Since you people are always hounding me to update this part of the site more often, I'll go ahead and make my obligatory post-Halloween post now.
I want to thank everyone who stuck around for the Troma Tribute this year. I would have iked to have done more, but a few key pieces didn't fall in place and I started running seriously short on time in the last couple weeks. I do want to thank Justin for his contributions in the last week. Guy's a regular workhorse! But anyway, I hope everyone had a great Halloween and didn't wind up eating any razor blade-laden apples or poisined raisin boxes. I do have to post my attention-drawing costume from this past weekend, as well as a few more that keep it all on topic here at MCFTR. Here's to ya:
Hail Skroob!
Kurt Russell and Kim Cattrall, eat your hearts out!
Paul and Ace love it loud.
Those wacky pseudo-incestual Tenenbaums!
I want you to hit me as hard as you can!
As you wiiiiish!
Uh, you got some red on your shirt.
Thank you, and goodnight. And remember, November 2 is election day. Vote early, vote often. VOTE QUIMBY!
Regarding this whole "Greedo shoots first" nonsense...
Okay, bear with me for a moment, because I'm about to dork the hell out on you.
Our very own Justin Patterson sent me this comic, which makes light of the whole "Greedo shoots first" bit from STAR WARS. Now, while it's pretty funny stuff, it got me to thinking. You see, ever since the first time I saw the Special Edition of STAR WARS in theaters seven and a half years ago, this change has been one of the ones that bugged me the most. When I wrote my article on why the Special Editions suck earlier this year, I briefly covered this point. Here is what I wrote at that time:
Okay, you're George Lucas. You've created the most popular trilogy of movies in history. Part of the reason for that popularity is the cool characters. In particular, you've got the rugged and heroic space pirate Han Solo. Now, let's say you have a scene between said character and a Bounty Hunter who aims to kill him. Would you say that it makes the spiffy pirate guy seem cooler if, say, he outsmarted the creepy Bounty Hunter and blew his head off first, or rather if the Bounty Hunter shot first, missed, and then the pirate fires back in self-defense. Yeah, I thought so. In the original edition, Han Solo shoots first. It rules. It got cheers from crowds. So Lucas "fixes" this by having him be a trembling coward who only fires as a last resort. My theater actually booed the scene. Lucas says that the new version better represents his "vision of the scene". If that's the case, then I'm wondering if Lucas also originally indicated for Darth Vader to have a puppy. Would have been about the same for dismantling the coolness of a character.
Now, I covered the basics there. But, you see, there's even more reason to be outraged.
One of these 
other reasons this scene is stupid is because Greedo is sitting like three feet away from Han. This is lampooned in the comic I posted, but it's something that was bugging me to begin with. If Greedo's such a lousy shot, how does he get work as a bounty hunter?
Second, and this is most important, is the fact that Greedo even shoots at all. He's a bounty hunter, sure. But as we know from Boba Fett by watching THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK, "he's no good to me dead."
You see, Han owes Jabba money. He can't very well pay Jabba back if he's got a gaping laser wound in his head, can he? If you need further proof of this, in the very next scene in the Special Edition, Han runs in to Jabba in the hangar. Jabba has every opportunity in the world to blow Han away here, but he doesn't. He gives the guy one last shot to get his money, which leads us to his eventual capture by Boba Fett.
So, in other words, this scene sucks on multiple levels. And don't give me that bullshit about how Lucas changed it again and now they fire at the same time. It doesn't matter. Greedo still should have never fired his blaster.
I found the Dead Sea Scrolls...or at least the MCFTR equivalent thereof.
While filing through some stuff at my mother's house this afternoon, I came upon a folder that contained the original printouts from the video store where the MCFTR concept was born. I have been thinking that about 99% of it all had been transcribed and uploaded to this site some six years ago, but I was shocked to find out how much was left behind.
And while it seems kind of silly to do so considering how dated the material is, my plan is to get it all transcribed and uploaded in the next several weeks. Articles by Bobby, Chad, and myself that have remained in obscurity for the better part of a decade will be once again available for our habitual embarassment.
It may take me some time, as I have some pretty big plans coming up for the Halloween season, but expect to start seeing some "classic" content being updated for the first time ever.
I'm sorry I haven't updated in a month and a half. So here's some words of wisdom to keep you satiated for the time being:
Be courteous, kind and forgiving,
Be gentle and peaceful each day,
Be warm and human and grateful,
And have a good thing to say.
