Friday fun: historical popping

Visualizing empires' decline - a cool video. Just wait until the bloated British empire balloon finally pops!

World's luckiest train track inspector

A journalist tries to tell his son the worst swear word in the world. This story was very similar to the way Bunny learned it. She asked, "If there's an a-word, an' there's a b-word, is there a c-word?" Um, NO, I replied, with almost no authority in my voice. She didn't believe me, but I refused to crack. Months later, of course, she learned it at preschool. I was actually relieved.

What's my name? A Metafilter thread sent to me by non-blogging Daisy. Heh.

Jesus Venn diagram

Stunning paper animation to advertise the New Zealand Book Council. "Books come to life," indeed!

Finally, for my mother: Catherine and Heathcliff audition for Twilight.

CATHERINE: Wilderness of furze and whinstone—your bliss lies, like Satan's, in inflicting misery!

HEATHCLIFF: (to HARDWICKE) This lamb of yours threatens like a bull! It is in danger of splitting its skull against my knuckles.

HARDWICKE: Cut. Okay, that was, you know. Messed up. Catherine, Edward's the one whose speech is supposed to sound like it's from a different time. Heathcliff, the lamb stuff was good, and you've got the whole I'm-fighting-the-bloodlust thing going. But can you give me a little more tenderness?

CATHERINE: He's not a rough diamond, a pearl-containing oyster of a rustic. He's a fierce, pitiless, wolfish man. An unreclaimed creature, without refinement, without cultivation ....

HARDWICKE: Wait—have you even read Twilight?

Comments

[Your mother]

Thanks for the chuckles. I'm really glad you are continuing to blog.

[Anthony]

You know, somedays you have to wonder if there's any irony left in this country: moody tweenage vampire meets alientated high school shiksa movie becomes the THIRD highest grossing first week film in history (just behind Spiderman III and The Dark KNight). Third movie already on the way. Someone named Taylor Lautner already poised as next (or first?) hunky werewolf pin up boy (he is the werewolf, correct?). Stephanie Meyer will soon (if not already) be hobnobbing with J K Roowling at the best restaurants and spas, complaining about directors, agents and media rights lawyyers. And Bella and Edward will STILL have no discernable personalities.
What would Charlotte Bronte say?
What would Lupin and Tonks say?

[pam]

.... What would Louis and LeStat say?

I just watched "Interview with a Vampire" again, and I owe Tom Cruise a real apology. Now I see that he was awesome as LeStat. Gruesomely funny. ("Claudia, you have been a VERY, VERY NAUGHTY GIRL!") And he can act the part of a vampire better than the whole Cullin family put together.

[Anthony]

I always thought that TC was actually very good as Lestat: I've also always suspected that AR created Louis, then created Lestat as a foil for him (moody philosophic vampire versus flamboyant rock star vampire) and then realized, that, hello, LESTAT WAS BY FAR THE MORE INTERSTING CHARACTER!
The subsequent Vampire Chroincles bear this observation out thoroughly.
Will TC play Jesus when (or big if) they ever get around to cinematizing AR's larest novels about the King of Kings?

[pam]

Are you serious? Tom Cruise playing Jesus Christ?

Pilate: So, this is Jesus. You know, I loved his early work as a rebellious teen, but then he disappeared for a long time, and when he came back, everything he said was just really, really wacky. Did you see "Sermon on the Mount"? That thing was just a star vehicle for him. Talk about embarrassing reviews! He got religion, you know. Now he's a total nutjob.

Roman centurion: What are your orders, sir?

Pilate: I wash my hands of him. Have him crucified.

Jesus: Pilate, wanna know your problem? You are what we call a Suppressive Person. (Laughing maniacally) and er ... i would, you know, she ... they said ... so, what, have you met an S.P? (laughs hysterically and claps hands) and I looked at though at, er, you know, and I thought oh what a beautiful thing because maybe one day, it'll be like that, you know what I'm saying? Maybe one day, (sniggering) it will be that, wow, S.P.s, like they'll just read about those in history books, you know ? (Laughs hysterically).

Pilate: ... And hurry.

[Anthony]

Who would you have play JC? Ted Neely? Jim Cavaziel? Jeffry Hunter? Willem Dafoe?
How about Robert Pattinson?

[pam]

None of the above. That recent Jesus movie, where everyone's speaking Aramaic, was meant to be the definitive Jesus movie. And I, for one, am content to let Jesus movies rest for a few generations. Unless you can work up a Jesus zombie movie.

Mary: Jesus is dead! The nightmare is over! With that stone rolled in front of His tomb, He can never escape!

Mary Magdeline: But just in case, I'm taking Jesus's son and a band of followers, and moving to France, and later I will be secretly buried at the Louvre.

Mary: What?

Mary Magdeline: Oops, wrong plotline.

Mary: Wait, look over there! What's happened to the tomb?

Mary Magdeline: Oh, my God!

Angel of the Lord: The stone has been rolled away! Something's coming out! EVERYBODY RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!

[Anthony]

Jim Caviezel (now spelled properly thanks to the intercession of the holy ghost) WAS JC in Mel's (more than Devo) Whip-It version of the life of the Man From Galilee. So there....
At the risk of blasphemy, I agree that there's a thinner-than-the-Pope-wants-to-admit line between the Resurrection and Shaun of the Dead: is not the mantra "this is my blood you drinmk, this is my body you eat" merely the zombie credo made (more) literary than merely "Arrghsshg"? And if you take the three days of the gap beteen the entombment and the resurrection and multiply it by 9 (which is 3 times 3--the number of the Trinity tripled) and add one (the number of the godhead) you get 28, which is, of course, the numerical basis for Danny Boyle's "28 Days Later," whose emergent religious signifigance I leave you to ponder!!
And of course, can we give a big holla back to whoever first designs and markets a "Zombie Jesus" game for PLaystation and/or XBox??

[pam]

I'm not the first person to think up Zombie Jesus, but it's a Movie Whose Time Has Come. (In fact, I'm going to make this the tag line.)

Picture the first blood-curdling scene, set in the temple where the innocent, unsuspecting money-lenders are hard at work ...

It would be fitting to get the Jesus from Mel Gibson's movie, but Willam DaFoe isn't too old yet to play a 33 y.o. Jewish zombie savior in sandals.