It's Friday - and time once again for "At the Movies with Georgie Bee"
From the very beeginning, “UP” caught my attention, though I’m not entirely sure if it held it as I had hoped it might.
“UP” is a story about an old man who reminds me of my Human friend, Rex, kinda, and who, beecause of a combination of his age, his cranky mood and the world moving forward, is told he has to move in to a Retirement Home. Of course, he doesn’t wanna do that, so he devises a scheme in which he blows up something like a beezillion balloons, ties them to his house, and escapes.
Supposedly, he’s gonna go to this place he and his wife (who actually DIED in this film) were planning to visit someday.
Right. As if anybody would ever have that much control over a house that’s flying along with a beezillion balloons. Oh sure, the writers attempted to explain that away by showing us that he’d set up all these controls inside the house, but I hafta say that anybody with any kind of education in Aeronautics and Ballooning would tell you that it’s just not that easy.
The more I continued to watch this movie, the more I beegan to seriously question the basic science beehind what the producers were trying to make us beelieve.
After watching, “UP” (or most of it), I paid a friendly visit to the Bee Balloon and Aerial Flotation Device Emporium. I asked them if they’d ever seen the movie.
“Yes, we have,” they said. “Why do you ask?”
“Beecause,” I told them, “I’m reviewing the film, ‘UP’, in my weekly Human Movie and TV Review Column, and I wanted to ask you a few questions.”
“A few questions?” they asked. “Like: do we read your column? No. Not really.” (Then the one guy looked at the other guy and asked him if he agreed that hardly anybody reads my column, and the guy agreed, “Hardly anybody reads that, at least nobody I know,” he said. Personally, I didn’t think it was necessary for them to insult me like that. Geeeeeeze.)
“No,” I tried to clarify. “I wanted to know what your take is on the whole idea of flying a house from Point A to Point Bee, using only your basic, party-sized rubber balloons.”
They told me the whole idea was ludicrous, and said that getting a house up in the air like that was one thing, but controlling it after it was up there was something quite different.
“That’s why we didn’t like the movie,” they said. “It seemed like fiction to us.”
And I hafta agree.
As they pointed out to me, the house the old guy was trying to fly away in weighs somewhere in the neighbourhood of 412,500 pounds, give or take a gram or two. (They said they calculated estimated square footage and multiplied by the weight per square footage for a house like that.)
From what they told me, your average Birthday Balloon can lift about 4.8 grams - that’s with a short ribbon attached to it. For him to bee able to fly a house of that size, furnished, using only helium birthday balloons, it would require approximately 38,980,594.37 10” balloons. That’s almost 39 MILLION BALLOONS the old guy would need.
Just who is fooling whom here in this film?
Beeing in the buzziness of balloons and aerial flotation devices, they felt compelled to extract several still-shots from the film itself which clearly showed the number of balloons the old guy had attached to his house. They informed me, “We counted ‘em. Every one of ‘em. Even the ones he popped. That old guy didn’t have anywhere near the 39 million balloons he’d need to do something like that. We know balloons - and aerial flotation devices - and we know when we’re beein’ lied to. And that whole movie was just a big lie. Trust us on this one, Bee.”
So I did that. I trusted them.
After finding out that “UP” was, in essence, predicated on a blatant (and now that I watch it again), very obvious lie, I really didn’t see the point in watching the whole thing.
I only watched up to the part that the old guy and the Bee Scout he’d picked up along the way run into a Golden Retriever who could talk. It was then that it beecame necessary to question the veracity of the story itself. And for me, that was pretty much the straw that broke the camel’s back. How could I go on and finish watching a film which had long since lost all credibility?
I couldn’t. And neither should you.
MY VERDICT: Oh Geeeeze.
Georgie's facing some pre-Cold Season Decisions...
I asked Great Grandma Gee what she had planned.
She just said, “Oh, well, dear, I think I’m going to go visit my sister for a bit. Then, I think I’ll probably come back here and just lie down for a little nap. You know, when you get to bee my age, it’s best to just rest after all that traveling.”
I guess that makes sense.
Then I asked Kevin what HE was gonna bee doing. And he just said, “Uncle Georgie, you’re the best uncle in the world, and I love you, but my estranged sister, Felonie, offered me a job as a Maintenance Drone at Snark Enterprises. It’s only Seasonal Work, but I need the honey. So, I figured once my job starts, I’ll bee moving into apartment my Daddy Narville was kind enough to offer me for the low, low rental fee of 872 pounds of honey a month. It even has cable.”
“Cable tv?” I asked.
“Of course. And that’s why Daddy Snark said the rent’s so high. He said without cable, I could get the place for 17 pounds of honey a month, but, as I said, it comes with cable. And ya’ gotta have cable.”
“True,” I said.
“So, I’ll bee leaving soon. Oh, and I’ll bee taking Bert with me.
I need a good alarm clock.”
