We’ve all been there before. Someone asks you “How are you?”, and you respond with “Not much”. That’s the wrong response. And it’s awkward. There’s no way to counteract the fact you said the wrong thing. You fucked up. And they know it. You just have to embrace it and ignore it and hope they didn’t notice. But they did. And they are laughing at you for it. “What’s up?”… “12:15, maybe 12:30.” Just give up on the conversation and walk away.
Critically Rated at 11/17
Filed under Random Rants
Dogtown and Z-Boys is a documentary about the Zephyr skateboard team, of how a group of teenaged slackers from South Santa Monica, Venice and Ocean Park revolutionized skateboarding. Stacy Peralta directs using a blend of archival footage and various interviews with the Z-Boys and the people influenced by them. The skating footage highlights the film, but the awesome soundtrack and having Sean Penn narrating makes it more entertaining.
Stacy Peralta was one of the Z-Boys and he provides the viewer with an extensive history of what it was like to grow up in Dogtown. The film doesn’t just jump into skateboards; it explains the social and economic situation of Dogtown in the ‘70s, the importance of the surfing culture, and a few of the key players who formed the team like Jeff Ho, Skip Engblom, and Craig Stecyk. Dogtown was a way of life, a ghetto by the sea, and it was their paradise.
There were twelve members of the Zephyr team. They each had their own style, but were always skating with each other, competing and pushing and driving themselves to always do more. It’s wasn’t enough to do something cool, you had to look cool doing it. The documentary talks about all the skaters, but there’s a definite focus on Stacy Peralta, Tony Alva, and Jay Adams. Stacy Peralta had style and grace. Tony Alva had style and a big ego that made him want to be the best. Jay Adams was a natural, they describe him as the spark that modernized skating.
The Zephyr team weren’t the first skateboarders. They were the ones who transitioned the sport from being a hobby to being a lifestyle. Before the Z-Boys, skateboard tricks were super lame. They involved handstands and twirls and flat ground. The Z-Boys turned skating into land surfing. They carved and went low to the ground, they used theirs hands to pivot, and they treated the pavement like it was waves. It also helps that skateboard wheels went from clay to polyurethane, allowing them to do things that old boards weren’t capable of.
The Zephyr team made use of an ongoing drought and empty swimming pools were turned into impromptu skate parks. They started doing new tricks that weren’t even conceivable on flat ground. They pushed themselves to go higher and higher, and eventually they were able to escape gravity and start doing aerial tricks, which leads us directly to modern skating.
This is one of the best documentaries I’ve ever experienced. It is required viewing if you are a skater. It is worth watching even if you aren’t. It might turn you into one.
Critically Rated at 15/17
Filed under Entertainment
Cinco de Mayo or Cinco de Drinko is a Mexican holiday to celebrate the Mexican army’s unlikely victory over the French and the Battle of Puebla on May 5, 1862. In the United States it’s a day to celebrate Mexican heritage and to get shitfaced on Corona, Tecate, and tequila. Cinco de Mayo means the Fifth of May, and it’s celebrated on the first fat Tuesday in May.
This is actually a pseudo-holiday. Most of Mexico ignores the holiday, except for the people of Puebla. It was a recognized holiday in California since 1863, and gained rising popularity in the 1940s-‘60s. And then the beer companies started promoting it as a drinking day, a Mexican St. Patrick’s Day. And that’s where we are today. Just another excuse to get fucked up and not get judged for it. I’ll take it.
Critically Rated at 14/17
Filed under Random Rants
Macaulay Culkin was the shit. If there was ever a case for developing anti-growth hormones, it would be to keep him from reaching puberty. I’m sure Michael Jackson would agree. Home Alone is an awesome movie, essential viewing for any happy childhood. It’s they story of 8-year old Kevin McCallister who is accidently left home alone when his family goes to Paris for Christmas vacation. Chris Columbus directs and John Hughes produced and wrote this family favorite.
Kevin is kind of a brat, but he is picked on and excluded by his large family. He makes a wish that his family would disappear, and instead they totally forget about him and leave for an amazing vacation without him. At first he’s ok with it and has fun doing whatever he wants without anybody telling him what to do. Too bad Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern, a.k.a. Harry and Marv, a.k.a. the Wet Bandits decide to loot his neighborhood, including Kevin’s house. Kevin decides that it’s time for him to man up and defend his house, and so he devises a crazy plan that uses tons of booby traps and with a little luck he disrupts their plans and saves Christmas.
