Amentep

In High School, I missed reading To Kill a Mockingbird (and Invisible Man, Native Son and I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings - all of which were, to my memory, on the reading list). I'm not sure why I missed reading them. There must have been a list reshuffle between and during years, but to be honest, the only book I still remember reading from that year was Billy Budd, Sailor.

I knew some of them off the top of my head, but I knew there was more so I did a little research as well. Could have probably found more if I'd spent more time on it. India has a reputation - like the US for doing remakes. While I think some of the rationales are true (avoiding subtitles, for example, in the US or for example localizing language, locations and cultural elements for India), its also a way to take a solid story and put some familiar box-office faces in it and do well in the local cinema.

Probably has more to do with the volume of things produced and consumed than anything else. The other voracious market for film is India, and they have loads of remakes, including Kaante/Reservoir Dogs, God Tussi Great Ho/Bruce Almighty, Sakar/The Godfather, Players/The Italian Job, Papi Gudia/Child's Play, Akele Hum Akele Tum/Kramer vs Kramer, The Proposal/The Proposal, Mahakaal/A Nightmare on Elm Street, Bang Bang/Knight and Day, Kabzaa/On the Waterfront, Ek Ajnabee/Man on Fire, Sauda/Indecent Proposal, Ghajini/Memento, Satte Pe Satta/Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. But most movie making countries have dabbled in remakes (either direct or veiled), including things like: China & Hong Kong (A Simple Noodle Story/Blood Simple, Connected/Celular, What Women Want/What Women Want, The Proposal/The Proposal) Japan (Saidoweizu/Sideways, Yurusarezaru Mono/Unforgiven, Ghost: Mouichido Dakishimetai/Ghost) Italy (Stork Day/Groundhog Day) France (The Next/Assault on Precinct 13, The Beat that My Heart Skipped/Fingers) Russia (12/12 Angry Men, The Thirteen/The Lost Patrol, ) UK (Mean Machine/The Longest Yard, Silent Night, Bloody Night: The Homecoming/Silent Night, Bloody Night, The Curse of Frankenstein/Frankenstein (Universal), The Mummy/The Mummy's Tomb & The Mummy's Ghost (Universal)) Nigeria (Masoyiyata Titanic/Titanic)* Turkey (The Man Who Saved the World/Star Wars)* *IIRC both of these incorporate bootleg footage from other films with new footage shot for their VHS and film releases respectively.

I had minimal symptoms from my booster, despite having felt awful after the other two shots.

Happy belated birthday KP!

Mmm, Falcons ending the season with an L. Not surprising, but there was always hope we'd overcome longtime rival NO.

I can't think of, off the top of my head, a bad movie she's in. But I've not seen every movie she's in, either.

Trying to catchup with TNG episodes I watched: PHANTASMS - Data has weird dreams, Troi is a poor counselor, no one thinks about the possibility of an external reason for the dreams. A bit rubbish DARK PAGE - Luxwana goes into a coma, Troi has to decipher weird images and discover her "dark secret" to save her. Silly and a bit more rubbish than the last one. The best parts are the dealing with a culture struggling with a verbal language. ATTACHED - great A story of Picard and Crusher trying to escape imprisonment while psychically linked by a device intended to reveal their secrets to their captors. To bad the B story can be summed up "paranoid people are so paranoid Riker shouts at them a lot". Yet another example where the insistence of the A/B plot structure detracts from the episode by saddling a good story with an alternating not-so-good one. Also watched the last episode of the first season of Lower Decks - not a bad ending for the series. I think the best episodes were in the beginning and it was a bit of a struggle to make Mariner sympathetic the entire time (she comes off really badly in the episode that parodies the Trek movies).

Supēsu Kobura aka Space Cobra aka Space Adventure Cobra Episode VIII: "Gekitō! Kobura tai Bōi" aka "Fierce Battle! Cobra versus Bowie" Cobra heads for a face-off with Crystal Bowie, but first must do something about his army of soldiers.

Playing catchup on a bunch of movies I watched: PRISONERS OF THE GHOSTLAND (2021) - style over substance. Some visually arresting images, but with a complete jumble sale of a story. It reminds me of a number of cult films (a little El Topo, a little Gozu) but with no depth. JUNGLE CRUISE (2021) - a great Pirates of the Caribbean sequel. Johnson and Blunt are a great team. LADY SNOWBLOOD (1973) - Meiko Kaji plays another character out for revenge (not dissimilar to her earlier Scorpion character). Set in the Meiji period of westernerzation of Japan (~1880) its a time period we haven't seen a lot which makes it look visually cool for a sword fighting film. If you like a tale of a character bent to avenge a past wrong regardless of what else happens, this a good one. LADY SNOWBLOOD: LOVE SONG OF VENGENCE (1974) - Kaji returns as the titular character, roped into a political plot between a corrupt government official and anarchists. Murky from a plot point, there's no sympathy for any of the characters other Kaji's. Not as good as the original. CRYING BLUE SKY (1983 - technically though, this version was never released until now) - Avery Crounse's folk horror film, Eyes of Fire (1983) has a cult following. It was only released in theaters in a small way and then on VHS. A new blu-ray restoration has made this original film look as good as it ever has (and in wide-screen). But an eagerly awaited extra on the disc is the original, longer cut of the film Crying Blue Sky. While essentially the same film, the original edit has a different opening and ending and dispenses with the editing that made a lot of things feel dreamlike and instead give a more direct narrative behind the images. It may be the definitive version of the story and, if nothing else, it illuminates elements of the story that until now had never been fully explained due to the editing on the released version.

