Sometimes, the dictionary just doesn't have the word you need. But sometimes, you have the opposite problem: there's a word but no definition. Help Webster's fill in the blanks. Give us a definition for the following word:
dronophone (noun) -- ??
Saturday, February 9, 2013
Open Thread -- Vox Populi (And Game)
Sometimes, the dictionary just doesn't have the word you need. But sometimes, you have the opposite problem: there's a word but no definition. Help Webster's fill in the blanks. Give us a definition for the following word:
dronophone (noun) -- ??
Dronophone(noun): Any telephonic unit in which the transmission portion has been disabled while the earpiece continuously plays long speeches by President Obama.
ReplyDeleteUseage in sentence: Please turn off the dronophone! I'll talk! I'll talk!
LOL! Very nice! :)
ReplyDeleteI think that would get most people to talk.
Dronophone (noun) : fear of having to listen to Obama's State of The Union address. (See also dronophobe:fear of death by government.)
ReplyDeleteBev, "Death by government" is probably the most common form of death on the planet. Scary, huh?
ReplyDeletedronophone: it's like mono and stereo, but you know, it drones! They'll start coming out with dronophonic records! :-)
ReplyDeleteAs an aside, I just watched Red Tails. Now, I admire Lucas' intentions here, not to mention that young black boys can use positive role models...
...but you know the phrase "Subtle as a sledge hammer"? This movie was as subtle as Thor's hammer! At times, the dialogue sounded like something right out of an after school special and overall, it had a TV movie vibe to it, more so than the actual HBO TV movie about the same thing from almost 20 years ago!
And at first, most of the white characters were just awful racist stereotypes ("Negro pilots?!") and after the guys prove their skills, then everything is fine, like, "Hey, racism is over now!" All very simplistic and on the nose.
And while I prefer to have credits at the beginning of films instead of the end, this movie could've saved them till the end. Instead, they put the opening credits over the first dogfight scene - it was like watching a TV show.
Scott, I struggled with that one from the opening frame and it lost me about twenty minutes in. It felt like it was going to be an uber-cliched lecture on race.
ReplyDeleteAndrew -
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't call it a lecture, but uber-cliched is correct.
Too bad the Blu-Ray doesn't include a "dronophonic" audio track - might've made it better. :-)
Scott, dronophonic sounds makes everything better. That's when there are drones hovering outside your house blaring the soundtrack right?
ReplyDeleteIt was uber-cliched to the point that it actively turned me off. And the sense that it was going to turn into an Afternoon Special on race made me decide I wanted nothing to do with this film.
Scott, I think this film more than any proves that Lucas just sucks as a filmmaker. The man truly has no ability to tell stories. I don't know how he stumbled upon Star Wars... it must have been the studio interference that made that one work.
ReplyDeletedronophone: What Obama calls when he wants to attack American citizens.
ReplyDeleteScott, didn't you know that racism abruptly ended in 1945, courtesy of Terence Howard and an air squadron with a flashy name? Sheesh! You kids need to learn your history....
ReplyDeleteT-Rav, Yup. It's like the Batphone only evil.
ReplyDeleteNolte at BH has an article extoling the benefits of Netflix streaming. While JN can get a bit ripe, he's right on the money with this one. I purchased a bluray player with streaming and if cable didn't have sports I'd kill my cable today.
ReplyDeleteLINK
K, I suspect that streaming is the wave of the future, but I'm not sure. My experiences with Netflix have been ok, but it's not something I would use to replace my television -- I get DirecTV
ReplyDeleteK -
ReplyDeleteNolte's not doing the movement any favors with his... snark.
Having said that, while I understand why things are the way they are (it's all about the money), I'd cut the cord in a heartbeat if I could. A friend of mine has a Roku box and, between Amazon Prime, Netflix, a family member's HBO GO account, and Redbox, he's pretty much covered.
Speaking of Redbox, this service has become my new best friend. I can rent a Blu-Ray for $1.50 and it's due the following day by 9:00 PM. Some studios are delaying Redbox releases by a month but I can wait. (And some studios print rental-only discs with no extras but I'll live.)
