http://www.overheardinnewyork.com/archives/021358.html

Metro-north conductor: This train has five cars open.
Drunk teenage girl: Your mom has five cars open! Your mom's fellatio lips are open too!
(trio sits in row in front of girl and friend)
Drunk girl: I hate you, don't sit here. We're all going to throw up on you. Why are you still here? No one likes you.
Girl's friend: Why are you so drunk?
Drunk girl: That's something we'll never know.

--Metro-North

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/filmblog/2010/jan/07/barbican-cinema

The Barbican's decision to shut two of its three screens to placate luxury-flat owners is a slap in the face for everyone who cares about cinema

What's the best way for an arts centre to celebrate a year of record ticket sales and an unexpected 13% increase in visitors to its hallowed space? Experiment with cutting-edge programming? Fill the foyer with bunting? Taunt the competition?
 
Well, if you're the Barbican, you put the party hats away and, instead, close down two of your three cinema screens with the hope that punters will be too distracted by the rumours of a swanky new caff to notice.
 
The Barbican, London's beloved concrete Rubik's cube of an arts complex, spent millions in 2007 to refurbish its three cinemas, nicing up the lighting and putting in quality digital projectors – that kind of thing. Now, two of those very busy screening rooms are set to close in March and function solely as conference venues, leaving the film programme operating on a single screen. The plan is – as it was all along says Robert Rider, the centre's head of cinema – to build two more auditoriums "with state of the art projection and sound systems" located closer to the main auditorium by 2012. Baffling to folks who've visited and find the current cinemas pretty swish as they stand (albeit tricky to navigate).
 
The truth of the matter comes down to a case of simple economics: the Barbican (or rather, City of London Corporation, who own and manage the site) has developed a set of flats in the Frobisher Crescent tower, directly above the existing cinemas. Many of these 69 new homes, selling from between £250,000 to £1.3m, will suffer pretty heavy sound leakage for incoming cashcows ­– sorry, residents! ­­– if films continue to be screened. (A detail you'd think might have been soundly tested by acoustic engineers before the builders marched in.) And so, bish bash bosh, the movies are moving downstairs in the Barbican's brutalist maze, "making it far more accessible than before", to the ballpark tune of £4m. 
 
From the money side of things, it apparently makes sense. For those bemoaning the fact that the Barbican has its priorities skewed, the blunt suggestion is: take a cold, hard look at the economic climes and the laws of survival.

Yet that's not to say the centre's plans can rest easy. The Barbican, alongside BFI on Southbank and the ICA, is in a minority of cinemas in the capital able to offer ambitious film programming outside standard commercial fare. Big indie film festivals, world cinema, leftfield director Q&As, obscure arthouse seasons – we've come to expect them as standard from the centre. So, when the likes of Japanimation or the series of silent films could potentially face withdrawal thanks to only one working screen, it's understandable if film fans get a bit miffed.
 
Rider promises that "there will be as broad and diverse a programme as is feasible". But it's difficult to see how choice will be sustained. Partially due to offsetting the cost of licensing each film, most single screen cinemas will show the same flick for days or weeks at a time, dispiriting to anyone who might want to see say, Nine and Wim Wenders's Kings of the Road in the same weekend (as you can at the Barbican at the moment). The real fear is that the presently excellent Barbican Film could just become another clone of the Everyman chain: predictable, staid and well-to-do. (Screen on the Concrete, maybe?) Hardly in the spirit of being a self-proclaimed centre of excellence, or "the model of tomorrow's arts".

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/filmblog/2010/jan/07/james-cameron-avatar-sequels

With Avatar still going great guns at the global box office, Cameron's envisioned trilogy is becoming a surer thing everyday

As Avatar's barnstorming success at the global box office – where it recently became the fastest film of all time to reach the $1bn (£627m) mark – continues with little sign of letting up, it seems remarkable that as recently as a few weeks ago some critics were claiming the project was set to flop.

