June 4, 2012 · 11:43 am

Phil Lamarr

Pulp Fiction. Spider-Man 2. Step Brothers. Futurama. Family Guy. Phil Lamarr links them all. Phil Lamarr is mostly a voiceover actor, appearing in dozens of animated shows and video games. But he also is recognizable from his gigs on MADtv and being “that guy” in lots of other things. I don’t feel sorry for him. He has a steady career with lots of cool jobs on his resume. I just feel bad that he doesn’t get the recognition that he deserves. Look at his bio on Wikipedia or IMDB, it’s pretty impressive. You’ve had this guy in your living room dozens of times without realizing it.

Critically Rated at 12/17

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June 3, 2012 · 8:37 am

X2: X-Men United

X2 is a great sequel and one of the best comic book movies to date. Bryan Singer returns to direct, and most of the cast from the original come back, with a few new mutants and characters joining the fun. The story is bigger, the stakes are higher, the fights are more elaborate… this is a perfect sequel.

The movie starts with a bang as the teleporting Nightcrawler (Alan Cumming) launches a near fatal attack on the US President. The President escapes injury, but the stage is set for the next level of the mutant/human war. Professor X (Patrick Stewart) dispatches Jean Grey (Famke Janssen) and Storm (Halle Berry) to track down Nightcrawler, while Professor X and Cyclops (James Marsden) go to visit Magneto in his plastic prison.

Magneto (Ian McKellen) has been tortured into giving William Stryker (Brian Cox) information about Xavier’s school for mutants. Stryker has been using his son’s power to manipulate and control mutants. Professor X and Cyclops walk into Stryker’s trap and they are captured. He plans on manipulating Xavier into using Cerebro to kill all the mutants.

Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) has been hunting around Alkali Lake for clues to his past, but when he doesn’t find anything, he returns to the mansion and winds up acting as the babysitter while everyone else is advancing the plot. He catches up with Rogue (Anna Paquin) and meets her new boyfriend Bobby Drake a.k.a. Iceman (Shawn Ashmore). The happy homecoming is short-lived as Stryker’s forces attack the mansion and the mutants are forced to flee.

Iceman takes Rogue, Wolverine and their friend John/Pyro (Aaron Stanford) to his parent’s house to hide out. Iceman comes out as a mutant to his family, and they aren’t too accepting. His little brother calls the cops on them and there’s a little showcase of raw mutant power before the X-Men (minus Cyclops and Xavier) all meet up again.

The X-Men are making their escape, but then the get attacked, but then they are saved by Magneto and Mystique. And so they decide to all join forces and become X-Men United. They make their way to Alkali Lake to confront Stryker, save Xavier, and save the world. Of course there has to be a slight twist and so there is one. So if you haven’t seen this movie that’s been out for more than nine years, be grateful that I didn’t spoil anything. This movie sets everything up for a great third installment, but then Bryan Singer left and Brett Ratner came in to ruin the final film.

One thing that has bothered me since the first time that I saw this movie is that Iceman doesn’t stop the raging floodwaters. I mean he’s Iceman. He can turn water vapor into ice. Surely he can turn cold water into ice. I mean there’s snow all around, it’s already cold, and it wouldn’t be that hard.

The first movie uses mutants as a metaphor for racism and equality. Charles Xavier is like Martin Luther King, Jr. and Magneto is like Malcolm X. This movie uses mutants as a metaphor for homosexuality and equality. Iceman comes out to his parents. He fearfully tells them that he is a mutant and his mom’s response is, “Have you tried not being a mutant?”. Director Bryan Singer is gay, and for him to include a scene like this in a summer blockbuster could have been controversial, but I think it adds to the context of the film.

This is a great movie, it’s a great sequel. It’s the best X-Men movie to date. There are great characters and awesome fights. There are morals and messages and themes and references to the comics that only avid fans will get. The opening sequence with Nightcrawler is one of the best opening scenes in any movie. It draws you in and you are instantly hooked.

Critically Rated at 16/17

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June 3, 2012 · 8:28 am

SweeTarts

SweeTarts are sweet and sour candies made by the Willy Wonka Candy Company. I wish that Oompa-Loompas actually made this candy, but Wonka is owned by Nestle. They are kind of chalky and pasty; you either love them or hate them. A quick look on Wikipedia tells me that they are essentially the same recipe as Pixy Stix or Lik-M-Aid, just in pill form as opposed to powdered. Get kids hooked on sugar and they will keep coming back. I can’t really tell what the flavors are, but they come in different colors and that’s good enough for me.