But the point was that you made a statement about semantics; the meaning of the word "insurrection" is clearly defined and the January 6 event fits that definition from any objective measure. Subjectively, you can say a shade of green is blue - it doesn't change the definition of blue, though. This is simple "whataboutism", not a valid argument. You're not even comparing equal jurisdiction where you can argue two groups are being treated differently by the same entity (the summer protests would be the local municipality's responsibility; the Capitol attack is not. Its a bit like saying "why isn't Idaho fixing the non-native animal releases that plague the Everglades' delicate eco-balance in Florida?") Achievement is irrelevant if you are making a semantical argument, since achievement is not part of the definition for insurrection. However, if you want achievement there was at the time a well publicized belief (I heard it from talk radio talking heads) about a deadline to confirm the vote that if unmet would cause the decision for president to be kicked to the House of Representatives where the states would make votes for President which, IIRC, turned out to not be the proper interpretation of the Electoral Count Act, but as it was being touted by various sources, it should still be considered as a 'goal' for Jan 6. That said, disruption itself can be considered a goal. Or allowing Trump to declare martial law. Or wanting to see the QAnon Shaman rocking his outfit on the floor of the House.

Wut? What you just said (substituting dictionary definitions) was "I'm still not convinced we can call the violence in and at the building that symbolizes the government and which at the time had the government actively discharging its public duties a violent uprising against an authority or government; the meanings of words, phrases or systems do matter", or to put it plainly, you're saying the meanings of words matter while also denying the literal meaning of the word insurrection.

About 10 minutes until Asylum decides to make a Fluronanado film then.

Having been a manager, I can't say I can blame you for avoiding it. While the perks are nice, the downside is steep. Seems legit.

Hmm, well, I still wouldn't want Tarvage, the plant creature that likes to put his seed in your brain so he can control you (oh and you die after it destroys your nervous system) to show up behind me in a dark alley. Or anywhere else. I like my brain un-seeded. I think Cobra does too. And yeah, Crystal Bowie's name led to all sorts of speculation that didn't pan out. Mind you JoJo gets a bit of that too with all the characters with band/singer names.

As I understand it, most of the stories of Cobb's antics derive from the same source, a bio written by Al Stump who Cobb had initially worked with on an official biography, before they had a falling out. Modern research hasn't been able to verify all of the claims against Cobb. For example while he did fight a groundskeeper (i think that's the right position) and beat them up, it doesn't seem to be racially motivated like Stump claimed as digging into the historical newspaper accounts and the employment records, the reported race of the groundskeeper is wrong; additionally Cobb advocated for the integration of Baseball long before it happened. He did go into the stands and beat up a heckler, but Babe Ruth attempted the same thing. He was an aggressive competitor, and had a temper and held grudges, but some of the modern scholarship seems to indicate that he wasn't as bad as has long been thought (even uncovering good things he did, like making sure his teams didn't strand batboys in away cities if they didn't make enough money on the trip to cover the cost of getting the batboy home). Still might qualify as the most contempt worthy mvp, but I was really surprised to read about some of the new information about him that's come out.

I read it, because its a diary it wasn't as easy to get into as I hoped, but it was a great companion to the Rose Red miniseries (which is a pretty good haunted house tale, IMO).

Supēsu Kobura aka Space Cobra aka Space Adventure Cobra Episode V: "Nazo Kyōteki Sunaipā wa?" or "Mystery! Who is the Fearsome Sniper?" Episode VI: "Majutsushi no Shōtai!!" or "The Magician's Identity!" Episode VII: "Jiēn no Ada!" or "Jane's Revenge!" When last we left our Space Adventurer, Cobra had just freed the second daughter of Captain Nelson, Catherine, from her imprisonment. However, they are immediately set upon by a sniper who Cobra cannot get a bead on with the Psychogun, so proceeds to have to bravely run away. Who could it possible be? Not what you want to find behind you in a dark alley The plot is zipping along on the path to Nelson's treasure, and why Bowie is going to be a pain for Cobra is shown. Lady gets a nice fight sequence, even if she doesn't end up being presented as badass as she was in her intro. Big question:

I hate to be 'that guy', I really do... ...but I'm going to embrace my inner 'that guy' and thus be 'that guy'. Stephen King wrote the screenplay for Rose Red. It wasn't based on a King novel, but an original concept (like Sleepwalkers or Storm of the Century). It originated as a film with Stephen Spielberg, but Spielberg and King disagreed on the direction of the story. Eventually King bought back the rights to the story treatment and developed it as a screenplay for a TV miniseries, as his work was finding success in that format. There was a tie-in novel to the miniseries released called The Diary of Ellen Rimbauer: My Life at Rose Red, however it wasn't written by King, but by Ridley Pearson (and released under the name of Joyce Reardon, the parapsychologist from the Rose Red miniseries). It purported to be Reardon's edit collection of Ellen Rimbauer's diaries and was, itself, the basis for the sequel miniseries to Rose Red, called The Diary of Ellen Rimbauer.

Just watched Soylent Green. It's set in 2022, so with the new year upon us, I thought I'd get a peek at what is in store for us. If the movie is anything to go by, we're in for more mask wearing and supply chain issues.

I remember Sky Doll, but it's been awhile. Pity it got waterlogged.

Most of the people working on new Star Trek in interviews talk of their love of Star Wars. I think Chabon is the exception. I've recently started watching the 1st season of DISCOVERY.