Some Wish This Blag Would Do The Same

Why has the Dodo become the poster child for extinct species?

Probably because of how much fun it is to say Dodo.  Especially if you say it like the Dodo at the 4:21 mark of This Famous Cartoon.  

Well, I found it curious that when it comes to all of the extinct species in the world, whenever people talk about extinction or the end of something, we always say that it's "Going the way of the Dodo."  What did the Dodo ever do that was more important than the Tahitian Red-Billed Rail?  Nobody remembers the poor Bourbon-Crested Starling, but it's just as gone as the Dodo.  Also, it was much cuter...I mean seriously....Dodos were pretty ugly, and they had that foot thing going on.  

So, next time something comes to an end, I think instead of further propagating the myth that the Dodo bird is the most important of the extinct species, we should say that the thing we're talking about has gone the way of the Broad-Faced Potoroo.  It's just as fun to say, plus it will educate people, because then they'll go off to look up what a Broad-Faced Potoroo is.  Win-Win! 

A Post About Nothing

I actually bought something at The Christmas Tree Shop.  I’ll let you guess what it wasn’t

I would guess, but you told me not to.  

Indeed.  Today's Sametime Status is left as a semi-rhetorical exercise for the reader.  It's probably not too hard to figure out.  

The important thing to note here is that, for better or worse, I actually purchased something at that store for the first time ever.  I found out later I hay have run a small inadvertent scam on them, but I can't tell the story here since it can probably be used as evidence.  I doubt they'll notice.   

So you're not going to tell a story, and you're not going to tell us what you didn't buy.  Great Blag today, Jeremy.  Top shelf, as always.  Are you planning on actually having any content tomorrow?  

Sure am!  Well...actually....to be more specific...probably not.  See you then!

It'll Be A Thing!

New Word:  Cemuse – to distract someone through comedy

It's a verb!  

Indeed it is.  See, English is a confusing language, and it's even worse when Americanized.  A former professor of mine used to say "Most parts of the world speak broken English except the United States, where it's been ground into a fine powder."  "The Three Amigos" teach us that adding 'in' to the front of a word does not necessarily change it's meaning, but it might.  Flammable and Inflammable mean the same thing, but Famous and Infamous most certainly do not.  Go figure.  

Not long ago, I was reminded of the word "Bemused," and being an online entertainer of sorts, I'm well acquainted with the word "Amused."  

When it comes to this Blag, the rest of us very much aren't...

So I figured, why not help out and make English a little easier to digest.  We have "A"mused and "BE"mused, so why not just continue the trend and make "CE"mused.  To make the definition easy to remember, instead of having it be something totally random and unrelated to similar words like "Guest" and "Quest" (and don't even get me started on contranyms like "Oversight" meaning careful supervision as well as carelessness), actually have the meaning follow long the pattern.  So, to Amuse means to entertain, often in a comedic way.  Bemuse means to distract somebody and get them to think about something.  So from now on, Cemuse means to distract somebody with something funny.  

Now all we need is somebody to Cemuse us away from this site, and we're all set. 

Poor Turkey

Ice Cream Truck + Doppler Effect = Funny

Ice cream man ice cream man ice cream man!!!

Please join me as I take you on an aural journey though a mystical place known as "the road I live on."  

Off in the distance, children laugh and giggle as an electronic calliope chimes out a simple, yet jaunty version of "Turkey In The Straw."  It is the unmistakable sound of the ice cream truck making its local rounds to deliver frozen treats to the neighborhood kids.  The mood is joyous and playful as the little monsters load up on their sugary snacks.  It's not long before the crowd is sated and its time for the truck to move on. 

The truck proceeds down the road, but having reached the far southern end of the neighborhood, there are no more playgrounds, no more gathering places, and no more smiling faces running toward the street, dragging parents and wallets in their wakes.  It is time for the truck to move on to the next neighborhood in the hopes of spreading cheer and cavities.  The engine revs up and the truck speeds down the road, past a local homeowner, let's call him "Jeremy," on its way to other grounds.  While the customers have all come and gone, the music never ceases.  The turkey still in the straw and/or the hay.  