Critically Rated at 13/17

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June 2, 2012 · 9:45 am

Kung Fu Panda 2

Kung Fu Panda was a surprisingly good film, and this sequel takes everything good about the first one, and expands it. It is a deeper and more complex film but is just as entertaining as the first one. Director Jennifer Yuh Nelson directs and Jack Black reprises his role as Po the Kung Fu Panda. It’s a cool CG movie with lots of action, comedy, and heart.

Angelina Jolie, Jackie Chan, David Cross, Seth Rogan, Lucy Liu, and Dustin Hoffman all return for the sequel, and Gary Oldman, Michelle Yeoh, Danny McBride, Dennis Haysbert, and Jean-Claude Van Damme join the voice cast as well. Props must be given to Jennifer Yuh Nelson for directing the highest grossing movie ever for a woman. Being a Korean American, she respects Asian culture and it shows on screen.

The main villain of this movie is an evil peacock tyrant named Lord Shen (Gary Oldman) who fears that a panda will one day defeat him. So he kills off all the pandas in China, except for one… the one who would grow up to be Po the Dragon Warrior (Jack Black). Po is living with his goose dad, Mr. Ping, and he begins to question his origins. Ping explains that he found Po in a radish crate when he was a baby, and he adopted him.

Po’s teacher, Master Shifu (Dustin Hoffman) continues training Po, saying that he still has to achieve inner peace. Shifu soon finds out that Lord Shen has returned to power. Shen has a powerful new weapon that is capable of wiping out Kung Fu. It’s up to Po and his animal posse to stop him.

They have a few battles with Shen, and they lose when Po’s past catches up with him. Shen and Po fight and it looks like Shen kills Po. But Po is the Kung Fu Panda and the franchise wouldn’t work without him, and so Po comes back and saves the day, having finally achieved inner peace. Inner peace makes you a more violent and efficient fighter. The movie ends on a cliffhanger, setting things up for a third chapter.

Kung Fu Panda was a fun movie. Kung Fu Panda 2 is a fun movie that is about self-discovery. Po is questioning who he is. His past comes into play. It references the first film while preparing you for the next one. It is the perfect second act in a trilogy. I have high hopes for the next one.

The animation is pretty good. It’s not as impressive as Pixar’s animation, but it serves the story well. The story is improved over the first one. It explores more themes and delves into more complex issues than the first movie.

Jack Black pretty much plays Jack Black in all his movies. When you hear Jack Black but see a fat panda, it is more enjoyable. He has a face made for voiceover.

Kung Fu Panda 2 is on par or perhaps exceeds the original. DreamWorks will never be Pixar, but they still know how to entertain.

Critically Rated at 13/17

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June 2, 2012 · 9:36 am

Which Drink to Grab when Double Fisting

Double fisting is not sexual slang, it’s when you get two drinks at once. After a stressful day at work, or a regular day at work, or a day off from work it’s nice to go to the local watering hole and grab a drink. But it’s pointless to grab just one drink because you know that you will have another one soon. So you should get two drinks. And you should mix it up because variety is nice. So you get an IPA and a Jack & Coke. You settle down and relax a bit, switching between your fluids and making friendly conversation. But you have to pay attention to which drink to grab when double fisting. You don’t want to run out of your beer before you finish your Jack & Coke and vice versa. It’s a balancing act and a delicate one at that. So mind the stepchildren and stay aware.

Critically Rated at 11/17

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June 1, 2012 · 10:40 am

The Matrix Revolutions

The Wachowski brothers direct the third and final installment of the Matrix trilogy. Keanu Reeves, Carrie-Anne Moss, Laurence Fishburne, and Hugo Weaving reprise their roles as Neo, Trinity, Morpheus, and Agent Smith. Jada Pinkett Smith also returns, and this time she actually affects the plot. The machines are ready to attack Zion, and Neo is still in a coma. I hope that everything turns out ok.

