Pajiba

I've just gotta passive-aggressively warn you about the use of "nonplussed".

The Emperor is not as forgiving as I.

Jay, I was also just wondering about the use of the word "nonplussed". Haven't we covered it's actual meaning in great length around here?

Oh, yeah, gonna watch me some cussin' Morgan Freeman tonight....

Am I the only one that thinks Angelina Jolie would be much more attractive if she gained 20-30 lbs? She's just way, way too skinny. When I'm behind, doing my thing, and I grab some hips, I don't want to have to go to the emergency room with bone splinters from those pelvic razor blades.

Jay, have you ever read "How I met my wife" by Jack Winter (link below)? It's an essay from the New Yorker that a favorite English teacher of mine shared with my class at the time.

It's probably the main reason I like to use words like "ept" and "plussed" regardless if they actually exist or not.

Am I the only one that thinks Angelina Jolie would be much more attractive if she gained 20-30 lbs? She's just way, way too skinny. When I'm behind, doing my thing, and I grab some hips, I don't want to have to go to the emergency room with bone splinters from those pelvic razor blades.

Snath, any encounter of the biblical kind with Angelina Jolie involves a trip to the hospital. In fact, all of my fantasies involving her involve having an ambulance and paramedics standing by for when the mating has finished, followed by a night's stay at the hospital to make sure I'm ok. Sleeping with Angelina Jolie is like being interrogated by Jack Bauer..."It's just a question of how much you want it to hurt."

Really, how do you think she got the Vial of Billy Bob's Blood? Here's a hint: It wasn't voluntary, despite what you've heard. Though, to get back on track, I would agree. A little padding doesn't hurt, I like human women not aliens from the planet Anorexia Galactica.

brenia: What's worse, misusing "nonplussed" or not knowing "its" from "it's"?

While we're at it, what's an "understament"? Sounds dirty.

Pajiba is a big-time site. It deserves an editor.

I wish I could see the world through D.R.'s eyes, I can't imagine it wouldn't be a better place if I thought every bony, big-lipped succubus skank I saw was The Hotness.
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"It's a labiatic explosion ..."

Labia explode? Like, somebody puts M80s between them? That's gotta hurt.

Lots of crying, Snath

Geez, Twig, what airline was that?

The last time I was on a plane I got "The Astronaut Farmer" and "Martian Boy", both of which made me want to stab myself in the eye with a cheap plastic fork, except they don't even give out forks anymore. They just give you a bland "sandwich" (really a piece of soggy dough with some ketchup on it) that you can flavor with the tears you cry over how horrible the movies they show you are coupled with the knowledge that you still have two hours of flight left and you have nowhere to go.

Continental Airlines bastards.

Though...maybe you watched them by yourself, in which case...nevermind me.

(And me crying afterwards.)

*glare* What, pray tell, are you implying?

Oh, Kayanne just a bit of humor directed at myself. Some shot at my own manhood as a byproduct of my fragile self-esteem. Move along, nothing to see here.

Well written Vermie (can I call you Vermie?). The loom almost made sense to the rest of the physics in that movie, and it didn't stop me from loving it all the same.

Step Brothers was fucking hilarious. And not that kind of highbrow, "made for hipsters who don't actually think its funny but are compelled to laugh anyway to maintain an air of intellectualism (if not intelligence)" funny, but flat-out, gut-bustingly funny. Loved it.

I am going to do something completely insane: I am going to answer DarthCorleone's quite excellent analysis.

First off, we have to take into account that no one was allowed to question Sloane. And nobody really had reason, since Sloane was the only person allowed into the Loom room. For all that were concerned, they were fully conditioned to accept his word as honest to God truth (Morgan Freeman voice didn't hurt). If he determined that this was the order the Loom dictated, then so be it. Only later, when their necks were on the line, did their truly colors show.

Second, the assumption wasn't truly "subjective", because Wesley's skill wasn't the reason he could beat his dad. Fox said it herself: Wesley was the only person in the world his dad would not kill. In nearly every gunfight they had, his dad did his best not to kill Wesley while defending himself. So sending Wesley to kill him was actually pretty clever, at least by the movie's logic. Obviously Cross was so good that Fox felt that this was the best course of action, ripples or no ripples.

