"I Know Who Killed Me" (but I wish I didn't) and "Ratatouille"

Yes it's been ages since I've posted something but it takes some inspiration to write marvelous insights such as mine. Tonight I managed to see two films, each on one absolute extreme of the spectrum between "Who would seriously invest money in this film?" and "I wish I could create a film as amazing as this" that just happened to provide me with such inspiration. So anyway, on with the reading!


I Know Who Killed Me
This film is worse than you can imagine. I'm almost positive this film was made just so Lindsay Lohan could continue calling herself an actress in between drunk driving incidents and stints in rehab, as well as to pay for her coke and whatever else addiction. The film begins somewhere that is still unclear to me and never really sets a solid introduction point for the narrative, instead after a brief scene we get a scream and then a meaty "thwack" and that's kind of it. Anyway, Lohan really pushes the envelope of her acting ability as she plays two 18 year old girls; one girl lives the ideal white picket fence, upper-middle class life and the other a dirty stripper raised by a mom with a drug habit. Lohan, by her looks, is much more suited for the second. Imagining the girl that I'm seeing in this movie is the same girl from Mean Girls makes me understand how nasty substance abuse can be, Lohan looks like she's aged three decades rather than three years. While the film tries to play off whatever dwindling fanbase exists for Lohan, the scenes instead become comedic interludes where the filmmaker is flamboyantly proclaiming "Hey we have Lindsay Lohan in this movie, please give me money!"

Anyway, the movie progresses as we learn about the lives of these two girls and eventually we piece together a seedy murder plot from scattered points of straightforward exposition. At one juncture in the movie, the audience is actually subjected to watching a movie clip within the film that explains exactly what is happening, however, they make sure that you know the story you're being given directly is the "only reported case" and that what we're seeing in the current case is maybe only somewhat related, or something. Somewhere along this murder mystery we see brief stints reminiscent of "Hostel" where the audience gets quick glimpses of some sort of brutal, bloody activities. Continuing, eventually we begin to see Dakota (the stripper) being mistaken for Aubrey (the gifted child) and Dakota quickly slips into the sleuthing role of Nancy Drew to find out why everyone thinks she is Aubrey. While beginning this adventure down the rabbit hole that was Aubrey's life, Dakota begins having body parts begin to fall off, think the Black Knight scene from "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" but with the Black Knight not being struck by a sword. While you may think I'm exaggerating, I'm not. Go see it for yourself. Actually don't, instead go see "Kangaroo Jack," you'll have spent your time more wisely. Anyway, the film is highly predictable for anyone that's ever seen any sort of teen horror film and not in the "Oh man I bet I know who did it let's see what kind of crazy stuff happens" way but rather the "Well, let's see we're 3 minutes into the film and I know who the bad guy is, now I need to sit through an excruciating hour and a half of a cast of actors that sound like they were recruited from a local car dealership commercial." I was going to say a McDonalds' commercial but frankly I've seen better acting in commercials for McDonalds.

In the end the only saving grace was seeing Lohan being tortured a bit, kind of like Julia Stiles being killed in "The Omen" remake or Michelle Rodriguez dying in "Resident Evil." This is one of those movies that is so bad it's not even fun to make fun of, it has to be seen to make people believe how bad movies can be. I'm sure if subjected to watching this again I'd have plenty of things to say, however, unfortunately all my hate towards this movie left me once "Ratatouille" began. I'm not sure what I was expecting from someone whose directorial credits begin with "All Cheerleaders Die" on IMDb, but I'm fairly certain if I was given a choice between watching this movie again or having my limbs randomly fall off, I'd go with the second option.


Ratatouille
I have a major problem with Pixar, and specifically Brad Bird. Every time I sit down to see one of their films, as soon as it ends I think to myself "That's it, that's my favorite film from them. They've peaked and there's no way they can top themselves, kiss your perfect track record goodbye suckers." Without fail, they never meet this expectation of mine. Instead, they decide to shatter this thought the instant I set foot into a new release. As soon as this film begins you can tell these guys absolutely love what they're doing, they want to continue producing the absolute best films they can while still having loads of fun, and want absolutely everyone, from young children to adults, to share in their love of stories and film. While praise is often much harder than criticism, this film makes it absolutely impossible for me to provide anything other than compliments. "Ratatouille" continues this tradition of perfection with another brilliant story and even more stunning animation.

With Pixar films, you have a vague idea of what to expect. You'll always have the oddball of some sort with their best friend, some kind of love story in there, the wise older character that while seemingly harsh at the beginning always ends up with a heart of gold, and the most villainous villains that ever were created. However, with each new film, the team is able to create an entirely new cast of characters that changes these interactions enough that you don't care and it becomes something entirely new.

