Via valued commmenter Bostondreams:
To paraphrase a wag on io9, freeze me in carbonite until December!
Open thread.
Reader Interactions
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Come for the politics, stay for the snark.
Too often we hand the biggest microphones to the cynics and the critics who delight in declaring failure.
The jury literally has a bell they can ring to force Trump to show up on command. Greatest thing ever!
“In the future, this lab will be a museum. don’t touch it.”
The party of Reagan has become the party of Putin.
There is one struggling party in US right now, and it’s not the Democrats.
Trump’s legal defense is going to be a dumpster fire inside a clown car on a derailing train.
I really should read my own blog.
Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?
If you’re looking for someone who’s young and athletic, go watch a fucking movie.
Our job is not to persuade republicans but to defeat them.
They were going to turn on one another at some point. It was inevitable.
We are aware of all internet traditions.
Good lord, these people are nuts.
Optimism opens the door to great things.
At some point, the ability to learn is a factor of character, not IQ.
We’re not going back!
I am pretty sure Katy Tur wasn’t always such a bootlicking sycophant.
You don’t get to peddle hatred on saturday and offer condolences on sunday.
Damn right I heard that as a threat.
Republican obstruction dressed up as bipartisanship. Again.
Quote tweet friends, screenshot enemies.
Come on, man.
That’s my take and I am available for criticism at this time.
Nothing says ‘pro-life’ like letting children go hungry.
NotMax
Chewbacca got shorter.
kc
The House has voted to repeat the estate tax.
dmsilev
As I saw noted elsewhere on the web, the Christmas release date offers a horrifying possibility: A remake of the Star Wars Holiday Special.
Be afraid. Be very very afraid.
germy shoemangler
@NotMax: Not enough calcium in his diet? For years I was 5’11”, but recently I was measured during a checkup and told I am now 5’9″.
I am the incredible shrinking man.
The Force Awakens will shatter (as they say) all box office records, I predict. Easy prediction.
germy shoemangler
@kc: Thank Ceiling Cat. Now my kids can inherit tax free the three thousand dollars I’ll probably die with.
Eric S.
I am downright excited about a movie release for the first time in so many years I can’t even count. Why? Why can’t I quit you Star Wars?
Between this and the new Bond flick I may see three movies (The Girl and I saw McFarland, USA, recently) in the theater in a single calendar year. That’ll be a first since I don’t know when.
Fourten
Newfash: Disney puts an old brand in the microwave and tries to pass it off as Thanksgiving dinner.
Hal
@kc: At least they have their priorities. More money for the wealthy!!!
The funniest thing for me is the number of middle class/working class Republicans who support this type of thing even though it is largely a give away for the wealthy. Yes there are some middle class people out there who have saved and are able to leave their relatives with a decent amount of money, but this is really about the rich being able to leave their fortunes to their kids/SuperPacs.
H.K. Anders
@Eric S.: SPECTRE!!!! Can’t wait!!!!
H.K. Anders
@Hal: It’s not largely a giveaway to the wealthy. It is exclusively a giveaway to the wealthy.
I am friends with a right-wing married couple. He is a city firefighter. She is a public school teacher. They vote exclusively Republican. He is passionate on the subject of the “death tax” because he doesn’t think it’s right that the estate he leaves his kids will have to be taxed. It is impossible to get him to understand the estate tax will not apply to what he leaves his kids because what he leaves his kids will amount to no more than his life insurance payout and the equity in their house.
He simply rejects the facts. He knows what he knows, and that’s that.
Trollhattan
Some of the visuals are…whoa, especially the ginormous crashed Imperial whatever ship.
Very glad Han didn’t kill himself in that plane crash.
ranchandsyrup
Martinez, California. Where the martini was named. Also, the place that says that a more affluent school (hilariously named John Swett) should get A/C over a school with more latinos because the latinos are used to it being hot. http://www.buzzfeed.com/adolfoflores/school-official-says-white-students-should-get-air-condition?bftw&utm_term=4ldqpgc#.kdelX2MRjX
Trollhattan
@kc:
Very, very important to ensure the fraction of a percent of all estates subject to the current tax can finally be free of pesky gummint property grabs. Well played, Republicans.
Trollhattan
@ranchandsyrup:
Heh.
“I’m sorry if anybody was offended by my relentless truthiness what exists in my head.”
