Ninja Assassin: my long-awaited return to blogging about movies.

so the last time i updated this thing was april 2. wow. i'd kinda given up on the whole thing, as it seemed like a fun idea at the time, but eventually kinda dragged down. how those geniuses at Cracked.com do it every day is beyond me. however, after a fantastic thanksgiving dinner last night (i seriously ate and drank 6 pounds worth of awesomeness), my brothers and i decided to go see Ninja Assassin, and the movie was so... so... inspiring (?) that i just had to write a post about it.

for those of you who don't know, NA is by the guys who did the matrix. thankfully, this movie contains much less techno music, latex, and bondage than the matrix trilogy. also, there's no guy who makes a 15 minute speech only those well-trained in boolean logic can understand, so you know, that's a plus. the matrix guys only produced it, so maybe thats why the director was able to filter that crap out. however, there are about 15 scenes that take place in pouring rain, similar to the matrix. guess you can't win every battle.

poor keanu, he just tries so hard. it's ok keanu, i still love you.
you and nicholas cage. cage is the man.

here's a rundown of the plot. there's a clan of ninjas that capture and train little orphans how to become ninja assassins, and these ninja assassins eventually go out on hire and kill people for various governments. one of the ninjas goes rogue because of a chick. then there's a girl who works for some agency that isn't really important who tries to track down the whole ninja assassin clan thing, and she eventually falls in with our hero. all of that is just background, however, for sweet sweet ninja ass kicking.

we start the ass kicking with flashbacks to the training of the orphans. there's a bunch of asian kids sitting around in a room while a guy who sounds like he has a serious speech impediment lectures them about family. i wish i could describe this guy's voice over the internet, but it's kinda tough. the best i can do is if you've ever heard brett do his fake deep japanese voice, it's like that, but worse. i mean, this guy has SERIOUS trouble with L's and R's. in the flashbacks, our hero (though you really don't know this at first) gets wailed on by the instructor for making the smallest mistakes. the soles of his feet get lashed, and he lies in bed with his feet bleeding. then, another orphan comes and puts some ointment on them, and a bond is formed.

at this point in the movie, i knew something my brothers didn't know. having spent 2 years living in the inner richmond of san francisco, i've seen my fair share of asians. therefore, i knew the ointment-administering orphan was actually a little girl. how did i know this? she had a tiny ponytail. seriously, there's no other fucking way to tell. my brothers didn't know she was a chick till 3 flashbacks later when she had boobs. i don't want to say that all asians look alike, because they don't, but holy shit do they look asexual when they're young.

(note, i was going to do a google image search to find comparison pictures of a young asian boy and a young asian girl. HO-LEE SHIT, do NOT type "young asian boy" in google. trust me, you are not feeling lucky...)

anyway, the movie progresses, there's some semblence of plot and character development, and then there's a whole lot of ninja fights. the ninjas fight in a house, in the street, in some kind of half-finished building, in a bar, and finally, in the ninja hideout. the fight scenes are fun, mostly involving a lot of flipping around, flashing lights as people try to shoot the ninjas in vain, and decapitations. here are the three main points to know about this movie's action scenes, which is really what the movie is about:

1. good lord almighty is there a lot of blood. they really didn't leave anything out. the human body doesn't even contain as much blood as is shown in this movie, but they sure poured it on. people lose limbs left right and sideways, people take ninja stars to the face, one dude gets his head smashed into a urinal, and about 4 people get cut completely in half. at one point, this guy gets a sword shoved into his shoulder, and blood gushes (GUSHES!) for literally 20 seconds. it was like a fucking fountain. it reached a level of hilarity that made me laugh out loud.

2. the wachowski brothers REALLY hate cops. to be a cop in one of their movies means you'll either be A) killed by someone wearing latex, B) possessed by matrix agents, or C) ripped to fucking shreds by ninjas. if you're a cop wearing riot gear, you're doubly fucked. does kevlar and body armor protect against bullets? sure. does it protect against ninja stars? fuck no.

3. the hero gets his ass kicked. in the matrix, neo got wailed on by agent smith in every movie, even dying in the first and third. in this movie, our hero kicks a lot of ass, but he sure takes a beating. ninja stars to the chest and legs, sword slashes all over the place, and some weird ancient japanese gut punch thing that leaves him in agony for 24 hrs (note to self: learn ancient technique, use it on Twilight fans). to be a hero in a wachowski brothers movie is almost as a bad as being a cop, but at least you get some ass out of it.