The story focuses around Remy, a rat with unique, advanced senses of smell and taste which leads him to constantly complain about the food the group eats and often leads him into dangerous situations to satisfy his palate. Emile is Remy's brother and best friend who doesn't seem to care much for the cooking side of things but is always dragged into these adventures because of his loyalty. Gusteau is a world famous chef that believes anyone can cook and provides inspiration for Remy, however, we only see him as a figment of Remy's imagination as he is dead before the movie begins. Linguini is a bumbling man that has a hard time holding down a job but manages to land one at Gusteau's restaurant based upon his mother's relationship with Gusteau. The film continues giving each character a quick biography that does a better job giving us a solid characterization of these cartoon characters. Quite succinctly, Pixar is able to do in 10 seconds what most films can't do in 30 minutes with their main character, which is craft an identifiable, unique character that the audience will recognize every time they see or hear them and will remember their quirks. Pixar is always able to do simple yet extremely clever things regarding their characters, such as naming the food critic Anton Ego (for those of you that aren't so quick, lookup "antagonist" and "egotism") who has earned himself a nickname of "The Grim Eater" for killing the careers of those chefs he dislikes and who does all his writing from a large, coffin shaped room. Reflecting his nickname and general disposition, Anton is a giant, gaunt, hunched character who looks like something out of "Nosferatu" while his eyes are as dark as those kids from "My Chemical Romance" that wear all that eye shadow.

Remy's love of food eventually gets him into a debacle which separates him from all of his family and friends, however, fortunately for him he lands in Paris, the city in the world which produces all the best food. Through an unlikely situation, Remy befriends Linguini and together they begin their cooking adventure (as well as Linguini's romance with Colette, the sole female chef in the kitchen) and I'd like to not give away much more of the plot because it is brilliantly written and a pleasure to watch unfold. The story is so wonderfully written that even though I know it's a Pixar film and things will work out for the best in the end, during those dark moments of suspense and the low points where the outlook always looks impossibly grim, I find myself doubting that I'll be leaving the theater with a smile. The ability to balance these lows with the ecstatically happy high points is what always makes me appreciate how truly talented the guys at Pixar are. Between the writing and the animation I find myself experiencing some kind of empathy with these cartoons. These animated characters are more full of life than most of today's stiff, cardboard cut out stars of cinema which, I think an overstatement is to call them "actors."

I absolutely loved this film, and one of the final cooking scenes will be burned into my mind as one of the most dazzling animated scenes I've ever seen. Films like this are what allow me to truly appreciate how amazingly awful a lot of films I settle for wasting my time with are.

Apocalypto

When I threw on Apocalytpo I really had no idea what I was in for. All I remember reading from anything surrounding the film was that it was an exciting action movie which led me to think I was in for great things. An action movie that centered around the Mayan civilization, what could be cooler than that?!

As an aside, I'll state right now that I actually like Mel Gibson. Every time Braveheart is on TV I without fail end up leaving it on and watching it till the end. I've always thought he was an incredibly entertaining actor as well, between the Lethal Weapon series and films like Payback and The Patriot he always keeps me entertained. I have indeed seen The Passion of the Christ and frankly I didn't care for it because I just found it to be a mediocre, boring film. I've never really paid any attention to his outspoken, real life personality because frankly I find most celebrities are often completely misinformed or so biased about their topics it's funny and also have a habit of picking the most worthless causes possible to speak about. And now on with the review.

After finishing the film, the first thing I did was go online and read other reviews to see if I had missed anything involving the film and to get a general feel of other people's feelings towards the film. Two things that were consistent across all reviews and stuck out quite clearly:
1. The costumes, soundtrack, and acting in this film were great.
2. It's very polarizing, or rather, people either loved it or found it boring for the most part, there's very little middle ground.
I happened to fall into the group of people that found this movie incredibly boring. The film begins by setting up Jaguar Paw's (Rudy Younblood) family, friends, and village for 20 minutes. After that 20 minutes which gives just enough time to give the audience an idea of the village life but not nearly enough time to make the audience care or connect with any of the characters, they are attacked by a band of warriors that ends in a bloody mess. From there, the audience watches an hour long march (that could've easily been done in 5 minutes) to a massive Mayan temple. Here, where Mel could've given the audience some interesting insight into the little bit we know of the civilization and way of life, he instead skips to a long drawn out scene of human sacrifice which isn't all that thrilling or entertaining. Jaguar Paw escapes through a series of absurd and overt "deus ex machina" moments and eventually the film ends with 45 minutes of a small group of men chasing Jaguar Paw with more "deus ex machina" garbage. So to reiterate, the film is broken down into the attack on the village, an all-to-long death march to a Mayan temple, and an all-to-long chase scene.