How they must be wiping the egg from their faces now. Watching the film for the third time at the weekend, it struck me that James Cameron's movie already has that classic Hollywood blockbuster feel – remarkable for a feature that's so reliant on technology and, as Peter Bradshaw pointed out, a freakishly bizarre storyline.

This is going to be a film that kids and adults alike will remember 2009 (and 2010) by, and there aren't too many movies that you can say that about. For me, it's a feature that – like the original Star Wars trilogy, ET and Indiana Jones before it – causes the viewer to unfurrow his or her brow and wrap themselves up in sheer cinematic indulgence. Naysayers be damned; this is a flick that's far too much fun to get too po-faced about.

For those of you who've not seen the film and would like to, I can only suggest that you turn away now. For in discussing the planned sequels, it's going to be necessary to mention the way the movie ended.

Cameron has been talking about Avatar as a three-movie project since as far back as 2006. And given the incredible amount of technical groundwork put in by Weta Digital as well as Industrial Light and Magic to bring the spectacular world of Pandora to the screen, the invention of an entire language for the Na'vi to speak, and the fact that the movie is left reasonably open-ended, followups would make a certain sense.

"[There will be] possible sequels if it does well; if it tanks, no," said Cameron of Avatar three years ago, adding that he would probably shoot any followups back-to-back.

"I have a trilogy-scaled arc of story right now, but I haven't put any serious work into writing a script," he told MTV last month. Both movies would follow Avatar's lead characters, Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) and Neytiri (Zoe Saldana), and pick up where Avatar left off, on Pandora in the year 2154.

Beyond that, Cameron has been keeping reasonably tight-lipped about the plot details of the two sequels, other than to remind us that Pandora is not the only moon in its planetary system.

"The planet in Pandora's sky is called Polyphemus and it's the primary for a system of moons, just like in our solar system, where Jupiter has 50-some moons," he told reporters in LA last month. "We have some story ideas for how to branch out into other moons of the Polyphemus and Alpha Centauri A system. "

Cameron has a track record for making excellent sequels, having arguably bettered his own Terminator, from 1984, with 1991's T2: Judgment Day, and achieved the remarkable feat of taking on Ridley Scott's 1979 slasher-in-space classic Alien with the more action-adventure oriented followup Aliens in 1986. However, the concept of back-to-back sequels to continue the story of a successful origins movie does have the awful ring of The Matrix to it. And even more than the Wachowski brothers' film, Avatar's denouement is a little too open-ended: Cameron could go literally anywhere from here.

The obvious storyline for part two would be the return of the expelled humans, following a sort of The Empire Strikes Back blueprint. But screenwriters might struggle to find a worthy arc to mirror the highly enjoyable one-two combination of Jake's arrival on Pandora and subsequent induction into Na'avi culture. And without that, the movie risks becoming one long battle sequence. Furthermore, one imagines that the extra-Pandorans would simply nuke the Tree of Souls from space, rendering the moon's indigenous defences redundant. Cameron may want to avoid falling into that particular plot hole.

It might be best, then, to ignore the humans (at least until part three) and open up the possibility of a new threat, from a more defeatable enemy. But that runs the risk of looking like something of a damp squib when compared with Avatar's epic struggle for Na'vi survival in the face of apparently overwhelming odds. And it's arguable that the first movie required the presence of humans to ground it in something approaching reality – those who dismiss Avatar as Thundercats in space and guffaw at its noble savage stereotypes would no doubt have a field day with an all-Na'vi storyline.

To be honest, I'm a little stumped, which is where you come in. Imagine you've been given the job of coming up with the plotlines for Avatar 2 (and part three if you're feeling imaginative). Where would you take the adventure next? Or should Cameron just quit while he's ahead?

http://www.overheardinnewyork.com/archives/021357.html

(couple enters elevator, making out and groping each other as they enter)
Meathead boyfriend to semi-attractive girlfriend: Are they going to make me sign out and then sign in when we get back?
Semi-attractive girlfriend: I'm not sure, I think probably.
Meathead boyfriend: Well, if it helps keep you safe...
Semi-attractive girlfriend: Speaking of safe, I think I have another stalker. But this time, he's 6'3", 230 pounds, and a fireman.

