Desipio Message Board

So, Netflix made this into a series, with much of the original cast from the film.  The film that I wasn't aware of until after I finished watching the series.  The series was moderately amusing, but might have been better had I not been oblivious to what it was sending up.  I mean, I could see it was sending something up, I'm not a complete fucking idiot*, I just thought it was that kind of movie in general, rather than something very specific.  Bearing in mind how many of the cast have gone on to do other things that I have watched, I have no idea how this is possible.

Anyway, it is not awful.  Especially if you watched the film all those years ago.


*Fuck you, no I'm not.

Boom: dead of motor neurone disease at 68.  Ten points for Tonk, please.

I watched a couple of SPORTZ-related programmes on Netflix this weekend, one about Jimmy Connors ("This is what they want") and a 30/30 film about Brian Bosworth ("Brian and the Boz").  As a kid, I loved Jimmy Connors - I'd support him against McEnroe and Borg every time.  It turns out, though - and I'm not quite sure why I was surprised to find this out - that he was, and remains, a colossal, irredeemable arsehole who sees nothing wrong with anything he ever did.  You can see his point, but only up to a point - when John McEnroe thinks you overstepped the mark, it's probably time to re-examine your values.  Bosworth, on the other hand, was a colossal arsehole who has, to a significant degree, redeemed himself and genuinely comes across as a likeable, intelligent bloke who got caught up in his own hype and made some catastrophically bad decisions.

In any event, they were both very interesting films and if you haven't seen them, and like SPORTZ, you should check them both out.

Christopher Lee, who played Dracula more times than your Mum's had hot dick, dead at 93.

... I hardly know where to start.  James Last, the King of easy listening, dead at 86.

EDIT:

Okay, fine, one or two of my favourites:

Last Will and Testament
Nothing Lasts forever
Morgan Freeman outLasts another one

... etc., etc., etc.

So, when do the Cubs start to draft a pitching staff to go with their stable full of studs?

Personally, I HOPE DEY SIGN DAT NINTENDO GUY MY FRENTS.

Absolutely, completely, utterly what you would expect from an Avengers movie: big, loud, brash, big, hokey, cheesy, predictable, big, funny, preachy, spectacular and above all, big.  Everything is turned up to eleven and that's just as it should be.  Some of the fight scenes are shot so much like a music video - with the shot changing every second or so - that it's hard to keep up sometimes but actually, it turns out that keeping up isn't necessary anyway.  Much like with the first "Thor" movie, the 3D was completely immaterial: I barely noticed it was even there, although that might just be a reflection of how blasé I've become about the technology already.  All in all, though, the film was never boring and I enjoyed it really quite a lot.

The next lot of Avengers look like a load of fucking pussies, though.

Ben E. King, no longer standing.

Terry Pratchett, dead at 66 of Alzheimers.  I'm not even going to make a joke about this one: I'm genuinely gutted that there won't be any more books.

So, what did you all think of "Birdman"?

Nice movie.  Understated, moving, funny and with note-perfect performances from everybody involved - not least the kid.  It's a simple enough story but there are enough twists and turns to keep it interesting without being overblown.  Irregardless of the fact that I'm a soppy old bastard these days, it brought a lump to my throat definitely a few times, without ever quite getting too schmaltzy.  Murray, as ever, makes a very good performance look completely effortless.

Absolutely worth an hour and a half of your time.  I really enjoyed it.

I've never been in a war, so I have no idea how realistic this film is.  Not very, I suspect.  Without wishing to spoil anything, the final scene stretches credulity in many, many ways and there's a general feeling of the whole thing being a live-action version of a comic-book story, albeit an absolutely brutal and staggeringly bloody comic-book story.  The storyline is very simple, but that's not a bad thing because it allows the five actors in the tank crew to really, really shine.  Pitt does Pitt better than anybody else, and Lerman gives a nicely judged performance as the replacement kid.  Peña and LaBeouf both really show their quality here, too: Peña is rapidly becoming one of my favourite actors and it's easy to forget that LaBoeuf is an utter twat in real life.  I've never seen Jon Bernthal in anything before (I don't watch "The Walking Dead") but he's best of all and almost worth the price of admission by himself: utterly, utterly convincing as an Arkansas hick.

Also, Alicia von Rittberg is fucking lovely.

Good film.  Not great, but good and definitely worth a couple of hours of your time, especially if you like WW2 war movies.

