Pop Culture Blog: Music, Movie and Humor

Leveraging low-hanging synergies outside the vertical fruit box since 1999.

Mr. Bean: 1995 – 2008


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Our strange little cat shuffled off this mortal coil last night after a month of dramatic weight loss and piddling on my bed. After he moved up here with Janet back in April, he and I became pretty close, and towards the end he was spending as much time in my room with me as he was in hers. He was friendly, had a unique face which led me to nickname him the feline Jimmy Durante, and it’s a sad day in Portland.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qhYNjdjLWMA[/youtube]

Here he is in a cute video from a couple months back, chilling on my bed with Shepherd. What I especially liked about him was the way in which he got along with the puppies. Although they tended to haunt and sniff him in inappropriate places, he truly seemed to enjoy their company and I even caught them all snuggling once or twice.

He’s currently lying in state in our laundry room, and I am off to build him a wooden box and then bury him in a quiet spot in the woods near our house. Godspeed, Mr. Bean. You were a great pet and a wonderful addition to our family.

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One Slow Week


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I actually did a lot of work on the blog this week, but it was all behind the scenes. The good news is, I finally upgraded the blog software to the latest version of Wordpress. The bad news is, I lost all of my categories, tags and post formatting (i.e. paragraphs) in the process. The upgrade wasn’t easy, but it’s done and suppose I can live with the fallout. Nothing I can’t fix, eventually.

Bear with me kids. I’ll be back in full force from this day forward. And to prove that, I’m going to treat you with a silly video.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=beo0wC9Uirk[/youtube]

If that didn’t make you laugh, then please never visit this blog again. Because you’ll never get it, and it’s about to get real good again.

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Heath, We Hardly Knew Ye


in Movies

I can sum up my opinions on the intricate and supreme masterpiece that is The Dark Knight in only one word: holy fucking shit, Batman. Everyone involved in the movie, from Chris Nolan right on down to the art director, brings their A-game and this is really one for the ages.

This summer has been a complete mental overload for me in terms of anticipated movies. I have now seen 2 of my top 3 – Indy 4 and TDK – with Tropic Thunder still a month away. The new Batman film, coupled with the remarkable Iron Man, have renewed my faith in the Superhero genre which I haven’t really paid any attention to since I was a little kid watching Superman II at an Ottawa-area drive-in. Not since General Zod came to town have I given a rat’s hindquarters about caped crusaders and I am glad to say that Bale, Freeman, Gyllenhall, Caine, Oldman, Eckhart and especially Ledger have slapped me back into DC/Marvel fandom.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iSZkAIi7U-o[/youtube]

But it’s easy enough to parrot what everyone else is going to tell you about the film, so whilst I slurped coffee/played Scrabulous this morning I tried to really pinpoint reasons and moments behind Dark Knight kicking me in the bat-balls.

  • Katie Holmes isn’t in it. Her replacement, Maggie Gyllenhall makes up in actual talent what she lacks in her predecessor’s looks.
  • Comparing Ledger to Nicholson is apples to oranges, really. Heath’s Joker isn’t better than Jack’s, it’s just another extremely strong facet of the best and most unique superhero movie of the last 20 years. Burton’s original film and Nolan’s reboot are very different universes and neither Joker would fit well in the other’s greasepaint.
  • The special effects employed to turn Harvey Dent into Two Face will curdle your blood. I’ll leave it to you to find out exactly what I mean.
  • The ‘truck chase’ I’ll call it, when the Joker tried to capture Dent as he is being moved between jails is truly amazing – from the driving to the effects to the sound to the surprise twist upon its conclusion.
  • The ‘ferry scene’ and the way in which the people of Gotham surprise the joker with the humanity he didn’t believe they possessed is clever and touching.
  • The writing overall, particularly the many ways in which the Joker surprises and outsmarts the police, makes me want to start my own script. It’s that good.
  • Gary Oldman, one of my very favorite actors, gets a lot more screen time as Commissioner Gordon than he did in Batman Begins and we see a real character emerge – especially in relation to his desire to protect his family.
  • Batman goes to frigging Hong Kong to bring back a key criminal and uses an awesome variety of tools, courtesy of Lucious (Morgan Freeman) to do so. James Bond and Q must be seething with jealousy.
  • Alfred, Michael Caine, makes some questionable decisions as the dutiful servant and father figure to Bruce Wayne, but his love for both Bruce and Rachel is always evident.

I could go on, but I have a BBQ in Barhaven I must attend. Get your little bat-bottoms to this outstanding piece of cinema and I hope you enjoy it half as much as I did.

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