One of the major criticisms I've found amongst reviewers is that in Gibson's films the gore is excessive. What I find amusing is that the gore is supposed to add to the realism, however, it often comes off looking very cartoonish and made me laugh. The gore in Braveheart I found to be necessary and that film involved much more blood than this one, so I had no problem with it. I actually, at points, found it amazing that more blood and gore were not used, as I imagine when you cut open someone's stomach using a knife made of rock and rip out their heart there would be plenty of blood. Another criticism is that the facts involving Mayan civilization were virtually absent, and this is very apparent to anyone that has ever done any sort of research or reading regarding the civilization. While I love the civilization and was fairly upset at how it was portrayed initially, eventually I got over it by reminding myself this is a film and a work of fiction and not a documentary. What was silly to me, however, was that Gibson uses the native language (such as he did in TPotC) to ensure realism, however, any research done on the civilization must've been thrown out the window. Finally, I don't understand what was "visually stunning" about this film as often the shots looked pretty bland or poorly presented as though it was someone's directorial debut.

One of the most notable things I found about this film, was that for an epic, it lacked any sort of grandiosity. There were no memorable speeches (heck there was very little dialogue through the entire film), almost no memorable, breathtaking shots, and no hero that you actually cared about if he lived or died. It actually took me several minutes to figure out who the hero in the film was, until finally Gibson decided to add in the little plot of Jaguar Paw's pregnant wife and child. Oh yes, during the attack on the village, Jaguar Paw hides them in a well (whom we revisit several times through out the film only to see them sitting around not doing much, think the queen subplot in 300), which is when I finally figured out who the hero was and from then on was bored because I knew he wasn't going to die anytime soon. The complete disconnect between myself and any of the characters ever presented on screen was by far the most off-putting thing about this movie for me. I could not engage or empathize with any of the situations as the whole time I just found myself bored because I had absolutely no emotional attachment to any of the characters. Finally, the other problem I had with the film was that the action scenes were incredibly slow and flat out boring. Gibson never gives you a sense that the pack of warriors are closing in on Jaguar Paw in the last chase scene, never really presents any sort of suspense at any point during the chase, spends far too much time just focusing on one person running, and the fighting is virtually non-existant except for a few moments that look like something straight out of MacGyver.

The only saving grace of this film were the completely absurd, arbitrary, and sudden explosive acts of violence that, as I stated earlier, actually didn't involve all that much gore. For a film that has this listing on IMDb "Plot Keywords: Stabbed In The Chest / Blow Pipe / Shot Through The Mouth / Hunter / Fall From Height" I could not have fathomed how you could make the action uninteresting, but Gibson does it. I "get" the ideas that people are violent and I understand the (laughably horrendous) ending, I just found this movie to be poop.

When A Stranger Calls

I know this film is old news now, but it's been on my list of movies to view ever since Mr. Neville recommended it to me and today I finally got around to watching it. All I can say is, wow! This film was everything I expected and more!

The film is a remake of a 1979 film, however, with obvious updates to ensure that today's modern teenagers would be able to relate to the heroine Jill Johnson (Camilla Belle). The plot of the film is very simple and does not require much exposition or logical sense, and as such the film delivers on this as well. Jill Johnson is grounded for going over her minutes on her cell phone and therefore will not be able to attend the big bonfire where apparently the entire high school travels to a local hillt0p location which manages to kill every student's cell phone signal and burns a huge straw effigy in some sort of voodoo ritual where underage drinking and streaking are acceptable and so is the high school marching band prancing around playing. Instead, Jill babysits for a the family of a doctor and begins receiving strange calls. These strange calls quickly evolve from heavy breathing to statements which quickly inform Jill she is being watched and shortly thereafter letting her know her life is in danger.

The film opens with a brilliant scene of quick cuts of a carnival (because everyone knows carnivals are essential for the teen-horror genre since they're the scariest places ever) together with a random house that ends in a scream. A quick scene of a police investigation informs the audience that the people in the house were murdered most horrifically. The great thing about this opening sequence, however, is that we don't really care about them as they're never mentioned again, none of the police investigators are heard from or seen again, and the town where Jill Johnson lives is 125 miles away (yes, the film tells you that exact number).

After the opening sequence, the audience discovers that Jill's best friend Tiffany kissed her boyfriend and now they are fighting which is the cause for Jill going over her cell phone minutes. Might I interject, at this point, that the film is full of brilliant, humorous little interchanges and quips. Two of these specifically stick out in my mind. The first occurs between a police officer and a random investigator in the beginning, which goes something like this:
Policeman: "Hey Hanz, growin' a beard."
Police Investigator: "Yes, I am."
Policeman: "It makes you look um..."
Police Investigator: "Old and fat, I know I've heard."

The other occurs during the scenes in the high school between Jill and her friend Scarlet.
Scarlet: "Guys, this is so high school."
Jill: "Scarlet we're in high school."

