The pond did its level best to like Guillermo del Toro's version of Nightmare Alley - the pond is a fan of Pan's Labyrinth - but it was just too long - two and a half hours - laboured, ponderous and obvious.
When they did cynical film noir in the old days, they kept it short. At least Edmund Goulding kept his 1947 story under two hours to get to the geek punchline.
The show went downhill from the moment Toni Collette left, to be replaced in the plot by an excruciating Cate Blanchett …
Del Toro so desperately wanted to make a Coen Brothers movie, but Nathan Johnson is no Carter Burwell, and the ending, with Buster Scruggs trotted out in new guise, was just sheer desperation ...
Say what?
Oh sheesh, there goes the pond again, thinking it was back in the days of its reptile freedumb.
Now if you wanted a really creepy crawly horror show, every woman the pond has talked to thought this was the creepiest.
Yes, the pond sat down and revisited Scream the other day, and it was still a romp, despite all the self-referentialism and the silliness, but it's nothing against the thought of that horrible, horrible, man, that hypocrite, liar and complete psycho giving the scalp a good rubbing …
The nape of the pond's neck still hadn't settled as it turned to the lizard Oz to see what fresh horrors the day had brought... and naturally the bromancer was in the grip of his own nightmare ...
Indeed, indeed, but if the pond might rudely interrupt, what of human rights in the land of Oz? Here the lizard Oz editorialist provides the answer ...
Yes, each nation can form its own version of democracy, grounded in Judaeo-Christian tradition, white supremacy yadda yadda yadda, blah blah blah, and if the right to bash poofters is the name of the game, heck, it's on with the bashing and the discrimination ...
Only the lizard Oz editorialist could come up with those sublime last few pars ... blather about ensuring appropriate standards of conduct in workplaces "which of necessity must be diverse and inclusive", but somehow seeing religious schools as not workplaces and therefor having no need of diversity. Those workplaces that aren't workplaces can in fact be exclusive, divisive, insulting and abusive, and how the reptiles will love it.
The pond apologises for that elaborate detour, and now will let the bromancer finish his tale of woe, which will inevitably lead the fundamentalist Xian crusader to world war three by Easter ...
Predictable stuff from the bromancer, who must wake in a cold sweat each day, unable to force the reptiles' sports division from reporting "live" on all the action from Beijing.
Where's the clarion call from the bromancer to stop all this unnecessary "live" blather?
And so to the meat of the day, and it goes without saying that it's the Killer, who has come up with some Killer angles yet again.
The pond must apologise for its presentation, because it's deleted all the delicious click bait videos the reptiles inserted to spice up Killer's offering. This is just stone cold Killer straight ...
Yes, it's just the usual 'leets carry-on, and freedumb and all that jazz, but surely the Killer is the reptile who carries it off in some fair style, and that invocation of Semmelweis in the same story as Joe Rogan is quite breath-taking ...
As for how Killer himself became an elite pooh-bah with astonishing expertise in public health and not the source of disinformation when it comes to the efficacy of vaccines? That sadly is another story for another day, and the pond must press on ...
Killer of course would never ever apologise, because righteous fuckwits of the reptile kind never ever do, but the pond will admit to a tear in the eye, a tribute, because how good is it that Killer would bring back hydroxy and ivermectin? Those old routines never get old or stale in the Killer's keyboard ...
The pond was reading a Daily Beast story the other day, via Yahoo News natch, which was truly wondrous and bizarre ... and with the usual consequences ... but spoiler alert, this is at the end of the yarn ... so you'll need to follow the link to get the start of the treat, which involves horrible suffering and death in the cause of delusion ...
The pond is, of course, disappointed that Killer didn't mention the joys of ingestible silver, or the way that oleandrin was a much maligned miracle discovery, but at least there's a positive mention of the astonishing power of hydroxy in that yarn ...
And so to a final gobbet of Killer, and warning, too much Killer at a single dose can be mind and even life threatening ...
