I always use "loves" as a sample two place predicate in quantificational logic. It makes everything more fun.
On an unrelated note, someone should make a movie with both a Manic Pixie Dream Girl and A Magic Negro. They could, like, be in competition for the soul of the nice-guy screenwriter-stand-in. And then they should have sex with each other.
1.last
Doesn't True Blood have a bit of that? From the half a series I watched. Just with the genders switched.
A Manic Negro and a Magic Dreamgirl Pixie?
I once tried to use quantified logic to illustrate some points while teaching a Kaplan LSAT class. It wasn't my best idea.
No one seemed to have the stomach for the latest Republican debate, but there was this: "Rick Perry: I Hope I'm The Tim Tebow Of The Iowa Caucuses".
Morgan Freeman and Zooey Deschanel? It would certainly get some press.
re: 6
Samuel L. Jackson and Christina Ricci?
1. (∀ x)(Lxb)
2. (∀ x)(Lbx → x = m)
3. Lbb (from 1)
4. Lbb → b = m (from 2)
5. b = m (from 3 and 4)
A manic pixie dream girl I haven't seen mentioned is the character played by Sandy Dennis in Sweet November. It's completely blatant. She has an incurable fatal disease that doesn't ruin her good looks, and devotes herself to making one man after another ecstatically happy, but for just one month. Of course she leaves them crushed, but the movie doesn't show that.
The Wiki notes that the MPDG is a factor throughout literature, for example Dante's Beatrice. 19th century French literature is full of stories of men hopelessly in love with imaginary women (e.g. in paintings), long dead women, mummies, ghost and demon women, etc. In some cases the power of the man's love brings the fantasy objects to life.
Jackson's Super-Duper Magical Negro credits are pretty minimal though -- Nick Fury, sort-of; Mace Windu slightly more -- Black Snake Moan is almost the inverse of the usual SDMN scenario.
We should throw in a Mr. Miyagi character for good measure. Is there a good name for that type?
Stealth mentor?
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/StealthMentor
Also Trickster mentor:
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TricksterMentor
And retired bad ass:
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RetiredBadass
Well, there goes my afternoon. Thanks, ttaM.
re: 17
Yes, you can spend hours just clicking. It's great.
Jackson's Super-Duper Magical Negro credits are pretty minimal though
Would you count his role in The Long Kiss Goodnight?
15.
i've seen "Magic Asian". which isn't a very interesting name. that mysterious, mystical, inscrutable Asian mentor character really needs a fun name...
16: Those don't get to the Asian aspect of the type, which I thought was relevant here.
I also think there should be a women-in-prison movie that turns into a bikini-car-wash movie. "We've got to raise 10,000,000 by midnight to keep our prison home from being bought out by an evil, for-profit prison company!"
9: The Tales of Hoffmann could, I think, be renamed Les Filles-de-Reve Maniques-Pixeuses d'Hoffmann, now that you mention it.
The Adjustment Bureau has both a Manic Pixie Dreamgirl (Emily Blunt) and a Magical Negro (Anthony Mackie) fighting over Mat Damon's soul. They don't have sex though.
18: I want to pre-emptively argue that Kim Hunter's character in A Matter Of Life And Death isn't a MPDG.
Though, now that I think about it, David Niven's role in that movie is, arguably, the best example yet of a Manic Pixie Dream Guy (but who cares when he gets a scene as sublimely good as that opening scene?).
Also A Life Less Ordinary with Cameron Diaz and Delroy Lindo dreamgirling and negroing Ewan McGregor. Pretty sure they didn't have sex there either, but I think I fell asleep about half way through.
20: Yes, the Adjustment Bureau. That is exactly the sort of thing I was thinking about.
Samuel L. Jackson and Christina Ricci?
This? Or does this comment belong on Standpipe's blog?
Or does this comment belong on Standpipe's blog?
Not quite, but comment #10 was there first.
