IHAO on ... Rapture-Palooza

I liked it.

Ok, of course I'm going to say more than that.  You could clearly see the words after the gif above.  And I've never just done a short little review.  Plus, I got some interesting things to say about this one.

Rapture-Palooza is about the rapture.  Well, actually it is after that.  It is about life in the world after the rapture.  With all the crappy stuff that happens and the anti-Christ and all of that.  But much like a Seinfeld joke, the entire thing is observed through a lens of "Really? Really?"  A girl and boy, Anna Kendrick and John Francis Daley, are just trying to live their lives and continue.  But the Beast wants to have all the sex with Kendrick, so they have to find someway to save her from all the terrible things he is going to do to her.

This is a comedy.  And it made me laugh.  I liked it quite a bit.  There are some interesting themes in it as well, that even I as a Christian can enjoy from this clearly non-Christian comedy.  It doesn't offend, or even try to offend.  It is just trying to tell a simple story as our heroes try to just keep their life together.

This film has two major sins, and both are surprisingly similar.  Firstly, the budget isn't great.  They do a lot, and the scope is a perfectly fine size for this kind of tale, especially the way it is told.  But a lot of the costuming and make up are very cheap.  The camera work is very standard, and the color tinting in post is very obvious, at least for me, but that's become a thing that drives me bananas.  The script is filled with little improv breaks, and most are ok, but some are noticeable, and that's not the kind of thing you want to notice.  They work best when they are seamless.

Second, and this is a writing thing: our protagonists don't really ... do anything.  They don't grow or change.  They have obstacles, yes, and they get over them, but they do it in the same way a Seinfeld episode wraps up.  This ... Ok, I got a better way to describe it.

Let me talk about Dogma.  That is a Kevin Smith film that is brilliant.  Hilarious, heartfelt, great characters, interesting problems, shot wonderfully, huge scope, lots of philosophical questions about not just religion (Christianity in particular) but the little bits and quibbles and what it all really means.  Rapture-palooza does a LOT of the same thing, except it doesn't have that drama.  It doesn't have the real characters or skilled director.  It has all the hilarious, and lots of the creative.  But it is missing the thing that takes a movie another step.  It is a very shallow film, as opposed to the depth that Dogma has.  And that ... isn't necessarily bad, but it keeps it from reaching higher heights.

Honestly, I think this is a worthwhile watch.  Clever, enjoyable, with a very interesting point at the end about reality.  But it isn't great.

Grade: B+

IHAO on ... Killing Season

It's been awhile since I did a most dangerous game film.  If you need a brief refresher on that famous short story and its themes, it is about a man hunting another man for sport.  Now this film isn't exactly the most dangerous game.  It is more a revenge flick thriller version.  Oh, and it is mostly just two really good actors acting at each other while they do some pretty brutal things.

The plot goes like this: a soldier during the Bosnian war and a Serbian terrorist from the same war.  The terrorist gets shot in the back and executed by the soldier ... except he survives.  And spends the rest of his life trying to find the solider to get revenge.  Then it is a game of hunter versus hunter.  First they meet and they get to know each other, at least a little.  And then it all goes down hill.

The film is pretty daggum good.  It doesn't ever quite crank up into the next gear to be great.  But it is good.  And the war background for some viewers will very much be a huge bonus.  I personally wish there had been some more set pieces, some more intense thriller moments.  There are certainly some, and they are pretty good.  But I wish the film pushed those moments more.  Also, the dialogue between them is very poignant and well done, but for me not particularly engaging in the talky sequences which pace out the film.

Robert De Niro and John Travolta do a great job inhabiting these characters.  I don't feel like I'm watching these actors, but I truly am watching these characters and their struggle.  There's also some real nice symbolism, though it is a little ... well, it isn't light-handed, but I am unwilling to call it heavy-handed.  Noticeable and relevant.

The film could be better.  And that's really its biggest crime.  it aims pretty high, but nothing about the direction or cinematography really elevates the film, and the dialogue actually kind of hurts the film.  The acting is good (though I bet some have a hard time with Travolta's accent, though it didn't bother me) and the set pieces, though a little more spaced out than I would like, are memorable and enjoyable.  The film didn't do well with critics, but personally, I think it is pretty all right.

I must ask Sandy to go steady with me.  Those su-u-ummer ni-ights!

Oh, and the finale sequence is dumb.  Like, super dumb.  Absolutely bad dumb.  Well, not finale sequence, the climax moment.  There's a finale sequence that has more war dialogue.  Man, if I was into war stuff I'd really like this a lot more.  Oh goodness, and an epilogue on top of it that I personally find undercuts the film.  Sheesh.  You know what, despite all that, I do enjoy it.  Not enough to own it.  Not even really enough to watch it again.  So ... I guess I don't really like it enough for a plus.  But hey, if you like war stuff, which I know a few of you really do, this could be right up your alley.  

