Battleground

Posted on May 8, 2012 by

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Today marks the end of Hulu’s docudrama Battleground. Rule of thumb, if the series ends and it feels like a loved one has died, it was a great series. In its thirteen episode run my only complaint would have been that the episodes were too short. Each episode ran about 21 to 22 mins, and they definitely should have been in the 45 mins range.

Battleground is a mockumentary style show, but with more drama than humor. It focuses one the day to day of characters running a senatorial campaign. It’s much more realistic than the West Wing, and I’d say all and all, its a better series.

Hulu has been making original program for just over a year now (as far as I know) and this is the first program of theirs that I’ve watched (I also watched a series they had called Whites, but I believe that was made by BBC, not sure) and to be honest had little faith that a website could compete with the big network stations. But this show was far better (in my opinion) than most of the network shows.

It’s not for everyone, If you don’t like politics you prolly wont love it like I did, but if you aren’t an idiot I would definatly recommend this to you.

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Some Questions were left unanswered So Hoping for a Second Season

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Does This Make Me Sexist?

Posted on March 13, 2012 by

I don’t know how to start this post. I want to preface it by saying I’m not sexist, but whenever people feel the need to tell you they are not sexist, racist, what have you, I feel like they are really just acknowledging that they are those things. So I’m not going to preface this by saying I’m not sexist.

Ill simply acknowledge that in my life I have met women who were considerably more intelligent that I am, or will ever be. And contrarily, I’ve met girls who are functioning idiots. The point being, that neither could drive very well.

I am a college undergraduate specializing in Mass Communication. In an advertising ethics class today we looked at a case where a notable Ad exec said that he believed women were unable to balance family with work. Due to the tremendous backlash within the industry, he stepped down two weeks later.  I can’t remember his last name, it was like Ford, or Long, or something.

Usually we only spend like 15-20 minutes on a single case, but my professor decided to dedicate the rest of the hour to talk about sexism in the work place. I don’t think she originally intended to spend so much time talking about this subject, but once she started she had a lot to say. Apparently the advertising industry is about 70% female, but the majority of people in higher level positions are white men. This ratio is more than reflected in my class’s demographics. Usually there are about three men (including myself) out of 25 total students.

So while this lecture was about how bad it is for women, and how wrong the system is, all I could think about was how nice it would be if this were really true. All of my fellow students are in actuality my competition for internships and jobs, so I’ll take whatever advantages I can get. The more my professor went on about how unjust the system is, the more hope it inspired in me. So far in my life being a male has been of little benefit to me, it’s about time to cash in on this.

The longer she dwelled on how its only men who get promoted, the more I wondered, maybe these men were just simply more ambitious, or more qualified, or just better. If we acknowledge that there are fundamental differences between the sexes, maybe it’s those differences that make one sex better suited for…you know I’m just  going to stop there.

So basically I had a day of hearing about the many ways men are bad (in that they only promote other men) and how the industry is bad as a result; which I accept as the truth. So I go on about day, finishing up classes, going to work, and when I got off of work I went to my PRSSA meeting. PRSSA stand for Public Relations Student Society of America and it’s basically an organization that all of the people in the department who actually care about getting jobs post graduation go to.

We have a small department, and I would say that the members of prssa are the best students within our department. I believe we have something like 17 member, and of that 4 are men, and of the men, only 2 (including myself) showed up to today’s meeting. Our faculty advisor wasn’t there so the meeting was much more informal than usual.  We got through about two points of interest before the group was unmanageable.

By that I mean, that it was so loud with the sound of groups of girls talking about their day, their social situations, and yes some gossip. There was loud, high pitched laughter, and for some reason even a few gleeful screams. It sort of reminded me of when a group of girls have a sleep over, if you’ve ever been around one of those you know what I mean.

While all this was going on me and the other boy sat quietly. He turned to me once and ask how long we have to stay here. “I don’t know” I replied, “this defiantly doesn’t have anything to do with prssa.” I was looking for a time to get a word in with our president to ask if we could bounce, but she was deep in a conversation about (not making this up) how she went hiking in Estes Park CO, in UGG’s because she didn’t think the other girls would commit to the hike for very long, and that she ripped her $200 jeans.

