Kel Varnsen

Watched it tonight and like the other two, it was good enough where when you are in the moment watching the movies you don't really notice all the plot holes. In this case Lupita Nyong'o and Joseph Quinn gave really great performances (especially with so little speaking). That basically made the movie good. Although the shot of the jets taking out all the Manhattan bridges was really good as well. Although I still have trouble accepting that the aliens could be so successful. Like if so many were on the beach attracted to the boat at the end, set up a boat on a beach somewhere and when the aliens show up, bomb the shit out of them. I mean we know they are bullet proof, but are they giant bomb proof?

So would you prefer to see a bald, legless Anakin ghost floating in the air next to ghost Obi Wan? It could be just based on how the ghost sees themselves. And it is entirely possible that original trilogy Anakin has no idea what he looks like. I mean he was put in the suit pretty quickly and I don't think that decompression chamber thing of his had any mirrors.

But he got to be better looking in the original version too. There is no version of Jedi where force ghost Anakin is bald and all scarred up and missing both his legs. If the Force afterlife can bring back hair that someone hasn't had for over 20 years why can't it make them look younger?

I feel like it was/is not entirely that. A big thing is just how much the Internet opened up the world for people. So before like the mid 90's if someone was really really into superheroes/comics or the Simpsons or beer making or indie rock bands, they might be the only person in their friends group or work that like those (nothing against those topics as they are all things I am into). And people they worked with would never ask you about them because they would end up hearing them talking for an hour. But now if you are into pretty much anything it takes a couple of minutes to find a community of people into the exact same thing that you can talk to. So you don't have to talk your co-workers early off.

That's probably part of it too. Developing new shows is expensive and risky. I keep reading how Late Night with Seth Meyers has low ratings and they fired the band because of budget cuts. But I can't imagine that it being cancelled is a huge risk, since what else is NBC going to put on at 12:35. Plus Lorne Michaels is a producer of the show and he probably isn't someone that NBC wants to annoy.

I remember in the past it was also dependant on if the network was doing well overall or not. Like back when NBC had all those classic Thursday night comedies like 30 Rock or Parks and Rec or Community all of them got crazy low ratings. But the all had loyal viewers and since NBC was doing bad overall it was too much of a risk to cancel them and replace them with something else that might do worse. If NBC was doing better overall and making more money it would have been less of a risk.

The Pulp Fiction bit might have been the funniest thing this show has done. Especially how they tied into the Paris trip. I also liked the storyline with Bob looking back and remembering Midge. She has gotten almost no mention in this series so I guess this kind of confirms she died. The ending with the reshooting the original show intro was really well done too, especially since it tied in with the kids finding Donna's family's old clothes in the attic.

It's an interesting bit of evidence on how the Late Night TV world has changed a ton in the last 15 years. Because even with a band the budget for Seth's version of Late Night must be tiny. Pretty much the entire show takes place from the desk with hardly even any kind of big props or anything like that. But looking back to when Conan was hosting Late Night he was doing remotes bits (including travelling overseas), he filmed the show from other cities and he even did a claymation episode. The only time Seth leaves the studio is for Day drinking. Plus Conan's band leader would go on to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame so he couldn't have been cheap.

I have been thinking about Freaks and Geeks lately and I wonder if it would have been more successful if it had been a 30 minute show. Because I think a big thing that hurt it was there was nothing on TV like it. It was a teen drama but it wasn't your typical 90210 or Dawson's Creek soap opera type drama. If it was 30 minutes they could have focused a bit more on the comedy which would have been easier to get. Of course it would have had to have been a single camera sitcom which was still fairly uncommon at that point but I think it would have done better. Plus at 30 minutes there are more options for timeslots.

Frozen III in 2027 and then possibly Frozen IV after that seems so weird to me. My daughter saw Frozen when she was 3 years old, it was the first movie she saw in theaters and was her favourite for a long time. My wife asked her if she would want to go with her to see III when she is 17 and she said no way.

I just watched this episode and I completely hated it. The bouncing around in the timeline was stupid and just a weird way to show off. Plus the whole storyline with the agent and his mother was super obvious and heavy handed once you saw the whole thing. I mean it ended with her saying she would take a pain pill "just this once". Also I am a little confused by the cartel boss. If his last name is Del Rio (Marty called him Mr. Del Rio) why do they call him Del? Is that common for people with that last name? And the scene with Wendy trying to get the job. Was that supposed to be before or after the accident?

My understanding is that all the people who are intelligent never lost their intelligence. Either because they isolated to protect themselves from the virus or because they have immunity. That is one of my most hated movies tropes, the unused base or building that is super isolated and hasn't been used in decades (or in this case centuries) and you just flick a switch and power comes on. Even though the power grid is also supposed to be dead. Like that is some super impressive fuel or batteries. It's the same thing that bugs me about the end of Captain America Civil War.

