Category Archives: stuff-you-may-have-missed

i heart this video, stuff-you-may-have-missed

Rian Johnson Breaks Down a Scene From Knives Out And Did He Get Benoit Blanc from a David Bowie Song

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I know it might be weird highlighting this video and other videos that have views in the millions. I’ve also found at least I personally have numerous gaps of knowledge of very popular videos. It seems pretty easy to miss the boat on any variety of videos because sometimes that just happens.

So, this video is so great. He talks in detail about a pretty complex scene from Knives Out, where we are first introduced to Chris Evans’ character Ransom.

Johnson is just a delight as he breaks down not crossing the 180 degree rule, little moments the actors brought to the scene, neat tech background details, etc.

It’s just a wonderful video.

**********************

ALSO THIS IS SOMETHING I DISCOVERED TODAY WHICH IS PROBABLY NOT A THING AT ALL

You know that David Bowie song “Golden Years”? I was listening to it today and I definitely heard the words “Benoit Blanc”.

Sure the lyrics are supposedly:
In walked luck and you looked in time

But judge for yourself, people! It’s at around the 1:07 mark.

BENOIT BLANC.

I have asked Mr. Johnson but he has not replied yet.

UPDATE (total bullshit):

lost, stuff-you-may-have-missed, teevee

One Of Lost’s Mysteries Finally Solved

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For me, ABC show Lost often raises questions without ever providing answers. This can get downright frustrating.

For example, what is the smoke monster? What’s the deal with the four-toed statue?

One thing I have always wondered about is the erratic behavior of the John Locke character.

Thanks to freeze framing and zooming on last night’s episode, his erratic behavior is no longer a mystery.

I now happily share this starting revelation with all Lost fans.

I imagine Ben Linus is especially adept at pressing this button.

stuff-you-may-have-missed, youtube

maoR If You Want To

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Having just selected the wonderful B-52’s song “Roam” for the upcoming What’s In A Word? Green Monkey Mix, it reminded me of a minor epiphany I had regarding the song (to be specific, the video of the song).

I would occasionally watch music videos back at the end of the 80’s. I loved this song, so I’d watch it if it came on. One thing that always popped out at me was the image of some men riding in the back of a pickup truck.

What struck me was the word on the back of the truck — “ATOYOT”. I know that car manufacturers have different models in different countries — for example, I rented a Ford Mondeo in Austria a few years back, a model I had never seen in the US. So, I had just assumed the “Atoyot” was a foreign-marketed model.

It wasn’t until several years later, as I was driving down a highway near Chicago, that I happened to catch a glimpse of the back of a large sign. And then, I suddenly understood.

The makers of the video had flipped the image! I didn’t realize it at first because all the letters in the name are symmetrical.

Here’s the video in its entirety. The truck doesn’t make an appearance until just past the three and a half minute mark.

stuff-you-may-have-missed

Pumping Fuel Slower For Your Contentment

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The last few times I have filled up our crappy minivan Goldschläger, I noticed something that I can’t easily verify, but something I nevertheless firmly believe is happening.

It struck me that even though the volume of the $20.00 worth of gasoline I was pumping into the tank was significantly less than the amount of gas I would have gotten in return for $20.00 in the $1.50/gallon glory days, it still took roughly the same amount of time to dispense it.

What’s the explanation of this? Why should it take as much time to dispense 6.25 gallons today as it did to dispense 13 gallons a couple years ago?

I think there’s a simple answer. The gas stations are intentionally slowing down the flow of gasoline. For those people who have used a “Pay First” pump, you know that when it gets to the last dollar of your pre-paid gasoline, that the flow of gas slows to a trickle (presumably so you won’t be able to overshoot the amount of gas you paid for). So, we know the technology is there to control the flow of gas.

So, why would they be slowing the gas flow in general? Well, to prevent customers from getting angry. If you filled up your car with twenty dollars worth of gasoline and it took less than a minute to get the gas into your tank, the ri-goddamn-diculous amount of money you’re paying for your fuel becomes baldly apparent.