John Heard and Catherine O’Hara play Kevin’s parents. They have a big family and don’t always have time for Kevin. They love him though. They have to. Catherine O’Hara is Kate McCallister, the frantic mom who would sell her soul to the Devil himself just to get back to her son. There could be a spinoff about Home Alone from her POV. She left her son home alone, she realizes it halfway to Paris, and spends the next few days bartering her way from airport to airport, bumming rides, and essentially doing whatever she can to get home. She even hangs out with John Candy and his Polka buddies.
There is an actual story, a real plot… but I think that the booby trap/house raid was thought of first, and then they built the movie around that. The booby traps are very elaborate and obviously planned out. The whole plot of leaving Kevin home alone is just an excuse to have a kid physically abuse two bad guys. The police are a joke; they don’t do anything to help Kevin. The Santa Claus knows that a little kid is all alone on Christmas Eve, just wishing for his parents to come home. He even knows his address and does nothing to help. The pizza guy thinks he got shot at, knows the address, and doesn’t report it? There are so many adults that Kevin has encounters with, and not one of them is competent enough to recognize that he needs help.
The booby trap/house raid sequence will make you laugh and squirm, especially moments like the nail going into Marv’s foot and Harry’s hand getting branded by the doorknob. I still get shivers down my spine when the Wet Bandits catch Kevin and Harry says he’s going to bite off Kevin’s fingers. It makes everything Kevin did to them justified.
Home Alone was more than a movie growing up. It was a career opportunity. Whenever I was sick or pretending to be sick, it was up to me to defend my house. I must have lived in a decent neighborhood, because I never got my chance to hurt any burglars. At least I could live my dreams through Kevin.
Critically Rated at 14/17
Filed under Entertainment
The fine folks at Mendocino Brewing Company of Ukiah, CA have crafted another delicious microbrew. White Hawk Select IPA in an India Pale Ale that has a decent amount of flavor and a decent 7.0% alcohol content. This isn’t the best IPA, but it’s one of the better cheaper microbrewed IPAs. Mendocino Brewing Co. has some pretty decent brews. If you see it, you should get it, you won’t regret it. And even if you do regret it, I don’t care. Never trust the internet. This is just a filler article anyway.
Critically Rated at 10/17
Filed under Drinks
If you’ve ever wanted to perform a duet with an old man on a giant keyboard in a toy store, I’m going to go out on a limb and assume that you’ve seen this gem from the ‘80s. Penny Marshall directs and Tom Hanks is Big. It’s the story of a kid who makes a wish and becomes trapped in an adult’s body. It’s a scenario that’s been done a thousand times before, but this is the gold standard of body switching movies.
12-year old Josh is too short for a ride at a carnival. He sees a Zoltar Speaks wishing machine, and wishes that he was big. The next day he wakes up and he is now a 30-year old man. His mom thinks that he was kidnapped, so Josh turns to his friend Billy for help. Billy gets Josh a hotel room in the city, and helps him get a job, and essentially teaches him how to be an adult, even though he’s still a kid too.
Josh is working for a toy company, and since he’s still a kid, he knows what kids want. His boss notices him and promotes him. A yuppie executive named Paul dislikes Josh for his instant success, and Paul’s girlfriend Susan starts to become attracted to Josh. She dumps Paul and starts a relationship with Josh. He likes her, but he knows that he can’t be thirty forever and so he goes back to being a kid.
On the surface, this is just a lighthearted comedy. Josh and Billy are great friends, and they have a lot of fun just playing and being immature. Tom Hanks goes a great job of acting like a kid. Compare Tom Hanks in Big to Robin Williams in Jack. Tom Hanks seems innocent and childlike, while Robin Williams just does a parody of what he thinks kids are like. Jared Rushton plays Billy, the best friend. He really is the glue that holds this film together. He helps Josh out; he is his guide to the adult world. It’s also kind of weird that no one would say anything about a 30-year old man constantly hanging out with a 12-year old boy and they clearly aren’t related. Plus Billy is constantly going in and out of the city by himself. His best friend was seemingly kidnapped, but Billy’s parents just let him do whatever he wants apparently. Maybe they don’t love him.