Brilliant! Anyway, after the audience receives a brilliant 10 minutes of exposition which prove to be completely worthless they receive a 15 minute tour of one of the most expensive houses with the absolute poorest lighting possible. For the rest of the film, the audience is treated to viewing 45 minutes of viewing Jill sitting on the couch from different angles, 35 minutes of Jill slowly creeping through dark corridors (which director Simon West ensured were shot with the proper lenses to create the illusion they were miles long), and 5 minutes of unimpressive action towards the end. Through out this whole film, the entire soundtrack consists of random ambient noises, heavy breathing, and phone static.

I must say, however, that Jill is a mighty interesting character to examine. At the beginning she is very upset that Tiffany kissed her boyfriend, mad enough that she won't even talk to her. Hours later as she begins to get harassed, however, it takes only a single sentence from Tiffany to change her mind and reconcile them. Jill manages to continue these schizophrenic episodes through out the film, as she goes from recoiling in horror at every noise in the house to attempting to bait the stalker into a conversation which must last for 60 seconds in a matter of minutes. Through out her stay in the house she is consistently feared for her life, however, she is willing to slink through the shadows in attempt to discover her pursuer and at one time is even willing to run through the stormy night in her t-shirt and jeans wielding a phone, heavy metal object (I couldn't see what since the lighting was too poor) and a flashlight.

Yes, this film had everything I expected and more. It managed to avoid any violence altogether and had absolutely no T&A (clothed or not) which allowed to it to maintain its precious PG-13 rating which is so hard to achieve today. I truly believed that absolutely nothing would happen in this film and I was not let down, absolutely nothing happened.

This film is exemplary in its ability to rank as one of the absolute worst teen horror/thriller flicks I have ever seen in my entire life. It managed to take all the worst parts of the teen horror genre formula and twist them into something that I did not think was even possible. The ending could not have wrapped up this film more spectacularly. This is one of those films that is able to be crowned "so bad it's good" to such an extreme that I am actually on my way over to Best Buy now to pick it up on DVD because I honestly feel that any fan of horror films or film in general as an art ought to own this.

Fast Food Nation

Now to begin, I need to clear something up. I'm not exactly a "smart" guy. I don't read "books." I'm not exactly "literate." If something can't be said by a fat orange cat in a three-panel comic strip in the newspaper authored by Jim Davis, I don't want to know about it. Therefore, every time I hear of a best seller or any extraordinarily popular book being thrown into a film adaptation, I do a little dance. Where as books-on-tape you actually need to listen and interpret what is happening, often film further allows you to sit back and basically shut down most of your mental processes. After hearing so much buzz about this book "Fast Food Nation" I was thrilled to hear it was being made into a film. I was hoping it might be a form of docu-fiction, sort of like Michael Moore likes to build in his films, except it wouldn't masquerade behind a documentary style of filmmaking. I hoped it would be as hard-hitting as "Super Size Me" which blew the cover off fast food and taught me that fast food isn't healthy if that's all you rely on for a diet (which is the polar opposite of your normal meals involving minimal meat consumption) while quitting your daily habits of any form of routine exercise.

The last two films I've seen directed by Richard Linklater were "A Scanner Darkly" and "Bad News Bears." "Bad News Bears" is an experience I prefer to block out of my mind as I think I would've rather asked Jack Bauer to spend an hour and a half torturing me than think about that film. I decided to give Linklater another chance after "Bad News Bears" and ventured to "A Scanner Darkly" which is another book-to-film adaptation. I actually enjoyed it. Instead of just being a film relying on the gimmick of rotoscoping which I felt "Waking Life" was, the technique added to the surreal feel of the story. I decided to delve into another Linklater venture of "Fast Food Nation" without having read the book hoping to have the whole thing summed up to me in two hours.

The film is broken into three stories that have the connection of Mickey's (the fictional restaurant in the film) fast food franchise. The first segment involves a group of Mexicans, including Raul (Wilmer Valderrama), illegally crossing the border to come to America searching for their dream life. The next segment involves top marketing executive Don Henderson (Greg Kinnear) investigating reports that "There's shit in the meat." Finally, the third storyline revolves around Amber (Ashley Johnson) whose widow mother (Patricia Arquette) is always drinking or going out on dates and receives a surprise visit from her uncle Pete (Ethan Hawke).

Based upon these three storylines and what I learned in the film, I think I can break down the evils of fast food into five points:
1. Illegally crossing the border from Mexico to America is dangerous.
2. Illegal immigrants get bad jobs that are often dangerous, disgusting, and underpaid.
3. Executives in the fast food franchises care about profit and nothing else.
4. Teenagers don't like their jobs.
5. Cows are killed so that people can eat beef.