Revolutions picks up right where Reloaded leaves off. Neo is in a coma, machines are bearing down on the last refuge of mankind, and the human race is looking pretty fucked. Neo is trapped in purgatory, which looks a lot like a subway station. The subway is controlled by The Trainman (Bruce Spence). The Trainman is an ally of the Merovingian, and Trinity and Morpheus pay him a visit and ultimately succeed in freeing Neo.

Neo visits the Oracle one last time, and this time she looks different. That’s because the original actress died and they had to replace her. They act like it’s an intentional recasting and an essential part of the story. Actors sometimes die during the filming of a movie, and this was an awkward way to handle it. They could have simply not used the Oracle character again, or they could have recast and not addressed it like when Richard Harris died and Michael Gambon took over as Dumbledore, or they could have used old footage and stand-ins like in The Crow. It cheapens the memory of Gloria Foster, and even though Mary Alice does a good job, she is still an imposter.

In the real world, Agent Smith still has possession over an ally of Neo’s named Bane. Bane sneaks onto Neo’s ship and beats the shit out of Trinity and blinds Neo with a power cable, but Neo discovers a new ability to see machines and programs as glowing entities.

Morpheus and Niobe are trying to get back to Zion and save it from the Sentinels. They do some crafty maneuvering to get back home, and get back in the nick of time and set off an EMP, stopping the machines temporarily, but putting Zion in grave danger in the process.

Neo reaches the Machine City and warns them that Agent Smith will take over the Matrix, and that’s bad for both machines and humans and so they decide to make peace, and Neo enters the Matrix to face his enemy.

Smith has taken over the Matrix, every single occupant is one of his copies. And rather than fight them all at once like he did in the second movie, he fights just one of them as the rest watch, as bored as you are by this point. First they fight on the ground. And then they fight in the sky. And they fly around punching and kicking and talking about the inevitable. And you are glancing at your watch. It is sad when a franchise with so much potential ends with poorly animated CG replicas of Keanu Reeves and Hugo Weaving slapping each other in a green thunderstorm in the sky.

I won’t tell you how the movie ends, because I don’t think it’s even worth talking about. It’s just a disappointment. It’s confusing, it’s incoherent… the Wachowskis will pretend like it’s deep and an intellectual movie. It’s not. It’s a pretentious piece of crap. It’s noise. How long can you see a sea of metallic sperm attacking cave people before you don’t give a fuck? No one cares about Zion. It’s called THE MATRIX… this isn’t the Terminator. Machines with A.I. has been done before, getting jacked into an artificial world is slightly more original.

The Matrix trilogy is a pretty decent trilogy all in all. The first movie is the best. The second movie starts to slip and falter, but has some great moments (mostly the freeway sequences). The third movie is just bad. All the best ideas for action scenes had already been used. It just feels tired and drags on and on. There isn’t anything that stands out in the movie. It’s just a sad end to a once great franchise. At least The Animatrix was good.

Critically Rated at 9/17

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June 1, 2012 · 10:28 am

Eyebrows

Eyebrows are weird. Most of the time you don’t notice them. Unless they are retarded looking, you generally won’t notice them. It is a weird evolutionary feature. Fuzzy strips of fur above your eyes. Why not? Some girls pluck their brows so much that they actually need to draw them on. Whoopie Goldberg and the Mona Lisa  both don’t have eyebrows. It’s kind of creepy. Some people only have one eyebrow. The unibrow is the ultimate eyebrow. Evidently some people have never heard or, or simply don’t believe in tweezers. To each their own.

Critically Rated at 5/17

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May 31, 2012 · 10:02 am

National Lampoon’s Van Wilder

Walt Becker (Wild Hogs, remember that gem?) directs Ryan Reynolds as Van Wilder in National Lampoon’s Van Wilder. Reynolds plays Van, a collegiate Peter Pan, who has partied for seven years at Coolidge College. Tara Reid plays Gwen Pearson, a reporter for the school paper who has to do an article on Van. Kal Penn plays Taj Mahal, a racist caricature of an Indian foreign exchange student who acts as Van’s assistant.

Van Wilder is the party king at Coolidge College, and one day Van’s dad gets sick of paying for his son’s tuition and stops paying for it. Van starts planning and throwing huge parties to pay for tuition with his friend Hutch, and his assistant Taj’s help. When an attractive reporter named Gwen is assigned to writing an article about him, he thinks it would be more fun to try and steal her from her douchebag boyfriend.