The other gentleman and I continued to wait for the discussion to head back to something more official, but it never did. That guy happened to have the same ethics class earlier in the day, and we talk about it a bit before he asked me, “Would you promote any of these girls?” I thought about it for a moment, listening to the girls banter, the cadence of the conversations resembled children more than college seniors. I looked back at him and said, “No, I wouldn’t even hire them.”

Posted in philosophy, uncategorized | 1 Comment

That Obscure Oscar of Desire or The Persistence of Award Shows

Posted on February 18, 2012 by

The 84th Annual Academy Awards are coming up in a few weeks (Sunday, February 26) so I figured I would jot down some thoughts that have been on my mind grapes. Not super psyched to watch it but there are a few gems I am looking forward to see win plus it is a reasonable excuse to get drunk, the Oscars are pretty much the Superbowl for people who don’t give a shit about sports and commercials.

The Artist (Hazanavicius, 2011)

This is probably the best movie of the bunch and has the highest chance of taking home Best Picture. It is original, looks great, and is surprisingly entertaining. Michel Hazanavicius really has a knack for capturing the feel of bygone eras. In his previous two films OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies (Hazanavicius, 2006) and OSS 117: Lost in Rio (Hazanavicius, 2009), he parodies the 1960 spy movie genre perfectly by not only incorporating aspects of its characters and plots but also its sets, action, scores, direction, and overall tone. He does the same thing with The Artist, to an even greater effect, but steps back 30 years further in movie history. Both Jean Dujardin and Berenice Bejo are justly nominated for Lead Actor and Supporting Actress respectively. I can’t even begin to imagine how tough it must be to deliver a moving performance without words but they do it. Dujardin has a charisma that just won’t quit and Bejo makes my dreams come true. I was a bit skeptical going into this film because the handful of silent films I have watched, mostly Chaplins and Keatons, were not nearly as enthralling as this. Although The Artist was not my favorite film of 2011 (that honor most likely goes to either Warrior (O’Connor, 2011) or 50/50 (Levine, 2011)), it is an excellent experience and my choice out of the nine.

The Descendants (Payne, 2011)

Second in the running for Best Picture, The Descendants, is another all-around great film. Alexander Payne fails to disappoint yet again, going four for four in my book. Some notable points of interest – Shailene Woodley gives an outstanding performance despite being the main character on what I can only assume is an awful and mind-numbing ABC Family television series entitled The Secret Life of an American Teenager (Hampton, 2008); the screenplay is co-adapted with Payne by Nat Faxon and Jim Rash both of whom I recognize from their minor recurring roles on Reno 911! (Garant, Kenney, Lennon, 2003) which I found both surprising and pleasing, I would be interested to find out how match ups like this happen; and baaah I don’t really have a third point of interest, all things considered it is an above average film and a wonderfully compelling yarn but I just do not envision it beating The Artist.

Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close (Daldry, 2011)

The kid, Thomas Horn, pulls out a few show stopping monologues and I was quite surprised that he did not get nominated for this performance while Max von Sydow joins Dujardin and Bejo as the third person this year nominated for a role in which they don’t speak. I enjoyed the movie but I really had to try to enjoy it. Normally a movie that panders this hard is impossible for me to watch so instead I just chose to ignore how overtly it attempts to personally connect with each viewer. The kids performance is the best, the pandering is the worst, and everything else falls somewhere in the middle, not really much to say.

The Help (Taylor, 2011)

Another nominee that exceeded my expectations, I had firmly believed that this was going to be terrible but as it turns out it really wasn’t that bad. I doubt that it needed to be 146 minutes, seems like they spent far too much time on meaningless subplots but I watched it from start to finish anyway. Viola Davis does great, Jessica Chastain is pretty good too, but I really don’t think Octavia Spencer was all that impressive especially considering her performance was deemed better than both Shailene Woodley and Berenice Bejo at the Golden Globes earlier this year. The Help is average in all other areas.

Hugo (Scorcese, 2011)

I have not watched it.

