Claire's blog

• THIN BLUE LINE: Cop's pussy son Justin Collison sucker-punches homeless man Sherman Ware from behind, doesn't get arrested
  I guess it helps if your daddy is a pig? Then you can go beat anyone you want, even though you look like a 'roid raging bro douchebag? Fuck this preferential treatment; Justin the sucker-punching pussy should have gone to jail THAT NIGHT. They still haven't pressed any charges against this violent douchebag.

  And if this wasn't caught on video, you can bet the pussy suckerpuncher would get away with it because of his pig daddy.

  WARNING: Justin Bieber video advertisement once you finish watching the story. There's someone who needs to be punched.

  (tags: politics ThinBlueLine JustinCollison beatings assaults assault hospitalized homeless ShermanWare notCharged CaughtOnVideo BrianTooley ABCNews punched suckerPunched fromBehind news articles)
• SURVIVAL: Top 10 downloads you should have
  Good stuff.
  (tags: survival downloads top 10 top10 firstAid canning dentistry rangers gardening surgery arms army manuals)

• VIDEO GAMES: Playstation 3 Code Signing Cracked For Good
  PS3s are almost ready to be worth buying!
  (tags: hardware games videoGames consoles PlayStation PlayStation3 PS3 jailbreaking pwned security modded modchips signing cracked cracks scene Slashdot news articles)

[IMDB link] [Netflix link] A direct-to-DVD sex/pot comedy rated 2.5 on IMDB? Brought to us by B-movie company The Asylum? I’m in! I don’t think I’ve ever watched a movie filmed by The Asylum before. They’ve filmed some 50-odd films and distributed some 180-odd films. Most with titles similar to popular movies, such as “Snakes On A Train”, “18 Year Old Virgin”, “The Da Vinci Treasure”, and “Envy” (but not the Envy with Jack Black!).

UNCOMFORTABLE PLOT SUMMARY (inspired by this): Losers get drugs and sex.

PEOPLE: An unknown (to me) director with 2 main stars that are also nobodies. Only 1 of them was even in another movie. Seriously — this movie is pretty much made exclusively by nobodies.

QUIRKS: Sex. Pot. Boobs. Getting laid. The title really says it all. You don’t really have to dig much deeper to find the core meaning to this film; it’s about as deep as Mariah Carey. (Which is not deep. Remember her quote about how at least Ethiopians are lucky to be skinny?)

Really, this movie doesn’t need much further description. It’s very much in the same vein as National Lampoon / American Pie / teen comedy movies. Except with more gratuitous nudity. The plot sometimes took a backseat to simply showing boobies on the screen.

Which, if you go in expecting that, is a pleasing reward.

The two main characters are pretty much the same two main bros from every teen comedy: The sex-starved slob (who literally wears a t-shirt saying “I love to beat my meat” during most of the movie), and the nice-guy virgin (who has sex with a bagel in one scene). These may as well be the same characters from the movie College, from Sex Drive, Miss March, or any other generic teen comedy. It’s formulaic, but it works.

There are a couple comedic twists that were pretty funny, and some other interesting characters.

VISUALS: Boobs. Lots of boobs.

MORALS: Get stoned. Get laid. This movie has no morals.

BAD STUFF: An idea that’s been done a million times ago — and it’s not done nearly as well here as in other movies. Jokes are as low brow as possible. Sex Drive was a sophisticated movie compared to this. I repeat: Sex Drive was a sophisticated movie compared to this.

CONCLUSION: Despite the fact that this is gratuitous low-brow kitsch of the absolute higher order of generic, this is a kind of generic that I can’t help enjoy. Thus, I keep watching movies like this one. Even when they aren’t memorable and have no substance, they still entertain me — though I would not recommend trying watching this sober.

RATINGS: Netflix: 3/5 stars. IMDB: 6/10. Generic pass.

RECOMMENDATION: Don’t watch this sober. Don’t watch this if you think sex and pot are automatically unfunny. Don’t watch this if you have better teen comedies / sex comedies to watch. Go watch The Stoned Age instead. Watch Sex Drive instead. Watch Miss March. Don’t watch this film unless you are a low-budget comedy completionist who wants to watch EVERY movie like this movie. If THAT is your goal, then you may watch this.

SIMILAR MOVIES: College. Sex Drive. Superbad. Most post-2000 National Lampoon movies. Except pretty much everything I mentioned is better than this.
(more…)

• war on terror: George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld 'knew Guantánamo prisoners were innocent' –
  According to a top aide to Colin Powell, high-ranking members of the Bush Administration *KNEW* that *HUNDREDS* of innocent were sent to Guantanamo Bay prison camp, where they were tortured, treated inhumanely, and detained for years for crimes they did not commit.