Third, as far as the end and Fox believing Sloan, the same could be said for Wesley. They could have easily assumed that the fabric he had was fake as well. Plus, as a loyalist, she (up to that point) believed that it could not, in fact, be faked. As I said, they were conditioned to take Sloane's word as truth. So why would they believe the fated-to-die son of a known rebel and target over their (to them) honest and fair leader?

Fourth, and it may seem like kind of a copout, but the whole deal with the Loom and the Fraternity is "kill a few to save a thousand". So, in her mind, those train deaths are a lesser evil to the one possibly unleashed by Cross and Wesley.

Did I just come back 30 minutes ater my last post to add to a discussion on the logistic of a Loom of Destiny?

Holy hell am I a GEEK.

Vermillion>> Morgan Freeman's voice is tough to debate. :- )

Nevertheless, I think the evidence is there to support that Fox sees the Loom as "God" and not Sloan. The Fraternity has been in existence for thousands of years - long before Sloan was involved. Her convincing Wesley why he should obey the Loom is an important scene for both their characters and the audience, and the authority of Sloan does not even enter into the equation of her tale.

Sloan is the current leader of the Fraternity, but he's more like a conduit - a Moses figure - than an actual leader. In fact, he doesn't even reach the level of Moses, given that he's willing to teach Wesley (and presumably anyone else) how to read the warping of the Loom. In this analogy, anyone can talk to "God" - not just Sloan.

His basic role is to decide who to send and when to send them, but the Loom certainly doesn't provide that information. All it gives is a name.

Consequently, there is still a subjective judgment in assigning Wesley to the task because:

1) He takes months to train. There's no telling how much "evil" Cross has done in that time. Certainly Fox is well aware all along that the entire reason she is recruiting and training Wesley is so that he can execute this plan.

2) It's true that Cross won't kill Wesley, and this is a clever loophole to exploit. But is it really worth the time and the risk? Wouldn't Fox get antsy in the interim? Maybe Cross would kill more members of The Fraternity if they sent anyone but Wesley, but could he take them all out? How much collateral damage for The Fraternity is acceptable in swiftly executing the Loom's orders? If the cause of the Loom is truly a noble cause (and Fox sees it as the noblest based on her personal experience), it's difficult to imagine too much nuance going into the strategem.

Regarding the third point about believing Sloan, I only question her ability to believe Sloan once he already admitted that he lied to them once. Sloan does not deny anything Wesley says, which establishes him as a liar in that moment. At that point, Sloan is asking them deny the Loom's will and give up what they believe. (Perhaps a better strategy would have just been to claim that Wesley was lying, if it is that easy to fake a Loom result.)

As to your fourth point, again, we don't have any establishing detailed augury for the Loom's orders. All we get is a name. Deciding that the deaths on the train are acceptable collateral damage seems a rather arbitrary point. For all we know, the guy who killed Fox's father would have never killed again. For all we know, the Loom only ordered Cross and Wesley dead because of the train. Without assuming a Loom strict constructionit viewpoint, there reaches a certain point at which guessing the intent of the Loom becomes a necessity and its mystic authority is going to be diminished.

For example, am I allowed to get a night's rest before executing the Loom's orders? Do I need to follow the Loom's orders on a weekend? If another little girl's father's life is at stake, how could Fox not want to act as soon as possible? It's rather like the Superman syndrome I always imagined: how can Superman in good conscience waste time being Clark Kent with all the ill in the world? Shouldn't he be constantly flying from place to place?

Fox doesn't strike me as the sort of person who would allow too much grey area to creep in, especially given her line to Wesley about not being able to imagine giving up her life of duty for The Fraternity.

Anyway, I guess I can take it at face value that Fox did decide for herself that using Wesley to kill Cross was a sound strategy. It just gave me serious pause and seems to raise all sorts of sticky moral questions about the Loom and its use that go beyond the mere simplicity of "kill one, maybe save a thousand."