Grade: C

IHAO on ... Mr. Nobody - READER REQUEST

Requested by William Newman

Goodness.  The requester watched this very dense art film and just wasn't sure what to think.  So he requested I talk about it.  Because I, as a film critic, have gotten pretty good at being able to see the storytelling and artful techniques within films.  Or because we're friends and he was curious.  Or I dunno, he was bored.  I'm not sure the reason, but it was requested.  So I watched it, finally.  And ... goodness.

All right.  This film is an art film more than any other genre, which I said above and have tagged it with below.  It is the first art film that I've talked about on this site like this, where even the term "drama" doesn't fit.  So let me first try to explain the conceit.  Many folks probably don't really get art films.  Art films in general do not care for a lot of the storytelling aspects we've come to feel are standard in filmmaker.  It isn't about narrative in the rising and falling action sense.  There is narrative, but it is a symbolic and emotional narrative.  The purpose is to ask questions and to ... look, I'm just wasting time waxing on here about nothing important because I wanted to let you get a feel for this film.

This 2009 art film is about choices.  You see a man's life and every variation of his life he could have made at three specific points.  You see him have to make a choice between parents as they divorce.  You see him make choices in his important romantic relationships as a teenager.  And you see him make choices in his important romantic relationships as an adult.

The film is very dense.  Purposefully so.  Almost alienatingly so.  I think it is more ... hold on, let me take that back and try it from a different angle.

Oh, hello, I didn't notice you there.  Would you like a cup of tea?

This is not a new conceit, a film where we see the choices a character makes change.  Run Lola Run is my personal favorite of this narrative element.  But Run Lola Run works.  And Mr. Nobody doesn't.  Why?  Mostly because Run Lola Run is simpler and about more than just those choices.  Mr. Nobody is very much just about its philosophy, and forgets to actually engage the standard audience.  And yes, some films are not for the standard audience.  But unless you are purposefully alienating the audience, I feel a film does a disservice if they do not try to make the audience be able to grasp its purpose.

Let me talk about good things.  Juno Temple is wonderful.  I fall in love with her in each film I see her in, like the Brass Teapot I reviewed before.  That is an incredible skill.  It also means that the sequence with her in it is my favorite, and is also the sequence that gets the most time.  There is an actual dramatic and romantic and tragic story told there, and it gets the most uninterrupted, simple and ... no, not simple, it is a very interesting and thick sequence, but it is lacking in the artifice of symbolism and ART FILM that the rest of the movie has.

Unfortunately, that is all I really have good to say.  The movie isn't bad, or anything.  But I did ultimately find it not enjoyable, and fairly average.  It is shot perfectly fine, though it is dense.  And it is easier to follow than Septien, another art film that felt less arty than this.  But I find that I dislike this film because of its moments where it shines.  There are fantasy sequences that are treated like reality.  The "choice" the boy has to make isn't even a choice because the mother is an irredeemable [curseword]-blaster, and the way that scene is shot the child doesn't really HAVE a choice, or at least not a realistic one.

That's the film's biggest problem.  It's ideas are all perfectly fine, but when stapled to each other, you can see the holes, if you catch my metaphor.  Such as a sequence where for whatever reason one version of him has decided to make all choices based on a coin flip.  That is a GREAT idea for a film.  And it is about two minutes of screentime in an already dense film.  Much like the complication of the scenes with Juno Temple, which makes a great film all by itself without the rest.  This movie feels like the writer/director had seen Run Lola Run and other films like it and felt he had to one-up the conceit.  It works, but is ultimately mostly unenjoyable.

Grade: C-

IHAO on ... Netflix Lists

Holy crappers do I have a bunch of movies and tv shows stuck on my Netflix list.  I get a lot of requests and have a lot of whims, and I just throw things on there, not worrying about it.  It wasn't until last night when I went looking for Roadhouse because it was 4:33 in the morning and I wanted to kick something so I thought I'd watch Swayze do it ... it wasn't until that moment when I saw that it wasn't on my list any more.  Things don't just STAY on Netflix!

I know, I know, that probably shouldn't be as mind boggling as it was.  But in that instant, I realized that I had, not counting television shows, movies I've watched but want to remember so I can make sure I buy them in the future, or zombie flicks I only have on there to watch with my wife, that I have 36 flicks on there.

THAT A WHOLE BUNCH.

So, I'm going to ... watching something else instead for now.  But I am going to, starting tomorrow (MONDAY) go ahead and force myself to watch some.  Using handy-dandy random.org/lists, I've put all of the flicks on there and am going to randomize twice.  Then the first five films will be all next week's reviews.  So let's see what we got:

MONDAY - Mr. Nobody - Reader Request

TUESDAY - Killing Season

WEDNESDAY - Rapture Palooza

THURSDAY - Best Man Down

FRIDAY - Stand Up Guys

There you go.  That's next week.  I'll probably have to do this again, maybe even the NEXT week.  But for now, this is what I got.  See ya Monday for the Oscar-winning actor's flick about ... space?  I dunno, I can't figure it out from the poster image.

