I was worried when I heard that there was going to be a Toy Story 4 because the third one ended the series on a high note. I thought that it could only be downhill from there. But I was pleasantly surprised to discover Toy Story 4 is a solid sequel that ties up some loose threads from the previous film and finishes Woody’s story in a satisfying way.
In honor of this monumental achievement of four practically perfect films in the Toy Story series, I would like to boil down each of them to a single word that describes their unique themes. And then I’ll provide elements of their stories that correspond to those words.Continue reading →
Beyond the fact that Ian Fleming created him as a white man and that’s how he’s always been portrayed on film and TV from the very beginning, James Bond can never be a woman for a few important reasons. And that’s true of any actor who bears the title 007.Continue reading →
Terminator 2: Judgment Day has a number of great lines, and probably the most famous is Arnold Schwarzenegger’s legendary delivery of “Hasta la vista, baby.” But I’ve started to wonder if it was originally intended as a bait-and-switch, meaning that we were supposed to anticipate him saying a different line, but instead got that one. Let me make the case by first sharing the scene that introduced a number of potential catchphrases to the Terminator’s lexicon.
As you can see, John Connor gives the Terminator several options to choose from, and the Terminator even experiments with them a little, producing “Chill out, dickwad.” It’s a funny little scene that has a great payoff. Later, the T-1000 gets drenched in liquid nitrogen and starts breaking off his extremities as they stick to the ground. Pretty soon he’s frozen solid, and the Terminator sees this as a perfect opportunity for one of his quips. Which one does he choose? You know the answer.
Even though this is an iconic moment, doesn’t it seem like a more appropriate line would have been “Chill out, dickwad”? I mean, the setup is perfect. The T-1000 is frozen solid, so it’s the perfect time for a cold-related pun. Were we supposed to think that that’s where the film was going? Was it supposed to be a surprise when the Terminator said “Hasta la vista, baby” instead? I’m not sure. This wouldn’t be the first time James Cameron has used a fun little scene to set up something amazing later on, the way he did with Ripley’s power loader in Aliens and liquid oxygen in The Abyss.
I’m definitely not saying that the line should have been anything other than what we got, but it’s just interesting that there was another perfectly plausible alternative. What do you think? Was “Hasta la vista, baby” intended as a bait-and-switch?
Oh, and Arnold Schwarzenegger more than made up for the lack of an icy pun in this instance a few years later with his infamous portrayal of Mr. Freeze in Batman & Robin.
This is the Deja Reviewer bidding you farewell until we meet again.
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I recently sat down with a couple of researchers who wanted to hear my opinion on banking. And I gave them an interview they’ll never forget. I told them that I didn’t trust banks or credit unions because of my knowledge of fractional reserve banking. They didn’t know what I was talking about, so I went back to 1913 and the creation of the Federal Reserve and laid out the history of the decline of the dollar and the fact that every dollar represents debt, not value, since there will never be enough of them to pay off all of the debt in the country. I challenged them to walk into their bank and ask for $10,000 of their own money in cash and see what the teller would say. They would go into panic mode and request several days to come up with that kind of cash. Banks are that close to insolvency. It doesn’t take much to start a bank run. Needless to say, this was all shocking to them because they had apparently never heard anyone talk like this before.
After all that, they asked me to describe my perfect bank, if I ran one. I would call it the Brutal Bank. I told them that my perfect bank would be brutally honest with people, telling clients bluntly that they shouldn’t go into debt for frivolous reasons like vacations or cars. I’d tell potential customers if they were lousy or not. And I wouldn’t say it for the sake of hurting their feelings, but to save them from self-destruction. I’d be hurtful but helpful. It would be an opportunity to educate people about how banks operate. I’d tell them exactly how much money I had in the vault, and I’d explain that for every dollar they put into their savings account, I’d have the freedom to eventually lend up to 10 dollars thanks to the nightmare of the multiplier effect. At the conclusion, I told them I’d be the worst bank of all time, and (to my surprise) they replied, “Not necessarily.”
I had earned their respect by telling them painful things they probably didn’t want to hear. I basically laid out everything that I discussed in my Brewster’s Millions article. One of the researchers was tasked with writing down what I said while the other asked most of the questions, and toward the end of the interview, the one writing said he had gotten so much good material from me.
If you want to earn someone’s respect, tell them something they don’t want to hear, but that they need to hear. I’d like to share a few examples of this from the following four films:Continue reading →
My oldest brother, who inspired the Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade/Tomb Raider comparison, is back with another movie matchup along those same lines. It turns out that more than 20 years before Frozen debuted, there was another Anna and Elsa. Specifically Indiana and Elsa. And their story didn’t end well.Continue reading →
Dumb and Dumber has a lot in common with The Man Who Knew Too Little. They’re both ‘90s comedies, and they feature top-tier comedians: the former stars Jim Carrey early in his career while the latter stars Bill Murray late in his. But the similarities go much deeper than that. One of these films is fondly remembered today and the other has mostly disappeared into obscurity, but both have a lot of great laughs to offer. Let’s see how Dumb and Dumber compares to The Man Who Knew Too Little.Continue reading →
What could be worse than failing? That’s easy. Being forced to fail over and over again without the dignity of at least being able to walk away in shame. Now that’s the stuff of nightmares.
And that’s exactly how the 1992 film Mr. Baseball begins. I couldn’t find the original English version of this clip, but even though this one is in a different language, you can still get the gist of what’s going on. When Tom Selleck’s character steps up to the plate, the pressure’s on because he’s already got two strikes. One more and he’s out. And then this happens.Continue reading →
It’s finally here! The movie I wrote and directed as a teenager in the summer of 1997 and got all of my brothers and one of my sisters to star in it. The Paddielphia Experiment. For a number of reasons, I had to delay its release by a few weeks. But I finally got all of the footage I needed, and now it is ready to share with the world. So sit back (and probably crank up the volume because the dialogue isn’t as loud as I’d like it to be) and prepare to be amused by my first attempt at filmmaking. I gave myself the first line of dialogue, by the way.Continue reading →
Do you think that doing the same thing again and again and expecting a different result is the definition of insanity? Try telling that to Andy Dufresne. Over the course of The Shawshank Redemption, Andy builds a library, earns more than three hundred thousand dollars, invents a new identity for himself, and escapes from prison – all by patiently doing the same boring things day after day. The only difference between him and the average person is that he is remarkably consistent in his work.Continue reading →
Several things kept me from finishing The Paddielphia Experiment this week. The footage was incomplete, I got really sick, and it seems like everything combined to prevent me from getting my work done. I know. Excuses, excuses. But I promise I’m on the mend and, barring any catastrophic event, I should be back on track next week.
So, I’m sorry that I have to delay one more time, but it should be worth the wait.
This is the Deja Reviewer bidding you farewell until we meet again.
Deja Reviewer 