I'm not sure exactly what "truths" were supposed to be uncovered in this film, so let's explore some of these. I'm not campaigning for political office, so I'm going to leave all opinions and ideas out of this involving illegal immigration, but needless to say I'm pretty sure everyone understands that illegally crossing the border from Mexico to America is not going to be an easy adventure. Next, the higher-ups at Mickey's in the film are the epitome of capitalism and it's what our society and country was founded upon; no "truths" revealed yet. Following that, teenagers have almost always hated their jobs and future generations of teens will probably continue having the same abysmal jobs. I stocked dog food for three months as a teenager at a pet supplies store, how come I don't get my own storyline in a movie? Again, we are still waiting for a "truth" to come out. Finally, the film uses real footage of a meat-packing plant including segments from the dreaded "kill floor." Audiences will see footage of cows getting their throats cut, the removal of limbs, skin being ripped from the muscle, disembodied heads, and organs flowing down a trough. Again I don't know what "truth" this is revealing besides the fact that cows, like every other animal we eat, need to be gutted and cleaned before ingestion. The meat still seems cleaner than many other forms of food you can find around which films such as "Fight Club" and "Waiting" have graphically portrayed.

The only intelligent point of the film involves uncle Pete explaining to Amber that if you're stuck in a small town and in a job you hate, you should probably do everything in your power to change that situation. In the end it felt like a propaganda film for PETA with no new "truths" to me, yet I can easily see this being a "shocking and revealing" film for many Americans, specifically groups that thought "Fahrenheit 9/11" was a mind-blowing documentary that was cause for a revolution, to chat about. If nothing else, I must say that the cast was excellent in their acting and I actually did begin to buy into the characters, but it was more like having a friend that consistently makes stupid decisions and you want to explain to them everything they are doing is wrong.

Also, for no reason revealed, Greg Kinnear likes to watch porn in the movie.

The Perry Bible Fellowship

I've kept this comic my personal secret for long enough and I've decided to finally share it with all of you whom are so near and dear to me. If you want to read the bio or find any other fun information, go here and click around: http://70.86.201.113/imageserv2/stilltemporary/index.html It's a temporary site while it switches servers, but still has all the content.

The archive of all the comics is located here: http://70.86.201.113/imageserv2/stilltemporary/archive.html

I suggest you go to the bottom of the comics and begin working your way up so they are in chronological order.

If you don't "get" any of the comics, chances are you're either 1. Overthinking the whole strip and should just look for what's obvious, or 2. Missing one of the major details that makes the whole thing funny. I "get" and find funny every single strip, so if you don't understand one just let me know and I'll be happy to explain it to you.

Some of my favorites are "Deal with the Devil," "Instant Bacon," "Skub," ...the list just goes on and on. In fact, if you've taken the 2 minutes to look through at least 10 of the strips and haven't at least chuckled or found something humorous enough to keep you reading, you're a terrible person and need to re-evaluate your sense of humor.

Midsummer update festival!

Well, I've been short of time as of late and short on motivation for writing, however, I decided to do a comprehensive update 0f sorts tonight. So let's begin as I know you've all been waiting with baited breath for me to return.

First off, this post gives me a reason to post this gif I made recently.


I watched the entire "Are You Afraid of the Dark?" series this summer over the course of a few weeks and this is the only episode that weirded me severely out. There are a few that still get to me and bring back nightmarish images from my childhood, but this doll is the bane of my existence. Even making the gif from the movie took all my might. I recall posting about the glory days of Nickelodeon, and this show is one of the programs that occurred during these times. This show would never be allowed on today, probably most of the "SNICK" shows wouldn't, however, this one was different. This was a sort of "Twilight Zone" for kids, except every once in a while they'd come up with a horrible, mind-twisting, spine-shivering freakish episode that would make you be thankful you had a week before the next one. This episode is by far the worst for me, however, because I fucking hate dolls and a lifesize doll talking in a little girl's voice weirds me out for some reason. The lifeless stare and incredible awkward walking motion combined with the perfect atmosphere in the episode make me cringe everytime I see it. Not only does the episode combine an incredibly freaky basement with weird old-timey music, but it also ends on an incredibly sadistic note which (I'm going to spoil it so stop reading if you don't want to know) leads you to believe that the kid that discovers the evil power of the radio is going to fucking feed his neighbor, a bully, to the demonic forces within.

So yes, "Are You Afraid of the Dark?" is one of those pieces of nostalgia that you figure would be boring and trite when revisited, however, upon watching it it's still an incredible show and I can only hope that it's eventually put on DVD and hopefully end up having kids of my own that I can traumatize with this brilliant show.

