Posted on General

Palooza Planner

The Palooza is back! And make it a double!

We’ll use a SurveyMonkey to narrow our choices down from the lists below (there’s still time to nominate other movies!!). Then, sometime this summer, we’ll watch the two films and pitch content to the FB and web pages. More discussion in the comments.

20th Century

Howard the Duck
Stargate
Mosquito Coast
Pulp Fiction
The Thin Man
The Usual Suspects
Dracula 1992
The Fifth Element
28 Days
Yojimbo
A Fistful of Dollars
THX1138
Prophecy
Phantasm
Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers
They Live
Shane
Brazil
UHF
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes’ Smarter Brother
Krull
Wizards
Wet Hot American Summer
Street Trash
Murder By Death
The Bishop’s Wife
Rio Bravo
Kiss Me Deadly
Lonely Are The Brave
Spartacus
A Fistful of Dynamite
Westworld
A Bridge too Far
Escape from New York
Assault on Precinct 13 (original or remake)
Silent Running
Phase IV
Planet of the Apes (original)
The Warriors
Citizen Kane
Near Dark
Barbarella

21st Century


Parasite
IP Man
Blade Runner 2049
Contagion
Inception
Blade Runner 2049
Primer
Donnie Darko
True Grit (remake)
Contact
Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse
Drive
Rush
Rubber
Kung Fu Hustle
Mortal Engines
Tenet
The Old Guard

328 thoughts on “Palooza Planner”

  6. I’d vote for “They Live” and “Escape From New York”. Didn’t we already do UHF?

    I agree with Van: so many choices. Not that that is a bad thing.

  12. Finally got around to binging Broadchurch.

    I like it. Has a very (original series) Twin Peaks feel to it. Except for a lack of “WTF” visual moments. Or in-depth characture development. Or a cleverly tangled plot line.
    So… other than all that, it feels a little like Twinn Peaks

  13. I’ll add the movies in the list above (plus maybe a few more) to a SurveyMonkey.

    This is the semi-finals, we’ll narrow this down to champion lists of 5-or-so per era, then select those.

    Keep your eyes peeled.

  14. My daughter reminded me that Owen Wilson voiced Lightning McQueen. Now I’m wondering if Mobius will ever exclaim “Ka-chow!”

  16. Well according to the Windows PC Health check app my desktop PC can be upgraded to Windows 11 but I’m going to bet that I will finally lose the my old bluetooth 4.0 adaptor due to the drriver not being upgraded/

  18. Many of us have repeatedly wondered about the crazy-ass mindset out there from seemingly reasonable people – – I think this explains it:

    One of Trump’s early adopters articulated the mindset perfectly in August 2015, back when Jeb! was still his closest primary threat: “I am voting for Donald Trump. I don’t care if he’s a joke. I don’t care if he’s racist. I don’t care if he’s sexist. I don’t care about any of it. I hope he stays in the race and I hope he wins. Why? Because I love the fact that he is making other politicians squirm. I love the fact he says shit nobody else will say, regardless of how ridiculous it is.”

    • I read a Cracked article a long time ago that wasn’t about Trump exactly, but about voters in rural settings. It talked about how small towns lacked publically funded projects, so they saw no value in taxation. Churches tended to be the only social activity so the culture was socially conservative. When the economy improved it happened in urban centers, the small towns had the same crap jobs they always did. So voting for a turd canidate was done as a protest for their lives not improving.

    • Liking the crazy, detached from reality guy is great when it is an eccentric uncle.
      Not so much fun when it is someone with YOUR life in their “don’t give a shit” hands.

  23. Complaint #1: Murphy’s law. Why does the day I need to be chill turn out to be the exact opposite?

    Complaint #2: Asking someone an elaborate question on a conference call, but they were reading their Slack messages, and at the end, say, “Sorry, can you repeat that?”

    • If we followed those recommendations….we’d all kill each other with the body odor alone.

      I wonder if they included the energy and resources we’d consume with the additional five showers a day we’d be needing.

    • Wow! The Parallel between this and the US space program in the late 60s is remarkable. As usual though looks like the Chinese have studied what we did and then done one better. Plus they have modern special effects for THEIR space movies.

  33. I convinced my work to send me to a conference in Las Vegas at the beginning of September. Have never been before so I’m quite excited about it. And, of course, the first thing I did was get a ticket to see Penn & Teller.

    • Excellent!

      Vegas can be a fun town. I have no idea about good craft beers there, but the pinball museum is fun and Penn & Teller’s show is excellent.
      9.5yrs ago, they met the fans after the show. I hope they are continuing to do that, safely.

      • Looks like the whole downtown area is peppered with breweries and I should be able to walk from one to the other. The people at Caesars said that Penn & Teller are still meeting fans after the show. I’ve got lots of time to research before I go. I have a friend that used to go regularly in the 80s and 90s and told me about all the quirky cool places he found. Apparently those are all gone now. No more $1.99 breakfast buffets and people giving away hats and decks of cards and such.

          • Yes – the pinball museum is a fantastic visit. And, it’s not just pinball machines. Lots of classic arcade games in there as well.

            I’m assuming Penn and Teller are still over at the Rio hotel. If so, you’ll need to get a ride as it’s also off strip.

            If there’s anyplace where Uber and Lyft make sense, it’s Vegas. If I never have to suffer another Las Vegas taxi it will still be too soon.

        • I am currently doing the same research.
          Found out my mom has always wanted to go to Vegas and never has, even though her sister lived there for a few years.
          Since we nearly lost her last November, I have taken it upon myself to get her there. I am aiming for the first week in Nov.
          Hopefully a bit cooled off by then.

          BTW – I am finding the Las Vegas “trip reports” in the Trip Advisor forums to be immensely useful!

          • I’ll have to look into those trip reports. I don’t see them as their own section in the Las Vegas page. Is there a way to get to them?

            Also score 1 for me. I wanted to take a day trip to the grand canyon, but they look to be super long (leave at 7am, get back 7pm). Saturday I would be arriving too late, Sunday I’m going to see Penn & Teller and can’t get back that late, and Mon-Thursday are the conference. Looked like no luck for me. I read the conference schedule today and it looks like Monday is all paid classes that my company didn’t want to pay for. So looks like Monday will be grand canyon day for me. Hoopy doopy!

  34. CW: Rollercoaster

    A thriller from 1977 that got crushed at the cinema by the Star Wars juggernaut.

    Which is a shame cos it’s really good.

    • Since I am hopelessly hetero, I haven’t paid much attention to whether the male costumes are sexy or not. The female outfits are indeed pretty much always over the top.
      As for the unrealistic body images, the male action heroes in comics that I grew up with were not even close to be what a “real” average human male looked like. Superman, Batman even Sgt. Rock or Sgt. Furry.
      For some reason that never bothered me or made me feel bad about my own self image.

      • In both cases, male and female heroes are drawn to appeal to males. Loin cloth Conan is meant to look powerful, not sexual (to most).

        Loin cloth She-Hulk is intended to send boys to their bunks.

    • Crap joke for the day:

      I think, I’m going to lose my drivers license and all just because of a stupid police officer…
      The conversation went like this, when I got pulled over in my car:

      Officer: “License and registration, please, I think you are drunk!”

      Me: “I assure you, I did not drink anything.”

      Officer: “Ok, let’s do a little test! Imagine driving in the dark on a highway at night, when you see two lights in the distance. What is this?”

      Me: “A car.”

      Officer:”Of course! But which one? A Mercedes, an Audi or a Ford?”

      Me:”I have no idea!”

      Officer:”So, you’re drunk.”

      Me:”But I didn’t drink anything.”

      Officer:”Okay, one more test — Imagine, you drive in the dark on a highway at night, and there is one light coming at you.What is it?

      Me:”A motorcycle.”

      Officer:”Of course! But which one? A Honda, a Kawasaki or a Harley?”

      Me:”I have no idea!”

      Officer:”As I suspected, you’re drunk!”

      Then I started to get annoyed and asked a counter question.

