I saw some commentators on IMDB complaining that Paul was a “mainstream film,” as if that was something forbidden to Simon Pegg and Nick Frost. I would say that even their first film, Shaun of the Dead was a very accessible film for audiences. It was far from underground. And Pegg/Frost should be free to make money any way they see fit without being pigeon-holed as “undergound film makers.” And those two certainly have made money. I grabbed some numbers from Box Office Mojo, out of curiosity. Note: In case you know nothing of the films these two have done, I included trailers for all of the films:
- Shaun of the Dead: $31M on a budget of $6.1M
- Hot Fuzz: $80.5M on a budget of $16M
- The World’s End: $46M on a budget of $20M
- Paul: $90M on a budget of $40M.
Keep in mind, The World’s End was very much anticipated and got a big budget. After marketing (which was extensive) and such it was a relative monetary disappointment in comparison to Hot Fuzz and Shaun of the Dead. Also, Pegg’s writing and directing partner, Edgar Wright was fresh off doing Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, which just did $51M on a budget of $60M (Wright wasn’t in on Paul, but that kind of blowout taints anyone who knows you for a while). So studios had extra scrutiny to anything that group presented. Even worse, this was right before the Great Recession, and the whole project could have been killed. It took some serious work and the inclusion of Seth Rogen (who was still printing money and Green Hornet had yet to come out) to get Paul off the ground. It was definitely worth it, in my opinion. I liked this movie a lot. So did audiences, who clearly were not into The World’s End.
Enough digression. What is this movie about? Some British nerds go by Area 51 while on an American RV holiday and end up picking up a real alien. The alien sounds suspiciously like notorious bong-huffer Seth Rogen. Hilarity ensues as the government tracks them down with murderous intent!
So watch! Or Don’t! Everything is voluntary! Next week, we shift gears and show The Asphyx, one of my favorite childhood films. I have not seen it in years, but it made quite an impression on me back then.
Some British nerds go by Area 51 while on an American RV holiday and end up picking up a real alien. The alien sounds suspiciously like notorious bong-huffer Seth Rogen. Hilarity ensues as the government tracks them down with murderous intent!
This sounds fun.
Unfortunately, I have to wrap up some stuff for work. I had a break though – I cleaned one of my cars.
Off to work. I’ll queue this up for weekend watching. Thanks RJ!
This one is quite good. Neph and I were waiting for it to go back on free streaming.
DEG and I are now officially time travelers. Behold our miracle of commenting at 6:00.
DEG and I are now officially time travelers. Behold our miracle of commenting at 6:00.
At least I got something for working late.
Time to drop off for the night.
Thats my thing.
Posting early to rob me of my First. Pretty tricksy. Pretty tricksy indeed.
Manipulation of time and space is now a real thing. Kamala said so.
A real Firster would find a way.
Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz were both good. Never saw the other two.
After tonight, I will have to find The Worldβs End for you.
World’s End wasn’t any good.
Was that the one with Peirce Brosnan? ‘Cause that sucked.
1. Yes. Worldβs End was not great.
2. Pierce Brosnan was in it.
I thought it was pretty good. Nothing compared to Shaun of the Dead or Hot Fuzz, but not bad at all… but then again Pegg’s character kinda struck home for me.
World’s End wasn’t bad, but Paul feels more like a thematic closure to the Cornetto trilogy than it.
Agreed.
Itβs been a crazy week.
1. AT&T fumbled my phone payoff, so Verizon drained $2,800 from my bank account Monday. That was emergency savings, so now I have $40 for the next two weeks.
2. Three visits and the upstairs air conditioner is still broken. I need Yusef. One more visit Monday.
3. Endless work chaos. Lots of people leaving, I may pick up more work. Job security but also harrying.
So itβs Jamesonβs with a cheese assortment and grapes for dinner.
“so Verizon drained $2,800 from my bank account”
Yikes!
Yep. Woke up to a negative account and a note from the bank. I have money here and there so itβs solvent again, but what if that happened to someone who doesnβt plan so much? Jeez!
Agree. Worlds End was just OK. Paul was excellent. Plus, Sigourneyβ¦
Better call Saul.
That is why I don’t like autopay.
Verizon fucked up a credit, billed the full amount, and didn’t apply the credit until the next cycle. Did they immediately refund the overpayment back to me? Of course not, kept as a statement credit over the next several cycles.
That’s why I won’t link autopay to a bank account or debit card.
I get a buffer if they accidentally charge Amex.
Please pardon the OT (old topic,) but I was occupado throughout the commenting in the previous post. I just wanted to share one work by my favorite modern artist, the late Charley Harper of Cincinnati. He clearly came from a graphic design background. There’s subtle humor in some of his works – you may have to look closely to find it. I haven’t picked out any “jokes” in this one. I just like it. My favorite quote about him: “The only wildlife artist never compared to Audubon.”
