New, improved. Both points up for debate.

Blogger X's Comci-Con Update

2010-07-26T18:44:00.000-07:00

Blogger X here from Comic Con in San Diego with some juicy tidbits that major left wing media outlets aren't reporting on.

Who is getting a new Comic from Top Cow. My Sources Say Glenn Beck. That's right everyone's favorite truth teller/possible rapist is getting a new book. Called "Invest in Gold presents Glenn Beck's Conspiracy." Sources describe it as "Taking place 5 minutes into the future Beck is on the run from an unkown conspiracy that somehow involves Barak Obama (rhymes with Alabama, they made sure to point out that this was not the current president). Also we are working on the first crying cover." We are all looking forward to that.

Which major comic has Blogger X got confirmed to be the next Adult Swim show. My sources tell me it's the Comic strip "Henry". Based off the success of "The Boondocks" Adult Swim is trying again with "Henry." My sources tell me "Henry is what speaks to the people of the last three or four generations. It has universal appeal and is extremely funny. And we shall stay true to the source material. No talking Henry in this one!" Wow, am I excited for that. Especially since I dress up like Henry for the last 3 Comic-Cons.

In casting news it is confirmed that Vinnie Jones will be playing the main character in the upcoming live Action "Maus" adaptation.

Well it's time for me to log off. Once Again, this is Blogger X not Alan.

For shame IDS, for shame

2010-04-28T18:16:00.000-07:00

Now it's not as if I have come to expect much from the IU student newspaper. Most student publications suffer from the same type of problems. There are always the pretentious, arty column writers who try and be edgy and funny but fail on both accounts. There are the fluff pieces about the student government which no one outside of said student government care about. There's the need for the design majors to show off their new and creative idea about how to lay out a page. And with the need to put out a product every day there will always be the hastily put together stories about some wacky on campus happening or bio of a local person.

Earlier this week though there were two major stories that I was a bit shocked ran as prominently as they did. One was so unoriginal and uninspired I wondered how it even made it to print, let alone taking up the entire first page of the second section of the paper. And the other celebrated events that I think the university should frown upon. And if they won't frown upon it, they might as well not acknowledge it as a kind of silent protest.

The first point was a full front page dedicated to their depiction of "The Radish." To call this a blatant copy of "The Onion" would be absolutely correctly. The little radish icon they used is almost exactly the same, save the colors of the vegetable. The fake news stories and headlines were all laid out exactly as they are on The Onion. I'm not even sure what the point of the entire page was. If it was intended to be funny, like the Onion is, they failed. All the jokes were really poorly written. And because of it's to the letter copying of the source material one would expect that it would then be as funny.

I was just really shocked that the editors and writers felt that this would be a good idea. By ripping off a site that is known to basically their entire readership, they set themselves up to fail right off the bat. The reason the Onion is so funny is because they have an entire staff full of comedy writers who do this type of thing all the time. They write all kinds of shit, and they throw out the bad stuff. There was none of this kind of editing going on.

On top of that there was no originality being shown. Why copy the success of someone else? And again, if your going to attempt to copy a successful enterprise of someone else, you better damn sure do a really good job of it so that people can't see the flaws so clearly.

The second major problem I had with this specific issue was their glorification of the party culture surrounding Little 5. They specifically profiled an outgoing senior who threw a massive party. They outlined his planning of the all day affair, from his setting up entire sound systems outside his house for bands, reinforcing his deck so it didn't cave in to the large amounts of weight it would be holding, and to buying massive amounts of chocolate pudding for a ladies only wrestling contest.

The article goes on to talk about the party getting busted up by the cops on multiple occasions, people getting fined, and also the organizer ending up in the wrestling match with two ladies. During the description of his "wrestling" with the two girls the article goes on to talk about he he attempted to remove the girls tops for the joy of the crowd. He eventually succeeded on one girl, who ran away while covering up. She obviously didn't want to be topless, regardless of her participation in the event.

I find multiple problems with this article. First of all it was one of the longest articles I have ever seen in the IDS, which in itself is pretty shameful. The second is the celebration of Little 5 as an event where out of control drinking is acceptable, borderline sexual assault is encouraged, and much planning and care must be put into throwing out of control parties just for the sake of itself.

On top of all that, the article is being published by the university through their student newspaper. IU as a school should not be promoting Little 5 in this fashion. While it is fact that the entire week is now looked at as week long party with the races as only a secondary event, this is not the universities doing and should not be encouraged. Collage used to be something people really had to try hard to get into. Secondary education was not a given for most people. Now that many schools have turned into money making machines first, education centers second, this kind of behavior seems to be becoming more and more acceptable.

If the IDS had chosen to write an article about this same individual, and used him as an example of all the wrong ways that the Little 5 week has become I would see no problem with that being run. But in celebrating this kid's week and wild parties, and in turn celebrating the wild, rampant partying that is accepted during Little 5, the IDS has validated this type of behavior.

A combination of unoriginality and misplaced praise marked a very disappointing day to be affiliated with IU. I don't think it's wrong to expect more out of university.

Avatar

2010-02-07T07:59:00.000-08:00

I was going to do a longer review of Avatar, explaining my thoughts and feelings regarding it, but then I stumbled upon this online youtube review and it sums up my feelings even better than I ever could. Be fore warned, this review is in 2 parts, and totals about 20 minutes. It is NSFW, but is really funny, really well put together, and hits all the points I was going to make. Thanks guy for allowing me not to have to write to much.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJarz7BYnHA&feature=channel

To sum up, Avatar was an OK movie. Yes, the new 3D and motion capture technology is great, and their CGI was pretty awesome. But so what. If you have to spend that much money to make your movie look that good, is it worth it? Do you have to rely on computers to create visually interesting set pieces? No. James Cameron set out to prove that he could revolutionize movies, and he supposedly did it. But in the long run, it's just going to make movies more expensive to make, which means studios will charge the theaters more to show them, which will in turn raise ticket prices to go to the movies even higher than their already astronomical rates. And when/if they don't recoup all their expenses during a theatrical run, the movie studios will in turn jack up DVD prices so they can try and squeeze every last dime out of the public. Is this what we want. To spend even MORE money on the movies just so we can see some blue people run around in space fern gully?

I love big, spectacular special effects and summer block busters. And I would have probably enjoyed Avatar even more if I could shrug off the bigger ramifications of a movie like this. But I couldn't. I also couldn't ignore that all the characters were so very basic that I didn't care what happened. Every plot point was so telegraphed that it carried no weight when it happened. And for a movie that was hoping, and ultimately succeeding in garnering Oscar buzz, this is a bad way to go about it. I read recently that Cameron and the producers were disappointed that none of their actors recieved Oscar nominations. Instead they will have to feast up on all the technical awards, as well as long shots for Director and Best Picture. Boo Hoo!

Anyone with any rational thought in their minds regarding movies and the award process would not even consider nominating any of these actors for an award for Best anything. This is not to mean to say that the film was poorly acted. The people did a fine job with what they were given. But what they were given just wasn't award worthy characters.

To finally sum up in what has turned out to be a much longer piece than I originally intended. Yes, Avatar looked cool. Too cool at times, as I got disoriented and annoyed with all the 3D shit they would pile up all at once. Yes, it was technologically ground breaking. No, it wasn't necessarily, and I don't want to see the larger ramifications of this kind of film becoming the standard.

Return of the Mack

2010-01-19T16:35:00.000-08:00

It sickens me to look back on the blog here and see that my last post was in October. Not that the 2 people that read this on occasion have probably noticed, but I have been seriously lacking in the blog department. I'm gonna try and and pick up the pace.

I didn't complete my goal for the year of seeing 132 movies. I didn't even come close. In fact I saw fewer movies in 2009 than in any other year that I've kept track. Now to be fair, that's only been 3 years, but still. In a year that I was attempting to bypass my previous best, I came up well short. The final total for the year was 87. That's 45 short of my goal, and a little bit heartbreaking for me. This year I am not going with any set number of movies or hours. Simply, I'm going to watch movies and TV shows that I am interested in and that *hopefully* bring me enjoyment. I will keep track, and if the mood strikes me and I have something exciting to say perchance blog about it. Maybe this mindset will produce better results.

Much in the vain of the 2008 movie wrap up post, I'm going to do the same for my 2009 results. While 87 movies was well short of my personal goal, that does average out to more than 1 a week, which is far better than most I imagine. What will follow will be my top 5 and bottom 5 of the year. This will be limited to movies that I viewed for the first time ever in 2009, but does not mean they were made in 2009.

STATS:

87 movies watched
14 in the theater
2 repeat viewings in theaters (The Hangover, and Inglorious Basterds)
13 repeat viewings all together
74 new movies (to me)

Top 5 (in no particular order)

1. The Wrestler - Best movie I saw all year. Hands down. I still weep openly when I watch the ending. Of course I only watch that movie by myself, so no one can see my tears.
2. Drag Me To Hell
3. The Hangover
4. Watchmen
5. Inglorious Basterds

Almost made the cut: Zombieland, Up, Darkon, Trick R' Treat

Bottom 5 (in no particular order)

1. Miss March
2. Club Dread
3. Rachel Getting Married
4. The Brothers Solomon
5. Revolver

All of these I should have liked on paper, but simply couldn't connect with. Either they weren't funny enough, tried to hard, or just were just plain bad.

2010 has started off a bit slow. I've seen 4 movies, 2 in the theater and 2 at home. Though those stats are a little inflated as I saw 2 yesterday.

That's all for tonight. I'm gonna have a few more posts this week, but am pacing myself a tiny bit. One post for sure will be my thoughts/review of Avatar. I know James Cameron has been waiting to hear what I have to think of his latest work.

Movies are fun. Enjoy them.

ADD

2009-10-08T06:26:00.000-07:00

When I was attending Ivy Tech full time my last 2 semesters, there weren't many other students that were carting their laptops with them to class and using them. Maybe it was the over abundance of computer labs at Ivy Tech, and the ease of access to all classes, as they are encapsulated in one building. Maybe it was just easier to take hand written notes or no notes at all. Most people, my self included, spent as little time at the actual building as possible. And presumably like me, everyone just went home and did their work on their computers from the comforts of their own home.

That is not true at IU. In my first full semester at IU, it's seemingly commonplace for everyone to have a laptop, and for everyone to use them during class. I'd say about 40 percent of the people in my classes use laptops during lectures. The only class that I don't see anyone using one is my English class, and I think that's just because it's more of a casual atmosphere where we just sit around and talk about the readings. No real lecture time.

Now I bring all this up to set up 2 separate stories that confound my brain.

In my Soc class, there is a guy who sits close enough to me to see his laptop during class. This class is a standard lecture class with about 80 students, and there are lots of notes to be taken. Most people just use the old tried and true method of pen and paper, while some are using their computers to type out a word document. Not this guy though. He has a specialized note taking program. This program formats the page to look just like a standard college rule notebook. It has the margin lines and lines across to write on just like a spiral notebook. And the font. OH the font. It looks just like someone's writing it down with a pen. Not some snazzy blocked up symmetrical font, but slightly askew print. So, presuming his Macbook Pro only cost him about 1300, he gets to type out all his notes to make them look like he wrote them down on paper. If he had just written them down on paper, he could have done so for about $4.26. But he doesn't have to do the "I gotta shake my hand cause it hurts so much from writing so much so quickly" move that is so common with the rest of us.

This second scenario is even more baffling to me. In one of my other classes, this same guy always sits in front of me. As soon as his butt hits the chair he has his laptop whipped out and fired up. He always instantly fires up facebook and starts checking his chat bar for who he can chat with during class. He then also starts looking at pictures and random creeping. Once that has lost it's intrest, he starts looking at his own set of pictures, usually the same set featuring him and some random girl posing all kissy face and whatnot out at some bar. At first I thought he was just some sad dude that just got dumped and was reliving his days gone by with his ex. I don't know anymore though. This has gone on for 5 weeks now.

But that isn't the end of this guys laptop ADD. He also types out whatever goes on the power point. He's not listening, just typing out whatever goes up on the board. In between typing these notes and creeping on FB, yesterday he was also watching some NHL highlights from the 1990's. With no sound on. The highlights were spaced in between interviews that he could not hear. Unless he's a lip reader, he picked the wrong set of hockey highlights to be watching. Now when it was time to "take notes" on a new slide, he would begrudgingly pause his hockey highlights, switch over to his notes by popping out his widgets that show all open windows, select his notes, and then switch back. He was visibly annoyed by this as he clearly only wanted to be watching his silent hockey movie. Eventually he got the bright idea that he could just shrink his notes down to about half the size of his screen, and then move the youtube video box to the other side, so he could have uninterrupted viewing and note taking at the same time. Such ingenuity and brain power displayed gives me hope for this young man's future. If only he can find a career where he can somehow manage upwards of 10 windows on his laptop screen, frantically switching back and forth between them trying against all hope to hold his ADD at bay and keep his mind occupied at all times on anything BUT his schoolwork, he'll be set for life.

I'm not saying I'm the most attentive student in the world. I get sleepy and yawn sometimes. I fidget, though mostly due to the fact that almost every classroom at IU is retrofitted with some of the most godawful and uncomfortable seating. But I try to pay attention. I take notes when I feel they will help me. Partially out of respect for my teachers. Either they will recognize that I'm trying to engage in the class and not just show up to get attendance credit and this will hopefully work in my favor down the line, or I am just trying to get my money's worth out of the experience. Why pay, or have someone else pay, for all these classes if your just gonna creep on FB and chat with your friends online. You can do that for free, from just about anywhere in the world. You don't have to pay 800 bucks a class or whatever it breaks down to at IU to slump down in a chair, act completely disinterested in what's going on around you, and relive that night at Upstairs where you totally felt up that hot blonde with big tits and then threw up over the balcony.

ZOMG!!!!

2009-09-17T16:50:00.000-07:00

I'm back. I'm sure no one cares. Here are things you should see/not see based on what I've watched since my last update.

SEE
In Bruge
Star Trek
The Hangover
Drag Me to Hell
Inglorious Basterds
Observe and Report

MISS
Harry Potter 6
Revolver
City of Ember
Autopsy

There's a very small chance that I'm going to make my goal. It's in the single digits for sure. I'd need 72 more in the next 4.5 months, which would more than double my output for the first 8.5. It's not impossible, but improbable.

On to something new and different.

About a month ago my friend Rob came over to check out the new house while he was in town from Cali. We spent a good hour or so catching up on the deck, laughing and joking much like we have done for much of our relationship. Rob then busted out with a request that I simply just couldn't refuse. He and his fiance Ash are set to be wed next May, and asked me to preside over their nuptials. We had talked briefly about this about a year ago when Rob first announced his engagement to me and their very preliminary plans. Neither of them wanted a big church wedding, but something more along their tastes. I had suggested just having one of their friends get ordained online and take care of it that way. Fast forward one year later and it was coming true.

Yesterday I was looking through a blog that I frequent and happened across a link to http://www.dudeism.com/index.html For those uninitiated, this is a "religion" based on the teachings and practices of "The Dude" from the Big Lebowski. After Rob checked with the county clerks office, I quickly was ordained today and am one step closer to fulfilling my duties for my two friends. Mark it, Dude!

X-Men Origins: Wolverine

2009-05-04T13:00:00.001-07:00

It's been a while since I last watched a movie and felt that I had to blog about it right away. And typically if I dive right into writing about something that quickly it is either a sign that I absolutely loved it or it was absolute dog shit. Well, I sure didn't love it.

Now when I watch a movie I like to read up on it. Typically I check my movie websites at least once a day that have pre-production notes about movies that I want to see, or pictures. Eventually once the movie comes out there are the reviews from critics that I respect, as well as the general populous reaction on a film. Granted I don't always enjoy the same thing the masses do, but it's a good starting off point. Now about a month ago, right before April Fool's Day, word spread around the internet of a leaked DVD quality print of the movie circulating the tubes well in advance of the movie actually coming out. I've heard that if you wanted to download a movie on the internet you typically have to wait until the DVD is a few weeks away from being released before a good quality print is leaked on the internet. So it seemed like a big deal to those that wanted to see the film early that such a good print was out already. Some believed that it was some kind of promotional April Fools Joke and that it wouldn't turn out to be real. Those ideas were false as many of the critics I follow began writing about how the work print that was released was real and that they didn't want anyone writing to them about the movie or sending them copies. Internet piracy is serious business and they wanted nothing to do with it.

I give you this long preamble, dear readers, as a bit of precursor to the excitement that people had over this movie. There were numerous reports of Fox, the studio releasing the film, giving reports that the print released was far from the finished product with scenes still missing. There was the subsequent threat of finding who leaked it and prosecuting. Reports of the FBI coming into help the investigation. Rewrites, Reshoots, and massively changed plot lines were all talked about in efforts to dissuade people from illegally downloading and watching the movie before it came out. Many speculated that the movie would suffer greatly at the box office because of this leak. Well, it still opened to an 85 million weekend, so I don't think they are hurting that much.

I am not one of those people that get so worked up over comic book movies that I feel cheated and wronged if even the slightest continuity from the books is changed for a movie. I just like movies. If they can stay close to the source material than that's awesome. But if some stuff gets reworked a bit to tell a better story than I'm fine with it. But one thing that I don't like is watching movies that have such gaping holes and problems in them that they are rendered unenjoyable. Granted I have seen and enjoyed many nonsensical movies in my time. But the difference is that when I watch a bad horror movie or cheesy sci-fi film I know going in that it's going to suck. Then I can enjoy it that much more. But Wolverine I was watching under the pretense that it would be good. Enjoyable. Fun. Kick Ass. Much like the first two X-men movies. I knew the directors and writers were different, but c'mon. You got the basic wolverine stuff down, so you just play with it and make it awesome right? OH NO.

First of all, they tried to cram in every cameo and special appearance of all the "cool" mutants that didn't make the cut (pun intended) in the previous Xmen movies. And by trying to introduce like 8 new characters in a movie that in it's title tells you that only one dude is getting the most screen time, and it ain't any of newbies, than you know your in for a disaster. Most of them only get about two scenes a piece. Some die off screen and only get mentioned again. Others just kind of hang out in the background. Which would work fine if you didn't cast all these stars and give them speaking roles. If you want to just put in a random shot of someone in the background for the fanboys, then do it. But don't play up the previews like you get all this action out of these other characters, and then only use them about 4 minutes each in the whole fucking movie.

But all that is just griping at some incidental scenes in the movie. Overall it's just limp and boring. There are random jumps in time and location. There is very little explaining why anything is going on. There seems to be an attempt to make Wolverine a caring loving man who get's wronged when his lady friend is killed, but who gives a shit. They do such a bad job at telling that story that I felt nothing about these characters. So when the lady meets her end, it was more of a feeling of satisfaction. Satisfaction in hoping that something cool would happen instead of another 20 minutes of them playing kissy face in Canada in between scenes of Hugh Jackman cutting down trees.

It's like the makers of the film forgot how to make a summer action movie. All the fights are lame and boring. All the mutants either die quickly or have regeneration powers so fighting just seems lame since you know they will heal up and continue to live no matter what. And since it's a prequal to the other X-Men movies, you know Wolverine, Sabertooth, and Striker all live. There is no drama to any of their scenes.

But my biggest gripe with this movie, and any movie for that matter, is the giant fucking plot holes that they open up. I'm all about suspending logic when watching movies. If I'm watching a movie and they set up some kind of rule about what's going on in that universe and they stick to it, I can follow with them reguardless of how ludicris those rules are. But the thing I can't stand is when you establish a rule, and then realize towards the end that you've painted your way into a corner you can't get out of. So instead of going back and fixing it, you just make some shit up. Which leads me to the ending, which put the shit topping on an already dung filled sundae.

SPOILER ALERT

So if you know anything about Wolverine at all, you know his bones are covered in Adamantium. Which is supposedly the hardest metal in history and can't be broken. They go over this in the movie as well in case your a newb who don't know shit. They then inject Wolverines body with the adamantium which then coats his bones so that he's indestructible. Couple this with his super healing powers and he's pretty formidable. So when he goes ape shit against the baddies who made him they decide they have to kill him. Everything is cool up to this point.

One of the very first scenes following him getting his shiny new metal bones is him playing with his new claws that can cut through anything. And he kinda rubs his claws together and they clang apart and make sparks, indicating that they can't cut themselves. They do this a couple of different times, just to make sure your getting the idea that his bones can't be broken.

OK, everyone following along at this point? They set up their logic point. They demonstrated it. It follows the normal progression of believability so far.

Then the wheels fall the fuck off. The baddies decide the only way to kill Wolverine is to shoot him with bullets made of Adamantium. They mention this about half way through the movie, being sure to include shots of the gun and bullets so that when it comes back later we can all go "OH YEAH, I REMEMBER"

So when the ending comes up they cut to a differnt shot of the baddie getting the gun out and saying that the bullets won't kill him, but it will erase his memories. Because his brain will heal itself after it get's shot, but the memories stored on that old tissue will be gone as it's filled in with new tissue. It's a pretty shitty conclusion, but I guess you could work with it.

OH YEAH, except for the fact they made sure to show you Wolverine getting all his bones covered in adamantium. Including his skull. Which holds his brain. So when he would get shot, if you went with all the rules they set up earlier, the bullet would hit his skull first and then bounce away. It would not in fact go into his brain and make him an amnesiac. But never mind that. We only have 10 minutes left in the movie. Shoot him in the head. Shoot him 3 times. It'll work. What's this now, oh he's a dumbfuck who can't even remember his name since he got shot. Awesome. Print it. It's a wrap.

I'm sure this movie will make money. It appeals to children who will beg, borrow, steal, mame, and do everything else under the sun to convince whoever they can to give them money to go see this movie. Hell, the opening weekend shows that to be true. I'm sure once all the numbers get crunched that this movie will make a profit. And if it makes even one red cent, than the movie studios will continue to make shitty products.

Goings on

2009-04-21T13:25:00.000-07:00

Things around here have been a very odd mixture of extremes lately. As the semester winds down for both Ad and I we have the odd pressure of finishing up everything on time with the de-motivation that a coming break in routines brings.

I have my application into IU and they are just waiting to get my official transcripts. I meet the entrance criteria so it's virtually in the bag. This will mark an important milestone for me as I have been struggling and striving to get to IU for what seems like an eternity. Summer school remains an option, but more than likely I will take the summer off schooling and start at IU in the fall. I hope to take 15-18 hours and try and get finished ASAP.

We are going to meet with the bank next Friday to being the process of buying a house. We hope to get pre-approved then and have a figure to work with. Then we will begin looking with more focus at buying out first house. Our lease ends at our rental in the middle of August and it can't come quicker if you ask me. We are pretty ready to get out of the heart of the city where our neighbors are right on top of us and the street noise is loud and bothersome. Hopefully we can find a place and close towards the end of June. This will allow us to have little to no overlap in payment of rent/mortgage. Assuming all goes well we will have the unenviable task of moving. Though spread out over a few weeks hopefully.

The thought of actually buying a house seems pretty frightening and liberating all at the same time. I am sick of paying rent for a place instead of working to own it. I seemingly can fix most small problems that arise around a house, or if not I know people who can. But owning a house also signifies some progression of life. One more step to people looking at you as a "responsible adult" I realize that most 27 year old's are defiantly to that point in their lives and more power to them. But that just ain't me. But it's time. Critics be damned.

With that thought of pending greater responsibility comes the added new ideas of fiscal responsibility. I have defiantly noticed a slow down in my retail spending habits. Though I pretty much equate this equally to a growing sense of responsibility and also catching up to the market. I have bought pretty much all the back issued stuff that I want. So until new stuff comes out or stuff that hasn't been released gets a street date, I've caught up with the market.

I also have just realized that there are certain things I don't need to do. I don't go out to the bars drinking. The bar scene was never my thing and if I want to drink I'll happily buy whatever I want cheaper at a store and drink with company that I enjoy rather than overpaying at a bar and leaving the company up to random chance.

I typically spend most Saturday nights at home with my mom. She comes over and sleeps because she works back to back shifts at the hospital on the weekends. By staying here she saves herself driving and can sleep in longer. And it's fun to hang out with her. Growing up in formative years with only one parent I think you either develop a strong relationship with that remaining parent or you drift away. Joan and I defiantly grew closer. And hanging out with her that one night a week is important to the both of us I think. Realistically there won't be those opportunities forever, and I would like to think that once the time comes I will look back on those nights spent with her instead of going out were time very well spent. Just in the short term those times will come to a close as Joan is set to retire at the end of May.