9: today I learned that Charlize Theron was not the first MPDG to play a dying woman in a movie called "Sweet November."
I saw the Sandy Dennis "Sweet November" in an all-male work camp situation where fantasizing was at the saturation point already without the movie.
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On the off chance anyone else is in driving distance of eastern Utah, Dinosaur National Park opened the new center in October. They've totally enclosed the big quarry in a building and it's pretty nice. There's also Fremont graffiti if you're into that sort of thing. Although I might need someone more knowledgeable like Teo to talk me out of the notion that this one tells us the Fremont had charcoal barbecues.
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I found 17.2 unreasonably hilarious, until it made me remember this, and I thought I'd share the downer.
Nausicaa (Homer's, not Miyazaki's): MPDG or no?
30. Barbecue is one option, or excessively well-endowed.
I didn't realize there was such a N.P.
Technically it's Dinosaur National Monument, but whatever. Run by the park service damnit, so I call it a park.
31 - Sure, we have a broken system of governance that's looted by highly-placed sociopaths, but Caged Heat was Jonathan Demme's first feature film. Look for the small upsides in life!
mysterious, mystical, inscrutable Asian mentor character really needs a fun name...
Yoda
31.2:Homer, no;Joyce's Nausicaa (Gertie McDowell, remembered without looking yeah!)...maybe
But Gertie raises an interesting question, since we are not certain of how much of her monologue belongs to Leo. If the MPDG has little or no contact with the YoungWertherite, is her lack of an interior life is then a figment of the YW's imagination? Think Beatrice, think the futile analysis by our heroes of Moreau in J & J
They then are indeed "dream girls" figments of imagination, Ariels, sprites
I really thought I was going to get a bunch of people bitching about Tim Tebow, to be honest. This is two threads in a row that - on the last thread, I thought someone would take up the question in the final sentence. It was sincere.
Commenting fashions have changed.
Technically it's Dinosaur National Monument, but whatever. Run by the park service damnit, so I call it a park.
Yeah, there's a whole variety of classifications for NPS units (park, monument, preserve, memorial, historic site, etc.), most of which mean basically nothing. They're often generically known as "parks" even within the NPS, although when discussing a specific unit we typically use the specific term associated with it.
I've never been to Dinosaur, but I've heard good things about the new quarry building and I'd like to see it sometime. The petroglyphs are mostly in a distinctive style that I'd like to check out as well. That barbecue one looks suspiciously un-Fremont-like, however...
36: I think Tim Tebow, while evidently politically reprehensible, is also hilarious as football player. Watching the Broncos lately is like watching some baffling comedy from a vastly different culture.. Also, he's an idiot. That's hilarious, too.
part of me agrees with sifu and part of me says "fuck tim tebow."
Tebow's one of the elite. Someone whose complete lack of self-awareness allows him to transcend normal human limitations. In other words, he's like Charlie Sheen, but evil.
It's becoming increasingly important, on a societal level, that he lose. To the point where I'm even rooting for the Patriots.
I feel that a) Tebow is a Pied Piper leading the country to destruction, and b) at this point we deserve for being so dumb. So I'm rooting for him to heighten the contradictions.
Watching the Broncos lately is like watching some baffling comedy from a vastly different culture.
It's one of the craziest things I've ever watched. I'm legitimately fascinated now. Honestly, though, the real story is John Fox. He took a cratering team and, mid-season, didn't just overhaul the offense but installed an offensive scheme nobody has run in 30 years in the NFL and that nobody anywhere thought could possibly succeed against modern NFL defenses. And it totally doesn't! Until it magically starts to in the 4th quarter.
He should be on every short list for Coach of the Year.
Scratch one game from that list. Beating the Minnesota Vikings in the fourth quarter isn't an accomplishment. Most teams blow them out in the third quarter at the latest.
This is two threads in a row that - on the last thread, I thought someone would take up the question in the final sentence. It was sincere.