Thatβs fine. My wife actually collects a few mid-century revival artists, and we have eclectic tastes.
Michelle Bickford and George Perrou are two we collect. George passed on, I treasure what I got from him.
Bickford
https://www.glibertarians.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/IMG_1623-scaled.jpeg
Perrou
https://www.glibertarians.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/IMG_1621.jpeg
Popcorn in while I await the arrival of Best Gyro.
Nice! Did you get dolmas too? I love dolmas.
Not this time. But I planned ahead and got the breakfast gyro for tomorrow.
Eggs and shwarma pair surprisingly well.
I must try that.
Marmite was mentioned. This is marmite:
https://www.marmite.co.uk/home.html
Ugh, I worked at Domino’s with a Sri Lankan that ate that stuff on toast. It smelled horrible. When I finally got drunked up enough to try it, it tastes like it smells.
βIβm not gonna eat a dead bird, am I?β
Do to shenanigans involved with the posting of this article, I’m not sure I can further participate on Glibertarians.com and continue to serve as your First Of All Firsters. I will of course remain The First Of All Firsters no matter where I go. I just no longer feel that it should be here.
You do not deserve me, and when a Firster is not appreciated, when he is not abided by, he leaves.
Shenanigans were totally unplanned. And please donβt go. You have been been absent entirely too much.
https://tenor.com/view/willy-wonka-oh-no-charlie-and-the-chocolate-factory-dont-come-back-gif-16604590
Mmmβ¦.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ovUkATL4l_g
That will be me as soon as Passover ends.
AND…just like that I will no longer donate to FIRE as they are looking for:
A student or faculty member in the United States on a visa or green card, and youβre self-censoring.
A student organization losing members because they fear they could be deported.
I don’t give a crap about perceived “fear”
If you’re here illegally, you deserve to be deported.
If you’re here on a visa, you’re a guest, and being a nuisance as a guest is grounds to “ask” you to leave.
Ugh. Commies everywhere.
Their goal is to defend studentβs first amendment rights. So they are staying on path. I completely understand not donating though.
Eventually I believe the Supreme Court will rule that the President has complete authority regarding deportations of green card bearing students.
I admit my principles and principals are in conflict.
I remain “uncomfortable” with the Trump administrations approach here. Ivy League schools do not need public dollars. But free speech is not something granted by the government or determined by someone’s citizen status. Neither is due process. If you are here illegally and get shipped out because you ended up on the radar over Palestine, I won’t shed tears. You deserve due process because our government shouldn’t be able to take actions against anyone without it, but you play stupid games, you win stupid prizes.
People here legally should not be sent packing no matter how loathsome their beliefs are as long as said beliefs don’t turn into actions. I’m hardly pro-Palestine, but it’s an obvious infringement of the First.
I agree with all of that Bro. I’ll just note our immigration laws permit a degree of infringement based on immigration status. If you are saying as a matter of philosophy you disagree, I respect that. As the law currently stands, the Secretary of State has discretion to deport if he finds an alien’s speech would have potentially serious foreign policy consequences.
Random thoughts
The apparent purpose of the Chinese education system, and to a lesser extent other suchlike, is to make people both submissive and exhausted. It’s a good way to prevent protests, revolutions, and any changes to the status quo.
***
a quick analysis of best-selling books vs critically acclaimed books
only sold well
Alice in Wonderland, Dune, Pride and Prejudice, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Black Beauty
only called the best
Animal Farm, Lord of the Flies, Ulysses, Heart of Darkness, 1984, Catch-22
sold well and called the best
Lord of the Rings, The Great Gatsby, To Kill a Mockingbird, Lolita, Catcher in the Rye
good storytelling makes money; good writing impresses critics
I suspect it’s the same way with movies.
It’s still hard to pin down exactly the difference between good storytelling and good writing.
βYes.β
I am a tad scotchy tonight.
Nothing by L. Neil Smith ever made the bestselling list. But I love all his books.
I am also a green alien. So go figure.
I consider ‘storytelling’ to be the world you’ve created, even if a contemporary, realistic one, along with the characters and how they interact with the plot. Simply put, it’s the structure of the work, its setting, conflict and resolution.
‘Good writing’ is how well your voice, or the one you’re writing for, conveys information and attracts the reader. One’s style gives the piece its flavor, but brevity and advancement may be the mood of the day. (See: Well-done AP-style reporting. (Hard to find.) It’s tough to boil down news into the 300-500 words you’re ‘allowed.’)
βGood writingβ os how well you can connect to an audience. Your audience may be one person or ten million people.
Should we judge the connection to the audience by volume or quality?