Having insurance for the first time since High School has allowed me the privilege and honor of not being scoffed or laughed at when calling a doctor to check me out. I knew my blood pressure was high and needed to get it checked out/modified with medications. I made an appointment with a doc here in town as a new patient, but unfortunately his first available appointment was in the middle of July. And this was about a month ago. Around the same time I came down with some kind of cold bug and needed to go to the doctor for that as well. I ended up going to prompt care and getting some antibiotics and cough medicine for my cold. While there they also put in a call to my new would-be doc and managed to get me in to see him a week later.

For me going to see a doctor is a very real struggle for my brain. I know the risks and problems associated with being overweight and that I obviously needed some kind of medication for my BP or I would probably explode one day out of the blue. But with doctors come needles. And needles are my long time enemy. Growing up when it was time to get a shot or worse yet blood drawn, my anxiety would skyrocket to sights that are typically reserved for those on incredibly good drugs or people with documented mental disorders. I did some very basic research online and found that there are very real cases of people that refuse to seek out medical treatment because of their fear of needles, even to the point of risking or actually doing real and permanent damage to themselves by not going to the doctor.

So when the doc told me that I would need to get a blood sample drawn so that they could test for stuff that i hadn't had done in like 14 years I wasn't surprised but I wasn't thrilled by the idea either. He said I could go in whenever I wanted before my next appointment, so I of course waited till the very last day to do so. I slept fitfully the night before and when I did sleep my dreams were about being in the hospital, or getting a shot or my blood drawn. I went as soon as I could just to get it over with. While waiting in the waiting room I was joined by about 4 elderly people who were also waiting to get their blood drawn for whatever reason. They were just chatting quietly or reading some magazine and didn't seem to have a care in the world. On the other hand I'm sitting all by myself in a corner of the room trying not look nervous. Which of course makes me look even more nervous. I could feel my face being even more flushed than it's already accustomed to being. I alternated drumming my fingers on my legs sporadically to jiggling both legs as if I was suffering from the non-existent "restless leg syndrome"

I was about fourth in line. One by one the elderly were called in to face the horror that awaited me. I mentally took note of how long it took the first person to come in and out so I could have a deadline clock in my mind. Unfortunately it only took the first guy one minute before he was smiling and whistling his ass out the front door. While a normal person would view this as good news, that they were going to get out of there quickly, I of course was filled with even more panic and dread. There wasn't much time. I was surely going to befall some great and painful tragedy in only 4 minutes time. Not even time for a last meal or snack, as I had to be fasting to get the damn test drawn. This was a seriously unfortunate feeling.

As my name was called I followed the nurse back to the lair of doom. One giant chair with tons of vials and needles laid out next to it. All looking ominous. At the time I was flustered and bothered by how methodical and unthinking the tech was as she prepped me for what certainly would be one of the worst experiences of the year. I tried to make idol chit-chat with her in hopes of delaying the inevitable. She engaged me a bit, all the while readying the demon metal for insertion into my temple of a body. Without blinking an eye she said "Ok, here we go." She didn't even give me time to puss out and cry off. And before I could even start recoiling in horror, she pressed the cotton on my arm and said "All done. I saw you out there working yourself all up in a bother over that?" I could only chuckle and breath a sigh of relief and thank her for not maiming me in the name of science.

Following I was flooded with a rush of endorphins. I wasn't dead. It didn't hurt. I was worrying over nothing. I was floating on cloud nine the rest of the day. I showed Joan where she stuck me and we couldn't even tell.

Even before the test, I attempted to mentally prepare. I knew then as I was reminded of during the actual test that it doesn't hurt. The modern needle is designed to do it's job quickly, effectively, and as pain free as possible. I would tell myself over and over that it's no big deal, that they probably process 100's of samples a day at this tiny clinic. They are pro's that are paid to not fuck it up. But it didn't help. There was still a giant disconnect in my brain between what I knew to be reality and what I interpreted that reality to be. Even when it was all over and I could relax, I couldn't pinpoint why I have this fear. It's like I have some ill-formed conspiracy theory about needles. Even though I know the facts, I know they've been skewed and manipulated by some secret organization waiting to spring the trap on me. It's so illogical and misconceived.

The tests came back all fine. I was surprised to hear that my cholesterol was within normal ranges and that there were only some slight abnormalities with the rest of the tests. I assumed that I was going to have to start taking a bunch of new meds, but the doc only suggested taking a few vitamin supplements to correct the balances.

This whole needle thing got me thinking about how even though a person can see the logical side of an issue, it doesn't matter. Their minds either don't want to see those things, or they aren't equipped to handle those truths. In my case I knew needles and doctor tests were important and easy to do, but the fear and anxiety were greater than the understanding of those facts. People evolve and change their thinking about stuff all the time. But there has to be some kind of personal awareness and functionality so that even if I can't rid myself of those irrational fears, I can recognize that it's something to work on.

The reality's are that by going to the doc I have the baselines. I had the tests done. I got the meds. And it's not so bad. I live a good and happy life for me. I enjoy spending time with my family which wasn't always the case. I enjoy spending time with my wife. Which was always the case. The plans are set and in motion. I don't give two fucks that my plan/history isn't the normal case. Kudos to all those that did/do. I hope your happy with it. That's the goal. Be happy with what you are doing. And if you know me at all, you know that that's me all over.

Honey Puzzle

2009-03-28T20:07:00.000-07:00

Ok, I know that this blog is usually about movies. But I need some advice from the internet.

I recently obtained a paint can full of desert honey. Now, I'm not at liberty to say how I got this honey, but I have it. If you have recently shopped for desert honey, you know it is expensive. So I don't want to waste it by drinking it in one shot. So basically I am open to suggestions for what to do with it. So far, I am thinking of making mead but that seems like a lot of work. Also, I thought of breaking it up into smaller jars but that seems like it could be a mess. So any ideas would be appreciated.

Alan

Fair Warning

2009-03-23T17:26:00.000-07:00

I am writing this blog post out of a sense of obligation as well as to take my mind of my suffering. I have developed a nice head/chest cold that allows me to blow my nose every three minutes to only feel it slowly fill back up and press outward on my eyes and nose. So this post could be filled with short, curt ideas due to my weakened state, or it could also be my best one ever.

21. Watchmen (second viewing)
I took the wife to see this over the spring break. I still dug it. There are plenty of details to pick up upon a second viewing that are easily missed the first time, but that add to the depth and flavor of the whole experience. It's def worth checking out.

22. Club Dread
There always seems to come a point in movies like this where I resign myself to the fact that I'm going to be left disappointed in the end. The Broken Lizard gang know they can make a funny movie. They know they can make funny charachters do funny things and everyone will be smiling and happy. And I'm sure when it came time for them to make this film, they all sat around and decided that they would make a horror movie, but make it funny. And there is the problem. You end up taking these two genre's of films that you want to make, and you figure that you can make them both work and it will be awesome and everyone will dig it. But they you have to cut some jokes down or out of the script to get the story moving, but you also can't go for the all out gore fest that a movie like this deserves because you don't want to alienate all the people coming to see Super Troopers on an island. And what your left with is a watered down semi-funny script that's not gory or scary enough to justify all the time spent on it. This movie is also almost 2 hours long, which is way to long to only be marginally entertained.

Well, apathy can be a bitch

2009-03-11T09:41:00.000-07:00

I lost my focus on what this blog was intended for, and it has come to bite me in the ass. This blog was originally intended to help me keep track and process the movies that I watched in my yearly goal. I keep a list on my computer of the movies I watch so I can keep an accurate tally. That is, until I was forced to wipe my HD due to a virus on my computer and I lost my files. I had backed everything up, but that was back in January. I pieced together the list as best I could from memory but I know I watched about 3 other movies that I can't account for anymore. Doesn't bode well for my memory or those films that I can't remember them less than 2 months out. But onward and upward. Here are some thoughts about the films that I DO remember watching.

11. Coraline
This was the first movie that I saw in a theater this year. It was also presented in 3-D. I was pleasantly surprised with the 3-D glasses that were provided. Gone were the flimsy red and blue lenses that never work right. For the extra two bucks we had to pay for the film each we were given glasses that resembled Drew Carey frames with lenses that were only slightly tinted grey. They easily fit over my real glasses so I could see just fine. And they worked like a charm. The 3-D effects are awesome in this film and add some real texture to the movie. There are only 3 or 4 instances of an overt 3-D move like someone poking out at the screen, or a needle coming at you. The rest is just a nice layering effect.
The movie itself was very good. It's defiantly one of those films that straddles the line between being a movie aimed at kids and adults. Gotta maximize those profits somehow. It's a very good story with dark overtones and many layers to the story. Most children won't pick up on all the subtleties of the film, but the adults should enjoy the film more because of it. It's amazing to think that the entire film was made via stop motion. The style very much resembles Nightmare Before Christmas, but has a more polished look and feel to it.

12. Eagle vs. Shark
This came on my radar because it starred one of the members of Flight of the Concords. My feelings about this movie can be summed up pretty quickly. Imagine Napoleon Dynamite set in New Zealand. Though forced a bit, the humor and quirkiness were there and there were some very genuine funny parts. I didn't love it, but it was pretty OK.

13. Botched
A slasher/horror/comedy about a failed heist gone horribly wrong. This one got going pretty quick. A heist goes wrong and the robbers take some hostages and get stuck on a seemingly abandoned floor in a high rise building. Quickly devolving into a gore fest with some bizarre twists and turns that involve some of the captives really being the bad guys along with some kind of thinly veiled back story of the crazy people that inhabit the abandoned floor being descendant from Ivan the Terrible. If you can stay with the weirdness you can sit back and enjoy a pretty well done slasher movie. It's never scary, and the deaths are defiantly over the top. But it stays within the context of itself and doesn't try to do to much. I enjoyed this one.

14. Sex Drive
I remembered this had come out a while back simply from the poster of a giant doughnut in a sombrero. It was a pretty good Teenage Sex Comedy in the same vein as American Pie. The problem with most TSC's that have come out in recent years is that there is little new comedic material to be covered so everything usually feels like a remake of some other shitty movie. But this one has enough new stuff as well as twists to the themes of the past that it makes it enjoyable. It moves fast enough and doesn't try and hammer in some lame joke over and over again.

15. Extreme Movie
This is also a TSC but done in a different manner. This has the feel of a sketch comedy troupe that wrote about 10 different sketches that are all based on the same thing and have differing levels of funniness, and they need to figure out how to connect them all together. There is a plot of sorts about a boy like a girl but being to chicken to ask her out, but these scenes are either used as filler or to launch of of the sketches. Very hit or miss, but probably would have worked better as individual clips.

16. Watchmen
I loved it. Most other critics didn't. I think you have to have some history with the source material, or you just won't get into it and quickly dismiss it. Visually it's awesome and features much of the same level of gore and stylized violence as 300. Sticks close to the source material up until the end, sometimes to it's detriment. Some of the dialogue is very short and clipped. Which makes sense on some level as it's based on a comic book where you can't write tons of extraneous dialogue. But in this format I think it could have been punched up a bit and made to sound a bit more natural. There is a new ending that cuts out a major part of the book. But the effect is the same. I actually thought the new ending was pretty cool and a bit more believable. Clocking in at a shade under 3 hours, this was well worth the money to see in the theater.

17. Brothers Solomon
I know everyone has that musician, artist, author, or actor that no matter what you will check out there new stuff. You have an allegiance to them for some earlier work of theirs that you really loved or that effected you greatly and you feel like lighting will continue to strike and all there stuff will be golden. I have that with Bob Odenkirk. I love Mr. Show. I think Bob Odenkirk is a funny dude and will watch whatever he's in. I also really enjoyed a movie that he directed called Melvin Goes to Dinner. Mr. Odenkirk directed this movie which also stared Will Arnett and Will Forte, both of who I have liked in other things. There were quite a few other actors in this film that I enjoy in other things. That being said, I didn't really dig them in this film. The premise is simple, but the setups aren't developed enough to make them funny or explain why everything is happening. It had some mildly ammusing parts, but in the end I felt like this was a funny concept that probably should have been cut down to a 10-15 minute sketch that just kept getting stretched and stretched until it was movie length.

18. Otis
Netflix's gremlins compiled all my previous likes and dislikes and figured I would like this film. It's basically a serial killer movie with a man who kidnaps teenage girls and torments their families by calling them and talking about their daughters while he has them locked up. Which could be pretty creepy if done right. But this movie has no intention of being a creepy serial killer movie. It wants to be quirky and funny as well. All the bits of the movie get shaken up and become muddled together until you can't decipher what the point of it is. There's some shenanigans going on and the ending is pretty predictable and just wraps up pretty quickly. It felt like they had the movie chugging along, but then realized they had to finish up in like 10 minutes so they crammed a bunch of stuff together. I can't say I liked this one. To muddy.

What Recession?

2009-02-11T08:27:00.000-08:00

I fully admit that I do not watch and/or read the news on a regular basis. For the most part it is just a repeat of the same horrible things happening all over the place and I would much rather not be brought down by the soul crushingness of it all. Of course I know the basics of what is going on in the world, as there is no way to completely ignore all of this. But I don't need to know which person was killed on what street corner or who's house burnt down. And it is impossible to ignore the economic crisis that is facing America today. But in some respects, it is easy to ignore. And it's made easy if you started with nothing.

This does not include all those people who have been laid off from there jobs due to their previous employers financial woes. They may have had nothing before, but they really have nothing now. And I do feel bad for them.

But as a person with no assets that any bank would generally care about, I'm not feeling any kind of pressure from this diminished economy. I wasn't planning on applying for any new credit cards, so it doesn't bother me one bit that I probably wouldn't get one anyway. I have no car payment, house payment, or any dependents to worry about. I own no stocks and have no money otherwise associated with the stock market. I am totally unaffected by the tumultuous market as it continues to hemorrhage one way or the other seemingly daily. Again, I don't know exactly, cause I don't check it all that often.

I have lived a blessed life. In so much as I have never felt the burden of having to pinch pennies and work off of a strict budget. I have done some stupid things with money, and have learned from those mistakes. I don't keep a ledger of my bank account down to the penny, but I know roughly how much money is in the account. I know how much the bills are going to run, and can plan ahead and know not to spend. I live a relatively free economic life. Not to say that all couldn't change any time, and will likely when we attempt to buy our first home this coming summer. But from all accounts that I can find it is a GOOD time for us to buy.

All this preamble takes me to an experience I had last week that makes me wonder sometimes about peoples capacity to understand their own situations. On the way home from school one day I was formulating a grocery list in my head. I knew we needed a few things for around the house, as well as something for dinner that night. I decided to go to a Kroger that I don't normally go to on my way home. It was about noon and the store was relatively quiet. There was a bit of snow on the ground and my guess was that between the semi-remoteness of this particular store and the fact that most people had already stocked up on there grocery needs prior to the snow falling, I figured I would be in and out quickly. I quickly made my way through the store and was ready to check out. I had roughly 20 items in my cart and made my way to the front of the store.

There were only two lanes open, and the first one I came upon had a woman who had 2 carts full to the brim ready to start unloading. I obviously wasn't going to get in line behind her. The only other line had two large women who were in the midst of unpacking 2 large carts of their own. How in the world could I have timed this worse? I took so lice in the fact that they had already unpacked and scanned one cart, and the second was almost empty and up on the line. I figured that this was as good as it was going to get, so I settled in to the waiting process.

Now, let me clear up a few things before I continue. When I describe these two ladies as large, don't be confused. When I address someone as large, I put them on at least the same size scale as myself or bigger. And these ladies were bigger than I. They were also incredibly disproportionate in that they resembled Grimmace. This is only relevant because while the checker continued to scan their seemingly unending supply of foodstuffs from the cart, the two ladies were going on about how they wanted something to drink. So lady A went to get lady B a soda from a few lanes down. On her way back she decided that the candy bars that were displayed were to good to pass up and grabbed 6. She casually threw those on the line along with the two drinks she had grabbed. She also turned to her friend and grabbed a bag of sun chips off the rack and held them up and kinda cocked her head in that familiar "how about this?" move that is universal. Lady B then shrugged and nodded in that equally universal "Why the fuck not" move. By this time all their groceries had been loaded up on the line and there was enough room for me to begin unloading my own cart on the line.

Just as I finished putting the last of my items up on the line Lady A was staring at the total screen and looked a little frightened. She turned to Lady B and said something like "It's up to 200 already" and let out a nervous giggle. I began to have a small sinking feeling. As the cashier finally rang up the end of the 2 cart fiasco in waiting, she announced the total as $387.53. Both the ladies reacted as if there had to be some kind of miscalculation because they could only spend $300 and there must be a mistake. The cashier just stood there as stone faced as she could. I got the feeling this was a regular occurrence for her in her job. I attempted to be as casual as possible as I fumed internally at how idiotic this situation was.

The two ladies then began the almost 10 minute process of removing items from there now bagged groceries and having them removed from there bill. They started with two packages of high end ice cream snacks, followed by the 6 candy bars and chips that were added at the last minute. A few TV dinners and microwavable snacks were also given the boot, as well as a huge bag of "Catfish Nuggets" which looked to be just frozen squirrel meat that had freezer burn. And still that wasn't enough. There was still $20 pounds of fat to trim before this unending hell would cease to exist. Exasperated, the two continued to dig through there carts trying to figure out what they could "spare" to get to there total. FINALLY they took enough off to reach the new total of $300.73 and after lady A loudly exclaimed "ARE YOU KIDDING ME", Lady B stepped in and swiped her card and they quickly exited. The checker and bagger said nothing through all of this, but were visibly annoyed and relieved once they left. I quickly stepped up to line and proudly exclaimed "I'm paying for all of my stuff today!" The checker smiled and laughed and quickly rang me up and I was on my way.

I am sharing this story because it illustrates my point. I live a good life. I can spend money with relative ease, but I know my limits. I knew I couldn't go into the store and decide to buy all kinds of shit for close to $400 cause I couldn't afford it. If I was in a different situation and needed to count my pennies and squeeze the value out of every last cent, I would. I wouldn't blindly go to the store and just start filling my cart with whatever shit looks good, and then some more impulse shit on top of that.

It's not uncommon for me to see people at the grocery carrying around a calculator with them and there stacks of coupons writing down what looks like novels while they are shopping. And they are doing there part to stretch their money where they can. They are comparing prices, calculating how much they are spending, and deducting there coupons to there utmost value. They are not surprised when the cashier announces there total, as they already know what it is. If I was forced into that situation, I would be doing the same thing.

I know the value of the dollar. I just happen to value different things than most that those dollars can buy. But I will NEVER be in the position where I have to start taking off items from my already scanned items because I have overspent. Never.

And those two fucking bitches still got there cokes.

12 Down....122 to go...

2009-02-10T10:58:00.000-08:00

Well well well blog. We meet again. I thought I had finally vanquished you from this mortal earth with that final karate leg sweep but you have come back at me with the devastating Crane Kick. It is so devastating and there is no defense for it. I am a balloon just awaiting your pin prick to blow me away. I bow to you in humble defeat and ask that you spare me and my fellow Cobra's further humiliation.

In setting this new movie goal for myself I hoped to extend my love of movies and passion for the new. In doing so I have to keep up a pace of 12 movies a month over the course of the year to hit my goal with ease. And on Jan. 31st I hit 12 by watching Step Brothers again. Still pretty funny btw.

Of the other 11, the one that rises above the rest is The Wrestler. I will admit I am a bit biased to this film as professional wrestling, specifically indie wrestling, carries a special place in my heart even if I rarely indulge that part of me anymore. I also am a big fan of the director, so I figured that this one would be right up my alley. And I will not lie to you dear blog, this movie was deeply affecting to me. There is no doubt that there are real people out there who embody the lead character. Wrestlers who either don't know any other way, or just can't hang up the boots and move on from life. They dismiss common sense and self preservation and continue to batter their bodies until they ultimately fail them. One scene in the middle of the movie in particular shows a convention center hall filled with wrestlers long since used up showcasing there wares for sale. As the camera pans around you see men who can no longer walk without the aide of a cane or wheelchair. One man has a cath bag attached to his leg. Our "hero" must wear a hearing aide, but hides this fact whenever he is in the ring or backstage, not wanting to show weakness to his fellow wrestlers. I know those guys exist today. The are going to continue down a path of pain and loss dreaming of their previous glory days in the squared circle.
Some reviews I had read for The Wrestler some how found some uplifting message or even a positive outcome from the ending. To which I say those people are either blind, retarded, or a mixture of both. Do not be misguided people. If you have seen any of the directors other works, you will not be surprised by this fact. But do not let this deter you from seeing this film. I am pulling for Mickey Rourke to win the Oscar for best actor. Admittedly I have not seen any of the other nominee's, but I don't care. This performance is truly amazing and worth the accolades it is receiving.
On the flip side of that coin, I saw one of the worst movies I have seen in recent memory. The movie "Basket Case" had been lauded to me by some close friends as a piece worthy of taking in. It was in my wheelhouse so to speak of bad horror movies, and I was intrigued by the premise of a deformed "brother" that used to be attached to the protagonist and now lives in a basket that he carries around and attacks people. And let me be clear before I get to far into this. I have seen some truly TERRIBLE movies in my time. I even give discounts to films such as this that were made long before the advent of modern special effects or technology that could stretch your production budget. But all that goes out the window the first time we are "treated" to the boy in the basket. Not only is it incredibly ridiculous looking even by the standards of the day, it's so rubbery and fake looking that when they move it around the sets it just kinda jiggles around an is about as menacing as well..er...something that's not very menacing. And it's not scary looking. And the movie is incredibly boring. Though it does contain one good line. "What's in the basket....Easter Eggs?" This is said without any proper pause or pacing, and without any indication that Easter is even approaching. And it's in a doctor's office waiting room. Though it does make sense to me. Because any basket that I see that I don't know whats in it, I automatically assume it's Easter Eggs. So at least they appealed to the logical side of me.
That's about all for the list so far. There was a comical moment while watching "Under Siege" where Adie recognized one of the actresses from her role on Full House. Of course she finally recognized her as she stripped off her top and jiggled her boobs around. Ad insists that that was independent of her recognition. I have my doubts.

Head of State

2009-02-08T14:35:00.000-08:00

My biggest fear when Obama became president is that I would no longer enjoy Chris Rock's "Head of State." If you haven't seen it, Chris Rock is an alderman from DC and he is picked to run so that he can lose the election. Well I was concerned that this movie would no longer be funny if we actually had an African American President. FEARS DISMISSED. This movie is still awesome.

Blogger's Q Watchmen Update

2009-01-11T19:12:00.000-08:00

Blogger Q here with the real scoop on the upcoming Watchmen movie.

Now if you pay attention to the Internet and Hollywood rags (as we Hollywood insiders refer to them as). Then you are no doubt aware that there is a law suit between Warner Brother's (or as we insiders say WB) and Fox.

The problem is that Fox claims that they have the rights to the book (which I understand is "graphic novel." I wouldn't know).

WB made the movie and now Fox wants in on the action (that's what we (we being real Hollywood insiders) call profits).

I have the real scoop. The truth is WB didn't actually make a movie. What they did was invent a trans-dimensional vortex portal. This allows WB to to travel to other dimensions. Well, they found out that the books author (Gore Vidal) is actually a psychic who picked up on the vibrations of that dimension. So, WB kidnapped the author and tuned their vortex to that dimension's frequency. Then went through the vortex and found video tape from the era that they wanted and edited it together to make the movie.

At this point you are wondering why Fox would want this technology? Well think about it. Let's say that Fox wanted to make a movie about a crazy land where the Nazis (that what we Hollywood insiders call the National Socialists party that took control of Germany during the 1930's and caused WWII) won WWII. Well they could just go there and film. Think of the money they would make, no writer or actors. Even if it made 1,000 dollars it would make money.

Well that's all I can tell you for now. More on this story as it develops.

Q out.

Best/Worst of 2008

2009-01-01T17:45:00.000-08:00

VICTORY IS MINE.

In an attempt to explore one of my favorite forms of entertainment, I set a random number of movies for myself to see that year. I put no restriction on if I had seen the movie before. The previous year I had a goal of 100 and fell short. This year I added 20 to the tally and went to work. Early on in the year I fully anticipated to shatter the number, as I kept on pace through July and figured I could even increase my consumption as the year continued. Boy was I wrong. Coming into the last week of 2008, I was still 12 movies short. I knew that I had to go on a binge and just put my head down and do nothing for one whole day but watch movies.

In the future I will avoid this technique in completing my tasks. I ended up focusing on movies that I had readily available that where short in length. I ended up finishing movie 120 around 8:30 on New Year's Eve. In the previous 36 hours I had watched 12 movies and was ready for a break.

