“Wookie Nookie.”

That will be all. Thank you.

So I’m eyeballing one of my favorite regular reads, and notice two things.

One, that my link is gone from the link sidebar. Two, this:

“Oh,” I say to myself. “That explains the missing text link.”

Useful bit of Photoshopping, that. Feel free to use it, if you’re into the graphical linky thing. I’d appreciate if you copied the image to your own server, though. Thanks.

So I was chatting this afternoon with someone who mentioned that in a particular movie they’d seen very recently, one of the lead characters used the butt end of a bladed weapon to hit his opponent. I was instantly reminded of one more bit of pain from my new least-favorite movie. (See two entries down, if you’re new here.)

At what point did swords become blunt instruments? When you give someone a sword and place them in harm’s way, surrounded by armed opponents who are (presumably) trying to kill the aforementioned someone… why does that someone not use the dangerous part of the weapon against those opponents? I’ve lost track of how many times a supposedly-intelligent hero grabs a sword, bangs it against the other guy’s sword a few times and then proceeds to either kick, punch or bludgeon the other guy, often with the pommel of his sword. I’m not impressed.

At first we only saw this sort of thing in TV shows of the “Saturday Afternoon Special” variety. You know, Hercules and Beastmaster and, oh, a bunch of other craptacular shows whose names escape me. Apparently it’s catching on in moviemaking, though, a trend that only fills me with dread as political correctness wins out over anything resembling suspension of disbelief.

Please don’t give me any nonsense about reducing the level of violence for the sake of the younger viewers, either. All you’re teaching the kiddies is that swords are perfectly safe and can’t hurt anybody. Oh, and that heroes are phenomenally stupid gits who carry the day with sheer luck and a sprinkling of charm. If you want to protect the children from violence, make sure they don’t watch violent shows. It’s a radical notion, to be sure.

I’m not asking for blood and guts. I would, however, like at least the illusion that enemies are being dispatched through something resembling sensible use of the weapons at hand. Perhaps I’m expecting too much of my mindless fantasy entertainment…

As much as I may have joked about Google-baiting in a comment on another website, I’m not really here to engage in a round of riffing on bunches of search queries that got people here from elsewhere.

I’m just going to make fun of one:

free sailor jupiter oral sex

It’s a standout, wouldn’t you agree? The mind boggles. What’s the poor, benighted, undoubtedly undersexed otaku thinking who punched that into a search engine? The obvious answer would be that he thinks a) Sailor Jupiter really exists, b) that she likes to give hummers, and c) that she’ll do it for free if he asks nicely enough.

There are other possibilities, I suppose. Say that he mistakenly entered two queries at once. Mind you, I wasn’t aware that Mako-chan was in prison, but if so then she should definitely be freed. Right? The oral sex is something of a bonus at that point. (But when is it not, eh? *snicker*)

Perhaps there’s no Sailor Moon content involved. Maybe, ah, it’s something to do with naval personnel? Is there a ship named Jupiter in the fleet?

And that concludes today’s episode of Search Query Fun-Time. Have a great evening, and please… Google responsibly. Remember, friends don’t let friends websurf under the influence.

Every now and then, Wendi and I decide to pick up from the video rental outfit a movie or two that are ordinarily thought of as “bad movies.” Which is to say, these are movies that tend to get critically panned as mindless popcorn flicks and that Wendi and I tend to enjoy on their own merits.

This past weekend, each of us picked out a bad movie. I chose “Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever” while Wendi decided to try out “Dungeons & Dragons.” Both films were greeted with a mixture of scorn, indifference and revulsion upon theatrical release. Wendi had never even heard of Ballistic, while I’d heard perhaps too much about D&D.

First came my pick. B:EvS (for lack of a better, less cumbersome acronym) is, at its heart, a straightforward action movie. There’s a plot, but not really much of one. Yes, the characters are two-dimensional at best. Nearly every overdone effect in the modern moviemaking handbook is used, and plot points are telegraphed boldly, even shamelessly. For all that, when it ended we found ourselves saying, “Gee, that wasn’t bad.” We’re not talking great cinema, of course. The movie’s basically enjoyable, and the patently stupid bits are kept to a satisfying minimum.