Demis Roussos, fat, hairy Greek singer, dead at (fnarr fnarr) 69.

Goodbye, auf Wiedersehen.

Having kicked the idea around for a year or two now, the Family Tonk has decided that we really are going to try to spend the kids' summer holiday in America this year.  We want to be based out of, and mostly staying in, Chicago, but will probably do a couple of road trips: one to Colorado (Oleg, you're up), and one to Tennessee.  We're currently planning to try and stay for around five weeks in total, from the 15/07 to the 20/08, or something like that.

This whole plan depends, however, on what sort of accommodation I can sort out.  Bearing in mind that the flights alone are going to cost me upwards of four thousand Euro, I can't afford to be paying for a hotel suite for the entire vacation.  Hotel accommodation would also mean that we have to drag everything we own with us on roadtrips, too, which would be a colossal pain in the jacksie - so that means we really want some kind of medium-term housing in the Chicago area.

Ideally, we'd like to be somewhere with the boundaries of the El - I don't want to be dependent on the fucking Metra for getting anywhere.  If we could find something within shouting distance of the lake and/or Downtown or the North Side, so much the better.

To sum up, what I'm looking for is decent, cheap (or free), accommodation for two adults and two kids (so two bedrooms are fine) in one of the most desirable parts of the city for more or less the entire high season.  I feel confident that not one of you Morans will have the slightest idea as to how I might be able to swing this particular miracle, but I'm asking you nonetheless.  As an incentive for you to think extra hard about it, I guarantee that whoever figures this out will, upon my arrival, be eligible for unlimited shirtless man-hugs.

Also, you should all plan us into your family BBBQs for the summer.  We will also be available for those Cubs tickets you simply can't get rid of.

So, sort it out, will you?  There's a good chap.

Finally got round to seeing this over Christmas.  If you're one of the people who got bent out of shape about JJ Abrams' treatment of the Star Trek franchise, well... you're going to fucking hate this film, because it's a rollocking, rip-roaring, laugh-a-minute action yarn that never slows or takes itself too seriously.  If you're one of the people who got bent out of shape about JJ Abrams' treatment of the Star Trek franchise, you should probably go and find something a hell of a lot less fun to watch.  You dull cunts.

Ian McLagan, keyboard player for the Small Faces, and the Faces, dead at 69 of a massive stroke, apparently.

At least he didn't set himself on fire smoking in bed.

Ten years ago today, a colossal blunder was made that would have huge negative impact on the lives of a handful of Midwest morans (and one Belgian).  I refer, of course, to Dolan setting up the Desipio Messageboard.  First to join on that fateful day were Dolan himself and Karry Ling (natch), closely followed by, amongst others, Chuck (always near the front of the queue when wrong is being handed out), CFiHP, TJ, Kelly Dwyer and CT.  The next day, late to the party as ever, came such luminaries as BC, me, Hawk, Huey, Dubbs, Oleg and Shooter.  The rest, as they say, is probably best forgotten, actually.

Since that day I have travelled three times to Chicago at a cost of many thousands of Australian groats, spent around four months actively logged on to the board (and I know I'm nowhere near the head of that Slaklist), and generally pissed away what could have been a useful and productive ten years, swapping tired insults with a load of Illinois goons, in-joking myself half to death, and Googling Wheezer's posts.

Along the way we've had the delights of such, ahem, "characters" as Carloszno1fan, Paul Popovich, Doc, The Uncouth Sloth, Weebs and everybody's favourite troll, Paul Tanner.  helloWorld has been drunk a lot.  We've managed to almost completely avoid racial, social or cultural diversity, and to scare off the very small minority of women who ever blundered unsuspectingly through the doors (Laura, smg, carloszno1fan).  Indeed, were it not for Apex and Yeti, we'd be the whitest, middle classest bunch of Catholic-Jewish college boy accountants and lawyers in the World.

And yet... well, and yet nothing.  Fuck youse guys, I want my decade back.  Can we close down the board now?

This is a thing.  You have to be kidding me.  I hope you're proud of yourself, America.

Based on the Thomas Pynchon novel of the same name, and starring Joaquin Phoenix, Reece Witherspoon, Benicio Del Toro, Josh Brolin and fucking Omar, this looks fucking brilliant.  I've watched the bit from 1:58 to 2:01 about a dozen times already.  Out in December.

Jimi Jameson, lead singer of, well... Survivor: dead of a "Burning Heart" at 63.