"KEEP BUSTIN'."

Out of office message

On Monday I’m leaving on a trip, so I won’t have any new posts for about the next two weeks. I’m sure I’ll be posting on Twitter occasionally about my adventures, but hopefully I’ll be able to unplug a little, recharge, relax, reboot, rebuff, re-animator, etc.

When I get back it will be September, and yet I will continue and complete the Weird Summer series and try to catch up on whatever I missed while I was gone. Everybody be good, have fun, etc. Parties are okay, but don’t bother the neighbors. I’ll see you all soon!

This entry was posted on Friday, August 12th, 2022 at 6:10 pm and is filed under Blog Post (short for weblog). You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

26 Responses to “Out of office message”

  1. Have a lovely time, Vern

  2. Safe travels, Vern and Mrs. Vern.

  3. Have fun and come back relaxed!

  4. Weird that your vacation coincides with the “Day Shift” release. But I guess these things are up to the man/woman/lizard creature upstairs. And if they have a plan, they ain’t telling.

  5. Happy trails!

  6. Weird Factoid – in Argentina (at least) when From Beyond came out they really played out the commonalities with re-animator. They even retitled it Re-Sonator

    Have a great trip!

  7. Enjoy the break, Vern

  8. Time for another stickfighting sabbatical already? Tell the monks I said hi.

    Have fun, big guy. We’ll try not to burn the place down while you’re gone.

  9. Have a great time!

  10. Enjoy your vacation Vern!

  11. Have an excellent time, Vern. We’ll try to behave as if you are watching us.

  12. I couldn’T find a more appropriate place on here to talk about this, so…sorry, but BETTER CALL SAUL, y’all! I don’t think I ever encountered a series finale that was as flat out satisfying as this. It didn’t shock me, it didn’t frustrate me, there weren’t any heartstopping moments, but when it was over, I just sat there, calm, thinking: “Yep. That was a perfectly satisfying ending that exactly knew what it wanted and didn’t overdo it in good or bad ways.”

    As whole, the show remains a bit unnecessary. Even with all the BREAKING BAD backstory we got, none of it made you look at the mothershow in a new light (except maybe: “Wow, the show’s comic relief had to deal with a lot of shit before we met him”). It was more a fun add-on, a bunch of really good deleted scenes if you will, but I don’t regret investing so much time in it.

  13. (Could’ve picked the NOBODY review instead. Oh well.)

  14. I agree, CJ. That was a good ending to a good show.

  15. Just saw the trip made a stop in Monroeville. Had I known, I could of made sure you got the deluxe ‘locals-only’ tour.

    Alas… As stated above:
    I guess these things are up to the man/woman/lizard creature upstairs. And if they have a plan, they ain’t telling

  16. Anyone else seen SAMARITAN yet? Thought it was alright, albeit with some of the limitations of modern made for streaming action movies. Mainly some not-quite-up-to-par VFX work, like a lot of digital fire in the climax and how a younger version of Sly’s character(s) are rendered, because yes, part of his backstory is being a set of twin superhumans, which sadly isn’t taken advantage of more to give us double the Slyness outside of one moment.

  17. Haven’t seen it, but someone I know described it as “The most 90s movie since THE DARK TOWER”, sooooooo…yeah.

  18. Just saw it and fucking loved it! Given how lackluster I’ve found recent Superhero movies to be (Marvel’s Phase 4 is definitely infected with a “Just where the fuck are they going with this shit?” problem), SAMARITAN is a simple tale told with minimal fuss and maximum appreciation of it’s Star’s Action Iconography. It also affords Stallone the chance to play a Savior Messiah to a young boy, which kinda makes SAMARITAN Stallone’s GRAN TORINO.

    So..a simple Superhero Tale that doesn’t try to slap you across the face with a Message, poke an Agenda into your eyeballs, portrays it’s Villain as a straight up unrepentant Shit and not some Poor, Misunderstood Bastard in need of Understanding, Compassion and deserving of Redemption, ends with no plot points left unresolved to tease a sequel and a lean run time with with some pretty solid action.

    Fuck me….you CAN do this shit right!

    Yeah the effects are a little wonky, but not enough to spoil my enjoyment of this rock solid, undemanding and thoroughly enjoyable Stallone Actioner.

  19. Ok…another (small) quibble. The plotting suffers from the THE DARK KNIGHT RISES syndrome where the Villain rallies people into some kind of Occupy Wall Street type revolution, against the “rich, privileged” etc….by committing a blatantly wanton of act destruction in THEIR OWN neighborhood. Like Bane rallying spectators at a game right after he blows up the stadium they’re sitting in. Errr…why do I need to trust you, Weird Masked Man who just destroyed neighborhood property?

  20. “by committing a blatantly wanton act of destruction” is what I meant, Proof Reading occasionally deserting me.

  21. @Kaykay – no idea how well it’s handled here (superhero movies do not have a good track record on intelligent… was going to say political, but actually any sort of allegory) but populist leaders turn people against other parts of the populace while quietly destroying their country in the background all the time, so it works at least on a metaphorical level. Hell, there’s a pretty prominent example in the news these days of someone riling up people to the point where they try bring a run of 230+ years of democracy to a stop themselves.

    That bit in the trailer with the whole “I’m not a superhero”/gets run over by a car/”Dangnabit!” put me right off Samaritan. It’s worse than the liar liar pants on fire bit in the Firestarter trailer (which surprise surprise, is absolute trash.)

  22. I mean, anybody whose first official act as a candidate is to destroy a football stadium has a pretty good chance of getting my vote.

  23. The Undefeated Gaul

    August 27th, 2022 at 2:35 pm

    Just saw SAMARITAN and loved it as well. I agree the effects were not always great (I feel like the Corridor Crew guys could have done a better job de-aging Stallone than the shot that ended up in the film) and one bit of important story development I had already guessed while reading the synopsis, but it didn’t do much to lessen my enjoyment. Stallone is still the man, and I loved that great classic oneliner they gave him near the end. Really shows the makers love him just as much as I do. I even enjoyed Pilou Asbaek’s performance as the villain (who I normally find kinda dull and generic) but to be honest a large part of that was the great look he was rocking here.

  24. Since this seems to be a random recommendations thread, I’d like to put forward a 2019 horror-tinged drama from Laos called The Long Walk.

    It’s a slow-burn puzzle even before a time travel plot kicks in – there’s ghosts and a serial killer and other genre stuff, but at its heart it’s a pretty affecting, well drawn-out character study set in a corner of the world we don’t get to see all that much. I liked it a LOT.
    It’s on Shudder, along with the same team’s Dearest Sister, which is now pretty high on my to-watch list.

  25. Sorry the site was unavailable for so long, the database management ended up requiring a bunch of repetition that shouldn’t have been necessary 🤪

    But you should now be able to include emojis 🎉🤯😂

  26. Glad you’re feeling better Vern and we’re glad you’re back. Sorry your vacation wasn’t exactly enjoyable.

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