Scott, For me, the problem is one of convenience -- I don't like having to hunt around to find all the things I want to watch... plus, I like to browse to see what I might like or I end up watching the same things over and over... plus, I like things all over the place so I would need a package that duplicates cable.
ReplyDeleteHas anyone seen these ads for Jack the Giant Slayer or whatever the heck it is? Sheesh! Do we have to turn every fairy tale into an action-packed epic movie now? Who is even demanding that? .............
ReplyDeleteT-Rav -
ReplyDeleteI read about that movie a while ago and at one point I thought it had been released already. Guess not, but it was delayed.
The title threw me off at first: is Jack a slayer of giants... or a slayer who happens to be very big?
And yeah, apparently we have to turn every fairy tale into an action film or a teen romance. :-)
From the ads, it looks like they are remaking Van Helsing only they're calling it Hansel and Gretel and it stars Jason Bourne.
ReplyDeleteI think they should reboot The Three Little Pigs as a science-fiction-porno-political-thriller. :)
ReplyDeleteAndrew -
ReplyDeleteThat was Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters. T-Rav is referring to Jack the Giant Slayer... big difference. One is about hunting while the other is about slaying. :-)
I would love to see The Three Little Pigs as a sci-fi political thriller.
Leave the porno out of it - you know it'll get the porn parody treatment eventually, as does seemingly everything else nowadays.
Scott, There's a difference between hunting and slaying? Ah yes... I see the wisdom of it.
ReplyDeleteGood point about the porno, we can release the porno version separately and double our money! :)
As an aside, I just stumbled upon the movie Battleshit on HBO. I think it's time to DVR this sucker and see how bad it really is.
I just checked Battleship out from the library today! (I started checking out titles from the library after I remembered it didn't cost anything.)
ReplyDeleteA friend of mine whose judgement I trust said it actually wasn't the worst thing in the world. This is the same guy who, after seeing the second Transformers movie, told me, "Michael Bay is retarded."
I would never be so politically incorrect as to call Michael Bay "retarded."
ReplyDeleteBesides, he's not a retard, he's actually a genius. He's found the perfect way to tap into the lowest common denominator of the American public and empty the wallets of those retards. That's inspiring! :D
I have had nothing but good things to say about DirecTV after 7 years other than the fact they early moved like any good oligopolist company to gain total control over you (e.g. you "lease" each receiver so they can knick you every month for every receiver you have. The problems with HD satellite signal in the rain has greatly diminished. While I haven't checked other providers, for the longest while, they have been the only provider to rent their new titles in 1080P. I still am a huge fan of Blu-Ray for my favorites due to the ability to provide HD 7.1 sound. In a properly calibrated system, and room, it is such a different experience, it is like seeing an entirely different film.
ReplyDeleteJed, I've had DirecTV since 2000 and I love it. I have no complaints at all, except we had an issue with a tree at one point. Beyond that though, it's fantastic -- good quality, nice original material sometimes, great selection, and I'm fine with the cost.
ReplyDeleteJust read the Nolte article. I'm not ready to go that route, but I do like the notion of not subsidizing MSNBC et. al. Likewise, I dropped HBO, SHO because I felt a duty to not give my hard earned money to the bastards that run them. I realize, they have some superb shows, but I can live with it.
ReplyDeleteScottDS: is Jack a slayer of giants... or a slayer who happens to be very big?
ReplyDeleteGood point! I'm surprised Marketing didn't step in and squash that title like a bug.
Andrew: So you've no qualms about subsidizing MSNBC? Or Current TV?Or CNN? Or the Oprah channel Or HBO left vision or ......
ReplyDeleteIntel cable TV has now offered subscriptions to individual channels - which is where all cable should go IMO.
"From the ads, it looks like they are remaking Van Helsing only they're calling it Hansel and Gretel and it stars Jason Bourne."
ReplyDeleteBa-dum-tis!
K, Not really. Nothing in life is perfect and so far I haven't found a system that lets me exclude those channels and yet still gives me the channels I want.