Pictured: the woman of about a million nerds' dreams (mine included).

the action in this movie really culminates in the final fight scene. it's at the ninja hideout, our hero is completely fucked up, and he's about to be executed by his fellow ninjas for going rogue. all seems lost... but wait, here comes the fucking cavalry! at this point, the movie devolves into something i drew on the back of my trapper keeper when i was 9 years old. it goes a little something like this:

ninjas fighting cops! yeah! and then this cop comes in with a machine gun and shoots a ninja! and then a ninja stabs that cop in the back with a sword! and then a cop shoots that ninja with a bazooka! and then a ninja takes out 3 cops with ninja stars! and then a humvee comes in with a cop firing a gun out of the top of it! and then a ninja decapitates the humvee cop with a chain weapon of some sort! and then a helicopter comes in and shoots some missiles at the ninjas, but the ninjas jump out of the way! and then a group of ninjas riding raptors with laser beams for eyes come in! and then spider-man swings and ties up a ninja! and then a ninja stabs mrs. campbell in the eye with his sword for yelling at me for drawing when i should be learning how to divide fractions! die mrs. campbell, die!

if you can imagine a sprawling epic of stick figure ninjas, stick figure cops, and a whole shitload of explosions, then you've got the storyboard for the final 20 minutes of the movie. i cracked up the entire time. apparently when you let quentin tarantino make movies based on the stuff he loved from childhood, you get the cinematic abortions that were grindhouse and kill bill 2. when you let the wachowski brothers do it, you get ninjas fighting cops. is it worth the money to go see? yes. is it worth the money to go see really really stoned? god yes.

enjoy, my friends...

Ninja Assassin: apparently you can have a good movie with the word "ninja" in the title...

Guy Meets Girl: A Rant...

i just got done watching How to Lose Friends and Alienate People, a romantic comedy. why did i rent this movie, you ask? because it has simon pegg in it, and if you've read my blog before, you know that i'll watch anything that guy is in. as far as romantic comedies go, the movie was fine. it had some sappy crap for the ladies to get all choked up over, and it had some pretty funny moments to help the guys suffer through it. also, the movie has megan fox in it, and we all know that she may be one of the hottest women on earth. if you don't know who megan fox is, google her, or just watch Transformers. in this movie, though, she reaches a new level of hotness. behold...

she will be mine. oh yes, she will be mine...

the movie also has kirsten dunst. i used to have a giant crush on her due to such gems as Bring it On and the rain scene from Spider-Man. now, i'm pretty much over her due to her stinginess with onscreen nudity and her weird little teeth. she does fine in this movie, but is definitely second fiddle hotness wise to megan fox.

one more time, just for the hell of it...

if you want to see this movie, go ahead. there are worse ways to spend an afternoon with a significant other, and you'll definitely crack up at the stripper scene. yes, that's right, there's a stripper scene that had me laughing for a few minutes. simon pegg must've thrown that one in to keep people interested. there's also a sweet scene involving the death-by-crushing of a chihuaha (the steve buscemi of the animal kingdom), and if you like british humor, you'll like the rest of the comedy. the movie is pretty standard though, and definitely nothing groundbreaking. the reason i write about it, then, is to address a serious problem in hollywood's portrayal of relationships. how many times have you seen this scenario unfold in a movie?

Act One:
guy meets girl. they clash at first, but eventually start becoming friends/coworkers/zombie-hunters (only in my dreams), and soon start to realize that, shockingly enough, they have a lot in common. her favorite movie is some piece of black and white trash from the 30's that people only say they like to sound intelligent; he just happens to find the soundtrack to the movie at a used record store on vinyl, and he gives it to her as a present "just because." things look good at this point...


Act Two:
guy is about to make a move on girl, because he realizes that they should be together and make lots of babies. just as guy is about to proclaim his love for girl, girl breaks the news that she's getting back together with her boyfriend. enter boyfriend, who is inherently the douchiest motherfucker known to man, usually wearing something straight out of GQ. it is a scientific fact that this fucker will cheat on the girl, talk down to her, and generally treat her like shit. for some reason, girl puts up with this and goes back with guy because apparently deep down, boyfriend is a really sweet guy (ie, he's rich, attractive, and a nice status symbol for the girl because she is inherently a dirty dirty tramp). guy cannot proclaim his love for girl because boyfriend has conveniently (for the plot, not for guy) stepped in just before guy makes it awkward for everyone. guy retreats to his sanctuary, realizes that he needs to move on with his life, and decides to try to put his unmatched love behind him...


Act Three:
guy becomes successful. he gets a big break in his job in which he was previously struggling, he starts making a bunch of friends in high places, he rakes in all sorts of sweet poon. things are looking up for guy. he's living the fucking high life, and girl is stuck with the douchebag boyfriend who she shouldn't have been with in the first place if she wasn't a complete fucking cunt moron. douchebag boyfriend does something to fuck up the relationship, usually involving cheating on the girl or calling her life's dream retarded. girl hates life. all is well in the universe...