By stretching out the measly amount of gasoline flowing into automobiles, the appearance is given to consumers that they are actually getting something for their dollar.

So, they waste your time to prevent you from realizing you are wasting your money.

Think about this the next time you wait for your gas tank to slowly fill up with that $3.50 premium unleaded.

movies, stuff-you-may-have-missed

Isolation

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Okay, here’s another one of those things I just somehow happened to notice which you may or may not have noticed.

I have seen The Shining in the theater once, and have seen it on DVD four or five times. During my last viewing of the film, a line of dialogue popped out at me for the first time.

So, in my last viewing of the film I happen to notice that a line spoken by the Stuart Ullman character (the character Jack Torrance goes to interview with for the job of the Overlook Hotel caretaker) has a strange change in it. The word ‘isolation’ sounds very slightly different — louder, with more force, having a slightly different quality (music snobs would call it timbre, but I’m not a music snob, folks).

Stanley Kubrick, to put it mildly, could be called a detail-oriented kind of guy. One could even go so far as to say he is somewhat of a perfectionist. The chance that this use of ‘isolation’ somehow slipped in unnoticed by the man to me seems pretty slim. He could have easily re-recorded the line of dialogue so this difference wouldn’t be there. But he wanted it to be there.

What? You say you can’t hear the difference? Close your eyes and play the clip again. Still nothing? Okay, put on headphones, close your eyes, play the clip again and concentrate.

Now, you say, okay, I hear it. So what?

So what? You ungrateful bastard.

rock 'n roll, stuff-you-may-have-missed

Oh Mickey, Heavy Mickey

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Okay, okay, I’ll admit it. I bought the single “Mickey” by Toni Basil on 45 when it came out. Throw me in hipster jail.

But, one very nice thing came out of it. I had a habit of playing around with the speeds of the records I would play. And, lemme tell you, this single sounds absolutely kickass slowed down to 33 1/3. The drums are heavy. I mean, HEAVY.

And the song takes on this very intense homoerotic undercurrent. “I’ll take it like a man” indeed!

It’s really another song entirely, and I now present it to you, for being so special.

Oh Mickey, Heavy Mickey!

Enjoy!

comix, geek, stuff-you-may-have-missed

If You Needed Another Reason To Like The Watchmen

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Occasionally, I’ll get a minor epiphany, where I’ll realize a cool facet about something (usually music/movies/pop culture stuff) that to my knowledge has not been remarked on by someone. So, here’s a first post trying to convey my geeky excitement about one of these occasions. Hopefully you get at least 1/3 the pleasure from it as I did.

First of all, if you haven’t read the Watchmen, read it.

Okay, now that we have that out of the way, a little background. I used to be big with the comic book collecting and reading, mostly of the superhero variety. I was more into Marvel stuff, Spider-Man mostly.

I stopped collecting comix in the mid-80’s. The last comics I bought were a DC mini-series by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons called the Watchmen, which pretty made every other superhero comic look like a big pile of superpoo. The comic is incredibly dense, with many, many references, puns, intricate storylines, all that stuff. It’s an impressive piece of work.

Anyways, I had a hankering to reread it again recently, and didn’t have the original comics on hand. I was able to obtain a digital copy of it (basically a zipped-up file of jpegs) and in quickly flipping through the images suddenly realized something I had never noticed when I was reading the actual comic.

There is this part where Dr. Manhattan, a very powerful superhero, has his sense of time all messed up, and he starts acting a little goofy as if he is not in complete control of his own actions. So, by flipping through the digitized images of the comic I noticed that in two consecutive pages the artwork is completely different except for two images of Dr. Manhattan, which remain completely still…

This is something I doubt I would never have noticed had I not viewed the comic digitally. For God’s Sakes, look at Dr. Manhattan’s word balloons in the second detail. Even those are in the same position!

Once again I geekily bow to the feet of Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons.