Sarah Jane, ice cream beads, and killer robots!
THREE NEW ARTICLES!!! Seriously, when was the last time that happened? (And when will it happen again?! Who bloody knows?!)
Anyway, first up we have the latest installment of Mickey Glitter's Sarah Jane Smith Fashionista Fever! (which is also crossposted on Strange Cousin Susan, the online home of our coruscating contributor)! While Mickey's favorite time-traveling journalist -- she can only be my second favorite; if you stood still, April O'Neil totally appeared on screen in all of the levels of Turtles in Time on the SNES -- may have lost whatever fashionista flavor she'd acquired in previous appearances, at least we get to read Mickey's amusing criticisms of such items as translucent pink macks and desperation-soaked Andy Pandy overalls. Perhaps Mickey would've been less harsh if Sarah Jane had donned a bright yellow jumpsuit and white boots instead? 😉
Next, an honest-to-goodness Foodstuffs article: a review of MolliCoolz Incredible Ice Cream Beads. I really don't like these things, which actually made me kinda sad after I visited the MolliCoolz website and found it to be so infectiously delightful. Okay, it was mostly the exuberant (!) MolliCoolz spokeswoman who I found to be delightful... but still. Given my tendency to leave multiple tabs open, however, she did start to get on my nerves after a while! I mean, as much as I love your accent, darlin', I don't need you simultaneously giving me three different MolliCoolz pitches and/or nagging me about not clicking around while I'm scouring the interwebs in an attempt to find out if elephants have ever been documented eating meat. (I haven't found anything yet to indicate that they have, though apparently hippos will consume animal flesh in rare circumstances.)
And lastly, there's my review of Terminator Salvation. I'm pretty sure I would have disliked the movie even if I hadn't seen and loved "Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles", but that a television show -- and a canceled one at that 👿 -- managed to be so superior to this film, what with its overpaid "A-list" actors and bigtime Hollywood screenwriters and whatnot just irks me. Christian Bale needs to flip out on himself for reading this movie's script and still agreeing to do it. Money cannot buy back dignity, Bale-san.
Furthermore, regarding questions that this movie could have answered but didn't, I'd also like to know why Skynet is so bloody incompetent. It had multiple opportunities to kill John Connor in this movie and yet failed to do so -- I mean, Skynet could've just bombed the hell out of his base, and even Arnold 1.0 could have snapped his neck instead of throwing him around for 15 minutes while Marcus made his way through the entire complex to arrive on the scene IN THE NICK OF TIME. Whatever.
In fact, an analysis of the series's history suggests that it was Skynet's failed attempts on Connor's life in the past that shaped him into a formidable opponent in the future. Consider: the Terminator that went after Sarah Connor in 1984 failed, thus motivating her to train her son to fight evil machines in the future. When John's mom was locked up in a mental institution and he had disregarded all of her teachings as crazy talk, Skynet sent another Terminator after him... which had the effect of reuniting him with big heap warrior mama and confirming everything that she'd said before. GOOD JOB, SKYNET.
See, if I were Skynet, I'd send a hot girl Terminator back in time to hook up with John Connor -- not to kill him, because that plan would probably fail somehow, but to make him lose interest in anything else and become a weak-willed slave to her sexy charms. I might even make her a good cook so that she'd make him fat, thus preventing him from being capable of running away from the skull-stomping robot army even if he did survive Judgment Day. Which he probably wouldn't, because I'd make my sexy Terminator "claustrophobic" in order to ensure that the pair of them wouldn't end up in a bomb shelter somewhere.
And this is why Skynet's desire to kill all humans is stupid -- it's obviously not that clever, and there are misanthropes like me who would gladly come up with imaginative new plans to wipe out the humans who do pose a threat to the program's global design. Except Skynet in TSCC actually does employ humans, which is reason number eleventy-billion that that show was way more interesting than Terminator Salvation... and even the other movies, for that matter. I will miss you, TSCC.
Anyway, look for another guest article next time! And speaking of guest spots, I've got one of the old ML Movie Hulk up on Articulated Discussion. w00t! Okay, bye-bye for now. 🙂
DrNightmare says:
They've been selling those ice-cream nugget things here at Universal Studios Hollywood for years now, and yeah, they taste like flavored water or frozen yogurt. There's just too much ice coating them, it waters-down the flavor.
