A random thread for small entertainment things not warranting their own thread..

[citoyen]

Know any way to block those wretched "cards" that cover up the ends of YT videos nowadays?

No. I wish I did! 

[mllePB]

Eventbrite suggested to me a local village hall doing a comedy about Benny Hill. Promo is along the lines of why does he have no statue in his hometown and why is he "cancelled" at home but loved by millions worldwide 

[Cudzoziemiec]

AI-generated trailer for a Heidi movie...

https://youtu.be/0A2-Af5JEWU

Hrclic is a great invention.

[Tim Hall]

Rebecca Lucy Taylor (aka Self Esteem), gets honorary degree from University of Sheffield.

Good.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-england-south-yorkshire-66227421

[Mr Larrington]

Also good: Bandcamp has just informed me of End, a new album by Austin's purveyors of post-rock æxcellence Explosions In The Sky.  Touches down on September 15th.

[Pingu]

Also good: Bandcamp has just informed me of End, a new album by Austin's purveyors of post-rock æxcellence Explosions In The Sky.  Touches down on September 15th.

I saw that on Facebook the other day and was a bit concerned about the album's title.

[Kim]

What is is it about cascades of sparks that all film directors think that they add something to a disaster scene or a fight scene or just a basic crash scene. They never look like anything other than a stage pyrotechnic. It’s daft.

I have on a couple of occasions witnessed similar showers of sparks from electrical faults in real life, but only in very specific circumstances where something carrying a decent amount of current overloads quickly enough to melt metal.  As such, they tend to be a small one-off burst and are usually accompanied by a circuit breaker tripping.

The pyrotechnic effect is known as a 'Robotic' and is no doubt one of Le Maitre's best-selling items, even though it's more reminiscent of an angle grinder than an electrical fault.

[Kim]

Computers going biddly beep beep.

Allowed if and only if the computer is being interacted with by means of an acoustic coupler modem.  And even the documentary War Games avoided this particular trope, in spite of nonsensical use of acoustic couplers by way of illustrating what a modem was to a non-technical audience.

More general beep-on-every-button press is referred to in this house as Bugs Mode, after the delightfully silly 90s TV series that used it to glorious excess, particularly when a real electronic device is programmed to beep with every button input, usually in lieu of tactile feedback.

[Cudzoziemiec]

Yebbut some real life people do have their phones set up to beep on every button press, even now in 2023.

[Kim]

Yebbut some real life people do have their phones set up to beep on every button press, even now in 2023.

Yes, they're the ones with Bugs Mode enabled.  It makes some sense to enable Bugs Mode on a touchscreen device like a phone.  You wouldn't want it on your proper computer^[1], unless you're a character in Bugs.  Actually, is beep-on-every-keypress even a thing in modern OSes?  I remember my dad's PC circa 1993 having it as a BIOS option^[2], but haven't knowingly seen it since.


_{[1] Except that accessibility feature that beeps when you toggle Caps/Num/Scroll lock.  That's useful.
[2] Presumably the writer of Bugs also had this setting.}

[andrewc]

“Watership Down” re-classified as “PG”.   Modern kids are wimps…*


https://www.theguardian.com/film/2023/jul/21/watership-down-now-rated-pg-film-originally-classified-u


* on checking I’d have been 13 or 14 when I first saw it at the cinema and had already read the book so was looking forward to the good bits.

[graculus]

I must have seen it shortly after it came out because I was at university. Can remember the blood, but forget what did the seagull said that so offends the classifiers now. I did find it very moving.

[Cudzoziemiec]

I read it about ten years ago, maybe fifteen, and don't remember a seagull at all.

[Mr Larrington]

Kehaar (for it was he) said “bloody” once or twice in the book.  Which is hardly the stuff to cause a Modern Teen to run and hide behind Mummy’s skirts.

[andrewc]

Kehaar,  very sweary.  I think the phrase Graculus is thinking of was “piiiisss off!”


During his duel with Woundwort, Bigwig tells him to “silflay hraka”, which would translate as “eat shit” .  I don’t think that made it into the film.


Edit:  https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=gUtKDcX79ys&pp=ygUVd2F0ZXJzaGlwIGRvd24ga2VoYWFy

[Pingu]

...During his duel with Woundwort Bigwig tells him to “silflay hraka”, which would translate as “eat shit”...

That's what rabbits do, innit.

[graculus]

Kehaar,  very sweary.  I think the phrase Graculus is thinking of was “piiiisss off!”

Thank you. I can't remember when, or if, my two children ever saw it. I don't think I would want my grandchildren to see it unaccompanied before about ten years old.

[Redlight]

“Watership Down” re-classified as “PG”.   Modern kids are wimps…*


https://www.theguardian.com/film/2023/jul/21/watership-down-now-rated-pg-film-originally-classified-u


* on checking I’d have been 13 or 14 when I first saw it at the cinema and had already read the book so was looking forward to the good bits.

I haven't bothered to seek it out, for obvious reasons, but I imagine the Daily Heil is going overboard on this wokeness     You have to wonder whether whoever made that decision thought it through.

[Kim]

“Watership Down” re-classified as “PG”.   Modern kids are wimps…*


https://www.theguardian.com/film/2023/jul/21/watership-down-now-rated-pg-film-originally-classified-u


* on checking I’d have been 13 or 14 when I first saw it at the cinema and had already read the book so was looking forward to the good bits.

Saw that earlier.  I'm reassured that it's because a shitehawk says 'piss', and the nightmare-fuel destruction of the warren scene is still considered wholesome viewing for smalls.   

[Mr Larrington]

They probably did it on purpose in the hope that Richard “Smellyface” Littlejohn's head would finally explode like wotsisname in David Cronenberg's Scanners.

[Cudzoziemiec]

PG is meaningless anyway.

[Mr Larrington]

Troo, dat ^^^^ – Bethany, yesterday.

[andrewc]

I was pre-hardened for scary TV & cinema by public information films.  https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/films/1964to1979/filmpage_lonely.htm


https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/films/view_all_films.htm


I was also afflicted by a surfeit of Disney type films which seemed to end with nasty things happening to the beloved family pet.  Old Yeller , and something about a horse with "strangles".   

[Tim Hall]

PG is meaningless anyway.

PG = Pretty Good.

[Mr Larrington]

“Bollocks!” exclaimed a FUMMIN' Mr Larrington! “The Bevis Frond are playing in Leytonstone on September 15th, while I am ~5027 miles away in that USAnia! Drat and, moreover, fiddlesticks!”