Summer Movie Sequels for 2008

The summer movie season is coming to an end.  The theatres were clogged with sequels galore, which ranged from the abysmal (Spider-Man 3) to okay (Live Free or Die Hard) to pretty good (Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix) to stellar (Bourne Ultimatum).  Anyway, I had some fun coming up with titles of what may be in the theaters next summer.

“Pirates of the Caribbean 4: Depp is Back as Jack”

tagline: Johnny Depp is in it, so come and see it! We want to squeeze all we can out of this franchise!

“Transformers 2: Even Less Than Meets the Eye!”

“Died Hard” 

“Oceans 11,487″

“Hairgrease”: John Travolta as Danny Zuko in drag

tagline: Oh my GAWD! Sandy, does this dress make me look fat?

“Borat visits Hogwarts to make sexy time with Hermione”

“Will Ferrell Almighty”

“301: The Forgotten Spartan”

“Overdog”

“Supergood”

Matt Damon is…”Still Bourne!” (Get it?!  I know, it’s horrible…but horribly funny!  This one was my brother’s, gotta give credit where credit is due!)

- OR  - “AVJ: Alien vs. Jason”

“The Incredibles 2″

(just ’cause…wouldn’t that be great?  Brad Bird, get working on it!)

Hope a few of those made you chuckle. To see what is actually slated for the summer of 2008 including “Indiana Jones 4” and “The Incredible Hulk“, check out Reviewing the Summer Blockbusters of 2008 >>

“He walks at night but he ain’t alive.”

…was apparently one of the lines used to describe Barnabas Collins in the gothic soap opera, Dark Shadows, which ran on ABC from 1966-1971 for over 1,200 episodes. They didn’t use the word “vampire” until the 410th episode, according to the trivia on imdb. I’ve never heard of this show, but it seems like a riot! It’s about a wealthy family in Maine, and strange events surrounding them involving vampires, witches and werewolves. The show still has a dedicated fan base that attends Dark Shadow Conventions called the Dark Shadow Festival. Sounds like time to throw this on my Netflix queue!

I just found out on Rotten Tomatoes that Johnny Depp will be in the big screen adaptation. He is a huge fan of the old series, and a deal has just been closed between Warner Bros. and the estate of Dark Shadows creator Dan Curtis according to Variety. Depp reportedly wanted to be Barnabas Collins, the vampire patriarch, as a child watching the show.

I love vampires, I love campy vampires, and I love Johnny Depp. I can’t wait!

Bruce didn’t let me down after all…

I fiiinally made it out to see Live Free or Die Hard, and I must say I had a blast! However, I think the key to my enjoyment was that I heard so much in the 2 weeks since its release that it was not worthy of being called a “Die Hard” movie, but that it was only a fun Bruce Willis action movie, that I prepared myself mentally and got what I expected.

First, I gotta say that Bruce is still hot! He’s tough and definitely not too old for this s&*#. Willis stepping back into the his trademark character John McClane – in a PG-13-ified version with no swearing and no wife-beater – was enjoyable to watch. Actually, the movie as a whole didn’t take itself too seriously and it was self aware of its oftentimes ridiculous action scenes (the truck scene was so silly!), which in turn made the ridiculous scenes forgiveable.

Justin Long was adorable in it, and not as annoying as I anticipated him to be. All the other characters were pretty cool in my book…from Maggie Q as an ass-kicking villain to the well-cast Mary Elizabeth Winstead who channeled Holly Gennero McClane’s energy (played by Bonnie Bedelia in Die Hard & Die Hard 2). I did feel like Kevin Smith could have had better lines – couldn’t they have let him write some of his own lines? (or did they?)

I’m guessing that 20th Century Fox hired Len Wiseman (“Underworld”) to direct Die Hard 4 instead of John McTiernan – or someone of his experience level – since the movie was designed for Justin Long’s generation, not Bruce Willis.’ (Let’s just say I gasped loudly when Long’s character dissed CCR, even though the film was pro-Creedence) So that was a shame, but hey, I’m not complaining. I had a great time in the theater.