As the truck zooms by, a funny thing happens.  The Doppler effect takes control of the music, and for the next few seconds, the pitch of the music gets ever lower, slowly transforming the poor turkey into a horrible (Dare I say "Foul") version of the song, completely out of tune with itself.  It sounds as if the turkey found its way out of the straw and is now falling off a cliff coyote-style, descending into musical madness.  "Jeremy" listened for a few more seconds before making his way inside, slightly saddened by the fate of the poor turkey.   

And he no longer wanted ice cream.   

The Operator Asked Me Not To Call Back

I tried calling “2,” but nobody from the Mets answered

Well, hopefully by now you know how a phone works, so you weren't actually expecting Justin Turner to answer.  

I'm not entirely sure how I feel about today's Sametime Status, because I finally gave in to public persuasion and made a Status about Carly Rae Jepsen's hit single "Call Me Maybe."  

See, I was made aware very recently that New York Mets infielder Justin Turner uses this song as his walk-up music during games, and I have no idea why.  Not that cheap bubble-gum tripe music is altogether bad for being played in front of 50 thousand people (not to mention however many are watching on TV), but this particular song is about a young girl of questionable morals meeting a guy at a party, which has little, if anything, to do with baseball.  If you haven't heard this song yet, I have no idea what you're doing with your life, but please let me know in the comments below so I can try to duplicate it.  

Anyway, this Status, in addition to being a round-about joke about baseball walk-up music, reminded me of a joke from the great Mitch Hedberg, in which he laments not having the phone number (222) 222-2222.  When asked how to get ahold of him, he can simply reply, "Just press 2 for a while.  When I answer, you will know you have pressed 2 enough."   

By the way, I was told to remind you that today is an important milestone or something?

Indeed it is!  Today's Blag Entry marks the 1,000th post for Jeremy Is In The Office.  

You have got to be kidding me.  One thousand posts of this crap?  Where does the time go?

I have no idea, but the fine folks who read my page sure have wasted a lot of it here.  Over the last thousand posts, we've learned a lot about Hockey, Bird Flu, History (Revisionist or otherwise), Music, Movies, all other forms of Pop Culture, some actual Culture, Webcomics, general Nerdiness, and heard some hopefully amusing stores from the real world of Jeremy.  I feel that we've grown together as a Status-Message Writing family, and look forward to many more posts of the same sort of silliness you've come to expect.

And I'm pretty sure I speak for everyone when I hope it gets a whole lot better.    

Here's to the next 1000 posts! 

It's Happening Again!

For the fourth time, I’ve seen somebody selling a steamroller on the side of the road

You can't be serious.  

Entirely serious here.  It's a little...I don't know what the word is to describe this, but it's weird.  I'm not sure if this is the sort of thing that happens all the time everywhere and I've just never noticed it until now, or if this truly is a landmark event, but people around here love to sell steamrollers.

As far as I can tell, this is an entirely different steamroller than the first three I saw for sale, so it's not the same steamroller being sold over and over again.  At least four different people have not only owned steamrollers, but wanted to sell them and in fact (in three of the cases so far) found buyers for them.  This means that at least seven random people have known the joys of steamroller ownership.  

The joys?  

You can make stuff flat any time you want!  It's great for breakfast and laundry day, not to mention putting in a new asphalt driveway...which some people may do WAY more often than most, I just don't know.  And do you know why?

Because you don't own a steamroller?

Because I don't own a steamroller!  

And now that there exists a fourth opportunity to join the brotherhood of steamroller owners, (Do they have a secret handshake?  When are the meetings?) I don't know how long I'll be able to put off this pleasure.      

You Have Fine Taste In Blag Reading

Here’s a Fun Fact!  Connoisseur is not a French word

How disappointing.  Next you're going to tell us that French Fries aren't French either.

Well, since you mentioned it...

Anyway, the word "Connoisseur" is in fact an entirely English word of French origin, coming from the French "connoistre," meaning "to know," or "to be acquainted with."  When the word is used in French parlance, it is spelled slightly differently, as "connaisseur."  

I was made aware of this Fun Fact very recently, and thought you'd all like to be as apprised as I am.  You are welcome.   