I don't understand what that question is.
Things I don't understand:
(1) the OP
(2) why Tim Tebow is so terrible, outside of being overtly religious and, oh, wait, something about [googles] oh, right, the pro-life "I was almost an abortion and now look at me!" thing.
39, 41,43,44: If Denver/Tebow do win the Super Bowl* with a run of late comebacks each more improbable than the last, he will be simultaneously be declared the Republican nominee, a king, and a God and the Mayan 2012 stuff will all come true but it will all have been totally worth it.
*Other than the Tebow thing, I'd love to see it. For instance the Ravens' Super Bowl run was about the most entertaining thing ever in football for me--who wants another accurate and competent quarterback? Billick was an idiot for trying to build an actual offense and not sticking with the Trent Dolfer plan one more year. (Well, also the car accident after prom Ray Lewis limo killings after the Super Bowl party.)
48: Surely you can't mean Ray Lewis, God's Linebacker?
In unrelated news: Obstruction of justice is a crime, like stabbing people to death.
47: It's hard not to admire a hobbyist circumciser.
Last night's game -- the Griz almost came back against Sam Houston State after being down 21-0 at the end of the first quarter -- was not a bad end to the football season. No more attention to this sport will be paid this year Chez Carp.
The 2007 Colorado Rockies seemed, iirc, to wear their Christianity on their sleeves more than most. If there was a God, he, she, or it would undoubtedly arrange things exactly as they worked out for that bunch.
51.1: Ah, I meant to watch that. Tired though, and probably would have tuned out after the 1st quarter anyway.
Pretty sure the Broncos aren't going to keep winning. Or, at least, they aren't going to keep winning the way they have been. If they do, I will definitely start enjoying it less.
Oh, sure, Tweety. *This week* you stop enjoying it.
53: Oh, I don't think they are going to do it. That's a very big IF.
Or, at least, they aren't going to keep winning the way they have been.
I think I heard one of the braying jackasses on ESPN say that playoff-quality defenses will make a meal and a half of an armless quarterback who runs fast.
Speaking of broken sport's dreams:
Daniel "Rudy" Ruettiger, the subject of an inspirational movie of an undersized football player who finally makes the Notre Dame team through sheer determination, was charged today with being part of a "classic pump-and-dump scheme" to deceive investors into buying stock in Ruettiger's sports drink company.Sometime it seems like God doesn't even like football.
Sometime it seems like God doesn't even like football.
If you want to know what God thinks of football, take a look at the people He gives it to.
The Broncos-Pats game should be interesting, since New England's defense is as ridiculously awful as Tebow's throwing mechanics. Stoppable force versus movable object.
OT: Ayelet Waldman is angry about bake sales or something? I wasn't really paying attention. Man, the fracas is going to be awesome when Chabon runs off with a grad student.
60: I think you mean "The Three-Time Super Bowl Champion New England Patriots are going to parse the errors in Tim Tebow's christology in devastating fashion."
62: What does long past history have to do with anything?
59: OK, I'm looking, now what?
...NSFW
The Patriots know how to win. In the National Football League. With this guy. And this guy. This guy right here, this guy, this guy is a first-rate broadside of National Football League playing. That's good football right there. Physical play, get to the quarterback, protect the ball, score more points.
60: true. They're okay at getting interceptions, though. But yeah could end up a 119 to 113 game.
57 delights me. (Although I was watching part of "Rudy" in a hotel room last week, and realized that it's why Jon Favreau, who plays Rudy's roommate, knows Vince Vaughn, who plays one of the random ND players. So I guess if it weren't for "Rudy" there would be no "Iron Man".)
67: You're so money, snark, you don't even know you're money.
67: Vince Vaughn, who plays one of the random ND players
Makes sense, we were watching The Dilemma last night and my wife commented on how big Vaughan was (I had not really noticed it before--6'5" according to Wikipedia). Blind as I am to changes in fashions and visuals in general, I also briefly contested my wife's claim that his partner's wife was played by Winona Ryder (we joined it part of the way in).