Her boyfriend Richard (Daniel Cosgrove) is on the fast track to being a successful doctor, in direct contrast to the free spirit Van. The two start a prank war (because that’s what happens in cliché college comedies) and the highlight is when Van replaces the cream filling in a box of éclairs with dog semen and Richard and his douchebag friends devour them. There’s a great line, “I think I’ve had these before.”

National Lampoon Van Wilder Original Van Wilder

So the prank war gets out of hand and Van ends up getting expelled. But he has a chance to clear his name at a hearing, and he asks that they reinstate him so he can get his degree and graduate. And because this is a movie and he’s the main character, they decide to give him a chance. And he succeeds and gets his diploma and the girl. Bet you didn’t see that coming.

National Lampoon’s track record was pretty impressive. In the 80’s. And they had a few scattered hits ever since, but most of their shit is straight to video now. Their plots and characters are not unique. Their humor is lowbrow and dated. They use exaggerated sound effects and use fast motion in a vain attempt to be funny. Van Wilder is no exception, it just benefits from having a likeable lead actor like Ryan Reynolds. He really carries the film, he makes Van fun, cool, likeable, and most importantly, believable. Tara Reid does a decent job playing the love interest, you forget that she used to be kinda hot. This movie is proof of that. And there’s a quick cameo from Aaron Paul from before he was famous as Jesse Pinkman in Breaking Bad.

Shame on Kal Penn. Van Wilder was made in 2002 and he plays the stereotypical Indian exchange student. He is a joke, he is a punch line. He has a ridiculous accent. He is a horny virgin would do anything to please Van Wilder. Two years later Kal Penn would star as Kumar in Harold & Kumar. That movie makes fun of stereotypes and destroys them. And after that, he returned to playing Taj Mahal for a chance to star in a terrible Van Wilder sequel. Have a little self-respect.

This movie has a terrible plot and a lot of crappy jokes that either aren’t funny or don’t lead to anything. But Ryan Reynolds redeems the movie. He carries it and makes it fun. There are a few funny jokes, but only one gag out of three works. It’s a good comedy, but it shouldn’t be your favorite. If it is, you need to expand your horizons. Watch Airplane! or the Naked Gun trilogy. That’s comedy.

Critically Rated at 11/17

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May 31, 2012 · 9:33 am

Miller Lite

Miller Lite is considered by many to be the first light beer. This is when American beer went from being bad to being terrible. It has an alcohol content of 4.2%, which is only slightly higher than O’Douls or mountain spring water. I don’t like beer with low alcohol content. I drink to get drunk, not to take a piss every 15 minutes with a slight buzz.

Critically Rated at 4/17

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May 30, 2012 · 9:52 am

X-Men: First Class

X-Men: First Class is a prequel to the X-Men trilogy. The studio plans on it being the start of a new trilogy. It’s the origin story of Charles Xavier and Erik Lensherr and how they became Professor X and Magneto. It’s set in the swingin’ sixties, right around the Cuban Missile Crisis, which plays an important part in the film. I love movies with alternate histories, it’s better that blatantly sabotaging history like they did in Michael Bay’s Pearl Harbor.

X-Men First Class Poster

The movie starts out with a familiar scene: a young Erik Lensherr is being separated from his parents in a concentration camp and he demonstrates his ability to manipulate metal. An evil Nazi doctor (Kevin Bacon) tries to get Erik to recreate the event and kills his mom. For motivation I guess. And so Erik gets a little emotional and unleashes his powers.

Meanwhile back in America, a young Charles Xavier meets a young runaway shape shifter named Raven Darkholme, and he invites her to live with his family within ten minutes of knowing her and without consulting with his parents. It was a simpler time back then.

The movie jumps to the 1960s and CIA agent Moira MacTaggert (Rose Byrne from Bridesmaids) finds out that a former evil Nazi doctor, currently using the alias Sebastian Shaw, is planning on starting World War III. He’s the leader of the Hellfire Club, filled with mutants like the telepathic Emma Frost (January Jones), the teleporting Azazel, and the tornado-maker that they call Riptide for some stupid reason. Moira decides she needs to find an expert on mutants, and she turns to Charles Xavier (James McAvoy) for help. Charles and Raven decide to help the CIA stop Sebastian Shaw and the Hellfire Club.

