Tuesday, September 13, 2022

Sing to the Lord a semi-new psalm ...

Sing to the Lord a new song;
sing to the Lord, all the whole earth.

Sing to the Lord and bless His name;
proclaim the good news of His salvation from day to day.

Declare His glory among the nations
and His wonders among all peoples.

For great is the Lord and greatly to be praised;
He is more to be feared than all gods.

But we can tell you're not in awe;
it's obvious you couldn't care less.

You think it's easy being God?
Then why don't you climb up to heaven and do the job yourself?

There's so much paperwork involved;
you'd start losing your mind in 60 seconds flat.

You try keeping up with eight billion people
while trying to solve the population-control crisis with "natural" disasters.

All He wants is a little respect,
and doesn't respect usually come with a little fear?

Tuesday, August 2, 2022

pitches for new James Cameron documentaries

Starting with Piranha II: The Spawning in 1982 and ending with True Lies in '94, James Cameron directed six feature films in a dozen years. His follow-up to True Lies, 1997's Titanic, broke box-office records and won 11 Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director. But over the next dozen years, Cameron directed only one other feature film, 2009's Avatar, which ended up breaking Titanic's box-office records.

He did, however, direct two deep-sea documentaries in the meantime: Ghosts of the Abyss (2003) and Aliens of the Deep (2005). Both nonfiction films' titles echo those of previous fiction films of Cameron's: respectively, 1989's The Abyss and 1986's Aliens, the first of many sequels and prequels to, and spin-offs of, 1979's Alien.

But Cameron still has two titles from his pre-Titanic days that haven't been exploited yet. I think the following documentary would be an excellent addition to the Discovery Channel's "Shark Week" event next year:

The Terminator of Other Fish and Sometimes People

Has Cameron ever thought about making a film that can be shown in sex-education classes? Here's a water-based idea:

'You Can’t Get Pregnant If You Do It in a Pool' ... and Other True Lies

Unlike the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010, I don't remember the Montara oil spill off the coast of western Australia in '09 getting a ton of press coverage in this part of the Northern Hemisphere. But I think at least one documentary-title pitch for Cameron should acknowledge the post-True Lies phase of his career, so how about ...

'Ave a Tar Fish, Mate: The Untold Story of the Gusher Down Under

It doesn't hurt that Tar Fish also happen to be piranha-like creatures in the video game Donkey Kong: Jungle Beat, recalling the low-budget roots of Cameron's filmography. But I'm hoping "'Ave a Tar Fish, Mate" will cost upwards of $200 million for no reason whatsoever. You can't go home again.

Avatar: The Way of Water, the first of four planned sequels to the 2009 original—actually, I guess you can go home again (and again and again and again)—is set to be released this December, eight years after it was originally announced to hit theaters, because it takes a lot of expensive, state-of-the-art computer animation to make water look wet.

Wednesday, June 22, 2022

pride (in the name of dumb)

The Proud Boys have been disrupting drag queens' "story hour" readings for children at public libraries during Pride Month.

Fine, Proud Boys—you're the proudest, gayest boys in all the land. But somehow I doubt my proclamation will make you live happily ever after.

May I suggest the next stop on your itinerary? Stand back and stand by to get more than you bargained for when you visit Queens. The Boyle Avenue Runners protect their own.

Thursday, April 14, 2022

Joel Schumacher's subtext wasn't lost on me.

When I saw The Lost Boys for the first time ten years ago, a few months ahead of its 25th anniversary, one particular detail stuck out: Corey Haim's character has a poster of Rob Lowe on his bedroom wall.

Director Joel Schumacher's previous movie, St. Elmo's Fire (1985), included Lowe in its ensemble cast, so you could argue the poster is an inside joke of some sort, but why would Haim's character have that poster? In 1987 no major studio was going to imply that one of the teen-heartthrob stars of its latest summer blockbuster was playing a latent homosexual — God forbid — but Schumacher was gay and, like most talented people, had a sense of humor.

In my imagination Schumacher overheard Haim say something childishly homophobic on the set, then told the film's production designer, "Find a pinup of Rob Lowe and stick it on Corey's bedroom wall. Better yet, stick it on the door of his bedroom closet. Corey won't give it a second thought until after the movie comes out and he starts receiving some unexpected fan mail."