Midnight in Paris (Allen, 2011)

This is my second pick for Best Picture but unfortunately it stands no serious chance of winning. As far as Woody Allen films go, Midnight in Paris is better than his recent average but I have yet to see a film of his that I have not enjoyed. Like Wes Andersen and Quentin Tarantino, Woody Allen is a director who has a very distinct style which means that if you like his past films then you will like this one and if you don’t then you won’t. Somehow he manages to put out a good-to-great movie every year (for the past 43 years) which he writes himself as well as directs. I can see how some people might view his work as annoying but he seems like one of the few people around still genuinely interested in making a decent film and not just a large profit and for that he should probably be admired. Back to the movie, Owen Wilson performs capably, relieving the apprehension I had about him in the starring role. Marion Cotillard is amazing as usual, it would be a pretty tight race between her and Berenice Bejo for who pulls off the sexier 1920s look. Michael Sheen, as the pedantic intellectual, and Corey Stoll, as Ernest Hemingway, manage to stand out in their rolls amongst a full cast. I wish it hadn’t been so long since I took my 20th century literature class; it would have enriched the experience understanding more of the expats references. I did however smile when Owen Wilson was telling Luis Bunuel to make a film about a party where no one can leave since I happened to watch it a couple years back. Overall – excellent.

Moneyball (Miller, 2011)

The writing of Aaron Sorkin makes this film great. The director, Bennett Miller, is more than competent and the great cast of actors doesn’t hurt either but Sorkins unique and impressive writing style sets Moneyball apart from the crowd. Sorkin, like Woody Allen, has a particular tone that is either love it or hate it and in his case I…don’t really want to say love but I greatly enjoy it nonetheless. Jonah Hill makes a resounding entrance into the dramatic acting arena and I would be quite happy to see him take home the Best Supporting Actor Award. Chris Pratt from Parks and Recreation (Daniels, Schur, 2009) makes a minor appearance but not nearly as impressive as his role of Andy Dwyer. Brad Pitt and Phillip Seymour Hoffman perform great as well but that has come to be expected of them. Moneyball is a…homerun.

The Tree of Life (Mallick, 2011)

I will reserve my full judgment of this film until I see it again. I started a review of it earlier this year when I saw it in the theater but stopped half way through out of boredom/frustration. It has now been so long since I watched it that I have lost most of it in my memory. On the shallowest level possible, The Tree of Life is lengthy, slow, and tasking. I have watched four of Terrence Mallicks five films and can’t say I am a fan of any. I take full responsibility for this opinion, I find it hard to believe that anyone could put a great deal of thought and effort into a piece of work and have it be critically acclaimed yet at the same time still have it be what my interpretation of it was as I was leaving the theater. So either the director is talentless and the critics are wrong or I missed it entirely. Odds favor the latter.

War Horse (Spielberg, 2011)

I have not watched it.

I will stop at the Best Picture Nominations since writing much more would make this article unreasonably long. One last thing, each year the nominees tend have interesting similarities. What caught my eye this year was the number of actors who were in more than one Oscar nominated film. The folks working double duty this year include: John Goodman, Viola Davis, Brad Pitt, George Clooney, Benedict Cumberbatch, Jessica Chastain, Jeffrey Wright, Christopher Plummer, Robin Wright, and Phillip Seymour Hoffman. This is by no means the first time this has happened but the large volume does stand out to me.

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The Sign of Five Under-watched Television Series or A Study in…Five Under-watched Television Series

Posted on December 22, 2011 by

Hi, my name is DonnyBagg and I am a blogger and it has been 6 months since my last post. I assume that the lengthy hiatus taken by (almost) all of the factoseintolerant authors will have been enough to shake even the most devoted of readers and I will likewise assume that I am currently addressing myself. Today I am going to deviate from my usual area of…let’s go ahead and say expertise, movies, and discuss pretty much the same thing, television series. Here is a brief list of shows currently on air that I feel more people should be watching:

1. Sherlock (Gatiss, 2010)

A co-worker tipped me off about this show last year. The series catalogs a number of mysterious cases taken on by the London based consulting detective, Sherlock Holmes, who along with his friend and colleague, Doctor Watson, work tirelessly to solve crimes that baffle the ordinary police force. He uses a special brand of logical deduction (induction) to string together facts and formulate wildly improbable but nonetheless correct solutions and…like almost everyone already knows who Sherlock Holmes is so this summation has just been unnecessary bullshit. I don’t know why I do that sort of thing, it has got to stop. Anyway, this show kills it. Benedict Cumberbatch portrays an excellent Holmes; I would place his rendition just below Hugh Laurie in House M.D. (Shore, 2004) and slightly above the old Jeremy Brett performances (which are surprisingly good for a late 80’s television series that I watched in the late 00’s). I am also fairly certain that he outperforms Robert Downey, Jr. in the Guy Richie versions but this could just be because I prefer the introverted Holmes and Robert Downey, Jr. puts on a little too much charisma. Of course, this is all coming from a guy whose Sherlock Holmes literary knowledge encompasses once skimming The Hound of the Baskervilles during my junior year of high school, so perhaps I am not the best judge of character. Cumberbatch is accompanied by Martin Freeman, who does an equally outstanding job as Watson, and IMDB informs me that they will be pairing up again next year for the first installment of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (P. Jackson, 2012). O and the first season of the Sherlock series consist of three 90 minute episodes (WTF BBC?) all of which are available on Netflix instant play with more episodes to air this January.

2. Luther (Cross, 2010)

Another amazing drama about bobbies from across the pond. Luther stars Idris Elba as Detective Chief Inspector John Luther. It is pretty much a tossup between Luther and Sherlock for which is better so I just recommend watching both of them. I don’t have a bad thing to say about this show, great acting, complex characters, intricate plots, and some pretty crazy villains. I didn’t think I could enjoy Idris Elba any more than I did when he played Russell “Stringer” Bell but in all honesty DCI Luther is just as much a badass and performed equally well. The only drawback (so I guess I do have a bad thing to say about this show) is that there isn’t enough of it. Season one was six episodes at an hour a piece and then season two was only four one hour episodes that pretty much played as two two hour episodes (WTF BBC?), so when compared to great dramas from the colonies like Dexter (2006) it lacks the depth that you gain from a twelve episode arc. Also, factoseintolerant (the author, not the website, legally obligated) would like to note the perturbedly thin upper lip on the character Alice Morgan (Ruth Wilson), he is convinced that it ruins the entire show but most rational people will get over it or even more likely not notice it. The first season is available on Netflix instant play, the second season is available for pirating on the internet, and they are currently in discussions for a third season but odds are looking good.

3. Delocated (Glaser, 2009)

Delocated is a great little show on Adult Swim about a family in the witness protection program that also take part in a reality show, which sounds like a childish and trite premise but once you get past that you will find one of the funnier shows on television. It stars Jon Glaser who was relatively unknown to me before seeing the show, as it turns out he was a writer for Late Night with Conan O’Brien for quite some time as well as Pretend Time (Swardson, 2010) and Human Giant (Woliner, Huebel, Scheer, Ansari, 2007)(a series cut down before its time), he can be spotted in 30 Rock (Fey, 2006) if you look closely and somehow played a part in the only episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm (David, 2000) I have ever watched. He also has this website called Auto Buds where people send in pictures of two identical cars parked next to each other and for some reason it makes me laugh every time I visit. A number of other familiar faces pop up including Eugene Merman, Jerry Minor, and the hilarious Todd Berry (who actually isn’t that funny in this particular show, but definitely check out his stand-up). Delocated has the normal ridiculous and absurd sense of humor possessed by all of the Adult Swim shows but out of the handful them that I actually watch it is by far my favorite. It began with a couple 11 minute episodes or half half hour episodes (WTF Adult Swim?) in season one but expanded into regular 22 minute episodes during its second season and will be airing what I can only assume will be 44 minute episodes beginning in January.