      Me:”So…, counter question — You’re driving in the dark on a highway at night and see a woman on the roadside. She wears a mini skirt, fishnet stockings, high heeled shoes and only a bra as a top. What is this?”

      Officer:”A prostitute of course.”

      Me:”Yes, but which one? Your daughter, your wife or your mother?”

      Things went downhill from there and now I have a court date to attend…

  47. Morning Pan
    Off to the city this morning. Which, in this case, I’m ok with. I will go from a non-airconditioned house, to an airconditioned car, to an airconditioned building.

    • I had that happen once. Getting my rental car, the rep says you can have this, this, this or the Challenger. In my best “yeah I want cheesy pooves” voice I said “yeah I want the Challenger”. Then I proceeded to drive it to a brewery on my way to the hotel. Because, you know, I’m like that.

    • I assumed he was dead already. Kinda always figured he a was a high-ranking stooge.

      Eh. No celebrations, but certainly no tears.

  63. By the time I get to Arizona. Oh wait, I am in Arizona!

    It was great supporting Elder Daughter, great seeing JustaJoe, but I’m glad to be home.

    • The film’s plot is over complicated which maybe the point as it’s classed as Noir film. But it’s the first US film in a while where you get to see cramped rooms that feel cramped.

  76. The Tomorrow War

    You have a choice, you can either watch it like some Star Wars fan and focus and nitpick over every little issue and have a terrible time;

    Or, you can realize that this is a movie about the relationships between a man and his father and daughter and see that this is perhaps the most original an innovative time travel based story in a generation, and enjoy the ride.

    It’s up to you.

    • We found it entertaining, especially some of the large set action sequences.

      Ed, is right: it is very easy to criticize this film. It feels like it was made from a bad first draft of a script that desperately needed an editor and a science advisor. Just don’t take it seriously, and you’ll have some fun with it.

  78. I’d considered proposing The Fountain, but I recall it being a little dry, a little pretentious. IDK, I haven’t seen it since the theater.

    It’s a moot point now. Results of round 1 coming tomorrow!

  81. The Steam summer sale must be ending soon. How do I know that? Hubby purchased a number of games for me for my birthday. I figure that means the summer sale ends before my birthday actually happens.

  84. The voting is closed! The results are in! The opening for audit jokes is here! I’ll make a new post, and also announce on FB. We’ve narrowed down our picks, now we’ll choose the actual 2 Palooza flicks.
    The final round Survey will post shortly:

    The results:

    20th Century:

    The Fifth Element
    –
    Westworld
    –
    Stargate
    –
    Krull
    –
    A Fistful of Dollars
    –
    Escape from New York
    –
    Event Horizon

    21st Century:

    Blade Runner 2049
    –
    Inception
    –
    Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse
    –
    Tenet
    –
    The Ballad of Buster Scruggs
    –
    The Grand Budapest Hotel

  86. I’m working a full day at the office today, meeting many co-workers for the first time.

    Thankfully, LeeLoo made sure I had pretty purple nail polish for the occasion.

  88. As some of you know, Track & Field has been a big part of my life. If you watch the news, there has been a LOT of talk in this last week about US Star, 100m sprinter Sha’Carri Richardson, losing her spot in that event at the Olympics after failing a drug test.
    If none of this interests you, feel free to skip ahead but after listening to a LOT of people who barely know T&F exists, weighing in about it and now seeing the discussion pivot to “This is racially or identity motivated”, I have something to say.

    Having world wide Track & Field competitions has always been extremely challenging. It’s hard to get different countries to agree on anything and the rules for training and competition are no exception.
    Then, once you do get rules agreed on (and try to give a level playing field), it became an amazing challenge to get anyone to really enforce those rules.
    Somehow though, in 1999 we finally managed to come up with a “World Anti-Doping Agency” that put together an agreed upon list of banned substances. If you wanted to play nice with the other countries, you had to adopt the World Anti-Doping Agency Code.
    The USA and it’s Track & Field organization, (USATF) joined that group and not only agreed to play by those rules, they have been at the “tip of the spear” in enforcing those rules on other countries. There are several notorious countries who normally flaunt these rules and one who finally had their entire team banned after basically telling the world, “What are you going to do, ban our whole team?”
    We said, “Yep.”

