The Bad Review Revue

The Lion King (2019): “Some of these remakes have been more inspired than others, but few have felt quite as futile as The Lion King. This isn’t the circle of life; it’s more like a creative dead end.” — Justin Chang, NPR

Stuber: “With apologies to Foghat, this latest effort is a slow ride; perhaps Stupor would have been a better title.” — Matt Brunson, Film Frenzy

The Secret Life of Pets 2: “Insert the obligatory you-can’t-teach-an-old-dog-new-tricks reference here, and even at 83 minutes, the three mini movies that are The Secret Life of Pets 2 struggle to keep the laughs going.” — Julie Crawford, North Shore News

Men in Black International: “One of those memory-erasing flashes would be nice right about now, please.” — Adam Graham, Detroit News

Aladin (2019): “In short, it’s a whole old world.” — Anthony Lane, New Yorker

Scary Clown on Venice Beach

My sister and two of her kids were in Los Angeles over the weekend to watch the Premier Lacrosse League All Star Game. After picking up her rental car, first thing they did was hit up Venice Beach near Santa Monica pier. She was having a good time with her boys when four helicopters (at least one police) showed up, and surrounded what she described as a scary clown guy that had been in a slow-speed police pursuit. Although he attracted a crowd, my sister said it was frightening and she wanted nothing to do with the action. It took a while but eventually an officer followed the man onto the beach, waited for more officers to arrive and they arrested the man.

Full story after the jump.


Continue reading “Scary Clown on Venice Beach”

Picard

Star Trek Picard Title

I’m super excited about the new Star Trek. I love all of the surprises that come at the end of this trailer. I never got into Voyager so I’m not super into the backstory of Seven of Nine but I’m guessing Picard won’t be either. I was however, super into TNG and Picard centred episodes were my favourite. Here’s the trailer if you haven’t already watched it multiple times yet:

Man Will Spacewalk

Neil Armstrong and Moon Lander

With today being the 50th Anniversary of Neil Armstrong’s historic walk on the moon, I bring you this little classic reverse speech from the first words spoken on the surface of the moon which, when reversed, sound like “man will spacewalk”.

Neil Armstrong’s Moon Landing Speech Backwards

Play Forward

Forward:’a small step for a man’

Play in Reverse

Reverse: ‘Man will spacewalk.’

Also of interest, on this anniversary of scientific achievement, NASA has released a collection of 45 panoramic photos from the surface of the moon based on images stitched together from the various Apollo missions.

(Previously, on Jeffmilner.com.)

Electability on McSweeney’s

caricatures of Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump

I Don’t Think a Woman Is Electable In 2020 Because Last Time Around the Female Nominee Only Got Three Million More Votes Than Her Opponent by Tom Smyth

Now don’t get me wrong, I love Elizabeth Warren and Kamala Harris. But as great as they and the other female candidates are, I think Democrats should be focusing more on a sure-fire nominee who can beat Trump. Electability should be our number one priority, and I’m just not sure if America is ready to embrace a female candidate yet — especially considering that Hillary Clinton only got three million more votes than Donald Trump in 2016.

Ian

Last week, we welcomed new baby boy, Ian, to our family. His stats: 9lbs (4.1 kg) and 20 1/2 inches (52cm). He likes snuggling, eating, sleeping, and processing food. Both mom and baby are doing great — most importantly… he’s a sweetheart.

The Bad Review Revue

The Hustle: “Even with a running time of 93 minutes, The Hustle felt about an hour too long.” — Richard Roeper, Chicago Sun Times

Dumbo: “I felt warmly toward Dumbo, but not ‘Dumbo.'” — Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune

Little: “Little is no Big.” — Max Weiss, Baltimore Magazine

The Intruder: “If the protagonists in this film were any more dense, they would only exist as a thick fog.” — Matt Brunson, Creative Loafing

Barnwell

Yesterday I started at my new position in Barnwell. There’s not a lot to say, other than things have been working out pretty well and I’m looking forward to the rest of the year. Grade five has a lot of interesting things to relearn before I teach it to my new students. For example, I learned today that Socrates was put to death by a jury of his peers for his anti-democratic opinions. He thought that the smartest people should lead in government, rather than the lottery system that was customary at the time. Smart guy, that Socrates.

David Sedaris at the MAC

I’m lucky enough to be married to an extremely observant woman. While we were touristing around downtown Lahaina, Maui, my wife saw a poster for David Sedaris doing a show at the Maui Arts Center in just a few days. She knows I’m a fan and asked if I wanted to go. I was hesitant to put up the money just to hear an author read — but who am I kidding, I love David Sedaris and have since the first time I heard him on This American Life so many years ago.

It turns out, it was money well spent, because Mr. Sedaris didn’t take long before he was sharing his list of money making ideas.

I was in my Sussex kitchen not long ago squinting at what was either a pheasant or an armless troll racing across the road in front of the house when I got the idea for prescription windows.

It would be perfect for people like me who don’t want to wear glasses indoors and so I mentioned it to my friend Ingrid who said, “Oh, that’s brilliant.” She’s one of those women who will support you in just about anything you do. Slap some cheese between two slices of bread and it’s “My God, you’re amazing!” Calm down I sometimes want to say. I didn’t invent the sandwich — I just did what other before me have. This time though, I felt the praise was justified. And so, I put prescription windows on my list of million dollar ideas, realizing hours later that what works for me would not work for Hugh, or any of our frequent house guests who have different prescription problems or none at all. Still they might be good for a near-sighted loner who never has any company so I left them on the list. Right below cigarette butts with seeds in them.

And after a brief segue from some other million dollar ideas into stories about how cheap some people can be, he finished with a short digression about how his husband doesn’t like to admit how much he appreciates their wealth but that when it comes to million dollar ideas maybe his husband could give it a try. It was a brilliant story.

After the applause began to wane he slyly added, “You never want to say this before you read something… I wrote that today!”

Brilliant.