Two Absurd Things: Obama's Press Conference, and "The Size of a Tangerine" Recut

As for Obama's statement on Iraq: He's giving a statement in some minutes (he's already late as it was scheduled for 12:30) in which he'll make a Major Statement that he's doing Extremely Minor Things in Iraq.

Those advisers are merely 100 Green Berets, who are tasked with... helping to train the Iraqi army. Um, they've been trained for 10 years. The middle of a shooting war is not the time for classwork.

I think it's Kerry being dispatched to the region that's really supposed to scare ISIS, though.

Video at that link.

Here's the thing I really want to link, though:

This is a non-political silly thing. It's also old.

Very old. But I never heard of it.

In The Dark Knight, Alfred gives an interesting speech which sheds light on the Joker's motives ("some me just want to watch the world burn"). He talks about his days in the British army in Burma, trying to capture a local bandit.

The speech goes like this:

Bruce Wayne: Criminals aren't complicated, Alfred. We just need to figure out what he's after.

Alfred: With respect, Master Wayne, perhaps this is a man that you don't fully understand either. A long time ago, I was in Burma. My friends and I were working for the local government. They were trying to buy the loyalty of tribal leaders by bribing them with precious stones. But their caravans were being raided in a forest north of Rangoon by a bandit. So we went looking for the stones. But in six months, we never met anyone who had traded with him. One day I saw a child playing with a ruby the size of a tangerine. The bandit had been throwing the stones away.

Bruce Wayne: So why steal them?

Alfred: Well, because he thought it was good sport. Because some men aren't looking for anything logical, like money. They can't be bought, bullied, reasoned or negotiated with. Some men just want to watch the world burn.

I bolded the words "the size of a tangerine" because Michael Caine gives that a very Michael Cainey line reading, in a harsh whisper.

Here's what that sounds like:

So that's just the set-up.

Some time after the film was out on DVD, some guy began fixating on the "size of a tangerine" line-reading, and re-cut the scene to make Alfred fixate on it as well.

Here's that scene re-cut to put the emphasis on the tangerine, where it belongs.

I don't want to oversell this, but if you get half as much amusement out of this as I did last night, then I'm doing you a huge favor by sharing it. I was laughing out loud like a hyena.

Michael Caine Impressions: A compilation here, including Peter Sellars immortal "Not many people know that" impression (which turns out to be something Caine never actually said), and Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon doing Dueling Caines from The Trip.

Oh, I didn't know this, but Coogan and Brydon did a sequel to The Trip, called The Trip to Italy. They do more Michael Caine impressions, this time from the Dark Knight movies. Also some Bane.

posted by Ace at 12:56 PM

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