Act Four:
girl decides to "drop in" on guy to see how he's doing, catch up, seek out that long lost love that she fucking well knew was there but never did a goddamn thing about because she was too fucking stupid to see what was right in front of her cunt-tastic eyes. girl inevitably catches guy being awesome, ie, immediately pre- or post-coitus, usually with some tramp that is way hotter than girl anyway. girl makes guy feel guilty in that subtle feminine way: "oh, you're busy, that's... cool... i'll see you later... i guess... (grimace/tears in eyes/anger)" guy feels like shit...


Act Five:
guy realizes that his awesome life is not so awesome because he was missing girl all along, and was trying to fill the void left by her absence with money, clubbing, sex with models, drugs, alcohol, and general merriment with his coolest guy friends. guy goes back to girl, tells her he loves her all along and was wrong to ever let her get out of his sight. girl feigns ignorance and plays a little hard to get, but the two quickly work it out, usually with the guy admitting that his life of awesomeness was a stupid decision. guy and girl kiss, and the two end up happily ever after. yay...


fuck you hollywood. seriously. fuck you right in your giant bleeding vagina. any man who fucking writes scripts like this deserves to have his cock and balls removed and crushed before his eyes. i mean come on, are your harpy wives hanging over you day and night as you write the script, or are you just placating the masses of single 20-somethings that want to have their own spineless jellyfish of a man that will chase them around and do everything for them? whichever one's the case, check your artistic talent at the door, you are officially a fucking hack. you are no better than the writers who say "there's trouble in the middle east right now, let's make a taut political thriller that involves a bunch of arabs planning to blow shit up." how come it's always the guy that has to feel guilty? how come it's always his fault that he wasn't available when the girl comes knocking on his door, months after she made it clear that he has no chance in hell? what the fuck was he supposed to do, sit there and wait for her while she got her jollies off with the douchebag boyfriend? fuck no, he's gonna go out there and get some ass. it's her own damn fault if she didn't take the opportunity when it was staring her in the face...

once, just once, i'd like to see a bit of cynicism in the movies. and by cynicism i mean realism. i'm sure every person out there has had that unrequited love, that one crush that they fell for so hard and got completely and utterly burned by. every girl has had the guy who they would die for, yet doesn't even know the girl exists. every guy has listened to a girl bitch about her boyfriend and said to himself (and often her) "if you were with me, i'd treat you like a queen" only to have her say that she loves you like a brother/it would ruin the friendship. and you know what, that's fine. people need that heartbreak to keep them grounded. sure, it sucks balls, but it makes you realize that significant others are not some god/goddess to be put on a pedestal. they're a human being, and they have their faults. we need those experiences to teach us how to move on in life, how to put bad times behind us so that we can keep our sanity.

so hollywood, just once, have the guy actually move on. have him enjoy his newfound life. have him realize that he regretted not getting with the girl, but that he's doing just fine now. have him not leave his amazing success in order to prostrate himself before the girl that was A) too blind to realize the good thing staring her in the face, and B) too stupid to realize that the guy she was with before was a giant fucking tool who would fuck her over. when she shows up just as he's running around in a robe chasing a half-naked girl around his apartment, have him say "hey, i'm busy, show back up in 30, no, make it 45 minutes..."

or better yet, have the guy take a little joy in realizing that the ball is in his court now. have him rub her nose in it. when she shows up at his apartment, have him tell her that she had her chance but went with captain dickhole, so now she has to live with her decision. slam door, roll credits. if that seems like too quick of an ending, have him spitefuck her. that's right, i said it. have the guy get back with the girl, rail the everloving shit out of her, and then tell her that's what she's been missing, and she's never going to get it again. let's have some sweet sweet sexual revenge. or maybe he can use his newfound position of relationship power to get her to do all sorts of stuff, like clean his apartment, buy him things, or anal. the possibilities are endless, really...

yes, all of that may sound pretty misogynistic, but really, what do you expect? life doesn't give you many second chances. that girl you desperately loved in high school but never got with? yeah, you're never going to get that chance again. that girl in college that you were best friends with but fucked your roommate? yeah, she's gone too. odds are, you're better off anyway. i know you've all checked out your past crushes online to see what's going on in their lives. facebook is great for showing us just how shitty people's lives have turned out, and it's fucking sweet. there's nothing like seeing the girl that was too good for you in high school end up marrying some balding redneck, popping out a few half-retarded children, and winding up stuck in some dead-end job. if you don't get a secret sense of joy from that, you're a fucking liar. so instead of having people spend those miracle second chances making a sweet lasting relationship with the girl, let's have the people realistically get that shit out of their system. it should go a little something like this:

girl: oh my god, it's been so long since i've seen you! you look great! what have you been up to?
guy: well, i moved away, went to college for 4 amazing years, got a sweet job, have a bunch of awesome friends, and generally just have the time of my life. you?
girl: that's so cool. i married my boyfriend from high school, you remember him, right? we have a kid now. he has special needs, but that's ok... i'm ok with it... *sniffle*
guy: aww, that's gotta be tough...
girl: yeah... you know, i always kinda had a thing for you in school...
guy: really? cause i asked you out like 168 times, and you always told me we were just friends.
girl: well, i was young then, but i know better now.
-cut to an hour later after they've had rough sex-
girl: that was amazing...
guy: i've had better. there's cab fare on the dresser. have fun with your retarded kid...
-guy leaves, checking one major regret off of his list. girl cries, realizing the life she could've had if she hadn't been a complete fucking moron-

i'd definitely pay $10 to see that scene in a movie. girls in the audience would boo, men everywhere would stand up and cheer. all would be right in the universe...

How to Lose Friends and Alienate People: perpetuating the stereotype that it's somehow always the guy's fault. at least the stripper scene was funny...

Last House On The Left: the horror-movie-remake trend continues...

a couple of days ago, The Girlfriend and i went to see Last House On The Left (LHOTL). this movie is a remake of the movie by the same name that came out in 1972. the original LHOTL was wes craven's first film. you might remember wes craven from such films as Nightmare on Elm Street 1 - 1723893420, and Scream (most notable for Rose McGowan's awesome nipple shot).

so glorious. they're just staring at you...

while those movies are good in their own right (Scream was good for pointing out all the problems with the slasher films of the 70s.... heh, pointing... nipples.... awesome...), the original LHOTL stands out as something entirely different. however, different isn't always good. people fear change for a reason. it's why crystal pepsi never took off. LHOTL is different because it didn't just show some cute young girls using drugs and then getting murdered by some soulless killer. nope, the original LHOTL had to push it a but further. those bitches were getting raped...

a lot.

like three times.

each.

and then once where they forced the one girl to do the other girl.

had this movie premiered on cinemax, it would've been that cool "oh no, i don't want you to touch me, oh fuck it let's do this, give it to me" scene. here, it was pretty much just your standard rape. not exactly what i want to curl up on the couch and watch on a random weeknight. wes craven wasn't done there, though. he had to take it even FURTHER...

nowadays when there's a dramatic or torturous scene in a movie, you get some dramatic music to go with it. something to make you tug at those emotions that aren't triggered by sight, but rather by sound. you'd get some screeching string music, some fast paced drums, etc. in the original LHOTL, however, we got something entirely different. let me set the scene for you. the girls are naked, bruised, beaten, and bleeding. they'd just been raped once or twice at the house, thrown in the trunk of a car, and driven down a country road into the woods. there, they're raped again. and during all of this, what music should be playing? something that sounded like james motherfucking taylor. that's right. picture this guy singing sweet soft lullabies while a girl is getting drilled against her will.

Buzz: With all due respect, Mr. Taylor, this isn't the best time
for your unique brand of bittersweet folk rock. We have a
potentially critical situation here. I'm sure you'll
understand.
Taylor: Listen, Aldrin, I'm not as laid back as people think. Now
here's the deal: I'm going to play, and you're going to
float there and like it.

on top of that, the movie also had a nice section where one of the girls briefly escapes. as she's running for her life, what kind of music should be playing in the background? again, you'd expect some kind of heartpounding beat to convey a sense of imminent danger lest she fail. not in wes craven's fucked up world, no sir. she's gonna be runnin to bluegrass. seriously. i think there was a banjo and a jug band in there. i half expected the duke brothers to leap over her in the general lee, boss hog hot on their trail. you just cannot take a movie seriously with that kind of shit going on. i'm sitting here watching this thing and laughing my ass off because it's so ridiculous, then feeling like shit because i'm laughing at a girl running for her life. sigh...

ok, that little rant aside, here's what the movie is actually about. these two girls go into the city, they get raped by some escaped convicts, the convicts take them out in the woods, rape them again, then make them rape each other for good measure, then kill them both. one of the convicts is stupid enough to take a pendant from one of the girls. the convicts' car happens to break down somewhere on a back road (scene for rapes 2 and 3, as well as the killings), so the convicts go to a house nearby. turns out it's the house of the chick they killed, the one they took the pendant from. the girl's parents take them in and make them comfortable, saying they can try the tow truck in the morning or something. the girl's mother notices the pendant, realizes that these fuckers killed her daughter, and the father and mother exact revenge. all in all, not too complicated.

the remake follows that plot pretty closely, so no real news there. there's still a rape, but this time only one, and the music is fitting for that kind of a scene. the rape scene definitely goes on a little longer than it needed to, but i guess that might've been the point. the director probably wanted to make it as uncomfortable as possible, and he pretty much succeeded. the exception this time is that the daughter lives and manages to crawl back to her parents half alive. she's a trooper.