Ta ta.

IHAO on ... A Bit of Fry and Laurie

I mentioned in the MST3K review that I just do not care for Monty Python.  I thought I'd go into why.  It isn't that they aren't funny sometimes.  Sometimes, they are very funny.  But that is roughly one sketch in every episode, if that, or one section of any given movie.  Though to be fair, a lot of that is from having not very tight writing.

Let's look at Life of Brian.  The joke, the central thesis, is that another kid is born at the same time as Jesus, and basically all of Israel accidentally follows Brian as if he was the Messiah, and he hates it.  That is a pretty decent joke, and can go a whole bunch of places.  But the film wastes about 45 minutes of time staying as far away from those jokes as it can, instead focusing on whatever stupid thing John Cleese was doing.  And almost everything they do has that terrible pacing.  They either murder a joke by beating it to death, like the entirety of Holy Grail - which is, by the way, why the quotes are funnier than the film itself - or they take too long with the setup to actually get to the joke.

I highly suggest you keep your safety search on when searching for the term "beating a dead horse" on Google.

Monty Python just doesn't do it for me.  Anyone making jokes can throw jokes at the proverbial wall and eventually one will make a funny noise.  But in general, I find them boring and ultimately not worth it.  Now, some disclaimers to this opinion:

1. I have not watched all of the show yet, but I have a large quantity of it.  I will eventually see it all.
2. I have not seen every film.  I am missing And Now For Something Completely Different.  Which is just them redoing their best sketches.  Who knows how that'll go.
3. I really really like Monty Python's the Meaning of Life, and find that movie genuinely funny, though just like a lot of Python stuff, some sequences go too long beating a joke to death.  But I do genuinely like that film.

Why do I bring all this up about the Pythons?  Because A Bit of Fry and Laurie is the other side of the coin. 

 Similar style, similar conceits, and absolutely bloody brilliant.  The best British comedy show I've ever seen.  Heck, one of the best comedy shows I've ever seen at all.  It is just brilliant jokes on top of brilliant jokes, great recurring characters and awesome work, all performed by two men and a small gaggle of supporting actors.  

Hugh Laurie (House, if you didn't know) ...

... and Stephen Fry (I cannot make a pithy quick character note to help you, but I bet you'd recognize him if you say him) ...

... have such brilliant chemistry and timing, especially with each other, and every episode I watched on Netflix is just some of the best content I've seen.  Laurie is just so wonderfully silly and dim and Fry is so incredibly dry and acerbic, they are just a perfect comedy duo.  A throwback to Laurel and Hardy or Abbott and Costello or Pinky and the Brain.  So yeah.  That's it.  I can't just tell you about jokes they do, because it will not be the same.  Heck, just the gifs above don't do the show justice.  So go watch it.  Go. 

It's great.

IHAO on ... Broforce

EXPLOSIONS!!!

 [sing to the tune of Beethoven's Ninth]

 Big explosions big explosions

 Die Hard made me sing this song!

Lots of things are all exploding

This one is from Wild Zero

ACTION MOVIES!!!!

Have you ever wanted to see all the greatest action heroes together in one film?  Terminator, Rambo, Robocop, Neo, Ridley, and so many more, all hanging out and killing bad guys!  Then look no further, because Broforce does it in spades!

The story is --- STORY?!  Who needs that?!  Let's be awesome and kill stuff!  Were are the guns?!!!

 SHOOTING SHOOTING ALL THE BAD GUYS

 ALSO GOOD GUYS

EVERYONE!

Ok, so for real, the game is pretty ingenious and actually nicely difficult with some very interesting mechanics.  You play as a big action hero, saving others and shooting bad guys, all the while planting American flags and making your way through unique areas!  But what makes it so good is that the game takes some of this a step further.  Whenever you save someone, you earn a 1Up and become the next of the Expendable heroes.  Not only that, each hero plays very differently, with different kinds of guns, specials, and the like.  Different ones work in different ways, and sometimes you have to ask yourself if you want to get the 1Up or do you want to keep the power suite you currently have for the fight?  Not only that, you have a limited number of times you can use or specials, but because whenever you switch to a new action hero in the Broforce you get all your specials for that character rejiggered, it rewards you for using those. Oh, and to avoid all copyright issues, everyone has a wonderful new Broforce themed name, like Rambro or Robrocop, etc. etc.