  Colin Powell is backing this declaration, too.

  Remember when Obama promised Guantanamo would be closed? About 3 years ago he promised, then reneged and said "in a year". Now it's been about three. Innocent people are still there, and Obama lied about freeing them. Is he really that much better than Bush?

  (tags: politics BushAdministration WarOnTerror war terrorism freedom government Guantanamo GuantanamoBay prisonersOfWar prisoners innocent knew GeorgeBush GeorgeW.Bush DickCheney DonaldRumsfeld ColinPowell LawrenceWilkerson Repblicans lawsuits WarInIraq WarInAfghanistan Iraq Afghanistan injustice AdelHassanHamad torture interrogation ObamaAdministration TimesOnline news articles)
• FREEDOM OF SPEECH: Apparently Less Important Than US Attorney & Courts Silencing 'Annoying' Woman
  Millions of Americans are in chronic pain because doctors are not allowed to prescribe the painkillers that medical science says they should be able to.

  Why? Concerned parents and the war on drugs. Legislators and the DEA saying what medicine you can and cannot have.

  And no, this isn't about illegal drugs. This is about LEGAL drugs, and doctors who get sent to prison for daring to prescribe them.

  So this woman tries to protest the prosecutions of these doctors, and what happens?

  The government takes away her constitutional right to free speech, places her on a gag order, and shuts her up.

  And the supreme court lets this stand.

  Freedom of speech, huh?

  (tags: politics WarOnDrugs freedom government medicine doctors pain drugs FreedomOfSp[eech speech FirstAmendment 1stAmendment ConstitutionalRights rights amicusBrief SiobhanReynolds TanyaTreadway silencing chilling PainReliefNetwork chronicPain relief medical Techdirt news articles)

[IMDB link] [Netflix link]

PEOPLE: Part 1 is written by renowned master animator Satoshi Kon — but NOT animated by him! (What a twist!) That is how we came to watch this film; his 2010 death prompted us to watch everything with his name on it, since we loved Perfect Blue so much.

The three sequences (this is a collection of 3 30-to-40-minute ‘shorts’) are directed by Koji Morimoto (animator; director of of 1 Animatrix segment; producer of .hack//Roots), Tensai Okamura (animator:Cowboy Bebop the movie, 2 eps of Neon Genesis Evangelion, Ghost In The Shell), and Katsuhiro Otomo (director:Steamboy; writer:Akira, Metropolis, Steamboy). Well-known Japanese voice actors were used for many of the parts in this movie, but I won’t go into too much detail there.

PLOT SUMMARY:

Part 1 (Magnetic Rose): It’s like Ghost Ship mixed with Planetes, but without the science, politics, or smoking chambers. And maybe with a sprinkle of Firefly and The Matrix.
Part 2 (Stink Bomb): A man unwittingly becomes a living biological weapon, killing everyone around him.
Part 3 (Cannon Fodder): A militarized society seemingly revolves around the act of firing cannons at the enemy. But does this enemy even really exist?

UNCOMFORTABLE PLOT SUMMARIES (inspired by this): [highlight for spoilers]→
Part 1 (Magnetic Rose): Garbagemen left to die in space (one exploded, one left drifting alive with limited oxygen).
Part 2 (Stink Bomb): World’s luckiest and most clueless man kills hundreds, humiliates military.
Part 3 (Cannon Fodder): Communism’s inefficiencies fail to protect children from night raids.

QUIRKS: Three different anime stories with three different looks and feels.

VISUALS: Three different styles. Part 1 is in space, and just looks like mostly generic anime. That is to say, better than American animation coming out at the same time. Part 2 is on earth, and has interesting painting-like backgrounds… A concept quite familiar to Samurai Jack fans. Part 3 reminds me a lot of Rene Laloux‘s unique animation style. Everybody is green and a bit inhuman looking. Plus, they used a really interesting English font, where certain letters also look a lot like runes. It’s just different enough to slow you down reading it, but just same enough to still be readable. Nice touch.

MORALS:
Part 1 (Magnetic Rose): Beware of mind tricks.
Part 2 (Stink Bomb): Try not to be as stupid as this guy. Get a clue.
Part 3 (Cannon Fodder): Communism sucks.

