OK, not really discovered since I had to look it up, but until yesterday I never knew the meaning of the 80’s pop rock song “Kyrie” by Mr. Mister.
Just reread a reprint of the first Batman comic with Alfred. He shows up at Wayne Manor, saying he promised his father, who had been Thomas Wayne’s butler, to become Bruce’s butler.
Bruce remembers the father, whose name was Jarvis.
Jarvis was the name of the Avengers’ butler in the comic books for decades. I wonder if his name came from this source, inadvertently or on purpose.
And this song is doubly clever because each line also works if you hear it as Kyrie lays on… (through the darkness of the night, down the road I must travel))
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Someone pointed out to me it could also be “*Carry a laser *down the road that I must travel…”
Works better for me.
I was watching the movie Stardust again tonight. It’s a fun fantasy movie–I own the blu ray and have seen it several times. I caught a couple of things this time that I really should have noticed before.
The main character (played by Charlie ‘Daredevil’ Cox) is trying to woo local village girl Victoria (Sienna Miller), but he has a romantic rival–Humphrey. I realized tonight that Humphrey is played by Henry Cavill. When this movie first came out he was still several years away from being the Man of Steel, but I’ve watched Stardust in more recent years and still hadn’t recognized him until now. The blond hair threw me off.
The other thing I noticed is a throwaway line by one of the late king’s sons. He says his father (played by Peter O’Toole) used to ride a camel in his youth–an obvious reference to Lawrence of Arabia.
I never realized how Half-Life’s setting and plot are a direct reference/counter to the setting and plot of Doom which had been released just five years earlier.
Doom is the story of a top secret government research facility experimenting with teleportation technology, when suddenly something goes wrong and evil demonic creatures invade and murder everyone in the facility. Then the Space Marines are deployed but almost all are wiped out except the player character dubbed only as “The Doom Marine” who already being a badass (as elaborated on in the instruction manual when he punched his Commanding Officer after he issued an unlawful order) takes a bunch of kickass weapons and single-handedly kills all the demons and stops the invasion for good.
Half-Life is the story of a top secret government research facility experimenting with teleportation technology, when suddenly something goes wrong and evil alien creatures invade and murder everyone in the facility. Then the US Marines are deployed but almost all are wiped out except for one character (who isn’t important to the discussion right now) Instead it’s up to one of the brainy scientists Gordon Freeman who is most definitely NOT a badass (his biggest achievement pre-game is his Ph.D. in theoretical physics) but is forced to fend for his life anyway with initially only a crappy selection of weapons. Along the way he survives only because he’s helped out by both the remaining scientist and security personnel but also by a mysterious benefactor. The game ends when he kills all the aliens and stops the invasion (though only temporarily as the games sequels point out).
It’s a nice compare/contrast of how the differing ideas of protagonists in first-person shooters changed within the same decade, from all powerful badasses who don’t need help to more human protagonists who heavily rely on others to win.
After 50+ years of watching ‘Leave It To Beaver’, something just dawned on me.
Eddie Haskell frequently makes cracks about ‘the warden’. (“Hey, is the warden home?”, “So the warden let you out tonight”).
Today, out of the blue, it occurred to me that ‘warden’ was a play on Ward Cleaver’s name.
Anyone else make (or miss) this connection?
mmm
I was watching the 1940 version of Pride and Prejudice the other day and burst out laughing, because the scene at the assembly ball where the camera moves between different couples reminded me so much of the Muppets ballroom sketches. Might not be related at all, but I can’t unsee it now…
I know I’m replying to posts that are a little old now.
The title is more brilliant than that when you consider the entire novel was an analogy of the VietnamWar and the authors feelings of alienation when he returned. At the time Vietnam was our longest war, our forever war. Now the current conflict is sometimes being described as the Forever War without many knowing where the term comes from.
Then you obviously aren’t Catholic. As a teenager I understood it from hearing it in mass every week. It still seems to be a weird choice for a pop song.