I don't really watch football these days and haven't in a long time, but this Tebow stuff is weird. On the one hand, from everything I've heard about Tebow it sounds like I should hate him. On the other hand, though, the Broncos are the only pro team in any sport that I've ever really considered my team, so I like it when they win. I think I'll respond to this dilemma by continuing to ignore football.
OK, thread dead for a day* and I still have not come up with an Amish logic joke, so let it go.
*Although I guess it might crank up again with this afternoon's game.
So, yup, the Patriots defense really is quite terrible, but, yup, they do get turnovers here and there.
Patriots up now 17-14, first lead of the game.
73: Denver scores are reported in base-12 due to elevation adjustment.
24-16. Tebow isn't doing that badly against a pretty good defense. I think that defenses are getting superstitious and worried about lightning bolts. Hopefully an atheist will sack him sometime and do a Tebow.
Now that was a head's up play by Denver.
Tebow isn't doing that badly against a pretty good defense.
No, he's doing sort of okay against a terrible defense.
So we're on track for, what 54-32? I'll take the over.
Three turnovers is quite a few.
I don't want Tebow to score 32. I'd prefer a career-ending injury. I'm the Jesus hater that Bill O'Reilly always talks about. I only wish I ran the world like he says. You'd really see something then, I promise you.
77: Yeah, Pats have the only defense in the NFL allowing >400 yards per game.
The one announcer who was bound and determined to convince the viewing audience that no, honest, tebow can actually throw a football, kinda was pretty funny.
"See I think he's just being extra conservative and that's why he underthrew the ball by fifteen yards just there."
Also hilarious: Tebow's scramble for -29 yards.
85.1: IANAQC plus I was not paying that close attention, but when they did the isolation comparing his motion to Brady's the differences were quite manifest in a way that would make you predict Brady could execute a precision short- to middle-distance passing game while Tebow would struggle with it. But the words they were saying did not indicate that at all.
84: Yet are still in the top half in terms of points scored against.
Hmm. I suppose there's an asterisk in that an offense that fast and efficient means more possessions per game for the other team. It would be interesting to see how much of that yardage is getting logged in the fourth quarter, when teams are down big and having to throw.
88: the pats defense has also been weirdly (more) effective in the red zone and (as I mentioned above) has actually done a pretty good job of forcing turnovers. They just do that while totally failing to stop the run and allowing 20 or so yards after the catch average. It's like they're capable of being competent for maybe five plays a game, max, but are capable of deploying that competence when it's most important.
89: this is mostly for you. But others might get a kick out of it as well. J/oshu/a T/revin/o, aka T/acitu/s, with whom I'm facebook friends, yes, has as his latest post, "Earn this, Iraq." complete with a link to the relevant scene from Saving Private Ryan. Ultimate keyboard commando moment? I say yes.
You're facebook friends with the marble douchebag?!? Why?
But anyhow, yeah, I guess unless he photoshopped his face over Tom Hanks's that would be hard to top.
91: it's a long story. The short version is: he was going to apply to study with me.
As I've said many times before, my cultural literacy is compromised because I managed to totally miss this era of the internet. It's like having been alive for Woodstock, having had a ticket, but having failed to use it.
The same era when my co-blogger said that his posts were bog-standard wingnuttery "routed through a nebula of inchoate rage orbiting the LSD-ocean world of Pomposion IX".
Your co-blogger was/is very funny. I mean, you're funny too, sweetie.
93 -- !!!!
Of course, Tebow failed on the only day I was praying for him.
Also, it will be great when the 10,000 great great great grandchildren of the 1972 Miami Dolphins guys gather for their champagne toast in the floating Civic Recreation Hall in Waterworld.
96: oh, he's funnier than anybody. Now the only people that reap the benefits are his wife and kids. Those jerks.