4. Archer (Reed, 2009)

Slowly becoming one of my favorite shows, Archer is a cartoon comedy about internationally renowned secret agent Sterling Archer. It incorporates some of the best aspects from two past greats – Arrested Development (Hurwitz, 2003)(another series cut down before its time) and Sealab 2021(Thompson, Reed, 2000). Created by Adam Reed, it still possesses some of the humor of Sealab 2021 and a great deal of the look but as the series has developed (phrasing!) it has started to show more and more signs of Arrested Development. Besides the use of recurring jokes, many of the voice actors play characters similar to their roles in Arrested Development; if Sterling Archer (H. Jon Benjamin) was Baby Buster (Tony Hale) then he would share that strange love/hate relationship with his overbearing mother Malory Archer/Lucille Bluth (Jessica Walter) and his paternity would be thrown into question with Len Drexler/George Sr. Bluth/Uncle-father Oscar Bluth (Jeffery Tambor) also Cheryl/Carol/Crystal Tunt/Kitty Sanchez (Judy Greer) is a slutty incompetent receptionist and this is stretching (both the theory of the character relations and the structure of this sentence) it a bit but Noah/Tobias Funke (David Cross) is a doctoral candidate in anthropology/doctor of psychiatry so that’s kind of similar, right? Anywho, great show, on FX, back in January.

5. Homeland (2010)

I have been watching Homeland this season and it has quite a bit of potential. Damien Lewis plays Sergeant Nicholas Brody, a U.S. marine captured and tortured by terrorists for 8 years until he is finally rescued and who…spoiler alert!…may himself in fact be a werewolf (wait, that’s not right). I listened to an interview on Fresh Air awhile back with one of the producers I believe (not sure, it was awhile back) but I guess it is based on an Israeli television series which I was planning on looking up more information about but I got lazy. Lewis is great in this as he was in Life (Ravich, 2007) (another series cut down before its time) and Keane (Kerrigan, 2004), very good at playing the man with the troubled and mysterious past but what the hell was he doing in Your Highness (Green, 2011)? Claire Danes works well opposite of Lewis with the exception that when her character gets worked up all I can see is Temple Grandin. They are supported by Mandy Patinkin (haven’t viewed much of his work but what an excellent name) and Morena Baccarin (who until now I thought looked familiar only to find out just now she played Inara in Firefly (Whedon, 2002)(another series cut down before its time)). I have yet to see the 90 minute finale (WTF Showtime?) because icefilms.info was fucking around yesterday but it is up today so I shall be watching it presently.

5 out of 5 great shows

Just checked the Golden Globe nominations, Homeland along with both stars all received nominations as well as Idris Elba for his work in Luther which the Golden Globes is considering a mini-series or TV movie so I guess I have to rewrite this whole fucking article now. One last question, did you slip Afsal Hamid a razor blade?

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Contemporary Prostitution

Posted on August 28, 2011 by

So why is pornography legal? Don’t get me wrong, I’m in no way saying that it should become illegal. However I am curious as to why it is completely legal in the United States and prostitution throughout the majority of America is completely illegal. When you think about the two, they are really not that different. The definition of prostitution is: the act or practice of engaging in sexual intercourse for money. If one adds “and is videotaped” to the end of the sentence they would have the definition of pornography. Just to say I did my due diligence, the definition of pornography is: obscene writings, drawings, photographs, or the like, especially those having little or no artistic merit. It seems that the definition of prostitution is a better fit for pornography than its actual definition, at least as far as the videos go.

Now, there are different types of pornographic videos, some with plots that are completely original, and some story driven pornos are parodies of notable films/tv series/ current events. But by and large the majority of hardcore pornography is anywhere from 2-10 people meeting each other (sometimes for the first time) and fucking.

I just can’t rap my head around how this is 100% legal government sanctioned action , yet prostitutes continue to fill up jail cells in metropolitan areas across the United States. The only realistic difference between the two professions (prostitute & porn star) that I can conceive of is that in porn, both sides get paid, leaving the possibility that neither side wants to engage in sexual intercourse with the other.

So, hypothetically, could I cruise the strip for a male and a female prostitute, pay them to have sex with each other, video tape it, then distribute said tape for a marginal to large profit? Seemingly I have just made pornography, so is that legal then? To me that seems somehow worse than just fucking a prostitute. With that mindset, what would happen if someone were to pick up a prostitute on a sting, and when being arrested simply explain that one was in fact going to purchase another prostitute and film the act….do they have to let him go? And could the undercover cop be in breach of contract if she doesn’t go through with it?