Martinez is mostly a dump, but lets make it a dump that treats everyone equally.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Taxation of estates begins, I believe, at $5 million, with spouses exempt. There’s another loophole, again I believe (I think burns, esq, is a tax and estate lawyer) that allows each parent to gift each child 500,000 in their lifetime. People play fast and loose with the valuation of assets to get it under half a million. My knowledge of this comes from reading an article about the Mitt-lets hundred million dollar, tax-exempt trust fund, so take all this with block of salt.
I think people who think they’re richer than they are– “My house/IRA/coin collection will be worth a million dollars when I retire in eight years! The Democrats want to raise my taxes!” are one of the R’s best electoral assets.
Eric S.
@Trollhattan: Imperial Star Destroyer. That is a really cool visual.
ranchandsyrup
@Trollhattan: by my logick, John Swett Elementary students should be ready to sweat.
Yeah, Martinez is awful.
raven
Jesus, the guys on the local sports radio were going nuts and now this!
Cacti
@Hal:
Fixed.
In 2015, the first $5.43 million that an individual receives via inheritance is tax exempt. For a married couple, it would be double that. Surviving spouses are also exempt from estate tax.
It’s a giveaway to the rent seeking, idle rich like Paris Hilton, or the Walton family.
raven
Oh noze my facebook is splodin too!
Hal
@H.K. Anders: I had a conservative friend ranting on Facebook the other day about the fair tax. She insisted it was the only way to fairly tax everyone and insisted we should all be paying the same amount of taxes regardless of how much people make. She even went so far as to say that if you don’t spend money, hey, you don’t get taxed, so it’s an incentive to save.
I was blown away since a fair tax would apply to everything from rent, gas and food to prescription drugs, and once again, was really about eliminating things like capital gains, but damn, there was no swaying her. There is something pathological about not rich folks who care so much about the taxes millionaires and billionaires pay.
Cacti
As for the upcoming film, I can hardly wait for Star Wars and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I loves me a good old-fashioned type scandal
I think Shuster is the son of Bud? One of the great pork barons of all time, rivaling Robert Byrd at getting things built and named for him in his district.
Hal
@Cacti: Damn. I didn’t know the amount was that high. I guess my old beer can collection is safe from the IRS!
Tenar Darell
JJ Abrams better not eff this up!
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@dmsilev: unpossible, who could they get to play Bea Arthur’s important part?
Doesn’t Carrie Fischer claim to have no memory of that, she was so high?
Calouste
@Cacti: Wow, $5.43 million per recipient? So if you have 3 kids that are married the first $32-and-a-bit million won’t be taxed?
Gravenstone
That black stormtrooper seems like he can’t breathe through his helmet. He ripped it off and was gasping in the last teaser, too. He might want to talk to someone about that.
gene108
@Hal:
I think people get confused with the capital gains taxes on an ancestors assets that may get assessed on sale of property versus the actual estate tax.
Someone died, there’s an estate and taxes got paid.
Figuring out what taxes got paid is too subtle a distinction for many people.
Betty Cracker
@H.K. Anders:
That’s what we’re up against, and it’s damn near impossible to counter, even if, as in this case, there are independently verifiable facts that people should be able to consult.
Politics as an identity marker is an enormous problem, particularly in a fragmented media environment where people can choose the outlets that confirm their biases. Our side doesn’t completely escape this either, but we’re pikers in the denial game in comparison with Republicans.
Cacti
@Calouste:
If you leave the max to each surviving child and their spouses individually, then yes.
Most people with those kind of assets don’t dispose of them by will in the first place. They set up trusts for their kiddos long before their death.
gene108
Watched the trailer again.
Why does Luke say, “The Force is strong in my family, my father has it, I have it….”
Why the present tense when talking about Anakin / Vader?
Hmmmm……….
replicnt6
@Cacti:
I’m somewhere in the vicinity of 90% sure you’re wrong about that. Estate tax is based on the size of the estate and the exemption applies to the estate. Some states, I believe, have an inheritance tax which applies to the recipients, but I do not believe that there is a Federal inheritance tax.
WaterGirl
Sounds like Chewbacca might be in this one.
My first rescue dog was abandoned by his family – they packed up the kids and the other dog and left the (soon to be my) dog and the cat in the dust as they drove away to California. A co-worker lived next door to the abandoned animals and asked me if I could take the dog for a week as they were leaving on vacation.