Onto the stats and the ever present best and worst movies of the year. As a rule, I only counted movies that I watched in 2008 regardless of if they came out in 2008 or not. You may notice a few on my list that technically came out in 2007, but that I watched early in the year that still made the list. Get over it if it bothers you.

Of the 120 movies:
20 were viewed in a theater
19 I had seen before
12000 minutes (average of 100 minutes per movie) or 200 hours spent watching movies

This doesn't count any TV shows that I watched. I watched the entire run of Sex and the City, Veronica Mars season 2, and various other current tv shows. I would say I watched AT LEAST the same amount of TV as movies, if not more. And I don't want to hear anything about it.

Top 10 of 2008

10. The Mist
9. Pineapple Express/Foot Fist Way *TIE*
8. Hatchet
7. Wall-E
6. Tropic Thunder
5. Iron Man
4. Forgetting Sarah Marshall
3. The Dark Knight
2. No Country for Old Men
1. There Will be Blood

Worst of 2008

11. Doomsday
10. Because I said So
9. 27 Dresses
8. Superhero Movie
7. Hannibal Rising
6. Ghost Rider
5. Wanted
4. Meet the Spartans
3. Untracable
2. Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull bullshit
1. The Love Guru and House *TIE*

That's pretty much it. I didn't include any movies on these lists that I had seen before. My bottom 3 movies will go down as some of the worst I have ever seen. So kudo's for that.

For next year I have decided to add on 14 movies to my total, bringing it to a robust 134. That will add about 24 more hours to the experience. Feel free to comment on my lists if you so choose so we can engage in a hearty debate about why I am right and you are wrong.

Blogger Q

2008-12-26T18:57:00.001-08:00

First of all there has been a lot of confusion. I am a trusted Hollywood insider. Whenever a star falls into the mud, I am there. I have my ear to the pulse of Hollywood and know all the latest and greatest tinsel town gossip . The people I know, and who know me could buy and sell you a million times a day in the breakneck world of Hollywood. Where as Alan is a teacher in a backwater town. I am NOT ALAN! I just use his account to post.

Anyway I have been hitting the winter trail to find out what each and every celeb and celeb couple has gotten for Christmas. My naughty and nice list has filled out nicely and I am here exclusively to post the dirt.

Vince V. (of film fame) unfortunately missed his flight home for Christmas and fortunately met a quirky young Jewish girl. Who he then showed around New York and introduced her to Christmas. They fell in love, even after he met her wacky family.

Billy C. (of pumpkin smashing fame) made the nice list and got a trip to Africa for a photo safari. Unfortunately he came down with Ebola and is currently fighting for his life. Well blogger Q says Get well soon.

Warren B. (of Billionaire Fame) had his Christmas wish granted when his team of Ringers defeated a scrappy young orphanage's hockey team 3-2. This allowed Warren to build a slightly larger money bin on the site of the former orphanage.

Neil P. H. (of Film and TV fame) was actually very nice this year and deserved a good gift. However, because he is a gay man taking up a straight role on TV. He got nothing.

Jodie F. (of film fame) got a very nice card from an up and coming star by the name of John H. Jr. Again she was not impressed by the card. Well to whoever this young man is Blogger Q says Never give up. Your dream is in reach someday she'll crack.

William H. M. (of film fame) made the nice list again by finally getting that 10 speed he has always wanted. However his wife Felicity H. was disappointed by his gift of genital herpes.

Sarah P. (of Moose hunting fame) finally made the nice list for not listening to her husband and not aborting a retarded baby.

Derek M (Of film fame) saw what the universe was like if he had never been born. Then he decided it would be a better place without him, which is why you have never heard of him.

Your M. (of giving birth to you fame) pretended to like the gift you gave her but was still secretly disappointed by both the gift and the way you live your life.

Know any celeb gossip please post in comments! Until next time keep your cameras focused on Hollywood.
Q

Hot Cakes.....Get your Hot Cakes Here!

2008-12-16T20:22:00.001-08:00

Tonight Alan and I engaged in some Fiction Based Improv Olympics. We each wrote the start of a story and passed it back and forth a few times continuing where the other had left off. Please to enjoy!

Dark Holiday
The night was cold and dreary. Rain and snow mixed together to fall to earth as a mushy form of hell. Everything froze as it made contact with any earthly shape. Anyone with any sense about them stayed indoors and made due with whatever provisions and entertainment was available to them. Alice sat in her room playing with her toys and wishing for a warm summer’s day.
Alice alternated between playing with her favorite toys and cursing whoever had caused such awful weather. Alice wanted desperately to go outside and bask in the summer sun and soak up the warmth of the earth. As Alice played with her toys her mind continued to wrap around the hatred she felt for the cold and rain and sleet. Her heart cursed anyone associated with such a vile time of year. At that moment Alice loathed winter and anything associated with it, including Christmas. She wished Christmas would just be canceled and for the sun to come out and warm everything up.
In the North Pole, Santa Clause was forced into bed rest. He was suffering from all kinds of pains and afflictions that had suddenly affected him out of the blue. It was as if some unknown source had cursed him with some kind of evil voodoo and was inflicting as much pain and suffering that they could imagine. Santa could not bear to leave his bed, let alone fly his reindeer around the world delivering toys to all the good boys and girls. Including a young Miss Alice who was due for some very special gifts.
"Who can help me with my deliveries?"
The puss ran from his mouth
"Who can save Christmas?"
As Santa checked his rolodex he eventually landed on Father Christmas. Who was occupied.
After exhausting all his options. Senor Noel, Felix David. St. Nick. All were busy. He tried his last option.

Alice waited buy the tree. As midnight drew near she felt a cold wind that cut her very soul. In it she realized all the bad things she had done for the last year. The sadness she made everyone feel. The pain. The suffering.
Then a spindly body sleeked from the Chimney.
"Santa?"
"Santa"
"No" came the raspy reply.
As the beast stood, it was green and quite the opposite of jolly.
"I am Kinter Krouse"
"Who, W-Wheres Santa?"
"Santa no longer exists. By this time he is no more"
"What did you do to him you monster?"
"Me, nothing it was a demon known as Diabetes I am his replacement."
"So d-did you bring me toys?"
"Yesss deary I did but you may not like them."

With that a puff of smoke filled the room and the beast was gone. Beneath the tree lay piles of presents but some didn't seem right.
Kitner Krouse escaped the house after depositing his new toys for young Alice. He rejoiced in the fact that his long time nemesis Santa was dead and he could now distribute his evil and vile toys to the young people throughout the world.
Back in Alice’s living room she took her first present in her hand. It was a small wooden box that resembled a jewelry box much like her mothers. Alice raised the lid expecting some charming song to play and perhaps a small ballerina to spin, but what was inside scarred young Alice so bad she recoiled in horror and dropped the box. Inside was a still beating heart that once belonged to Santa Clause. Kitner had given it to Alice because she was the final child to wish harm upon Santa in one form or another, and he had finally succumbed to his disease and perished.
Alice began crying uncontrollably and wished she could take it all back. All the bad things she had done and all the bad things she had thought about Santa.
Suddenly a booming voice filled the room.
“Alice, you can make it all go away. All you must do is truly change your heart and renounce the bad things you have done, and all will return to normal”
Alice recognized the booming voice of that of Santa Clause and knew what she must do. She must ask Santa for forgiveness for all she had done and hope that it was enough to end Kitner’s hold on Christmas and bring Santa back. While still hearing the beating of Santa’s heart in the box at her feet, Alice closed her eyes so tight and asked Santa to mark her down as being nice instead of naughty.
As soon as she finished her thought, Alice fell to the floor. A black ooze began to pour from every hole in her body. The steaming pile of evil spilled out of Alice and began to envelop her. Soon enough there was nothing left of Alice but a big black stain on the floor.
From far away, Kitner Klouse could be heard laughing as his plan had worked and he had claimed another young child’s soul for his collection.

Secret Origins.
The Greatest
I was the greatest! The Greatest! From Tulsa to Santa Fe I played. Every song, I literally knew every song. Until that faithful night in tombstone! As I was leaving the bar, I failed to notice the ruffians' mule which was hitched to the post. As its hoof rose, in the blink of an eye I was down. The hoof print forever etched into my forehead. But worst of all I couldn't remember my songs. Now I was forced to play again from, Sheet Music. I feel ill just thinking about it. Now the worst part. I had to give up my carefree life of booze, broads and tunes. Now I must give lessons.
The Student
My mom is making me do this. I really wanted to be a cowboy or at least an Indian. I never wanted to play the piano! But my mom said, "I won't have you dying in a gun fight like all your 5 brothers." You're my baby and its culture for you. So I must play. After all I'm all she has left since my sisters were kidnapped by Indians (oh how I wish I was them. So I am forced to spend every afternoon with that freak! Why should I play piano when I was destined to shoot?
The Greatest
The boy comes in dull and limp as ever. He has no posture. That's the key you know, posture. He shall never be successful on the stage. Not only that but he is such a pansy!! I think his mother has strangled every ounce of boyhood out of him. And she is so damn clingy. Always hovering, trying to interject during my lessons. Even with this hoof print forever embedded in my skull I am twenty times the player that she ever will be. I wish she would just leave us alone and let me do the job she pays me such a pittance to do. And this kid will never learn anything. He's more concerned with escaping his mother's tyranny than learning anything about the beautiful instrument.
The Student
My piano teacher is so weird. He walks around talking about how he's the greatest piano player that ever lived, but he can hardly read the music and his head looks like it could be used as an ashtray. And he smells like he's drunk all the time. Just like Daddy used to be before he ran off on mom and me. I don't like him very much. On top of his insistence on my posture being perfect, he keeps asking me about girls in my school and when I will get a girlfriend. First of all, I'm way too young to be thinking of girlfriends, and girls are just so gross and weird. I'd much rather play with Ronny from down the street. Playing Good Cop, Bad Prisoner is way better than trying to hammer out some stupid song on the piano. And when we are done with all the lessons for the day, my teacher insists on showing me some new dumb card trick he's come up with.
The Greatest
This pansy boy will never amount to a hill of beans. He doesn't even like my card tricks. Everyone likes my card tricks! At least all the ladies do. And that's another thing. This kid has no interest in girls. What a fruitcake. At least the checks clear. Keeps me in liquor if nothing else. He also has no idea what makes a good piano player. I tell him regulate your body. Drink 17 cups of milk a day. Have good posture. Just yesterday I saw him drinking a soda. A soda! Someday I will escape this life. I will use my swift fingers and deft hands to leave this impossible horrible retched life. TO ESCAPE!
The student
Something strange happened today. First teacher showed up in a straight jacket and bound by what he said was 100 yards of rope (looked more like 98 to me). He then had me bound him to a flagpole upside down and I'm good at knots cause of all my games. He quickly and quite easily escaped then chained himself inside the piano and appeared outside naked (quite a sight). Then he proclaimed that my lack of talent ruined his love for piano. I will show this bastard. He doubts me. I will grow up big and strong. I will drink my milk. I will become the greatest piano player ever. Not only that but I will make my piano playing into a show. The show to end all shows. I will show that Mr. Houdini or my name isn't liberachi.
Epilogue
Thus two great careers were born and the world was never the same.

Gambit

2008-12-15T06:49:00.000-08:00

So, I found a talent that Gambit possessed early in his infancy. Through very little prompting from me, he would play fetch. He's taken with this little plush ball that has feathers coming out of the top. He'll carry that ball around in his mouth like it's a live catch and he's hunting for his family. He'll growl and hiss at Rouge if she is even in his eye line, let alone making a move towards his precious.

He has since chewed all the feathers off that ball so that now all that's left are a few tufts of what used to be feathers, but now resemble a few strands of dark troll hair. But he still loves that dumb ball all the same.

Last night we played fetch for about an hour. I would alternate throwing it into the office or into the dining room from my perch in the Captains chair. And he would sprint off to find it and recapture his prize. He would then prance back over to me and drop the ball close to my feet and wait for his next opportunity to fetch. At one point I threw it over his head, and he popped up and caught the damn thing in his mouth.

I say all this to dissuade all those cat haters out there that characterize them as cold and callus to humans and are only concerned with their own feelings. They like to play with us. They care if we are around.

I had this post ready to go last night, but held off on posting it. I figured I would spruce it up in the morning and then post it. The first interaction I had with Rouge was her jumping on my chest and cutting one of the stinkiest farts I have smelled out of her. And shortly after that Gambit was chasing the previously mentioned ball around the living room and unplugged the cable box. As you all know, that is a big no-no. He's been exiled to the dining room. But I did throw his ball in there for him before shutting him out of my life for a bit. Stupid cats. Just when you think they are learning, they show you that they don't give a fuck what you think.

House

2008-12-10T10:53:00.000-08:00

Occasionally I find movies that I want to watch based on their descriptions through netflix. Either they were suggested to me because of some rating I gave to a different movie, or the same actors appear or whatever. So I read the little paragraph description about the movie and see if it peaks my interest. I of course always forget that these little descriptions are written by someone that was paid to say nice and interesting things about the movie.

That leads us to House. What was presented to me as a horror movie about a serial killer that lures people to his "house" and then leaves them rules about how to survive his game, I was mildly intrigued. It isn't material that hasn't been covered before, but it sets the stage for an entertaining premise. Throw in the fact that the serial killer, known as the Tin Man because he leaves his rules written on a tin can for the people to find, was to be played by Michael Madsen. That dude can play a creepy, psychopathic killer. So I figured this is going to be awesome.

The beginning plays out like many other horror movies before it. Couple is traveling to some destination. They are bickering and generally don't get along. There is mention of going to couples counselling. This all sets up their story that they will not get along in a high pressure environment well. They quickly run into one of the most used horror movie problems, car trouble, and make their way to seek shelter and find a phone in a secluded bed and breakfast. So far I'm with the movie.

They get to the old Victorian mansion and find that there is a second couple that also had car trouble investigating the house. They find no sign of any workers or other people at the house, and continue to explore. There are some creepy creeks and groans of the spooky house, and some quick cuts of a child laughing and giggling in the dark. Again, nothing new here, but it was setting a mood quite effectively. Still with it.

Shortly there after the house owners show up and are creepy as hell. The old woman that runs the place is very creepy. She has one son who becomes fixated with one of the women and wants to marry her right away. He gave off the creepy inbred retarded vibe, again not new in horror movies, but was done effectively. There's a second brother who's introduced who is gruff and evil. All three of these new characters were really starting to creep me out, and I had high hopes for what was to come, because I knew I was still waiting for The Tin Man to show up, and I thought there was going to be some awesome stuff coming.

But oh how wrong I was. I started noticing some oddly placed lines in the script. Instead of talking about how sleeping together was dirty, it was referred to as a sin. There were multiple instances of the word sin, as in "guilty as sin, heavy as sin, sinners, etc..." I started to get a bad feeling in my head. This couldn't possibly be some kind of christian propaganda movie thinly veiled in a horror movie could it? Michael Madsen will save the day, I just know it.

Of course I was wrong.

The rest of the film, until the very end, you just see The Tin Man in shadows stalking people around with a stupid mask on. The four people that were lead to the house are all revealed to have some horrible secret. The one couple both killed someone that was abusing them, and the second couple didn't pay attention to their daughter and she ended up drowning. These flashbacks are done to give you the impression of the abuse, but not really show it. BUT, the people feel bad about killing their abusers. Because it was a SIN.

The movie held so much promise for about 30 minutes, then delved fully into some dumb ass christian allegory for the next hour, culminating in them finding the "good" sister who was shunned in the basement. Her good "light" will destroy all the evil in the house, but only if they believed in her and rejected what the "evil" Tin Man was saying. What started out as just a mild christian indoctrination became such a farce that one could not help but draw the conclusions they wanted you to make. Granted anyone watching this movie that knew it was based in Christian Theology would already be "saved" and not need to watch the movie, and any gore hound like myself is going to watch it thinking awesome shit is about to go down, and then just groan and hate everything about the movie. Way to go asshats.

I will say one thing. The first thirty minutes are awesome. If you take that and then added on another hour of what should have come, and this movie would have rocked. It was shot well though. Visually it looked good. Though that's seldom enough to make a movie worth watching.

Why God, Why???

P.S. And for those wondering, this was movie 98 for the year. I'm going to have to buckle down if I'm going to hit my goal of 120. Wish me luck.

I AM RIPPER! I AM DISAPPOINTING! I AM BEOWULF

2008-12-09T19:00:00.000-08:00

So they took the oldest story in England's history. They changed it and they they made it really disappointing. Sure this movie may be good in theater. But this movie certainly is a let down on DVD. Over all on the KCBS scale its a 4.

Just read the damn book.

Blogger Q's Thanksgiving Gossip

2008-11-30T14:01:00.000-08:00

So like all good celeb reporters I went to great pains to learn what your favorite celebs ate at Thanksgiving

Brad P. (of film fame) ate an entire turducken! After this he had no digestive trouble at all due to his super human metabolism that allows him to travel at super speed. Also he was seen removing a costume of some sort from a ring.

The J. Brothers (of music and film fame) had the traditional family meal of Turkey, mashed potatoes, green beans, sweet potatoes, cranberry sauce and asparagus cooked so its not firm. However they used no spices, salts or flavors because "We like our food like we like our music, lame, dry, flavorless and kinda limp." They followed the meal with naps all except the youngest who was returned to the cage for asking mommy where the money was going.

Dame Judy D (of film fame) ate 23 pounds of astronaut ice cream but not for Thanksgiving cause you know she's British.

Lou "Diamond" P. (of T.V. fame) spent all this Thanksgiving doing what he loves, blow.

Sasha O. (of Presidential-Elect Daughter fame) spent all Thanksgiving complaining about how the new puppy had to be so ugly just because her bratty sister was allergic.

Rosie O. (of Exit to Eden fame) spent thanksgiving wondering why her variety special was advertised so damn much during football. She was quoted as saying "Why the hell would any one who watches football want to watch a fucking variety show staring Rosie? Especially given that the closeted or gay ones will all be watching Dancing with the Stars anyway."

Pocahontas (of Native American fame) spent yet another Thanksgiving wondering why the hell teachers spend so much time talking about her at this time of year. Especially, because she had nothing to do with Thanksgiving because she lived in Jamestown and died of smallpox in 1617 four years before the traditional thanksgiving. Also, she wonders why so many of you masturbate to her Disney characterization cause she thinks that's kinda sick.

Addition by Addition

2008-11-23T13:38:00.000-08:00

To add some new flavor to my blog, which I feel is growing a bit stagnant, I have added two new contributors to my personal blogosphere. My good buddy Alan Birkemeier will be a new poster. I have encouraged him to do book reviews, as he reads about as many books as I watch movies. I am sure he will also update about his life out west teaching the Mormon children.

And after such success and fanfare of his last post, entertainment gossip hound extraordinaire, Blogger Q has graced me with his exclusive thoughts and information. He will also be posting starting soon.

On a side note, be sure to check out http://ianvjoe.blogspot.com/ if you get the chance. Be sure to vote on the polls.

Saw 3/4

2008-11-12T13:56:00.001-08:00

Well, to further along the great 08 quest, I watched Saw 3 and 4 on back to back nights this past weekend. I had not seen either one, and it seemed like as good a plan as any to watch these. I enjoyed the first in this series, even if the acting was suspect at the time. There was a nice twist ending for that one. Of course because they had such an effective and surprising twist ending in the first one, they feel the need to continue the twist ending tradition. Of course this makes it really unsurprising and may constitute not being a twist if everyone is expecting it. Anyway, back on track.

Saw 1, enjoyed it. I saw the sequel in the theater with my wife. And as many of my dear readers will know already, I have a strong aversion to needles. I can't stand the thought of getting my blood drawn, and avoid shots more than the diseases they prevent. So when Ad said she could feel my blood pressure drop during the needle pit scene in Saw 2, I knew she wasn't lying.

This brings me to point number one about Saw 3/4, and horror movies in general. I do not consider myself a squeamish person. I watch a lot of horror movies, and have seen people die on screen in many many crazy ways. I play a lot of video games where you can dismember or behead your opponents and victims. Seeing blood on screen has never been a problem for me. Unless it is very realistic. Torture scenes and realistic forms of violence can get under my skin. There was one scene in hostel that really bothered me, but the rest of the movie was so over the top that it was much easier to handle.

In Saw 3 there are quite a few traps/scenarios that are so unbelievable that they don't' bother me. I feel like I have a pretty good disconnect in my mind when watching scary movies about suspending disbelief and rules of logic. But let's take a scene from Saw 3 as an example. Victim A is strapped to a machine designed to twist all his limbs and head until they spin all the way around. Now this is a gruesome thought, and they do a good job of conveying the horror and pain that the guy must be going through. That is until his leg spins all the way around with all the bones broken, and he continues screaming and begging for help until his head (last in the circuit of course) is spun round and his neck is broken. Now, again suspending disbelief can go only so far. That dude would have passed out from shock after 20 seconds, not the 2 or 3 minutes that was depicted. And because of this, I was able to not be affected by it at all.

That one scene demonstrates my overall feeling of Saw 3. They went over the top so far that it was easy to disconnect from it and not be fully engaged.

Saw 4 picks up right where the third instalment ended. A new set of victims is introduced, as well as new and different way for them to die. Though in the fourth movie, they seemed to cut down on the gore and death and try to focus more on story development. Which is a rare thing in a movie that is based and designed to be more fast paced and gory. It also tips the viewer off quite early that they have no intention of stop making these movies, and they will continually drop hints and foreshadow for future movies. Which means it's hard to get emotionally engaged with any of these characters. By the end of 4, we are introduced to the new main bad guy and they leave the door wide open for future sequels. And I have no doubt that once 6 comes out, 7 won't be close behind.

I'm not as shocked that this franchise is still going. Not long ago franchises like Nightmare on Elm Street and the Friday the 13th series made movies until it seemed they had run out of ideas, and then made about 3 more after that. As long as Saw makes money, which it does ever year, they will keep making them. And until they stop making money, they will extend the overall story arc. There will be just enough info given to make you want to see the next (ie spend the money) Thus I can't judge the quality of this whole series until it's over.

I like the premise, I like the actors they keep bringing in. They seem to be keeping up with themselves in terms of coming up with gruesome ways to off people. But it can only be stretched so thin before people just don't care anymore. It defiantly feels like the rubber band is stretched thin at this point. Lets hope they wrap up the series before it snaps.

Yeah, I know

2008-11-05T12:43:00.000-08:00

I have been quite slack in my blogging over the past few months. I was quite busy with this little thing called my wedding, but now that that's over, I'm ready to re enter the blogosphere with some infrequent updates.

I've watched about 10 movies since my last update. I'm not going to update about all of the, mostly because I don't feel like it. I did see Pineapple Express, which I thought was really good. The best parts for me were the throw away lines that don't do anything for the story, but are still hilarious. I think my favorite one is when one of the guys calls his grandma and says "You lost all your money playing bid whist?" It's not really that funny on the page, but damn it cracked my shit up on the screen.

I also saw Foot Fist Way starring Danny McBride. I think he's going to be the next big star to pop out of the Judd Apatow crew. He has some memorable but hilarious parts in Pineapple Express and Tropic Thunder. But Foot Fist Way is his main vehicle. And it's fucking hilarious. Check it out if you can find it. It's out on DVD or Netflix it. Do what ever you can.

The wedding went off without any major complications. I was quite shocked. I forgot a few things here and there, but nothing that anyone other than Adie and I noticed. Alan and Katie delivered very nice and very short toasts, no one was almost kicked out for public intoxication. We got some really good pictures, as well as some freaky ones that we ad libbed. Once we get the final shots back, I'll update with some of the better offerings. Adie says it was a perfect day, so I think I accomplished my goals.

Instead of going on a honeymoon right away, we decided to just have one really nice meal out. Between our limited budget and limited days off Adie could take off, we figured it was the most prudent option. We will still look to go somewhere over spring break, or during next summer. Anyway, we went to Restaurant Tallent here in town and it was awesome. Adie had some black truffle and goat cheese tortellini's and I had rabbit. I had never had rabbit before, but I figured that I could risk it in such an establishment. And it turned out really good. I'd eat there every night if I was rich as fuck, but I ain't, so it's Taco Bell instead.

Married life is really no different than my life before, except for a few key improvements. I now have health insurance for the first time since 1999. While I have not had the opportunity to make use of it yet, I rest better knowing that it is there just in case. I also have the privilege and honour of bringing one more Smith into the fold, as Adie has now changed her name. I know that I have done a good thing for all Smith's out there. I am afraid that the name will die out soon, so there is at least one more for now to carry the legacy on.

