humour

This Is The Best, Bedtime Story, Ever (USS Concert)

Posted on by Tim Kuefler

I’m going to tell you a story about a concert. Okay dear readers?

Once upon a time, a handsome, gallant, and thoughtful young(ish) man decided to take the lady he was courting to see a merry band of musicians from a far away land.

For to woo her and make her upper and nether regions pulse with warm feelings. For he cared deeply for her, but feared to show it. For she was very wise, poetic, and beautiful to behold. But lo, the musicians were to playing in the centre of the shaw, an extravagant building on a hilltop, which looking into the heart of the river and it’s valley.

This meant for the young(ish) man that he would have to take his belle on a futuristic and magical steel vessel which floated on a endless pair of steel beams, many times the length of a spear. Unfortunately the lady was ill prepared for the cold chill of winter, and much to the chagrin of the gentle man, they had to warm her legs over a magical fibre of heat and light in house of hewn stone while they waited for the steel vessel.

But the vessel was not for too long, and surely within less than a moment, the beauteous couple was on their way to see the band known as Ubiquitous Synergy Seeker.

 

At the centre of the shaw many woody folk had arrived thither, and so the pair left their coats with some servants of the house and set about to sample some wares which were for sale in the great halls.16709705_10154238916951932_1154610129_o

It was a mere stipend to acquire the merchandise but the memories the two young lovers were sharing were far more valuable than some silk and cotton mixed together. A couple of fools were there too from a local chamber of commerce, but the braggarts were blocking the privy and the young lady had to give them the highest of fives to get around and find relief.

Once inside the main hall, they were surprised by the size of the space and that all the lords and ladies of the court were in full regal and bouncing at the opportunity to sup on ale while the youth waited behind the gates.

The young lord and lady even entertained a couple of squires from the castle of McMurray, as they downed their ales.

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Then the show was ready to begin – they headed towards the throne and stood in awe as harps, lutes and rebecs, and these odd bowls capped with cowhide which were hit with sticks to produce sounds. The music was moving, lifting, and pushing the crowd of people all around. Smiles were on all faces and the main event had not even graced the crowd with it’s presence.

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The queen of the evening was from a smaller band of musicians known as Repartee, and she kept singing of this duke, someone she must have missed back home. All were quite sorrowful for this golden-haired queen.

But that did not last for long.

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Then the sun shone brighter than it ever has in night, and all were blinded with truth. The Ubiquitous Synergy Seeker’s had finally came on, it was as if the horns of heaven had resounded, men, women and children of all ages came together and sang for which seemed to be all eve, but the morrow never came, it only felt full of time for the music was deep and uplifting.

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Once all was said and done, the two young lovers, more amourous than ever, bid their dues to the crowd, took in a special goodbye with the lady from Repartee, signing contracts of friendship, and made their cold walk home into the winds of winter.

The end.

And that’s not a theory, it’s a story, about something that really happened. So Mysticque and I.

Tim!

Extend Your Credit (Georg Rockall-Schmidt 2nd preview interview)

Posted on by Tim Kuefler

Sometimes you get the credit and sometimes the credit gets you.  Whether we’re talking about university or book keeping is kinda unclear, because this word has roughly ten or so definitions, but we’re gonna roll with the punches and hope that all of my generalizations will bolster a sense of respect and confidence in my writing ability.

Now that I have your attention, let’s consider the following: credit can turn you into a slave.

I realize that the credit analogies are gonna run thin pretty quick here dear readers, so instead of making a bunch of references about credit history, how arcade games work hard to turn your hard earned fast food job money against you or why all movies in the future seem to favour that word over currency, I’m just gonna make a clean break and say that credit is one of those things that you should understand but not rely on. It’ll fuck up your mojo if you let it.

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I mean Georg gets it. That’s why he and I spent so much time discussing credibility and what it means to him as a full-time creator of YouTube Videos. You know Georg right? Same guy that I’m preparing to release a feature length interview with in the near future.

Now the see the thing about Georg is that he is a researcher, a writer and quite bright. We ended up talking back and forth for over two hours. Which is a lot of time to edit down an interview into a reasonable length. In fact, it’s almost double what a typical interview runs for me.

Georg Rockall-Schmidt has been an excellent first foray into the world of international interviewing, and I wanted to give him as much attention as I could, so I decided (at the last minute) to release another preview of us chatting about credibility. This time the focus question is – do you communicate all of the information you need to in order to be considered authentic?

And I bet you won’t be able to guess what his answer is.

Lucky for you, I have the interview question locked and loaded. So you don’t have many more sentences to wait until the reward is at your fingertips. Now sit down if you’re standing or stand up if you’ve been sitting all day and watch this short clip featuring my friend and fellow internet darling.