He greeted me with the sound of Chewbacca every single time I got home. The “just for a week” thing didn’t take, and the rest is history. But until the day he died, many years later, Chewbacca greeted you at the door when you returned home.
Cacti
@H.K. Anders:
Another thing that most people don’t know is that Life Insurance or other lump sum payable on death benefits are not part of the dead person’s estate, unless they don’t have a named beneficiary. A lump sum life insurance payout to his wife or kids would be fully tax exempt. They would only owe if they received it as an annuity, or in monthly installments, but would pay tax only on interest accrued above the face value of the policy.
So, if you have life insurance, tell your named beneficiaries to opt for the lump sum.
Trollhattan
@gene108:
Isn’t he floating around in Force Limbo along with Yoda and Obi Wan?
(It’s been a long dang time.)
srv
@Tenar Darell: JJ Abrams will take his 8-way lightsaber and cut your cannon, hopes and dreams into pieces. Then he will stab you in your soul while lens flares burst from his director’s megaphone and burn your eyelids off, so you can never unsee a crime worse than the prequels.
@gene108: It’s from RotJ
Villago Delenda Est
Well, the trailer is awesome.
I’m not sure if I can forgive Lucas for allowing Star Wars Galaxies NGE from happening.
We shall see.
Villago Delenda Est
@kc: Matters not. Obama will veto.
Tenar Darell
@srv: Augh! Stop it! /shudders remembering the wreck of Into Darkness
Hal
LOTR saved me from my sci-fi/fantasy doldrums after the prequels. To this day I have not seen the entirety of Revenge of the Sith. I just couldn’t be bothered to care, and that was after I had sat in line for 2 hours to see the Phantom Menace debut at the old Coronet theatre in San Francisco, which I think is a hospice now. So much hope dashed on the cgi rocks. I’m much more excited about this film, but we’ll see.
Turgidson
@Hal:
FWIW, Sith was easily, easily the best one. But, that’s like winning a competition for least offensively terrible. Best I would say about it is, it would be an OK thing to watch on TV if not much else is on.
I told myself I wouldn’t get excited about Episode VII when it was announced, but I have to say this trailer is testing my resolve. Looks pretty cool.
Betty Cracker
@Hal: I hear ya, man. I’m surprised at myself for being as excited about this movie as I am. I should fucking know better! The triumph of hope over experience, I guess…
dogwood
@Betty Cracker:
You can’t counter it. The motivations of insecure and resentful middle and working class Americans who consistently vote against their economic interests seem to baffle Democrats. Republicans understand them perfectly, and know how to flatter their egos. These people aren’t resentful of people who have more than they do. It’s people who know more than they do who make them profoundly uncomfortable and insecure. Democrats are never going to win with a populist appeal that is based on economics alone. Screaming that republicans are picking your pocket ain’t enough. They need an approach that says they’re picking your pocket and they think you’re too stupid to understand it.
Botsplainer
@Gravenstone:
Why would ANYBODY want to be an imperial stormtrooper?
1. The armor sucks ass and can’t repel a club or rock thrown by a teddy bear.
2. Range instructors must suck. Their whiz bang personal space lasers make awesome noise but they can’t seem to hit what they’re within 25 feet of.
3. Their targeting computers on ship-based weapons suck.
4. Their spaceships are built with easily penetrated design flaws.
Cacti
@replicnt6:
You are correct insofar as the tax liability falls on the estate, rather than the beneficiary, and would come out of whatever share they had in the gross estate. But the individual exemptions are calculated against the gross estate, and for the current tax year, they max out at 5.43 million per individual beneficiary. So 100 million dollar estate, plus 3 kids and their 3 spouses all left an equal share, would exempt 32.58 million of the estate’s value from tax, and would fall on the remaining 67.42 million.
ETA: The top federal tax rate for estates I believe is 40% at present. So everyone’s share would work out to a bit over 12 million after federal taxes.
Poor dears.
Botsplainer
@Turgidson:
I’d like the entire series reimagined according to the genius that is Quentin Tarantino.
I’d totally watch that.
Gravenstone
@srv: As at least one wag online has noted, with a Christmas release date, this could well be the Star Wars Holiday Special, Episode II
Gravenstone
@Botsplainer:
Hey now, you can’t blame the stormtroopers for the faults of the Imperial Navy.
Brachiator
@gene108:
But even this often favors recipient. In most cases, the fair market value of inherited property is the fair market value on the date of death of the person passing the property on.