Basically, the movie was really cute. “Cute” is a word that wouldn’t be used to describe any “Die Hard” movie, so in summation, Live Free was a really great Bruce Willis summer action flick that goes great with a big greasy tub of popcorn after clicking your brain to the comfortable “off” position, ready to ingest empty calories.

Check out Moviehole for a pretty balanced review by a Die Hard (pun intended) fan of the original trilogy. His review is less positive than mine, but he hits the nail on the head.

India’s Juhu Beach a Wasteland…

I never understood dumping waste in the ocean…did we really think that all that garbage would just disappear?

For the last week, the seas of Juhu Beach in Mumbai, India, has been churning out more than 300 tons of rubbish – mostly high quality recyclable plastic. An average daily clean up until the beginning of July was about 4-5 tons of garbage. Due to unspecified changes in levels of sea current and wave patterns, huge quantities of waste was being dumped on Juhu beach. Improperly cleaned storm drains may also be to blame. Read more on DNA India>>

Juhu Beach is the most famous beach in Mumbai city, situated on the shores of the Arabian sea.  The flat beach (when rubbish-free) boasts a gorgeous view of the sunset. TravelIndia.Net wisely advises that swimming in Juhu beach is not recommended.  It is famous for its street food vendors, and is nearby luxury hotels and posh bungalows owned by Bollywood stars, and numerous attractions for children from horse and donkey rides to acrobats.  See exactly where Mumbai is located on google maps >>

How smart are you?

Looking for a way to kill time at work that’s more intellectually stimulating than browsing through YouTube?  Here’s a fun intelligence word game. If you don’t get the answers, it will drive you crazy, but in a fun sort of way. Try not to cheat – as the answers are readily available online.You can either download the game in an excel document or play the Intelligence Test online. It seems that scoring between 19-23 qualifies you as a “genius.” There doesn’t seem to be any time limit.  Good luck!

Want to see if your I.Q. is high enough to join Mensa? Try the Official Mensa Workout >>

3 Cheers for Mika Brzezinski of MSNBC

Mika Brzezinski is my new journalistic hero. She refused to read a bulletin about Paris Hilton this week, attempting to burn the script on-air. When her lighter didn’t work, she ripped it up. When a producer handed her another copy, she put it through a paper shredder – all on-air. Whoohoo!

I applaud Ms. Brzenzinski. How refreshing! It’s about time more people on reputable news networks protested real news being replaced by stories that should only be on E! News.

Watch what happened on YouTube:

My poem

In a rare poetic urge, I jotted this down a while ago while I was waiting for a train on a blustery autumn day, and thought I’d send it out into cyberspace…

a lonely bench on an autumn peninsula overlooking cool rippling waters watches a warm sunset painted across warms the horizon but the bench remains chilled and solitary contemplating visitors past

Untitled, © Juli Kobayashi 2007

Global Warming = Itchy Rash!

OK, not directly. But as if we needed another reason why increased levels of carbon dioxide caused by global warming is generally bad, recent studies have shown that undesirable plants such as Poison Ivy love CO2. It makes them grow faster and bigger, more resilient to pesticides, and their irritant even stronger. Basically, more CO2 makes Poison Ivy into the cockroach of the plant world. I got a bad case of Poison Ivy a couple summers back and it was a major drag, so poison ivy sucks big time, and anything that makes it stronger is bad…very bad. (Alright, I know poison ivy is not harmful to most non-human animals and is an important part of the eco-system, blah blah blah).

But…wait a minute. Don’t all plants love CO2? Wouldn’t many plants thrive in a warmer climate with higher levels of CO2? Why just poison ivy? I did a quick search and came up with a lot of anti-global warming sites that said rising CO2 levels was cyclical and natural. (There’s something about the “Global Warming Is A Myth!” pushers that make me feel like they are trying to get me to join a cult, or buy a drug that will ultimately do nothing but cause explosive diarrhea, or a buy a pet that will destroy your life if you feed it after midnight).

But then I found an article on Yale Global Online about a study that global warming spurs asthma and allergies, since increased levels of CO2 seems to make invasive plants in particular, such as ragweed, even stronger.

