*SNAP!*
Anybody ever see this guy? He's like a walking advertisement for birth control, but still funny as hell.
So Imus has been chopped off like so much dead skin tissue. Look, I don't give a rip one way or another. Either way, it's a double standard: Either get rid of all the useless bags of skin still sucking valuable air (I'm looking at YOU, Howard Stern) or shut your pie hole. Don't yell "Racist" in one breath and "Kill a motherfucker like it ain't no thang" in another.
DNA tests prove it: Larry Birkhead is the father of Anna Nicole Smith’s baby. Fuck-A-Doodle-Doo. Jeezus, the bitch CROAKED already...What's it gonna take to get this intergalactic fucking family freakshow off my television, a plane crash??!? Aren't we at war somewhere?
Rolling Stone has an interview with Pete Doherty, the supposed patron-saint of British Punk Rock music. He's also the patron saint of crack dealers all over London. The interview takes place at several crack houses, and shows Petey-boy trying his DAMNEDEST to score drugs. How is Pete Doherty even still alive? At first I wrote him off as a joke, but now he's a miracle of science. The amount of drugs he's taken should theoretically kill a whale. You could probably inject him with lava and he'd just laugh it off as he drank a cup of paint.
Of course, women flock to him like flies around a steaming pile of shit. The reporter passes a chick fleeing from his room with tears streaming down her face. As if Heroin is somehow conducive to a healthy relationship. I love it when a woman takes on a "Deep Ultra-Macho British Artistic Sensitive Side" (or DUMBASS for short) and gets that stupid look on thier face when the druggie moron takes them to the cleaners and breaks thier hearts. I swear, you could set your watch by it. Yeah, whatever. Cry me a river for sympathy, dipshit. Cry me a whole fucking ocean for that one.
I was talking to a woman on Friday who is a professor at the University of Washington about some Sanskrit translations, and I suddenly realized that she had NO education in the spoken language. It's weird for me when the people try to pronounce sanskrit words but they get it really wrong. But you have to feel bad for them because they do it with so much sincerity. Is it wrong that I didn't correct her? After all, I did come to her for her opinion.
I've seen too many movies to give individual posts on each one, so we'll do this Cthulhu-style RAPID FIRE ROUND:
"300"
Or: Why you should never fuck with the Greeks (Hah! *SNORT*)
“300” was awesome.
It’s not historically accurate, let’s be clear right out of the gate. It’s an adaptation of a graphic novel that was an adaptation of a retelling of the battle of Thermopylae. Let’s say it’s a great movie based on actual events, and for those looking for historical nuance, you may be disappointed. Leave the Herodotus at home and just enjoy a great flick.
So, the story: King Xerxes is sweeping across the known world, and laying out the lesser kings with either subjugation or death. His army numbers into the millions. He has entire nations at his disposal. He has superior armament and military science, including mobile infantry, artillery, and hand grenades. Sparta isn’t meant to be anything more than a pit stop enroute to Rome. Unfortunately, it’s peopled by Spartans, the single most badass killing force since Bubonic plague. These people live for combat, and their breeding program is simplicity itself: Kill any child that looks weak or born with a defect.
The Spartans are screwed from the get-go, their oracle predicts doom, their leaders are corrupt and their religion forbids warfare during this time of year (Historically, it’s during the Olympic games that prevents this). So Leonidas, King of the Spartans, must make a decision: Await the Persion invasion that will doom Sparta and eventually Greece, or go against his country and religion to war with the Persians.
The king’s original battle plan was to lure the Persians to a narrow alley of natural rock, surrounded on all sides by tall cliffs called “Thermopylae” or “The Hot Gates” due to the volcanic springs nearby. Wedged in and forced to attack in single file, the Persians would get slaughtered in the narrow corridor with no maneuvering room.
Instead of breaking the religious law, king Leonidas only takes himself and his bodyguard of 300 Spartans, fully armed, to Thermopylae.
Gerard Butler does a great job as king Leonidas, he’s such a physical presence and you can feel his contempt for the Persians as he confronts their messengers. Queen Gorgo is every bit a part of the story as the battle itself, and the plot behind the plot gives the movie a strong interest all the way through. It’s painfully difficult to drag two and a half hours of entertainment out of an ongoing three-day skirmish between two tall cliffs, but director Zack Snyder pulls it off in fantastic style, making every shot interesting and different. Filmed in the same style of “Sin City” this is another adaptation of a Frank Miller comic, this time shot in a linear sequence. Also, it truly is breathtaking to see what the Spartans were up against when the fought the Persians: You don't really unserstand what the number 300 looks like when matched against the number 10,000,000 until you SEE it on the big screen. That the Spartans held them off for even ONE battle, let alone three days, is nothing short of astonishing. The movie is excellent, a full five stars spicy hot.
"Grindhouse"
This is a great movie. and the schtick works for the directors. I'll cover the cool stuff first:
Grindhouse is divided into two flicks, billed as a double feature. Actually, they are each about 3/4 as long as a real movie, and the time goes by relatively fast due to the pace of the plot. Also, any movie that opens with Rose McGowan shaking her cinnabuns in hot pants is a winner in my book.
The first movie "Planet Doom" is a zombie-apocalypse style show, with lots of explosions, kung-fu, zombies, sex and barbecue. The scratchy "Grindhouse" style of grainy footage and "scene missing" inserts works to great comedic effect in this one, and the plot starts off crazy, then upgrades to full-out insane in just 10 minutes. The gags are funny as hell, and the gross out factor actually hits 10 several times. Watch for Quentin Tarantino's scene in the cellar with Rose McGowan, I DARE you not to cringe when his goolies start dropping off!
