Drew's Van Helsing Review

[Magill]

BladeStar--I think you're contradicting yourself. First you define a full moon this way:

BladeStarr said:

2. A "Full Moon" is one in which the Moon is receiving enough light from the sun (unblocked by the Earth) to have about 50% of it's surface alight. You CAN have a full moon during the day under the right circumstances, just as you can see the moon on any day if you look hard enough and it is in the right place in your hemisphere, night time is not a requirement.

and then you quote this:

The Full Moon is opposite the Sun, meaning that it rises at roughly sunset and sets at roughly sunrise. It is in the sky all night long. It occurs two weeks after New Moon, a week after First Quarter Moon, and a week before Last Quarter Moon. If you use the same reasoning as we do with "quarter" Moons, you would call this the "Half Moon," since we see only half the surface of the Moon (the other half being on the far side). But since the full side facing us is illuminated, it is the "full" Moon. Lunar eclipses can sometimes occur at the phase, usually two to three times a year.

A full moon has nothing to do with it's percent illumination, it has to do with it's appearance from earth. Except during a lunar eclipse, 50% of the moon's surface is always illuminated. A full moon is when the moon appears to be an entire disc, rather than a sliver or a fraction of a disc. In other words, the side of the moon that faces Earth is fully illuminated. By definition, the moon has to be on the opposite side of the Earth as the sun. Thus the moon can't be visible during the day.

You can only get lunar eclipses during the full moon, just as you can only get solar eclipses during the new moon (because the moon is in between the Earth and the sun).

I don't want you to feel like I'm picking on you--I took astronomy in high school and our instructor always tried to make sure we got any astronomical misconceptions clarified, and I guess some rubbed off. Maybe Lissa has the best idea.

[bladestarr]

Yeah I know, I was just hoping no one would catch that. ;D It doesn't matter, the movie still sucks regardless of how many laws of physics it actually does follow (which is few).

[TheLuckyOne]

Lissa said:

ACTING? You're using the word "acting" in conjunction with Dracula's brides in Van Helsing?

Shame on you.

But... but they had so much TALENT! Huge, massive, firm, perfectly rounded amounts of it!


-D

[Lissa]

"He's got a huge... talent!"

(Aren't those tracts of land, anyway?)

[PoolMan]

Funny, semi-related story, seeing as it started out being about Drew's Van Helsing review.

The Mutants already know this, but it's tradition that when you get hired on here as a writer, the review that you used on your application becomes your de facto first review (mine was, for instance, Monty Python's Holy Grail). Therefore the review of VH that Drew posted is his application.

The funny thing is, probably every third or fourth application we got this round was a Van Helsing review. Obviously, it didn't count against anybody (heck, we hired him, didn't we?), but it got to feeling like that scene in Shakespeare in Love where every single actor auditions by reading the same line from Marlowe.

"Is this the face that launched a thousand ships?"

Anyways. Funny to me, I guess.

Ahem.

[Head Mutant]

I think his exact words, on the phone, were: "ANOTHER bloody Van Helsing review!?!"

Of course, he was drinking rather heavily that night.

[TheLuckyOne]

Head said:

I think his exact words, on the phone, were: "ANOTHER bloody Van Helsing review!?!"

Of course, he was drinking rather heavily that night.

Well that's okay; I was smashed when I wrote it too. Join me next time, kids, when I go on a bender, review all 7 Police Academys, and get hospitalized for liver failure!

(So just out of curiosity, what percentage of the applicants LIKED it?)

-D

[Head Mutant]

None, I think. Two easiest reviews in the world to do are bad movies, and movies you've been in love with since time began.

[bladestarr]

Actually I'd argue that the films you've love since time imemorial are the HARDEST reviews to write. You want to do the film justice and show all of its best pints, but also don't want to bore and/or alienate your audience by ging on for ages. It is very easy to slip into the fine art of bloviation. ;D

[Hucklebubba]

BladeStarr said:

...show all of its best pints,

It comes in pints?

[Head Mutant]

Yeah but you certainly don't have a lack of things to say.

[bladestarr]

I never have a lack of things to say, the question is whether what I have to say is worth hearing.

[Hucklebubba]

BladeStarr said:

bloviation.

"Bloviate" is one of those words that just sounds so right for what it describes.

[PoolMan]

Head said:

I think his exact words, on the phone, were: "ANOTHER bloody Van Helsing review!?!"

Of course, he was drinking rather heavily that night.

I really enjoy how, of all the running gags you could pin on me, you pick alcoholism.

Cross dresser.

[Head Mutant]

Hey, you're the lush who, years after the fact, is still bemoaning that we couldn't find a bar around where I live so that you could get all liquored up.