June 2, 2019

2 longterm interests of mine intersect: Men in Shorts and Jeff Goldblum.

I'm normally censorious about grown men in shorts, but I'm going to give Jeff Goldblum a pass, because he found his own way and, also, because to me, he will always be Brundlefly:



Apparently this has something to do with "Sonic" (a new movie based on the old video game about a blue hedgehog), but it's not as though Goldblum is in it. Here's the trailer that just came out 2 days ago and has been viewed on YouTube almost 33 million times:



I'm not keeping up with present-day taste in movies. I'm just amused by Jeff Goldblum. And have you ever heard of hedgehog politics? Neither have I. Hedgehogs don't have politics. They're very... brutal. No compassion, no compromise. We can't trust the hedgehog.

42 comments:

rcocean said...

My legs are much better, but Goldblum's aren't terrible. I'll give him a pass too.

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Ann Althouse said...

"Wasn't he a classmate of yours at Michigan?"

Where do you get that? I don't think Goldblum went to college. His Wikipedia page says he moved to NYC when he was 17 to become an actor.

robother said...

Isiah Berlin divided politicians into foxes and hedgehogs : "a fox knows many things, but a hedgehog one important thing." I guess Ann is a fox, since she has such negative view of the hedgehog.

Ingachuck'stoothlessARM said...

looks like a gay Leonard Nimoy

I Use Computers to Write Words said...

The trailer came out a month ago (April 30, not May 30). Response to the design of the CGI title character was negative enough that the movie has been delayed and the character is being redesigned, which is what the image was referencing.

Unknown said...

My goodness, posting at almost 8pm...somewhat unusual. I wore shorts today, as I was working in my yard and its more comfortable. While I may have appeared somewhat boyish in the sense of fashion, my decrepit body does not feel so in the least. There is no justice.

JAORE said...

I've never understood our host's aversion to men in shorts. But that Goldblum pic may change my mind.

Temujin said...

Brundlefly

Narr said...

Yeah, what gives with the shorts thing? I wear them from April to October unless I have to dress up.

We know Prof. A doesn't like men in shorts, but has she ever mentioned whether or not men's legs per se can be an attraction? Can't recall.

Narr
I got my beautiful gams from mom

buwaya said...

But Goldblum hasn't sung "Bilbo Baggins" yet, and made a music video.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8Q8oi-csdSE

He can't be as cool as Leonard Nimoy.

buwaya said...

And, goodness, even I have better legs than Goldblum.

narciso said...

Yes his first part was a thug in death wish at the age of 22.

narciso said...

I'm trying to think of a goldblum film I paid to see well theres independence say and the fire two Jurassic park films

rehajm said...

When I was waiting to get on a commercial flight today there was a grodie guy in shorts. I considered prayer he wasn’t next to me...

rehajm said...

Not just shorts but old school short shorts.

Michael McNeil said...

That Isaiah Berlin quote up-thread is actually a fragment left by the ancient Greek poet Archilochus: [quoting…]

The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing.

madAsHell said...

If he could sing, I'd call him Lady GaGa!.....or maybe Cher?

Where's the men-in-shorts tag??

mockturtle said...

He bears some resemblance to Bob Dylan. That must be it.

reader said...

I think he looks like Kevin Costner and someone trying to hard to seem current.

Ingachuck'stoothlessARM said...

Hedgehog has Arithmomania

@2:12 he has counted his steps that day

Michael McNeil said...

Isaiah Berlin wrote of Archilochus' hedgehog versus fox aphorism thusly (pdf): [quoting…]

Scholars have differed about the correct interpretation of these dark words, which may mean no more than that the fox, for all his cunning, is defeated by the hedgehog’s one defence. But, taken figuratively, the words can be made to yield a sense in which they mark one of the deepest differences which divide writers and thinkers, and, it may be, human beings in general. For there exists a great chasm between those, on one side, who relate everything to a single central vision, one system, less or more coherent or articulate, in terms of which they understand, think and feel — a single, universal, organising principle in terms of which alone all that they are and say has significance — and, on the other side, those who pursue many ends, often unrelated and even contradictory, connected, if at all, only in some de facto way, for some psychological or physiological cause, related to no moral or aesthetic principle.

These last lead lives, perform acts and entertain ideas that are centrifugal rather than centripetal; their thought is scattered or diffused, moving on many levels, seizing upon the essence of a vast variety of experiences and objects for what they are in themselves, without, consciously or unconsciously, seeking to fit them into, or exclude them from, any one unchanging, all-embracing, sometimes self-contradictory and incomplete, at times fanatical, unitary inner vision.