    So this young super star has put USATF in a horrible position. Trust me, they WANT her to run! They WANT to have USA on the podium on a world stage. They WANT to add that medal to their list of “See how great we are!”
    Most of all, for the 10 minutes that maybe 50% of the US public are actually paying attention to Track & Field, they wanted to put on the sort of show that generates more participation.

    Now it’s gone to crap. It is a “No win scenario” for the program. If they uphold the ban they retain legitimacy on the world stage but lose US TV viewers.
    If they dump the ban, all hell breaks loose among everyone else who has been banned both overseas AND with other US Athletes. Currently the US has a star in the Woman’s 1500m & 5000m who has a 4 year ban because she tested positive for steroids she claims she was accidentally exposed to by eating a pork in a burrito she purchased at a food truck.

    Now I realize there is a whole debate about what substance should and should not be banned and that’s fine but there are definitely ways to go about getting rules changed. Most of those on the sport’s sanctioning bodies ARE ex-athletes and/or coaches and they are very much on the athletes side of things.
    What you don’t do is just decided that YOU are too big a star to follow the rules. That those are there for other people. We just went through a 4 year nightmare of political leadership that pushed this idea and there is no telling how long the fallout from that will last.

    “I want to take responsibility for my actions,” Richardson told NBC on Friday. “I know what I did. I know what I’m supposed to do and am allowed not to do, and I still made that decision. I’m not making an excuse. I’m not looking for any empathy in my case.”

    I don’t know how this ends but suffice it to say the damage is done. Richardson can try again in 4 years but staying healthy and in top form is a very difficult thing for a top Track athlete to do. It requires a LOT of training, singular focus, self sacrifice and sponsorship.
    For it’s part, simply for following it’s own well posted rules, the USATF has to choose whether it wants it’s black eye from the US public or from the International T&F Community.

    It’s just a bad scene all around. Richards has been working for her Olympic moment more that half her short life. 12 years of practices and running and may have thrown it all away in one moment of “I don’t care, I’m gonna do what I want to do.” If you have a heart, you hate that for her. We all make a lot of bad decisions when we are young.
    Fortunately for most of us, we don’t do this on a world stage and we don’t have such a terrible impact on so many people.

    • I’m not qualified or knowledgeable enough to make an informed comment. I’d tend to agree that if an athlete breaks an established official rule, then they should face the consequences (disqualification, suspension, fine, whatever). No matter who they are.

      I will say though, that you have to be consistent. It’s hard to expect someone to accept a harsh penalty if previous offenders got off easy. (Don’t know if that applies here)

      If there’s more nuance to this situation, then I need to shush, sit down, and listen.

    • It’s definitely an unfortunate situation. This is the real pisser of it all, from the NY Times:

      “Richardson apologized Friday and said in an interview with NBC that she had used marijuana to help cope with the death of her biological mother a week before the trials. She said she learned about her mother during an interview with a reporter.”

      • That’s another thing I don’t get. Where was her support? I have never known athletes at that level not to have a personal coach as well as a team of other support people. Why was their not someone with her that she could discuss that decision with? Where were her “people”?
        It’s just a terribly sad thing.

    • Thank you! But it’s our anniversary. I haven’t checked FB yet, the browser was too damn slow.

      That means I saw many of you 5 years ago today!

  101. I can’t believe I fell for the hype of another Zach Snyder movie. Army of the Dead was bad. The only good part was the opening Viva Las Vegas sequence.

    It was just bad.

    Long, dumb, and bad. Which also happens to be the title of my sex tape.

  102. I was also tricked! I watched the horrible Liam Neeson ice and snow themed action film “The Ice Road” but thought I was about to watch the Liam Neeson ice and snow themed action film “Cold Pursuit”. By the time I realized what was what I was already 1/3 of the way down the shitty Ice Road.