ReplyDeletere: Michael Bay
ReplyDeleteBlogger Furious D has a theory about Michael Bay: HE is the last rebel in Hollywood.
Link: LINK
A section:
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I think Bay's success is based on an unspoken invisible contract between him and the audience, one that cannot be articulated by either side, but each sort of understands that it's there. This invisible contract is based on something that Hollywood claims to revere, but in fact abhors: rebellion.
Yes, I've come to the conclusion that Michael Bay is the last rebel left in Hollywood.
I can read you're mind, and you're thinking that I've lost mine. Well don't worry, just let me explain, and everything will come clear.
In Hollywood, everything is about conformity, especially among those that Hollywood considers rebels. Just look at them, they all wear the same designer tattered clothing, have the same artfully messy hair, the same tattoos, and the same stereotypical vices. They're sort of person you meet at a bar who lectures you about how you're a slave to corporate consumer culture while they're dragging on Phillip Morris cigarette, and downing Seagram's brand liquor.
These are safe rebels, and no matter how much they deny it, they're corporate friendly rebels. Their style and lifestyle ensures their dependence on the largess of their corporate masters. They'll make fun of the beliefs and attitudes of the general audience, making jabs at religion, middle class mores, and their so-called "consumerist" culture, while never challenging the innate hypocrisy within their own social circle.
They'll take the occasional jab about their employers, but that's actually preferred by their masters, because it makes them feel like they're one of the cynical post-modern cool kids, hanging with the rebels with the wild hair and clothes and joining in on "sticking it to the man."
It's all phonier than an studio executive's expense claim.
Michael Bay makes no pretense of sticking it to the man, in fact, he goes swanning around like he is The Man. His image is of the cocky, arrogant, I'm Michael Fucking Bay and you're not, who still has the same haircut and dress sense he had in the 1980s, and he isn't going to change just to fit in with the other messy haired pseudo-rebels.
He knows that he's never going to win an Oscar, or even get nominated, or even a good review from a major critic, and he doesn't seem to give a shit because he's literally making Optimus Prime-loads of cash and those who don't like him or his films can kiss his probably well-toned behind.
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Kit, That's how it struck me! :P
ReplyDelete
ReplyDeleteHBO, Watched the VEEP last spring and loved it. Been watching Boardwalk Empire on DVD and am enjoying it. Couldn't get through Game of Thrones (though Tyrion is awesome).
Favorite tv show on basic network is probably ONCE UPON A TIME. Outside of that I really enjoy Justified and Doctor Who.
Netflix has some good stuff. From Avengers: EMH (Why did Disney cancel it?) to Mythbusters to Dirty Jobs to Doctor Who to Buffy the Vampire Slayer to its spin-off Angel to Michael Woods documentaries like "In Search of Shakespeare" . . .
Jack the Giant Slayer,
ReplyDeleteBuffy Summers called, and she wants her title back!
Kit, I don't think Bay is that deep. I think he just likes money and doesn't care about making anything that will be remembered.
ReplyDelete"Kit, That's how it struck me!"
ReplyDeleteThat's Michael Bay. As Furious D also points out. Bay may insult your intelligence in the most obscene ways but he won't insult your existence.
Sorry, I thought your earlier comment was in response to my Michael Bay comment. I apologize for confusing them.
ReplyDeleteNow, to Michael Bay. Another selection from Furious D's pontificating on Bay. (emphasis mine)
"He's not rebelling against the middle class mores that they themselves live by, he's rebelling against the snobbishness and insularity of Hollywood itself. This drives Hollywood nuts, spawning a mini-industry of Michael Bay haters, who can't stand him, or his movies, resent that most of them make a lot of money, and that he's doesn't want to be one of the "cool kids" preferring to just be one of the "rich kids" and rubbing it in. He goads the haters even further, making his films, and his own image, bigger, louder, and more obnoxious every year."
Of course, there is the theory put forth at Threedonia: He is your fourteen year-old self as a director.