So, aunt Mini bought a house in 1959 for $5,000 in a really nice neighborhood. When she dies, the house is worth a million bucks. You inherit it and immediately sell it for $1.1 million. You’re broke and unemployed that year and the sale is your only income. You’re married and file a joint return (no kids). Your tax on the gain of $100,000 is a whopping $885.
The Republicans think a tax of $885 is too much money.
Cacti
@Botsplainer:
Who would win a fight between the Imperial stormtroopers and the Red-shirted ensigns on Star Trek?
Stormtroopers can’t hit anyone, but any time a red shirt is in the company of Kirk, Spock, and Bones, they have to die.
Belafon
@Botsplainer: Could be worse: You could be an orc in LOTR.
Keith G
But will they release the the first three (in our time line not theirs) on disk without the visual “enhancements” that where added by Lucas later on?
Botsplainer
@Keith G:
I don’t mind enhancements. I DO mind built in toy tie-ins.
Turgidson
@Cacti:
Stormtroopers win that battle without breaking a sweat. Remember when they boarded Leia’s ship when she was “on a diplomatic mission to Alderaan”? All those non-essential rebel soldiers guarding the door dropped like flies or were captured.
Hell, stormtroopers might never miss if they’re only shooting at an army of token-death Star Trek ensigns.
Brachiator
@kc:
The Republican Congress will only vote on three things. To repeal the estate tax, to make abortion illegal again, and to kill Obamacare. Rinse and repeat. This is the closest they can come to stopping the government, or slowing it down until they get a Republican into the White House.
Treaties, cabinet nominees, anything else, just doesn’t matter.
It’s pretty damn despicable.
Eric S.
@Botsplainer: “Their Range Instructors Must Suck”
In a New Hope, when Luke and Obi-Wan find the burned out Jawa transport, Obi-Wan says, “Only Imperial Stormtroopers are that accurate”. Lucas spent the rest of the series proving him wrong.
Turgidson
@Keith G:
Probably not until after Georgie kicks the bucket.
Calouste
@Villago Delenda Est:
I think the appropriate phrasing for this thread is:
Matters not. Veto Obama will.
patrick II
Meanwhile at the other end of the financial spectrum, at the end of life, many people end up in nursing homes. Medicaid, not Medicare, will pay for that, but:
So, if someone has assets of than a few thousand bucks it has to be spent down before medicaid kicks in for the nursing home. leaving essentially nothing for the children. For the repuublicans in the house, breaking poor people isn’t enough they want it so the inheritors at the top keep everything and those at the bottom lose everything.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Brachiator: I’m sure they’ll vote to get rid of the Capital Gains Tax, that’s always a Republican favorite. They’ll call it the Bob Novak Memorial Tax Reform Act of 2015.
Shana
@gene108: Agreed. I remember a conversation I overheard a few years ago (I’m an inveterate eavesdropper) where a middle-aged man, very nicely dressed, having dinner in an expensive restaurant in Chicago, clearly lived there so not some rube visiting from out of town, who insisted that if the top tax rate was raised to 50% that half of his income would go for taxes. IANAL but I’m married to an Employee Benefits attorney. I leaned over to correct him but he refused to understand me.
Hal
One little thing. The black Stormtrooper is John Boyega, one of the leads in the film.
Representation matters.
Cacti
@Turgidson:
Good point.
Under the “principle of evil marksmanship” the villains have no trouble picking off as many nameless good guys as necessary, but the hero has to be involved for their competence to disappear. So, while Kirk, Spock, and Bones could take on a whole regiment of stormtroopers without a scratch, the red shirts would be dropping like flies.
I just recently learned about the “principle of evil marksmanship”.
A related cinematic action device is the “one at a time attack rule,” where the villains are always polite enough to attack the martial arts master one by one, rather than, you know, gang tackling him.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I’ve seen it, and I completely believe her. There are times when the extras have to prop her up, because she keeps listing to one side or the other. Harrison Ford looks like he wishes she would share.
bemused
I’ll never understand how average joe republicans faithfully cling to the belief that what’s fantastic for the wealthy, tax cuts and estate tax repeal, is going to be good for them. They really do believe that they too will some day be rich if they just keep voting R and cheerlead every tax cut for the wealthy. It’s so delusional.
Does anyone have a dog that has contracted the dog flu that I keep hearing about in the news. Just wondering if this is actually something to be concerned about or if the media is over-reacting again.