That does bring up contracts, which I assume are necessary in the porn world? There must be some sort of regulation that makes it different right? I’m not trying to harp on porn for being horrible. I think porn can be an excellent tool to enhance lovemaking with others, or one’s self. I also think it’s great that it employs a lot of women with let’s face it, no other marketable skills. Some of whom get paid exorbitant amounts and receive a certain amount of self gratifying fame. I cannot attest for the quality of their lives after porn, or how they spend their money, hopefully they invest it, or have some sort of savings. If I were to stereotype whores, I’d say they are probably not the smartest investors.

I would assume that once the porn industry is done with you, ones left with more negatives then positives, but that is neither here nor there. No matter the situation, porn actors are much better off than prostitutes. Sure, your booty-hole isn’t being broadcast to anonymous millions via the internet, but I’d wager people you meet still know you’re a prostitute. And prostitutes aren’t banging huge dick, muscle clad pros, (though I bet prostitutes prefer smaller members with quicker release) they have well…different clientele. Point being that prostitutes (commonly held as the oldest recorded profession) have no refuge in America.  They have no safe-work place, and no standard pay. Apparently new girls in the porno industry make a $500-$600 for a standard boy/girl scene, and more notable contract girls make $2,500-$15,000 a week, which is considerably more than pimps give their bottom bitch, or top bitch, I don’t know the pimp/ho scales.

Porn Actresses have it considerably better than prostitutes. This isn’t because their employer’s care for them, it’s a safe assumption that their boss’s care level is comparable to that of a pimps. But actresses in the adult film industry, while having the exact same job description, have standard salaries, required health check up, and legitimate taxable work. Whereas Prostitutes earn what they can, risk violence and STD’s, and routinely get thrown in jail.  And what’s responsible for this gaping discrepancy in treatment between two professions that are more or less the exact same?  It’s all in how the government chooses to view the two jobs. Though I can’t tell the difference, even when I see it. Now, I would say that there is a fairly large social injustice here, one that merits actual consideration, but really…who gives a shit about prostitutes?

Posted in politics, uncategorized | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

The List

Posted on July 28, 2011 by

Everyone has a list of favorite tv shows, or at least they should. That list should not be finite, there is always room for ones taste to change, and for better material to be produced effectively adding itself to the list. The following are three additions to my top ten list, and the three shows that got to go.

Add: games of thrones

I cant say enough good shit about this series. I was hesitant at first. All my friends were raving about the show. I thought, yeah…I’m not really into castles and fantasy stuff,  so I’ll be alright skipping this one. But everywhere I went people were loving the series, and then I heard it got like 4 emmy noms so I was like whateves, I’ll watch an episode see what it’s all about. I ended up finishing the series in two nights. I don’t know how people managed to wait a whole week for the next episode when it was on TV, and I’v no f-king clue how I’m supposed to wait an entire year for the next season. I may have to do the unthinkable and crack open a book. Lets hope it doesn’t come to that.

Remove: Weeds

OMG Weeds get over yourself. I stopped watching after Agrestic burned down. I’ve managed to catch an episode her and there, but I’ve stopped watching because I don’t care for what the show has become. It had a good thing going, I was signed up to watch a series about a mother trying to make ends meat by selling a bit of pot, and I was down with them exploiting the shit out of Mary-Louise Parkers’s body. However I did not sign up for the grandiose adventure they are making it become.

Add: the sopranos

You’ve already heard everything you need to about this show. I always intended to watch this show back in the day, but I didn’t have HBO, and every season on DVD still goes for like 50 bucks. I even tried watching when it got syndicated on A&E, but I figured watching it that way would be a disservice to the makers. I finally got around to netflixing it, and yeah, its good.

Remove: Lost

WAAALLT

I heart the first two seasons, I bore the next three seasons, and I hated the last one. I know everyone has their own opinion on the way Lost concluded, some look past the story arks that went nowhere in-order to buy into the big picture, and I would be willing to do that too, but I genuinely hate the big picture. After watching the series I did the due diligence, I read several fan-explanations, all of which went crazy in depth trying to justify the (shitty) ending. Normally I would say whatever, the series didn’t end with a big pay off, so what? The Sopranos had a pretty shitty ending, but that doesn’t seem to bother me. That’s prolly because, for me, The Sopranos ended too abruptly, and I wanted more, whereas Lost took forever to end, and when it finally did..I wished I’d never watched it at all.