I'm So Happy It's Over

Without the sentences about people describing how happy they are, the novel “Anna Karenina” would only be 103 pages long

Jeremy's apparently taking a break from the world of Film to come up with his critical review of one of the greatest novels of all time, "Anna Karenina" by Leo Tolstoy.  This should be informative and enlightening, or something.  

I don't really have a problem with the novel itself, or its placement in the World Library's 100 Greatest Books Of All Time.  Like anything written by Nathaniel Hawthorne, I had a problem with this book being overly long for the sake of being overly long.  The original edition of this book comprised 864 pages, made longer and longer with each publication and translation (almost 1200 pages by the latest printing), and oh so much of it could have been avoided. 

I can appreciate Tolstoy wanting to tell a story on a grand scale, covering years of people's lives and getting into very intricate detail of the culture and politics of the day, but when you get to the point where you're writing three entire chapters of a novel about a guy mowing the lawn (I AM NOT MAKING THAT UP!!!), something inside of you should say that you've gone too far.  

There's also the fact that every trivial detail of the plot is garnished by entire pages of reaction to the detail, with every character in turn explaining to the others how happy that makes them, or how excited they are for it to happen, and how glad they'll be when it does happen.  It wouldn't be quite so annoying if it were ever any different, but the only time somebody in this book ever has some emotion other than elation about something, she spends a mere 2 chapters going bonkers, then throws herself in front of a train.  Oh, by the way...that was a spoiler. 

So, in a scientific study in which I made up a number that sounded funny, I have concluded that if you remove all sentences from "Anna Karenina" where somebody says "I'm so happy..." or "I'm so glad that..." or something to that syrupy effect, you could whittle the book down to a manageable 103 pages without losing any of the plot.  Failing that, you can just wait until November when the movie starring Kiera Knightley comes out.  Sadly, I'm not making that up, either. 

Theme Week, Part 1

Jeremy's Sametime Status Proudly Presents:  Soccer Improvements Week!  #5 - Implement Instant Replay, but only for injuries


Wow...Jeremy's actually making sense for once.  This is a rare and special gift.


The number one thing that people complain about when watching soccer is the number of embellished injuries.  By that, I mean blatant dives in an attempt to draw a penalty of some sort.  One of the most important rules of sports is that if people can take a play you make and set it to "Yakkety Sax," you've made a bad play.  Well, here are a series of Soccer Dives Set To Yakkety Sax.   

That's awful.   


Here's Another Video, apparently recorded on a toaster, which is only amusing because of the music...which appears to be the Imperial Death March played by a bass, a guitar, and a penny whistle.   




The problem with soccer injuries is that there are so rarely actual injuries in soccer that nobody ever believes the players when they fall down clutching at something.  Almost exclusively, the player will spring right back up as soon as the ref acknowledges their situation.  On exceedingly rare occasions, the player will stay down for a while until a trainer comes over, gives them a drink of water, gives them a shot of that magic spray stuff they use and helps them back to their feet.  Either way, there is almost never an injury, yet the players act as if they have been shot, and nobody believes them.  The image of honesty among soccer players is completely gone.  Something must be done to return integrity to the game, and as usual, I'm the only one willing to step up and make it happen.  


So, here's my proposal.  Implement an Instant Replay system whenever a player acts as if they have been injured.  If the ref is able to determine that contact was made that could have resulted in the described injury (even if the "injury" may be embellished a bit), then play goes on as it normally would.  If, however, the player is deemed to have taken a dive in order to draw a penalty, they are assessed a substantial penalty of their own.  I have a couple suggestions.  The most obvious and least creative is give them an immediate red card, removing them from the game and forcing the team to play shorthanded the rest of the fixture (I learned that word not long ago...it means "Game.").  You can also award the offended team a penalty kick which would not only discourage diving, but would potentially increase scoring, which is something else soccer desperately needs.  Or, you can award the offended team a free kick...wherein the player deemed to have taken a dive is forced to act as a one-man wall only 5 yards from the spot of the ball, and they have to hold their hands behind their back until the ball is played.  I'm nothing if not creative.  