The game is just super fun.  And you keep unlocking characters to add to your suite.  I currently have ... 16 of the 23.  And they keep adding more and more to the game.  The game plays like Contra on steroids, and is just incredibly fun.  Plus, it is apparently multiplayer friendly, though I haven't given it a shot yet.  I find myself playing a mission or two then turning the game off and coming back every little while between writing breaks or something.  I've super enjoyed it, and you can preorder it now before it gets on Steam!  Check it out here.

It is cool doing a beta, and I've been super enjoying myself.  You should all check it out.

IHAO on ... Mystery Science Theater 3000

I didn't get it.

I was not in on the joke for the longest time.  Or, that is, I wasn't in on the not-a-joke that the show was.  In college I tried at the same time I was delving into nanar.  It seemed the perfect fit.  Others I knew loved the show, and I gave it another chance then.  I have even gone to live Rifftrax-ings.  And in the long rin ... I just do not find this funny.  And, to be honest, I still don't find it funny.

These terrible movies they are watching, many of them I want to just own and enjoy on their own!  The riffing they do is supposedly similar to what friends and myself might do at home while watching them.  But ...

Look, this is hard to talk about, especially on the internet, because this show is held by many to be one of the funniest and best shows.  It is like if I told people I thought that Monty Python wasn't particularly good (that is an opinion I have as well, feel free to send the hate mail written on dollar bills of any sort, just click the donate button).

See what I did?  I took this meme, but then I made you think of the phrase in a different way, like, in a not nice way!

Anyway, I've been having a huge amount of terrible heartburn and insomnia, so I've now watched just about every episode on Netflix.  And like I said above, I didn't get it.  But you know what?  I get it now.  And sometimes, some of these are really great.  I really enjoyed Future War, as well as some of the jokes in Gamera v. somethingorother.  Really, I can see the charm.

This show is just like the movies it riffs.  Its quality is low, its acting is atrocious, and its goal, just like a Roger Corman film, is to entertain for cheap.  It is a nanar television show that makes its bread and butter talking about nanar films.  Now of course not always, not all of these movies are worth watching alone for fun.  But some of them certainly are just as funny, or funnier, without the MST3K characters making mostly bad jokes over top of it.

I get it now.  I look forward to putting more on and just kind of paying attention while I do other stuff.

IHAO on ... Lie to Me

Tim Roth is a pretty good actor.  He's great in Resevoir Dogs and Musketeer, I liked him in Incredible Hulk, and he is pretty much the best part of Four Rooms.  He does a very good job as Guildenstern (a part I am chomping at the bit to play myself) and The Cook the Thief His Wife & Her Lover is super good with him in it, too.  He's a real good actor.  And he is the lead for this really different crime procedural show!  Well, it started really differerent ...

Just like Bones is based on an actual anthropologist's work, hence its focus on social structures ... except for the episodes with stupid babies or serial killers or other inane plots that made me stop watching that show, Lie to Me is based on an actual doctor of lies.  My wife is a professional therapist, and she has read, and I think we even own, one of the books the real dude that Tim Roth's character is based on, one of that dude's books.  And just like Bones, Lie to Me very very quickly stops being unique and starts just being all the interrogation and talking parts of a crime procedural, without any of the crime.

The first season, though ... that is great!  Complicated, difficult, interesting, thoughtful, really really cool.  I could completely and without any regrets advise everyone to watch it, streaming on Netflix right now!  But slowly and surely, the show loses everything that made it good, and became just "crime of the week."

Not only that, though, the show lost its Pzazz!  Is that how that is spelled?  I dunno, whatever.  There was a way they shot the show, a way that things were told, that the story unfolded, that was just completely dropped.  And that sucked the most.  All the science was incredibly interesting, and they replace it with ... arguing with ex-wives as b-plots and a-plots that are just crimes.  The show becomes everything I hate about crime procedurals.

But season 1!

Sad.

I've been watching a lot of TV recently.  Mostly it is on in the background while I write or work on other things, like cleaning, or cooking, or counting the number of pronouns in paragraphs for .5 cents a paragraph.  I guess I'm going to keep talking about TV shows.  That way I can finally get all my ... thoughts ... about Psych out.

IHAO on ... Guardians of the Galaxy

What is there to say?

I mean, I watched the movie twice opening weekend.  I know for a fact I'll be seeing it again in theaters.  I know for a fact that I'll own it on blu-ray.  I saved the movie tickets so I can have them inside the blu-ray, because I feel it is important.  And I've done that for exactly one other movie, and that one was because it was my first movie date with my now-wife then-date-partner.  I put up a quickie review on facebook and tumblr (you should really follow me there, too, if you don't).  It is great.  It is beyond great.  It is the best summer movie I've ever seen.  It is the best comic book film I've ever seen.  It is superbly directed down to minuscule detail.  It is superbly acted.