Meanwhile Erik Lensherr (Michael Fassbender) is busy tracking down former Nazis and killing them, all the while searching for Sebastian Shaw to seek revenge for killing his mom. Erik, Charles and the CIA all find Shaw at the same time, and shit goes down, Shaw escapes, and Erik and Charles become friends.

Charles and Erik meet Dr. Hank McCoy, and Charles makes his first use of Cerebro to track down mutants to join their cause. They recruit the winged stripper named Angel, the ultrasonic screamer Banshee, the rapidly evolving Darwin, and Havoc the hula hooping energy blaster. There are some pretty lame powers. A spitting dragonfly lady?!? A man with such a shrill scream that he can use it to fly?!? Darwin has an awesome power, too bad it looks stupid as fuck on screen.

While the young recruits are bonding the plot keeps trudging forward and eventually the Hellfire Club manipulates a Russian general into sending weapons to Cuba, thus starting the Cuban Missile Crisis. The X-Men go to battle with the Hellfire Club and Erik gets to Shaw and gets his revenge.

Erik goes crazy with power and tries to destroy a bunch of military ships. Charles tries to stop him and they fight and Charles ends up getting shot. Erik is sad that Charles got paralyzed and stuff, but he decides to part ways with his friend, taking Angel, Riptide, Azazel and Mystique with him. The movie ends with Erik, now calling himself Magneto, recruiting Emma Frost to his side… The sides are set for X-Men: First Class 2 – How Xavier Goes Bald.

I would rate this the third best X-Men movie. X2 is the best, followed by the original X-Men, and First Class is after that. The film was rushed into production, and there are a few parts where it is evident, but for the most part it’s a solid script with a lot of good moments. The cast lacks the star power of the original trilogy, and a lot of the mutants are second string. They changed a lot of stuff from the comics. There are some cool fight scenes, but I was disappointed with a lot of the powers. They are pretty second-rate. There are way too many mediocre mutants showcasing boring powers.

The third X-Men movie was a huge setback for the franchise. The Wolverine movie had its moments, but it was a terrible movie and butchered a lot of good Marvel characters. First Class is a step in the right direction, and even though it has a few flaws, it still redeems the franchise.

Critically Rated at 13/17

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May 30, 2012 · 9:30 am

A Burger Joint That Runs Out of Fries

I know that people aren’t perfect and that sometimes they make mistakes. And I know that people run burger joints because we don’t have robots technologically advanced enough to run burger joints. And so if those people that run the burger joint make a mistake I can understand it. But not if they run out of fries. French fries are a staple of burger joints. A burger without fries is like wearing a shoe without a sock; you can do it, it’s just wrong and it feels weird. I’ve noticed that burger joints never run out of buns or patties either. Just fries. A burger joint without fries is like a Chinese restaurant without rice. Why are you even open?

Critically Rated at 3/17

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May 29, 2012 · 8:59 am

Game of Thrones (TV show)

HBO’s Game of Thrones is one of the best TV shows I’ve ever experienced, and it’s not even through its second season. It’s hard to make a great show: you need a great premise, strong writing, a solid cast, and a TV network that is willing to invest in a great idea. Game of Thrones has all the requirements to being awesome, and it also has dragons, which makes it even better.

I’ve noticed that there’s been a trend of TV shows based on books, like True Blood, Legend of the Seeker, and this show, which is based on George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire. Each season represents a book. HBO can afford to have amazing production values. Each episode feels like a movie. There is a scope that rivals any fantasy film, in most cases exceeding them.

There is a lot going on. There are multiple families competing against each other for power. The Stark family is feuding with the Lannister clan, but sometimes they get along. There’s a clan of warriors known as the Dothraki, and the Viserys, heirs of a usurped king, marry into their tribe to get access to their army so that they might one day reclaim their land. Basically there’s a shit ton of politics and wars and incest. The middle ages were truly a magical time.

This is one of those shows that you get on DVD or Blu-Ray and have a marathon where you watch all the episodes back to back. It’s addicting. There’s something for everyone. There’s talking. There’s action. There’s nudity. There’s violence. There’s romance. There’s politics. There’s nudity. There’s betrayal. There’s religion. There are dwarves. There are dragons. There’s nudity. There are fools and bastards and evil kings. Did I mention the nudity?

