Category: Entertainment

Just What We Needed

Entertainment, Marketing / Advertising, Two-Minute Hate

This is going to end well:

A UK technology company is inserting customised product placement into films and TV shows – even those that were originally released decades ago.
London-based firm Mirriad inserts products or signage, like a branded beer bottle on a table to a clothing advert on a giant billboard, into streaming content.

I know what you’re thinking.  But:

The company used its experience to make inserted ads look as realistic as possible – so viewers would never know they weren’t present in the original shoot.

Uh huh.  I can see it now:

Not to mention:

or:

And even in our favorite classics, like The Devil In Miss Jones :

Is nothing sacred anymore?

Disturbing Juxtapositions

Entertainment, Music

Sometimes I wonder if I’m going crazy or if I just see things that aren’t there.

Here’s one example.  I woke up the other day with a song glued into my brain — you know what I mean, right?  Anyway, the song was Pink Floyd at their most wonderfully obscure, i.e.  See Emily Play.

So of course I went onto Ewwwtchoob and watched the thing.  All the way through, though, I couldn’t shake the nagging feeling that the video was reminiscent of another piece of surreal moviemaking — and then I remembered the final scene  from Antonioni’s Blow Up.

The two scenes are in no way alike, cinematically speaking — one is in black & white and is essentially a music video, while the other is deathly silence played in color.  But both are mimes, and wonderfully executed.  Was it the mimes, or the similar locations in a park which triggered the association?

Or maybe it was just Syd Barrett and Michelangelo Antonionini who were crazy.

Afterthought:  I think Blow-Up was created (1965-66) before See Emily Play was filmed (1967).

And just to drive everybody else crazy (why should I be the only one), Blow Up featured the Yardbirds in the famous (and disturbing) night club scene.  Which is why I sometimes associate Jimmy Page with Antonionini.

Unpaid Endorsements

Entertainment

For those who haven’t yet seen it, do yourselves a favor and try to find the Brit TV show The Last Detective, starring the brilliant Peter Davison as “Dangerous” Davies.

It’s a funny, gentle show about a lovable loser (who is mocked, abused and ill-treated by his boss and colleagues in a police station, not to mention his bitch of an estranged wife), but who somehow comes out on top because he just will not give up an investigation, or anything else for that matter.  (I have to say that his meekness irritated me at first;  but stick to it and you’ll be joyfully surprised when you learn that sometimes, nice guys don’t finish last.)

I may just buy the DVD set when I have a few spare pennies dug out of the sofa, because Dangerous is one of my favorite TV characters of all time.  (Yes, my DVD player can handle PAL format.)

In similar vein, there’s Vexed  (on Netflix), which in the first episode has the funniest opening scene ever.  Season 1 also stars the unbelievable Lucy Punch (Dinner With Schmucks  and Doc Martin, also only Season 1).  Funny and occasionally surreal situations.

Ah, Hell

Entertainment, Resistance

Sarah dun a goodie.

It’s not from her, but from a movie she just watched:

“You can’t walk [away from] your own story.”

And if you want to watch Rango  (again) after reading her post, then let that be your movie recommendation for the weekend.

I just wish I knew whether this is my own story… I need to get to the range again soon.

New Cards

Entertainment

Oh, this is going to be good:

For the first time in over 85 years, Monopoly’s 16 Community Chest Cards are about to get a “long overdue” refresh, Hasbro announced Thursday.
According to the Monopoly website where players may vote, card options include rescuing a puppy to get out of jail free or being penalized for not recycling your trash.

Here are my suggestions for the new “Community Chest” cards:

     
 
 

And just for laughs, here are a few replacement “Chance” cards:

 
 

And one more update, this time to the board itself:  the “Free Parking” corner space

is replaced with another of these:

There’s no such thing as free parking anymore, and with all the new laws which keep getting added every year, your chances of breaking one and being sent to jail are a lot higher than when Monopoly was first designed.

Feel free to add your ideas in Comments.

Breezing Through

Entertainment

Tech Support II (a.k.a. Friend and Reader BobbyK) spent the weekend with us, and on Friday night we went out to dinner at one of Plano’s most crowded and noisy eating places, Legacy Hall, in the area known as Legacy West just off the Dallas North Tollway.  It’s basically the equivalent of a mall food court which caters not to the kiddie- and preteen set, but to grownups.  There is no chain restaurant presence (other than Velvet Tacos, barely a chain),  and from the three dozen-odd kiosks comes a huge variety of foods ranging from sushi, BBQ, lobster rolls, tacos, pizza and lamb gyros to an endless supply of locally-brewed beers and of course hard liquor.  Weekend nights feature an outdoor (also, usually local) band on stage, and pre-Chinkvirus, the place absolutely throbbed.  During the lockdowns, of course, the place was like a tomb.

Last Friday night it was throbbing again, jam-packed, and at a rough guess, only about half the people walking around were wearing face condoms.  (While seated for eating and drinking, of course, nobody was wearing them.)  Even in the elevators, only a few people were wearing masks.  (One girl’s mask consisted of fine muslin and sequins… actually, quite pretty:  a “Dream of Jeannie” look.)

All good fun, in other words:  my only problem with the whole thing was that the loud music and concomitant noise from people shouting at each other set my tinnitus to “scream” mode, so we left after dinner.  But what a fine experience, to see people out and about and getting on with the serious adult fun of eating, drinking and mating.  (One guy was giving his female companion a very thorough foot massage at the table next to ours.)

Fuck you, Fauci:  you, and your entire cohort of control freaks.