The Friday Link for 8/14/20

Two of my favorite posters this week, and with both of them : warning! Some more adult content and context.

First up Ze Frank and his animal videos!  This week the strange truth about hummingbirds.  Seriously, Humming-beuurds are weird!  You'll get the reference fairly quickly...

And the other video this week comes from Cinema Sins and 'Everything Wrong With...' 

I miss summer movies.  I think they'll be back, but by the time they do you're going to have a lot of people who prefer to watch streaming services at home or on their phones.  Will people return to the theaters if there is still the obscene cost?  I think the family of five $100+ price for tickets and snacks will get old really fast when compared to the comfort of your own couch.

With summer movies, lets talk about some blockbuster franchises.  There's an observation about the Original Cast Star Trek movies.  The even numbered ones are the best (The Wrath of Khan, The Voyage Home, and The Undiscovered Country), while The Motion Picture, The Search for Spock, and The Final Frontier are weak, especially the 5th one. 

Die Hard was copying this trend.  The first Die Hard was fantastic, one of the best action movies ever.  The second one wasn't bad, but has a fatal flaw.  So the planes can't land at Dulles in DC.  Why can't they land in Baltimore, or in Virginia.  There are seriously about 20 commercial and 10 military landing strips quick distance from Dulles and they're all reachable via the radio.  Salt Lake City or Boise would have been the place to stage that movie.  That flaw makes Die Hard 2 unwatchable for me.

Die Hard with A Vengeance was a shockingly good (and unexpected) movie.  But then came Live Free or Die Hard.  I initially liked it, but the longer the movie ages, the worse the movie gets.  It got caught in the techno-babble plot lines which ruined many movies from 1997-2010.  It's like drinking a Zima; it's a cultural reference to a certain time which doesn't hold up today.  Live Free or Die Hard is now unwatchable, but don't take it from me.  Cinema Sins Will give you their breakdown.

By the way, Die Hard did break out of that pattern of alternating good/bad movies with their 5th unGodly bad movie A Good Day to Die Hard.  There is talk of maybe making a 6th...(yikes!).

Have a great weekend everyone.