Be thoughtful and trustful and childlike,
Be witty and happy and wise,
Be honest and love all your neighbours,
Be obsequious, purple, and clairvoyant.
Be pompus, obese, and eat cactus,
Be dull, and boring, and omnipresent,
Criticize things you don't know about,
Be oblong and have your knees removed.
Be tasteless, rude, and offensive,
Live in a swamp and be three dimentional,
Put a live chicken in your underwear,
Get all excited and go to a yawning festival.
Okay, with that out of the way, expect more super happy fun articles in the next few weeks, including the return of the Bootleg Toys and coverage of Dragon*Con 2004!
This was really part of a piece of SPAM I got earlier today:
MySQL does not claim to be enterprise-ready for nothing, and Yahoo and other high-volume users of MySQL certainly do not run on one database server. There are a number of techniques to handle high volumes, one of which is introduced in this article - MySQL replication.
I suck! And so does everyone else! My bread didn't rise and I'm a generally an awful housewife. I have to go shopping so I can get bananas so the excruciating cramps in my calves will stop, but I don't...
Talk about your unrelated thoughts...
More Spider-Man 2 action than you can shake a stick at.
Yeah, I saw it too, last Friday night in fact. I was planning on doing my own review, but a) I'm lazy and b) Justin promised me one so I felt I could justify my being lazy. But since this is the summer blockbuster du jour, I guess it merits a little of my own thoughts in lieu of an actual review.
First off, I got to sit next to my favorite people in all of moviegoing: the talkers! Now, I'm generally pretty unfriendly toward people who talk during movies. But most of those people are merely commenting on what's happening on the screen. But these talkers were a special breed of talker: the movie was in the way of their conversation. In other words, they talked the whole time. Opening credits to closing credits. Had their own conversation going. Now, I don't know about them, but I paid almost 20 bucks for a pair of tickets to see this movie. They must have gotten the extra-special talker's rate seats, though, thereby justifying their unrelenting conversation.
But on to the movie itself, I think that Justin's review pretty much covers the reasons why it rocks so goddamn hard. My girlfriend, who had never seen the first one and was pretty much uninterested in seeing part two, walked out loving it. It's just got everything that a superhero movie needs: A great hero, a great villain, a great story, and plenty of heart-stopping action scenes. Alfred Molina was perfect for Doc Ock, and really milked the whole sympathetic angle for all it was worth. The slow build of tension between Harry and Peter is being done perfectly, and looks to be setting up the next sequel as we speak. And if the first one didn't prove it enough, this one shows that Sam Raimi is a perfect choice for the director here. I especially love the scene where Otto is being operated on by Dr. John Landis and suddenly the scene turns in to THE EVIL DEAD. It's abso-frickin-lutely amazing.
So yeah, I couldn't have said it any better than Justin did. See it. I'm just hoping that the release of a new SPIDER-MAN movie means that I can expect to see a whole new world full of Spidey-Bootlegs for my knockoff toys collection.
Hopefully, reviews will be on the way for several movies, including FAHRENHEIT 9/11, ANCHORMAN, HARRY POTTER 3, and NAPOLEON DYNAMITE, assuming that I ever get a chance to go see any of them. Moving is hard work. However, holding the keys to your own home makes it all worth it.
Now THIS is news that we can all use:
Click here if you don't believe it:
The next season of "The Surreal Life" will have both the Flavor and a little bit of "The Right Stuff."
The show, which will migrate from The WB to VH1 in the fall, began filming its third season Tuesday with a new cast of six housemates. They include former New Kid on the Block Jordan Knight and rapper Flavor Flav, who was part of Public Enemy, pretty much the antithesis of the New Kids.
The housemates also include "American Idol" season one rejectee Ryan Starr; "Red Sonja" and "Beverly Hills Cop II" star Brigitte Nielsen; ex-"Full House" resident Dave Coulier; and Charo, the Spanish actress known for her many "Love Boat" appearances and her "cuchi-cuchi" hip- shaking.
As VH1 has its roots as a network about music, the cast has a slightly more musical slant this year. Charo, the network says, is an accomplished flamenco guitarist, while Coulier reportedly is the subject of Alanis Morissette's jilted-lover song "You Oughta Know."
Knight, meanwhile, is using "The Surreal Life" as a promotional jumping-off point before heading out on his first solo national tour.
"The Surreal Life" is scheduled to premiere on VH1 on Sunday, Sept. 5.
Flavor Flav, Jordan Knight, Charo, Ryan Starr, Bridgitte Nielsen, and DAVE COULIER!