Next up, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest. This is a hot topic right now and I figure I should tackle it. I've seen plenty of movies this summer, however, not even Superman or The Da Vinci Code were hyped and anticipated as much as this film. I want to begin this film by saying I really enjoy and love the first film, I find it funny, entertaining, and overall the epitome of what a summer blockbuster film should be. I did not, however, see the movie till well into it's release and the only draw for me was Keira Knightley as I absolutely am in love with her as everyone that knows me can vouche for. I was surprised to see how many people had been going to the film and decided I should jump in as I had been cleaning it for weeks and just rocking out to the fun score by Klaus Badelt. Once I saw it, I decided I enjoyed the movie and after multiple viewings on DVD I still enjoy the movie.

After random delays, I finally managed to see this movie the other night after hearing both sides of "I really liked it!" and "Nothing happened!" Going into this movie knowing full well who the forces were behind the film and knowing who had concocted this trilogy, I was expecting to be spoonfed more of the same from the first one. And what I got, was exactly more of the first one. I completely agree that not much happened through out the film, and a lot of the entertaining sword fights had been removed, and a trivial "plot," if you can call it that was created, however, in the end I still enjoyed it. I wanted to see pirates, an incredibly good-looking Keira Knightley (and jeez did she look good in this one, whoever did her boob make-up shading in this one must've been practicing between shoots), and pirates.

To criticize this film for being whipped together quickly solely to make money, "the soul of a cash machine" -Duane Dudek from the Journal-Sentinel, is one of the most asinine claims I've ever heard in my entire life. In basic film class I took at college which immediately ranks me as an expert on the subject, one of the first things they state in the class is that "Every piece of cinema is created as an economic venture." While that is definitely an objectionable statement, it stands very true for every piece of commercial cinema, independent or not, that is released in theaters and reaches a broad audience. Next, did he not realize that the first film was created solely based off a popular ride from Disneyland and therefore was created to cash-in on this popular attraction even if it was solely to hitch onto the household name? The first film had just as much the soul of a cash machine as this one, hell it's Disney, what else would you expect?

The other major criticism is that "nothing happened." I totally agree with this statement. However, I understood that going in this film was going to be the one that was forced to be the whipping boy for a trilogy to be created out of a film that wasn't originally written as an entrance to a trilogy. I expected a bridge and a lead up to a third film and that's exactly what I got. I was pretty much going in knowing that this film should be considered Pirates 2 (part 1) and that's exactly what it is. This may infuriate some people and cause people to throw out any shred of respect they had for my opinion, however, I feel that I really need to reserve judgement of the film until I'm able to view the third one. The film you can tell has all the flash and is basically all spectacle with absolutely no substance, however, what else can you really expect from a summer blockbuster? It had plenty of jokes and things that had me chuckling similar from the first one and I can assure you there was no forced laughter coming from me, and I also enjoyed seeing money being blown on huge sea monsters attacking ship crews, however, I really would have liked to see more of the Kraken rather than just tentacles flailing everywhere. The third one, I would expect, would have the Kraken finally being defeated (hopefully) and (hopefully) an incredibly awesome, large scale battle where Davey Jones unleashes everything he possibly can against the crew of the Black Pearl and Tortuga and what not.

In the end, I felt that the film was a standard middle film of a trilogy. Besides The Empire Strikes Back and The Temple of Doom it's hard for me to think of a second film in a trilogy I've ever really enjoyed. That said, Temple of Doom is definitely my least favorite of the three Indian Jones films. "But what about The Two Towers?" you might ask yourself. I'll say this flat out, and not as a fact but flat out as an opinion. I enjoyed it the least, just like I did with the books, out of the three and while the film may have solid starting and ending points, I feel exactly the same way I felt about Pirates 2 and that is that it's just a massive build up to the third portion.

I hope everyone is watching It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia because I just got caught up on the last 2 episodes and that show is by far one of the most hilarious shows I've seen in a long time.

Finally, on to music news since I left that list of 10 bands in the dust a while ago. To pick it back up, I'll write small blurbs about three bands I deeply, deeply love.

The Lawrence Arms and Tuesday - Yes, more punk. And I know punk is dead and punk isn't real music and punk doesn't take any real talent to play and is technically boring. Well fuck you too buddy! The Lawrence Arms are a band from Chicago and I've got a long history with them. The bassist, Brendan Kelly, was in a ska-punk band called Slapstick in the early/mid 90s with a bunch of amazing musicians, most notably Dan Andriano and Rob Kellenberger. Shortly after graduating high school, the band split and Dan and Rob went on to form Tuesday while Brendan went on to form The Broadways. Tuesday played a melodic form of punk rock that most people today would classify as "indie rock with emo influences" while The Broadways continued with a more gritty, punk rock style similar to Jawbreaker. What's interesting, in my opinion, is that Slapstick has a pretty clear split in their lyrics, half being written about regret, love, personal experiences, and other high school junk while other songs are written about political opinions and critiques of modern society. The former were almost always written by Dan Andriano and the latter almost always by Brendan Kelly. When the bands split, it's obvious who wrote which because Tuesday's songs are all about girls and The Broadways are all about corruption in governments, critiques of the education, the government, and all sorts of things in society. Unlike many punk bands, however, The Broadways were actually literate, did research, and held opinions backed by strong arguments rather than just screaming "FUKKEN ANARCHY DUDES FUKK DA SYSTEM." Anyway, these two bands eventually depleted as well and...let me stop here for a second. I'm going to list a bunch of bands and you're not going to care, but someone might so I'm going to do it anyway. These bands all contained or were created by members of Slapstick:

Tuesday, The Broadways, Colossal, Duvall, The Lawrence Arms, The Falcon, Alkaline Trio, Less Than Jake, The Honor System, The Smoking Popes, The Chinkees, Tricky Dick

If you've heard of any of those bands, good on you! Anyway, Dan went on to join Alkaline Trio and still remains with them, while Rob Kellenberger has gone on to do a billion other projects, and Brendan went on to form The Lawrence Arms. The Lawrence Arms continued the lyrical ramblings of Brendan Kelly, however, Chris from The Broadways finally started to balance the grating voice of Brendan with a smoother side that most people consider the "emo" side of the band. Nuts to that I say, anyone that considers emo bands like My Chemical Romance needs to seriously do some research or else have a little pow-wow with me and let me ramble. Anyways, basically The Lawrence Arms are much more accessible than The Broadways but just as angry, intelligent, and fun to listen to.

Tuesday, on the other hand, really didn't reach much of an audience. After their first EP, they released their only LP which is incredibly melodic, really slowed down, and in general just fucking awesome. I've never really been able to squeeze them into a genre which is one of the reasons I really love their stuff. I could go on for days about this band but I'm tired and want to sleep. If you really care, you can drop me a line and I could do an entire update about either of these bands.

Dan and Brendan have recently gotten back together in a project called The Falcon which combines elements of Tuesday with The Lawrence Arms and right now they've only got an EP out, however, it's totally rad and they're releasing a full-length this fall called "Unicornology" which is a kickass name and I'm incredibly excited for it.

Anyway, both bands were introduced to me by my brother when I was a wee lad and I've basically grown up with them, so there's a major nostalgia connection with them both.

For more information, here are two Wikipedia links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lawrence_Arms
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuesday_%28band%29


Don Caballero - Abso-fucking-lutely incredible. Damon Che is one of the best rock drummers ever, and he recently reformed the band and I was finally able to catch them live. It was the best drumming performance I've seen since Hella, and equally as mind blowing. The band started with a much darker, metal influence math-rock (another complicated term that upsets me and we can discuss it over some tea, an abacus, and many sighs of frustration from me) but in their later albums turned to crazy guitar noodling continuing increasingly mind-blowing drumming. If you're going to give them a shot, listen to the full song. Many of them are 5 or more minutes long and can turn into something completely different from what the song started out at. I can't even begin to describe this band besides saying that everyone should at least give them a try to see what bands are out there that they're missing out on. Also, if you're ever around any hipsters or that cute, shy, artsy girl in your philosophy lecture and you get to talking about music, name-drop this band and she'll instantly fall in love with you.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Caballero

As always, the best way to form an opinion of these bands is to ignore everything I've said and just listen to a few songs for yourself. Here are some of my favorites, which isn't really true because just about everything these bands have released is incredible I just picked the first handful of songs that happened to come up. I really urge you to just take 20 minutes or so and sit down and check out at least one song by each band. As always, I've bolded the songs that I could lose my hearing except being allowed to hear these songs at least once a day and still be happy.

Don Caballero - American Don - Details On How To Get ICEMAN On Your License Plate
Don Caballero - American Don - Fire Back Aout Your Baby's New Sex
Don Caballero - American Don - The Peter Criss Jazz
Don Caballero - For Respect - Nicked and Liqued
Don Caballero - World Class Listening Problem - I Agree...No!...I Disagree
Don Caballero - What Burns Never Returns - Slice Where You Live Like Pie
The Lawrence Arms - The Greatest Story Ever Told - Alert The Audience!
The Lawrence Arms - A Guided Tour Of Chicago - Detention
The Lawrence Arms - Apathy And Exhaustion - Boatless Booze Cruise (Part 1)
The Lawrence Arms - Apathy And Exhaustion - Navigating The Windward Passage
The Lawrence Arms - Oh! Calcutta! - Great Lakes/Great Escapes
The Lawrence Arms - Oh! Calcutta! - The Devil's Takin' Names
Tuesday - Free Wheelin' - Disappear
Tuesday - Free Wheelin' - My Mess
Tuesday - Free Wheelin' - Sixty-Eight
Tuesday - Free Wheelin' - Everything Left Out

Chances are you didn't like any of that, and if so, well then fuck you because I do! Well, that about wraps it up for now. I figured I'd like to put out an update so I just typed this flat out in a matter of minutes and I'm sure it's full of typos, incoherency, and any humor that may have been present in previous posts is now absent, but I don't care because I'm tired and want to go have a nice cup of warm milk, hang up my booties, and cuddle with my pillow.

