The Friday Irregular

Volume 5, Number 11
15 February 2002

TFIr #115

Edited by and copyright ©2002 Simon Lamont

To subscribe or unsubscribe, or to discuss how to contribute articles or ideas, mail TFIr@gizmo1.demon.co.uk.

Back issues and Irregular goodies can be found at http://www.gizmo1.demon.co.uk/li/

WORKS IN PROGRESS

The Irregular Archive Project - all issues of The Lamont Times through TFIr plus goodies, on a CD-ROM with an HTML/raytraced graphical interface (which may bear a superficial - and purely coincidental - resemblance to a onetime-real office):

Still missing Lamont Times #5 and Irregular #12.
Graphical interface: development status page last updated 23 Jan 2002
http://www.gizmo1.demon.co.uk/wip/archive/office/

Text adventures:

All at Sea: - planned release: Jul 2002
The Night Before Christmas: - planned release: Nov 2002

 

TFIr ONLINE

You can also read TFIr in its enhanced online version, with links and graphics where appropriate. The latest online version will always be available at http://www.gizmo1.demon.co.uk/li/tfir/latest.htm

Who is the Editor? So far as we know there's no Malkovichian portal into his brain, but there is the Frequently-Asked-Questions (FAQ) file, the UndeadCam and the Film/TV archive list (the latter is now only available as a zip file due to its size):

 

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

Friday 15 February   -   Sir Ernest Shackleton, Antarctic explorer, born, 1874
Saturday 16 February   -   Giambattista Bodoni, type designer, born Saluzzo, Italy, 1740
Sunday 17 February   -   First canned sardines produced, Eastport, Maine, 1876
Monday 18 February   -   Robert Oppenheimer, physicist, died, Princeton, New Jersey, 1967. Happy National Bun Day (in Iceland)!
Tuesday 19 February   -   Patent for the phonograph granted to Edison, 1878
Wednesday 20 February   -   Robert Altman, movie director/writer/producer, born, 1925
Thursday 21 February   -  

Jennifer Love Hewitt, actress/singer, born, Waco, Texas, 1979

 

THE WISDOM OF...

This week's guest speaker - Montreal sushi bar owner Michael Sniatowsky, who mistook actor George Clooney for a thug who had been stealing from him:

"He looked like a cross between a courier and a street punk. [..] I knew I had seen that face somewhere, but I just couldn't place it. I feel like such an idiot. I'd like to offer him my most sincere apology."

 

FILM QUIZ

Mixed bag of quotations this week; answers next issue or from the usual address.

Last issue's films were:

WEIRD WORLD NEWS

Strange stories from around the world, some of which might be true...

BROUGHT TO BOOK... A 39-year-old man from Delft has been banned from the Dutch University library and charged with disturbing the peace for repeatedly taking his shoes off and stinking out the place with his smelly feet. Librarian Maria Heijne told De Telegraaf newspaper that the man had been causing problems for over a year, and did start washing his feet for a while, but when the smell - which causes other patrons to leave hastily - came back, they took away his library card and refused him admittance. He came back and started to take his shoes off again, at which point staff called the police.

A PIZZA THE ACTION... a 26-year-old Canadian and two teenagers have been charged with robbery, threatening behaviour, unlawful confinement and weapons offences after the man phoned a restaurant to order an extra-large vegetarian pizza delivery and became angry when told it would take 30 minutes. Staff claim he arrived at the restaurant 20 minutes later accompanied by the two teenagers, and demanded his pizza, brandishing a handgun. He held the staff and customers of Homemade Steak and Pizza at gunpoint for almost an hour while he finished his pizza. "We've seen some bizarre things happen, but this one tops the list. It certainly had our investigators baffled," police spokesman Dean Parthenis told the Edmonton Sun newspaper. No shots were fired but two employees and a customer were hit on the head during the incident.

MAYBE HE SHOULD BE A CAREER GUIDANCE COUNSELLOR... When Michael Jacobs, an 18-year-old father from Mesa, Arizona lost his job so he decided to turn to crime to make ends meet. In January he tried to hold up a Walgreens drugstore, but dropped and broke his fake gun, and fled the store. The next day he and an accomplice went to a supermarket and handed over a $20 bill for some candy bars, then sprayed the cashier with pepper spray when she opened the till, in an attempt to grab its contents. Unfortunately for Jacobs, she had been able to slam the till shut. Jacobs then suffered an asthma attack and had to stumble out of the store to his rented getaway car while using an inhaler. He then found that he had locked the keys in the car, so he smashed the window with a rock and drove off, in such a confused state that he forgot to turn on his headlights. A few minutes later he passed a police car, was pulled over and arrested. Facing charges of armed robbery and aggravated robbery Jacobs admitted to police that he was not cut out for a life of crime.