I also got to witness history yesterday as America elected Obama as their next president. I didn't think it was ever possible for Indiana to vote Democratic either, so it was a night of firsts. While it is not a fix that will make all the troubles go away over night, I do whole heartily believe that he is the best person to be in the White House to try and tackle all this crazy ass shit that's going on. Here's hoping he starts removing the ridiculous parts of the patriot act and starts repealing the no child left behind act. One can only hope.

I will attempt to keep up a better blogging schedule from here on out. I also need to ramp up my movie watching if I'm going to even come close to my goal of 120 for this year. I will now leave everyone with a word of wisdom from the prophet Lil' Wayne

"Your like a bitch with no ass, you ain't got shit."

blogger Q's Celebrity Update

2008-10-13T20:30:00.000-07:00

Hi all I am the first guest blogger on Bigredcrunch.blogspot.com. As many of you know Ben is getting married on Sat. So congratulations on that. Here is some dirt I heard lately:

Manny R. (of sports fame) cuts the bottom layer of skin off homeless peoples' feet then uses the skin as a strainer in his specially imported coffee.

Paula A. (of TV and music fame) likes to screw the caps off salt shakers and then barely attach them so that it will spill salt all over the place the next time it is used. Surprisingly she only does this at Denny's.

Eric C. (of music fame) use to have a cocaine problem! Also had a long affair with the wife of George H. (who rumor has it is dead).

Sarah P. (of national notoriety) is actually going to pull an Arron Burr (look it up)

Tony H. (of sports fame) has never actually played his video game because hes Amish.

Will S. (of last man on Earth fame) was recently seen gallivanting with Susan S. (of acting fame) in the L.A. river. Word has it they were fighting giant ants, that mutated after the bomb blasts outside of Vegas but this could not be confirmed.

John C. (of savior of humanity fame) wishes that he could have one good nights sleep.

Brad P. (of acting fame) was recently seen discovering the lost city of El Dorado, only to be disappointed when it turned out to be Atlantis, only to be further disappointed to learn it was a set for Stargate.

Micheal L. (of acting fame) was recently seen among the living. This time as an angel that helps people to earn his way into heaven as though on some sort of road.

That's all for now. If you know anymore dirt from tinsel town please post in comments also don't use full names so we can't get sued.

Grassroots Cont....

2008-09-11T17:20:00.000-07:00

73, 75. Tropic Thunder
I get what Ben Stiller was going for here. And it was hilarious and wrong and shot just perfectly. But it's hard I think for most of the people going to see funny movies to get the deeply rooted messages that are in this movie. And it will probably suffer at the box office because of it. But I don't care. Stiller made everyone so much money with Meet the Parents/Fockers that he can make whatever he wants. And if he does stuff like this or zoolander, I'm in.

76. Masters of Horror: We All Scream for Ice Cream
A nice little horror movie about voodoo ice cream. That's right. If your kid eats the voodoo ice cream, you painfully and graphically melt into piles of ice cream. Featuring one of the guys from Oz, who's name escapes me, as the protagonist who is fighting against the evil clown spreading the voodoo. It was pretty ok. The nice thing about the MOH series is that they are only 60 minutes long. This story is helped by that as it would have had to stretch really far to make an extra 30 minutes.

77. Wire in the Blood: Torment
I remember what this one was about, unlike the previous entry in the series. I was looking forward to this one as I read the novel it was based on. The novel was really good and featured some interesting twists and turns. So when I was watching this adaptation, I knew the twists that were coming up. Though I knew, it made the experience better. They do a really good job of subtle foreshadowing, which makes it easier to re-watch later. Because I knew who the baddies were, I could scowl as they tipped their hats and gave off clues.

78. What Happens in Vegas
On the way up to a friends house for Labor Day festivities, I had the good idea to take my computer and a movie to watch in the car. I figured it would allow me to pass the time and pad the stats at the same time. I failed to take into account the fact that I would be sitting in the back seat, which is small compared to me. Factor in that I have a very large laptop that didn't fit on my lap, due again to the large man/small back seat equation, and the sun glare that came in from all sides because this was around 4pm, and it was less than optimal conditions for movie watching.
The 30 second trailer made sure to include all the funny parts in it, so there was nothing surprising coming. The trailer also included one of my favorite comedians, Zack Galifinakis. What the trailer also included was his entire performance in the movie, which was disappointing. There were a few other funny parts, but overall this was another rom com. Though this one was heavier on the com till close to the end, when it ramped up with the romance. Overall it was cute and not terrible. I liked it better than 27 Dresses, which isn't saying much.

And that catches me up on the blogging. I need to step it up if I'm going to make my goal for the year. The wedding is less than 6 weeks away, so it will be a juggling act between school commitments and wedding plans.

Grassroots Movement

2008-09-11T10:18:00.000-07:00

68. Step Brothers.
It's not a secret that Will Ferral has turned himself and his preferred style of comedy into a money making machine that churns out movie after movie riffing on the same things just with different backgrounds. Step Brothers is right in line with most of this, but veers off into a more "adult" direction. I say adult because he just cusses more and has some brief, yet funny, scenes of man danglies. The basic plot is two adult men who refuse to grow up and enjoy video games, kung fu, rocking out, and general silliness. Somehow I broke down the walls and connected with these two dueling personalities. It was a stretch, dear reader, but I made that leap. Very funny at times, and overall enjoyable. Though I was glad to only pay $5 for it, since there was really nothing in there that needed viewing on a big screen. It also achieved status of a movie that Adie would be embarrassed being seen at by her students/parents. Though that list continually grows when she's out with me.

69. Sex and the City
Yes, I know how unlike me it was to watch all the shows and the movie. Yes I know that my masculinity can be called into question because of all this. And No, I didn't start peeing sitting down while I took these in. As some of you may or may not know I have a fairly addictive personality. Once my mind grabs onto something I grab all I can until I have either finished or super saturated myself. So once I got the SATC bug with Kristen at the start of the summer, coupled with the interwebs available to me to acquire what I needed, it was a foregone conclusion that it would be all over for me. So once the movie came out and I was able to aquire it, I waited until I was done with everything else. As was my habit with SATC, I generally only watched them when I was alone, and could watch like 15 episodes in a row. So one day when Adie was away I fired up the movie to finish this odyssey. Surprisingly, I felt more like simpson than homer throughout.
The movie took some criticism from the critics because it was too long, had cheesy voice overs, and had no strong male characters. Of course this is exactly what made the show popular, and if the movie makers had veered from their formula they probably would have had a riot of horny middle aged housewives on their hands. The movie effectively continued the overall story arcs of all the characters, and wrapped up in a predictable fashion that both tied everything up neatly, but also left the door open in case they make a sequal(read:want to make lots more money). My one complaint in the context of the stories is how they wrapped up Samantha's storyline. They spent the better part of the last season and movie establishing how she had grown and changed, only to erase it all for no real good reason.
Now excuse me while I go pee sitting down. SHIT!!! My secret is out.
(It was also a coincidence that SATC was the 69th movie of the year)

70. Hannibal Rising
Another one of my obsessions is the acquisitions of DVD's. I have over 500 when you factor in box sets. And inevitably I buy DVD's that I have never seen, but that I have a feeling I will enjoy. So when I found Hannibal Rising, the prequel if you will to the Hannibal Lecter story, for a cheap price one day at Blockbuster I snatched it up. So one day when a buddy came over to watch a movie, I let him pick. He picked this one as he was also a Hannibal fan and it was on my DVD's I own that I have never seen list. Well we are both are horror movie buffs and were ready to see what Hannibal was all about. We quickly realized he was all about his creators cashing in on a big check. His back story was very convoluted and pretty dumb. The whole movie was basically his revenge on some people that wronged him and his sister when they were little. But it was boring and dumb and very predictable. This had something to do with the fact that of course we knew Hannibal was never going to die, because he appears in several movies that are set after this. This is one of my main complaints with dramatic situations in series. Such as 24. Everyone knows that Jack Bauer isn't going to die in season 3, when season 6 is already out. Even if you haven't seen a second of it, you know whatever sticky situation Bauer gets himself into, he'll survive. Anyway, back on point. One good part of the movie was the unknown french guy they got to play young Hannibal. He was quite good at emulating what Hopkins had earlier done with the character. He did the best he could with a sub-par script. Skip it if you can. I also quickly sold this DVD after we watched it, which marked a rarity for me where I get rid of DVDs.

71. Cracker: A new terror
As I've reviewed before, this is a BBC series starring Haggred. This one was good and dark as it covered some PTSD of war veterens while also touching on the Iraq war and it's potential consequenses on the soldiers that are fighting. A former soldier snaps one night while flashing back to some war time experiences and starts killing people. Haggred tracks him down and tries to help him, but he's to far gone. This was a very dark and powerful movie, which again confirmed to me that the British can put together much finer psychological dramas than Americans on TV.

72. Wire in the Blood: Time to Murder and Create
Just as I compliment the Brits, I follow it up with a damning post. Another one of my favorite BBC series is wire in the blood. To date I've watched 14 in this series, each one that clocks in at 1:30. But for the life of me I can't remember what this one was about. Even my very basic search of wikipedia and imdb about this episode gave me nothing to jog the memory. This is one of the problems with not updating the blog as I watch things. It's lost in the ether somewhere. I dont' remember hating this one, but I can' tell you anything about it. I'll need to work on that, as one of the main reasons besides sharing with my dear readers my very important ramblings, it is an effective way for me to chronicale what I media I take in in a year and remember what I thought about it for later reflection.

74. Ghost Rider
Another of the DVD's that I thought I would like, but ended up not. Though to be fair this was recomended to me because it was so terrible. And man were they not kidding. Nic Cage has no place doing action movies anymore. I know he did this film because he's a huge comic book nerd, but really he didn't have anything to do with the production and script. But man it's laughably bad. Avoid, even if you like comics and ghost rider. I also promptly sold this one too, so not only can I mark it on the list for the year, I can remove it from my DVD list. Booyakasha!!!

Bow Down Before the One you Serve

2008-09-08T13:40:00.000-07:00

Calling all (any) readers. As I have slowed in my updates to what could only be considered a snail's pace, I'm putting out a request to anyone who actually visits this page to send me some suggestions about what you want to hear me spew about. Hopefully I will get a few submissions to jump start the creative process once again.

BREAKING NEWS...I'm slow at updates

2008-08-23T07:17:00.000-07:00

59. Paul Mooney: Analyzing White America
Paul Mooney was first introduced to me on Chappelle's show and I was intrigued by his delivery and style of comedy. He's quite up front and confrontational about his perceived slights. This was a recording of his stand up routine. While he's not very animated, and spends the entire set sitting back in a chair, he is no less captivating or boring because of it. While some of his material is more social commentary than actual comedy, he still delivers some funny stuff and entertains throughout.

61. 27 Dresses
Adie enjoyed this one. It starred Katherine Heigel, who I used to enjoy on Grey's Anatomy and in Knocked Up but who has fallen out of grace with me after she publicly bashed Knocked Up and it's creators as being misogynistic and exploitative. Here's a quick thought. If you thought it was derogatory and a bad role for you, don't take it. Here's one more. Don't bash the people that launched your movie career only after you've made a few more films (read: money). Anyway, this was a "rom-com" centered around weddings and whatnot. I'm sure it resonated a bit more with Adie due to the pending nuptials. I watched it with her one night to pad the stats for this year. It was light on both the rom and the com and ended up being really boring to me. Feel free to skip this unless your body possess ovaries.

62. The Love Guru
Skip it. It's not funny. It's borderline offensive if you think you know what funny is. I equated this the other day to a friend to be "Mike Meyers did something funny that was funny in 1997. And he's never changed the jokes. Just the wording. But the jokes remain the same. And if you hear a joke now that you heard 11 years ago, it's not going to be funny anymore." I only laughed one time, and it was during a scene where Mike Meyers was no where to be found.

63. The Dark Knight
You may have noticed, intrepid reader that I skipped a number earlier. Or you may have not noticed at all, in which case, shame on your head. You must read every last character that I churn out here. For they are all my children and I love them equally. Anyway, I saw The Dark Knight twice in a week. Thus the skipping of order.
It was awesome.
Dark, violent, and well paced. I love that Nolan doesn't have to bow to any pressures from the studio to make it family friendly like the original sequels. There isn't the need for huge tie ins to every imaginable product that must be acceptable to everyone in the world. The studio let the people make an awesome movie, and they will end up making close to a billion dollars on the whole thing when it's said and done.
The Joker is the best villain Batman has, and they nailed it down in the film. He's presented just as he should be in this type of movie. He's just a crazed man not afraid of anything and ready to deal out mayhem at the drop of a card.
My one complaint is the completely overacted and distractingly funny way Bale decides to voice Batman. They explain why he does it in the movie, to hide his real identity, but it's just so cheesy and fake. But if that's my only complaint about the movie, then they kicked some major ass.

64. Vince Vaughn's Wild West Comedy Tour
One dark and gloomy day I found myself at home alone. Faced with a dark cloud overhead and nothing else to distract me I turned to Netflix and their wonderful new "View it now" option. I ended up watching three comedies in hopes of boosting my mood.
The first was this Vince Vaughn project. Much like the Dane Cook Tourgasm from a few years ago, they filmed a group of lesser know comics on the road with a well known headliner. The four guys they picked for the show were funny at times, adequate the rest of the time. It was more a documentary about their travels as they put on 30 shows in 30 nights. They toured the hurricane damaged south and donated money to charity. They toured around and did whatever they wanted for 30 days.
Overall it was funny at times. If you like seeing the behind the scenes stuff that goes into a traveling concert tour, than this will appeal to you more. But if you think your just going to see two hours of comedy, than you would be disappointed.

65. The Comedians of Comedy: The Movie
This was a repeat for me, but I knew it would guarantee a laugh. I love the four comics that they used for this project. Much like the previous entry, they followed comics trying something different and documented not only the shows by the rest of their travels. Check it out. It's much better put together and features some truly alternative and subversive comedy that will entertain to no end.

66. Super High Me
A documentary featuring known pot head Doug Benson in his quest to see the effects on his body after not smoking weed for 3o days, and then smoking weed all the time for 30 days following. He went to numerous doctors and psychologists to test his memory, IQ, psychic ability, sperm count, and overall health while he was "clean" and then took the same tests during his month long high. Overall it didn't make a huge difference either way to any of the tests. His one major revelation was that he thought he would be sick of smoking after 30 days, and he wasn't. And when I say he was high for 30 days, I mean all fucking day. He would smoke as soon as he got up and continue throughout the day until he went to sleep. There wasn't a waking moment for him that month that he wasn't high.
And much like Dave Chappelle has admitted, random people will recognize him and just give him drugs. So he's never at a shortage for weed.
This also featured a sub plot about the licenced and legal distributors in California who provide weed and weed products to those prescribed it medically. I'm not saying that those people shouldn't be able to use the drug to dull their pain. But instead of focusing on the patients and their true need for it, they just focused more on how the DEA wants to shut them down and how stupid hippies in cali think that their rights are being infringed upon. They call for the local government and police to enforce the state law, which allows the medical sale of weed, over the governmental jurisdiction. The funny part is that anywhere else in America you could never do what they do there. And they are all up in arms when one dispensary gets shut down for like a week. But the movie makes a point of pointing out that the number of dispensaries is constantly on the rise, and that there were like 300 others in the LA area that they could go to during that ONE WEEK they couldn't go to their preferred weed dealer.

67) Blade 2
I re-watched this one morning instead of tuning into my regular morning dose of sportscenter. And it pretty much was what I remembered. I think it was the best of the three blade offerings. The first movie was pretty awesome, but they had to set up all the back story and whatnot which had a tendency to drag on. The second offering in the series already had the basics established. Right off the bat they introduce the main villain, who kicks alot of ass. A new breed of vampire that was genetically modified by the other vampires in hopes that their known weaknesses would be erased. But in doing so, they created a creature much stronger than anything else, and someone who is really pissed at being cast off. So instead of the vampires feasting on the humans, and Blade trying to save them, it's a Vampire turning other vampires into it's bitch. Of course eventually they would turn on the humans once they ran out, but this movie doesn't fall into that old trap.
The visuals are pretty cool, the fight scenes passable. It was pretty good I thought. Any horror movie that takes a oft-tread theme, such as vampires or zombies, and can create something new out of it I will typically be a fan regardless.

2008-08-18T20:36:00.001-07:00

If I could choose
I would rather be a king
Like Elvis, not Henry
Same amount of women, much less guillotine costs.

If I could decide
I'd rather be a priest like Judas
Not Jesus
Groupies all around
and some won't crucify you

And if I could pick
between damnation and redemption
I would choose happiness over all

KCBS #1

2008-08-15T13:02:00.000-07:00

In a few short minutes we are heading to Madison for a BBQ, Blues, and Hot Air Balloon festival. This will be my first opportunity to use my prowess as a official barbeque judge. Tomorrow I will be graced with 6 portions of Chicken, Beef Brisket, Ribs, and Pork Butt. Also on the menu is a sauce contest, an "Anything Butt" competition (i.e. more meat) and finally a banana themed dessert battle.

This will be a three and a half hour orgy of meat and bananas. I'm going to do my best to not throw up or have explosive diarrhea during the middle of the competition.

Hot Rod

2008-08-15T12:58:00.000-07:00

The 58th entry into my quest this year was Hot Rod. This starred Andy Sandburg as a fledgeling stunt man trying to raise funds so that his step dad could get a transplant. And once the transplant happens, he plans on kicking his step dad's ass.

If you like the SNL digital shorts and wish you could see a whole bunch of them strung together with a semi-coherent plotline throughout them, then this is the film for you. There are some really funny stuff in here, but its also surrounded by alot of filler and then that is surrounded by some more stuff that is either attempting to tie the story together, or just isn't funny. It's like a turducken, but with comedy. A Turducken that's been overcooked so just the middle is any good. That metephor is a bit of a strech, but I think you get the point.

Water Polo

2008-08-11T07:11:00.001-07:00

In my completely amateur observation of the sport, it seems like a combination of Toss It and Dunking. Both I excel at. Thus, I deem that I would rule at this sport. I decided.

I love being patriotic during the Olympics

2008-08-11T07:01:00.000-07:00

There is a special something in the air these days. Like a little extra static charge being built up on the collective footie pajama feet of the world. It's Olympic fever time. NBC has been gracious enough to supply us with a constant feed halfway across the world to see the rise and fall of our great nation as we compete in realistic and somewhat ludicrous sports.

And I couldn't be filled with more pride for our country. Of course I fully recognize that it's mostly fluff patriotism that is not real and that will disapate following the conclusion of the Olympics, but I'm loving the good ol' US of A right about now.

And in following a pattern of mine whenever the Olympics are on, I fixate on some bizarre sport that doesn't get followed round these parts. The last winter Olympics it was Curling. This summer it is developing into water polo.

I made an attempt to get into the fencing, but it was just to fast to really understand what was going on. Then it was the rifling competitions, but they too were over to quick and hard to really understand the scoring system. I did try and watch some of the equestrian events, but even with the commentators attempting to explain why this was an event and what it all entailed, it just seemed like goofballs riding around on horses in bad costumes with no discernible skill or difficulty involved. Bull Riding I could get behind. I can easily recognize the risk and skill needed to be successful. Not so much with the regular boring horse riding. They weren't even jumping over anything.

On a seperate note, I have been lax in updating on the Movie front. I'm up to a full 69 in the bag, which is a little off pace for the year, but I should be able to shatter last years record of 87 quite easilly. I'm going to work on an update on that today and hopefully have that up either tonight or tomorrow.

And I've finished SATC. Including the movie, which was the 69th of the year. By complete coincidence. Though it is oddly fitting.

Super Soaked

2008-08-01T07:06:00.001-07:00

I will admit that I am a major cliche at times. It is a widely accepted fact that men enjoy sports, and programing about sports is high on their list of things to watch. It is also a fact that most daytime television programming is not designed for the 20something male, but the 40something housewife. I can't stand any of the daytime talk shows. And ever since Passions got canceled I have no interest in a soap opera. If one decided that it was time to cast a talking marionette little person, I may tune in. And morning shows should all just fuck off and kill each other. So that leaves me with ESPN and their never changing rotation of 6 hours of sportscenter or DVR. Typically I will turn on Sportscenter and listen to it in the background as I make my morning ritualistic check of the same websites as yesterday. And once the hour is up and sportscenter restarts, I may or may not change it off. But usually I can't stand it after three hours.

But, with the TV constantly being tuned to ESPN during the days, coupled with the fact that I watch a lot of Reds baseball on FSN, I sometimes get the pleasure of seeing some bizarre choices in sports that are broadcast.

One of the most surreal and baffling experiences ever was at least 10 years ago when I was flipping through ESPN2. This was back towards it's inception and they were still attempting to show the non-traditional sports. The decided to dedicate an entire hour to filming and commenting on two geeks playing Magic: The Gathering. There was a huge set with lights and a specially designed table. There were two "experts" delivering the play by play. It was bizarre. I don't think anyone would watch it unless they themselves had some experience playing Magic. And I never saw it come on again, so perhaps this was a one time filler slot. But I wish I could find it now, just to marvel at the absurdity of it all.

There was also my short lived obsessions with watching competitive paintball, arm wrestling, domino's, and back when I was a child the competitive skeet shooting with the big scoring grid.

But the latest bizarre sport captured on film and presented to the masses came on late the other night on FSN. Competitive Yo Yo.

Just let that sink in a bit. It may take a while to fully grasp the concept.

Much like the Magic show that was on years ago, this was a fully produced competition with lighting and multiple camera angles and commentary. But none of this wizardry could cover up that it was a simple black stage set up in some kind of meeting room at the Radison in Kansas City, Kansas or some such wasteland. And I have to say the poor souls that were competing were actually very talented yo-yo artists. This was far more advanced than a simple "walking the dog" or "cat's cradle" In fact the commentators either were very knowledgeable about the sport, or were very adept at making shit up on the spot. They had names such as "a double monkey shines", "backwards goofy flip", and "inverted atomic jammer" I made all those up, but you get the point. It was like when back in the day when we would all go freestyle walking and make up the ridiculous names for the stunts we were pulling.

I couldn't really understand what made one guy any better than the other. None of them got their lines tangled up in a huge mess, and no one dropped their yo yo's. But some were criticized for not doing original or hard tricks. They all looked hard and original.

And this I think is where some of the more non conventional things that get put on TV lose people. While they are just a novelty act that most people can enjoy in short bursts, these productions try and create story lines and characters out of the people. They go into great length about people's backgrounds and their accomplishments in their sports. But because most of these type of shows only are on the air once or twice, mostly in the wee hours of the morning, you will never be able to see any progression or learn anything about these people. You only watch it for a half hour, and then forget about it. I can't remember any of the people that were on the show, just that they were doing crazy yo yo tricks in some ballroom. So why waste the time and energy trying to create stories about these people and just show the action. It leaves a far deeper impression than the five minute montage about someone.

This post is Nifty

2008-07-29T18:34:00.000-07:00

HAPPY 50TH POST EVERYONE!!! IT'S FANTASTIC!!!

I was so rudely reminded that my posting habits have fallen behind those of others. So I make my triumphant return to the blogosphere to grace all with these words of wisdom. Think of my infrequent posts not as a failure to produce or an accurate exhibit of apathy, but more of a prolonging of the magic. Savor these morsels. They could save your life one day.

I must come clean here in a public forum. I have been watching Sex and the City. A close friend of mine convinced me to watch a few episodes with her during a visit a few months ago. As I had no other ideas of what to do, and with the promise from her that they weren't that bad and that there were a decent amount of boobies shown, I relented and watched one episode. I was vaguely familiar with the characters and overall storyline. And I have to admit it wasn't the worst thing I have ever seen. I further relented and watched another. And another. And another. And another. I was resigned to the fact at this point that I was going to have to watch all of them. It is part of my personality. Especially when faced with movies or TV, I must know all. So I went to task aquiring all the seasons of SATC. Once they were all aquired, I started the long trek through 6 seasons. The good thing for me was that all the episodes fall between running times of 20-30 minutes. Much better than attempting watching all of Oz. Between the hour long run times and the constant threat of man dangle an rape, SATC offered a cozier experiance.
My friend had warned me that the first two seasons weren't as good as the rest, but if I could slog through them that it would be worth it in the end. And jesus hopping saviour was she right. The first season was down right attrocious, and the second was only marginally better. The third brought more compelling (read: realistic) stories. And that's as far as I've gotten. I fineshed up the second and third seasons in a whirlwind 2 day marathon and burned myself out for a bit.
After watching that many episodes, I have come to a few conclusions. Firstly, I am missing a main component that would allow me to fully enjoy SATC to it's fullest. I don't give a shit about New York, New Yorkers, or their way of life. I don't give a shit about fashion or shoes. Most of the time I think that the fashion choices presented are ridiculous, ugly, or mediocre. And I really don't have much affection for Sarah Jessica Parker, or her charachter Carrie. That poses a problem as she's the main charachter and most of the story lines revolve around her in some way.
The good thing for me is that I'm over halfway home. The fifth season is way short, and I've already cut a decent chunk out of the sixth. Then I can be done with all this nonsense.