POLITICS:
Part 1 (Magnetic Rose): None.
Part 2 (Stink Bomb): The military-industrial complex engages in all kinds of idiotic behavior. Created to protect us, they make even more money if they endanger us. We should not trust them to work in our best interest. This is why forces like Wikileaks need to exist.
Part 3 (Cannon Fodder): Communism sucks. (Actually, I think every system can be run in a completely inefficient way, and a better political moral would be that authoritarianism sucks. Communism gets lots of bad rap for the fact that its leaders tend to be brutal authoritarians. However, Part 3 is most squarely aimed at communism and not authoritarianism, so this critique is more about anti-communism sentiment than Part 3 itself.) Also: The threat of war is often manufactured to be worse than it is. See also: 1984 and American Foreign Policy (especially 2000-2010).

GOOD STUFF:
Part 1 (Magnetic Rose): Very creepy and suspenseful, until the mind-tricks start. Space garbage collectors, like in Planetes, end up getting into a Ghost Ship level creepiness. Salvaging inside of an EPICly large spaceship combines claustrophobia and agoraphobia into one giant fearfest. But then, it stops being as good by the end.
Part 2 (Stink Bomb): Very funny to watch a military humiliate itself so badly.
Part 3 (Cannon Fodder): This part actually isn’t nearly as good. The best thing about it is simultaneously the worst thing about it: Longest canon-launching scene EVER in any movie EVER. But it’s a commentary on communism, so people, especially in Asia, should understand this. The cannon is red; could it be any more obvious?

BAD STUFF:
Part 1 (Magnetic Rose): The ending isn’t nearly as good as the beginning.
Part 2 (Stink Bomb): After all that, the only way he is saved is by [highlight for spoilers]→ Marines wearing Nasa suits? THAT’S how you win? But wait! It’s the guy! WTF! D-d-dumbass. And he’s STILL clueless?!?! . This guy has to be one of the stupidest people in existence (yes, even fictional existence!) That ending is a bit of a cop-out.
Parts 2 & 3: What did these have to do with memories, anyway?!?!?
Part 3 (Cannon Fodder): Longest and most boring cannon sequence in any movie EVER. And the ending is kind of a cop-out. Much like part 2, it’s a twist one way, and then a twist back to where you think it’s going, to create a sort of “fake twist” cop-out ending. Two twists that cancel each other out. [highlight for spoilers]→ Oh look! It turns out there’s no enemy! But oh look #2! It turns out there IS actually an enemy! And communism didn’t save its own citizens from it!

CONCLUSIONS: Even though I didn’t like them individually as much as I had hoped, I really liked the offering of several miscellaneous animated treats that were all interesting.

RATINGS:

Part 1 (Magnetic Rose):
Clint: Netflix: 4.4/5 stars. IMDB: 8.4/10.
Carolyn: Netflix: 4.4/5 stars. IMDB: 8/10.

Part 2 (Stink Bomb):
Clint: Netflix: 3.2/5 stars. IMDB: 7/10.
Carolyn: Netflix: 3/5 stars. IMDB: 7/10.

Part 3 (Cannon Fodder):
Clint: Netflix: 3/5 stars. IMDB: 6/10.
Carolyn: Netflix: 3/5 stars. IMDB: 6.6/10 (a low 7).

OVERALL:
Clint: Netflix: 4/5 stars. IMDB: 7/10.
Carolyn: Netflix: 3/5 stars. IMDB: 7/10.

The native public rating for this movie is: IMDB: 7.6/10, Netflix: 3.6/5 stars (Netflix‘s predicted rating for us was 3.5/5 stars–the exact average of our two ratings, as well as the exact average of the 3 ratings I gave individually. However, I actually scored the movie as a whole at 4/5 stars; greater than the sum of its parts).

RECOMMENDATION: Anime-lovers should definitely check this out, what with Satoshi Kon‘s name being on it.

SIMILAR MOVIES: Part 1 reminded me of Planetes meets Ghost Ship!

FRIENDS’ RATINGS: Tripp loved it.
(more…)

[IMDB link] [Netflix link] Unfortunately, we did not watch the director’s cut. And wow. Battle Royale 1 was rated 8.0/10 on IMDB, barely missing the Top 250. Battle Royale 2 is only rated 4.7/10. Big difference in people’s opinions! They are more similar to each other than any other movie, so I don’t see the point of making such a huge discernment between the two.

QUIRKS: Three years after the events of Battle Royale 1, the surviving children have formed a terrorist group that has performed a 9/11 style attack on Japan, downing 7 skyscrapers. (Including 2 of equal height right next to each other, like the World Trade Centers.) In response to this, the government creates Battle Royale 2 — a program to send more students in to kill the first students. And we all know how well government regulation works, right?

This movie is on a grander scale than Battle Royale 1. It’s more of a war than a game.