Seems to dovetail with neatly with Confucianism for centuries.
Phoney baloney books of nonsense but with big pre-writing payment: anything by ex-presidents, those seeking presidency, and politicians in general.
I’ll have you know that The Audacity Of Hope was one of the greatest books ever written. Truly life changing.,
People. Icky Peopleβ’, I mean. People who read for pleasure. They read for the story and they’ll forgive a lot of bad writing as long as it moves along and the story is unwinding semi-satisfactorily. They may not even notice if they’re engaged enough.
People who return to an author again and again read for the author’s voice. Unless something about the premise is really upsetting, they’ll read a trope they hate just to read the author.
Storytelling predates written fiction by millennia. You got to learn how to tell a story, how to pace it, how to engender tension in your listeners. If you didn’t, you wouldn’t have any listeners. So feeling a story is deep in our bones.
I beta read a story once that hit all the beats. Well paced, characters fleshed out, plot tight. It was boring as fuck. This woman did NOT know how to engage a reader. “Well?” “It was well written.” “Did you like it?” “It was an interesting premise.” “You didn’t leave many notes.” “There wasn’t much wrong.”
It would have taken me a LIFETIME to teach this woman how to tell a story. I tried to teach someone once a long time ago. It did not go well.
Anyway. I can make a halfway decent not-awful writer out of a good storyteller, but I canNOT make a storyteller out of a technically brilliant writer.
This sounds good. I’ll watch it when I get home from work. Thanks R.J.
You will not be disappointed.
A member of the Transportation blah blah committee came to our tower today.
Never once checked the actual equipment/tech driving ATC operations.
I bet a coworker $100 that he makes a claim in next 5 days “ATC is ran on floppy disks” or some such nonesense.
They make pills for that. Ohβ¦ βdisksββ¦never mind.
βThey record their documents on pressed disks of petroleum, read by diamond needlesβ¦β
which rotation speed 33.3 rpm? 45? 78?
33.3, the size of New York Pizzas.
If I thought they knew the difference between 8, 5.25 and 3.5, I might open a side bet on what size.
But I don’t think they would even understand.
SSSD or SSDD or DSSD or DSDD?
Plus this gem that aligned with the disk and gave a notch. Much better than fucking around with a hole punch.
I always wondered why no one tried to make a variable RPM drive to fit the same number of bits per inch along the rim as they get along the center.
But I also understand that this would be a nightmare, and the rate of changing the rotational speed of the mechanism would likely cause a massive slowdown in data access rates.
Analog format, but did do just that.
https://hometheaterhifi.com/technical/primers/clv-and-cav/
I suppose you can use the distance of the head from the spindle to determine the rotational rate. Whether that’s easier to do mechanically or electrically, I’m not sure.
Also, I tend to forget laser disks existed.
You missed your chance to turn it all off and on again.
Donβt forget to sit through the credits.
I saw this movie once in the theater when it opened. Might give it another watch when done Firsting.
Paul is a good flick. I’ll add to the chorus that you should watch if you haven’t seen it.
Thanks for these, R.J.
Thank you for the appreciation. This week sucks, and that means a lot.
We love you RJ.
Brotherly love, not that icky romantic stuff that gives you the itchy scratchies.
I love you guys! And I am not saying that because I had a lot of scotch.
It was tequila
+1
Boom. I haven’t seen this in whole, but the bits I have seen are solid. Shaun of the Dead is fantastic. I *really* need to rewatch Hot Fuzz. I loved it first time ’round, and almost assuredly will extra super-duper like, plus plus love it. Cuz like, duh, yeah?
They’re clever folk and they deserve what they’ve got. I’ve never heard of World’s End, tho seemingly that’s for the best. Hey, ya can’t always be spectacular. (Or. It’s really hard. Look at me. I’m constantly perfect. Mere mortals ’round me? Sigh.)
^^ I crack jokes all the time around family, coworkers and whomever alike, inserting my little jokes, sometimes with a voice/character. How often do the improvised jokes land? More often than ya’d think. Still, I look at comedy like baseball. If you can hit .300, someone will pay you $20M/yr. Same-same with jokes, really. If 30% of daily, improved observations can nail a laugh? Damn. That’s fuckin’ good. (If your comedy *routine* is only 30% lol, OTOH, uh, you’ve got problems with your performance, somewhere /how.)
I liked The World’s End. It wasn’t a sequel, a prequel, a remake, a reboot, or a spin-off. Also it avoided a cliche happy ending. The premise was interesting too- sort of a subversion of Invasion of the Body Snatchers.
World’s End is a wonderful film. It’s about the world’s most beautiful alcoholic. It’s about AA. I guess. I don’t need help, etc.
Gary King didn’t need to redeem himself. He didn’t need anything. He chose to rise again, and call to his side his trusty servants.