what i was really looking for in this film, though, is some sweet-ass revenge by the parents. i hate it when people puss out on revenge stories. there's nothing worse than when someone works the entire movie to get revenge on someone that fucked them over, only to bitch out at the last minute and say something like "i'll let you live, so that you can live knowing that i got the better of you." fuck no, you goddamn moron! the dude already fucked you over once, why are you giving him the chance to do it again? it's not like he's suddenly going to say "oh, wow, i guess i shouldn't have tried to have you arrested, killed, and then impregnated your wife." i realize that they want to make the protagonist noble and shit, but come one. i also hate how hollywood gets around that base human desire to smite your enemies by having the good guy win, show mercy, then have the bad guy immediately turn on the good guy so the good guy has to kill the bad guy in self defense, saying, "oh, no, i wish i hadn't had to kill him." fucking. pussy. just get it over with the first time...

whew. sorry. anyway, thats what i wanted to see from the new LHOTL. the old one did a decent job of that. the mom took care of one of the convicts by seducing him, tying his hands behind his back as foreplay, and then biting his penis off. yep, you heard that right. she shook it like a damn dog. disturbing, yet hilarious. the dad also took down the main guy with a chainsaw in the end. chainsaws are excellent horror movie weapons because of the splatter and sound, but they're incredibly impractical. those fuckers aren't exactly wieldy, and you don't want to be an idiot when you use one...

... like this guy.

i'm happy to say, i wasn't disappointed by the new LHOTL. once they finally got to the killins, the parents did a decent job. the first guy in the old movie was the one to lose his wang to the sharp canines of a middle aged housewife. the first guy in the new movie doesn't meet a much better fate. he had already gotten his nose broken earlier in the movie, and it had gotten stitched with no anaesthetic. then he gets a wine bottle broke over his head. then he gets stabbed in the chest. while still fighting back, he wrestles with the dad for a bit until the dad pinches his still-broken nose. then the parents push him over to the sink full of water and try to drown him. when that doesn't seem to be working, they shove his hand into the garbage disposal and turn it on...

a quick side note at this point. i love gratuitous violence. i really do. it's awesome. this movie so far didn't have much crazy violence, but the hand in the garbage disposal tipped it over the edge. this scene went on for a solid 2 minutes. 2 minutes of crunching grinding noise (kudos to the sound department) and screaming. at first i was just like "oh fuck, sucks to be him..." after about the minute 30 mark, though, i couldn't stop laughing. it just went on for so damn long that it was comical. i'm sure i got some weird looks for laughing like a maniac as this guy is getting his hand ground to pieces, but goddamn was it funny. eventually, the parents realize he's not gonna shuffle off his mortal coil, so they pull him out of the sink, and the dad puts a claw hammer into his skull. for the record, this guy didn't even do any raping. he was just an accomplice, and he definitely had the worst of the deaths. talk about choosing the wrong fuckin friends...

once the parents got a taste of sweet sweet revenge/justice, they decided to go to town on the other two convicts. they have plenty of time, as the convicts are sleeping peacefully in the guest house, having heard nothing of their friend/brother getting his ass WHOOPED by some upper-middle class white people. so with all this time, how do these parents decide to arm themselves? with a goddamn butcher knife and a fireplace poker.

what the hell is it with the fireplace poker as a weapon? will someone please explain this to me? yes, it's metal, and yes, it kinda has a hook thingy with a point on one end, but come on. that hook would only stick into someone if you hit them just right, and the point on the end isn't even sharp. the thing also barely has any reach. i could go around my house right now and find something better to defend myself/kill someone with. duct tape a knife to a broom handle and you've got yourself a spear (see the Mist movie review). make some molotov cocktails. put some nails into a baseball bat. something, anything, but the goddamn fireplace poker...

anyway, the parents go after the other two convicts, and they seem to take them out without any of the flair of the first death. the parents steal the main bad guy's gun from the room where the two convicts are sleeping, and before the guy can get a good shot off, they wake up. the one female convict puts up a fight (topless) and eventually gets shot in the eye (still topless). nothin like some gratuitous nudity 30 minutes after a penis-shrinking rape scene. the main bad guy evades the parents by leaping through a window, then plays a little cat and mouse shit, and eventually just gets beat down with a fire extinguisher. the dad checks his pulse, and the fight is over. the parents take off across the lake they live on with their daughter to get her medical attention, and all seems hunky dorey.