Hi Kids, do you like violence?

2008-07-08T10:01:00.000-07:00

Welcome back!!! Driving home from Jula's last night we had hijacked Will's car and Ipod for our listening and driving pleasure. I set up the Top 100 hits of the 90's and hit random and let the bitch run. After knowing at least the chorus, if not most of the words to about 10 songs in a row I began to wonder how much of my brain is filled with song lyrics. I hope that the ratio is pretty low in comparison to capacity, and if not that the lyric part of the brain isn't choking out the cure for cancer or something.

Another 7 mini-reviews coming and then a recap of the past few exciting weeks.

51. Snakes on a Plane
Caught this one on HBO when I was down visiting K&K a while back and forgot that I had seen it. It was as awesome as when I saw it in the theater. Snakes + Sam Jackson is just awesome. And say what you will about ludicrous plots, at least every crazy stupid thing they do in the movie is backed up by some kind of previous plot points. As ludicrous as it all seems, in the bubbled context of this film alone it all makes sense. So that's good.

52. Longest Yard (original)
Burt Reynolds was a beefcake of a man in the 70's. That did little to salvage this turd. I didn't like it at all, but watched it out of necessity to count it towards the total. Though they did burn up a dude pretty fierce.

53. Comedians of Comedy: Live at the Troubadour
Funny stand up special featuring lots of subversive comics bringing their dirtiest stuff. Can't really go wrong with Oswalt, Cross, Galifinakis, Bamford, Posehn, Silverman, ect...

54. Wanted
While this should have been a 10+ out of the park hit for me, it really wasn't. I saw this with Alan and we both should have loved the shit out of it. Guns CHECK Hot Girl (Jolie) CHECK Crazy fights CHECK Cool Director who we both liked previous works by CHECK Over the top Action CHECK But when it was all said and done, neither one of us could pinpoint why we didn't love it but we agreed that it was missing SOMETHING. I gave it a 6 and ranked it as a "movie" I didn't hate it but it fell way flat. Which is to bad because the ingredients were there. The scary thing we decided was that because this film really was designed to be loved by guys like us and that we didn't, that somewhere along the line somebody missed a huge mark.

55. Shoot Em Up
I told Alan following Wanted that Shoot Em Up was the movie that Wanted should have been. So we went home after seeing Wanted and fired this one up. I loved it as much the second time as when we initially saw it in the theater. It's also bat shit crazy, has crazy gunfights, and some highly improbable plot points. But much like Snakes on a Plane, they cover everything with a plausible plot point from before. It doesn't matter that no baby smiles when listening to death metal, but when Clive Owen deduces that his mother must have lived close to a heavy metal club, and they go find an apartment above said club, it at least makes sense. Remember the aforementioned logic bubble that you must sometimes carry from movie to movie.

56. WALL-E
Awesome flick. Beautiful space shots, funny parts, nostalgia, and robots. We saw this one on the 4Th and the theater was jam packed with kids and adults. Most kids seemed to enjoy it, though the family in front of us should have never even left the house. A typical father/mother combo with two little girls. The oldest of the two couldn't have been more than three, and the other maybe two. Neither of which wanted to sit still or watch a movie. This didn't stop the family from plunking down for four tickets and some refreshments to see only about a third of the film before they left. Moral of the story, don't listen to a toddler when they see something on TV and say they want it. They really don't. Man up and be an adult and tell the kids to STFU sometimes.

57. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skulls
Well, everything I heard about this one said it was terrible and to just skip it. I decided that it couldn't be that bad and went anyway. I should have listened to the majority. It was really, really, really, really, really bad. Bad acting, bad plot, bad script, terrible accents, stupid fight scenes, dumb comedy, and an overall plot arc that was so basic that it didn't take a genius to figure out what was really going on about twenty minutes into the film. Really bad stuff.

I also was in Cincinnati this weekend taking in a few Red's games. On Sunday we decided to buy good seats down on field level. These seats were around $40 bucks a pop. So imagine my confusion when about halfway through the second inning a group of six older people finally made their way to their seats and began blabbering about the most inane topics I have ever heard of in my life. "It's so hard to find a job now. Job interviews are so much different. They wanted to know what my life goals was. To make a buck, ok." This was met with a guffaw usually reserved for bad dinner theater from the 1800's. The ladies then proceeded to debate on if the Washington Nationals used to be called the Senators and if they were from Washington State or Washington D.C. Here's a tip for those ladies. If your so concerned with making money, perhaps you should know who the fuck is playing the game you paid so much to go see. Or just shut the fuck up and not be dumb whores.

God Bless America!!!

The latest and greatest

2008-06-23T17:19:00.000-07:00

48. Son of Rambow
I heard about this one a few months back on AICN. I never expected a small indie british film to be shown in theaters around here and had resigned to waiting to Netflix it once it became available, but it was picked up here for a one week theatrical run. Adie and I caught what turned out to be a rather cute and quaint story that was peppered with some good comedy and some messages throughout. The story revolves around two young boys who set out to make a movie after seeing Rambo: First Blood. They devise a story about how one of them is the son of rambo and are saving him from an evil scarecrow. It ended predictably but was a fun journey getting there.

49. Jonestown: The life and death of the People's Temple
The same night after we got back from the theater, I popped in this documentary that I had gotten from the library. I was familier with the basics of Jim Jones and his Kool-Aide drinking dead followers, but this doc shed some light on how they got to that point deep in the jungles of Africa. I didn't realize that Jim Jones began his preaching career here in Indiana, and split to northern California before heading off to the jungle. Jim Jones seems to remind me of L. Ron Hubbard, just with a little more drive of crazy. Both were charismatic leaders of "churchs" that ultimatly bilked the weak of mind and heart for all they could. Jim Jones was just a bit more driven by the crazy bug and ended up killing a senator before ordering his 900 followers to poison their children before themselves.
I don't think there is a slow enough or painful enough way for him to die. He got off easy with a bullet to the temple. Asshole.

50. Get Smart
An entertaining movie that struggles with deciding if it's a big action summer movie, or a quirky comedy that tries to stay true to the TV show roots. Steve Carrell does a fine job as the incompotent agent who can't seem to do things right but always seems to come out on top. The Rock is a bit underutilized for my liking. I guess if they fully commited to an action movie he would have been in it more.

Ideas

2008-06-13T18:37:00.000-07:00

Well, in the 13 days since my last post, I have watched 6 movies. None of them blew me away, but most were entertaining. Just so I feel complete, here is the list, with a few comments about each.

42. Meet the Spartans
Another atrocity of a spoof movie. I don't know why I've been subjecting myself to these so much. Even more pop culture references than the last one. And they keep putting Carmen Electra in them as the sex kitten, even though she's old as fuck. Kudo's to her for getting steady work, but there has to be some hotter young starlet who would work for cheaper.

43. Semi-Pro

The next installment of "Will Ferral makes a comedy about every sport" There were some funny moments, and the same funny cast ensemble that gets used in most of his movies is back and shining in their bit roles. It was worth a one time watching.

44. Horror Business

This one was on Netflix Instant Viewing list. It was about independant horror film makers and the hurdles they must face in plying their craft. While this had the potential to cover a topic that I would find fascinating, they found some of the most annoying and dim witted film makers to focus most of their attention on, and then spliced together alot of crazy images and random old movie clips to fill it out. The highlight was an extended interview with Mark Borchardt of American Movie fame as he attempted to make a new movie. He is quoted in the film saying he wanted to finish it that year (2005) And I am happy to report that accourding to IMDB he completed his latest work a short three years late.

45. Hitman

Cashing in on successful video game franchises into movies has been a long and hard road for Hollywood. You could argue that they did alright with the Tomb Raider movies. I've never seen either one, but they did make two, so it couldn't have been that much of a loss for them. Hitman doesn't require you to know dick about the games and launches into a hitman for hire story that was very reminiscant to me of the Bourne series. There were plenty of awesome kills and over the top sex and violence to keep my adolescent brain intrigued, but it also did one of the things that I hate most in movies. They open the movie showing the Hitman breaking into his main rival's house and having a conversation. The rest of the movie is a flashback to what they went through together. So even if I thought for a second that Agent 47 wasn't going to live through the film, I knew from the get go that he at least survived until they get back to present time.

46. Wet, Hot, American Summer

I can't believe that I don't own this one. I will soon enough. We watched this one with a bunch of the Waycross kids that were stranded at our house for a few nights after the floods. Yes, it captures a lot of the quirks and situations at summer camps, bit it is also filled with raunch and hilarity. And a very solid cast.

47. The Aristocrats

Another one we watched with the Waycross crew. They wanted something funny, and I threw this one in. I think the boys enjoyed it, and the girls may have been slightly less enthusiastic about a film dedicated to the grossest things people can come up with, mostly which involve vagina's in some derogatory way or another. I loved it just as much as any other time I've seen it. It also reminded me of when I saw this in the theater with Joe. There was obviously some young couple a few rows ahead of us on an early date for them. They may have read about this small independent documentary and thought it would be good culture to take in. Neither of them were prepared for what was unleashed upon them. As they left shaking their heads in disgust, I could only rest happily with the knowledge that neither one of them would regard the other the same ever again.

So that catches me up on my movie count for the year. We survived the great flood of 08 with minimal damage and heartache. Right in the middle I turned 27, which is awesome. 27 has been my favorite lucky number for a long time. Duane Ferrell wore number 27 for the Pacers in the mid 90's and I was a fan of his. He wasn't the best player or the most accomplished on the team. Mostly a bench player, I really liked how he played and adopted him as my favorite underdog player. He only played for the Pacers for two seasons, but via a quick wikipedia search, I find that he played for three teams for 10 seasons in the NBA, and is currently working as the director of player programs for the Washington Wizards. You go Duane!!!

Anyhoo, back to 27. Now that I'm my favorite number in age, I feel that this next year will be an awesome one for me. Of course it helps that I'm getting married during this favorite year, but I also think it'll be good for other reasons.

On the kitteh front, Rouge came home tonight. Either she changed a lot from the last time we saw her, or Adie picked out the wrong picture from the internet, because she looks nothing like the picture Adie pulled off. But whatever, she's a kitten and a girl and she's here now with a name, so she's not going anywhere. Gambit had been playing pretty hard for about an hour before Adie came home with her, so I thought maybe he would be pretty chill once she got here. But oh no, that was hardly the case. He chased her and tackled her any chance he got. I let them go at it for about an hour so they could get used to each other, but then decided that enough was enough and locked up Gambit in the bedroom so she could chill a little and get used to the house. Initially, she seems a bit more laid back and chill when she's not being harassed by Gambit.

So the house is now complete and our family has doubled in size in the past three weeks. Alan is in the air on his way home for about three weeks. Tomorrow we are taking our Kansas City BBQ judging class. But I'll save that story for once we have been certified.

Waiting....for pizza

2008-06-01T20:00:00.000-07:00

The desperation is setting in. The walls seem as if they are inching closer in the night, waiting to silently crush me into powder, only to be snorted up like some kind of makeshift cocaine.

No matter how much I try, I fall farther and farther from the land of promise.

Of course I am refering to my movie quest. I have so many in the house that I've never watched. I just bought three more movies, on top of the 10 I downloaded this weekend. Torrent style.

I'm nearing the 110 mark. They keep piling up without a dent being put into them. And that doesn't include the Netflix and Library movies that I have readily available.

I've been reading a blog written by a guy who loves horror movies. He lives in LA and has ready access to many of the major studio's as well as a nice video store and home collection. He decided that he would watch a new horror movie every day and blog about what he thought. Not entirely unlike what I am attempting with my blog. But he does it EVERY DAY. And only horror movies. But he has a love for the medium and is devoting the time to it. Some would call him a madman that is entirely to wrapped up in his hobbies.

I say kudos's to him.

I watch alot of TV. I DVR reruns of Scrubs even though I have seen them all like 3 times. I'm currently watching one on TV as I type this. If I took even half that time out of my day and used it for the movie goal, I'd hit it easily.

And that's what I'm going to do.

Triple Play

2008-05-28T08:35:00.000-07:00

-I have fallen behind the pace on my movie count. No specific reason for it, but there are little things that are pulling my attention away from the quest. But yesterday I fired it up and took in 3 films.

1.Wire in the Blood: Synchronicity. Another fine performance from this BBC series. Entertaining and interesting. I'm glad I don't live with the fear of a random serial killer stricking in Bloomington.
2.The Vanishing. A French movie that was probably a lot more scary back in the 80's. The "twist" ending wasn't much of a twist by today's standards, but was entertaining enough. Again, glad I don't have negative encounters with sociopaths and psycho's.
3.Iron Man. We went to the theater for this early summer popcorn flick. Ian and Adie knew even less than I did about the Iron Man back story, and I knew very little. But the flick did a good job of explaining everything easily, and had enough of crazy shit blowing up to keep us all entertained. I'm surprised that the studio gave Jon Faverau 140 million to make this movie without him doing any kind of big blockbuster work before as a director, but he did excellent and set himself up to make more of the awesome comic book movies. It doesn't hurt his cause that the film as already gross'd 210 million domestically.

- We went to Julia's for the Memorial Day weekend. It's always a good time up there, and this weekend was no exception. They decided to have a "small" get together on Sunday. Their idea of small still includes around 20 people, with enough food then to feed about 50. I did get in a game of croquet which was marred by my overzealous need to "send" Julia's ball down the hill. In my attempt to do so, I nearly crushed the side of my foot with the hammer. That sucked. I then later played in 5 games of volleyball. I'm proud to report that I did ok by my standards. I served a few that weren't out of bounds, and I made a few hits that didn't hurt my team.

- We get to pick up Gambit tomorrow. He's getting his harblls cut off as I type this, and will be ready to recover in his new home. Rouge is still a bit under weight, and will probably be ready by next week.

- GTA 4 is one of the main detractors from my movie quest. I'm amazed at the amount of detail that has been poured into it. I think I've played it about 30 hours at this point, but only completed maybe 15% of the game. And it's always nice to be able to disgust Adie with whatever depraved thing I make Niko do.

Stuff and Junk and Things

2008-05-16T08:05:00.000-07:00

- Adie and I went to get kitteh supplies yesterday. Yes, we finally pulled the string and went and adopted two kittens from Nashville. They are still to small to bring home, but once they reach 2 pounds they can be fixed, and then brought home. So, we went to PetSmart to get all the necessities. Adie had her heart set on a specific box that had a lid and a special scoop notch and whatnot on the inside. Well, we couldn't find it and had to settle on one that was a step below. And she was seriously bummed out about it. But lo and behold as we were getting ready to leave, what was magically on display in the middle of the store, far away from the rest of the litter boxes, but the all powerful purple deluxe edition shit box. What a great day it turned out to be.

-Here are the adoption pictures of the little scamps. Gambit is on the left, and Rouge is on the right. They will be coming home in the next few weeks.

- I was driving around town the other day running some errands when I noticed a man approaching me riding on his motorcycle. I wouldn't have remembered this if he hadn't been wearing an oxygen tube with a tank strapped to his back. And of course no helmet. That guy has the biggest set of balls, but the smallest brain I have encountered in a long time.

-I'm heading to Louisville for the weekend. On top of seeing Kristen and Kevin, we'll be catching 2 Louisville Bats games. This will mark my first baseball games of the season. Many baseball bloggers have wagered that if the Reds played their AAA farm team the Bats, that the Bats would win hands down. So it should be a good time. They are playing the Indy Indians this weekend as well, so there is a bit of a hometown boy in me that will feel a bit bad about rooting for their demise, but I'll get over it. We also may try and make it to Churchill Downs to mourn the loss of that dead chick horse. If mourn meant bet on other horses and then leave without a second thought. That's what mourn means right? My vocab has suffered recently.

Dude, things happen.

2008-05-06T08:23:00.000-07:00

- I got poison ivy on my arm from transplanting some wild hosta's in Joan's yard into her "hosta garden" It sucks.

- There are two people that live in the house. I looked down this morning and saw 6 toothbrushes in the bathroom. I was knocked stupid for a few moments trying to understand why this could be. Then I remembered that Adie has what most people would refer to as "shark teeth."

-I watched Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay and Untraceable. Neither of which inspired me to write anything deep about them. Harold and Kumar was funny, which I expected. Untraceable was ok, until the final climactic scene which is jump started by the stupidest thing I have seen done by someone on screen in a very long time. Word to the wise, if you are being hunted down by a technological savvy killer who has just disabled your car's electrical functions rendering it useless, don't return to the car when it magically starts back up a few minutes later. You are just begging to be fucked with.

-I'm about a good hour's worth of work from being finished with school for this semester. Then I get to start summer classes on my birthday. But I'll have about a month off to recuperate. You know, from my extremely hard life. Boo Ya!

- The Reds still suck, but they did beat the Cubs last night. And they will have a chance to do it again tonight. I would almost be happy if the Reds never won a game except for every Cubs game.

Early Voting

2008-05-01T11:17:00.001-07:00

I did my part for society today by going downtown to vote early for the primary. I voted early so that I could avoid the throngs of people on Election day, but still maintain my presence during this primary. Considering this may be the only time in my life when Indiana has a primary that matters to the outcome of the nominations, I had to do it.

Upon my arrival at the designated early voting place, I was graced with some excellent karma by getting a parking spot right out front that had been reserved for early voters. Score 1 early for me. I was then greeted by a handful of campaingers who eagerly thrust pamphlets and pages of literature for me to read before I voted. I took their gifts with a smile, but kept to myself that I would only be voting in 2 catagories today, neither of which included who they were stumping for. I just don't feel right voting in a category such as judge or coroner or something where I have no idea who the people are.

Much to my suprise there were about 40 people in line ahead of me. I wasn't the only one who thought they could sneak in during the day. But the line was moving fairly smoothly so I wasn't to rattled by the outpouring of those eager to push buttons to decide the fate of our nation. That may be a bit over the top.

There was also a steady stream of people who queued up behind me as I made my way towoards the voting area. You had the choice of voting by machine or by paper ballot. It came as no suprise that many of the senior citizens chose the old fashioned paper ballot. I chose the machine.

I was led back to my machine by a man in his 60's who would go over the proper procedure of voting so that there would be no questions or concerns about improper voting. What followed was either the most brilliant subliminal voting influence ever, or innocuous chatter that he was forced to repeat over and over again all day. As he began to tell me how to vote, he told me that the computer would have the candidates lined up for me to vote on, and I could then simply press the button next to the name of who I wanted to vote for. As he told me this, he pointed to the button next to Obama's name. He then said that if I made a mistake and pressed the wrong button, I could simply press the button again, the X mark would be removed and I could then pick who I really wanted to vote for. As he said all this, he pointed towards the button next to Hillary's name.

I'm sure it meant nothing, but it if did, bravo voter helper guy. Let's hope your not so sublte gestures influences many voters over the next few days. I'll be sitting back come Tuesday and toasting you as I do whatever the hell I want instead of going out to vote.

Triple Double

2008-04-28T08:24:00.000-07:00

So, that review I promised on Monday. HERE IT COMES PEOPLE. And it's a 3 in 1 deal. Lucky for all of you.

The Mist

"As a species we're fundamentally insane. Put more than two of us in a room, we pick sides and start dreaming up ways to kill one another."
- Ollie Weeks

I would consider myself well versed in the realm of paranormal disaster situations. I've seen/read many things about zombies and have developed a personal plan should the dead ever rise again. The Mist deals with many of the same things, just replacing zombies with some really freaky monsters that like to eat humans.

Based on a novella by Stephen King, there are plenty of themes and human tension mixed in with some of the strangest and bizarre creatures I have ever seen. Most of the film takes place with a small town under siege from a thick mist with monsters hiding in it waiting to eat them if they go outside. A large section of the community is at the grocery store restocking after a large rain storm from the night before when the mist hits and they are trapped inside.

Placing the characters inside a grocery store from the very beginning solves one of the greatest problems in a disaster of monstrous proportions right off the bat. With tons of available food, no one has to worry to hard about the basic necessities. They are all clothed, have a roof over their heads, and have plenty of food. Because the basics are taken care of, the people are free to let their minds destroy themselves while waiting and fighting off the monsters.
The monsters are the obvious villains in the film, but the true villainy takes place between the factions of people trapped together and forced to survive together. Human nature will trump paranormal beasts in terms of brutality any day.

The scenes with the monsters are some of the most nerve wracking I have ever seen. I could tell my blood pressure was rising on many occasions, culminating with one of the most intense and heartbreaking endings I have ever seen in movies.
This is a really good and thought provoking movie that was pigeon holed into being a horror flick because of the original material. And it has plenty of scares and gore. But it's not just cheap scares and flashy blood.

Forgetting Sarah Marshall

"I just went from Six to Midnight!"
-Mathew the Waiter

Another great comedy from the Apatow Gang. Really, really funny with just enough absolutely over the line humor to keep me engaged.

Dealing with breakups are common fodder for movies, but they are usually from the woman's perspective. This movie tells the tale of an overly sensitive composer who gets dumped by his famous girlfriend and can't quite shake it.

Jason Segel plays the main character with just enough whiny cry baby sniveling to make him attractive to the ladies. Some of the funniest parts of the film are his facial expressions and reactions to seeing his ex girlfriend over and over.

The movie culminates with a great scene featuring the puppet Dracula musical that is a main plot point. Rumor has it that based on this scene alone, the director and writers have been asked to make the next muppet movie. Which would be awesome.
Word of warning, there is man dangle repeatedly in the film. So be prepared.

Superhero Movie

"I can't breathe, your kneeling on my balls"
- Uncle Al

When this originally came out, I had read a few reviews that this was the best spoof movie to come out in the past few years. After seeing this last night, I think that's like being called the fastest swimmer with no arms or legs. It's just not that much of a compliment.

The one thing this film had going for it was that it stayed away from lots of pop culture references that will date it years down the road. Of course this is assuming anyone watches it years from now.

I may have laughed 3 times during this record breaking 1 hour and 10 minute "movie" You can also discount 2:30 minutes out of that for the opening credits. It did succeed in parodying super hero movies, but only because that over half the scenes were shot for shot remakes of scenes from Spiderman 1 and 2 and X-men 1 and 2.

It did have a cameo by Tracy Morgan, so at least that's something.

The scary thing about these spoof movies is that they seem to always make money, which means they will also always be made. According to IMDB, the budget for this was 35 million. I can't imagine what the hell they spent it on. But, it made close to $33 million worldwide in theaters. So all it has to do is sell half a million DVD's and there is a profit for the studio. Even if they make a few million off of each of these shit films, they keep pumping it out.

Tidbii

2008-04-21T17:46:00.000-07:00

- I was chastised today for not blogging enough. Oddly enough it was by someone who themselves has slowed down in their blogging habbits. Suck on that one unnamed chastiser. So here is an update.

-Adie and I were invited to a screening of a documentary on Friday night. Adie's teacher friend's husband is a professor at IU who also produces documentaries. This was a near completed version of his latest doc about Veterans of the Vietnam War who have children in the Iraq War. It was well produced and thought provoking even in it's incomplete state. There was one of the Iraq vets who appeared in the film at the screening. He is a student at IU and was a very nice guy. Adie and I chatted with him after the film. He's a veteran, but younger than me. I'm thankful for those that chose to go into the armed service. It means I don't have to.

- We have a busy few weeks ahead of us. We are going to a wedding this coming weekend. Adie is going to another rowing meet the following weekend. Two weeks after that is the last rowing meet in Tennessee. I'm going to be turning up the tv and fan extra loud.

- I was hoping that it was just nothing, but Adie found mouse poo in the kitchen the last two days. It's more than a coincidence. So we purchased the old school traps and some poison today. If I thought there was any chance of us catching the thing alive I would, but having never seen any of it except it's leavings, the chances are slim.

- The Reds still suck. I could go on, but I think I've summed it up pretty well.

-That's all for tonight. I'll have a fresh review of the film I took in today in the morning.

Tidbits

2008-04-15T09:31:00.000-07:00

I realize that I have not updated in a while about what's been going on outside of my movie watching. Rather than try and type out a coherent post with some semblance of a story to tell, I'm just going to give some bullet points about what's been going through my head recently.