So, with that amusing mental image comes the end of this Theme Week.  We hope you've enjoyed our improvements to the great game of soccer, and enjoy watching Euro 2012.  Come back on monday for more fun! 

Theme Week, Part 2

Jeremy's Sametime Status Proudly Presents:  Soccer Improvements Week!  #4 - Put a glass or net barrier along the back line to keep balls in play if they miss the net

Jeremy Is In The Office continues our celebration of Euro 2012 with the fourth in a series of improvements to the game of Soccer, other than calling it "Football," which will broaden its appeal to the general sporting fanbase.  Today's tip...wait, really?  I don't know about this one.

Well, they can't all be gold.  

Today's suggestion comes from the realm of hockey and/or arena football in which a barrier of glass (technically Lexan, but that may be splitting hairs) or netting to immediately return balls to play when they're kicked past the goal.  In the case of hockey, the puck bounces right back into play, wherein Arena Football can see the ball thrown into the net and drop directly into the end zone for a touchdown.  These ideas are great for the game of soccer, where often times, players will direct a hard shot in the general goal-ward direction, but miss completely and have the ball sail far out of play.  This results in a substantial stoppage in play during which time a new ball is tossed onto the pitch, players arrange themselves for a corner kick, one player places the ball in the corner kick area, then moves it, then gets ready to kick it before moving the ball again, signalling to his teammates before moving the ball again and finally kicking it, the goalie catches it, and play finally resumes.  Of course, at this point, the goalie usually nutses around with the ball for a while first, but that's beside the point.  

All of this nonsense and dead time can be avoided by simply having the ball bounce immediately back into play, forcing people to continue to work hard on both the offensive and defensive sides of the ball, and resulting in non-stop soccer action.  

I guess this isn't SO stupid...it's better than adding a water hazard on the sidelines.  

That would be AWESOME!!!!  

Sorry I mentioned it.  

Also for your edutainment today, I realized something not long ago.  For highly-anticipated sporting events, people spend long hours well in advance to create official logos which will be printed on commemorative t-shirts, books, pennants, keychains, balls, hats, and whatever else souvenir retailers can make some money on.  You'll be pleased to know that the official logo for the 2014 World Cup soccer tournament has been painstakingly designed, and has resulted in 100% Fail.  Yes, folks..the official 2014 World Cup Logo, coming soon to merchandise everywhere, is pretty much identical to the iconic Captain Picard Facepalm:

 

Theme Week, Part 3

Jeremy's Sametime Status Proudly Presents:  Soccer Improvements Week!  #3 - Add an “Over and Back” rule similar to basketball

Jeremy's coverage of the Euro 2012 tournament continues today with the third part in a week-long series dedicated to making the game of soccer more enjoyable to a wider audience.  Today's rule change explores the world of ball control and territorial gain.

 One thing that everybody (read: Jeremy) finds entertaining about most sports is the drive and determination to achieve the ultimate goal, be it winning a point, scoring a goal, putting the ball in the target area...what have you.  In the case of most sports, the majority of a team's effort is spent moving towards that goal.  Football players rush toward the end zone, basketball players drive to the net, hockey players speed through the neutral zone toward the goal, bowlers roll the ball toward the pins, archers shoot at the target, golfers drive the ball down the fairway, divers fall, baseball players run towards first base when they hit the ball, and so on.  On the other hand, soccer players stand around with the ball and kick it back and forth amongst themselves, spending as much time and effort kicking the ball backwards as they do forwards.  This is nonsense.

Soccer would be so much more entertaining if instead of trying to "maintain control" and methodically keep possession of the ball, the players actually tried to consistently move forward and attempt to score.  Basketball has a fairly similar type of issue, when teams merely try to kill time off the clock, but that sport has several methods in place to deal with the situation.  They not only employ a shot clock and an 8-second backcourt violation (once a team puts a ball in play, they have 8 seconds to cross the court's center line, or they lose possession.), but they have a rule called "Ball In Backcourt," more commonly referred to as "Over and Back."  (Rule 10, Section X)  The idea is that once you have advanced the ball past the center line of the court, you can't go backwards, recrossing the center line, in order to waste time.  You are essentially forced into the front half of the court to face your opposition and try to score.   