at this point, though, i was a little pissed. the first guy, who didn't even really rape or kill anyone, gets the everloving shit kicked out of him and dies a horrible horrible death, but the dude who actually did all the horrible things just takes a fire extinguisher to the face? what the fuck kindof justice is that? hogtie that motherfucker and put his balls over a small-flamed candle; smear his wang with sugar and pour a bunch of ants on there; cram aluminum foil into his mouth and make him chew; just do something...

i was all set to leave the theater pissed. so much for sweet sweet revenge. oh, wait, they're not rolling the credits. oh, wait, the main bad guy is still alive. why is there a knife cutting into his skin? oh yeah, the dad was a doctor, wasn't he....

oh yes, the dad goes back to the house after getting his daughter to safety, and takes care of motherfucking business. he paralyzes the main bad guy, puts his head in a microwave, and turns it on. if you can't guess what happens, it goes a little something like this...

this is also what happens when normal people try to comprehend scientology...

wow. way to fulfill my wishes, director of LHOTL. no accidental self-defense death here. oh no, this was cold-blooded revenge murder, and it was fucking sweet...

oh yeah, i totally wouldn't waste money seeing this movie. i've really just spelled out everything for you, and you're not missing anything. the gratuitous boobs weren't that great, and $11 is way to much to pay to see some dude get the shit kicked out of him. me, i just see these things because it's my hobby. just as aaron will go see a crappy concert and colonel honey mustard will eat a crappy sandwich, i go to see crappy movies. it's a curse...

oh, one more thing. this movie was fucked up, but two other things happened at it that are even more fucked up. first, right after the horribly uncomfortable rape scene, a couple walked out of the theater. normal enough, you might think; maybe it was just too much for them. what made this just plain wrong is that this couple walked out WITH THEIR TWO KIDS, AGES 5 AND 10! holy shit, what the fuck is wrong with you two jackasses?! first off, the movie was a 10:20pm showing, so those little bastards should be in bed. second, there's no way they don't come out a little screwed up from seeing some girl get horribly raped. third, and perhaps the worst part, the people left AFTER the rape scene. it's like they saw what they needed to see, so they could now go home and enjoy the rest of their evening. that should seriously be grounds for calling child protective services...

the second fucked up thing involved these three little hipster fags after the theater. this 16 yr old bastard wearing chuck taylors (god how i hate those), girl's jeans, an ironic vintage t-shirt, and having emo hair calls up his friend right after the movie gets out, tells him how it ends, and then a bunch of similar fags stand around to discuss how it's the worst thing they've ever seen. they were actually pissed off that it was so bad. what the fuck did they expect? did they not read one review, or even the plot description, before going to the movie? me, i paid good money to see something i knew was going to be absolute garbage, because that's just what i do. these kids were apparently expecting an oscar winner or something. sorry man, scorsese couldn't step in to direct this one, he was busy. fucking idiots...

LHOTL: god i hate hipsters...

The Slow Motion Shot: A Rant

i was watching the second Chronicles of Narnia movie (i know, i'm a nerd. deal with it...) last night, and while i won't get into the details of that movie here (i don't think the movie was actually worthy of a blog post), there was one thing that really bugged me about it: the slow motion shot. it seemed like every other shot in the damn movie was either a sweeping epic landscape shot or a slow motion close shot of someone's facial expressions. i can handle the sweeping epic landscape shot because i was watching the movie on blu-ray, and any residual drugs in my system from my youth perk up whenever something looks just that badass. the slow motion thing though, that shit needs to stop...

i first noticed the problem back when the Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring came out. i was so geeked to see that movie, since LOTR is one of my all-time favorite books (remember that whole "i'm a nerd" thing?). when i first saw LOTR: TFOTR, i thought it was completely badass and well done. it basically fulfilled my dream that someone could make a legitimte LOTR movie. then the Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers came out. once again, i was psyched, and once again, i loved the movie. i started noticing a bit of a problem, though. it seemed like every time peter jackson wanted to show any kind of emotional situation, he would just shoot everything in slow motion. the characters feel torn apart? show that shit in slow motion. someone just died? show that shit in slow motion. someone's struggling with an inner turmoil? show that shit in slow motion. what kind of fucking laziness is that? i get that time may seem to slow down when something bad happens, but goddmanit, i don't need to see someone's eyes glistening with tears for 45 goddamn seconds.

when Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King came out, my suspicions/fears/death threats against peter jackson were solidified. every other motherfucking shot in that movie (that wasn't a battle scene) was in goddamn slow motion. what the fuck... i'm not even going to get into how big of a fucking tragedy the last 45 minute of that movie was, but let's just say that there's a reason the hobbits are a huge symbol in the gay nerd community. sam was two fucking seconds from showing frodo who the one true lord of the [cock]ring was right there on that mountain face...