Watching the series for a 3rd time since my other daughter is now into it and I think I figured it out. I think Hopper lines it up so that one side of the shackle is up against the train track and the guy hits the other side. That way it bends from a circle into an oval and is easier to slide off. But of course he is also hitting his ankle which causes the swelling.

I like Anchorman but it seems weird to me that it seems to be held up as the funniest, most quotable, most meme-able Will Ferrell movie ever. Talladega Nights and Step Brothers are way funnier.

I am rewatching the series and there is some awesome foreshadowing in season 4 episode 2. When Lucas is hungover and puking Jason tells him that your first hangover feels like being split in half.

So my youngest daughter is now into the show so I have been doing a second rewatch. One cool thing I noticed when I watched this episode today was they cut to Suzie's house and then they pan across the room (before you even see her) you see Dustin's season 1 hat on her shelf.

,I have just started watching this show and while I mostly like it, like a lot of criminal type shows the money laundering plot doesn't always make perfect sense. Like isn't a big part of money laundering making the money untraceable? Like if Marty takes a stack of $20 bills to the bank and says they are from the strip club it would be pretty difficult to prove he was lying or figuring out exactly who they came from. But if crooked construction company connected to Marty (who is already under investigation) has a bunch of money from building the church and Marty also made a big donation to the church that seems a bit more suspicious.

I do enjoy this show, but the one thing I hate is how often they go back and forth between Daniel and Johnny getting over things/being friends and them getting pissed off about something and being rivals. They need to get over their shit. Or have Amanda in more scenes just mocking the shit out of both of them. I can maybe get past him being in Spain and not being arrested. But these kids all have phones. So if episode 6 doesn't feature the kids launching a social media shaming campaign against the Sekai Takai for letting an escaped convict take part in the tournament it will be really annoying. Because this is supposed to be a legitimate, prestigious tournament not some underground Enter the Dragon or Bloodsport thing.

I just started watching this show and while there is a lot I like there are some weird things that kind of bug me or make me ask questions. Like based on Marty's Money Laundering 101 speech how can the $8 million he tried to give the cartel guy in the pilot possibly be clean. Like how can that guy possibly deposit it in a bank when it is brand new fresh money that he basically extorted from someone by threatening to kill his family. Plus for all Marty's smarts how did he not figure that if a small town strip club owner is doing some crazy level money laundering through Panama, that maybe there is something bigger going on. Also when Marty was negotiating with Ruth I really wanted her to say that she could just rob the safe by herself and give him nothing.

I was really hoping that after they had that meeting on the beach that after Kevin and Gurleen chose Olivia and Julia to get the other U turn that Michael and Tyson would have walked over and handed the women the other express pass. It would have made for some amazing TV drama and would have really driven home how much every else hates K&G.

Over the weekend I watched The Us Festival 1982: The US Generation Documentary. It was pretty cool. Most of what I knew about that festival came from that one line in a Simpsons episode. But that guy from Apple computer (Steve Wozniak) really spared no expense making what seemed like a pretty amazing music festival. It really seemed like he wanted to see an awesome rock concert, and instead of just paying bands to play for him, he paid them to put on a giant concert. Even though he lost millions doing it. It's annoying that other rich tech guys don't really try to do cool stuff like that. There was a cool story at the begining about how after the first brief meeting with the other festival organizers (who he didn't know) he wrote them a $2 million cheque to get them started.

Comic books in general are allergic to comic book accuracy. The concept of "retcon" comes from comics.

I like that we get regular reminders that Daniel is kind of a jerk and just because he took over teaching like Miyagi he didn't become him. Yea Miguel's story is so amazing that it seems like the kind of thing where any university would be bragging about having him as a student. Between being raised by a single mom who escaped Ecuador and a drug cartel, then being bullied and learning Karate and winning the all valley. Then getting paralyzed, recovering and almost winning the all valley again all while apparently getting marks that make him competitive for Stanford. Not sure that being team captain for an international tournament really adds much more to that. I have no idea how that would work but would Tori realistically have any chance of being her little brother's guardian? I mean she is still in high school, so she is maybe 18. The only job we have ever seen her have is that creepy mermaid thing. And she has a juvenile criminal record. Rather than the Sekai Takai (which is a once a year thing) it seems like if she wants to fight for money she would be better off figuring out how to convert her karate skills to MMA fighting.

That could be interesting if we hear about that kind of thing going down. I read once years ago that part of the reason that Tony Stark spends so much time out of the suit in Iron Man 3 is because RDJ made like $75 million out of that movie and Marvel/Disney's logic was that if they were paying him that much they didn't want it to just be a voice over job. But RDJ is probably in a much better bargaining position now.

The dump truck full of money thing falls apart though when you consider that he probably already has a Scrooge McDuck style money bin full of Marvel money. And he is 59 so it's more money than he could ever spend. I have to imagine that Marvel would have to bring something more to the table then just money to convince him to give up probably a year of his life.