If you want to watch stuff blow up, if you have even a passing admiration for Lucy Liu, Ray Park (Toad, Darth Maul) and/or Antonio Banderas, you should rent Ballistic.

(Okay, that was short, sweet and relatively painless. Now for the real rant.)

The following night, I obligingly camped out on the couch with Wendi for our viewing of D&D. The movie starts with a 3D travelling shot that wouldn’t be out of place in any number of computer game intro clips. Sadly, it goes downhill rapidly from there. Poor Justin Whalin. Poor, poor Jeremy Irons. Oh, poor misguided and abused Marlon Wayans. And gods help the poor gal who had to play the elf in the bright blue satin… whatever the hell that was. Really, everybody in the cast deserves all of the pity we can heap upon them. The only person who looked like he belonged was Richard O’Brien, though I hesitate to insult him by saying so.

In case you haven’t guessed, I hated this movie. I don’t even have a role-playing background to fuel any sort of righteous indignation. It’s just a damned awful piece of dreck. Let’s see…

• Oh, the scenery-chewing! Watch as Jeremy Irons bites off every last syllable. Watch as his henchman snarls and mumbles. Watch as Justin Whalin tries (and fails) to pull off the obligatory “I don’t care! No wait, I do!” speech. Writhe in pain, often.
  
• Oh, the awful writing! Let’s put it this way: I can almost guarantee that your intelligence will be insulted no less than once every five minutes. And that’s during the stretches with relatively little dialog. At one point, Justin Whalin informs his companions (and, thus, the audience) that he’s heading into a dungeon. “Yes, ladies and gentlemen, we have the other half of the movie title!” There’s only one problem. It’s not a dungeon, it’s a cave. (More on that later. Heh. I could’ve said “moron.”) Don’t even get me started on the poor use of what appeared to be a readily available, infinitely flexible wormhole spell…
  
• Oh, the lackluster effects! Yes, yes, we’ve learned how to model and texture dragons. Big freaking deal. Oh, and let’s not forget shiny sparkly bits and that wormhole effect from Sliders. Remember Sliders? Yeah, that show sucked too.
  
• Oh, the strained attempts at levity! Marlon Wayans is used abominably in this movie, and I don’t actually dislike the guy. Note to screenwriters: Schtick without cleverness isn’t funny. To make matters worse, he’s almost the only cast member with anything like comic talents, so when other characters are given funny things to say it comes off even worse than Marlon’s hamming and slapstick. Riff-Raff‘s brief appearance is at least less painful than most of the rest of the movie in the “witty and clever” department.
  
• Oh, the gawdy, tacky, unspeakable costumes! I feel ever so sorry for the undoubtedly talented young woman who was forced to wear that goofy blue… whatever-it-was. Nevermind the Empress and her absurd “Amidala-lite” costumes, or her (*shudder*) battle garb. How about the blue-lipped henchman, eh? Suffice to say that the only truly funny thing about this movie is how the characters look. (Note the ever-so-cutesy costume change for the love-interest… er, mage chick. That’s right, hit us over the head with the RPG stereotypes, why don’t you?)
  
• Last but not least… Oh, the elements poorly ripped off from elsewhere! The political bickering of The Phantom Menace? Sure, we can show you something a bit like that. The young thief looking through a piled-high treasure trove for the Quest Object Of The Moment, pointedly denying himself pocketsful of gold? Yeah, we’ve got your Aladdin thing right here. (The kid’s even a “diamond in the rough,” as Wendi and I simultaneously intoned during that sequence.) The cantina scene from the original Star Wars? Well, sure, we can show off our costuming talents in a bar-like setting. Do you yearn for the good old days of “blaxploitation?” Just feast your eyes, folks.

I could go on and on (and on) but suffice to say that any way you look at it, D&D is an utterly malodorous lump of decaying flesh. Even making fun of it requires you to sit through it, and I wouldn’t wish that on anyone. Hell, I don’t even want to see Best Brains tackle this bucket of slop.

To recap: “Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever” isn’t half bad, and is a bit more than half good, as long as you are into action flicks chock full of effects, stunts and explosions and few pretentions regarding plot. “Dungeons & Dragons” is totally execrable from start to finish.

That is, in case I haven’t already made that fact painfully clear.