Tetherd Cow Ahead

I’m sure that you are all aware of the current movie phenomenon of ‘reboots’ – they’re everywhere these days, what with the reinvented Batman, the new Star Trek, the latest Sherlock Holmes and so on. In case this trend has passed you by, basically what happens is that a movie studio takes something that has run out of sequel potential and ‘reboots’ it by making the concept ‘hipper’, by editing it in a snappy fashion, and by casting it with some flavour-of-the-month actors.

When I recently read that they’re rebooting the Spiderman franchise I realised that the time is fast approaching where the reboots are going to come so quick on the heels of the original flick that studios will be in danger of rebooting films that haven’t even been made. This of course means that there is a grave and frightening chance of movies achieving originality – a situation that is plainly not acceptable.

In order that we may head off this alarming possibility, I have decided to launch the concept of the cross-boot. It works like this: you find two previously successful movies and mash them into a hybrid that will in fact appeal to even more people than either of the sources. For instance, Driving Miss Daisy, a film that was a hit with the ma & pa generation could be merged with a science-fiction action piece like, oh, Robocop say, to produce a film that simply can’t fail to bring the whole family together:

One of the problems that studios perennially face is the dreaded ‘couples’ dilemma. When he wants to watch an action movie and she is up for a chick flick, unhappiness inevitably follows for one ((Or both – the loser takes up the right to sulk for the entire duration of the film)) of the parties. But with the cross-boot, no more disputes! If we take the lead character from Alien³ and force her to make a choice about which of her alien spawn she should keep, we obviously get:

In this mutation of two much-loved motion pictures, Ripley’s dilemma is transformed, via thrilling action drama, into a tear-jerker of unparalleled poignancy. Who could possibly be disappointed?!

But the icing on the cake for the cross-boot should surely be smashing a humungous Pixar/Disney animation hit into a killer ((Literally)) vintage horror flick: a cute robot tries to fit in but is mercilessly mocked by his ‘friends’. In a bone-chilling fit of uncontrolled rage he wreaks his bloody vengeance…

The most discerning among you will have figured out by now that, aside from saving the motion picture industry from certain ignominy, all this amounts to the possibility of a Cow Competition… so, get to it! A wondrous TCA coffee mug goes to the winner. Plus, of course the fantabulous glory of saying you were funnier than me.

[The Rules: a pithy and amusing synopsis, plus title, plus cleverly Photoshopped poster mashup. Those of you without mad PShop skillz may enter, but your synopsis will have to be ultra funny to have a chance at the prize]

Good morning Acowlytes. As you no doubt know, 3D movies are all the rage at the moment, but have you ever wondered what the ‘D’ in 3D stands for? I bet you thought it was ‘Dimension’ didn’t you? But I’m here to tell you you are wrong – it stands for ‘Devil’. Yes, that’s right Cowpokes – 3D IS THE WORK OF SATAN!

Well, that’s the idea you get if you listen to the fucking stupid idiot media anyway, who will try and spin a panic story out of just about anything these days. Witness this piece of inane drivel from AFP which has been regurgitated by every undiscerning newspaper from here to Bullamakanka. ((Including the Sydney Morning Herald and the Melbourne Age where I saw it – that’s right, I’m naming names)) The basic gist of it is that a Taiwanese man who went to see Avatar, died during the screening. ((Out of the tens of millions of people who’ve presumably seen it so far, one death seems to me to be on the low side)) The man, who had a known medical history of high blood pressure, was treated by an emergency room doctor who opined “It’s likely that the over-excitement from watching the movie triggered his symptoms.”

Oh whatever. I’m sure it was a tragic event for the guy’s family and all, but it’s hardly news. And the writer of the article knows it, so they tagged it with this frivolous and completely trivial factoid:

Film blogging sites ((‘Blogging Sites’ have become the modern equivalent of the old ‘Our sources’ – in other words, ‘We pulled some garbage that we want you to believe is ‘factual’ out of our asses and we’re giving them a diffuse, unspecified, unreliable provenance’)) have reported complaints of headaches, dizziness, nausea and blurry eyesight from viewers of Avatar and other movies rich in 3D imagery.

What are we supposed to infer from the conflation of these two globs of unrelated news-tainment other than that, if left unchecked, this newfangled 3D phenomenon is going to run amok and kill us all in our sleep with its boggly ‘comin’-at-ya’ tricks? Oooooo-eeeee-ooooo ((That’s a theremin playing…)) …. Maybe 3D is all, you know – dangerous and stuff…! Jesus H. Christ. No wonder the news media is losing credibility. If Mr Rupert Murdoch is hell bent on charging for online news, he’d better go hire some actual journalists to write his stories, otherwise I’m sticking with the mysterious ‘blogging sites’.

___________________________________________________________________________

PS – The Tetherd Cow Ahead ‘ShooWooWoo’ button and keyring, both available in the TCA Shoppe, are guaranteed to protect you against trauma or death resulting from the viewing of 3D movies. ((Guarantee does not extend to effects caused by the subject matter of said movies))

___________________________________________________________________________

It’s going to be quiet for a few days faitful Acowlytes. I’m taking some time off to work on my new movie magnum opus. It’s in 3D and Sensurround and Smellovision, and I expect to retire obscenely wealthy on the billions I rake in from the merchandising.

It’s called Cowvatar…

___________________________________________________________________________

I have to confess that this was actually Atlas’s idea – I’m way too dumb to think of such things.

___________________________________________________________________________

A little while back (oh my – I see it was just over a year!) I posted up some still images from my short experimental movie Microspore, but as I mentioned at the time, I was having some difficulty making it acceptably viewable in a format other than the very high resolution 10 gigabyte file that it’s rendered to.

I’ve been doing a bit of experimentation and I’m pleased to be able to show it to you now in reasonable quality. Be warned though, this is still a (relatively) massive file (about 250m) so it’s not for the faint-hearted. It’s still only a shadow of the beautiful hi-rez version, but at least it’s now watchable.

Everything you see – the critters themselves, the dirt, the distortion, the colours and the motion – is the result of reasonably simple math algorithms that I’ve constructed. The sound is also mine. If you can be patient, I recommend letting the complete movie load before you hit play – it sort of ruins the floating effect somewhat if you stop & start…

UPDATE: For some puzzling technical reason there’s a problem with the vid. I will investigate and repost.

Presented for your scientific improvement. Tetherd Cow Ahead Laboratories also recommends the ‘Look Around You’ series of science programmes.

Discovered by Viridian and Vermilion in the local Blockbuster, to their mirth.

(I wonder if Bale got the part by telling the producers that he was a good Christian?)