    • It was the perfect mix of heartfelt, action, and Marvel ridiculousness. Loved it.

      Also I hope that Disney plus offers all the Marvel films on it premium. Not only did in save at least 30$ by watching at home than opposed to a theater, but I got to pause when I had to pee and got to see it in super hi def

      • We really are hitting a milestone in home theater technology. We’re at a point where my 70 inch 4k TV with the surround sound (with my viewing position close enough to the TV) provides a comparable viewing experience to a standard movie theater. And any difference in quality is massively (and I mean insanely massively) compensated for by not having to deal with movie theaters, not having to pay insane amounts of money for crappy food, not having to fight and jockey for seats, not having to listen to other people being rude in the theater, and being able to control the volume of the movie so as not to risk hearing damage.

      • A good 5 years ago, as Jack said. And it’s not the new Zima at all as seltzers are here to stay for better or worse. The country’s first seltzery opened 3 years ago down the street from me

    • It’s really a play off of the LaCroix sparkling water movement (which I find just as pointless) that mistakes a lack of flavor with the concept of “healthy”. I’ve had people tell me they drink those because it has fewer calories. It’s also extremely popular with woman that don’t like beer but want to hang out with their significant others and/or other people that do (I’m not being sexist here, this is what I hear from the people selling it who have done their market research and/or watched it happen in their breweries for the last 5 years). I had a great conversation with a local brewer about the fact that they were going to start making them at their brewery. They hate the concept, but it’s so popular that they said watching people buy so many in cans was like watching wheelbarrows full of money pour out their door. The other eye opener was just how easy it is to make them. With Beer there are all kinds of steps involved to process grains (roasting, milling, mashing, boiling, etc.) before you get to put in the yeast and get to fermentation. For seltzers you just add sugar to water and put in the yeast. When it’s done fermenting, you water it back down to 5% ABV or so and add some artificial flavor.

      So I can absolutely understand the desire to brew and/or market/sell seltzer. As for being able to understand it’s popularity, I would imagine that much of it’s current popularity is a mixture of succumbing to advertising (something Americans seem to have almost no natural defenses against), trying to get drunk on the least amount of calories, and possibly finding a cheaper alternative to wine for people that don’t want to drink beer.

  110. I rarely get into brand cults or brand bashing, but I gotta say, we have 2 Dyson vacuums in our house, and both suck. No wait, they suck in every way, except when pulling up small debris from carpets. No more Dysons.

    Worst of all, they’ve besmirched Lemmy’s good name by calling one of their products the Motorhead.

    • Interesting indeed.
      I would like to see the data further boiled down to included only engagements between compatible aircraft.

  115. Watched Black Widow last night. It was fun.

    Without spoilers, do you think the end credit sequence will be a series or a movie?

  116. CW: The Tomorrow War

    Reminding me that I would love to see an adaptation of the Simak story where humanity comes from the future to escape an infinitely adaptable aliens who love to hunt humans.

    • That is an interesting concept.

      What if, all around the world, countries were suddenly inundated with human refugees from a future earth timeline.

    • That is an interesting concept.

      What if, all around the world, countries were suddenly inundated with human refugees from a future earth timeline.

    • This is the hill they want to die on.

      Or at least, other people to die on. I guarantee all of these hypocrite fucks are vaccinated.

    • I think they want to see as many people die on Biden’s watch as on trump’s … even if it consists of mainly their own supporters.

      It is psychopathic.

  132. Palooza voting seems to have stopped. No new votes for a few days.

    Neither of our current front-runners are my top picks, but – – I’m fine with both, if that’s how it pans out.

    • It wasn’t so bad that I noticed it. I got the feeling there was an artistic choice to use muted lighting to mimic an ageing 1970’s show. Now the GOT fight scene with the White Walkers, however.

    • This is a serious nitpick to most of us, but of course, if that’s your specialty, than of course you’re bound to notice. As a layperson viewer, I was fine with it.

      ditto posted a link a few days back about how some of the Loki scenes were difficult to shoot. (can’t search, must work)

    • I don’t think there was anything wrong with the lighting. Let me see…. Nope, nothing wrong.