Such a rule needs to exist in soccer.  An average of 83 times per game, a player will advance the ball past mid-pitch, see that there is an opposing defender within 20 yards of them, and decide to kick the ball back across the center line to a teammate out of danger.  This results in team possessions of the ball lasting minutes on end without any real attempt being made at scoring a goal.  So, I say nuts to this.  If the teams aren't going to take it upon themselves to score, force their hand...or their feet, I guess would be more appropriate here.  Once they cross the center line, they're not allowed to go back.  Press on and take a shot on the goal!  The thing is 192 square feet for cryin' out loud.  If you make more of an attempt to actually get goals, maybe we'll make more of an attempt to watch your sport. 

Theme Week, Part 4

Jeremy's Sametime Status Proudly Presents:  Soccer Improvements Week!  #2 - Use an actual Stadium Clock

Before we begin, Jeremy and I would like to congratulate the Los Angeles Kings for their dramatic victory in Game 6 of the Stanley Cup Finals to win their first NHL championship in franchise history.  By "dramatic victory," we mean, of course, "Good Old-Fashioned Beatdown of the New Jersey Devils."

So Theme Week continues today with the second in a series of improvements to the game of Soccer which would make the game more accessible to today's sporting audience.  Today's suggestion is simple: use a stadium clock to keep the game time.

Soccer games last 90 minutes, plus whatever time the ref sees fit to stop the clock due to injuries and whatnot.  Many of you probably know that in a game of soccer, there is only one person on the field, in the stadium, or watching on TV who knows when the game is going to end.  The only official record of the time is on the referee's wrist, and when he decides the game is over, he blows the whistle.  He does not tell anyone in advance exactly how much time is remaining at any given time.  Many of you don't know that this practice goes back to the days before clocks, when the only way to tell the time was by the passage of the sun.  The referee would determine at which position on a sideline sundial the game would end and rule the game accordingly. 

You're ruining your credibility here...

We've since come so far as to have somebody announce approximately how much "stoppage time" is left after everyone else thinks that 90 minutes have passed, though how that information is gleaned from the ref is a mystery on the order of the "Magic Spray" used to treat soccer injuries.  Regardless, nowadays, we actually have clocks with the express purpose of timing sporting events.  Referees can stop and start them at will, and there are even officials whose duty it is to make sure those clocks are accurate.  There is no reason not to use this in soccer.  

If they still want to use the goofy backwards clock which counts from 0:00 to 90:00, that's fine...we can figure that part out, but to have there be no clues as to how much time is actually left in the game is absurd.  It deprives people of the suspense and action that can accompany the last minute of a game when victory is on the line and one team is frantically trying to tie the score.  You want to add that level of drama and intrigue to the game?  Add a real game clock. 

Theme Week, Part 5

Jeremy's Sametime Status Proudly Presents:  Soccer Improvements Week!  #1 - Change or Eliminate the Offside Rule

All this week, in celebration of Euro 2012, which is a soccer tournament or something, Jeremy's Sametime Status and Jeremy Is In The Office, in association with Miracle Posting, Inc. proudly presents an entire theme week dedicated to the improvement of this great game.  

That's right, LIR.  While the sport of soccer may be well known and beloved outside of the United States (I guess there's a "rest of the world" out there), its popularity in this country lags other more "American" sports like Basketball and NASCAR.  As it turns out, if Americans aren't always the best at something, we think it's stupid and don't want to watch.  So despite the US having its own soccer league which is able to play sport the American way (Throw unholy sums of money at already-famous talent to pretend we give a crap...See Also: Becham, David, and Yankees, New York) Americans just aren't quite as in-tune with the game as others around the world.  To try to rectify that, I've created a series of changes that soccer can implement in order to broaden its appeal to American audiences, who are more willing to pay ridiculous amounts of money to watch games...and isn't that what sport is really all about?  

First off, Offsides.  The offside rule is confusing enough to explain to somebody when there is a fixed position which governs it (Such as the Blue Line in hockey).  In soccer, the position of "Offside" changes with respect to the positioning of the defenders, and also only applies before the ball is kicked in the general direction of a player.  Whether the ball can be deemed to be played to that person is subjective and at the discretion of the ref.  On top of that, there is a play called an "Offside Trap" in which the defenders all move up in unison in order for an offensive player to be called offside without actually doing anything.  