Let me harp on that for a moment.  In the majority of scenes, you had three actors who were actually there and two stand-ins.  The two stand-ins did a very good job, but really, on set, there were only three out of the five major stars there.  The energy between actors there and not ... that is something that you would think would impact the film.  Yet, Rocket and Groot are never NOT there.  Bradley Cooper and Vin Diesel are part of the movie just as strongly, seemingly, as the other three leads.  But they were not there, in person.  Their voices weren't added until after the film was basically shot.  Yet Groot and Rocket are very much a part of the franchise.  It was emotional to see them react and act and grow and change.

After the second viewing, one of the folks at the theatre with us asked me what I thought about the movie not having a story.  It had plot: go get the thing, bring it here, stop the guy from getting it, get it from the guy.  But he wondered how there was no story.  And I wonder if others think that as well.  But I can very much assuredly tell all of you, readers, that there is a story.  It is a story about character.  It is a story about making difficult decisions.  It is a story about what it means to be "good."  These characters never stop being "a-holes" as the trailer and the movie constantly refers to them.  But there is a marked difference in them as the film progresses.  They learn to trust.  They learn to love.  They learn they are not alone.  They have friends.

And that is a HUGE deal.  This is not a movie or story about family.  Family bonds are easy to write about.  It is not about love or significant others.  It is about a group of people becoming friends.  It is not just circumstances that bring them together and they have to save the galaxy!  No, they are brought together because of their actual actions and choices.  And they save the galaxy because they choose to.  It is about choice.

The movie isn't perfect.  There are some silly things, like that most bladed props are rounded, and some of the CGI mouth shapes do not match the words being said by the CGI characters.  But those things do not actually matter.  What we are were given broke every single mold.  There was no "good enough."  There was no "small part."  There was no same-old-same-old tropified story.  What we watched was ... well ...

Marvelous.

Excuse the pun.

Go see the movie.  If you don't, you'll be that dumbie that didn't see Star Wars: A New Hope in the theaters when they had the chance.

Grade: A+++

Oh, and the after credits sequence.  It doesn't matter.  It is a fun joke for comics fans, and that is all.  It leads to no further plots or films.  Guardians of the Galaxy is standalone.  Except for the fact that they started working on a sequel a week before the film's opening weekend, and part of the credits let us in the audience know for a fact that there would be another.  But yeah, anyway.  Go see it.

A little bit more, bulletpoint form

• Every single actor is amazing at what they do, and they are all my favorite
• Every single song is purposeful, and relevant
• Every single shot is exactly what the director/writer wanted them to be
• Every single person involved is proud of what they created

IHAO on ... EVERYTHING, TOO

IHAO on EVERYTHING, TOO

Welcome everyone to my second Ask Me Anything!  Why am I doing this?  Because it is entertaining?  Because it is informative?  Because I can do this super early in my schedule so that I can make sure I can see Guardians of the Galaxy and not have to worry about not putting up an article on Friday?  The world may never know, but it is totally that last one.  How does this work?  I spent one month asking people for questions on literally any subject they wanted.  Any joke.  Any idea.  Anything.  Hence the "anything" in Ask Me Anything.  So I've compiled all the questions, randomized them, and now I'm gonna answer them.  Here we go!!

"If an unstoppable force meets an immovable object does the chicken make it across the road unharmed?"

 - Joel Gould

Oh good!  Well, I guess I should establish right now: I will do my darnedest to answer everything as honestly as I can, even if they are absolutely awful and pointless.  So, let's see ... we got a chicken crossing a road, and somewhere in the world, an unstoppable force meets an immovable object.  If I know my physics correctly, nothing would actually happen if that force and that object collided, so I suppose it completely depends on if there is a lot of traffic on the road.  Since the chicken is more than likely in a rural area, there is probably very little traffic.  So yes, the chicken would be perfectly fine. 

"What is the best book I've read?"
 - Drew Turner

Easily Drood, by Dan Simmons.  It is so eloquently written, so enthralling, and such a great story detailing the last five years of Charles Dickens' life.  Easily the best book I've read.

And I now realize that the wording of this is what is the best book that Drew has read.  I'm going to have to take a wild guess of the required high school reading list and go with ... Fahrenheit 451.

"Favorite shoe?"
- Drew Turner

Honestly, I don't think I've found a favorite shoe yet.  If I had to choose from the shoes I've ever owned ... ok, so this story is a little weird but completely true.  At a music camp I went to every year during middle school and high school, one year I wound up with someone else's adidas.  They were gross and nasty and very much not mine.  But somehow they ended up with me.  I threw them into the washing machine and washed them, dried them, and then I had them.  They were comfortable and pretty awesome.  I even got bored in Algebra II one day and highlighted all the white-ish parts with orange and lime green.  They were pretty ballin', absolutely terribly gross shoes. 