ReplyDeleteAll this being said. I will be attending film camp this summer and, given the number of wanna-be artistes, the temptation to say "My favorite director is Michael Bay" will be very hard to resist. :)
Kit, My problem with Bay is that his movies are so dumb that they create mini-black holes of dumbness which could well one day suck in the entire planet.
ReplyDeleteMy problem with Bay is that I can't watch his fricken movies. I want to watch them. I really really want to watch them. Cool shape changing robots destroying stuff and giant worms and sh*t - what's not to like? But I start to watch and inside of 5 minutes it occurs to me that I haven't polished the family silver in over a year or maybe it's time to wash the car or mow the lawn - anything rather than continue to be assaulted by more Michael Bayness.
ReplyDeleteK, I know what you mean. I started watching the 3rd or 4th Transformers film and it was such a pointless, incomprehensible blur that I literally decided there was no point in watching the film because almost anything else would have been a better use of my time. My mind literally went on strike against the movie.
ReplyDeleteDronophone? A college professor(or similar type)who likes to hear himself talk, never making a point, and will never shut up. They are easiest to tell by the number of people sleeping around them.
ReplyDeleteMichael Bay, you know a lot of films are no different than any else coming out Hollywood these days. With one difference, I can follow what's going on. Unlike what shlock Abrams makes, I have no idea of what is going on in his stuff.
Dronophone: a person who is partial to the language spoken on planet Drono.
ReplyDeleteI just watched 30 minutes or so of Spike Lee's She Hate Me. Spike Lee needs to not only stop making movies, but shut the f--- up about the efforts of real directors like Eastwood, Tyler Perry (who I don't think much of) and Tarantino.
ReplyDeleteWhen I flipped to that movie, the protagonist was walking in with flowers to visit his fiancee. He finds he having very enthusiastic sex with another woman and angrily tells her 'We were about too be married!' and storms off.
The next scene shows a bunch of big, ugly women giving him money to get them pregnant saying stuff like 'I'm a basketball player and I'm going to lay you out and post you you up' and 'I heard women have a better chance of getting pregnant when they climax, so you better make me happy'. So there are some brief comic relief scenes which show the guy taking pills and red bull and suchlike.
Then his ex fiancee comes by with money for him to get her pregnant. After they have sex and as she is leaving, her girlfriend comes by presumably so the guy can get her pregnant. The next scene shows the hero riding on a bike having an argument with his religious brother about the merits of what he is doing.
The scene after that shows his ex-fiancee and the fiancee's girlfriend arguing about the fact that the ex-girlfriend visited him to get pregnant. It ends with them once again having sex.
Then there is a scene where some older white woman who is a friend of the hero warns him that the company knows about his business of impregnating women, and they are going to use that against him. Naturally, she then confesses that she loves being pregnant and asks him how much she's have to pay him to be impregnated. He just asks that a guy give her a note. At that point I changed the channel.
My wife woke up during on the movie's many sex scenes and raised an eyebrow at me, then started laughing. I told her that that this wasn't a porn film, but a film from a respected director, but she didn't believe me (she's never heard of Spike Lee probably because he doesn't get much coverage in Spanish language media).
Reading the wikipedia page, the guy becomes some sort of national hero at the end of the movie, winds up in a relationship with his ex-fiancee and her girlfriend, and establishes relationships with all of the kids the lesbians had with him.
Anyone who is ever criticized by Spike Lee ought to just refer people to She Hate Me and leave it at that.
My problem with Bay's films isn't that they are stupid. Many, many action movies are stupid (the plot is often just an excuse for the combat). The problem with Bay's films is that the last great action sequence he directed was in The Rock.
ReplyDeleteHaven't bothered to watch it, but Ben Carson's speech has certainly set the conservative world afire. Unsurprisingly, its gotten very little coverage in the mainstream media (Carson's extremely successful in life, he isn't an idiot and he has a track record in the community so discrediting him would be tough).
ReplyDeleteI doubt most people know who he is, but Ben Carson is a black neurosurgeon at John Hopkins who is by all accounts very intelligent and very good at what he does. At the latest Prayer Breakfast he lit into Obama over Obamacare.