Now I’ve run the theories train into the station for the evening, friends. You’re gonna have to get off here cause it’s the end of the line. But I can promise you some sweet dreams, heck, even some countrified ones that’ll make a whole lot of sense when you come back tomorrow for my Miranda Lambert music review. With that cleared up, browse the timotheories.com som more, leave some comments, subscribe, and share this post with your creative friends.

Tim!

Avengers 2.5 (Captain America: Civil War review)

Posted on by Tim Kuefler

Have you watched the best movie of the year yet? Well if you don’t know what I’m getting at, I’m not going to drag this out. It’s time to sit down and enjoy Captain America: Civil War.

 

 

 

Captain America: Civil War (2016)

Cast: Chris Evans, Robert Downey Jr., Scarlett Johansson, Sebastian Stan, Anthony Mackie, Don Cheadle, Jeremy Renner, Chadwick Boseman, Paul Bettany, Elizabeth Olsen, Paul Rudd, Emily VanCamp, Tom Holland, Daniel Bruhl, Frank Grillo
Director(s): Anthony Russo, Joseph V. Russo
released on blu-ray September 13, 2016
********* 10/10

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IMDB: 8.1
Rotten Tomatoes: 90%, Audience Score 90%
The Guardian: ****/*****

The Russo brothers conduct most of their work in film as a team, whether it’s directing (Welcome to Collinwood, You, Me and Dupree, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Captain America: Civil War, Avengers: Infinity War Part 1, and Avengers: Infinity War Part 2) producing, writing, acting, or in post-production. Also it’s kinda weird for me to put You, Me and Dupree down. Though they did have a major hand in directing both Arrested Development and Community, two of my favourite television shows.

It’s going to be challenging for me writing about this movie without pouring out my soul and spilling over the edges of the screen. I will say this as a preface. This is my favourite Marvel movie so far, and it is based on my favourite Marvel story of all time, so it’s really important for me to remain unbiased in my feedback.

I loved this movie. And I think it’s pretty fair to say “spoiler alert.” It features my all-time favourite superhero done right for the first time. Spider-Man is played by Tom Holland and he does such a great job of filling the shoes of someone who has incredible powers, a moral compass, but no idea of what to do with his abilities. He rambles on during the major ensemble fight of the movie, he stutters over his words in trying to keep secrets from Aunt May. Tom Holland was born to play Peter Parker.

The plot of the movie is fairly simple, Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan) was operating as a literal sleeper agent for Hydra ever since the 1940s, and in the 1990s he intercepted a case of super-soldier serum from the Starks, killing them in the process.

In present day, a team of the Avengers are working to find Brock Rumlow (Frank Grillo). Rumlow blows himself up, hoping to kill Captain America (Chris Evans), but Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen) contains the blast, throwing it in the air and accidentally kills several Wakandan emissaries.

The UN decides that the Avengers need to be put in check because of the events in Lagos and previous events in New York, Washington DC, and Sokovia. And Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.) is leading the charge, especially after he is confronted by a mother who lost her son during their mission to stop Ultron a year earlier in Sokovia.

Because Cap had dealt with the infiltration of SHIELD by Hydra agents previously, he doesn’t believe that this is the right decision. Eventually Cap and Iron Man come to blows because of this difference of opinion, building their own teams of heroes. Especially the Black Panther (Chadwick Boseman), who goes on a mission of revenge after his father King T’Chaka of Wakanda is murdered during a bomb blast triggered during the UN Sokovia accords session. The world thinks the Winter Soldier did it, and Captain America wants to bring in his friend, but against UN oversight.

The events turn out to be orchestrated by Colonel Helmut Zemo, a Sokovian who lost his whole family during the events of the Age of Ultron. He wanted to break up the Avengers from the inside, and worked to get Barnes, Cap, and Iron Man in the same room. Only revealing that Barnes murdered the Starks at the last moments of the film. A fantastic twist that still haunts me after three viewings.

 

Pros: This movie has it all. Action, drama, humour, a great plot, incredible cameos that never feel full, deep connections, and even some references to the Russo brothers previous work.

Cons: There aren’t any. Just kidding. In some ways it feels like a build-up to the next Avengers movie, but all of the movies feel that way upon deeper inspection.

Runtime: 2 hours 27 minutes

Points of Interest: The film lines up rather nicely with the 75th anniversary of Captain America. And 10 years ago, the original Civil War comic book came out. It’s also the Black Panther’s 50th anniversary.

This movie is entertaining throughout it’s long screen time. I barely notice the time fly by as I watch the spectacle unfold. And even when it gets introspective, nay, especially when it gets introspective, you can’t help but become engrossed by the characters. My heart actually breaks when Tony says “I don’t care, he killed my mom.” The Russo brothers have an incredible ability to balance drama with everything else.