"Why CAN'T Mick Jagger get no satisfaction?"
- Kevin McInturff

You see, the funny thing about this song is that everyone misinterprets it.  Using correct grammar, Jagger is saying that he does indeed get satisfaction.  His protests are merely a humble brag.  And he has satisfaction because he is very rich and very famous.

"Who shot first?"
- Drew Turner

The earliest gun seems to be a Chinese weapon called the fire lance, which was a hollow metal spear, filled with gunpowder and shrapnel, and then lit on fire.  So I suppose I should try to figure out the most used 9th century Chinese name: Zhang Li seems most likely.

"Where is the crow road?"
 - Michael Collins

I have absolutely no idea what that means.  Ahh, it seems that it is a scottish novel and television series.  So I'm going to guess it is on your bookshelf, my Scottish reader and chum.  :)

"If you were an exotic dancer, what would your stage name or entrance music be? (Or both, if you have both)
- Nicole Clockel

I think I would like to be called Tons of Fun, and I would use the "Somebody Call My Momma" entrance music that the Funkasaurus used in the WWE!

"You have two sites about the American Medical Association...?"
- Tony Daniel

I do not have any sites about the American Medical Association.  I do run this site here, which is filled with my opinions on all forms of entertainment!

"What is the most annoying song ever produced?"
- Kevin McInturff

Easily everything created by LMFAO.  Worst thing to happen to music.  Ugh.

"Who wins in a headbut?"
-Drew Turner 

Whoever is on offense, unless the person on defense is made of metal.

"Wars or Trek?"
- Kevin McInturff

Unfortunately, I don't really love either.  They are both fine franchises.  I'm going to go with Star Wars merely because I like more of the characters and prefer the genre.  

"If a tree falls down in a forest and hits a mime, does anyone care?
- Joel Gould
"If a tree falls in the forest, does anybody really know what time it is? Does anybody really care?"
- Kevin McInturff

Two of these, huh?  Ok, well let's do this.  If the tree hit a mime, I'm sure if that mime had friends or family, they would care.  Unless he was just a terrible person, but even then, more than likely at least one person cared.  And many people in the world know what time it is.  There are even some who have a job to know what time it is completely, like with an atomic clock.  So yeah, some people know.  And I suspect that they care about what time it is, but more than likely not about the tree.

"Don't the lyrics to Haddaway's one hit wonder 'What Is Love' suggest a man who needed to get away from a harmful relationship, yet it was promoted as romantic?"
 - Michael Collins

That is a very astute interpretation of the lyrics, and definitely what I believe is the intended meaning.  Though, I do have to argue that it is not promoted as romantic, but as a dance beat, as a frenetic and energetic release of emotion, which is exactly what the lyrics are implying.  ALSO, Haddaway did have a second hit, "Life," though it was not as big of a hit in America.  ALSO ALSO I would implore you to listen to an under-appreciated Haddaway song "Please Don't Go" which actually touches on similar subject matter as "What Is Love."  I'm a Haddaway fan.  :D

"In the Star Wars universe, how is it possible that multiple planets exist that have only 1 climate throughout the entire planet?"
- Drew Turner

Star Wars is a pulp fantasy universe.  Much like places in Lord of the Rings are all easily describable as "the place with the spiders" or "the enormous city" or "the hobbit town" or "the bad guy place," Star Wars also simplifies everything, but can more easily make them feel separated by having them be whole planets.  While not to terribly believable on a logic scale, it is a storytelling logic that works perfectly fine.

"What was the worst race ever introduced to a D&D edition?"
- Kevin McInturff

There have been a lot of editions of Dungeons and Dragons.  And a whole bunch of splatbooks that add even more.  So to narrow this down really is going to come to personal taste.  And that falls for me on 4th Edition Dragonborn.  What are the Dragonborn?  Big ridiculous cartoon dragon-people that were introduced to reflect the "cool" and "edgy" nature to 4th edition DnD to make it feel more like a MMO-RPG.  Not only that, they were the bitter pill we needed to swallow as players to have a race that never existed before, but needed to be treated like they totally always existed you guys in our established settings.  Awful.

"Boxers or briefs."
- Kevin McInturff

I personally wear boxer-briefs.  I have worn boxers in the past, and briefs as well.  I do feel I need to do a lot more chances to try them, and I will come back to this in the future once I have bought new underwear and tried it.

"Who would win in a fight?"
- Joel Gould

It really depends on who fights.  Odds are pretty good that it'll be John Cena, though.

"What is the darndest thing a kid has ever said?"
- Drew Turner

More than likely a curse word.  I'm going to guess the c-word.

"Prince or Michael?"
- Kevin McInturff

I prefer Michael Jackson.