Oh frabjous joy, of course everyone loved that Killer line about "authoritarian health experts" conceding that masks are just facial decorations, an opinion surgeons carry with them every day as they and their teams head into operating theatres maskless...
What's that you say, they don masks? Oh that's just because it's a childish game of doctors and nurses...
Some day the pond hopes to get to the bottom of the Killer's deep and dire fear of masks.
For the moment, the pond still thinks in a Freudian way that it arose in childhood, during some game where the Killer was forced to mask up, perhaps in a game of goodies or baddies, or perhaps where Killer himself was threatened by a handkerchief-wearing baddie, and thereafter the traumatised Killer swore off face coverings for life ... which must make a visit to a Japanese subway among his worst life experiences, because the looks a sniffling Killer would get out and about in public not wearing a mask are too weird to contemplate.
All that suffering's got to be worth an infallible Pope ...
And after all that trauma, the pond is pleased to report that the reptiles broke with tradition offered our Henry on a Monday, and best of all, the hole in the bucket man was handing out a quiz...
What was the real point of the hole in the bucket man's game? Apart from pretending he had a sensa huma?
Well it was to normalise and to trivialise the insults flying at that horrible, horrible man, that liar and hypocrite, that complete psycho, though nothing matched the thought of copping a head massage ...
So on with the hole in the bucket man, doing his best for the complete psycho ... feeble party game distraction that it is ...
You see? He's just one of many politicians who've been insulted, so where's the harm, though for double points, you might note that a lot of those politicians were - soon after being insulted - just plucked chooks, giving up their feathers for an onion muncher after life as a feather duster...
Luckily the immortal Rowe also had a game this day ... with more Rowe games here ...
Our Henry really has given up, hasn't he? There was such an opportunity to quote Australian parliamentarians, including a gem cited by Ken Inglis, in a lecture for the Senate -
ReplyDelete"Will this building ever hear another man, or woman, who would compare an antagonist with Ovid, and in the Roman poet’s own language? Speaking of Malcolm Fraser in those October days of 1975, Whitlam tells the House:
As another self-indulgent wool grower said in putting personal interests ahead of the nation’s interest, video meliora proboque; deteriora sequor.
He did not translate, so I won’t."
Your humble contributor will offer - from a tattered version on his shelves - 'I see and approve of the better, but I follow the worse.'
And how could you pass over Fred Daly, and the 'Member for East Sydney' - even if they were not given to quoting in Latin?
Too classy for the reptiles Chadders, and not suited to purpose. It's not as if Fred would have been hard to find ...
DeleteAmong his well-known lines were: "The Country Party has two election policies – one for people and one for sheep", and "He (Billy Snedden) couldn't lead a flock of homing pigeons".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Daly_(politician)
And for an obituary
https://oa.anu.edu.au/obituary/daly-frederick-michael-fred-1551
And about which politician did which politician say: "I'd put an 'h'".
DeleteThey're just never going to stop lying about that, are they - but then I guess that's the reptiles' trademark: always lie. But just in case you are at all curious about it, you can look it up here:
ReplyDeleteAnti-discrimination commissioner notifies archbishop of possible breach of the law
https://www.catholicweekly.com.au/anti-discrimination-commissioner-reportedly-finds-archbishop-julian-porteous-in-possible-breach-of-act/
And here's the guts of it:
"Speaking to the ABC at the time she lodged the complaint, Ms Delaney claimed that the language of the Don’t Mess With Marriage booklet implied criminal activity.
'In Australian society ‘messing with kids’ is generally used right across the country as virtually code for sexual abuse or paedophilia,' Ms Delaney said.
To quietly sort of add that to the booklet to me suggests that there is an attempt to lay some insinuations to make some statements without being honest about what you’re saying'.”
Ooops. Start with:
DeleteThe Oz Mr ED: "That was the case with Hobart's Catholic Archbishop Julian Porteous, who was subjected to an anti-discrimination process in Tasmania in 2015."