A series has never made me mad. I have never watched a TV show and upon its conclusion been filled with rage, mainly because I’m not a stay-at-home mom. But Lost seriously pissed me off. I had to watch so many episodes after I (and seemingly the writers) had generally given up interest. I sat through countless child birth scenes, asinine plot twists, Jin & Sun’s stupid fucking love stories, and for what? For a “they all lived (died) happily ever after”. Fuck that. Fuck Lost.

Add: the wire

Unlike Game of Thrones, this is a show I was never told about. I’m a little perturbed at the amount of HBO subscribers who wont shut the fuck up about greasy muscle clad Vampires buttfucking each other or whatever they do in Trueblood, but don’t have the common courtesy to tell me about The Wire. I have chosen, of my own accord, not to watch Trueblood. It may be a great series, and I do not have any justifiable reason not to watch. Yet people keep telling me I have to watch it(more last year). But I have never once been told by anyone to watch the wire. Where were all these TB fans, who apparently know what I am going to enjoy (sidebar: wont stfu about it), when The Wire was on? Either they never saw it, or they are nincompoops, prolly both.

Now, it not like I have never heard of The Wire. I had heard little about the show, but at the time I always confused it with a show that was on around the same time called the Shield, which I had the occasion to watch, and did not care for. After my bout of confusion passed, I never gave The Wire a second thought.

After finishing The Sopranos I had some extra time on my hands and I wanted a similar show to fill the void the Sopranos left. I recalled an episode of The Office where The Wire was referenced, and what I got from the reference was that the show delt with drugs, and was too sophisticated for Michael to understand. After a quick check of imdb, I saw that it had a 9.7 rating and figured I could give it a try. Obviously I’m glad I DID. I LOVE THE SHOW AND ALL THE CHARACTERS (that was an accidental caps lock, but I stand by it). This is one of the best television shows ever made, ever.

 Remove: The Office

Does anyone relate to Jim anymore? Now that the Jim-Pam will they won’t they aesthetic is gone they seem like they are kinda dicks. I’m not going to go off on this, but it seems like they have a tendency to be rude and/or showboaty to the other workers, who by now seem more like their friends than just casual co-workers. Generally when everything works out for the protagonists, the stories over.

Here’s my real beef. Post season 2 the show lost its mockumentary balance; its become 80% mock and 20% umentary. With the addition of Ed Helms and the focus being taken off the relationship aspect its just lost its allure to me. All the excess time allotted to supporting characters, allows them to be become more rounded characters, and they all have their own bizarre eccentricities, a little too bizarre in some cases. But, I mean, I like the supporting characters, and all, the show is still funny, but for me it’s lost the special something that made it great.  Now it’s just another sitcom.

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Paranormal Redundancy or Titanic 2: Titanic

Posted on June 19, 2011 by

I am a tremendous fan of bad movies. I was going to begin by saying that watching the bad films helps you appreciate the good ones but I just don’t believe that and it probably is not true, I watch them strictly for entertainment purposes. For me, they elicit a similar reaction most people receive from horror films. I cannot watch horror films as they bore me to death, but put a terribly poor written and low-budget movie in front of me and I will be on the edge of my seat in anticipation of the next awful plot twist (just like their masked mass murdering counterparts, they come out of nowhere). Occasionally, you come across a gem that is so good at being bad that it miraculously becomes good again, such as Plan 9 from Outer Space (Wood Jr, 1959), The Room (Wiseau, 2003) and Ankle Biters (Minarovich, 2002). Unfortunately, neither of the films I will be reviewing today were able to cross back over that line and sadly remain solidly in the bad movie genre. Did I mention I will be reviewing the knockbuster hits Paranormal Entity (Van Dyke, 2009) and Titanic 2 (Van Dyke, 2010)?

