2009.
Photo by AJ Mast
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.
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.
Comedian Patton Oswalt, left, and comedian Jim Norton at the ShakesBEER Kegger fundraiser event in Malibu, Calif. on Saturday, May 23, 2009. Proceeds from the event will support the Los Angeles Shakespeare Festival.
Photo by Dan Steinberg
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.
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.'
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.
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.
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.
Newborn White Bengal Tigers, two females, Kamika and Kamala and one male, Khalid, are seen at the Olemse zoo in Olmen May 22, 2009. The cubs, born on May 12, 2009, are not albinos but they only have black pigments as compared to tigers which normally have red and black pigmentations, according to a zoo official.
Photo by Yves Herman
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How about a favorite TV show, movie, book, play, cartoon, or legal amusement?
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A box set the whole world should own?
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This is your place.
Dr. Johnny Fever was fired from a big LA radio station and ended up at
WKRP in Cincinnati. What word got him fired?
replied:
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
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 ?????