JERSEY DEVIL... On Wednesday a jury in Galveston, Texas, found Thomas Mitchell, 54, guilty of aggravated assault for shooting his girlfriend in March 1999 (she survived but died of unrelated causes earlier this month). The motivation? He thought she was about to say the words "New Jersey." Defence lawyer Maria Mecado argued that Mitchell has a history of mental illness and reacts badly to a number of words and phrases including "New Jersey", "Wisconsin", "Snickers" and "Mars," and throughout the three-day trial witnesses used flashcards with the words and phrases written out instead of speaking them. Mitchell covered his ears whenever he thought the words were going to be spoken aloud.

DIAL-AN-INSULT... New Zealand's Telecom Corp, the largest phone company in the country, has apologised and offered compensation to Auckland businessman James Storrie after he received a $140 charge on his monthly mobile phone bill itemised as a "penalty for being an arrogant bastard." Spokesman Martin Freeth said the company was appalled and embarrassed by the "aberration".

 

WEBSITE OF THE WEEK

We like comic strips here at the Irregular office, especially the more Far Side-ish ones, so we check out Doctor Fun every weekday.

http://www.ibiblio.org/Dave/

THE AMAZING NOT-QUITE-RANDOM LOTTERY PREDICTOR!

Madame Jennifer, our in-house psychic predicts the following numbers will be lucky:

1, 20, 22, 27, 34, 38

 

THE LAVATORY OF OTRANTO

Will be continued in a later issue.

 

DVD Review

Jurassic Park III

The third Jurassic Park movie is very much a throwback both to the first film and to those cheesy monster pics of the 50s (albeit on a budget several magnitudes of scale greater). At only 92 minutes running time there is little space for a complex plot or character development in between all the dinosaur set pieces, but then nobody really watches a film like this for much more than the dinos.

The plot is simple; Alan Grant, the palaeontologist from the original Jurassic Park is happy living with his research into fossils but desperately needs funding, so when a couple of thrill-seekers make him a financial offer to act as a guide for a fly-over tour of Isla Sola (the "B-site" island setting of the second film) he reluctantly agrees. Of course, the plane crashes, the couple are not what they seem, and the rollercoaster ride begins as the group set out to find a missing child and get off the island alive. Director Joe Johnston, who had previously worked with computer-generated (CG) animals in Jumanji and first approached Spielberg wanting to direct The Lost World: Jurassic Park 2, wisely keeps up the pace with just a brief nod to the moral questioning of the previous films, and knowing references to Spielberg films like Jaws and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. Sam Neill, reprising the role of Alan Grant, Michael Jeter, William H. Macy and Tea Leoni provide solid performances, but Leoni's role feels underwritten. Laura Dern makes a cameo appearance as the now-married Ellie.

As with both previous films though, the real stars that the audience want to see are the dinosaurs, and they don't disappoint. As if to emphasise how the continuing improvements in both animatronic and computer generated effects push this beyond the tyrannosaurus-driven Lost World: Jurassic Park, fairly early on there is a set piece fight between a t.rex and new-big-bad-dino-on-the-block spinosaurus. Old favourites like stegosaurs and bronchiosaurs put in appearances, a couple of other new species show up, and of course the velociraptors are back - and cleverer than before, which amazingly just happens to be the subject of Dr Grant's research. After a brief cameo at the end of Lost World there is also a whole flock of pteradons in one of the most breathtaking sequences of the film. For real horror, there's a TV clip of Barney in one scene...

It's not often that films feel too short, but Jurassic Park III could have done with an extra ten minutes or so at the end which, when it comes, feels far too sudden, almost to the point of scriptwriters trying to avoid cliché but running out of alternative ideas. Jurassic Park III is a different beast to its predecessors, being almost a pure rollercoaster ride, and as a second sequel it is all the better for it.

The DVD comes with a commentary track from the effects team, behind-the-scenes footage of three sequences, turntable views of the CG dinosaur models, storyboard comparisons, a short making-of featurette, another about palaeontologists in Montana, a stack of mini-documentaries, some lasting less than a minute that would have been much easier to watch if they had been edited together rather than nested several menu layers deep at times, photo galleries, and the main trailers for all three Jurassic Park movies plus E.T. (enhanced 20th anniversary release due out in cinemas soon) and the Back to the Future Trilogy (finally coming out on DVD later this year). DVD-ROM content includes a screen-saver, browser and link to the website. Disappointingly the menu system lacks the rather cute animated velociraptors of the previous releases; animation on the main menu is limited to some rippling water waves on an otherwise static image.

Jurassic Park III
Region 2. Cert: PG
Universal. Catalogue #:902 110 9
List price GBP19.99
Irregular rating - Film: 8/10 Extras 7/10

 

AND FINALLY...

INNER PEACE

I think I have found inner peace. I read an article that said the way to achieve inner peace is to finish things that I had started.

Today I finished two bags of potato chips, a chocolate pie, a large tub of ice cream and a small box of chocolates.

I feel better already.

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