 

 

 

Dear readers, do yourself a favour, run, don’t walk to your nearest major retailer or go online and get yourself a digital copy of this movie. I don’t think Marvel is going to do much better than this. We’ve reached the apex of the MCU and it was glorious.

Tim!

Bunnies Are Not Cute (Zootopia review)

Posted on by Tim Kuefler

In talking about movies with a good friend of mine, I get to exercise my movie trivia pretty regularly. This means that I can tell him why I prefer Mulan over Frozen AKA why it’s an under-appreciated film, and we can both walk away with our opinions intact, because of mutual respect and celebrations of diversity. But sometimes there are perfectly loved movies out there that can do just as good of a job showcasing tolerance, empowerment, and everyday humour.

Conveniently enough, today’s movie review does exactly that.

 

 

 

Zootopia (2016)

Cast: Ginnifer Goodwin, Jason Bateman, Idris Elba, Jenny Slate, Nate Torrence, J.K. Simmons
Director: Byron Howard, Rich Moore, Jared Bush
released on blu-ray June 7, 2016
********* 10/10

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IMDB: 8.2
Rotten Tomatoes: 98%, Audience Score 94%
The Guardian: ****/*****

Zootopia was directed by Americans Byron P. Howard, Rich Moore, and Jared Bush. Howard is known co-directing Bolt and Tangled, whil Moore is known for his work on TV shows like The Simpsons, The Critic, and Futurama, as well as directing Wreck-It Ralph. Bush is less known but he did co-create the Disney animated series Penn Zero and write the script for Zootopia.

I’m not entirely sure why Disney needed 2 directors and a co-director to round out the leadership on this project, but I suspect it had a lot to do with all of the animation updates they made for the animals, Frankensteined from the movies Bolt, Big Hero 6, Wreck-It Ralph, and Frozen. Regardless, this is now easily in my top 10 Disney movies of all-time, maybe even top 5.

But you’re probably wondering what Zootopia is about aren’t you? Well, if you haven’t seen it yet, then it’s definitely time to buckle up.

 

Zootopia is a buddy-cop movie, that often feels like a romantic comedy similar to North by Northwest or Roman Holiday – A classic story with anthropomorphic animals and current technology.

Early on we are introduced to the story of Judy Hopps (Ginnifer Goodwin), a young bunny who wants to become the first ever bunny police officer, though she is from rural Bunnyburrow and met with conflicting advice from her parents. They tell her to have dreams, but not to believe in them too much. And to settle because settling isn’t so bad. We also learn that the world has evolved so that predators and prey all get along and don’t eat each other.

But that doesn’t stop Judy’s parents from warning her about foxes before she heads off to the big city of Zootopia. And thus we get into the meat of the story. We quickly learn that Zootopia isn’t a utopia at all, there is a missing predators case which the police force are struggling to solve and then the police chief (Idris Elba) reminds Hopps that she isn’t in an animated fantasy with musicals. So he makes her a meter maid.

Of course Hopps sets out to prove him wrong, and in the process uncovers fox con artist Nick Wilde (Jason Bateman) and his schemes to earn quick money. The stakes continue to escalate and eventually Hopps puts her new career on the line, just to solve the missing predators case and prove herself, tricking Wilde into helping her out.

The humour and topical ideas are what make the movie stand out, and while the animation is top notch, I found myself consistently watching to see what would happen with our two leads. That Disney was able to construct such an excellent story about conflict and the subtleties of prejudice that exist currently, is nothing short of amazing. I can’t say enough good about this story and it’s characterizations.

Pros: Between the message of tolerance and acceptance, to the hero’s journey which seats a minority at the front, to the excellent animation, to the topical humour, Zootopia is brilliant and empowering to all.

Cons: If you think about it too much, the use of animal behaviour to describe classes, ethnicities and culture is a difficult pill to swallow – And ironically creates generalizations itself. Also the Shakira song is kinda weak. You’ll hear what I hear after repeated listens.

Runtime: 1 hour 48 minutes.

Points of Interest: Originally the story was set up for Nick Wilde as the protagonist, but test audience didn’t connect with him easily and were more interested in Judy Hopps, so the script was changed. Also, the film consists of only mammals. There are no reptiles, amphibians, birds or fish to be found.

I might be biased, much like Bryon Howard, because my all-time favourite Disney movie is the 1970’s Robin Hood. Which if you haven’t seen it, is a travesty.  That movie is also centred around animals as well, but then again with a 98% on Rotten Tomatoes and glowing reviews everywhere, it’s difficult not to believe that a tale of animals isn’t just good fun.

I’ll make this final point, if you’re worried about this movie being too preachy, it never feels like that message is being driven incredibly hard, the humour is often on point and capable of referencing AMC’s Breaking Bad is not something to shake an elephant pop stick at, otherwise you might end up with red wood. But that’s just a theory.

Tim!