--Columbia Dorm

Overheard by: Z

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/filmblog/2010/jan/07/clash-titans-oscars

Is 'Titans Will Clash' a portent of creative bankrupcy to come, or just refreshingly plain speaking?

Unless the 2011 Oscars plan to introduce categories for Best 300 Imitation or Most Bafflingly Highbrow Cast In A Film About Some Giant Scorpions, March's Clash of the Titans remake doesn't look as if it will trouble too many award ceremonies.

But the Clash of the Titans trailer? Different matter entirely. Because if the Clash of the Titans trailer isn't recognised for its sterling contribution to the canon of shriekingly awful movie taglines, then there's simply no justice in the world.

First, let's just put the movie into context. It's a film called Clash of the Titans. In Clash of the Titans, a number of titans take it upon themselves to clash with each other, to presumably spectacular effect. Now, knowing this, what do you think the producers chose to use as the movie's tagline? Remember – there are titans in the film, and they mainly clash in it. Give up? It's – brace yourselves – Titans Will Clash.

Titans Will Clash. That's genuinely the best thing that anybody in the whole of Warner Brothers could come up with. Titans Will Clash. Repeat it all you want, it doesn't get any less idiotic. In fact, Titans Will Clash doesn't work on any discernible level. If you've seen the original movie, or heard of the original movie, or heard of the remake, or have the mental capacity to read the words "Clash of the Titans" and understand that the film will probably have some clashing and some titans in it, the tagline becomes utterly redundant.

And if you've settled down to watch the trailer with no prior knowledge or understanding of the film's central premise – despite all the relentless images of titans and clashing contained within – then it's bound to come as a gigantic spoiler. Titans will clash? Oh great, no point seeing it now. Thanks a lot, idiot.

This trend for pointlessly literal taglines had better not catch on. Alice In Wonderland had better not run with the tagline Alice Will Go To Wonderland. Chronicles of Narnia: Voyage of the Dawn Treader had better not run with Dawn Will Be Trodden On. The DVD release of Avatar had better not run with A Blue Thing Will Sort Of Swing About For An Unnecessarily Long Time And You'll Ooh And Aah And Then Go Home Feeling A Bit Empty. Or maybe it should. It'd be accurate, at least.

Needless to say, Clash of the Titans isn't the first movie to employ a gormless tagline. Rocky II's Rocky Shows He's A Champ… And Wins! gave away the movie's ending to anybody who happened to stroll past a poster, like if The Crying Game was advertised by the line OMG! She's Got A Todger! Then there was Crank 2's He Was Dead... But He Got Better, which seemed to infuriate the website for about half an hour last year. And my personal favourite from 1982's Silent Rage – Science Created Him. Now Chuck Norris Must Destroy Him. But for sheer breathtaking inanity, Clash of the Titans is up there with the best of them.

A good tagline should do one of two things. It should either provoke curiosity or wry amusement – like In Space No One Can Hear You Scream from Alien or You Won't Believe Your Eye from Monsters, Inc – or it should trumpet the film as the most magnificent picture ever, like Gone With The Wind's tagline The Most Magnificent Picture Ever. All Titans Will Clash does is alert you to the fact that some titans will clash, which has already been communicated by all the clashing titans in the trailer and the fact that the film's called Clash of the Titans in the first place.

We could do a better job of creating a tagline for Clash of the Titans. And we should. What would get the film's message across better? Liam Neeson Is Basically Playing God ... Again? Yes, We Liked 300 Too? Let me know your ideas below.

http://www.overheardinnewyork.com/archives/021356.html

50-something ghetto woman: So like when I was younger, I was totally infatuated with my father's brother.
Ghetto friend: Amen!

