November 21, 2014

A Little Of This And A Little Of That

The other might, I was perusing the blogs that I subscribe via the e-mail (roughly one dozen) when I came across a post from a blog called The Real Blogger Status about using verification for anonymous comments. I read it with great interest, and afterwards, I gave some serious thought about reactivating anonymous commenting on my blog (singular).

To refresh everyone's memory, I stopped allowing anonymous commenting around June 1, 2013, which was directly due to getting nailed with roughly 75+ spam comments Memorial Day weekend.

But as they say, sometimes necessity will trump the annoyance/common sense factor, so with mild trepidation, I reactivated anonymous (along with name/URL) commenting on just this blog only. My other blogs will not have it, because quite frankly, I'm not in the mood to perpetually monitor 5 blogs for spam.

And wouldn't you know it, a long time spammer (circa 2008) left the first anonymous comment. For those of you who have been around since the last decade, there was a blogger who intensely disliked American woman, and he made sure that everyone one and their 3rd cousins twice removed knew about it. Suffice to say, in no short order, he was completely binged and purged from Blogger. He still pops up from time to time to peddle his nonsense, but overall, he's like a little annoying mosquito that you have to zap during the summer.

So, with that little announcement about a very minor change to this blog, on with the main course.

I like black comedies. Not comedies featuring black actors (there are some very good ones out there), but movies that are a mixture of comedy and crime, thus black comedies. Black comedies are one of my favorite genre of movies that I simply can't get enough of. There is something really perverse about watching a crime movie that is seriously laced with black humor throughout, and leave it to me to brag about something that unique.

In no particular order of importance, here are some of my favorite black comedies.

1} Coldblooded featuring Jason Priestly. Jason plays a affectless bookie promoted to hitman. Movie was made during his 90120 heyday. Also starred in a bizarre comedy entitled Call Me Fitz.

2} Grosse Point Blank featuring John Cusack. John plays a hitman attending his 10 year high school reunion and also meets up with his ex-girlfriend played by Minnie Driver.

3} Keeping Mum featuring Rowan Atkinson with a small part played by Patrick Swayze. Rowan plays a minister who searches for the perfect sermon and fails to realize his wife is having an affair.

4} Snatch featuring Jason Statham and Brad Pitt. Underground boxing, the mob and a 84 carat diamond. One of my favorite repeater movies. Directed by Guy Ritchie, who did (among other strange movies) Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels. Also has one of the most bizarre movie soundtracks I've ever heard, including the song for the final fight scene

5} Zombieland. Need I say more?

6} Jerry & Tom featuring Joe Mantegna and Sam Rockwell. Really strange movie about two hitmen.

(c) 2014 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved.

14 comments:

  1. I have never allowed Anonymous comments on my blog. If someone wants to comment, they can get a google account and do so.

    I love black comedies too but I haven't seen any of these! Heard of a couple though.

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  2. Can't go wrong with Zombieland!
    I get that guy's comment once in a blue moon.

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  3. Debra: Makes sense.

    Because I more or less post blog links to Facebook, I figure it was worth a shot to see if I can get anyone from there to comment. If I start getting spammed again, I will definitely revert back to what it was previously.

    Alex: Most definitely.

    This guy was more or less blackballed by Blogger over the years, but he still shows every once in a great while to pontificate about his admiration for non-Americans.

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  4. I love the film Grosse Point Blank - one of my favorites. I'm a John Cusack fan anyway though.

    Yes - I deleted the boycott comment I got, too. He hit everyone I think.

    The word verification thing makes me crazy - sometimes it's just impossible to read and takes two or three times to get it right.

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  5. Lynn: Some of the more popular blogs do have that word verify and I agree, sometimes its very impossible to read. Many is the time that I've had to refresh it just to find a readable version to do.

    I got into that particular film when I caught the last 20 minutes or so and found myself wanting to watch the entire thing. I thought in particular Dan Aykroyd was especially hilarious in the movie.

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  6. I used to disallow anonymous comments but it prohibited someone from posting--they didn't have any of the various allowed forms of ID that are offered. So I allowed it. I've only had one that I almost had to ban--someone made a comment about Meg Ryan cheating on Dennis Quaid and the comment said Dennis had been cheating on Meg for years and everyone who knew the two of them knew it. The commenter shot back a hilarious, "Meg? Is that you?" because it really did sound like it was either her or someone who knew her. (Of course, they wouldn't be reading MY blog if so, so I doubt it!) I just haven't seen it as a problem...and I don't do comment approval or word verification since Blogger started getting so good at catching all the spam. Seems to work so far, but if I ever start having issues, I'll tighten things up again.

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  7. Stephanie: I originally allowed anon's when I first started blogging back in '08, but when I had some trolls following me from the chat rooms, I tightened up by moderating/word verifying. Got rid of the verify (can understand having it, but I want to keep my blog reader friendly) but kept anon until last year.

    The one disadvantage that I can see not having anon is that those who don't have a Google+/Blogger profile and don't possess an OpenID can't post using their just their Name/URL.

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  8. That asshat made it to my blog in some new incarnation (I don't allow anonymous comments), which must have taken some creativity on his part, since he has been banned so many times.

    I was wondering where Jason Priestly had gone.

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  9. I am on the lookout now for JERRY AND TOM.

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  10. M: The only think I can think of is that he must've made some kind of new OpenID to get onto your blog. Without anon enabled, you can't do Name/URL either.

    I caught a couple episodes of that weird series of his and it was definitely way out of the norm for him.

    G.A.: It's actually a pretty decent movie. Joe Mantagna delivers an excellent deadpan performance.

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  11. Even with Anonymous comments disabled (since we got overrun with spam too) that American woman hater still got through to one of our posts last week, just like Riot Kitty. He just created some BS account, which I'm sure is already long since permabanned. Doesn't seem to ever stop him.

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  12. ABFtS: No, it doesn't. I'm very tempted to check out his link. I did some five years ago and I couldn't past the first post, the ranting was just that bad.

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  13. Yeah I had the same issue with the nut case on the pad. I just pop them into Spam and then the next time he comments (or she) they go straight into Spam again. As I moderate all my comments anyway due to a few haters out there, I'm not too bothered.

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  14. Joe: He is a persistent little bugger, I will grant you that.

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These days, the written word is to die for, so please leave a comment that shows me and everyone else the real you. All kinds of verbiage will be cheerfully accepted in the spirit it was written.