PEOPLE: Director Kinji Fukasaku died while filming this, his 65th movie. He had terminal cancer. Doctors told him to remain in the hospital. He refused, and directed this instead. But he didn’t make it, so his son took over.

Quentin Tarantino was almost cast as the president of the USA, but instead they didn’t have him at all.

VISUALS: The violence plays out more like war movie violence than the random kinds of violence featured in Battle Royale 1. This is because everyone simply has guns, instead of different, unique weapons. This makes the violence more precise and less personal, and the gore a bit more generic. But boy are there a lot of action scenes! There’s even an homage to Saving Private Ryan and the D-Day Invasion (which my grandfather participated in as part of 1st Infantry); shot on similar film stock even.

The characters were a bit easier to keep track of, due to having more unique visual appearances. Not everyone had generic-Japanese-person hair. Though they did kill off the blonde girl really quickly… Overall, this has a more modern look and feel than Battle Royale 1.

MORALS/POLITICS: The basic moral is one of moral relativity. The kids in this movie are considered terrorists — and have indeed taken many innocent lives in their cause. But I would say the events of Battle Royale 1 justified them making a strike back at the adult world via any means necessary. Frankly, calling your enemy “terrorists” has been one of the greatest political hijackings of critical thought in history; only exacerbated by the real events of 9/11. In this movie, the “bad guys” — the terrorists — are the good guys. Yes, they killed innocent adults. But adults killed innocent children first in the game of Battle Royale 1.

And more importantly, outside of Japan, children all over the world are being killed due to the whims of adults. The movie starts out with a scene of a teacher listing a LONG list of countries. At the end, he explains that these are all the countries USA has bombed. 8 million dead. And you can bet a lot of children died. And why? Does our country even get attacked?

In real life, we lost a whopping 3,000 on 911, and 2,000 at Pearl Harbor. In the movie, we bombed 8 million. If you divide 8,000,000 by 5,000, you get 1,600. Yes, it’s kind of weird to compare real life numbers to hypothetical numbers in a movie, but the ratio of deaths here is 1600. If we are killing 1600 in response for every 1 of ours killed, you can bet we’re the ones killing more children than our enemies. (Plus, Pearl Harbor and the World Trade Centers aren’t exactly places where kids hangout, UNlike the many residential apartments we’ve bombed.) So children striking back at various countries, including the U.S., would be totally justified in a movie like this.

BAD STUFF: I still think they should have used the song Kids Are United (“Kids Are United! We can never be divided!”) by Atari Teenage Riot (originally by Sham 69) at some point! And I’m not sure how long that pipeline was! Kind of unrealistic to be able to [highlight for spoilers]→ escape from an island via an underground tunnel. But we shall ignore such flaws, rather than dwell on them.

CONCLUSION: A lot of people don’t like this as well as Battle Royale 1. To an extent, I agree that it’s not quite as good. The action was a bit more mindless. However, this made up for that by being more politically relevant than Battle Royale 1. The politics and point of this movie was a bit grander than the movie itself. Moreso than Battle Royale 1.

RATINGS: Netflix: 3/5 stars. IMDB: 7/10, says Carolyn. I agree.

RECOMMENDATION: If you’ve seen Battle Royale 1, there’s no reason NOT to watch the sequel. While it lacks some elements of what people liked in BR1, it is more of the same on a grander scale. I also liked Saw 2 more than Saw 1 for similar reasons: The “game” has expanded and become more than it originally was.

SIMILAR MOVIES: This actually plays out like a lot of war movies.

MOVIE QUOTE: 1) Shuya Nanahara: We declare war on all adults!

2) Shuya Nanahara: How much blood has been shed? How many tears spilled? All of our friends who fought beside us are dead, killed in the last three years. But even as justice can never be vanquished, we terrorists will never vanish, however evil they deem us. Because we know, that a handful of adults, a handful of ‘nature’ selfishly define the nature of peace as freedom in this world. But our world is so much more complex that. This world has 63 Billion people living their own lives, living 63 billion different ways, 63 billion kinds of peace, 63 billion kinds of concepts of what is “good”, 63 billion kinds of war and evil. No one has achieved peace without fighting for it. … Behind every peace, there’s a river of blood, sweat and tears. But if we avert our eyes from that history and abandon it, then peace might as well be dog shit.

COINCIDENCES: (Infestation, Battle Royale 2) 2 movies within 3 nights where people who were basically going to die anyway started smoking, and coughed a lot because they didn’t know how to smoke.
(Sleep Dealer, Battle Royale 2) 2 movies 2 nights in a row with “good” guys that are “terrorists”.