So spread the word. Global warming will give you a disgusting rash – so let’s do our part to be more eco-friendly. Seriously, people. Nobody likes to be itchy.

Read more about global warming on nrdc.org >>

Bruce Willis couldn’t let me down…could he?

I watched Bruce Willis on The Daily Show today (as much as I love him in movies, he really, really should just stick to other people writing dialogue for him – in fact, I think he should hire someone to do that for him in everyday circumstances or at least for talk show appearances – it’s embarrassing, Bruce! We love you and you rock, but please, don’t joke, you’re not funny.) Anyway, I was seized with stress about whether Live Free or Die Hard was going to be terrible since I really want it to be good.

So far, all the summer sequels have let me down…from Spidey to Pirates. I was expecting “Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End” to be terrible so it didn’t make me angry and it was for the most part fun, but “Spider-Man 3” was like a slap in the face, it was so awful.

I’m a huge fan of the Die Hard movies – what can I say? I love “guy” movies. I know they won’t ever make the AFI’s 100 Greatest Movies list, but there’s a time and place for all Great movies. Observe:*

In the mood for…

…brushing up on film history? Watch Citizen Kane, Seven Samurai, Lawrence of Arabia, & Casablanca for a start.

…laughing? Young Frankenstein, Spinal Tap, Airplane! or Monty Python & The Holy Grail.

…being inspired? To Kill A Mockingbird, Searching For Bobby Fischer, It’s A Wonderful Life

…being scared to death? The Exorcist, The Shining, Silence of the Lambs, The Omen

…Yippee ki ya MotherF^%#$*? Die Hard, beeatch!

When I saw on Rotten Tomatoes that Live Free or Die Hard got a 76% on the Tomatometer, I breathed a sigh of relief. Maybe it will actually be good. I’ll let you know.

*note: These movies are off the top of my head – I have about a zillion favorite movies and if I broke them down by genre, this post would be so long you wouldn’t have the patience to read it.

If we must talk about Paris…

Ah, Paris! (pronounced “pari”)

Instead of stupefying yourself with the drivel saturating the media about that nuisance of a girl who got out of jail, why not talk about the other Paris, the capital of France, instead? It’s so much more interesting and it won’t slowly kill your soul.

Here’s a sprinkling of really random things about Paris that I find interesting:

Paris was named after the Parisii, a Celtic Iron Age people who lived along the Seine River from circa 350 B.C. to the Roman era.

Paris is a culinary mecca. Adolphe Duglere, chef at the famed Cafe Anglais, was known as “the Mozart of the kitchen.” In 1867, he served what was arguably the greatest dinner in European history to Russian czars, now known as “The Dinner of the Three Emperors.” See what was on the menu>> Yummm…

Paris has one of the most remarkable sewer systems in the world, and it even has a museum called Musée des égouts de Paris, or the Paris Sewers Museum so one can learn about its ingenious engineering. C’est très bizarre, non?

Speaking of engineering, Paris is filled with incredible architecture, from to the Notre Dame Cathedral to the Arc de Triomphe.

I once drew the Centre Pompidou, its exposed skeleton of colored pipes and all, (which was said to “turn the architecture world upside down” by the New York Times) as a visual aid for a French class project in high school and it was a bitch. (I wanted the Louvre, but the subject was already taken by a classmate.)

The Louvre was built in 1190 by Philippe Auguste as a fortress to protect the capital from the Anglo-Norman threat. Going through many transformations, part of the chateau became a museum in 1793, and the collections gradually spread through the entire building.

The Eiffel Tower weighs 10,000 tons.

There are about 10,000 books that have been written about Paris.

An 18th century Parisian architect planned to construct a bordello in the shape of a giant phallus (hee hee). Got this from the editorial review of Paris: Capital of the World by Patrice Higonnet.

One of my heroes, Gordon Parks, when he went to Paris on assignment in the 1960’s for Life Magazine, said that it was the first time he could breathe and spread his wings as an artist without being oppressed by racism*

*paraphrased, not a direct quote

As an artist, a man has no home in Europe save in Paris. – Friedrich Nietzsche

Paris is always a good idea – the film “Sabrina” (1954)