If you go onto Facebook, you’ll notice some people add unnecessary apostrophe’s. Like that one. You took the time to add the apostrophe so others wouldn’t think that you are stupid, and you’ve failed miserably. Congratulations. It’s probably better to just exclude the apostrophes from your Facebook statuses. If you leave them out, people will just assume you’re lazy rather than retarded.
Critically Rated at 6/17
Written, Rated, and Reviewed by Brendan H. Young
Filed under Random Rants
In schools across the US and around the world, millions of kids learn to touch type from Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing. Touch-typing is essential for participation in the technological world that we are living in. It’s more practical than learning cursive. The other day I found out that Mavis Beacon isn’t a real person. She’s just a corporate mascot. That’s devastating news. Now I’m wondering who the hell taught me to type?
Critically Rated at 5/17
Written, Rated, and Reviewed by Brendan H. Young
Filed under People I Feel Sorry For
Movies are cool, and sometimes you like a movie enough to buy it on Blu-ray or DVD. When you get a Blu-ray or DVD, you expect more than just the movie. We demand bonus features. If you like a movie, you are going to watch it more than once. Sometimes you get bored of watching the movie over and over again. So you might want to turn on the director/actor’s commentary and watch the movie with the filmmakers telling you how they made it. The best movies have a second disc of only bonus features. Now you can see all the behind the scenes stuff. You can see how they developed the story, the concept art, how they designed the practical and special effects, and about music and sound effects, basically everything that goes into making a major motion picture.
I like movies because they tell stories. I like bonus features because they tell the stories behind making the story. There’s something Zen about that.
Critically Rated at 14/17
Written, Rated, and Reviewed by Brendan H. Young
Filed under Entertainment
Avatar is your standard story of a white guy who finds a new race of people with their own distinct culture and lifestyle, and he gets accepted into the group and becomes the most awesome one. You’ve seen it in Dances With Wolves, you’ve seen it in The Last Samurai, and now you can see it again in Avatar. The twist in Avatar is that the new race of people are giant 10-foot tall sparkly blue aliens.
Some directors make movies. James Cameron makes blockbusters. He ruled the ‘90s with Terminator 2, True Lies, and Titanic. And then he disappeared for a long time and casual moviegoers forgot about him. Then in 2009, he reappeared with a little flick called Avatar. It broke all kinds of box office records and ultimately made over $2,782,275,172 worldwide. In layman’s terms, that’s a fuckton of money.
It’s 2154 and humans have used up all of the Earth’s resources, so we started going to the stars and using up their resources. That’s how the humans ended up on Pandora, a jungle moon orbiting a gas planet. Pandora is the only known place where the valuable unobtanium mineral can be found. There are only a few setbacks to mining unobatanium: Pandora’s atmosphere is poisonous to humans and the Na’vi, a species of 10-foot-tall sparkly blue cat-like hominids that resent the humans for invading their home.
A greedy corporation has established the Avatar Program to create human/Na’vi hybrids to explore Pandora and set up relations with the Na’vi. Growing an Avatar is a huge investment, each Avatar is genetically matched to its driver and each driver does through years of training. Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) is a paraplegic marine with a dead twin brother. Jake’s brother was a driver in the Avatar program, and Jake is asked to take his place so they don’t waste the Avatar.
Jake jumps at the chance of a lifetime (not really, because he’s in a wheelchair), and he joins the Avatar Program and heads to Pandora. He meets the head of the program, Dr. Grace Augustine (Sigourney Weaver), fellow driver Norm Spellman (Joel David Moore) and a few other characters.
On his first assignment, the crazy Pandora creatures cause Jake to become separated from Grace and Spellman. He’s alone in a dangerous jungle and almost dies a few times before getting rescued by Neytiri (Zoe Saldana). Neytiri gets a sign to take Jake back to her clan. Her mom is the spiritual leader of the tribe and they decide to initiate Jake Sully into their society.
Colonel Miles Quaritch (Stephen Lang) asks Jake to gain the Na’vi’s trust and find out about Hometree, which stands on a large supply of unobtanium. Jake agrees to help him out. He spends his days as an Avatar, learning about the Na’vi, appreciating nature, exploring his Avatar abilities, and falling in love with Neytiri. He spends his nights recording a video log for Grace and supplying intelligence to Quaritch.