"but i never got the chance to tell you how much i loved your hairy feet..."

now, those movies were written by peter jackson and fran walsh (a woman). you know who fran walsh is? she's fucking peter jackson's wife. want to know why you never let husbands and wives write movies together? because i'm guessing the screen writing sessions went a little something like this:

Fran: let's have them stare longingly into each other's eyes, showing that their friendship through all these years [even though sam was just frodo's fucking gardner] is being ripped apart. then let's slow the entire thing down for multiple excruciating minutes so that people are beaten over the head with that message...
Peter: i don't know honey, that seems a little gay. we just had this giant awesome scene with fire and explosions and orcs getting their asses kicked and-
Fran: frodo's heart is breaking, sam feels like he's about to die! they just love each other so much! GOD! you men have no heart, no soul, you're all so fucking closed off!!!
Peter: i'm just saying, maybe there's another way to do it...
Fran the firebreathing PMS dragon: IF YOU DON'T PUT THAT SCENE IN, YOU'RE NEVER FUCKING GETTING LAID AGAIN!!!
Emasculated Peter: yes ma'am...

and thus we have the third trimester abortion that was the end of The Return of the King. motherfucker. show some goddamn backbone and stand up to your harpy kiwi wife....

but i digress. back to slow motion. the biggest problem with it is that when peopel get really upset or emotional, the last fucking thing they do is talk slowly. anyone here ever gotten into a fight with a loved one or poured your heart out to someone [possibly while drunk]? did you speak every word as if your thoughts were wading through water? no, you fucking gushed all of your feelings, emotions, thoughts, and desires in an incoherent orgy of words. you probably expressed 15 pages worth of words in less than 2 minutes, and there's no goddamn way you used proper sentence structure when you did it, so why the fuck is every scene of emotion always slowed down to the point where it's like they're trying to explain their feelings to a toddler with down syndrome?

are we really trying to get a point through to this little guy? no. just give him his damn crayons already...
also, i can't believe google actually got me this picture when i typed in "toddler with down syndrome". technology = awesome

let's put that shit in real time, and let's not force the actors to slow their speech patterns down to that of a stroke victim. oh, and enough of this having-girls-turn-around-in-slow-motion-so-that-their-hair-whips-around-in-a-kind-of-cool-way. that shit's overdone, and the frozen deer in the headlights look in their eyes doesn't work either. if you can't manage to find some other way to convey emotion and surprise to your viewers, take a goddamn film class or something. finally, enough of having fight scenes in slow motion. and for that matter, enough of having fight scenes in super fast editing where we don't know what the fuck just happened (bourne movies, i'm looking at you...). a fight scene is cool not for how it's shot but in how it's choreographed. you can edit to 13 yr old girls slapfighting and make it look like a fight scene in the bourne movies, but it won't be cool. you know what fight scenes rocked the shit? the ones in the matrix. no crazy editing, every action wasn't in slow motion (with the exception of bullet-time stuff), and you got to see some badass ninja kicks. that's the way to do it...

now don't get me wrong, there are certain times when slow motion is fucking sweet. sometimes stuff happens so fast that it'd be nice if we could slow it down a bit. also, slow motion can make someone look like a badass, if used in the right moment. here are a few examples of when slow motion can be awesome:

1. any sports replay, ever. hits in football are obviously the coolest slowmo replay, but the list doesn't stop there. back in the day CBS experimented with their super slowmo replay (they still do it now, but only in certain circumstances) and they showed a punt in slowmo. fuck... ing... hell that was awesome! the guy jacked himself in the face with his own knee! i could watch any sport replay (yes Girlfriend, even baseball) in slowmo, hands down.
2. pretty much any action involving physics. for instance, all those commercials where the bullet shatters a bottle and turns into a car, or a diver hits the water and turns into a car. you know what i'm talking about. it's a simple concept, and it's fucking sweet.
3. 99% of the stuff on the discovery channel. there's literally a show on the discovery channel where all they do is slow shit down. now, i don't need to see the two fags from mythbusters in slow motion, but i sure as hell love seeing them blow shit up in slow motion. i also wouldn't mind seeing that hot redhead on the show in slow motion...
4. a group of guys walking shoulder to shoulder towards the camera. this is pretty much a mandatory shot in every much michael bay movie ever made. doesn't matter if the guys are soldiers, astronauts, or just a plucky group of cracked out hilljacks who are somehow going to save the world from a giant asteroid with only two weeks of training. this shot is so often done in any movie involving a group of people either walking to meet their fate or walking safely back from meeting their fate that the simpsons made fun of it in Deep Space Homer...
   

god i miss when the simpsons was funny...

so if you want to use slow motion, go ahead, but only in those circumstances. the rest of the time, just film it in real time. really, we can only take so much.