Sure, the concept of Offside is marginally necessary.  The intent is to prevent "Cherry Picking" in which one or more players on a team just hang out deep in the offensive zone, wait for a turnover and for the ball to be kicked the length of the field before the defense has time to react.  This practice is common in grade school sports, is akin to Internet Trolling, and is considered (at the very least) bad form among trained athletes.  By the time you get to games being played on TV, this sort of thing shouldn't work, so having a confusing and constantly-in-flux rule to prevent it is just unnecessary.  Let's go ahead and get rid of the current Offside rule, or replace it with a Blue Line on the pitch somewhere between the goal box and the center line.  It will help people who pay attention to soccer once every 2-4 years understand the game a little bit better. 

SCIENCE!

“That guy brought science.”  Adam Rogers - Senior Editor, Wired Magazine

Who brought science?  Also, where was science brought?  These are important questions that you told me to ask you on today's Blag.  Also, when are you going to hire a better script writer for me?  

So the guy who brought Science was none other than Mythbuster Adam Savage.  The quote which makes up today's Sametime Status comes from an online celebrity bowling competition.  

Online celebrity bowling?  Please tell me you're making this up.

I'm so not.  The fine folks at Nerdist, who make Youtube videos and probably some other stuff have a web series going on where they hold a bowling competition between four of them and four people from some other celebrity group.  Some of these include the cast of "Breaking Bad," chefs Hannah Hart and the loud guy from Epic Meal Time, Weird Al Yankovic, and in one recent case, "Mythbusters."  Most of these competitions are held at a bar in Los Angeles called "The Spare Room" which happens to be an unbelievably nice and posh place with A Bowling Alley Built In.  I want to go.  

These competitions are often hilarious and feature hilariously bad bowling, which only leads to more trash talking and hilarity.  I recommend watching the show Right Now.

That's Just Nutty

Here’s a Fun Fact!  Almonds are members of the Peach family

I don't know about this.  Do you get these from the same place you get your Revisionist History facts?

Actually, I'm not making crap up!  

Shocking.

I know, right?   Anyway, I was skeptical about this one, too...since, you know...almonds more resemble the parts of a peach that you don't eat than the part that you do.  But as it turns out, it's entirely true.  Both delicious treats belong to the genus "prunus" which also includes plums, cherries, and apricots.  (Yay!  Oxford Comma!)  So there you have it, folks...go forth and amaze your friends by dropping some fruity/nutty knowledge on them.

Betrayal!

Success at the Driving Range does not equal Success on the course

Before continuing, it's important to filly understand that Jeremy is a lousy golfer.  Forget what he's ever told you about shooting par and whatnot...he stinks.  

Not long ago, I bought a new golf club...specifically, a Callaway driver.  It wasn't long before that when I received a new Jack Nicklaus Golf Bag to hold all my clubs.  The theory is as follows.  Aside from the people who I'm golfing with, the only time on the course people will actually see me hit the ball is off the first tee (And the 10th, if we're playing 18, but the theory remains the same).  So, in order to create the illusion that I'm a good golfer, all I need to do is impress people at this time.  Therefore, if I stroll up to the first tee with my Jack Nicklaus golf bag, pull out my Callaway driver, and pound the first ball of the day 250 yards down the fairway, the people near the clubhouse will see this and assume I'm nothing but a high roller.  After that, I disappear around the first bend, never to be seen by these people again, and the illusion is complete.  I can then proceed to suck it up for the rest of the round and only 3 people are the wiser. 