As good as Planet Doom was...Well, maybe it should have been the SECOND show. I say that because Quentin Tarantino was up to bat next, and his story "Death Proof", although great, dragged a bit in the beginning. In fact, for the first 30 minutes you could miss it & not miss anything. Then the action takes off! Then it gets boring for another 20 minutes! Then the action takes off again!
...Yeah, I didn't think you'd fall for that one. Actuall, "Death Proof" has some great shots in it, and the finale is AWESOME, well worth the wait. But it seems like ol' Quint forgot what kind of film he was shooting halfway through, and for some reason thought he was on the set of "The Bridges of Madison County". I assume that's when he took another bong hit, because the plot suddenly takes off like a rocket all the way through the end.
Essentially, a guy going by the name of "Stuntman Mike" has created a 70's musclecar that is so re-enforced and enclosed, it's practically death-proof (for the driver, anyway). His fetish is picking up women and killing them by crashing his car with them in the passenger's seat. But he chooses the wrong bunch on the second time out, as they turn out to be a group of female stunt drivers and kung fu experts with a few ideas of thier own.
One extremely cool feature, and probably why Tarantino/Rodriguez are still considered the avant-garde of baadass cinema, was the previews. Shot entirely for the film (They weren't real) they were a laugh riot all the way through. Each preview was directed by a different director, all done in the 70's style, and this only added to the overall effect.
"Machete" - "They've just fucked with the wrong Mexican! When the job is killing, they call MACHETE!"
"Werewolf Girls of the SS" - Hitler has a new secret weapon. They're sexy. They're loyal. They're WEREWOLVES!"
"Thanksgiving" - "This holiday season, terror has come home to roost"
"Don't" - "If you're thinking of going into this house - Don't"
"If you're thinking of screaming - Don't"
"If you're thinking running - Don't"
"If you're thinking of seeing this movie - Don't"
"Grindhouse" was great, overall. It's well worth the theatre price, I give it a 4 star medium hot.
"Casablanca"
Umm, okay, Casablanca wasn't released recently. In fact, it's a full two decades older than me. But it's my favorite movie of all time, and deserves some special recognition. You cannot go wrong with this film, give it a try if you haven't seen it.
"With the coming of the Second World War, many eyes in imprisoned Europe turned hopefully, or desperately, toward the freedom of the Americas. Lisbon became the great embarkation point. But, not everybody could get to Lisbon directly, and so a tortuous, roundabout refugee trail sprang up. Paris to Marseilles. Across the Mediterranean to Oran. Then by train, or auto, or port across the rim of Africa, to Casablanca in French Morocco. Here, the fortunate ones through money, or influence, or luck, might obtain exit visas and scurry to Lisbon and from Lisbon, to the New World. But the others wait in Casablanca. And wait. And wait. And wait."
"Bobbe, you're a rank sentimentalist!"
My good friend James Kavenaugh and his wife Angi just had thier baby. "Financial Burden the third" was brought into this world last month, you can read about it at www.kavenaugh.com I presided over thier wedding, and I wasn't sure that James actually knew what sex was. Since the kid looks more like his UPS guy than him, I'm still suspicious.
Your Political Fix
Just as a stopped clock is right twice a day, President Bush finally made some sense on Iraq last week. His forceful attack on the Democrats’ deadline for withdrawing our combat troops hit the bull’s-eye.
And I don't mean to rob him of what might possibly be his ONLY sensible victory, but Bush had a fat, easy target. The House version of the military funding bill, which includes a September 2008 deadline, is loaded with domestic spending bribes needed to get members to support it. And immediately after passing their bills, the House and the Senate went on spring break without bothering to reconcile their differences. Until they do, lawmakers can’t send the measure to Bush for his certain veto.
That amounts to a stalemate, with the Democrats overplaying their hand and playing into Bush’s claims they are undermining our troops and setting us up for failure in Iraq. Bush, no doubt tired of being on defense over the war and the problems of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, seized an opportunity to shift the blame. Conveniently ignoring his own poor performance as commander in chief, he warned that, unless Dems give the military the money it needs and let the troops finish their mission, Iraq would become a “cauldron of chaos” where Islamic extremists could “plot attacks on America.”
Painting Democrats as soft on terror is familiar turf for Bush, and some of the old swagger was back. He sounded like Dirty Harry’s “make my day” when he demanded Congress get back to work. “They need to come off their vacation, get a bill to my desk, and if it’s got strings and mandates and withdrawals and pork, I’ll veto it. And then we can get down to the business of getting this thing done.”
As bad a president as George W. Bush has been (and lets face it, not only is he the worst ever, he's actively lobbying to be considered worse than at least the next five, possibly six presidents, and that includes President Anthony Manchops, who will come to power following the Great Munchkin Uprising of 2021. You don't want to know...) he is a worse human being, and it shows whenever he is under pressure; he melts down into a greasy little puddle of glares and smirks and incipient panic. But last week was special. His performance lays to rest any notion other than the fact that he's not a very bright man who has nothing but contempt for a world that refuses to dumb down for him.
The funny thing is that for Bush supporters it is all about the war. There are a lot of people out there who either supported the war or who have friends who supported the war. They imagine themselves to be smart, well-intentioned, decent people. They don't like coming to terms with the fact that they fucked up big time, and they don't like the idea that anyone should suffer any consequences for that. No harm, no foul, they want to say. We meant well. Bygones.
Giving a shit seems to be alien to too many beltway pundits.
Today is Sunday, April 15, the 105th day of 2007. There are 260 days left in the year. This post has been brought to you by Steve Calhoun, the man who invented lightning.
No comments:
Post a Comment