Simon Pegg: I want to have your babies, in a metaphorical sense...

so it's been awhile since i've posted anything. winter break (when i didn't have any work to put off) and then starting an internship (when i had work to put off, but actually couldn't put it off) kinda hamper blogging. i should get one of those jobs where you just sit in an office all day and don't do anything, but still get paid over 5ok. now who has one of those jobs that i know, but yet still bitches about it every day... hmm... oh yes, the Girlfriend!

anyway, what better way to spend my obligatory office hours period than blogging about stuff. it's not like any of my students ever show up anyway (fuckers). so as a way to jump back into the swing of things, i'm going to take a different approach than my previous posts. this one isn't going to review a movie, it's going to discuss a person. that person, you may have guessed, is simon pegg.

this guy is seriously one of the funniest people i've ever seen. i never got the chance to see shaun of the dead in theaters. i think i rented the movie sometime and just watched it by myself, laughing my ass off the entire time. it is, by far, the greatest zombie movie ever made. after seeing that movie, i was hooked. next up was hot fuzz, which isn't quite as good, but only because the awesomeness of shaun of the dead can never be met. hot fuzz is a fantastic movie. it has a decent amount of funny parts in the first 3/4 of the movie, and then it sortof shifts...

how does it shift, you say?

it shifts by becoming a completely badass action movie, and it kicks off the action with simon pegg jump kicking an 80 yr old woman in the face. i'm serious. i saw this one in theaters, and i nearly peed my fucking pants. the next 20 minutes of the movie are a blur of a gunfight where simon pegg and nick frost take on the residents of a sleepy english village. those residents, with their harmless-seeming english accents, are all packing heat. when the elderly priest whips two .45's from his sleeves, i fucking lost it. i tried to watch this movie last night, but my copy of it is scratched. gonna have to remedy that right quick...

after hot fuzz, pegg has done some american movies, namely how to lose friends and alienate people. i haven't seen this yet, but i'm not expecting great things. he needs nick frost and edgar wright to really shine.

speaking of nick frost and edgar wright, i finally picked up Spaced, the tv show where that trio started off. it's a bbc tv show that ran back around the turn of the millenium, and it recently got released to american dvd audiences. thank fucking god it did. the only thing wrong with this show is that it was only on for 2 seasons, and those seasons are only 7 episodes each.

so why is Spaced so great? well, first off, there's the music. completely awesome. i've already picked up about 10 songs from the show, and i love them. there's a few out there that are really hard to find, and i'm still working on it. so the music helps, but what makes it really great is that pegg is just like me. he wants to be a graphic artist for a comic book company (what i wanted to do when i was really young, before i got jaded and became a lawyer), he loves science fiction, fantasy, and comic books, he smokes weed and drinks beer, he plays a lot of video games, he has a best friend who he does all of this stuff with (Brad, Brett, Curtis, Jerad, Mark, Bly, Pat, etc.), and he generally just doesn't want to grow up. oh, and he hates The Phantom Menace. seriously. it's a recurring theme in the entire second season...

along that line, there are a lot of references in the show to awesome movies that i happen to really like, such as the matrix, one flew over the cuckoo's nest, the first star wars trilogy, fight club, and pulp fiction. some of these references are subtle, some are not. they're not like family guy, though, where there's one every 30 seconds, and it's a complete departure from all plot. no, this stuff is just worked in, and it pays off. i'm sure Aaron heard me laughing like a maniac in my room while watching the first season. most of these references are why...

so yeah, go out and rent pegg's stuff. you won't be disappointed. simon, if you ever read this, i want to be your best friend. seriously. i just want to hang out with you and nick frost, get loaded, and have a blast. i'd die a happy man if that ever happened...

oh, and for those of you who may wonder what an episode of Spaced is actually about, here's a preview: in one episode, pegg took a bunch of cheap speed and spends most of the day playing resident evil 2 on playstation. he then goes to a friend's art show under extreme duress, and a solid amount of the episode revolves around how fucking stupid modern art is. pegg then flips out, thinks everyone are zombies, punches a painted up tranny in the face (seriously), and rescues his friends from the shittiness of the art show after-party.

yeah.

just drink that in.

and now, to tide you over, here are some quotes from Spaced:
(tim is pegg, daisy is his roommate,

Tim: You're scared of mice and spiders, but oh-so-much greater is your fear that one day the two species will cross-breed to form an all-powerful race of mice-spiders, who will immobilize human beings in giant webs in order to steal cheese.
Daisy: I never said that.
Tim: Yeah, but it'd be good though, wouldn't it?

Daisy: Right, I'm going to the shops. D'you want anything?
Tim: Porn.
Daisy: Tim, I'm not going to buy you porn. You can get it from railway sidings like everybody else.
Tim: I can't, I'm an adult. I'm supposed to leave it there.

Tim: [On Resident Evil] It's a subtle blend of lateral thinking and extreme violence.