Pineapple Express: Someone Is Wrong on the Internet?

[Scribe]

Love it when threads just completely jump the shark.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

The problem is that not everyone knows their rights as an employee so even when the law forbids something, employers still get away with it. If you're aware then they'll just find a way to fire you, and find someone they can dupe.

cough union cough

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Rewatching old movies on Netflix.

• Fletch: Very dated, and not just for the ludicrously wealthy "struggling" newspaper. LA's beaches are apparently empty except for homeless drug addicts, George Wendt and crooked cops. Obviously, today there'd also be tourists there as well. Chevy Chase using fake mocking Spanish throughout isn't cute by today's standards, although it certainly fits in with what we know of him nowadays.
• Legend of Zorro: You can see the DNA of Pirates of the Caribbean coming out a few years later and how you don't need an increasingly drug- and alcohol-addicted Johnny Depp to derail it. Divorcing the super-sexy couple at the heart of the franchise is dumb, but saddling us with a "cute" kid really makes large parts of the movie almost unwatchable. The fight scenes are also not nearly as good as the original or any of the PotC movies. The insistence on all of the Californians being super-excited about joining the US (but never explaining to the audience who they're a part of at the moment) feels both confused and cowardly. Confederate agents running around as Nazi stand-ins is weird (at least Sergio Leone didn't seem to understand the geography of the US when he did it), as are the heroic (?) super-spy Pinkertons. Magic nitroglycerin is dumb, but kind of expected for the era. They did a great job killing off a promising franchise with this sequel.
• Death Becomes Her: Fantastic. Holds up amazingly. I'm kind of surprised this hasn't been remade yet, but grateful that it hasn't. Also wonderful to see Bruce Willis at the height of his post-Moonlighting quipiness, before he decided he needed to be a brooding action hero and, of course, his future cognitive health issues.

The Running Man completely surprised me.

It's not a film that one thinks of as being especially forward-looking, but it featured, in 1987:

• The internet (called "infonet")
• Wifi
• Smart homes

The stalkers were also obviously meant to be based on pro wrestlers, but they and the larger society around them really resemble the "superheroes" of The Boys, complete with corporate monoculture telling everyone how beloved they are. (Honestly, a lot of the elements of ICS in this movie and Vought in The Boys are extremely similar.)

And the idea that the Department of Justice would sponsor a reality competition show featuring alleged criminals competing for the promise of freedom, is, well ...

The movie, of course, has its downsides:

• The notion that Arnold Schwarzenegger could put on civilian clothes and blend into the general population is laughable.
• Every other line out of his mouth is intended to be a catchphrase, including reusing his most famous one from the original Terminator.
• They show that the Running Man is faked and the movie then suggests that the oppressive regime is somehow now on the verge of collapse? What happened to the military and police they kept mentioning early on? Surely they didn't just shrug and give up. Instead of ending with triumphal music, realistically, the film should end with the military dropping a bomb on downtown LA instead.

Nice to see Bakersfield get a shout-out in this movie, even if only as the scene of a riot and a massacre, rather than as a punchline. Although realistically, I wouldn't expect Bakersfield to be the scene of protest, but as the heart of support for the military government.

 

[Ryujin]

Dude, 20 years ago you started a rumour campaign about me, for no reason, to try and mess up the reputation I had built over a lifetime. Why in hell would I want you as a "Facebook friend"?

 

[TiQuinn]

Dude, 20 years ago you started a rumour campaign about me, for no reason, to try and mess up the reputation I had built over a lifetime. Why in hell would I want you as a "Facebook friend"?

Wow. Them are some balls.

 

[Ryujin]

Wow. Them are some balls.

Narcissists gonna narcissist, I guess.

 

[RealAlHazred]

Dude, 20 years ago you started a rumour campaign about me, for no reason, to try and mess up the reputation I had built over a lifetime. Why in hell would I want you as a "Facebook friend"?

Dude! It's water under the bridge, dude! Bygones! Come on! I need more Facebook contacts to increase engagement numbers!

to a side group of friends Look how red he's getting!

 

[TiQuinn]

Narcissists gonna narcissist, I guess.

Not on the same level as what happened with you but I’ll say I’ve taken some shots from folks I thought better of over the past year, and let’s just say, I bear grudges silently until they can be paid off, and I will be seeking to pay some of these off.

 

[Ryujin]

Not on the same level as what happened with you but I’ll say I’ve taken some shots from folks I thought better of over the past year, and let’s just say, I bear grudges silently until they can be paid off, and I will be seeking to pay some of these off.

My short term memory is pretty much shot and I can lose my keys on the way from the kitchen, to the car.

My long term memory, on the other hand...

Dude! It's water under the bridge, dude! Bygones! Come on! I need more Facebook contacts to increase engagement numbers!

to a side group of friends Look how red he's getting!

I don't get red faced over it and I won't be posting about it anywhere else. Fortunately, what he did pretty much became public knowledge, in our little local circles. Pretty sure that even his split from his girlfriend, at the time, was related to it.

 

[dragoner]

It just gives them a chance to do you the dirty again.