Philip Seymour Hoffman: The Greatest Actor of His Generation

It’s not clear that there were roles Philip Seymour Hoffman could not do. He had so many lives within him—and more, undiscovered and unseen. Those are the lives, aside from his own, we’ve now lost. “For me, acting is torturous,” Hoffman told the New York Times in 2008, “and it’s torturous because you know it’s a beautiful thing. I was young once, and I said, That’s beautiful and I want that. Wanting it is easy, but trying to be great—well, that’s absolutely torturous.”

Love Liza is one of my favorites.

#movies #psh

An Occult History of the Television Set

However, as Birkeland fell deeper into an eventually fatal addiction to extreme levels of caffeine and a slow-acting hypnotic drug called Veronal, he became fixated on the weirdly impossible goal of exactly modeling the Northern Lights in miniature.

#tv

Well, I guess for compensation I’ll need to eat “vanilla ice cream sandwiched between chocolate chip cookies and rolled in mini chocolate chips.”

#photos #pumpkins

If you want your children to turn out well, spend twice as much time with them, and half as much money.
—Abigail Van Buren

#protip

The throwaway line in Aliens that spawned decades of confusion

Xenomorphs—big “X” or little “x”?

Then there’s Gorman’s “xenomorph” comment. The way Gorman rattles off the term makes it sound like he knows what he’s talking about, but unfolding events make it clear he’s as clueless as the rest of them about the nature of the creatures.

Writer and director Cameron takes pains to set Gorman up as the embodiment of Vietnam-era military officer hubris and jargon-veiled incompetence, and the lieutenant holds himself above and entirely separate from the squad under his command. Dropping a fancy college word like “xenomorph” is just another way to lord rank and position over the jarheads—people whose names he hasn’t even really bothered to learn.

The word itself is a Greek construct. It combines the prefix xeno, meaning “foreign” or “strange,” with the suffix morph, which means a shape or form with the prefix’s supplied attributes. The word xenomorph in this context is a generic term for any “strange or foreign form”—any alien life form.

What Gorman is saying isn’t “There’s a specific type of creature called ‘Xenomorphs’ down there!” Instead, he’s saying “there are non-human lifeforms down there.” Any other interpretation is easily disproved in the same scene, when Ripley is prompted to describe the aliens. If the creatures have an official name that even a corporal like Hicks knows, why in the world is Ripley there as an advisor?

The use of “Xenomorphs” as a proper noun used to describe the series’ aliens is blatantly wrong. If you’re guilty of doing it, stop. “Xenomorph” is just a fancy word for “alien,” not the proper name of the creatures.

Good read for those interested in the Alien franchise. I’ve snipped the bits most interesting to me.

#movies #aliens

#videos

Just pulled 5 gallons of weeds and replaced them with wild strawberries.

That’s how I roll on Saturday night.

#photos #naturerocks

I need a unicycle.

#bikes

There was a time when Maggie seemed to enjoy about everything I told her. Tonight she told me that I had “successfully bored her to death.”

Sad, frowny face…

Okay, okay.. I admit that I was talking about how rewarding Krazy Glue was.

#maggie

Oh Mr. Smith, this is such a beautiful, loving song. When I close my eyes and just listen, I almost get all emotional.

But why-oh-why does the video looking like you’re sitting in some Disney park cavern attraction?

#musicvideos #thecure