- I go through fazes in my life where I fixate on a certain food item and crave it constantly. For a time after high school I would go to Morgantown IGA at least 3 times a week and buy a pound of hamburger. I would fire up the George Foreman when I got home and eat every bit of the meat. Of course I would be so full that I wouldn't eat dinner. And this went on for months. I still could eat Hamburgers most every day. In fact I'll probably make some tonight.
Currently my obsession is Corned Beef. Kroger has had it on sale the past two weeks, trying to get rid of their stock after St. Patrick's Day. It's fairly cheap, and easy to cook. I've made 2 roasts in the past 10 days, and once again, may go and buy one to cook today. Daddy Joe told me yesterday that Shapiro's has upped their prices on their corned beef sandwiches to $10. Their beef is the best I have ever had, but I can get close to five pounds and cook it at home for that price. bargain baby.
- I have seen the Reese's peanut butter commercial featuring the Easter chocolate bunny dipping itself into the peanut butter. It seemed like a really good idea. I tried it yesterday. It sucked. False marketing.
- Adie is chaperoning a field trip through school at bradford woods. She was gone last night, and again tonight. This will affect my sleep schedule until she returns. One of my main reasons for never taking a nap is that I'm constantly paranoid about sleeping in an empty house. I end up having really paranoid dreams about someone breaking in.
It makes me feel better if anyone else is in the house. But without that I have a hard time falling asleep. It didn't help last night that I had two pepsi's with dinner and the caffine kicked in at around 11pm. I know it's completely irrational, but I hate sleeping in an empty house.
- The Reds lost 3 in a row to the Pirates. inexcusable. It's gonna be a long season if they can't score consistently. On the flip side from last season, the pitching is vastly improved and have only been blown out in one game. All the rest of the losses are in close games where no one can score. Either way they are still playing .500 ball.
- I can't wait for the NBA season to be over. Then Fox Sports Indiana will start showing lots more Red's games instead of Pacer games. The pacers suck. Hopefully they dodge the odds and get a decent draft pick this year.

That's all I can think of for now. It's halfway through April and it's still cold. Spring will be a short season this year.

30 Days of Night

2008-04-15T09:23:00.000-07:00

Another film that I knew I would love, was told I would love, but still managed to miss in the theaters. I think I would have enjoyed this one even more on the big screen with the good sound system.

Regardless this film hits lots of my criteria for enjoying a horror film. The vampires here are unlike any that I've seen in films. I really enjoyed their teeth. Instead of having the requisite two fang system, the vamps in this film were outfitted with all their teeth being sharpened. Imagine a set of shark teeth, and you are getting close.

The vamps were also much more savage and focused than in other tales. Gone are the romanticized Victorian sexually charged bad guys. These vampires just want to feed, and as quickly as possible.

There's some pretty gruesome stuff going on here, but it never goes into the realm of "pop up" horror. There's a lot to be frightened by without it popping up from off screen to get a cheap scare.

I also enjoyed this film because it had similar elements to The Thing. Bleak landscape. Weather as an enemy. And an unknown force threatening the good guys.

The Devil & Daniel Johnston/The Darjeeling Limited

2008-04-10T07:27:00.001-07:00

I had two nextflix films, both with THE as the title. Spooky?

I decided to knock them both out on Monday in a fit of non-inspiration to do anything else. I have also fallen a smidge behind on schedule to keep up with my goal. So knocking two movies out in one day is a way to kick start the system. Of course I haven't watched anything else since then, so whatever. I did read a book for class in under two hours, so that was nice.

Anyway, we'll start with The Devil & Daniel Johnston. Daniel Johnston is a folk/indie artist who debuted on the Austin, TX scene in the early 80's. He was quickly accepted as a genius song writer and revered as almost royalty. He also was a severe manic depressive that had delusions of the devil infesting everything in his life. Raised as a Christian, these themes of angels and devils would continue to haunt him. He bounced around different mental hospitals all while recording an extensive catalog of his own music.

In one telling scene as Daniel prepares for his return to Austin after many years away, he decides to go off his medications because he knows that his performances will be more emotinal and raw if he is off of them. At this time his father is touring with him, acting as manager and giving Daniel his medicine. Daniel is secretly not taking them. On the plane ride back to their home, which was being piloted by Daniel's father in their small two seater plane, Daniel is delusional and thinks he is Casper. He takes the keys out of the plane and throws them out the window. He overpowers his father and forces the plane into a dive before letting go in time for dad to take back over the controls and crash into some trees. Both survived with minor injuries.

This was a very well put together doc about Daniel and his musical genius, but it also didn't try and hide or glamorize his condition. It talked and showed the many bad effects that mental illness can have on a person and their loved ones if it goes untreated.

Second up was Wes Anderson's The Darjeeling Limited. I am a big fan of all of Anderson's earlier works. I think he puts together stories with a real sense of heart and feeling along with an incredibly quirky sense of humor and timing.

This film though is my least favorite of his. It isn't a bad film, but I had higher expectations due to his previous work. Maybe a second viewing will help out, but it was hard to connect or see any subtlety in these charachters.

The three brothers are all emotionally stunted and it shows in the first half of the film. There are some funny moments, but overall it felt like I was being beaten over the head with the idea that these men had suffered something in their lives to stunt them emotionally. Over and over again I was hit with this, which is not subtle at all. About halfway there is the "climactic" scene where the brothers all endure a test of sorts and are instantly changed after.

It just seemed to obvious and forced of a point. It defiantly failed to charm me like Rushmore or Royal Tennenbaums. It is obviously an Anderson film, and I applaud him for shooting on location in India and working outside of his comfort zone. Unfortunatly by stepping out of that zone, the story suffered a bit because of it.

Quick note to all you readers out there. An update on the steps challenge As we enter the 4th month my step requirements have increased to 7500 3 times a week. I went yesterday to the Y and did 5000 steps as well as biking 4 miles. I'm counting that as meeting the requirement. k thx.

Where have all the Merrymakers Gone?

2008-04-07T07:49:00.000-07:00

I haven't updated in a while because I really haven't done a whole hell of a lot. I did watch Sweeney Todd again. I liked it just as much the second time as I did the first time. I noticed the score alot more and how they used it to enforce what was going on in the scenes. I don't mean the actual songs, but the score.

So there was much fervor created around the house this week. Jula was down visiting for a few days when the news broke that Dave Matthews/Tim Reynolds would be doing a free show in support of Barack. All you had to do to get tickets was wait large ammounts of time to get your free tickets, and then wait another equally long amount of time to get into the show. Will, being a die hard fan, of course waited about 8 hours to score his two free tickets, but could not come up with anymore. Jula struck out down here, as we found out about it in time for the second day of ticket give away. By that time there were few left, and waiting in line would have been futile.

Fast forward to yesterday. I take Jula and Will to Assembly Hall around 1pm. Doors are supposed to open at 5:30 for the 7pm show. I thought this may be a tad early for them to go wait, but they wanted to get a good seat. Little did I realize that there would be around 2000 people already lined up. One of Will's friends from PU had been there since 10am, and was 7th in line. I drop them off and wish them luck. Ironically I was going to the library to change my voter district so that I could vote in the primary after I dropped them off. While I was in the library, I missed the call from jula. They had let a nice couple from Ft. Wayne cut in line with them and hang out. They had an extra two tickets that friends of theirs wouldn't be using and wondered if Will and Jula knew anyone that needed some tickets. According to Adie she about pissed her pants when jula called her with the news.

Adie and I rolled up around 5pm to a sea of people who were staggering around, attempting to look like a line, but effectively forming one giant, drunk tapeworm snaking itself all around the sports complexes of IU. Every once in a while there would be a small surge as the two lines would condense, but all in all it was just futile motions before the doors opened. I did get to witness one of the most forceful vomiting I had ever seen. A lady who had obviously imbibed a bit to much while waiting discretely tried to go hide behind some bushes to relieve her stomach of it's poison. Of course the bushes are only about shin high, so it didn't offer her much in the way of a shield. It started out as barely a trickle of what appeared to be rum and cokes, mixed with a little orange juice. But soon enough a geyser erupted from her went on for a full three heaves. Best of all, all the janitors had gathered on the second level from inside and were laughing their asses off watching her chuck in the grass. Not their problem obviously.

We ended up making it into Assembly Hall pretty quickly and ended up with pretty good seats. About 20 rows off the floor, right where midcourt would be. Had a nice angle on the stage. The show was pretty awesome. Dave was high as shit and was spouting off all kinds of hilarious shit. He talked about his son having a penis, exploding puppies, and fucking with his defenseless baby. And Tim Reynolds may only be about 5 feet tall, but he can wail on an acoustic guitar like no one I have ever seen live.

While at the show, it got me to thinking about other awesome concerts that I had seen. So here is my top 10 shows that I have seen in no particular order. If I can remember a funny anecdote about each, they will also follow.

1. Cake (murat egyptian room sometime 2004ish. I'm so good with dates)
Rob and I scored tickets to go see Cake. We got there pretty early to get a good spot in line so we could be close to the stage. This would kick start a streak where we would get really close to the stage for almost every general admission show we went to. Opening for Cake was a band called Beulah. We imediatly thought their name was dumb, and when they came out to play, we didn't think much higher of them. They had a weird sound, used two keyboardists, and their lead guitar player would also play the trumpet from time to time. We laughed about how they sucked, but of course as soon as we got home that night we started downloading some of their stuff. Pretty quickly they became one of our favorite bands and they still get heavy airplay through my speakers. And Cake was awesome. Seen them at least 3 times too.

2. Beulah (somewhere in Ohio 2005ish.)
Beulah was touring solo this time and it was rumored that it would be their last tour before breaking up. Of course Rob and I had to go to catch them one more time. We of course got there super early again, partly due to the time change that we hadn't factored in. We ended up being first in line. We heard most of the sound check from outside, and ended up front and center for an awesome show capped off by Rob and I getting taken up on stage to accompany the band on "Score from Augusta" Beulah was taking requests, and we won out with our suggestion. We even got pics from on stage during the song. The keyboard player grabbed our camera mid song and took a few shots of us with the crowd behind us. Probably the coolest thing that has ever happened to me at a show.

3. Foo Fighters/That Dogg (Murat Egyption Room 1996.)
My first concert that I wanted to go to. This was in support of the Foo's first concert and it was awesome. This would be the first of 3 times I have seen the Foo's.

4. Smashing Pumpkins/Muse (Assembly Hall 1997)
Smashing Pumpkins are in my top five bands of all time, and were definatly my favorite band at the time of this tour. This was the Mellon Collie tour, and they tore the house down. Probably their last good album before Billy Corgan got all industrial and experimental. Heavy on the Mental.

5. Red Hot Chilli Peppers/Foo Fighters (Assembly Hall/Deer Creek 1998)
This was two shows on the same tour. Though they were about three months apart. Great shows both times. Saw "Soul To Squeeze" performed live. Probably my favorite song ever, so knock that off the list.

6. TV on the Radio (The Vouge 2007)
Once again, I got to the show super early to get a good spot. This time it was with Adie, and we ran into Kelly Youck and her friend. We ended up about three rows back center once the crowd pushed forward. TVOTR are amazing, and put on a hard energetic show that didn't disapoint. Adie had never heard them before the show, but I made her go anyway. She thanked me later.

7. Old Crow Medicine Show ( Music Mill 2007)
Joe and I scored tickets for this show. While the Music Mill has awesome acoustics, the place itself is rather weird. But the show made up for it. The band played basically two whole seperate sets with a small break in the middle.

8. Nickel Creek (Axis 2006)
Front row center again. They put on an awesome show live. They played a cover of Britnay Spears "Toxic" which was awesome. And their bass player put on an awesome clogging routine.

9. Jimmy Eat World/ Tenacious D/ Weezer (Illinois State University 2005ish)
Got to fufill one of my goals and saw Weezer perform "Only in Dreams" live. Plus that lineup is killer. I would pay to see each of those acts individually, so lump them together and we are sitting pretty. Another great show Rob and I caught together. We logged a lot of miles in the Raspberry Dragon to see shows.

10. White Stripes (Murat Theatre 2006ish)
A sit down affair in the main theatre at the Murat. We had awesome seats, I believe 4th row center. It was amazing to watch up close how just two people can produce such a big sound. This was right after Hurricane Katrina and Jack did a haunting cover of "House of the Rising Sun" on the piano. We had seen them the year before in the Egyptian Room which was also an awesome show. That was the show that the speaker output cracked the plaster in the ceiling. But I liked the second show better. Mostly because there was no moshing due to the seats.

Honourable Mention: Beulah in Tennesee on their true farewell Tour, last night's Dave/Tim show, Kevin Smith, Comedians of Comedy, Lewis Black/Mitch Hedburg/Dave Attel, Cake/Cheap Trick.

This has turned into a short novel. I'm done now.

Much Ado; Nothing Done

2008-03-30T12:26:00.000-07:00

Taking stock today of the movies and video games that I have that I have never completed/watched. So far here are the totals:

94 Movies
34 video games spanning 5 systems

I've lost the handle. Must regain composure. Gonna be busy for a while.

I-40 Dreams

2008-03-30T10:06:00.000-07:00

While rocketing home at roughly 80 miles an hour somewhere in texas I had a musical dream where I was singing the following song.

"Why's my friend Ellen Page so fat?
Cause she's going to have a baby
She had some sex and now she's fat
She's gonna have a baby"

Birds take flight

2008-03-17T14:58:00.000-07:00

I leave tomorrow morning for my trip out west. Lou and I are driving out in his Pathfinder. Lou is going to take lots of pictures of trains and deserts, and we'll meet up with Alan. We are all going to Laughlin to watch the first round of the NCAA's. After that we may head to Phoenix for some spring training. We'll see.

I'm looking forward to watching the tourney this year. It should have lots of good games. IU shit the bed and will get served up to UNC in the second round. I can't say it's not deserved after the Big 10 tourney debacle.

Lou picked up a new inverter for the car so we can run our laptops and whatnot when we are driving. That, coupled with the huge back seats that lay down into almost a full sized bed, we should be rollin in style. Hopefully the 24 hours there go by quickly. This will be like my 5th time traveling Highway 40.

I'm taking a bunch of movies to hopefully watch on the way there and back. But we'll see how that goes. It will be nice traveling with the laptop so I can maintain my high addiction to the internet. My first money league Fantasy Baseball draft is on Thursday. I have another one on Saturday.

I did win gas money down at Caeser's this past weekend, so that started the week off right. Spring break here I come!!!

A Player to be Named Later

2008-03-16T15:04:00.000-07:00

This was a documentary that I found at the library that followed the Indianapolis Indians during the 2000 season. It focused on a group of five players that all had the potential to make it to the big leagues and their struggles to get there.

There is a huge difference for these players from playing Triple A ball and in the big leagues. The pay increase is a huge bonus. But the pressure that is relieved once they arrive to the majors is one of the biggest rewards they get.

There's also a bizarre feeling for managers and owners of minor league teams. While they want to have a good team and win, they are at the mercy of the major league teams they are affiliated with reguarding what players they get and for how long. You could be putting a nice run together and trying to win their championship and your best guys can be taken away from you at any time.

Alot of the managers and higher ups that were running the Indians at the time said repeatedly that their first priority was player development, and not win's and losses. But I can't see how you can be brought up all your life to play a game to win, and then hit a ceiling where you are instructed and expected to disregard everything you knew before and not care about winning and losing. No matter how good a player you are, if you are trying to become a better player I think it would be really difficult to stay positive if your team keeps losing.

I always assumed that if you were playing professional sports you were making alot of money. But the truth is that most of the players in the minors make about $40k a year in AAA ball. They play 144 games in 150 games. There is just no let up to their schedule. While $40k doesn't a pauper make, but it's far from well off. I was also surprised that most major league analysts predict only 6% of players that are drafted in baseball ever make it to the major leagues. Even smaller of that percentage actually maintain their careers in the majors.

The numbers are a huge obstacle to overcome if you are a young guy hoping to play pro ball one day.

It was a pretty entertaining doc that showed some of the ups and downs of pro ball. And I do loves me some good doc's.

42nd Street Forever vol. 1 and Hatchet

2008-03-09T10:00:00.000-07:00

I get alot of my obscure Netflix suggestions through Aint It Cool News. They ran an article around the time that Grindhouse was coming out on DVD about this collection of trailers from the 70's and 80's called 42nd. Street Forever. I'm assuming that this is referring to some kind of old movie theater. At least that is what is on the cover.

What it really is about is 2 hours of trailers for all kinds of movies. They are loosely grouped together by genre and just go one after the other. There is sexploitation comedies, slasher horror, racial exploitation, euro sleeze, and old west genres that are explored here. Watching this many trailers back to back, about 30 in all, I started to feel a bit burnt out by the end, but damn were there some doozys packed in there.

What most impressed me were the tactics that the horror movies used to draw audiences in. There were many trailers that warned the viewer not to go to the movies alone, or that the filmmakers would pay a $2000 insurance policy to the family of anyone that dropped dead from fright during their movie. I would watch every single horror movie they featured on this collection. They appeal to my most base of entertainment values. And I think that the modern age of movies is missing the showmanship that these trailers put forth. I defiantly feel that I grew up in the wrong age when it comes to trash horror flicks.

There are two more of these collections to watch, but I'm going to space them out so I don't get burned out.

In the same vein as trash horror, I purchased a movie called Hatchet a while back when it was on sale. I had read some reviews of this on AICN and they said it was a modern slasher that featured every characteristic of the by gone cheesy horror that I loved. It didn't hurt that it also featured an all star cast of horror movies. Freddy, Candyman, one of the Jason's, and one of the guys from The Blair Witch were all in there.

We watched this with Adie, Ian, myself, and Katie. We were not disappointed as there were some extremely gruesome and over the top deaths within the first five minutes, some boobs following shortly after that, and then once the rest of the killing started up, it never stopped until the end. Everyone but Katie seemed to be enjoying the awesome gross fest that was unfolding on the screen. Repeatedly Ian and I were forced to High 5 after some particularly new and awesome way of killing people off. Katie was just confused and seemed a bit worried to be hanging out with such degenerates.

The thing that draws me to these kinds of scary movies is that while they are bloody and violent, they are usually so over the top with the violence and gore, it isn't believable. While I can enjoy movies like Hostel or Saw, it is much more cringe inducing as they strive to portray realistic and brutal deaths.

I rank Hatchet well up there on movies I have enjoyed this year. I'm still carrying a really hefty batting average for movies that I have seen in the theater this year. The bottom of the list would probably have to be Be Kind, Rewind or Step up 2:The Streets. And I really enjoyed both of those films. I'm really going to have to go out and see some shit films to bring the average down a bit. And for the record, I'm up to 25 movies for the year. A bit over the average I need to hit the magic 120. But I anticipate that number to grow mightily in the next few weeks.

Be Kind, Rewind & There Will Be Blood (2nd viewing)

2008-03-05T18:15:00.000-08:00

I had been anticipating Be Kind, Rewind since I first heard of the premise about a year ago. I think that Michel Gondry has an amazing imagination and knack for creating interesting and new visual styles. While this is one of his more mainstream and commercial films, he still finds ways to sneak in his unique skew on the visual medium.

That said, his script here could defiantly have used some polish. While it was entertaining and funny in parts, it failed to stand up by on it's own. While it was an enjoyable movie that sent up some classic films well, it could have been so much more with some tweaking and polishing of the script.

Jack Black and Mos Def work well together in thier roles. I think that Mos Def is an under used talent.

Gondry has excellent talent and just needs to partner up with some good writers to get his ideas out.

I also forced Adie to go see TWBB. I wanted to see it again and used the fact that she didn't go with me the first time as an excuse. I still feel like this is one of the best pieces of film I have seen, and it just ran into bad luck running into No Country for Old Men when it came to all the awards. I really noticed the beautifully shot landscapes as well as some of the scathing writing. The first time through it I was just blown away by Daniel Day Lewis' performance, but upon seeing it a second time, I knew what was coming and could enjoy and listen more attentively. PTA has turned a corner I think in his film making and writing style. Unfortunately for him I highly doubt he'll be able to land Daniel Day Lewis for every movie he writes from here on out, but I could be wrong.

Murder Party

2008-03-02T17:51:00.000-08:00

I can't remember where I heard about this movie. It may have been "recommended" to me by netflix and their crack formula or recommendations. It may have been from one of the few movie websites I frequent. Either way, my thanks go out to whoever or whatever steered me towards it.

I have seen plenty of "bad horror" movies in my life. A great deal of my social time with my friends from high school revolved around finding and watching new ones that we hadn't seen. We developed bets on how many boobs would be exposed during the movies, who would die and how, or other random bits of entertainment. I still talk about "House of the psychotic women" which was neither full of psycho's or women. In fact there was only one killing during that whole abomination, and it occurred off camera. But I digress.

Murder Party is set around Halloween. A group of psycho art students have decided to kidnap and kill a stranger. Who ever comes up with the "best" way to do so gets a grant from some rich art lover that they all know. Some lonely and sad individual finds the invitation to the murder party and decides to go sinc ehe has nothing better to do. Of course he doesn't know that he is going to be killed if he goes.

Once he arrives they tie him up and the rest of the movie unfolds basically in the confines of the warehouse they have holed up in. From here there lots of genuine laughs and scares. There are some new special effects that I had not seen utilized before. This movie achieved every criteria I have for an enjoyable "bad" horror movie.

Goofy ways people die. CHECK
Sight Gags. CHECK
Boobs. CHECK
Semi-realistic blood. CHECK
Intentional and Unintentional laughs. CHECK

The really cool part was after the movie I was watching some of the special features and they had a bit about how most of the actors and the director of Murder Party have been friends since elementary school and have been making their own home movies since then. It reminded me of "Pinky the Shadow Duster" that my friends and I all filmed one Thanksgiving break long ago.

Inspiration

2008-02-28T19:33:00.000-08:00

I haven't updated on what I have been doing or the steps challenge for a few weeks. Having my computer "break down" hampered my creative juices for a bit. But now we are back on track.

The saga of the great laptop malfunction of 08 will go down as an exercise in futility. I noticed some odd occurrences with the computer one evening and while the machine wasn't functioning any differently, I still wanted to take it in to get looked at to be on the safe side. It is under warranty through Best Buy so I took it in there. First of all there only seemed to be one competent computer person there, and she was busy trying to explain Quicken to an elderly woman who just wasn't getting it. It was obvious to me she wanted to just slam the woman's face in the copy machine, but she was trying her best to remain calm and in control. The "geek" who was helping me out constantly checked in with this girl. She was obviously the leader of the squadron.

She graciously would slide over every so often and boot away the lackey and try and help me. She had good ideas and seemed to grasp what was wrong. As she attempted to roll back the machine to an earlier date's settings to try and fix whatever was wrong, the computer popped up a message that said the C: drive was corrupt. She said that it appeared the hard drive was busto, and I would need another one. This is covered under my warranty so I wasn't to upset. I took the computer home and backed up all my music and files on my brand new external hard drive and took it back in for repairs. They said this would take about 3 days and everything would be right as rain.

I got a call back from them 2 days later and they said they ran their diagnostics on the machine and the hard drive checked out as fine. They then concluded that it was a software problem, which isn't covered under warranty, and that I would need to re-install Windows Vista and all the drivers. I could of course have them do it for around $120. I chose to do it myself.

After re-installing windows, which took about 2 hours, I needed to update all the drivers and whatnot to get everything working properly. I sat perched in my recliner with the computer as it always is trying in vain for the next four hours to get the wireless adapter to function. It wouldn't because I couldn't get online to download the new driver for it. I went round and round in my head trying to figure out what I could do to get the driver to the computer. I don't fancy myself as a tech guru. But I do consider myself passable at such matters. Entering hour four at about the point of snapping the computer in half and going to get a new one (which is covered under my "accidental" warranty) it finally dawned on me that the laptop has an ethernet port. I walked the 10 feet into the office, ran a chord from the router to the computer. 10 seconds later a little message popped up asking me if I wanted to update windows. In these updates came all the drivers that I needed. It took about 20 minutes to download them all.

Since then it has been status quo for me around here. I missed a day on the steps last week, so I'm going to go four times this week. I have already done three, and will hit up the gym tomorow more than likely. For those keeping track

Day 1 (monday) 5800 steps
Day 2 (wednesday) 8400 steps This was around 6k at the Y, the rest came from walking around in the library and downtown with Adie
Day 3 (thursday) 5800 steps

I ran into Ian tonight at the Y. He seemed surprised to see me. I was not surprised by his surprise though. It's kinda rare to see fat men at the gym. Most of the people I see there are either elderly people, people who are already skinny and are working out to stay that way, or girls who think they fat but usually aren't. I would say only about 10% of the people I see there are truly fat.