I think the Muppets were just riffing on what was a standard camera move for those types of scenes, not paying homage to that or any other particular film.
OK, I’ve seen The Sting umpteen times, including in the theater during its initial run. Yesterday I saw it for the umpteenth plus one time and realized something that was pretty obvious.
[ol]
[li]Hooker is eating in the diner[/li][li]He sees a suspicious character through the window[/li][li]He convinces Loretta the waitress to help him escape[/li][li]Hooker lures the hit man into the diner, Loretta helps hide Hooker in a bathroom stall[/li][li]Hooker runs away, but is spotted by the hit man and chased into a dead end alley[/li][li]The hit man runs into the dead end, but Hooker isn’t there.[/li][li]Hit man turns around, sees someone, and a voice says “Salino”.[/li][li]The hit man is shot dead[/li][li] (Skip ahead a bit)[/li][li] Loretta is shot be a bodyguard Gondorff hired to protect Hooker. He tells Hooker, “This is Loretta Salino, she was going to kill you.” He shows Hooker her gun.[/li][/ol]
For over forty years I thought the hit man was Salino (the hit man Lonnegan ordered to kill Hooker), that Hooker’s bodyguard followed them into the blind alley, called Salino’s name, then shot him. Loretta was Salino’s wife who was going to shoot Hooker in revenge for her husband’s death.
Actually, the hit man was Cole (one of the two who botched an earlier hit attempt). He is the one who says “Salino” before he is shot. Loretta Salino was the top hit man that Lonnegan had hired. She shot Cole for muscling into her business (Lonnegan earlier mentioned that Cole was breaking the rules by continuing to go after Hooker, and Salino would be justified in taking care of him).
My interpretation has always had (at least) one big flaw: if Loretta was Salino’s wife, why wouldn’t she expose him to her husband when they were hiding in the bathroom?
:smack::smack::smack::smack::smack:
Just noticed this today. The word Pokemon and Pikmin sound alike. Just a coincidence? Or do they do that intentionally?
Yes, I know Olimar is Mario spelled sideways with an L thrown in.
In David Lynch’s Dune, I just noticed that Gurney Halleck (Patrick Stewart) charges into battle against the Harkonnans carrying what I assume is an Atreides war pug.
As we eventually see Gurney again, but not the pug, I must also assume it was killed by a Harkonnen laser cat.
The pug does show up again, near the end of the longer Smithee cut. One of Paul’s adopted sons is holding it just before the “I will kill him!” duel with Sting.
So Gurney did look after the Duke’s little doggie.
This is one of the reasons I’ve always found the “Loretta” plotline to be weak, but really enjoying the film (which I do) requires a lot of suspended disbelief.
This pug stuff reminds me of"Doon", the (Harvard Lampoon?) satire of “Dune”.
In that one, the decadent Baron gives instructions to prepare his room. Paraphrasing from memory:
"And bring me a small boy and a schnauzer. Later I shall wish to be depraved. "
I’m not an expert in this area, but it’s my understanding that a Colt SAA can keep all the rounds in a 5" group at 25 yards. (I am not saying that Eastwood was using an SAA, just that the SAA is a very typical handgun for that general time period.) Some people claim a larger group and some smaller, depending on the condition of the weapon, the barrel length, and the type of ammunition. One problem with achieving these groups is that the sights were often deliberately made to shoot high at a certain range, but this would be irrelevant to someone shooting from the hip.
I’ve already mentioned this in another thread: Watching the first few minutes of Dark Star the other day, I noticed there’s a signpost that someone (Commander Powell) has died. The crew’s quarters are a complete mess, but there’s still one bed neatly made up, with the Commander’s hat and decorations neatly laid out on it in memoriam.
Maybe they were all using customized models, like the one Tuco made for himself at the general store/gun shop. 
For various values of “obvious”, 2 of my favorite Paul Newman movies, “Slap Shot” and “The Verdict” featured riffs on the same character: a loser (for reasons) who is giving/holding a job precisely because the people in power expected him to suck at it.