No character is safe. This is like a medieval 24. You get to know a character, you get to like them, and then WHAM! BAM! They are dead and your jaw is dropped. And there are a lot of characters. There are a lot of subplots. There are a lot of things going on, but everything ties together. This show is still young, it will get to be a cult phenomenon. It’s already on its way there.

George R. R. Martin has crafted an amazing world. HBO tries to respect it. They do a great job of it too. There is a sense of history. He created a whole backstory that you catch glimpses of that adds to the depth of the story. There are different religions, different gods. There are different languages and customs. There is a sense of honor and chivalry. This is a medieval period, there is still fear of the unknown. Magic still exists, it’s real and possible.

The show follows the book more strictly than True Blood follows the Sookie Stackhouse books. So if you don’t like spoilers you probably shouldn’t read the books. You don’t want to be the jackass pointing out all the differences anyway.

Game of Thrones is awesome. Dragons, kings, swords, nudity… it’s the best swords and sorcery TV show ever. HBO shows are usually awesome, and this is one of their best shows to date. I hope I’m not jinxing season three.

Critically Rated at 15/17

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May 29, 2012 · 8:52 am

Twins in Matching Outfits

Identical twins are nature’s clones. It’s awesome that you have a sibling that looks just like you, that shares the same birthday as you, and it’s awesome that you get to grow up together and share every milestone. But I don’t understand why parents insist on dressing their little toddler twins in matching outfits. They already look alike, they are fucking identical. You should be trying to differentiate the two of them, not only so you can tell them apart, but also so they develop their own personalities. Twins in matching outfits don’t make sense. They strive to look as similar as possible, and then they get mad when you can’t tell them apart. You can’t have it both ways. Twins with rhyming names are the worst offenders. Fuck you Cindy and Mindy, I don’t even know you, but I know you exist, and you are trouble.

Critically Rated at 7/17

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May 28, 2012 · 10:01 am

The Rock (film, not an actual rock)

Michael Bay makes crazy blockbusters like Transformers and Bad Boys. His whole theory about filmmaking is if you have lots of explosions and loud noises, no one will realize that the movie sucks. The Rock is a perfect example of this style of shoddy filmmaking. If you only saw one movie during the summer of 1996, it was probably Independence Day. If you saw two movies, this might have been one of them.

A group of rogue Force Recon Marines lead by Brigadier General Frank Hummel (Ed Harris) take control of a bunch of  chemical weapons, get themselves some hostages, and threaten to attack San Francisco unless the US government pays a ransom to the families of deceased Force Recon Marines that died in action and were buried without honor or recognition. Nicholas Cage plays Dr. Stanley Goodspeed, a chemical weapons specialist with the FBI. He gets called in for his expertise, despite his lack of work in the field.

The FBI must sneak onto Alcatraz in order to free the hostages, stop the rogue Marines, and save San Francisco. The only one who can help them sneak into the Rock is the only one who successfully escaped it, a former spy named John Mason (Sean Connery). Mason is an unofficial prisoner, on paper he doesn’t exist. So naturally he’s not too keen to help the FBI.

There’s a lot of bullshit that happens in the movie. There’s a pretty ridiculous car chase through the SF streets involving a Hummer and a Ferrari. There’s a bunch of revelations, like the villain is not actually bad, he just wants what he deserves. You sympathize for him, he’s a victim of an uncaring government, just like John Mason.

A lot of stuff happens. I could tell you about all the little plot developments, but I’m lazy and don’t want to. Shit happens, shit gets resolved, and things blow up, but San Francisco doesn’t.

Nicholas Cage won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his role in Leaving Las Vegas. He followed that amazing performance by starring in The Rock, Con Air and Face/Off. That’s an interesting career choice, you win the highest award for your work and celebrate by becoming a parody of yourself. Nick Cage and Cuba Gooding, Jr. should go bowling together.

Nicholas Cage used to be an actor. Sometimes he still does act. But in most of his movies he’s just a performer. This is the start of his paycheck movies, where he will do whatever project for the money. Sean Connery has a cool voice and can get away with saying all kinds of mediocre shit that sounds awesome because of his crazy accent. Ed Harris a good actor, but this is kind of a waste of his talent.

The Rock is not a bad movie. It’s not a good movie. It’s just a movie with explosions and actors reciting dialog. There’s no reason to see this movie if you haven’t yet.