Alright, brief synopsis. Paranormal Entity is clearly a knock-off Paranormal Activity (Peli, 2007). I think they are horror films but I can’t really tell as nothing much happens throughout the combined 174 minutes. Watching either film will guarantee you a restless bedtime experience filled with poorly acted nightmares. Both films suck, but they suck equally. They are indiscernibly similar, so if you liked either movie then you are probably a jackass. Those statements feel a bit too harsh and I don’t want any readers out there to mistakenly assume I feel “too” anything about these movies. They are, at best, lukewarm garbage, and not the cool environmental pollutant type garbage that corporations dump maliciously, I am talking about a couple of spare beer cans and an empty bag of Doritos that have been sitting in a puddle of rain water for like a week. That is the most scathingly ambivalent review I can give.

Titanic 2 was something I really thought I could sink my teeth into. 100 years after the tragic sinking of the Titanic (Titanic 1, if you will), a billionaire playboy/engineering genius/actual director/writer/star/actual grandson of Dick Van Dyke decides it would be appropriate to build a ship, christen it Titanic 2, and sail from New York to London (the lanes reversed!). Meanwhile, an iceberg the size of Manhattan or something falls into the Atlantic and sends waves crashing into the ocean liner, I think. Now I kind of forgot what happens because, to be honest, I watched this film over a month ago. I remember one scientist in Greenland is taking ice core samples by scooping up freshly fallen snow with his hand and putting it in a container. I was under the impression it took special drills digging hundreds of meters into the ground under sterile conditions to retrieve ice core samples but I doubt Mr. Van Dyke and his crack team would have over looked such a thing. The story is preposterous, the dialogue is awkward, the acting is stiff, the visual effects are terrible, and best of all they take themselves seriously but the movie still doesn’t manage to make you laugh often enough to make sitting through it worthwhile.

Now let us take a step back and I will tell you a bit about the think tank that puts out these straight-to-DVDs. Aptly dubbed The Asylum (It is insane that these movies turn a profit)(I believe it is a subsidiary of Tantamount Studios), this quality allergic production company has streamlined the way knockbusters are made. They begin by figuring out what is going to be popular 3 to 4 months from now, and they end by putting a hastily thrown together “movie” on the shelves of your local Blockbuster, or in my case Netflix instant queue, to coincide with the actual blockbusters theatrical release. According to Wikipedia, they spend “well under a million dollars” and write each film in anywhere “from an hour to a few weeks.” Now that is what I call talent. Oh, except it is talent in the way that I can touch my tongue to my nose or I can snap my fingers in a strange way are talent. Their apparent success is derived from piggy-backing on the massive marketing campaigns put in place by the high-budget originals. How a commercial for Transformers (Bay, 2007) could cause anyone to rent Transmorphers (L. Scott, 2007) is beyond me, but many folks out there hate them for this deceptive practice. I was inclined to agree, but after some thoughtful reflection, I have concluded that I just really don’t care. Do the people being tricked deserve to be tricked? Well, if you cannot tell the difference when you are renting this film then you most likely cannot tell the difference when you are watching this film. Are they destroying art to make a profit? Absolutely (and also probably not a super great thing to be doing) they are, but so is like almost everyone else. What they are doing is fine in my book as long as they don’t start to develop a non-ironic cult following. The second I find out a large group of people sincerely enjoy their films then I will be sincerely pissed off. So for now I give them:

1.5 out of 5 homophones

I started off discussing how much I enjoy watching bad movies and meant to talk about Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer, who, in my opinion (and a lot of other peoples), suck it big time. As an example, the five related lists that appear first on Seltzers IMDB page include: Directors Who Somehow Still Get Work, directors trying to destroy the movie business, PLEASE disappear off the face of the planet………please. PART II, The worst directors of all time, and peores directores que jamas hayan existido. According to my three years of Spanish education, that last one translates to something directors what something something exist. According to Google Translate, that last one translates to the worst directors who ever lived. Incidentally, while perusing their IMDB pages, I noticed that I have yet to see their latest release Vampires Suck (Friedberg, Seltzer, 2010) so I will be pushing that to the top of my queue and reviewing it shortly. Did I include too many rhetorical questions in this article?

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