Here we go again: the reptiles arguing with each other. Today we have the Bromancer: "Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin know they are in a cold war with the West and they are pursuing it ruthlessly.
ReplyDeleteBut in western nations, including Australia, there is still a strong propensity, especially among those who make money from China, or whose institutions do, to deny reality."
But then, back so very, very long ago as 8th December 2021 - a whole 62 days ago which is, of course, a lifetime in reptile terms, we had Mad Mike Sexton: "Why is the west, and in particular the US, willing to jeopardise any prospect of reasonable relations with Russia over Ukraine." Oh, why indeed when according to the reptile army, "Russia has returned to its Orthodox roots, and is now potentially the natural ally of the West."
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/commentary/letters/the-cold-war-is-over-and-we-should-be-alive-to-orthodox-russia-as-an-ally-to-the-west/news-story/285865e7b648364426808a0db36e6408
Of course it has, didn't Xi Jinping just say so ?
Re the Krapulous Killer: "...of course everybody loved that line about 'authoritarian health experts' conceding that masks are just facial decorations..."
ReplyDeleteYeah, but his points about sugar and Semmelweis are basically correct, and that underlines a point of view well known to reptiles: no matter what stupidity you want to promote, you can always find fellow travellers to keep you company. Remember that 24% of the human race have an IQ below 70, and that's about 80 million in the US alone (6.24 million in Australia and about 336 million - or 1 million more than the population of the US - in China).
So yes, throughout human history some people saying true things have been victimised and their truth has been suppressed for some time. But very seldom actually lost - at least I hope so, but then how would I know.
The trouble is that Killer has zero knowledge or understanding of science. So his whole existence is based merely on what other people spout, and a great deal of what other people spout is utter bullshit, especially when there is no actual evidential backing.
And, as usual, nobody is proposing that Rogan be 'censored', just that he not be paid so much and given such a big stage on which to parade his ignorance. To repeat, 80 million Americans just really aren't very bright.
The Editorialist instructs us that ‘parents … enrolling children expect them to be grounded in faith, which is best taught, generally, by a practising member of a particular religion.’
ReplyDeleteNot sure who ‘taught’ the Editorialist, or how, but it is an interesting take on the whole business of education; yet, even the Editorialist follows with ‘in many schools (teachers of other subjects) teach several subjects’.
So - implicitly - there is no pedagogy in the ‘teaching’ of ‘faith’ in these schools. Presumably chanting of the catechism, or its equivalent, is sufficient for these parents, and it is for us as taxpayers to support that - as with the ‘Pentecostal school in suburban Brisbane’, which draws a substantial amount of its funding from the Government.
More to the point - presumably parents are pleased with that ‘method’.
Guess they must be, Chad; they've kept it going for a very long time. I think there must have been some sort of RI at my various schools, but for the life of me, I can't remember what.
DeleteThe thing is though, that because we have very limited contact with people's real thoughts and beliefs, we are basically limited to (surface) appearances. So that's why chanting the catechism or repeating the multiplication tables is taken as showing 'education'.
Sheridan says China backs Russia in demanding NATO not
ReplyDeleteexpand to such as Sweden.
Hello, McFly, declared neutral Sweden wouldn't accept
any such mythic offer that wouldn't have been tendered
to begin with.
The Swedes know a good thing when they see it, they made
a mint off of WW 2 by selling anything to anybody.
Swedish minerals were vital for the German war effort.
It's first class weaponry such as Bofors guns were sold
direct or under license to everyone, Japan, US, Germany,
even Martians if they had dropped by.
History has left them off the hook, Germany could not
have held out so long without the Swedes, which means
millions more innocents suffered or died because of them.
Just an aside, I didn't see the "shout out to Joisy"
till a few hours ago, thank you DP for the pics and
thanks to Chadwick for the link. Given the delay in
publishing comments older than 2 days, I didn't want
to leave the impression I blew you off.