I typically go during the day when it is less busy. I had been super lazy all day today though and thought I should at least do something productive for the day. Ian was trying out the Y here. We lifted together for a little before I went back to doing my cardio work and he kept on lifting. He also introduced me to the other Ben Smith who was there also. It was a little BC reunion.

While running on the treadmill can suck at times, it sucks being out of shape even more. While I don't feel any skinnier and don't notice a difference in my endurance, I am motivated to go. And it's more than just this year's bet. And it's not even to get in shape for the wedding. It's just about damn time. I put off being active for far to long and finally have the time that I can devote to going. I actually kinda look forward to going tomorrow, which will be three days in a row. That will defiantly be the most I have ever gone to the gym in a row, or in a week.

So that's what's been going on for me the past few weeks. A computer glitch that caused almost a week of headaches. Some sub par movies. And sweat. And jiggling. Lots of sweat and Jiggling.

Touch of Evil: Pupil of Murder

2008-02-28T19:31:00.000-08:00

Another BBC drama. This one sucked huge. Totally predictable plot that was way over acted and delivered nothing new or fresh. And Robson Green, who plays the lead in most of the BBC stuff I watch and is quite good in The Wire in the Blood series, was laying turds throughout this one. Utterly forgettable and boring.

Step Up 2, Step Up, Because I said So

2008-02-25T09:54:00.000-08:00

I felt it was important with the Oscars approaching to bulk up on movies that fall far short of the academies awards.

We saw Step Up 2 on valentines day after a full meal of sit down service at the White Castle. It was also opening night for this film, and the theater was actually quite full. Now, I had not seen Step Up at this time, but felt confident that I would be able to keep up on the plot. While I cannot say that this was a great movie, it was entertaining and I enjoyed it. That's not to say that it wasn't filled with cliche's and stereotypes aplenty, but it had flashy dancing and some funny parts.

A week or so later we caught up on the story with Step Up. It is hard to imagine why they decided they needed another entry into this series after the first sucked so badly. It was boring, the dancing was terrible, there were way to many stupid montages, and the main girl in the movie wore the absolutely stupidest wardrobe I have ever seen. Props though to Lou that called who was going to get killed to catapult the last act way in advance. While I was hoping that he was right, I just didn't see a movie that had striven so hard to be boring and bland throwing in some random violence.

Adie got Because I said So from Netflix because it had Lauren Graham in it and it was girly. I watched it with her while I was fixing my computer so that I could pad my movie stats a little bit. Now I can admit that "chick flicks" rarely cross my path, and rarely do they actually entertain me. It's been known to happen though. This was not one of those times. Not only was the plot so contrived and filled with HUGE holes in logic, it was just stupid. It was obvious from the start how it was going to end, but took over an hour to get to the point that was obvious from the get go. It wasn't funny or new, so I label this one a huge pile of dud.

Oscar Picks

2008-02-23T14:02:00.000-08:00

We are having people over tomorow for the Oscar's and I wanted to get my picks out there before the awards start. I usually watch the show reguardless of who is nominated or hosting out of habit, but now that Jon Stewart is hosting and I actaully have seen and enjoyed alot of the movies that are nominated, I am looking forward to this year. So here are my picks. We'll see how well I do.

Best Picture - No Country for Old Men
Best Actor - Daniel Day Lewis in There Will be Blood
Best Actress - Ellen Page in Juno
Best Supporting Actor - Javier Bardem in No Country for Old Men
Best Supporting Actress - Cate Blanchett in I'm Not There
Best Director - Coen Brothers for No country For old Men
Best Adapted Screenplay - No Country for Old Men
Best Original Screenplay - Juno
Cinematography - There Will Be Blood
Editing - No Country for Old Men
Art Direction - Sweeney Todd
Costume Design - Elizabeth: Golden Age
Make Up - Pirates of the Caribbean
Score - Ratatouille
Song - Something from Enchanted (cop out pick. I don't give a rat's ass, and they got 3 out of 5 noms. Play the odds people)
Sound - No Country
Visual Effects - Pirates of the Caribbean
Foreign Language - Mongol
Best Animated Feature - Ratatouille
Documentary - No end in sight
Documentary Short - Salim Baba
Best Animated Short - Meme les pigeons vont au paradis
Best Short Feature - The Tonto Woman

I'm completely guessing on the short and animated categories. I have no clue about most of the films. I picked all 24 major categories. I feel confident on about half of them.

Warranty

2008-02-21T14:23:00.000-08:00

Thank god Daddy Joe convinced me to get the full warranty on my laptop. Yes, I have succumbed to the laptop blues. Only a scant three months has gone by since the purchase of my new laptop, and the hard drive has found a way to corrupt itself. Peer pressure and the readily available elicit drugs are the most likely culprits.

I noticed that something was wrong with the start menu and task bar last night and took it in to Best Buy for a diagnostic. While they are not my first option for computer work, it is where I bought it and have the warrenty through. After ademently telling the people that I didn't download some virus over and over again, they found the problem of the C: drive having corrupt sectors on it. While the computer still seemed to run fine, it was something that needed to be fixed. Of course this meant replacing the hard drive and losing whatever was on there.

Best Buy was gracious enough to offer to back up everything for me for about $170 bucks. But since it was still working I took it home and formulated a plan. I went and bought a 500 gig external hard drive for $110 and transfered my files and music over. I had thought about getting and external HD back when I got the laptop to transfer files over from the old pc to the new, but decided that I didn't need an external HD and just bought a $50 program/cable pack to transfer everything. My luck is running good.

So after running to the far east side for the diagnostic, home, the far west side for the HD, home, and then back to the far east side to drop the thing off for repairs I am ready to crash and burn. Thankfully it's a hardware problem and is fully covered under the warranty and will cost me nothing but a few days without my computer. Not the end of the world. But it didn't make for the happiest of Thursdays.

Gluttony

2008-02-19T12:03:00.000-08:00

I have been telling people that I have hit a wall in the past few months when it comes to my DVD buying. It is my one true vice that holds over me. My DVD's were the first thing I unpacked when we moved. My collection is one of the only things that I categorize and alphabetize in my life. It is the "fad" that has taken hold of me the longest.

But my DVD buying comes with some self-enforced rules. I rarely buy new movies when they come out. I will only buy a movie at "full" price if it is something I am really excited about. And I say "full" because I would only buy them the first week they come out when they are cheaper. Most of the time I wait until stuff I want either is on sale used at Blockbuster or Netflix, find stuff at the pawn shops, or the cheap stuff at Best Buy.

In the past few months I have hit a wall though. Waiting for new releases that I want to be cheap takes about two or three months. I typically will get my fix by getting cheap stuff from Best Buy. But everything they are putting on sale I either don't want or already have. As recently as this weekend I lamented the fact that my collection isn't getting any better.

Well, I overcame the cold sweats and shakes this week. I went and lost my fool mind. Combined with some Amazon sales and a 50% off sale at Blockbuster I procured

1. Barton Fink
2. Miller's Crossing
3. Titus
4. 3:10 to Yuma
5. Hannibal Rising
6. Shoot Em' Up
7. Resident Evil: Extinction
8. Once
9. Gilmore Girls season 7
10. Kids in the Hall season 1
11. Kids in the Hall season 2
12. Kids in the Hall season 3
13. Kids in the Hall season 4
14. King of Kong
15. Hatchet
16. Because Stone Cold Said So (3 disc set)

On top of that, I fed my newest vice. I got 4 new autographed Reds Baseballs.

I think G Dubz would be proud. I am pre-spending my stimulus package money on frivolous items. But fuck it. Dumbass shouldn't give money to dumbass people and not expect dumbass decisions to be made because of it.

The King of Kong

2008-02-15T08:15:00.000-08:00

This is the best documentary that I have seen in a long time. I don't just say that because it revolves around competing to get the highest recorded score on Donkey Kong. I say it because it plays out like a Bond film. There are heroes and villains. There is treachery, deceit, and frustration. There is vindication and rallying moments. But, it isn't a work of fiction. That makes it all the better when it hits home. The filmmakers knocked it out of the park with this by making a doc that plays like a feature.

The main villain, Billy Mitchell, is a man that has become a cartoon character. Establishing himself as the premier pac man and donkey kong player back in the 80's, Mitchell began assembling a following of fellow dweebs who looked at him as the next 8-bit messiah. He put up astronomical scores on games that were very popular at the time, and either still holds or until very recently held the top ranks. He has ventured out in life to start a bbq sauce company, but he is still very active and protective of his scores. He is a shady man who undercuts and back stabs anyone that attempts to break his records, but will encourage others to go after records of others. He manipulates the officials that tally and keep the scores and is revered by them as the last authoritative word.

Enter Steve Weibe. A man who stumbled upon the Twin Galaxies website and looked up the top scores of some of his favorite games. He saw the Kong score and figured that he could beat that. He bought a machine and set up recording equipment in his garage and began his quest to be the best. He developed his own strategies and techniques for the game and eventually set the new record. He sent in his tape only to find out that Billy Mitchell questions the validity of his score. Mitchell then sends two of his lackey's to Weibe's house to inspect his machine when he wasnt there. They decide that the motherboard has been tampered with and that his score is invalid. They then invite him to duplicate his score in public where others can see on a machine that has been deemed acceptable.

I won't go further into the story, as this is just the first half. The rest unfolds as a classic david vs. asshole match. It is enthralling and polarizing. You can't help but think that Mitchell is a douchebag, and he confirms it every step of the way.

The most powerful and resonating thing for me was all the back story on Weibe. He is a family man and a new teacher. He has had failures in his life that haunt him. He views himself as a second best player in life and it bothers him. He finds something where he can validate himself and succeeds, only to be brought down by the few that hold on so dearly to the record he is breaking. Weibe has a successful life and family, but is wanting something unique to put a stamp on.

On the flip side, Billy Mitchell and his posse of followers are stuck in the past. They have constructed their entire lives and become fanatical by basing their entire existence on these records that Mitchell set long ago. He comes off as wanting to be Jesus to his desciples of games that most people only lovingly look back on. They are are all trapped and doomed to be closed off from the rest of the world and reject anyone that tries to come into their space as equals. It is the height of snobbery and ugliness. There is no light at the end of the tunnel for Mitchell. Only sadness and the glimmering hope that no one else comes for him or his records.

Wire in the Blood: Bad Seed

2008-02-10T08:37:00.001-08:00

Another of the BBC crime drama's that I enjoy from time to time. This story focuses on the ideas of admiration, envy, and inherited behavior.

The thought of inherited behavior is a question that can haunt a person. And it's an argument that gains more ground as DNA testing and analysis continues to push forward. I have heard from the time I was a young boy that my family has predispositions to heart disease. I have a natural addictive personality inherited down the family tree. All of these things I have no control over, but was born with these traits.

The idea that so much of a person is predetermined and incontrollable is a revelation by itself. Of course people will argue that this is "God's" will and that everything has a purpose in life. My guess is that scientists will also argue that it is predetermined due to DNA and genetics. Of course being predisposed to a condition or behavior does not automatically mean that it is a done deal.

That is the idea at the core of this story. A boy adopted as a youth struggles to find out who his real father is. He comes to accept that his real father is a serial killer from 30 years ago, and it is now his life's mission to carry on the "work" that his father carries started. Of course it ends up that he is not the killer's son, and that his "genetic predisposition" towards killing is a lie.

One of the reasons that I think the BBC puts forth much more gripping crime stories than over here in the states is that they allow the viewers mind to control how much of the gore and evil they want to accept. Using broad strokes and dialog allows the viewer to determine their level of involvment in the story. If it doesn't intrigue you the mystery is wrapped up and solved in an hour and a half. But if you get caught up in the story you can find parallels into your own life.

Of course this gives hope to me, a person who has the genetic misfortune to carry on terrible genes. I can fight the past and overcome the odds. I can strike out against the evil DNA and make a new path for myself. It is a subject that echoes throughout me on a daily basis. After many years I feel I have a firm grasp on who I am and what I want to be. I recognized my faults and my past missteps. I move forward into the future knowing that I am grounded. But thankfully I am only predisposed to be a gambler, fat, and an alcoholic. But not a killer. Score one for the Smith genes.

There Will Be Blood

2008-02-08T07:52:00.000-08:00

I was knocked flat by this movie. It took me 48 hours to fully digest my feelings and thoughts. It isn't a movie for everyone. It doesn't set out to be. There is no doubt in my mind that Daniel Day Lewis will win the Oscar for Best Actor this year. Even George Clooney, who is nominated in the same category, has already conceded the award to him. He put forth a performance that is simultaneously subtle and nuanced as well as shocking and violent.

Daniel Plainview is a man that only wants one thing. He wants money. Enough money to retire and never have to deal with people again. He says so flat out to his brother about halfway though the movie. He shares the same view of others as Agent Smith from the Matrix. They are all just parasites sucking the life out of everything. Plainview is a successful oil man who travels around the country drilling and collecting properties to amass his great money making empire. And he never falters in his goal.

Daniel Plainview is the movie. Everything that happens revolves around him and his reaction to it. All the subplots and diversions only add to the history and legacy that Plainview is ultimately responsible for. He is the line that the movie always tracks through.

Some of the most memorable scenes for me involve Plainview and his son, H.W. In one of the first scenes when H.W. is still a baby, Plainview and his crew are drilling what will become his first oil well. Many of the workers are seen lovingly holding the baby, cooing at him and kissing him. Comforting him from all the noise and debris around. But daddy is always at the well. Digging, overseeing, and running his operation. At one point after oil has been struck and the extraction process had begun, someone comes by the baby and smears a thumbful of oil on his head, effectively baptizing him in the "blood" that will rule the rest of his life.

When Daniel is drilling in what would become his most profitable find of his career tradgedy strikes when a geyser of oil spurts forth from the ground. The sudden burst of escaped trapped gasses and oil knocks young H.W. from his perch high atop the derrick, knocking him silly and making him deaf. While Daniel quickly runs to the aide of his boy, he quickly deposits him with another man and returns to bask in the fiery glow that has become of his derrick after it caught fire. He is more content to bask in the ocean of oil he has stumbled upon than caring for his child.

Plainview is a man with morals and convictions. They are just unique. He is a man that has raised a child on his own, started and expanded his empire, and makes no apologies for what he has to do to achieve his goals. He is extremely well spoken and has a deep feeling of what is right and wrong. He sets out early to protect and comfort a little girl who is being beaten by her father. He takes great offense if anyone suggests that he should be raising his family or running his business any different. And he seeks out his revenge on every person that slights him. The stealth at which he undermines the preacher in the small town they are drilling in is brilliant. It starts a subtle digs and encounters and builds to the climactic ending that leaves both men changed forever.

One of the final scenes that was very polarizing for me was the scene between an elderly Daniel Plainview and his now grown son H.W. Deaf since his accident, H.W. has since learned sign language and married the same young girl that Daniel protected so many years ago from beatings. H.W. goes to his fathers mansion to tell him that he is striking out on his own to form his own drilling company and heading to Mexico. Daniel proceeds into one of the best and most haunting scenes in the entire film.

I won't spoil it here, but my take is that there are two seperate reasons for his actions. One is that what he is doing to his son is out of love, and is doing it to make him stronger and tougher as he ventures out to make his own name. While it is harsh and unnerving, it is the only way of expressing love that Plainview knows. It is how he was brought up and it is what it took for him to amass his empire.

The second is that he is telling the whole truth. He admits earlier that he hates everyone, and is only goal in life was to make enough money so that he never had to see anyone ever again. He has very few friends, most of which would probably be considered employee's or businessmen at best. And what he says and does to H.W. is just an extension of that hatred. I lean more towards this idea.

I have purposely skipped over the religious overtones and the preacher character that is the main antagonist in the film. It is not because the character is not well written. It certainly is, and is handled by Paul Dano beautifully. But again, that isn't the focus of this film. This is a character study of one man. It follows him from the beginning of his career to the end. Everything else is fluff that while may add to the experience, it is just fluff.

The comparisons that this film is getting to No Country For Old Men is a complement to both films. But they are completely different in my eyes. NCFOM is an ensemble piece that hinges on all performances put together. There Will Be Blood relies only on Daniel Day Lewis. Both are set in bleak and harsh landscapes that offer little comfort to the people that interact in them. But they are so different it is hard to compare them. I have to see each of these films again at least once to truly decide which I like better. But regardless of that, I have set the bar extremely high for myself for this coming year. All 5 movies that I have seen in the theaters this year have been exceptional.

Juno

2008-02-07T17:15:00.000-08:00

It is my firm belief that Juno was a gift to the striking writers of America. Obviously written and produced well before the strike began, it is my belief that it caught so much buzz from critics and ultimately was nominated for so many Oscars as a peace offering to all the writers.

Now, don't get me wrong. Juno is a good film that shines positive lights on many topics that can and will affect young people today. That's why it resonated so powerfully. The dialog tries extremely hard to be hip and kitschy and modern. While there were a few lines of dialog that I couldn't quite stomach, the overall tone and feeling that is projected carries the film enough to forgive these minor annoyances.

The heart of this movie is love and goodness. Teenagers are typically written off as stupid and immature when it comes to love and sex. But to present these problems with a backbone of caring strikes a chord where many have failed. While Juno's pregnancy may have been unplanned, it wasn't a conception void of emotion. Juno comes to realize she truely does love Pauly Bleeker. (side note: Who wouldn't? Michael Sera is a force. He is gold in everything hie does) Juno has enough self awareness to also realize she doesn't want to be a mother.

This screenplay delves into topics that are touchy and hard to deal with. Juno's abandonment issues with her own mother, abortion, adoption, marriage, and emotionally infidelity all get touched upon. Where the script truly shines is that it hits all these tough subjects with enough humor and levity that it doesn't feel like a heavy experience when you come out on the other side.

Getting back to my point that this is a gift to the writers. I think that Ellen Page does a wonderful job as Juno. I think it's great that so many critics and awards recognized Diablo Cody as the writer. As an independent woman writer she comprises such a small contingent of what gets written and produced these days. But it is an important market that will surely be looked at further in the years to come. And by nominating this film as one of the best pictures of the year, the Oscars are letting some of their elite status light shine down on a small indie picture that when released was probably destined for a small splash. But money doesn't lie, and lots and lots of people have gone out and suported this good movie.

I think the buzz surrounding this movie was a plea to the writers. An attempt to remind them that they are relevant and supported. An attempt to showcase new talent. I can't say it's undeserving of the attention and praise, but due to the dialog that focus's so much on what is going on TODAY, I think that the lasting legacy of this film will not be the film itself, but what it did to the industry.

Super Sunday

2008-02-05T12:15:00.001-08:00

Sunday started out with a whimper. We slept in for a little bit and recovered from all the miles and all the smiles we endured throughout the weekend up to that point. While I am all for being a social butterfly, it can take a tole on a guy when he's used to spending at least half his day in silence around the house. So the extended sleepy time was much needed.

Side note, now that we got the new Queen sized bed I am sleeping much better. And I know Adie will say the same thing. Who would have thought that an extra 6 inches would make all the difference. Actually don't think about it. I don't want me and 6 inches to be associated together. Why start now.

Back on track. Adie headed up to Anderson around noon for her family stuff and I was left to my own devices around the house. I was still planning on heading over to Lauren and Lou's to watch the game. I was just messing around the house picking up a tiny tiny bit and doing some laundry. Lou called around 2 and asked/demanded that I go with him on some picture taking expedition.

I had gone one one these with him prior after we got sushi one day for lunch and Lou saw a train. For those of you that don't know, one of Lou's greatest loves in this world is to take pictures of trains. Not just the trains, but specifically the engines. He knows all about which tracks go where and the history of the trains that run on them. So when he saw this specfic train he knew that it was headed for the famed Stand By Me bridge that goes over Lake Lemon. He had been dying to get a specific shot of this train going over it and the chase was on. Because of his desire to get a shot of the engine, that of course meant that we had to get ahead of the train with enough time to set up and get ready to shoot it as it goes by. While I don't share in his love of trains to the extent he does, and no one will ever consider me a photo buff, it was still fun to share in a moment with him. His excitement wore off on me and it was fun just to ride around and get hyped for an event that I had probably seen happen a hundred times in my life. But this time with a new appreciation. He got the shot he was wanting by the way.

So anyway, he called me up and asked if I wanted to go to the abandoned IU observatory. I of course had no idea what the hell he was talking about. But Lou is not the one to take no for an answer, so when I informed him that I wasn't even dressed at the time he said " Put some pants on asshole, your going. I'll be over in five minutes"

So off we go to the secret location of the abandoned astronomy observatory. I have no idea when this was built, or when it was then left for new digs by the university. Upon our arrival to the spot we noticed a fence, so we figured we would go around the perimeter to see if there was a broken spot somewhere along the way for us to hop over and get to the picture taking. Much to our simultaneous delight and confusion the fence only covered on side of the property. I guess they figured that if you saw fence on the one side, you would just abandon all hope and disappear. But we were much more resourceful and walked the extra 100 yards and walked right around the end of it into the grove of trees. Our next fortuitous discovery is that the building isn't even locked up. There is a halfway broken latch that keeps the door from swinging open, but that's it.

Once we got into the building Lou took some shots and headed up the steps to the second level. This building was used before the advent of machinery because instead of having a roof that would open and close wherever there was a set of pulleys that would rotate the entire rotunda roof to meet wherever the telescope needed to go. There was one open patch in the roof where you would be able to see out, and I image there was some kind of big wheel to turn to get the roof to rotate into position. It was very cool and Lou got some really good shots. All in all we spent about 20 minutes before shoving off. We were sure to "Take nothing but pictures, leave nothing but footprints" which lou said at some point in a mocking tone. I imagine this is some kind of photographers code to live by, but I imagine we would use it only if we got caught trespassing and tried to pass ourselves off the the police as just a couple of artsy nerds who would rather take pictures of cool stuff than watch the football game that day. Thankfully it didn't come to this and we took off with no one the wiser.

Our next stop in cool shit was an abandoned water slide formerly known as "The Zoom Flume." Shut down sometime ago, all that remains is the broken down remnants of changing rooms and a pump house. And the slide of course. The slide consists of steep blue concrete walls that bank at almost impossible to comprehend angles. The width of the slide was also a concern of mine, as I couldn't see how fattys could have enjoyed such a ride. The slide loops around and around and probably would have taken about 20 seconds to complete. Lou says that you also had to ride some kind of sled when you went down it, which also seems impossible due to the tight corridors you were supposed to be rushing through. Once again there was no lock or gate to this place. Just an abandoned driveway and some brush. Lou had been there before but we took some shots anyway. I was relegated to holding shit while he took the pictures which was fine by me. I did take a few shots on Lou's very nice film camera, including one of him taking pictures with his other camera. Im sure it will come out looking like every other shot of people taking pictures, but I still took some pictures during our excursion dammit!!!

The rest of the afternoon prior to the game was filled with us going to the grocery and fucking around because I couldn't go over to their house till after 5pm. Lauren instructed Lou on this fact and made sure that no one would be over prior because she was cleaning. She was a bit more concerned about the whole thing than Lou or I was.

The game itself was highlighted by some excellent snacks lovingly prepared by Lauren, and some kick ass brats by Lou. While most of us there that day were rooting for the Giants half heartedly, it never appeared that it was going to happen. The fourth quarter finally provided some drama and capped off what will be a memorable superbowl, if only for one quarter.

I can't say that game could have turned out any better from my point of view. It is my belief that most of the patriots of this season will take off for greener pastures and fatter contracts. Which I am all for. Parity is what the NFL needs at this point.

Overall my Sunday started off as a whimper, and roared forward into adventures and experiences that I won't soon forget. If only they could all go this splendidly.

Week 3 and 4

2008-02-03T10:09:00.001-08:00

I missed doing an update last week on the steps challenge. So here's a recap of the previous 2 weeks.

Week 3
Day 1 - 8120
Day 2 - 5584
Day 3 - 4740

I don't remember what I did on these days to get my steps in. One of them was at the Y. One was just a day walking around shopping and whatnot.

Week 4
Day 1 - 6230
Day 2 - 6700
Day 3 - 4420

Day 1 was a Y day. Day 2 was shopping with Joan on Thursday. Day 3 was walking around yesterday.

While I am maintaining my average of 5k over the three days, I would like to hit 5k each day no matter what. While it is easy for me to hit the 5k when I go to the Y, it is a crap shoot when I just wear the pedometer when I am out an about.