WereBear
@H.K. Anders: In his imagination, HE IS A TYCOON!
Shana
@Calouste: You win the thread.
mrmike
@gene108:
What makes you think that’s Luke talking. Maybe it’s Ben.
Except Ben doesn’t have a sister unless you buy the rumors about Jaina.
Oh I don’t know.
El Caganer
I just saw an item at Asia Times advising that Congressional leaders have agreed to fast-track TPP. Who says bipartisanship is dead?
Wag
OMFG I cannot wait
Hal
Oh Glob. Another Mysteries Pizza in the making; this time the owner of a car repair shop has taken a preemptive strike against the evil gays and for guns! guns! guns!
Poor conservative, gun owning white folks. Well, Mr. Diesel Tech has a solution!
He does say he does not! want a gofundme though, so don’t bother sending your money. Also, that nuts and bolts thing was a reference to lady and boy parts, not that he would purposely put someone’s care back together incorrectly.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/04/16/car-repair-shop-gay-customers_n_7078370.html?ncid=fcbklnkushpmg00000050
Arclite
@Betty Cracker:
It should be simple: “The first five mil are tax exempt. You’re not leaving more than five mil to your kids. Why do you care?”
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Arclite: temporarily embarrassed multi-millionaires for Jeb!
Gravenstone
@mrmike: Because it’s Hamill’s voice.
germy shoemangler
Here’s the new trailer for Sharkansas Women’s Prison Massacre.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSYjORgaRn4
It stars Traci Lords, and some spectacular special effect killer sharks:
When a fracking mishap accidentally rips apart the earth’s crust, the resulting hole opens up a gaping underground waterway to a vast and mysterious ocean somewhere deep below. Instantly, giant prehistoric sharks begin wending their way upward toward a murky bog in the heart of the Arkansas Bayou. Unfortunately for a group of female prisoners on a work detail in the swamp, the deadly sharks attack without warning – pinning a hapless group of intended victims in a small deserted cabin in the heart of the wetlands. Death may be the only means of escape!
BillinGlendaleCA
@Hal: I wonder if he will provide service for people that eat shrimp, are divorced, or have tattoos?
ETA: I see he’ll provided services to teh gay, just no homo PDA’s in his shop.
Origuy
@Calouste:
I still wonder why an 800-year-old Jedi Master can’t master SVO syntax.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Origuy: Matters to you why?
askew
I am so excited for this movie. Boy, do I hope it is better than the 4th Indiana Jones movie. That was painful. Freaking aliens.
Martin O’Malley just gave a speech and did a Q&A session with a bunch of smartass Harvard students. One of them asked if he thought Hillary would make a good VP. There should be more Q&As like that.
germy shoemangler
@askew: I am so excited for this movie. Boy, do I hope it is better than the 4th Indiana Jones movie. That was painful. Freaking aliens.
I’m excited about Sharkansas Women’s Prison Massacre, too. I’m sure it’ll be better than the 4th Indiana Jones movie.
JPL
@dogwood: The bill was passed to protect 5000 people. Many who do hire lower wage folks for their chain stores. My tax dollar is supporting their employees through food stamps and medicaid. I’m resentful as heck.
also.. someone needs to ask the same folks who are for a giant tax break for the wealthy, if they want their taxes raised to pay for it.
BillinGlendaleCA
@JPL: Why raise taxes, if a Republican replaces the Near Sherrif; just tack it on the credit card. Ronald Reagan showed us that deficits don’t matter when a Republican is President. Or just enact a national sales tax. See, no problem.
Oh, and why do you hate the job creators?
/snark
Gin & Tonic
@germy shoemangler: Traci Lords is still in films?
germy shoemangler
@Gin & Tonic: She looks great in the trailer. She has a great sense of humor; doesn’t take herself too seriously…
beltane
@JPL: If Henry VIII could disband the parasitic monasteries and sell off their assets, you’d think someone could do the same to the parasitic Walton heirs.@germy shoemangler: When I was a freshman in college way back in 1986, one of the bands on campus was called “Traci Lords ex-lovers”. I’m not sure why I remembered that.
Gin & Tonic
@germy shoemangler: “Looks great in the trailer”. Heh.
Patricia Kayden
@Brachiator: “until they get a Republican into the White House.”