I'll acknowledge it's a passable action movie. I just think that it pales in comparison to similar films like Fight Club and The Matrix, which do a much more credible job in their philosophies.

I apologize. I've put way too much thought into this. :- )

Vermillion>> I typed my response before reading your addendum, as it was sort of a protracted effort I typed while doing other things at the office.

Yes, we are both GEEKS. :- )

Just picking my usual nits, but isn't Friday Night Lights a little bleak to be considered inspirational? Maybe I'm not remembering it correctly.

Yeah, her suicide is a credible emotional reaction. It's also a credible purely rational one. I guess I'm just disappointed that they didn't mine a little more substance out of the implications of the Loom, and that's where the hollow nihilism comes back into play. I'm generally down with nihilistic themes, but in this case they're attaching a little too much heroism and positivity to it for my taste. For my taste, nihilism should leave a pit in your stomach - not leave you wanting to bounce off the walls and curve bullets, as fun as those things might be.

Perhaps the problem is that there simply isn't enough depth behind the Loom to mine. If we start thinking too closely about how John Connor came into being, the whole terminator story sort of unravels.

As for Sloan, I see your point that he's the only one allowed in the room. I just feel that the scene between Fox and Wesley in which she tells him her story implies that members of The Fraternity should and do employ at least a little individual critical thinking to decide that what they are doing is right. Seeing as how members know exactly how what's going on behind the curtain functions, a little free thought into how The Fraternity opts to carry out the Loom's simple, unelaborative orders seems reasonable.

Incidentally, I just saw this for the first time Saturday night, and none of the other three people were willing to discuss this with me. So, I appreciate it. :- )

I guess I'm just disappointed that they didn't mine a little more substance out of the implications of the Loom, and that's where the hollow nihilism comes back into play. I'm generally down with nihilistic themes, but in this case they're attaching a little too much heroism and positivity to it for my taste.

See that is where I can definitely agree with you. Like I said, the original comic's whole "supervillains who finally won" plot thread would have been a better source of nihilism than that, really. When your whole life is dedicated to taking over the planet, what happens when you finally do? When all real obstacles are gone, and nobody can challenge you? What is the point of your existence then? Of course, the comic's nihilism was just as hollow.

My thing with the film's (and comic's) pseudo-message was this: you got a shitty life. And? So do a lot of other people. The world is built on the backs of shitty lives. If someone could figure out a way to make it work without that, that would be grand. But it ain't happened yet. Right now, for me or anyone else to get up, I am going to have to go through shit to do it. I am not simply wallowing in it, waiting for the pity parade to notice how miserable I am.

The thing that both version gloss over is that Wesley was HANDED HIS FATHER'S FORTUNE. That would be like if a kid from The Hills told me the same bullshit. Of course he could tell his boss to fuck herself; ask anybody playing the lotto what would they do if they won, and you will hear a similar answer. For some punk to have the balls to tell me to just throw caution to the wind and do whatever the fuck I want, when he has Daddy's big ass bank account to back him up? I would tell him to fuck off, whether he was a trust fund brat or a assassin's kid (well, maybe not the assassin's kid, but you get my drift).

Perhaps the problem is that there simply isn't enough depth behind the Loom to mine. If we start thinking too closely about how John Connor came into being, the whole terminator story sort of unravels.

Don't get me started on that. Tell me if this sounds familiar: if Skynet had simply left Sarah Connor alone, instead of driving her to become SuperMom (while also giving John the impetus to send his old man back in time), it could have had mankind's ass. The only way the time travel plan could have worked was if they established that the Connors had a hand in creating Skynet (which I thought they would have tried to do with the Dysons in T2). That it was an unbreakable loop and that, in essence, John Connor and Skynet created their own worst enemies.

Anna, that happened to me with The Kingdom; the terrorism flick-show with Jamie Foxx and my girl, Jen.
I didn't see it until well-after its release to DVD, and I didn't think it really lived-up to all the hype, to begin with. Then the music in a couple of spots (those "emotional" montagical-type scenes) totally killed it. I L'd OFL.