Archive | December 10, 2017

Unholy See

The latest trailer for the upcoming film Ready Player One features this image – which is clearly a dark riff on the Vatican:

Here’s the real-life original:


Apostrophe Fail

Part 1: One of my pet peeves is when people substitute an opening quotation mark for an apostrophe – for example, when they write the abbreviation for 1973 as ‘73 instead of ’73.

This is a phenomenon of the computer age; I don’t recall seeing it when I was growing up in the ’70s and ’80s, but I see it all the time now. The reason is that it’s a product of auto-correct; in most word-processing programs, if you try to type an apostrophe at the beginning of a word, auto-correct will assume you intended to type an opening quotation mark, and so will change it to an opening quotation mark, and you have to make a conscious effort to change it back.

But as a result, people’s brains have been warped to the point that nowadays, even when auto-correct isn’t involved (for example, when they’re hand-painting a sign), they still substitute an opening quotation mark for an apostrophe.

Goddamn reversed apostrophe

Goddamn reversed apostrophe

I think the most embarrassing (because most expensive and high-profile) example of the mistake that I’ve seen is in the 1973 posters of Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs flashed up at the 0:26 and 0:42 marks this new movie trailer. It’s particularly ironic because it’s a mistake that wouldn’t have been made in 1973.

Part 2:

Well, that example didn’t wear the “most embarrassing (because most expensive and high-profile) example” crown for long. Right after I wrote the above, I came across a much worse example in the following trailer (at the 2:15 mark), which features a gigantic apostrophe fail in the very title of the goddamn movie:

Embarrassing trailer

Embarrassing trailer

Thankfully, this empire of incompetence does not extend everywhere. This poster for the movie was evidently made by people who grasp the difference between apostrophes and quotation marks:

Non-embarrassing poster

Unfortunately, there’s another poster ….

Embarrassing poster

Embarrassing poster


Phantom at the Fox

Atlanta's Fox Theatre

Last weekend, at the Fox Theatre in Atlanta, I saw Love Never Dies (Andrew Lloyd Webber’s sequel to Phantom of the Opera) on its first North American tour. I enjoyed it, although the characterisations are wildly inconsistent (both within the show and between it and its predecessor).

They’ve revised the show a bit for its newest tour – though nothing as drastic as the total retooling between the UK and Australia productions. But, for example, the music for the song “The Beauty Underneath” has been completely rewritten. I like the new version; but I also miss the old version.

The set design is a bit different too – sort of a cross between Art Nouveau and “Pirates of the Caribbean” (the ride, not the movie).


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