"I want to know if there are any stand alone shorts you recommend.  You've talked about youtube series you like but I wonder if there are any short films you recommend. You know, the kinds they have the Oscar category for."
- Melanie Jessel

Shorts are not an entertainment form I generally care about.  But off the top of my head, there was Paperman which was just phenomenal.  Since you mentioned youtube, I also would be remiss if I didn't mention Dorkman's videos, specifically Turf, a music based little conflict that is just super entertaining.

"What is the difference between a horse....?
- Drew Turner

I love thinking about the Christmas show I directed this joke is from.  There is no answers, as there needs to be a second thing to reference with the horse to create some differences.  But I love the memories.

"What philosophical question will never be answered?"
- Drew Turner

That is an interesting conundrum, but I do believe that every question will eventually be answered, as long as time is infinite.  Every answer leads to more questions, but with infinite time, there will always be time to answer every questions, which will create more questions, so on and so on.

"If you, MC Moore, J.D. Allen, and Drew Turner were to unite to form a tribute band, what band would it be for and what would be the name of your band?
 - Kevin McInturff

Considering our musical talents, it would more than likely be MC on drums, myself on piano, and Drew and Jeff to sing.  So we need a male duo ... let's go with Daft Punk!  We would be hilariously Paft Dunk, and all our songs would be about basketball.

"Do all dogs go to heaven, or only the ones who's owners chose the correct religion?"
- Joel Gould

Unfortunately, I do not believe any animals will be going to any form of heaven, regardless of their owner's religion.

"My apartment's internet service begins tomorrow, and unfortunately it is with Comcast. How long do you it will be until we experience agonizing problems with the notorious company?"
- Nicole Clockel

I have never actually had problems with Comcast.  So I bet you will instead fall in love with its service.

"Halloween 3 - neglected classic or "No Mike Myers thus it sucks"?"
- Michael Collins

Neither, though leaning towards classic.  It is a perfectly fine horror film that is a little silly but ultimately truly horrifying.  Not good enough to be a classic, but I will never ever say something sucked because it LACKED Mike Myers.

"What does the fox say?"
- Kevin McInturff

According to Milo and Otis: "Derp derp doo, derpdy doo!"

"Follow-up question, if the above IS true (and I have no reason to think it isn't), what is the inflation rate of problems?
- Drew Turner

I believe the randomization here has hurt this question's impact.  But since problems don't have a cash value, they will not inflate.

"How much wood could a wood chuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?"
- Michael Collins

A quick woodchuck google search leads me to the answer that I did not come up with on my own: 361.9237001 cubic centrimeters of wood per day.

"Who would win a Last Man Standing elimination match between Indiana Jones, the Jaws shark, a Jurrasic Park raptor, and ET the extra-terrestrial?"
- Michael Collins

This is not a match-type that exists, but the rules seem simple enough: if you get knocked down by someone's offense in such a way that they cannot get up on the count of 10, they will be eliminated.  Last man still in the match wins.  Durability helps, but the most important thing will be the ability to stand, which Jaws cannot.  He's first to go.  ET is easily next, as he is child-size and tastes like Reeses Pieces.  If the raptor doesn't get him, Indiana Jones will.  Now, raptor versus Indy is a little more difficult.  But I very much suspect that unless there was some cheating by Nazis, Indiana Jones has it won.

"What is your favorite season of the year and why?"
- Nicole Clockel

Winter.  It is beautiful, with amazingly crisp air, and the most beautiful skies.  Snow is awesome, the beach on winter is wonderful, and it has Christmas.  Winter is the best.

"Also, in America, what is the general view of the Twilight Zone?  Uber-nice cult, barely remembered ... or considered one of the great American tv shows?"
- Michael Collins

Unfortunately, most don't really think about the show.  No one thinks badly of it, and I don't even think it is cult classic.  It is more like a well known gem that everyone knows about but very few have actually seen.

"What is the exact at which more money equals more problems?"
- Drew Turner

Probably @@@@.

"Is this some kind of joke?"
- Joel Gould

Nope, I am answering everything as honestly and completely as I can.

"When will the bass drop?"
- Drew Turner

Most of the time, around the 1 minute mark of the average dubstep song.

"Does or does not the dirt do?"
- Joel Gould

I'm pretty sure dirt does not actually do anything.  It is affected by other things, but it does not actually do.

"What are, in your opinion, the top 5 magic cards that have the least synergy with one another?"
- Daniel Lees

Ok, so they need to be cards that absolutely ruin the other card.  So let's start with Counterspell.  It will ruin all four other cards, easy.  Recoup gives a sorcery flashback, and Counterspell is an instant, so as long as I put no sorcery cards for the other three, then we got no synergy here.  Patrician's Scorn destroys all enchantments, which means I need an enchantment, but it cannot be white so they cannot synergize.  Panglacial Wurm is a big ole Green Wurm that only really does anything good if you can search your library which none of the other cards can.  Oh, oh, and I'll put a land that produces black mana ... let's do Cabal Coffers.  There we go.  5 great cards that cannot synergize.