Another problem/fact about the days when I record my steps is that I don't wear the pedometer all day. Typically if I am going to the Y I will put it on when I leave the house, and then may or may not put it back on after I shower and change clothes. If I know I'm not going to get to the Y, but am going to try and hit my 5k just by walking around, I'll try and wear it all day till I go to bed. So while I am hitting my marks, it is not an accurate description of how many steps I take in a day. My guess is that I take an extra 1k steps a day that aren't recorded.

This weekend also was Bess and Chris's reception. Friday night Adie and I went to their house in Franklin for dinner and to help Bess make and decorate the cake for the reception. The trip started out with a bang as I completely spaced out and forgot how to get to Franklin. We went up 37, completely bypassed 44, and took 144 over to Bargersville. I then continued the to space out and told Adie to head north, because that is where 44 was. We got to Whiteland before my brain clicked back into check and realized we were way north of where we needed to be. We took some back roads and headed up to 31 to head into Frankin. All in all I think we added about half an hour to our trip, and Bess got a hearty laugh out of the whole thing, but we arrived intact.

Decorating the cake went much better than expected. We fixed the spot where Walter the Farting Dog ate a chunk. We even made the cake look good after our disastrous first attempt at covering the cake in a base layer of icing. We even managed to salvage the other cake when Adie forgot what year it was, and incorrectly labeled their wedding day in 2006. For the benefit of the guests who would be enjoying the cake a scant 16 hours later Chris and I were relegated to mostly support roles in this process. Chris provided music accompaniment throughout the evening as well as being the Gopher Bitch who went to Wal Mart to get supplies as we ran low. I mixed up quite a few batches of icing and attempted to make the colors match as we constantly ran out of green icing. We put the finishing touches on the cake at around midnight, and Adie and I headed home. But not before stopping at White Castle for a late night snack. Adie braved her first White Castle Slider ever, and said that they were pretty good. I finished the other 5 and we took the right way home. Rolled into home around 1:30am.

The reception itself was a nice affair filled with many friends and family from both sides of our newly meshed lives. Joan was gracious enough to demand that Adie and I be there for the entire reception, and then also informed us upon our arrival that there was an after party back at the house that we were encouraged to attend. It was posed more as a wild eyed "Your coming back to the house afterward, RIGHT?!?!??" How could I resist.

The reception itself was nice. I jokingly told the BC contingent that this was the most amount of time I had voluntarily spent in Nashville since High School. They all agreed that it was the same for them. I was also graced with the honor of giving a toast to the new bride and groom. Daddy Joe said that I should do it because he didn't want to. It's always nice to be thought of.

While I am sure it will be a shock to no one, but I just winged the damn thing. I got to slip in the fact that I saw Chris naked before Bess did. Gym class, freaks. Don't get it twisted. I got plenty of compliments afterwards, but I was just glad that Bess and Chris liked it. The rest of the event was uneventful, which I consider a good thing. Lots of chit chat and food and mellowness.

The "After party" was good. The animals were freaked out by the 15-20 people that recently invaded their territory. If they hadn't been outnumbered so badly I truly believe that they would have risen up and demanded nummy treats. The conversations flowed as freely as the alcohol that everyone was enjoying. Slowly everyone trickled out until it was close to midnight. Adie and I were the last to leave and got home around 1am.

Today is the superbowl. Adie is missing it, as she's gone up to Anderson to see her family. I've been trying to catch up all the laundry and pick up the house before heading to Lauren and Lou's for the game. I am rooting for the Giants, only because I loathe the Patriots. More specifically I loathe Belechick. I guess that by rooting for Eli, by proxy I am rooting for Peyton. That surely should appease the Indiana Sports Gods.

Truely, I all I have to root for sportswise at this point is the start of Baseball season, which is still two months away. It's about to be a dark time for me dear readers. But fear not, I will rise above the ashes of a Colts season that couldn't live up to expectations, a Pacers team that is quickly becoming a bottom tier team, and an IU basketball team that can't seem to remember how to win anymore. I will emerge from the other side with interests freshly renewed. And I will do it all with a minimum of 5k steps under my belt. If only for three days a week.

Talking Heads: Stop Making Sense

2008-02-03T09:56:00.000-08:00

Another gem found in the vaults of Netflix. This is a concert shot from the early 80's by Jonathan Demme. Yes, the same director of Silence of the Lambs. Silence is one of my favorite movies of all time, and I was confused why this was on his resume. Of course this was from early in his career, but after watching the film, I can see why he would want to be a part of this project.

Shot over the course of three nights, the concert unfolds in a very unique and memorable way. David Byrne opens the concert by walking out onto an empty stage with only a boombox and a guitar. He does one song, and after that one member of the band comes out to join him for another song. This pattern continues until the entire band is on stage.

While I had heard the Talking Heads before, I would not consider myself a fan. I always would write them off as a quirky band that never grabbed my attention for any ammount of time. But through this film, I was captivated and transformed into a fan.

While the band plays well together, the addition of some soulful backup singers and Bernie Worell (keyboardist for Parliment Funkadelic) the songs transform into heavy funk driven experiences. David Byrne carefully choreographed and planned out the lighting of the stage to accentuate the band and show them as a cohesive unit. There were none of the now common quick cuts and jumps with extreme closeups and strobe lights. Simple white lighting coupled with wide shots of the band playing were all that were used.

I was impressed with the vision of Byrne and Demme. They were deliberate with how the presented the material and limited the uses of camera tricks and crowd shots. Without the crowd noise and shots of them enjoying the show, it allowed me to form my own opinions of how the show was going.

It was also funny to watch David Byrne do his thing. Years ago my friend Courtney told me a story about one of her friends that hooked up with David Byrne in the 90's. After falling asleep in David's apartment, he woke up to see David's butt hovering above his chest. Apparently he was trying to give the dude a Cleveland Steamer. Now that would have been a memorable experience.

Cracker: Men Should Weep

2008-01-31T18:09:00.000-08:00

I had seen the Cracker series at the library before. And no, it isn't an expose of the white man. It is a British crime drama staring Hagrid himself, Robbie Coultrain. Joe B. has watched a bunch of these and recommended them to me. A series about an overweight psychologist who likes to gamble and drink to much? Sound like anyone?

The British seem to produce good crime dramas. They are subtle and nuanced without lots of all out gore. While the evil men that inhabit their stories are terrible criminals who do vile things to their victims, the details of the crimes are either told to the viewer through dialog or quick snipits of the deeds. I find this type of storytelling refreshing. While I enjoy a good gore fest or scary monster movie, most of the BBC produced stuff is well done and compelling.

This particular story focused on a rapist who is escalating to murder. While this may not be the type of fair for everyone, the story has plenty of social commentary on women's rights, race, discrimination, and social class.

Also, in the end, this criminal confirms my statement that all criminals are stupid. To properly pull off a crime, it takes tons of forethought and planning. Flying by the seat of your pants may seem like a good idea at the time young criminal, it will always get you caught.

3000 Miles

2008-01-24T15:02:00.000-08:00

3000 Miles is a movie that was recommended to me by netflix. While a majority of the time their recommendations are pretty good, this one missed the mark. This documentary follows Bam Margera, Ryan Dunn, Tony Hawk, and a few others during the Gumball Rally. A 3000 mile road race spanning 8 days, the gumball is an annual test of endurance, stupidity, and recklessnesses.

My guess is that it was recommended to me because I rated Jackass and Jackass 2 so highly. While I did enjoy those films, this one was far from those. Mostly it was just boring road shots of nice cars speeding along. Occasionally the guys would stop and get some food or gas. I guess because a few of the people in this film are recognizable I should be intrigued with what they do. But overall it's pretty boring. Skip it.

Eastern Promises

2008-01-23T08:28:00.000-08:00

I missed this one when it was in the theaters somehow. I had seen the trailers and was interested in seeing it, but I never made it. After seeing it, I feel that while it wouldn't have been enhanced on the big screen, it was still a great movie.

Viggo Mortenson has really found a good director in David Cronenburg. A History of Violence really showcased the subtle evil that Viggo can play. It is defiantly continued in this film. Set in London, but focusing on the Russian Mob somehow Cronenburg has put together a cast of mishmashed European actors who can all somehow pull off being Russian. Of the three main guys, one is French, one is German, and then wherever the hell Viggo is from.

I find the tradition in the Russian mob of documenting your life story through tattoo's fascinating. Having different tats to depict your time in prison, where you served, how long, your crimes, etc... is just cool as shit.

If I take nothing else away from this movie, I never want to get involved with the Mafia, let alone the Russians.

Villains are everywhere. They live by their own code. You can violate this code without even knowing about it.

Watch your back people Live a good life and be kind to strangers. Lest you get your throat slit by some baddie with awesome tattoo's.

Week 2 in the books

2008-01-21T13:18:00.000-08:00

Well, week two of the step challenge has been completed.

Day 1 - 5270 steps
Day 2 -8400 steps
Day 3 - 5140 steps

Day two was an over achiever day of sorts. I went to the YMCA to track how many steps I take to walk a mile. I reset it when I got on the treadmill and went a strolling until I was finished. 2100 steps is what it seems it takes me to walk a mile. While I am sure that the pedometer is 100% accurate, I'm sure it's pretty close. I also continued to wear the pedometer until I went to bed that night, so my step count was more accurate of what I did all day.

The other days when I keep track I only put it on when I actually change out of my pajamas. Which of course could be at any time. It is currently 4:3opm today and I still have my pajamas on.

While these first three months will be a good warm up, once I have to hit 10k steps for the last six months of the year it will take a little more dedication. I don't mind the walking part, and I have plenty of podcasts downloaded to listen to. It's just the time commitment. The lazy part of me is always thinking of what video game or movie I would rather be watching. Perhaps I need to look further into downloading video content to my Ipod. Maybe that would keep me more focused.

The wedding plans are still in the beginning stages, but Adie continues to be very diligent and is finding some interesting sounding places to hold the reception. We are trying to arrange tours through most of them on the same day so we can knock them all out in one shot and finally nail down the reception details. After that it's honeymoon arrangements. The rest of the plans are either set, or can wait a while longer before being finalized.

Joan was over last night, along with H-man and Joe. At some point during the conversation Joan said that she was more of a Socialist than a Communist. I said "My mommy the Pinko." Not even five seconds later Hartman trumped me with the now classic in my eyes "Commie Mommy" There may be an exploitation project in the works. I mean, if you got the perfect title, what more do you need. Mirimax here I come. Write me a check goddammit.

Cloverfield

2008-01-19T08:58:00.000-08:00

While I was always planning on seeing Cloverfield, I didn't really anticipate going on opening night. But when Ian called and said he wanted to go, the plans were made. I had purposely avoided any kind of spoilers or articles about this movie because I didn't want to ruin it for myself.

One of the only articles I read about it wasn't about the movies content, but more about the danger that is viral marketing for movies. The authors one main point was Snakes on a Plane. While SOAP had a huge Internet buzz before coming out, once released it underperformed in the box office. This lead many people to believe that no major studio would fund another movie that would rely so heavily on the Internet and buzz to market it.

Upon pulling up to the theater last night for the 10:30pm show, the last of the night, the entire parking lot was packed. I instantly realized that even though we were about half an hour early for the show, that it may have not been enough. Adie and Lauren went in and they said they still had 60 seats available, so we went on in. Of course they didn't really mention that of those 60 seats, 50 or so were singles spread out around the theater.

Needless to say that Cloverfield is fucking amazing. Shot entirely on digital video and made to look like it was shot on a hand held camcorder, the story unfolds as a goodbye tape being shot for a man who is leaving for Japan for a new job. While I already knew that this was a monster movie, the first 20 or so minutes is just footage introducing the characters and their world. I never felt in those opening scenes that they were unnecessary. I wasn't even that anxious to finally see the monster. But once that first explosion hits, it's all monster movie madness.

Every shot you get of the monster comes from different angles. It's hard to explain what exactly what it was because it's not like anything ever done before. But by shooting it always on the move and through the New York streets your imagination can take over and you start formulating what the hell it is on your own.

Be warned though dear reader, this movie gives Blair Witch a run for it's money in terms of shaky camera work. Adie got so motion sick only 20 minutes into the movie she had to leave the theater for a while, and still missed more while in the theater because she had to keep her eyes closed. While it was jarring at times, it didn't bother me.

This movie rocked. From the conception to the viral marketing it was a well thought out experiment in making a new kind of monster movie. It tells a compelling story with great characters. It preys on the mind to form it's own conclusions about what is going on. The movie gives you just enough information to leave you with even more questions.

Go see it if you enjoy monsters. Go see it if you enjoy suspense. Go see it if you saw the advertisements and wondered just what the fuck a Cloverfield is. Just go see it. But yo may want to bring a barf bag.

Terrorism in a Nutshell

2008-01-17T20:31:00.001-08:00

Playing Rainbow Six with Jon tonight. In the midst of a shitstorm of hellfire one of the computer terrorists says "shit, look out."

"Do they not know they are in the middle of a gunfight?" - Jon

Quote of the Year

January So Far.....

2008-01-16T17:54:00.000-08:00

New Years Eve was quite the occasion here at Casa De Ben'n'Adie. Ian brought over a KILO of Kava to supply all of us with a taste of his Peace Corps Experience. And boy were we lucky that he imported this exotic treat. To begin the process we dumped the entire kilo into a huge bowl and added water until it was properly soaked. Once Ian was satisfied that everything had been brewed thoroughly he and Adie began the time consuming process of pouring all the mushy pulp into a brand new pair of ladies panty hose. Yes dear readers, you read that right. We were all about to drink some dirty ass water that had been strained through some knickers.

As per the traditions of the native people of Vanuatu, the person of the highest esteem in the community drinks the first shell of kava. Did I forget to mention that Ian brought his own set up of hollowed out coconut shells with their own bases to drink from. Well he did. As the male head of the house I was the lucky SOB that got to chug down the kava first. All along Ian made no attempt to lie to us and say that the taste was pleasant one. He did maintain that while the flavor was bad, the effects were well worth it. As I brought the first shell to my lips with everyone else standing around me all I could think was that I had to get it down no matter what. All was going well until the last chug, where all the soot that had collected at the bottom of the shell hit the back of my throat and I briefly gagged before completing my beverage. It seems that the panty hose had not caught all the kava flakes.

While I can confirm that this basically tasted like muddy ass water, the effects were interesting. Almost immediately your mouth starts to go numb. I could see if you drank maybe 4 or 5 shells you could get a very interesting numbness through your whole head and chest. While Ian and Joe had the most shells, most of us could only stomach one shell. But that one shell brought us all closer together.

The rest of the night was filled with regular booze and fucking around. Lots of Guitar Hero, a Godzilla Movie, and the shock and awe of the fact that Dick Clark was still doing his thing in Times Square.

Since the New Years Bash I have been doing my best to not do a whole lot. By not working I am living on a limited income. I have been stockpiling lots of movies and video games so that once it gets cold and I have no money I have things to do around the house. I have been playing a lot of Elder Scrolls: Oblivion. It's like World of Warcraft for the Xbox 360. I can see how people get addicted to these types of massive worlds with non linear gameplay. But I am also quite content to play by myself without logging online and playing with other geeks.

I have managed to watch 7 movies since the first of the year. My goal for the year is to see 125 before the year is up.

For those that don't know of this years New Years bet, all that are involved drew lots and got to pick a challenge for the person they drew. Adie drew me and gave me the challenge of wearing a pedometer 3 times a week and recording my steps. For the first three months I have to average 5000 steps. The second three months it will be 7500. The last six months will be 10k steps.

I joined the Y this week and plan on going there at least three times a week to get my steps in and work out.

Last week was the first week of wearing the pedometer and keeping track. My recorded steps were 5500, 6060, and 4175. I achieved my average, but I would like to keep every day above my minimum. It was nice earlier in the week so I went walking outside. But now that I can go to the Y and walk in there it should be no problem through the cold months.

Oceans 11

2008-01-16T17:51:00.000-08:00

Seen this one a bunch of times, but popped it in the other night when Adie and Katie and I were hanging out. I really started to notice some of the smaller details that you may miss the first time you see this. I especially liked when Danny Ocean meets his Ex's new boyfriend. He keeps rubbing his ring finger where his wedding band used to be.

And upon further review, I can't stand Julia Roberts. She looks like a horse who's lips got stung by some bees. A completely unsexy horse. I think I enjoyed Ocean's 13 a whole lot more because she wasn't in it.

Katt Williams Live

2008-01-12T15:43:00.000-08:00

One of the newer features of Netflix is the ability to watch movies from your computer without having them sent to you. While the selection is smaller than what you can have sent to you, it's still pretty respectable. This affords me the option of watching documentaries or comedy shows that I normally wouldn't have shipped to me. Enter Katt Williams Live.

Overall this was a pretty decent comedy show. Running about 1:15 he covers many topics and is pretty entertaining thoughough. He curses more than not, and drops the N bomb just about every other word. While this got old quickly, he still is pretty funny.

He claims he is a pimp. Not because he puts ladies out on the streets, but because he makes pimp decisions. If you can wrap your mind around that, I think it's pretty solid life advice.

One of my favorite stories he told was when he smoked weed with Snoop Dogg. He reminds the audience that he is familiar with the rules of smoking weed with ones homies and was fully prepared to puff, puff, and then pass. So as he sat down with Snoop and about 5 of snoops entourage he began the traditional rotation process of smoking weed. Shortly thereafter he was higher than he had ever been before because he failed to notice that he was the only one in the circle that hadn't started their own blunt and added it to the rotation.

Down By Law

2008-01-09T12:14:00.000-08:00

Watching any Jim Jarmusch movie is an experience in itself. He definatly doesn't subscribe to the Hollywood movie archetype. This film is no different. Featuring Tom Waits and Roberto Benigni in two of the lead roles, it's hard to imagine two vasltly different actors taking up the majority of the screen time.

Shot entirely in black and white and set in New Orleans, the story follows 3 men who are imprisoned for various crimes. It took some time to get into the swing of things with this movie, but once I got into it there was no looking back. Most of the time when I watch movies anymoreI watch them on my laptop, which then affords me the the option of doing many things at once. I generally will play poker or check email while the movie plays in the background and pay attention when it sounds interesting. By half an hour into this movie I shut everything else down and just sat back and enjoyed this movie.

The dialog of Benigni is hilarious, mostly because this was filmed in the mid 80's and he barely spoke English. Tom Waits provides alot of the music, but also turns in a brilliant performance as a man who is set up and sent to prison.

So far this is the second best film I've seen of the year.

The Proposition

2008-01-07T12:43:00.001-08:00

The Proposition is a simple one. Go and kill your older brother, or your younger brother will hang. In 9 days.

Written by Nick Cave (yes, of Red Right Hand fame) and staring Guy Pierce, this is a violent and thought provoking western set in the Australian Outback. It’s hard to root for or against any of the characters in this movie, but I think that it’s done on purpose. I never felt like there was a clear answer and who I should be rooting for.

Some may be turned off by the excessive and graphic violence. I think it added to the realism and starkness of the landscape and time that the movie was set in.

The Proposition has also recently been compared to No Country For Old Men. This is probably in part due to the fact that the director of The Proposition will also be directing The Road, another Cormac McCarthy novel. They do share common elements, and treat the stark landscapes they both capture beautifully, it’s hard to compare the two films. While The Proposition was a good film, I doubt I will watch it more than once. I can’t say the same for No Country.

3 Movies so far...

2008-01-07T08:55:00.000-08:00

The first movie I saw this year was Sweeney Todd on January 1st. While I am not much for musicals, I have found a few that I liked. I tolerated Chicago, mostly for John C. Reilly. I do like one song from Mulan Rouge. So when Adie wanted to go see Sweeney, I didn't balk. You can't go to wrong with Johnny Depp and Tim Burton teaming up.

Overall I really enjoyed this movie. I knew very little of the story going in but it unfolded quickly and believably. And I was really glad that the musical numbers were just interspersed with the dialog, and not huge productions with dancing and costumes. And there was plenty of blood and cannibalism.

Next I saw Shrek 3 with Joe when he was sick. I don't know if Joe stayed awake the whole time, but he didn't miss a whole lot. While I understand the market this movie is made for, they really strayed from what I felt made the first one good. While it was always geared for children, they included enough jokes and sight gags that would keep the adults in the crowd engaged in the story. I feel that the third installment really missed this point and in the end wasn't my cup of tea. Of course this won't stop me from seeing all of these as they inevitably will come out. Maybe if they just came out and made Shrek and Donkey to be gay, then at least I would be intrigued.

No Country for Old Men. Even though the trailer almost made me cream the jeans right there, I somehow managed to NOT see this movie until yesterday. I guess some of it is that I like only having to pay $5 for movies, and that means that I have to wait a few weeks till they get cheap. This is one movie that I wouldn't have minded paying full price for (see AVP:R)

The Coen Brothers are genius. They continue to push the envelope and make stories that won't appeal to middle of America. While they seemed to struggle a bit with Intolerable Cruelty and Ladykillers, this was a return to their roots. Take all the awesome elements of Fargo and Blood Simple and pour them into the desert wasteland of South Texas. I wouldn't be shocked if everyone involved in this project gets tons of nominations and ends up winning most of them.

That's it for now. I got 3 movies from the library to watch and 2 from netflix. My goal is to get all of them in by the end of this week before school starts again on the 14th.

Best and Worst of 2007

2008-01-06T17:04:00.000-08:00

I decided that for 2008 I would blog about the movies I see and the books I read. Not only can I share my thoughts with the few that will actually read this nonsense, but it will give me a way to look back at the end of the year and remember all that I have done this year. I will also blog about whatever comes to mind and my daily ins and outs.

For my first post I am going to list the top and bottom movies I saw in 2007. I kept a private list for last year. I watched 84 movies in the calendar year of 2007, including 22 in the theater. So without further ado, my top 10 movies of 2007 are :

10. Knocked Up
- First of 3 Judd Apatow entries on my list. What can I say, he has nailed my sense of humor and continuously puts out funny shit.
9. Shoot Em' Up
- Clive Owen and Paul Giamatti shooting anything that moves in a stylized action movie that never lets up. The scene in the gun warehouse alone was worth the price of admission.
8. 300
- Lots of shit getting killed CHECK. Naked ladies every once in a while CHECK. Some cool camera work CHECK. The fact that this movie will get a lot of my favorite graphic novels made into cool movies also added to it's cool factor.
7. American Gangster
- I would eat Denzel Washington's leftovers. Nuff' Said.
6. Into the Wild
- I hated this movie so much. It never strayed from the true story that it was based on and never made an excuse for why this kid went off to Alaska to his death. Sean Penn directed a brilliant movie, even though I wanted to kill the kid before he eventually starved to death.
5. Ocean's 13
- Good god did Ocean's 12 suck. I can't even remember all that went on in that train wreck. Thankfully for the third instalment they go back to Vegas and try to fuck with Al Pacino. Couldn't have been better.
4. Grindhouse
- Loved the concept. I love most everything Rodriguez and Tarintino put out. Would have been higher on my list, but I didn't love Death Proof as much as everyone else. It needs a second viewing.
3. Hot Fuzz
- A brilliant film that solidified Simon Pegg as a comic genius. A great follow up to Shaun of the Dead. It was the perfect send up of all the 80's action cop movies as well as standing alone as a good movie on it's own.
2. Walk Hard
- John C. Rielly carries this movie from the first moment he steps on the screen. Funny as hell, full of geeky details from music history. The second Apatow company movie on my list. Those motherfuckers are making fat bank.
1. Superbad
- Funniest movie I have seen in a long time. Michael Sera is the funniest actor alive at this moment. I will see anything with him in it. And it featured my favorite SNL actor Bill Hader.

The Worst 5 movies I saw in 2007
(not all were in the theater)

5. Running with Scissors
- Loved the book. Was really looking forward to this, but I think they missed the spirit and the tone of the book. They went way to dark and cut out a lot of the humor.
4.Pathfinder
- Saw this in the theater. While I am all for violence and stylish shots, this story of a transplanted viking who adopts the native American way of life and then defends his adopted family against his viking family who want to kill everyone was just a little to heavy handed. And not fucking bloody enough.
3. Tenacious D in the pick of Destiny
- Man did this one just suck. As much as I loved the Tenacious D tv show, I equally hated the movie. Lame jokes, recycled material, and performances from JB and KG that you can just tell they were mailing in.
2. Employee of the Month
- Saw this one early in the year. Could have been fun. Wasn't.
1. Alien vs. Predator: Requiem
- I was dragged to this abomination on my friends birthday. I also got the pleasure of paying $9 for the privilege of seeing a movie that was shot almost entirely in the dark. The less said about this fucking abortion the better.