Bang Bang, As It Were

Conrad's Unable To Source A Quote

Okay, I've now re-written this opening line three times, that's how much care I take about accuracy and truth.  There is an appropriate quote from Albert Einstein here, which allows me to coast for publicity on the coat-tails of the poster child for "Intelligent", Art! do your stuff.

Al.  Famously never hairdressed.

     The relevant quote here is: "Each step is the unavoidable consequence of the preceding one", which prefaced the rather grim conclusion: "In the end there beckons more and more clearly general annihilation."  Art!

Brigadier-General Jack D. Ripper Annihilation

     Well now, you ought to know Conrad well enough to expect a long screed on nuclear warfare after that quote, but NO! for this is merely by way of an intro into the real Intro.  Mind you, Ol' Al didn't live to see the advent of the thermonuclear arms race, as he waltzed off this mortal coil in 1955, which is just when the Big Bang Bombs were coming into service.  Prescient chap, happy that he's been proved wrong until now <crosses fingers>.  Art!

     

"Ivy Mike".  What's not to like?

For, you see, we are now into the last of The Critical Drinker's Five-Point Plan, which he drew up to save Hollywood from itself.  I don't know if they'll pay attention in general but Disney ought to, losing $1.5 billion at the box office ought to concentrate a studio's collective mind wonderfully.

     "But what, tell us O snowy-haired mage, is this last point?"

RESHOOTS. Hence today's title.  Ha.  I amuse even myself sometimes.  Your Humble Scribe is uncertain why the term "Shoot" ever came about because a cine camera does not resemble a cannon of any variety.  Art!

Although some may have been made by Canon

     Modern film studios are addicted to the hideous practice of test screenings, where they corral an assembly of wild viewers and then ask then to rate a film which they've been exposed to.  "This film was a giant pile of pangolin poop 1/10" is the review score they dread above all else, because the studio suits will fall upon it like a wold on the folf, and demand RESHOOTS.

     This appears to be more common than it ever used to be, with "Justice League", Suicide Squad" and "The Marvels" all carrying out this very expensive operation.  Art!

 - and out of theaters a few days later.

     Ol' Critty holds that this fifth step embodies all the other evils of it's four predecessors, especially the VERY EXPENSIVE actors.  Which are: expensive actors; Production bloat; Excessive CGI; Bad writing.  Any combination of these failures will end up with that Pangolin Poop Score.  From what we know, TM added another $27 million to it's budget, or another 10%, purely due to the reshoots, which are expensive.  Did we mention 'expensive' enough?  Because this leads to films with a budget of $300 to $400 million that have to hit $1 billion to break even.  These are becoming what TCD calls 'Omni-films' which have to appeal to all audiences everywhere in order to maximise box office due to the enormously bloated budget and the equally bloated returns required.  Which are going to start sinking studios that don't accept the wisdom of Ol' Critty.  Art!

Bring your own marshmallow

     If you want to conjure up a metaphor then recall that, when the dinosaurs choked it, your our far smaller and more adaptable mammalian ancestors were the ones who emerged from the wreckage.  If you want to extrapolate madly, in ten years time we might see a single gigantic South Canadian film studio that makes a single $1.5 billion film per year, and which is forever teetering on the brink of collapse.

Creeper-Ridden Creepy And Sleepy

Yes, another abandoned island from that rather facile and sketchy feed, which nevertheless serves as a useful starting point.  In this case, Conrad had never heard of the island in question, despite it being part of New York and in the East River.  Art!

North Brother Island

     It's abandoned now, and has been since 1963, yet it was occupied for over 80 years, at first as a hospital for quarantined infectious patients suffering from tuberculosis or typhoid, then as a hospital for veterans and then dealing with druggies.  Art!

     It's illegal to visit without permission from New York's Parks and Recreation department, who rarely grant same.  Those piers and jetties in the first picture looked dangerously unsafe; if you moored there and used them to get ashore, they might not be there when you got back.  Which is how a major trope in horror films begins .....

Ripped Raw From The Headlines

Which sounds painful but all parties are consenting adults.  Your Humble Scribe spotted a likely sidebar item on the BBC News webpage, which, dealing as it does with things that go BANG, cannot fail to interest.  Art!

     Without bothering to read the article I can inform you that this is left-over Teuton ordnance from the Second Unpleasantness.  Let me assess - ah yes, a 500 kilo (using Metric because it's the Teutonic foes' medium of measurement) bomb had been found in a back garden, which must have required a change of underwear for the discoverer.  Art!

"Jerry"

     I don't see any brighter scratches or scuffs on the exterior, so Hapless Gardener probably didn't hit it with a spade or pickaxe, or we'd be looking at a crater.  The thing about eighty-year old explosives is that they decompose over time, frequently into frighteningly unstable compounds itching to explode at a loud exhale, never mind a sneeze.
     Gesdunheit.

"City In The Sky"

The gallant (read: 'doomed') gang of Hom. Sap. hiding in New Eucla, to fight it out with the Lithoi's drones that carry a lethal heat ray, are proving unexpectedly stubborn and hard to kill.

     ‘The fire-engine didn’t scare them off, eh?’ gasped Mike, running past them with a bad case of sunburn and his clothes steaming madly.

     ‘No.  Keep moving!’ shouted the Timelord.  Privately, he worried that the Lithoi would find destroying the town far too hard thanks to the glass houses and even more so with the ever-present rain.  If that happened, they’d then decide to go after the human refugees -

     ‘Desperate measures,’ he said to the air.  Billy spied rain puddling on the horizontal surfaces of an invisible object fifty metres up and closing on them.

     ‘Doctor Smith!  We move or we fry!’ he hissed, dragging at the smaller man’s elbow and not shifting him at all.

     Lightning flashed.  A rolling peal of thunder followed, making the house shudder.  The Doctor reckoned on beam trajectory, sublimation, vapour collimation and tossed his umbrella to Billy.

     ‘Run for it!’ he barked.  Billy almost flew into cover amongst the buildings opposite, the strange half-seen craft in the sky turned to track his movement and the Doctor jumped from cover himself with the wok held out as a shield.

     Inspired guesswork, a touch of luck, good reflexes and an outclassed opponent – he later claimed all these played a part in his not being roasted in his brogues.  The guesswork was that the Lithoi would fire at him, not Billy, who merely served to attract their attention.

     Ooooh, what next I wonder?

Make Mine MacGuffins

Yes, more mystery tat from the webpages of "The Daily Beast", which, if Art will put down his plate of anthracite -

     Unlike past postings, I have looked up what this collection is or are, so let me work across from port to starboard.

1)  A finger-strengthener.  Quite why you'd want or need the ability to poke holes in people's head is beyond me, but if these things are selling there must be a market for it.

2)  Medical box.  Especially for those who rattle of a morning after taking a cocktail of pills.  Legal pills of course DRUGS ARE BAD just so we're clear.

3)  Heavy duty folding shelf brackets.  You need to see these when domesticated to understand better their role in life.  Art!

4)  A big box of crayons.

Finally -

Five seasons in one day.  Greygloom, rain, sun, wind, hail and clouds.  Conrad not impressed with February so far.  4/10 Must Do Better!