"Why are we here? More specifically, why am I here?"
- Drew Turner

You aren't.  You are "there" from my perspective.  In fact, no one is "here" except for myself, which means there isn't even a "we."

"If you could remake Labyrinth (not that you would) who would you cast from the recent years?
- Patrick Whitlock

Recast my favorite movie of all time with current actors and workers?!  Totally.  Well, unfortunately the Jim Henson workshop is no longer really working well, so I'm going to have to replace the puppets which sucks, but it what I need to do.  And CGI is getting really good.  I would love for it to be a Michael Bay style "CGI characters in practical sets" as the way it is made.  So let's cast the major characters:

• Jareth the Goblin King: Neil Patrick Harris
• Sarah: Shailene Woodley
• Hoggle: Louis C.K.
• Ludo: Vin Diesel
• Sir Didymus: Nathan Fillion

"Vanilla or chocolate?"
- Kevin McInturff

Vanilla.

"Who is the most underrated American comic actor, pre-1990?"

- Michael Collins

Jim Varney.  Always Jim Varney.

"What is your favorite word?  What is your least favorite word?"

- Kevin McInturff

Favorite: "Garbage."  I say that a lot, generally describing things that suck.

Least favorite: "Sure."

"What's the finest dinosaur film you've seen?"

- Michael Collins

Uh, I guess Jurassic Park.  Certainly not Baby: Secret of the Lost Legend.  Dinosaur Island is an awesomely hilarious nanar film.  Land Before Time was never my thing.  We're Back is crazy.  So yeah, Jurassic Park.

"How long to the point of know return?"

- Joel Gould

I suppose it'll be as long as it takes for you to have to go to customer service at some story where you are looking for money back or to make an exchange and you can accurately estimate how much longer you will have to be in the line.

"What kind of questions do you want?"

- Joel Gould

I'll answer anything, as I feel confidently I've shown.

"Have you ever used a sundial before?"

- Nicole Clockel

Yup.  When I went camping and hiking as a boy scout.

"If basically everyone in the universe gets a Lantern power ring, regardless of color, where are ours?"

- Patrick Whitlock

Ummm, the syntax here doesn't make a lot of sense to me.  I guess our rings were stolen by some Orange Lantern jerks before they flew to us.

"Best physical feature (no other paeameters)."

- Drew Turner

I am a big fan of legs, both mine and that of hot women.

"When I'm searching for porn, am I spe-spunking?"

- Drew Turner

Unfortunately, no.  "Spe-" is not a prefix that has any meaning, which means that while we use a language that can accomdate any kind of new word creations, in this instance you would be pre-spunking.

"So Kevin McInturff thinks he is James Lipton now? =)"

- Jason Schmidt

I feel very confidant that Kevin McInturff thinks he is himself, not James Lipton.

"If Andrew Allen Turner is actually a manic pixie dream girl that lurks Jason Schmidt's online dating profile, are Trix really for kids?"

- Kevin McInturff

Trix are not for kids, as adults can also buy and consume them.  The first part does not have any bearing on whom Trix are for.

"Why don't you come to Raj anymore?"
- Artie D. End

I come by every now and again, but really I just don't have time any more.  All the folks I want to talk to are my friends on facebook, and I share my opinions on wrestling with EVERYONE nowadays whenever there's a PPV or I feel like fantasy booking or some other wrestling related thing.  I don't have time to do Fantasy WWE any longer and the next e-fed I will do will be a little different than anything I can do on Rajah's forum.  It is nice to know I am missed by some though, considering how much hate I got from most.  :)

"If you were only allowed to play one game for the rest of your life what would it be?"
- Gabriel Taylor

Advanced Dungeons and Dragons, 2nd edition.  It will always be my favorite game.  It'll be sad to leave MtG and a lot of my fabulous board games, but ADnD will always be the game I want to play over everything else if given the option.

"Are you there God? It's me, Margaret."
- Casey Brown

1) I am Jessel, not God.  

2) You are Casey, not Margaret.

3) Yes, God is there, as he is omnipresent, meaning he is everywhere.

"Is this enough questions?"

- Patrick Whitlock

I think I can do one more.

"Only one season into Arrow, why am I so addicted?  Do we finally have a decent DC series show?"

- Patrick Whitlock

ABSOLUTELY!  Arrow is still the best show on television currently for my money.  Season 2 is even better than 1, and Flash is coming to be amazing as well.  The CW shows are made by passionate people who love making these shows, and that translates.  Also, Steve Amell is a straight up super-hero in real life.  Follow him on facebook.  He just does charities for fun, does all his stunts, and is awesome.  Arrow is awesome.  I'm glad you are addicted.

AND THERE WE GO!  Hopefully this was entertaining.  It sure did take me a long time to write!  Enjoy!!  :)