Jake begins to feel conflicted the more time he spends running around the jungle. He’s changed. He’s not the same person and he starts to turn his back on his society. He’s gone native and he’s not coming back.
I’m assuming you’ve seen the movie, so I’m not going to go into all the details, but the Na’vi get attacked, Hometree gets destroyed, they blame Jake, he has to get their trust back, and when he does they have a climatic battle to save the Tree of Souls (the Na’vi have a lot of magic trees). The good guys win and the bad guys go home and Jake goes to live in his Avatar body full time.
This movie has a cliché plot, but you can’t stop watching. There are lots of plot holes (like the sudden emergence of all the other Na’vi tribes), but everything flows and fluidity is key to keeping entertained.
Avatar is unintentionally racist. All the main human characters are white. Most of the Na’vi actors are either black or Native-American, as if James Cameron couldn’t decide which race he wanted to suppress more. All the Pandora animals are slaves too. You just take your ponytail-tentacle thing and make a connection with him and he does everything you want.
James Cameron created an amazing world. Pandora is beautiful, you want to live there. There are pretty plants and majestic trees. Flora is cool, but it’s all about the fauna. The Avatar animals are awesome. There are flying animals and stampeding ones and tree-swinging ones.
This is the highest grossing film of all time. That doesn’t mean it’s the best. It just means that a lot of people saw it, liked it, and saw it again. It was a breakout hit in a time when people are supposed to be illegally downloading movies. It meant that if you made a movie worth seeing, people would gladly pay for the experience. It showed that 3D could be more than a gimmick if you do it right. It makes it more immersive, it makes it more magical. Avatar is entertainment. You can’t deny that.
Critically Rated at 15/17
Written, Rated, and Reviewed by Brendan H. Young
Filed under Entertainment
It sucks being sick with a cold or flu. You have a fever, you have chills, maybe your nose is stuffed or runny. You just want to stay tucked in bed all day. You have to force yourself to drink hot tea, orange juice, and lots of fluids. The only good part of being sick is eating chicken noodle soup. It could be canned, it could be homemade, it doesn’t matter. You just want chicken noodle soup. It warms you up and makes you feel better if only for a moment. I feel bad for vegetarians with colds, because orange juice isn’t quite as satisfying.
Critically Rated at 14/17
Written, Rated, and Reviewed by Brendan H. Young
Filed under Snacks
What would you do with a million dollars? Spend the shit out of it, of course. When eleven-year-old Preston Waters (Brian Bonsall) gets a blank check from a shady criminal, he uses the power of technology to write himself a check for a million dollars. Somehow he gets it cashed, and Preston finds out that more money means problems.
Preston is eleven years old and acts a lot older. He knows that he’s being screwed over financially because he is a kid. His two older brothers have a fake business that requires them to take over his room. His dad supports the older brothers because they are trying to make a buck. Preston hates his life and his financial situation and has a wish list for a better life.
Preston’s biggest wish is not for money, but for the death of his two brothers. He openly states to his parents that he wants his brothers to die, and it is later reinforced when you see his typed Birthday Wish List. The number one wish is for his brothers to be taken out. Number two is for a house. We know his priorities off the bat, and he’s obviously evil and sadistic.
One day Preston is riding his bike around a bank and a criminal named Carl Quigley backs into him. The bad guy doesn’t want any extra attention, especially from the police, so he writes Preston a blank check to pay for the damage. Preston takes advantage of the opportunity to commit a little bank fraud and writes out a check for a million dollars. When Preston cashes in the check, the stupid bank manager believes that he’s working for Quigley and gives him a million dollars in dirty money.
Preston now has more money than he can dream of and he goes crazy spending it. He invents a phantom boss named Mr. Macintosh and pretends to be working for him. He buys a mansion, a go-kart track, a faithful chauffeur named Henry, a waterslide, and a bunch of other toys.
He starts to fall for Shay Stanley, who he thinks works at the bank but is actually a federal agent. She is out to capture the mysterious Macintosh for fraud, and thinks that Preston is the way to find him.
Preston has to deal with the pressure of spending a million dollars and has a few bumbling bad guys after his loot and he’s also trying to get some loving from an older woman.