All I needed to do was procure this new driver and learn how to drive the ball 250 yards down the fairway...no problem, right?  There are places to do this.  So, I took my new gear out to the driving range a handful of times since then, with mixed, though mosty positive, results.  The new club hits the ball a long, long way...and sometimes it even goes straight.  I'm well aware that the limiting factor here is the operator, but that's why I practiced.  Having achieved this reasonable level of success, I decided it was time to put my new plan into action, so I hit the links.  (Apparently, "Links" is a very specific type of golf course, but I don't know how to distinguish them, so I'm just going to use that word)

The results were not good.  I think I actually achieved my goal of a relatively decent drive on the first tee, but that was the last time I hit the ball anything that even resembles "well" with the new driver.  Having sliced many a ball at the range, I proceeded to hook every hard-hit ball to the left, topped a couple straight into the turf, and hit one that stayed about 2 feet off the ground for its entire short flight.  The left hook that one of these shots had was darned impressive, actually.  Like something out of a cartoon, the ball launched off the tee, then seemingly hit the brakes and immediately turned 90 degrees to the left and found its way into the trees.  It was an impressive, but not especially useful shot. 

Bottom line...the scenery is complete, but I need a little more practice before my illusion of grandeur can work out.  

The Mirror Also Knew This Was Crap

Snow White’s Huntsman should have kept hunting for a better movie  

Hope you've gone out to the lobby to get yourselves a snack, because your favorite film critic is back with another review.  Also, one of these days, Jeremy may actually like a movie.  That will be fun to see.

So, not long ago, I attended a screening of the new motion picture "Snow White And The Huntsman."  It's the new epic telling of the fairy tale of roughly the same name.   The non-spoiler portion of my review is as follows:  Don't See This Movie.  

SPOILER ALERT!  If you're concerned about that sort of thing, stop reading now, but come back tomorrow!

This movie stars Kristen Stewart in a non-vampire role where she still gets to sleepwalk through her part without ever changing facial expression.  (Remind You Of Anyone?)  She plays Snow White whose father is killed by the evil queen and her army of glass shards.  I'm not making that up.   Snow escaped from the castle and is tracked in the dark forest by the unnamed "Huntsman" who I shall refer to as Westley, because the whole dark forest thing (and at least 41.5% of the rest of the movie) is lifted pretty directly from The Princess Bride.  After Westley decides he likes Snow, he goes on the run with her and they spend the next hour of our lives being hunted down by the Queen's magical army no fewer than four times, because three apparently wasn't enough to drive the point home.  Snow discovers that the animals and some dwarfs love her and the whole poison apple thing happens, Westley kisses her to wake her up (since she was only "Mostly Dead") and they gather an army to storm the castle.  Snow confronts the evil queen in her magical chamber of evil with the line "My name is Snow White.  You killed my father.  Prepare to die."  Or at least she should have. 

Here's a brief list of what's wrong with this movie:

• The Mirror on the wall actually melts down and creates a sort of statue person (who is NOT voiced by James Earl Jones...huge casting mistake) in a special effect we haven't seen since Terminator 2.
  
• Snow escapes the castle with nothing but a nail, yet four battle scenes later, she's wearing a snuggly-looking winter coat.
  
• A mystical 83-point buck decrees Snow to be the real princess in a scene stolen from The Matrix when Neo meets the Oracle.  Anything that reminds us of Keanu Reeves can't be a good thing.
  
• Snow's friend joins the Queen's army as a double-agent archer, seemingly the only archer in the search party.  When a village is set on fire with flaming arrows, our boy has already switched sides.  Who's shooting all these arrows, and why has nobody noticed that The Archer isn't one of them?
  
  
• The tunnel Snow used to escape the castle is a full 50 feet above the water on the side of a cliff, yet that's the entrance the dwarfs use to get back in. 
  
• And this one is the worst for me.  Snow and Westley are wandering through the dark forest when OUT OF FREAKING NOWHERE, Westley stops everything to show Snow how to properly kill somebody with a dagger, and they move on.  Gee...we're 35 minutes into the movie, and I now know precisely how the evil queen is going to die.  I'm all for foreshadowing, but this was terrible. 
  
  

So, in a nutshell, this film was visually amazing with scenes and costumes and action scenes to spare.  However, that's not quite enough to make up for the pacing (At least 30 minutes too long), baffling plot twists, lack of originality, and some questionable acting performances (Charlize Theron as the Evil Queen isn't bad when she's not too far over the top).  This film killed it at the box office this weekend due to a brilliant marketing campaign, but it won't stay up there for long.

This has been another edition of Jeremy Is In The Theatre.