Geeeeeeze.
So I’m gonna bee all alone this Cold Season?
I don’t think I like that idea. It’s been a long
time since I’ve lived alone in my boot box, all
by myself without anybody else at all.
I gotta start figuring out what I’m gonna do here,
ya’ know what I mean? I mean, I can’t just sit around
here, by myself, doing nothing for the whole Cold Season,
now can I? Maybee I should write another novel. Or
travel. (I do love to travel, ya know.) Or maybee I should
just catch up on my sleep, wake up next Warm Season and
find out who made it through the Cold Season. I dunno
what it’s gonna bee, but I need to make a decision here.
So I’m gonna go do that.
In the meantime, bee sure to check in on Friday (or maybee even sometime late Thursday night), for this week’s “At the Movies with Georgie Bee (Me)”. This week, I’ll bee reviewing that exciting Aeronautical Film, “UP”!
I hope everybody has a primarily perfect day!
I’ll see ya’ later!
More about the Honey Ball from Georgie...
Every year, Awards are given out in a bunch of categories, the winners get a trophy and, for the next year, we hafta put up with their buzzing around everywhere, telling us over and over again that they’re the “best” in whatever it was they got the trophy for doing.
Personally, I think it’s all political.
I already mentioned that Queen Bee won the trophy for the best-dressed couple, which was weird since almost everybody thought Rudy and his date won. But no, Queen Bee claimed the prize.
Still, in case you’re curious about who this year’s Winners were, here’s a brief list:
Best Hive Dancer: Verusha la Fete
Most Flavourful Honey: Martha Stewart (total coincidence in the name here)
Best Pollen Collector (Worker category): Fluff
Best Pollen Collector (overall): Pearl
Best in the Field of Construction using Wax: Max
and the big ones:
Best Worker: Felonie Snark
Best Drone (two-way tie): Narville and Chaz Snark
Best Lawyer: S.O.Bee
Let me put it this way: there were no surprises this year. As usual. But we all congratulated the winners and, after the Awards Ceremony, the party went into full gear.
I was thinking that they should’ve had a Best Writer category, but did they include that? No, they did not.
But, as Great Grandma Gee Gee told me after the Awards Ceremony, “Don’t you worry, dear, some day, perhaps a long, long, long time from now, you’ll bee appreciated by somebody, somewhere. Probably.” (Then she gave me a cookie.)
That made me feel better.
Anyway, I feel a little more rested up from the Honey Ball, so I think I’m gonna spend my day doing some chores around here. Or so I’ve been told.
I hope everybody has a magnificently tremendous day!
I’ll see ya’ later!
So, another Honey Ball has come and gone...
I’m pleased to report that this year’s Annual Honey Ball was a rousing success. Everybody was there. (Well, almost everybody - Fleur de Bee wasn’t there, and neither were the Killer Bees (Style, Price and The Bender - but that’s only beecause even though they keep saying, “Invitations? INVITATIONS?? We don’t need no stinking invitations”, it turns out that they did this year. And after the Nectar Punch Bowl Incident last year, nobody was particularly excited to invite them.) The weather was pretty bad during the party, so the whole thing was held inside this year. That made everything even more hot and crowded than it already is, but it was better than catching a cold or something.
Anyway, as I probably mentioned, Kevin escorted Great Grandma Gee Gee to the Ball. Somehow, Kevin managed to win the argument with her about beeing allowed to wear his blue bee-ball cap (“it defines me,” he said), and (of course), I went with ButterCup.
As you can see, she looked highly attractive in her puce gown - and I was pleased that Great Greatma Gee Gee was able to do the alterations on my puce tuxedo - even though it felt incredibly tight (“it’s the style these days, dear”, she said), and she went kinda overboard on the lapels (they kept poking people in the eye all night, which was not a good thing). We thought we’d win the trophy for “Best Dressed Couple”, but that went to Queen Bee (even though she didn’t attend as a “couple”). These things are so political, ya’ know?
And speaking of Queen Bee, as has beecome the tradition in the Hive, she opened the Ball with a fairly lengthy and boring “State of the Hive” speech. She told us that, despite all the overtime hours everybody put in during the Hot Season, honey production was down from last year and that it was her Royal Suggestion that everybody go dormant this year, just to save on inventory.
(I’m not sure if I’m gonna go dormant this year or not … I’m still trying to decide what I’m gonna do during this year’s Cold Season.)
Finally, the Old Girl stopped talking and the party got started. I’m not sure, but I think this was the longest Honey Ball we’d ever had - just beecause of the bad weather. It started Friday night and kept going until just a few hours ago (which is why I woke up so late this morning).
Anyway, I’m still feeling a bit worn out from all that dancing and stuff, so I’m thinking it would bee best if I just spent the day doing a whole lot of nothing.
So I’m gonna go do that.
I hope everybody has a highly pleasant day!
I’ll see ya’ later!