Most beautiful (fictional) alcoholic? My vote is either Shakes the Clown or Barney Gumble.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aat2X-8-JdI
You’ve all got your beautiful houses and your beautiful wives, but you know what I’ve got? Freedom.
Always chortle. Just always.
Oooh, Pluto has Shakes The Clown. That’d be a good one to add to the list.
“I got that peanut butter pussy – brown, smooth and easy to spread.”
That is a great one. If it hangs around, itβs in. There is an embarrassment of riches in streaming right now.
Scott Pilgrim is great for skewering vegans, the rest is a bonus. Also, George Michael is annoying in everything.
the problem: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHO6m_UmwSs
the solution:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJ5fmKAK_LQ
corporal punishment is a lesser evil than letting children run amok
there, I said it
spare the rod, spoil the child
Proverbs 13:24
King James Version
24 He that spareth his rod hateth his son: but he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes.
Proverbs 13:24
New International Version
Whoever spares the rod hates their children,
but the one who loves their children is careful to discipline them.
you do not need to hit a kid hard to get their attention or stop their misbehavior
even horses respond to spurs and whips
It’s only gotten worse since that segment. Luckily Portland Teachers Association understands the real problem is the genocide in Gaza.
The PPS/PAT contract pays a salary increase not just for a masters, but a further one for holding a doctorate. On what planet does a K12 teacher need a doctorate to do their job? Or even a masters.
I was off the Seth Rogan band wagon by this point, and his inclusion ruined the movie for me. But Pegg and Frost made some awesome alt-content while on set.
ππ€£π
Happy national Animal Crackers day!
https://www.nationaldaycalendar.com/national-day/national-animal-crackers-day-april-18
π¦π¦π
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JT8bhhDCPQc
πΆπΆ
We have too many holidays. We need to start deleting some.
We can start with anything called a “National” or “International” Day, along with any invented in the past century.
Just get rid of them all and roll them into my time bank.
We need a real national holiday between Washington’s Birthday and Memorial Day, and one in August.
Da fuq?
Tomorrow it’s supposed to threaten to hit 80, yet right now it’s just below freezing.
You’re just looking for *anything* to complain about, aren’t you? :-p
Have to keep you supplied with material to complain about my complaining.
I’m not complaining; I’m teasing you.
riiiiight.
/sarcasm
Admit it, you’d be miserable if you couldn’t complain.
Same here, with thunderstorms in the forecast for tomorrow.
Then 60 degrees or so after the storms blow through.
Maybe I’ll be able to get some yard work done.
It’s already 65 (“feels like 64”) here in SW OH. Predicted high of 82, but very windy this afternoon.
Tornado weather
Due to topography, tornados are rare (though not unheard of) up in New York. It has to be a lot worse before we get a twister.
The facility where our servers are located lost power yesterday, and the virtual server*still* isn’t functioning properly. Everyone is getting a timeout error trying to log in….
Mornin’
Good morning, DEG, Ted’S., U, Stinky, and Sean!
Morning.
How goes things today? I see you still get tomorrow’s weather a day early.
Going very well, thanks! I’m already walking much better this morning after finding out the problem making me limp isn’t in my knee but in my upper leg muscles and exercising accordingly. ππ𦡠How are you?
So you thighed with relief?
I stupidly played video games until 1am but I got out of the house on time. I’m likely going to take a nap this afternoon. But hey, number go up.
Yeth, I did! π
ΠΠΎΠ±ΡΠΎΠ΅ ΡΡΡΠΎ. Schools are closed for a long weekend. Hopefully it doesn’t get too noisy.
I stupidly played video games till midnight. So I am one hour wiser than you.
Maybe, but you still replied to the wrong comment.
π
I forgot to do the Stoic post last night, I’ll have it done by 10 today if nothing pops up workwise
If not, we will endeavor to persevere.
suh’ fam
yo whats goody
Yo! First break. Things chill and going well. Hope the same for y’all.
The shocks have returned. This time they migrated to my fingers, sometimes shocking me when both hands are grounded on the cart’s handles. (They are metal. Hrm.) The shocks sometimes in both my finger and toe. I think on the same side but kinda hard to think *in* that moment.
I swear I can hear em, including from my foot. That’s likely in my head. With both hands holding and walking along, sometimes it was a shock every ~10min. Easily 50 so far. Less intense than yesterday but more frequent.
Nothing in last 10, but I’m sitting. Very strange, is this.
I seem to produce a lot of electricity. (That’s kinda rad.) Very positive is I don’t feel the electricity that comes with my tremors, which are absent.
Good to take notes, and I’m glad I’m seeing several docs next week. Kick ass, y’all.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Xu_cdePrNe8