Critically Rated at 10/17

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May 28, 2012 · 9:54 am

Being Dismayed at How Crowded It Is

Last night was a long night at work. Long, stressful, and aggravating. A few coworkers started suggesting that we go for a drink or two or seven after work and I was looking forward to it, believe me. I finally got out of work an hour after I thought I would be free and headed to the bar, already debating if I should start with a beer or a shot and deciding on both. As we approached the bar, we could see a group of people standing outside. Not a good sign. As we walked up to the door, we could see inside and there was not a seat or spot available. Motherfuckers. I really want a beer, but I’m not going to stand around for five minutes to order one, and I’m not gonna stand for another five while I drink it. And if I can’t sit down with my drink at my bar, I’m not going to go in. Booze is nice, but so is being comfortable.

Critically Rated at 3/17

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May 27, 2012 · 10:31 am

True Lies

True Lies. What a great title. That might be the best part of the movie. James Cameron (Titanic, Avatar, Terminator… seriously, how do you not know James Cameron?) directs Arnold Shwarzengger in another blockbuster event. This time Arnie plays Harry Tasker, a family man with a wife and daughter who think he’s just a computer salesman… but he’s really a government super agent.

This is an over-the-top action film that doesn’t take itself seriously. It’s a celebration of action films, complete with elaborate deaths and comical one-liners.

Harry Tasker (Schwarzenegger) is a premier agent on the Omega Sector counter-terrorist task force. He hangs out with Tom Arnold riding horses through downtown buildings stopping terrorists from terrorizing. His latest foe is the Crimson Jihad, lead by a guy named Salim Abu Aziz (Art Malik). His wife Helen (Jamie Lee Curtis) and daughter Dana (a young Eliza Dushku) don’t know that he’s a spy, they think he’s just a regular guy.

His wife Helen thinks that he’s so boring and predictable that she decides to cheat on him. She is interested in a sleaze ball named Simon (Bill Paxton) and Harry gets jealous. He decides to spice things up a bit, but his plan backfires when members of the Crimson Jihad kidnap him and Helen.

Helen learns about Harry’s secret life as a spy and is hurt and betrayed, but gets over it pretty quickly when he starts killing terrorists and kicking ass. They learn about the Crimson Jihad’s master plan, which involves a nuke and a US city. Helen and Harry get separated, and Helen and Tia Carrere have a limo catfight. Harry saves Helen, and just when things look like they will be ok, they find out that the terrorists kidnapped their daughter.

Harry jumps into a Harrier jet and goes to rescue his darling daughter Dana. There’s some explosions and close calls and ultimately the main terrorist Aziz ends up walking around on the Harrier with an AK-47 before Schwarzenegger makes him fall off the jet, he gets stuck on one of the missiles, and Arnie fires the missile and blows up a helicopter full of terrorists with their fearless leader. That’s symbolism. He was mad.

Arnold Schwarzenegger does it all in this movie. He rides horses and Harrier jets. He tells terrorists how he’s going to kill them, and kills them that way. This movie is almost a spoof of action films. Jamie Lee Curtis drops an Uzi down the stairs and somehow kills ten terrorists. Everyone is so witty right before they murder somebody.

James Cameron knows how to direct. The story and premise aren’t believable. Arnold Shwarzengger is not a good actor. But that doesn’t matter. Every scene is entertaining. The movie flows, it gets you hooked, it rarely drags or gets boring. If you accept the world that he’s established within the first ten minutes, you will appreciate the rollercoaster ride that he takes you on. It might not be a good movie, but it’s a fun movie, and having fun is good.

Critically Rated at 12/17

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May 27, 2012 · 10:24 am

Dropping Your Food Before You Take a Bite

Nobody is perfect. And nothing is a greater reminder of that like dropping your food before you even take a bite. That sucks. It’s infuriating. It’s always something delicious or something you’ve been craving for a while too. You get it at the store and you’re all excited for your taste buds. You prepare it, get it all ready, get yourself comfortable and situated… Just as you are about to sample that first savory bite, your clumsy ass drops it on the floor. You stare in sullen disbelief, not even the five second rule can redeem this fuck up. You have failed and you know it. I really wanted that string cheese too.

Critically Rated at 4/17

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