A few months ago both my daughters (then 7 and 11) were reading different school assigned books about him.
Apparently he's been active in social conservative circles for a while. If he doesn't pop up in the political arena in the future, it will only be because of his health problems (he's a cancer survivor).
"Kit, My problem with Bay is that his movies are so dumb that they create mini-black holes of dumbness which could well one day suck in the entire planet."
ReplyDeleteThat is true.
Anthony,
ReplyDelete2 things:
Your description of "She Hate Me" had me laughing. That sounds... bad.
I thought the action scene in Pearl Harbor was decently done. Of course, his cinematographer wasn't a Monkey on ecstasy.
And no transformer testicles (WTF!).
Max, I believe I had that professor!
ReplyDeleteEl Gordo, LOL! That is the correct answer! :)
Anthony, I have to say I was never a fan of Spike Lee. I think he traffics in controversy rather than quality.
ReplyDeleteI've never seen the film you mention, but it does sound a lot like a porno.
On Bay, I think he's the classic example of a CGI-addict.
I haven't heard of Carson.
"On Bay, I think he's the classic example of a CGI-addict."
ReplyDeleteOf course.
I'm not against CGI like some people are. In fact, it can be very good when used properly.
For example, here are some CGI clips from GAME OF THRONES: LINK
Now, to put those effects in perspective in terms of money according to eonline.com (Link below) the pilot cost around $10 million dollars with each subsequent episode costing about $6 million on average.
Now lets do the math here
1 $10 million dollar episode
9 $6 million dollar episodes.
Multiply $6,000,000 by 9 and you get $54,000,000.
Add $10,000,000 for the pilot and you have a total of $64,000,000 for the whole season.
Now lets get runtime here. I did add them all up and got a total runtime of about 565 minutes. With an average of 56.5 per episode.
Now lets look at Michael Bay's transformers.
A look at wikipedia shows Transformers 3 cost $195 million for a runtime of 154 minutes.
Lets look at efficiency:
Transformers cost divided by GOT cost
195/64 = 3.05
Transformers runtime divided by GoT runtime
565/154 = 3.67
So, this means Transformers was 3 times the cost of the first season of Game of Thrones and for a runtime that was less than a third of the length.
For another comparison. The budget of the LOTR trilogy together was $281 million. That is about $93 million per movie.
Just for kicks, lets add in Inflation. $93,000,000 in 2001 would be about $118048562.83 today. $76951437.17 less than Transformers.
So the Lord of the Rings is STILL cheaper than Transformers.
And each one of those movies was longer than Transformers.
FotR: 178 min
TTT: 179 min
RotK: 200 min
I wonder what that says about Michael Bay's cost effectiveness as a director.
Link: http://www.eonline.com/news/318306/holy-flaming-warships-how-expensive-is-game-of-thrones-anyway
And, as far as I know, the above figures are not just CGI cost but total cost.
ReplyDeleteI think with She Hate Me Spike Lee was hoping to provoke a ferocious reaction from social conservatives (who would have been offended by the movie's values) and gays (who would have been offended because the movie made the lesbians hideously ugly and domineering, while the bisexual women were hot) which would drive people into theaters.
ReplyDeleteNeither group rose to he bait in any meaningful way and audiences steered clear of a crappy drama with an ridiculous plot and repulsive, unbelievable characters.
I think Spike Lee has always courted controversy, but in the past he also tried to make good movies. It seems like in the past decade and a half or so, he has given up on the good movie part, which is why audiences have given up on him.
I have to admit that I can turn off my brain and enjoy a MBay film for the grand explosiveness that it is.
ReplyDeleteas for dronophone - I had that prof in college! Upper level history (US after WWII) - and he READ to us out of the text book. Unfortunately he also took attendance and docked you if you weren't there. I wish I had taken that class after the advent of iPhones, ipods, tablets, or in-class use of laptops. Instead, I took it in the early 90s, and all I could do was wish I was somewhere else...