A brief essay on feminism.

I'm interrupting my 10 bands list because frankly I'm swamped with the end of school and finally I've decided something has motivated me enough to write a rant. Feel free to comment on it at any time and share it to any one you think would be interested in it, I'm always interested in feed back, and I realized I had anonymous posting turned off so now it's back on. Well...let's begin!

I have absolutely no problem with feminism. According to dictionary.com, the definition of feminism is "Belief in the social, political, and economic equality of the sexes." I find the concept to be absolutely wonderful as I am essentially a hippie egalitarian. I think everyone should have equal rights until they have given people just cause to remove or limit their rights. The concept of feminism is perfectably acceptable as a theory, just as acceptable as the concept of Communism.

I do, however, have a problem with femists. To begin, the term "feminist" is of itself rather hypocritical. "Feminists" often claim that they do not enjoy being labelled by others as they feel it demeans women. Similarly, they do not enjoy when people make broad generalizations about women as it removes their individuality and does not take all aspects of each person into account. By applying the term "feminist" to oneself, however, they are labelling themself and placing themself into a category, therefore doing exactly what they are trying to revolt against. On this same note, feminists, in my experience, despise generalizations especially when a man makes a remark involving all women. Feminists, however, have no problem using the generalization of the term "men" when discussing the patriarchal society that has oppressed and is oppressing them. Thus, they feel they are granted a privelege that allows them to make generalizations while people of the opposite gender are not, therefore creating a double standard. A double standard is inherently contradictory to any form of equality and therefore females that call themselves "feminists" are essentially misandrists trying to overturn a society founded upon patriarchy into a matriarchal based society, or rather simply they do not want equality they want women to be the dominant force in society.

This desire by "feminists" leads to many illogical, asinine demands that asks for all the rights of men and more, but does not entail any of the responsibility. For example, in 1998 Karla Tucker was the first woman in Texas ever to be sentenced to the electric chair. The outcry against this execution was not simply anti-death penalty people proclaiming the electric chair was evil, they were simply against executing a woman. Regardless of whether you agree with the death penalty or not, the woman committed a crime a male would've been executed for and there would have been minimal to no outcry against it, as it is with most executions. Instead, it was purely based on the fact she was a woman. If women want equal rights, why are they not willing to accept equal responsibility? Another personal example was a video I watched junior year of high school I still remember vividly. The video was about a group of feminists that argued that the physical requirements the fire department had in place for its firefighter training course discriminated against women. These "feminists" were demanding that females should have a separate, gender specific set of physical requirements. They did not realize that in the case of an emergency, perhaps a 250 pound person would not drop 75 pounds and lower themselves in the building a few stories solely because the firefighter attempting the rescue was a women. This issue stuck with me because it does not discriminate against women based on an inane argument that consists of something like "women are emotional and can't handle the stress of the job," it was simply that women could not meet the demands imposed upon everyone and therefore decided it would be equal to make the requirements for the genders unequal.

Criticizing women that enjoy dressing up, shaving, and doing things that are essentially considered "normal" by society's gender roles does not mean that a woman is not low on self-esteem or conforming to patriarchal society. Not shaving your legs and getting a unisex haircut does nothing to promote equality and if anything just furthers the divide between genders. Frankly, by doing these things it furthers the "feminist" stereotype and does even more to make men, and many women, look down upon self-proclaimed "feminists" leaving them further from their goal.

I have met a few women that I would indeed call feminists and they would be willing to accept that label. They understand that with equal rights comes equal responsibility. It is the self-proclaimed "feminists" that often take a wonderful idea and misconstrue its meaning into something that advocates exactly the opposite of its intention, similar to the idea of "straight edge." I agree that often it is the fanatical, vocal majority that give the entire idea a bad rap, however, you can easily counter this by having rational, logical discussions with people and reaffirm our belief that there are still people out there that understand the concept and don't bother talking the talk, they just walk the walk.

In the end, my stance is this: If you advocate feminism, that's fine, but do so in a rational, logical way. If you want the rights, take the respsonsibility.




I don't know really know what I was trying to accomplish with this post but frankly a couple classes at this university along with a lot of ignorant girls promoting women's empowerment by ranting about how men ruin society in many classes forced me to express my ideas through some outlet and this was the most readily available.