The first kind of intellectual and artistic personality belongs to the hedgehogs, the second to the foxes; and without insisting on a rigid classification, we may, without too much fear of contradiction, say that, in this sense, Dante belongs to the first category, Shakespeare to the second; Plato, Lucretius, Pascal, Hegel, Dostoevsky, Nietzsche, Ibsen, Proust are, in varying degrees, hedgehogs; Herodotus, Aristotle, Montaigne, Erasmus, Molière, Goethe, Pushkin, Balzac, Joyce are foxes.

[/unQuote]

Rob said...

I expect the misunderstanding about Goldblum attending the University of Michigan is that in "The Big Chill" he and the others had been classmates at Michigan.

Michael McNeil said...

By Berlin's understanding I'd say Althouse is also a fox. Thus her antipathy to hedgehogs?

Tom T. said...

There's a theory that Jeff Goldblum doesn't realize that he's an actor. He just thinks that he's a guy who keeps having very cool experiences.

Narayanan said...

Are law professors allowed to teach class in shorts or do they have to wear robes and board with tassel for teaching?

mockturtle said...

Michael McNeil: Interesting theory. I'm still mulling it over. "Without too much fear of contradiction" sounds a bit presumptuous to me. Makes me want to contradict.

Bay Area Guy said...

He was good in "Deep Cover" with Laurence Fishburne. But that was 27 years ago.

Yancey Ward said...

Yes, he was in Death Wish as a mugger/punk. I definitely think The Fly was his very best role followed closely by Deep Cover which Bay Area Guy mentions above- both were outstanding movies, too. I didn't care much for the characters he played in Independence Day or the Jurassic Park movies- they seemed to be the same character. I loved him in the last Thor movie, though- was a role that looked like it was written specifically for him. I actually liked the role he played on Law and Order- Criminal Intent on television for a couple of seasons. However, the movie of Goldblum's I think gets overlooked too often is Into the Night, which also starred Michelle Pfeiffer
in the role that really launched her career- it is a very underrated movie, and a lot of fun to watch, even today.

Hey Skipper said...

I read somewhere that actor's heads tend to be disproportionately large.

Goldblum looks like Exhibit A.

Dave in Tucson said...

> the trailer that just came out 2 days ago

Actually, it came out over a month ago (April 30 is the date on the YouTube page). An oddly careless mistake for you to make, Althouse.

Apparently the people interested in the move really really hated the design of the Sonic character. Pushback was enough that they're doing a redesign and the release date has been pushed back 3 months. Buzzfeed (sorry) link with some more info

Unknown said...

Jim Gollins "Good To Great" business strategy book advises to "find your hedgehog concept"

Big Mike said...

He looks like a dope, all right.

tim in vermont said...

Where do you get that?

Big Chill reference?

Tina Trent said...

It's hard to look at those pants and not think about leg hair but at least his toes are covered.

Ann Althouse said...

"I read somewhere that actor's heads tend to be disproportionately large. Goldblum looks like Exhibit A."

Yes, and it's *really* freaky when you consider that he's 6'4".

MayBee said...

Jeff Goldblum was a guest on the Adam Corolla Show podcast about a year ago and he was absolutely delightful. Comletely different than I expected him to be. Charming and goofy and totally all in.

WWIII Joe Biden, Husk-Puppet + America's Putin said...

Hillarywoodland keeps making the same movie over an over. snoooooooze.

AFChiling said...

Who can forget "Buckaroo Banzai" and "New Jersey" Zweibel?

https://preview.tinyurl.com/hrx2ss7

Static Ping said...

Sonic the Hedgehog is a video game character and was the face of the Sega gaming systems much like Mario was the face of the Nintendo gaming systems. Unfortunately, Sega lost the console wars and Sonic ended up being the "star" of a number of poorly received video games after that. He's still quite popular on the Internet and I believe he has several cartoons and comic books.

The movie is about 20 years too late, but I suspect that it couldn't be made 20 years ago given the state of CGI. Then again, I'm not sure how it could be any worse than the Mario Brothers movie.

Anthony said...

The Fly was great. Also Into the Night. I couldn't stand either the Independence Days or the Jurassic Parks (mostly; the book was way better).

Anthony said...

BTW, I cut Ann slack on the shorts; Men in sandals gives me the heebei-jeebies.