I doubt they’ll get a Republican into the White House in 2016 though. Unfortunately, they’ll probably hold onto the House through the next Presidential election so you’re right about the rinse and repeat tactic.
germy shoemangler
@Gin & Tonic: Monster pre-historic sharks. Escaped convict women. What more can I ask?
JPL
Thirty years ago when my son was in first grade, we won the bring the hamsters home for the summer contest. Yes we were the only family to enter, but we still won. My fondest memories was going in my son’s room and watching him fly one of the hamsters in one of the star wars ships. The hamster was unharmed but did return to his nice crate after son and I had a few words.
Joel
Abrams did OK with Star Trek, but I’m not getting my hopes up here. I fell for it the last time around, I’ll need to be convinced now.
GHayduke (formerly lojasmo)
@kc:
I’m sure Obama will sign it too. What a disappointment.
CHAIneD Cp! ARGLEBARGLE!
/CornerStone
Origuy
@BillinGlendaleCA: Linguistics, an interest of mine is. Curiosity have I.
JustRuss
It looks like it could be what Star Wars should be. I want to believe…
Villago Delenda Est
@Shana: Concur!
Geoduck
Re: Stormtrooper accuracy. It’s important to remember that during the sequence when this most comes into play, when the heroes are on the Death Star, the Imperials want them to escape, so that they can track the Falcon back to the rebel base.
Looking forward to the new flick, even though I was underwhelmed by Abram’s Trek foray to the point I didn’t bother seeing Into Darkness.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Origuy: Played well you.
Villago Delenda Est
@Keith G: HAN SHOT FIRST!
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Just turned on MSNBC to see what Chris Hayes is talking about tonight, caught tweety talking about the “chicken hawks who took us so stupidly in to war”. Two months ago (when the Libyan mass beheading took place) he was calling for American troops against ISIS
JPL
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Well give him a break. That was when Engel was accusing the Syrian regime of kidnapping him.
Germy Shoemangler
A group of physicians and medical experts is asking Columbia University to remove Mehmet Oz — better known on television as “Dr. Oz” — from a top position at the university’s College of Physicians and Surgeons, Gizmodo reported.
“Dr. Oz has repeatedly shown disdain for science and for evidence-based medicine, as well as baseless and relentless opposition to the genetic engineering of food crops,” the group stated in a letter to Columbia medical school dean Lee Goldman. “Worst of all, he has manifested an egregious lack of integrity by promoting quack treatments and cures in the interest of personal financial gain.”
JPL
@Germy Shoemangler: Good.
Jacks mom
@patrick II: this is what happened to my family. My father left my mom pretty comfortable but at 88 we were unable to take care of her without the help of a full time nurse. Not being wealthy and able to afford 24/7 in house nursing care we put her in a very nice nursing home but we had to make sure we paid everything she had left except $2000 in order to qualify for Medicaid. The nursing home charges about $4500.00 per month so it didn’t take long to run through what she had left.
My main concern is that my mom is taken care of, but my republican brother is really pissed that the government spent all my dads money on my mom when he’s sure he should have inherited It. Yet he hates the government that is taking care of his mother and is all about abolishing the “death tax” ….
Gin & Tonic
@Germy Shoemangler: Would it kill you to provide a URL?
Goblue72
@patrick II: how else will we prevent class mobility?
Shell
Sorry, Star Wars should have ended with ‘Empire Strikes Back’
Just like the Alien franchise should have stopped with the second movie. Ripley should be living happily, raising Newt, and maybe that hunky Marine.
BillinGlendaleCA
@efgoldman:
It’s always good to get fiber in your diet.
Germy Shoemangler
@efgoldman: I’m trying to imagine the director next year: “I’d like to thank the members of the academy…”
Germy Shoemangler
@Gin & Tonic:
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2015/04/physicians-ask-columbia-university-to-fire-tvs-dr-oz-from-top-position-at-surgery-school/
Germy Shoemangler
@efgoldman: She was a prodigy.
lamh36
@JPL: I was reading a bit about that yesterday. What is up with that?
Its bad I guess, but this is honestly the first time I’ve heard of Engel’s kidnapping. I missed it
lamh36
I have one question…Is Billy Dee Williams in the movie at all?
Matt McIrvin
@efgoldman: Candygram.
max
@Gin & Tonic: Traci Lords is still in films?