Yeah... it's just a bad idea. I wonder if that's why they're applying the concept in ways that might avoid that problem -- and why the ice cream beads are showing up in boxes in Dollar Tree! DT does seem to get a lot of products that failed at "regular" retail establishments...
the Jax says:
You may have something there, Wes...re: Skynet's efforts to terminate John Connor only made him into it's greatest threat. Maybe there is a subroutine within Skynet that is sabotaging it, or maybe we'll find in the series' final installment that Earth is due for an alien invasion, and Skynet had to weed out all the weak and flabby 20th century humans so the remainder of the race would be able to defend themselves against the approaching evil. (I've read a few books that took this approach, often via plagues.)
I think John Connor also has good reason not to trust any type of Terminator--wasn't the T-850 captured and reprogrammed by the Resistance? I thought that was the only reason it came back to protect John. He's justifiably paranoid at this point, since the future of the human race depends on him and he still has little (official) command authority. So much can go wrong before victory.
I did like the characters, and I think Christian Bale makes a much better John Connor than he does a Batman/Bruce Wayne. Dark Knight delivered the goods in almost every respect except the presentation of Batman by Bale and the director/wardrobe/sound department. I could live with it in Batman Begins, but I groan every time he shows up in DK.
Just got caught up on this site.
On the subject of freeze-dried Ice-cream, I'd have to disagree with you. I first had this kind of product at the mall, and loved it ever since.
To give you a sense of scale, I also like to cover my fishsticks in curry powder.
It's not that new actually, it's been around for years, and that's not the only brand (the "big" brand of that is called "Dippin' Dots"). I'm not saying you have to like them. I'm just saying it is possible for someone to like them (in this case it's me).
Anyway, Terminator time.
I have a weird relationship with Terminator films. I like them but I don't like to admit I like them.
I have it in my head that Terminator stuff is just mindless Hollywood crap, that I won't like, but when I end up watching it somehow I really enjoy it (even the crappy third one).
I haven't watched the TV show because I think I don't like Terminator, but having read your description of it, it sounds AWESOME, and I regret not watching it.
I have no idea why. I don't understand myself sometimes.
Also, I seem to be the only one who thinks the first one is the best one. I love it's Noir atmosphere, dark themes, and Twilight Zone style plot, that I think stood well on it's own without any sequels.
I did enjoy the sequels (though 3 did suck, I still liked it), but to me, the first is still the best.
I haven't seen Salvation yet, because I can't bring myself to admit I like Terminator enough to buy a ticket for it. But, it seems the TV show is a better place to come out of the "Closet" as a Terminator fan, anyway.
Mickelodeon says:
Ahhhh, Weth, more of your famous and beloved alliteration, I see! This totally flew by me the first time I read it. So I pulled down my trusty New Oxford American Dictionary and once I got the alphabet straight in my head, looked up the definition of coruscating, since it was a word I can't recall ever seeing before. You may be the first to use such a word to describe me, that's for sure! 🙂
I'm back, like a bad penny!
Hey, speaking of pennies and veering wildly off-topic, did you know there are pennies being minted down with an image of a log cabin stamped on the back? I found one the other day.
But anyway, you say, "Terminator 2: Judgment Day was somewhat more interesting in that it introduced a Terminator robot reprogrammed to protect the main characters"
And I would totally include that part of what made T2 more interesting was Linda Hamilton looking pretty effin' hot, with her cut arms and wee wife-beater shirts and sunglasses. If I felt the need to have a list my sister calls, "If I Was, I Would," she'd be pretty close to the top. Lucky for me, I don't have to qualify my list, however, so it's simply entitled "I Would," and Yes. I. Would.
And okay, I am absolutely capitulating and agreeing that Lena Headey is at least *as hot* as Linda Hamilton, ca. 1991. 🙂 Summer Glau is growing on me, though not as quickly...
Rio says:
Dippin' Dots did it first, and had kiosks all over the place in malls for years. You can still find their kiosks mainly at zoos.
I DO like the Molli Coolz cotton candy flavor; maybe you got a freezer burned package, because the ones I've picked up at grocery stores did not have ice crystals like you're describing. I think maybe chocolate would not have been the best flavor anyway--I tend to like my chocolate rich and overwhelming, whereas the cotton candy flavor was just right in bead form.