This is not your standard Disney movie and it’s evident within the first five minutes. There’s a hardened criminal who escapes from jail. The dad makes a sex joke about how a computer will teach you everything except how to make love to a woman. The hero of the story is mercilessly mocked and bullied by his older brothers. Preston tells his parents that he wants his brothers to die. He also reinforces that fact by writing it down for his birthday wish list. His number one wish is for his brothers to die. Number two is getting his own house. Throughout the movie, Preston is continually adding to his list and accomplishes most of his goals; the only one that remains is killing his brothers. At least we know what to expect for the sequel.
On the surface, this seems like a movie preaching against being selfish and having too much money. But when you pay attention you realize that money makes things better. The movie tries to make a point that Preston has all this money and toys and no one to have fun with. But then you remember that when he was poor, he didn’t have any friends and was picked on. His friends bashed him. His brothers would tease him and physically beat on him. At least when he had money, he also got a little respect.
This movie is more relevant today than it was when it came out. It’s definitely dated and a lot of the things that he buys are laughable. But if you were a kid and got a million dollars you would spend it in stupid ways too. Especially in the ‘90s.
Critically Rated at 11/17
Written, Rated, and Reviewed by Brendan H. Young
Filed under Entertainment
Sloshball is like baseball or kickball but with a beer in your hand. You play offense with a beer, you play defense with a beer, and second base should be a keg. On paper the object of the game is simple: you want to score more runs than the other team before you run out of innings. But the real object of the game is to get drunk and have a good time. You have a good time sacrificing your beer to catch a foul ball. You have a great time by pegging a base runner and smashing his beer cup into his face. You have an awesome time laughing and cheering and celebrating great plays. Sloshball is fun sport, best reserved for birthdays and special events. It’s not recommended for kids.
Critically Rated at 14/17
Written, Rated, and Reviewed by Brendan H. Young
Filed under Entertainment
Sometimes you turn on the radio and you hear a song that you haven’t heard in years. And the memories start flooding back. A good song can take you places. You remember the first time you heard it, you remember blasting it and passionately singing off-key with your friends, you remember 8th grade dances and high school anthems, you remember summer nights and road trips, you remember the one who got away.
One of the most amazing things about music is that it’s a time machine. It brings you back to a time when you were happy and free and young. A song that takes you back is a gift, a treasure, and a treat.
Critically Rated at 17/17
Written, Rated, and Reviewed by Brendan H. Young
Filed under Entertainment
You’re sitting in the living room and you get up to grab your phone charger from your room. You walk down the hall, confident that you’ll succeed with this easy mission. You go into your room and glance around before realizing you don’t know what you’re looking for. You’ll ask yourself out loud, “What the hell did I come in here for?” You start picking up random objects in the hope that something will click. Something about walking through a doorway causes a brain fart and you experience a temporary bout of Alzheimer’s. Forgetting why you walked into a room can drive you crazy. But if you go back to the original room and think real hard, you might remember your fucking phone charger.
Critically Rated at 8/17
Written, Rated, and Reviewed by Brendan H. Young
Filed under Random Rants
If you experienced the ‘90s at all, you might remember Kel Mitchell. He was one half of the teenaged Kenan and Kel comedy troupe. He’s skinny one who likes orange soda. I feel bad for Kel because he did it wrong. Kenan did it right. Kenan Thompson was able to transition from absurd kid sketch comedy to adult sketch comedy on SNL. Kel transitioned from being a child star to being a footnote in mediocre productions. Kel still has a career. Just not much of one.
Critically Rated at 8/17
Written, Rated, and Reviewed by Brendan H. Young
Filed under People I Feel Sorry For
I know it’s a rarity to send anything by mail these days, but it still happens. Because it happens less and less, we have forgotten many simple aspects of sending something by snail mail. Like writing down the desired address correctly, or putting down the return address, or (most importantly) not forgetting the stamp.
If you forget the stamp, your letter or package or gas bill isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. And if you also forget the return address it ends up in the Land of Missing Socks. That sucker is gone forever. And it’s your fault for forgetting the stamp.
Critically Rated at 6/17
Written, Rated, and Reviewed by Brendan H. Young
Filed under Random Rants
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