Holy shit. Traci Lords was born in Steubenville, OH.
max
[‘And now she’s thriving in horror movie MILF roles. Go figure.’]
germy shoemangler
@efgoldman: And a music career:
Her single “Last Drag” was released on October 25, 2011 and peaked at number 35 on the Billboard Dance Club Songs chart. Three other songs, “I’ll Be Your Alibi”, “Watching You Watching Me” and “Catch Me In the Pose”, were featured on the television series Sons of Anarchy, but were not commercially released.
beth
I just saw a news report on that airline baggage worker who took a nap at work, woke up after the plane took off and forced it to make an emergency landing to get him out. He’s currently fine and back at work according to the report. Just how bad do you have to screw up to lose a job as a baggage handler?
Hal
@Shell:
If Ripley hadn’t gone back for Newt she would be living on earth with Hicks and the Alien threat would have been wiped out. Sorry Newt!
mclaren
Wow, this looks spectacularly bad.
Can someone just pound a stake in the heart of this lame-ass franchise and put it out of its misery?
germy shoemangler
@beth: I saw the story on the news and also on “Inside Edition” and another handler said it’s common for the baggage people to take naps like that.
It made me wonder if they’re sleep-deprived to be doing something like that.
Mike J
@lamh36: What’s the word?
Howard Beale IV
@gene108: And nothing about any offspring from him and/or his sister.
Curious.
PIGL
@germy shoemangler: second prediction: it will suck just as hard as all the others since ESB.
Howard Beale IV
And All Nippon Airlines has decides to deck one of their Dreamliners as R2D2.
PaulW
I can still remember the anticipation for Episode I back in 1999…
I can still remember the heartbreak the moment the audience discovered Jar-Jar was a major character and that the kid they hired to play Anakin was five years too young.
I am a more jaded geek today, I admit.
But the second I saw the Falcon fly across the screen with its new scanner dish… the moment I saw that the BB8 bot is a REAL prop… the fact that somehow, some way, they’re making honest efforts to make a Star Wars movie the fans will *love* rather than experience (which is what the prequels all turned out to be, just experiences)… well consider me still a little jaded, because I’m a fan of the Thrawn trilogy and I’m a little disappointed they didn’t stick to that (I WANT MARA JADE).
Just kidding. I WANT TO SEE THIS MOVIE.
NotMax
@germy shoemangler
Monster prehistoric women?
Cain
@PaulW:
yes, because they allowed Lucas to run the show. That was the first mistake.
Hal
@PaulW:
I believe Anakin’s age and Jar Jar’s existence were the end result of Lucas wanting to make these movies for kids. Jake Lloyd’s casting always perplexed me because of the old “he’s too old to train” argument from Yoda and the other council members when the kid was 1st grader. It would have made so much more sense to have a pre-teen or even teenager, someone who lived his life as a slave and maltreated his entire childhood. That would have made far more sense as to why Anakin gave into anger and the dark side.
My other irritation; Lucas needed people who grew up on these movies to make the prequels a hit. I’ve always felt he sort of crapped on the people who grew up with these films to make a more child friendly movie (something that started with the whole Greedo shot first nonsense) while expecting the millions of people who had been waiting for those movies for years to just hand over their dollars and be happy he even bothered to make the films.
Mnemosyne (tablet)
@Hal:
One word that ruined the whole damn thing: midichlorians. No. Just, no.
gnomedad
@Cacti:
There’s a joke that goes: A stormtrooper fires at a redshirt. He misses, but the redshirt dies anyway.
Steeplejack
Yesterday in the theater I caught the trailer for Ex Machina. Looks like it could be pretty good.
Arclite
Traci Lords started acting in porn movies when she was 15. The vast majority of her porn productivity was produced when she was under 18 years of age. Most of it is online somewhere. Doesn’t that qualify as child pornography? I supposed the same could be said of Christian Slater’s scene in Name of the Rose. He was only 15 when he did the sex scene in that movie, IIRC.
NCSteve
I went to see “John Carter” and left both entertained and suspecting all the hate was a fashion statement, so consider the source.
I went to see Revenge of the Sith and blessed Lucas for explaining the Iraq War to millions of people who didn’t get it. I also forgave him for Jar Jar Binks when I realized he and Qui Gon were opposite sides of the same coin: the well intentioned imbecile who bumbles his way into power and the noble wise man who thinks he knows what’s best better than anyone else. Between the two of them, they manage to destroy democracy.
Those fucking “Hobbit” movies, on the other hand, have just really given me the shits . . .