So Josh is just a little kid, but Susan doesn’t know that and basically instigates a relationship with him. She uses her body as a sexual weapon. She seduces him and has sex with him. It’s a very weird case of statutory rape, but rape is rape, and she definitely raped him. He isn’t emotionally or mentally capable of making adult decisions.
The Zoltar Speaks wishing machine raises a few questions. I know that this isn’t Harry Potter or anything, it’s trying to be a fantastic depiction of the real world, but the fact is that some company can manufacture magic. Even if there is only one wishing machine that actually grants wishes, the implications of such a device would change the world. If you knew there was a machine that granted wishes you would use that shit all the time. When Josh wishes to go back to being a kid, he should have also asked for a puppy. And Susan knows about it, why doesn’t she wish for something to make her happy, like a puppy? And even best friend Billy knows about it, but he didn’t wish for anything either, like a puppy. There are three main characters that know about a mechanical genie that will make your dreams come through, and only one character that uses it to make wishes. And he didn’t even ask for a puppy.
Watch this movie. Watch it again if you’ve seen it before. It’s always enjoyable.
Critically Rated at 14/17
Filed under Entertainment
Breakfast food is amazing. Eggs, waffles, pancakes, hash browns, sausage, home fries, toast, bacon…. Some of the greatest creations are breakfast foods. The only problem with breakfast is that it’s too damn early. And sometimes I sleep in. But this is America, and there’s no rule prohibiting you from eating breakfast for another meal. Sometimes I want breakfast for dinner. Sometimes I want breakfast for lunch. I’m not talking about brunch. This is lunchtime and I want breakfast. IHOP, Denny’s and small diners know that you love eggs and bacon anytime of the day. It’s my dream to have breakfast foods available 24/7. I’m not worried about the economy or global warming. I think a lack of breakfast options after 11:00 AM is a bigger issue.
Critically Rated at 15/17
Filed under Snacks
Alan Moore is a genius. A scary, angry looking genius. Swamp Thing has some of his best stories. He didn’t create the character or the comic, he just made it awesome. Love and Death is the second compilation of his Swamp Thing comics. When Moore first took over, he changed the Swamp Thing from being a man turned into a plant monster into a plant monster that was never a human and just thought it was
.
The collection starts with a bang as the Swamp Thing comes to terms with the fact that he was never Alec Holland. He finds the body of the man he thought he was and buries him. It marks the end of an era; Swamp Thing is no longer a Len Wein character, now he has evolved into a much deeper and darker character. The whole comic becomes more adult. It’s not for little kids. It’s for adult readers, the first comic to be published monthly without the Comics Code Authority Seal of Approval.
There’s a three-issue arc about Abigail dying. The Swamp Thing goes through extraordinary events to bring her back. He ventures into the afterlife and makes his way down to Hell. Hell is terrifying and horrifying, and it reminded me of the Hell scenes in What Dreams May Come. I know that movie came out way after this comic, but I saw the movie first so shut up.
This is when my review gets lazy. There are a few other stories in this compilation too. One’s about cute little aliens arriving in the Swamp. There’s one where you discover that there’s been more than one Swamp Thing. There’s one about Abigail and the Swamp Thing doing weird things that no human should do with a plant monster. There’s really no way to do Alan Moore justice by paraphrasing material of this caliber, I just hope that you are slightly intrigued and decide to read Swamp Thing.
If you like Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman, you will like Alan Moore’s Swamp Thing. You might even recognize a few characters that they both use. The Swamp Thing universe takes you places. There are internal struggles and external battles. The storylines have unlimited potential. The Swamp Thing goes to Hell and back and ends up hooking up with a sack of meat. There’s really nothing that Moore can’t do and make feasible.
Critically Rated at 16/17
Filed under Entertainment
There wasn’t enough caffeine in soda and coffee, so they came out with energy drinks. And those weren’t unhealthy enough so they came out with 5-Hour Energy. There are a few foul flavors available that don’t taste anything like the fruit they claim to be, Grape in this case. I’m pretty sure you’ve had a 5-Hour Energy or at least seen their lame infomercials. They say you get hours of energy now with no crash later. That’s bullshit. You will crash harder than Ryan Dunn. They straight up claim that you can drink this everyday. That’s bullshit. You will get heart murmurs and die and people will assume you just died of a drug overdose and no one will go to your funeral because they think that you gave up on life.