      I’ll take the artistic intention from the professionals that made the movies and show over some wannabe that writes an article about it.

  141. So PS5 arrived and the first game I played on it was a PS4 game.

    Doh!

    Spelunky 2 does now play full screen so there is that.

    • I can’t imagine how this gets past the Empire’s Palpattorneys, but wow, that looks impressive.

      The original images look relatively great too.

    • Squadrons is okay, but I’m looking forward to this. 🙂 I’m at a loss as to why LucasArts didn’t do this years ago. I’ve been following the Fate of the Galaxy mod for FreeSpace for 15 years, it might actually release within the next year.

    • It’s not bad, but it ignores the fact that kids from the 70s–and I expect earlier–were treated the same. We had a lot of “freedom”. I remember my Mom locking me out of the house at times when she wanted the house to herself. /shrug

  156. BTW – Finally went and saw “Black Widow”
    First time back in a theater in over a year. Only about 8 others there for that matinee but it still felt awkward.

    The movie was pretty much everything I want in a Marvel movie. Given the subject mater it easily could have been “dark, brooding and moody” but I was glad they went more in the “irreverent and fun” direction.
    Not going to win any Academy Awards but that’s fine. I was entertained.

    • I liked it a lot. Also, Marvel has pretty much made the point that if you want to follow along you must have a Disney+ account. Which is fine by me, but may lose the folks who want a stand-alone movie.

      • I agree with you in part, but I think Disney has been pretty good walking the fine line of requiring you to watch all the Star Wars series and what is introduced in the movie. I expect that will carry over to the MCU as well. Plus, Marvel has also done a good job of making the movies somewhat independent while still fitting into a narrative whole.

        I guess we will see how well they handle things over the next few years.

  158. Speaking of Indie flicks, I finally got around to watching 1990’s “Swingers”.
    https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0117802/

    Basically it’s a group of post, college-age buddies in LA struggling with being young 20 somethings in LA while helping the main character get over a failed relationship.

    I knew some people for whom that movie was (for a while a least) some sort of cornerstone of culture. Maybe if I was 22 and this was the first Indie film I ever saw I might have felt the same. It wasn’t.

    Turns out Vince Vaughn has ALWAYS been annoying. I guess if you like his comedy stylings you might enjoy it but I found it pretty much empty of any entertainment.
    I will say that I appreciated it from the standpoint of all the gorilla film making they had to do to get it done and it was nice to see Jon Favreau in a lead (he also wrote and co-directed it) but other than that… meh.

    It reminded me a lot of 1982’s “Diner”
    https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0083833/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1
    Which IMDB described as “A group of college-age buddies struggle with their imminent passage into adulthood in 1959 Baltimore.”

    • I haven’t seen this since ’99-’00 or so, but I recall thinking it was hilarious. A lot of it was apparently ad-libbed, a lot shot on location in actual diners (guerrilla-style, like you said).

      Many times, I’ve wanted to stand up on the table at a restaurant and say, “I would never eat here.”

  160. Palooza results posted tonight!

    We had a tie in the 21st Century. Is everyone OK with me just making the call? Otherwise, we can do a quick tie-breaker vote.

    Eitehr way, folks will know what 2 movies were tied for 1st.

  162. Hubby and I are definitely gamers. How can I tell. Our anniversary is in two weeks. For our anniversary, I got him a new gaming joystick for his computer, her bought me a gaming mouse for mine.

  163. OK, I’ll announce it here first. But I’ll prob post to FB end of the day today… and I’ll do a new main page Deadpan post:

    The 20th Century Palooza Winner is. . . . The Fifth Element!

    The 21st Century Winner was. . . a tie! So there are 2 choices: Tenet and The Ballad of Buster Scruggs.

    I was going to cast the tie-breaker, but I think more options are a good thing. So watch both or watch one and skip the other.

    I intend to watch both 21st Century movies, but Tenet will definitely be up first, then Buster Scruggs.

    More info to come on how we can Palooza participate for each of the movies, in the absence of a podcast.

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