--Allerton Ave, Bronx

http://www.overheardinnewyork.com/archives/021355.html

Old man: I know, I know, that man is a crook.
Older Russian man: A crook! I wish him to die.
Old man: Well, I don't wish death on anyone.
Older Russian man: Bah! I wish you to die. (walks off)

--113th & Broadway

http://bash.org.ru/quote/405517

http://bash.org.ru/quote/405516

http://bash.org.ru/quote/405515

http://bash.org.ru/quote/405514

http://bash.org.ru/quote/405513

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap100106.html

The Spotty Surface of Betelgeuse

http://www.overheardinnewyork.com/archives/021354.html

Man to son: Ya like that cheesecake?
Son: Uh-huh, it's good.
Man: Go to school, get good grades, get a good job, you can have cheesecake like that whenever you want.

--Dinner near Brooklyn Tech

Overheard by: taylor Morgan

http://www.overheardinnewyork.com/archives/021353.html

Man: I got beat up a lot in high school. It made me a better person.

--College of Staten Island

Overheard by: Incredibly Amused

Little boy: You best lay the smackdown on that hoe!

--Times Square

Student: I don't get why everyone is making such a big deal about Chris Brown hitting Rihanna, it's not like he's the first man to ever hit a girl. Get over it, world!

--Manhattan College, Riverdale, The Bronx

Overheard by: Stephen

Girl on cell outside beauty salon: If I didn't have things to do tonight, I would totally just slap the crap out of that girl. Seriously.

--Brooklyn

Overheard by: maybe tomorrow, then?

Woman on cell: I went through this with my daughter this morning. (pause) Yeah, okay, you can hit me, but you can't hit anybody else.

--Cookshop Restaurant

http://www.overheardinnewyork.com/archives/021352.html

White teenage boy to black teenage boy: She thinks I am a rapist or something.
(black teenage boy giggles) Which I am cool with, you know what I mean?

--Bay Ridge Ave & 4th Ave

Brunette Guido girl: Ohmigosh, you would love this girl, she's like, the only cool blonde person. This one time she was just like "Dude, can we just do the peace-and-love thing? Cause, I don't know how to fight."

--LIRR

Overheard by: whaaasgood

Fashion intern: I had swine flu last year, before it was cool.

--Cafeteria, Hearst Tower

Overheard by: interns are our future

Bike rider on phone, walking with girlfriend: I don't have his number, but you can call Tom* and go down there. Those guys are pretty cool. You can just go down there and give them a prostate massage.

--Riverside Park

http://www.overheardinnewyork.com/archives/021351.html

Girl to friend: If it weren't for my sister's dog, I wouldn't have to drink during the day.

--Greenpoint

Overheard by: Kevin

Gay dude to another: It's so amazing how dogs get all up in there. Like, what if people had to introduce themselves that way? How great would it be if when I met you I had to sniff your ass?

--17th St & 8th Ave

Overheard by: BT

Girl on cell: So wait, did Dr Siegel really charge you 150 dollars to chop a pimple off the dog's booty?

--Hart & Irving, Brooklyn

Girl to guy: Ever spend a lot of time with a Shih Tzu?

--MacDougal & 3rd St

Female voice outside my window: And I'm keeping the dog leg--I don't even care what you have to say!

--113th St b/w Broadway & Amsterdam

Overheard by: Ladle

http://www.overheardinnewyork.com/archives/021350.html

Elderly janitor, watching pierced teenagers get in line: I'm gonna fart on one of these people.

--Broadway & Houston

Angry man on cell: They think they're so perfect, but I bet they piss and burp and fart like the rest of us.

--80th St & 34th Ave

Hobo: Can you spare some change? I need to buy some new underwear, I farted and shat in these.

--83rd St & Broadway

Overheard by: new girl in town

Tiny brunette: Have you ever had to pee so bad, and suddenly you fart and then you don't have to pee that badly anymore?

--7 Train

Young woman to friend: Yeah, and then she started fartin' a bunch. But she was farting out of her pussy. And Ashley got pissed, cause then, she started makin' a beat out of it.

--125th St & Lexington

Overheard by: Stephen

http://bash.org.ru/quote/405512

http://bash.org.ru/quote/405511