These things are ok to drink every once in a while. If you drink the whole thing at once you will get really jittery. They are smaller than a Red Bull, but Red Bull is better. Cocaine is also better. It’s probably healthier for you too.
Critically Rated at 9/17
Filed under Drinks
Some movies transcend the big screen and will change your life. The Shawshank Redemption is one of those movies. The first time you see it you want to run around shouting about it and share it with the world. Frank Darabont directs this adaptation of a short Stephen King novella, and Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman headline the amazing cast. Tim Robbins plays Andy Dufresne, a hotshot banker who gets locked up for killing his wife and her lover.
Andy’s not cut out for prison. He doesn’t belong there, he kind of strolls around like he doesn’t have a care in the world. He maintains his innocence, but so do all the other prisoners except for Red (Morgan Freeman), the only guilty man in Shawshank. Andy and Red form a friendship, and he makes a few more friends as well. Tim Robbins does a great job, but Morgan Freeman steals every scene that he’s in, plus he narrates the movie (which is always awesome cause his voice is like sexual chocolate).
Prison life kinda sucks. Especially when you’re constantly getting man-raped by the Sisters. And when the corrupt warden relies on your prodigious banking skills to launder money. And when a sadistic guard will beat the shit out of anyone for any reason. And when you’re getting thrown into solitary confinement for months at a time.
Despite a few minor setbacks like those, Andy is able to maintain his sanity when a lesser man would break. He finds flashes of freedom by celebrating the little things in life. He makes a deal with the guard and gets a few bottles of beer and Morgan Freeman goes, “We sat and drank with the sun on our shoulders and felt like free men. Hell, we could have been tarring the roof of one of our own houses. We were the lords of all creation. As for Andy, he spent that break hunkered in the shade, a strange little smile on his face, watching us drink his beer.” Another memorable part is when he broadcasts the opera music over the loudspeaker and all the prisoners drop what they are doing and listen in silence. Little victories like these make you all warm and fuzzy inside like an Irish coffee in the shower.
Some of the happier moments are really inspirational, and you kinda want to go to prison. Then you remember the man-rapes and realize you’re stupid.
So here comes a little spoiler: Andy actually is innocent. He’s just a victim of circumstance. He also escapes at the end. Oh yeah, another spoiler. Not only does he escape, he escapes in spectacular fashion. It’s not super spectacular, there’s no ninjas or exploding hot air balloons, but it’s a memorable reveal that blows your mind the first time you see it.
Most chicks don’t like prison movies. But they like this movie. That’s because it’s not really a prison movie. It just takes place in a prison. It’s about a man who finds freedom, hope, and happiness within himself. So even though he’s trapped he’s free. Brooks (the decrepitly old inmate) got institutionalized, and when he finally got released he couldn’t handle the world. He had no friends, no family, no hope. He was trapped in his freedom, and took his own life. Red is going down the same path as Brooks, but Andy’s friendship saved him. You have two choices: get busy living or get busy dying.
The Shawshank Redemption is one of the best movies of all time. Go to IMDB and see for yourself. It’s practically a perfect picture. If you don’t like this movie you have no soul.
Critically Rated at 16/17
Filed under Entertainment
Consistency is key. If you discover a new restaurant that looks interesting, you should be able to enter the establishment and see the host stand. Then you tell the host how many are in your party, and she will take you to a table where you can have a seat and look over the menu. Then your server comes over and takes your order and you relax and socialize while the cooks make your food, then the food comes out and you eat it. And then you pay (and you tip 20% because you’re not cheap), and then you leave. Simple, easy, and the standard way to do it.
But then there are stupid restaurants that don’t have a host stand. These trendy restaurants try to make up their own rules, like getting customers to order in line and pay in advance for food, and not having a waiter, so you have no idea who to ask for hot sauce or another round of drinks or order dessert from. The shitty place I went to last night didn’t even have booze (essential to survive any family dinner). No host stand means trouble. It means they have their own rules that only regulars know. They make the outsiders feel stupid for not knowing how to order. Restaurants should all follow the same basic procedure so you don’t feel like a dumbass for not knowing their absurd ordering process. If I go into a new place and don’t know how to get the food that I want in my stomach, then I will go somewhere that wants me to order their food.
Critically Rated at 6/17
Filed under Random Rants
criticallyrated 