And here’s the Atari Teenage Riot Sham 69 cover I mentioned earlier, which I wish they’d used at some point:

P.S. This movie takes place on 12/24-26, same time of year as this post! :) (more…)

• OVERLY-HARSH PUNISHMENTS: Fat bitch teacher DeLynn Woodside has 13-year-old student arrested for having a Sharpie marker – FUCK YOU, SHARPIE HARPY!
  Sharpie: A brand name I learned from school. I guess I was lucky my teacher didn't have me arrested for having one, eh? What a bloated whale of a bitch. Nice of them to include her picture. No wonder she's so angry.

  And why are they using this statute? Because they thought prohibiting students from bringing their own writing implements would prevent them from building weapons. Yes, this is about fucking WEAPONS.

  The pen is mightier than the sword – so good luck letting the government let us have either, apparently. The fact that the police actually went through with an arrest and transporting this kid to juvie hall says a lot about the police state.

  (tags: politics OverlyHarshPunishments bullshit arrests children students 13-year-old Sharpie Sharpies markers possession DeLynnWoodside RooseveltMiddleSchool SharpieHarpie OklahomaCity Oklahoma bitches police TheSmokingGun news articles policeState)
• WAR: Pentagon’s Christmas Present: Largest Military Budget Since World War II
  Yay Obama! Hope and change! No more war! No more bad america!
  Oh wait… An even larger military budget than during the Bush era? Or the Reagan era? Or any era since WW2?

  Yup. When you voted Democrat, you really changed things, didn't you? [/sarcasm]

  (tags: politics war military budget Pentagon largest sinceWW2 Congress NationalDefenseAuthorizationAct 2011 ObamaAdministration YourTaxDollarsAtWork richardrozoff news articles NATO CenterForDefenseInformation StockholmInternationalPeaceResearchInstitute WarInAfghanistan WarInIraq Afghanistan Iraq Republicans Democrats)
• WAR ON DRUGS: WIKILEAKS: DEA transformed into Global Intelligence Organization
  Finding out just what our tax dollars are doing: Fighting a wasteful war on drugs that has cost our society more than sending every child in the country to college. Isn't it great that our society's priorities are so straight? [/sarcasm]
  (tags: politics Wikileaks WarOnDrugs drugs war freedom government diplomacy DEA YourTaxDollarsAtWork wiretapping Panama SierraLeone Mexico Afghanistan Myanmar Nicaragua Venezuela Paraguay EPP ParaguayanPeople'sArmy FARC Colombia RafaelFilizzola RicardoMartinelli Sodahead news articles Matador Cablegate Taliban WarInAfghanistan ViktorBout Thailand Africa AlQueda Liberia Guinea OusmaneConte LansanaConte cocaine waste)

[IMDB link] [Netflix link]

LIMERICK REVIEW: There once were some Japanese schoolchildren
who were punished without committing a sin.
Forced to fight to the death–
until each one’s last breath.
Individual chances of survival were quite thin.

HAIKU REVIEW: Social cliques are death.
Government interference
demands this be true.

UNCOMFORTABLE PLOT SUMMARY (inspired by this): Government policy for allocation of child resources leads to complications.

PEOPLE: Japanese.

QUIRKS: Weapons. A game for survival. Almost like Lord Of The Flies meets Saw, but with a political angle. A class is randomly selected each year, and much fight each other to the death. Who will win?

Based on a book. Members of the Japanese parliament tried to get the novel this was based on banned.

One of the top 10 highest grossing films in Japan.

MORALS: If there can be only 0 or 1 survivors, then you really can’t trust anyone. Not your love interest; Not your classmates… And certainly not the popular girl!

Also: Never underestimate the power of a taser.

POLITICS: Perhaps this isn’t the best way to deal with the political ramifications of an unruly youth that causes condemnation by the older generation. Gee, you think?

BAD STUFF: Actually, this movie is pretty solid throughout. There’s really nothing bad that I can think of. No plot holes. No painful scenes. The game begins, and it goes until it ends.

CONCLUSION: Way better than Lord Of The Flies, which was still good. This was actually a great movie showing what lengths people will go through to survive, and how Japanese highschoolers act when trying to kill each other :) And there are some crazy death scenes. Not so much in terms of violence, but in terms of what is going on in the character’s heads. (Imagine the self-sacrifice of being glad your love interest killed you!)

RATINGS: IMDB: 4/5 stars. Netflix: 8/10.

RECOMMENDATION: Like action? Like a movie where there can be only one survivor? Like Japanese horror/action flicks? Check this out. It’s pretty renowned, even among us Gaijin. Check it out.

I’d definitely like to see the Special Version of this movie.

SIMILAR MOVIES: Lord Of The Flies.

MOVIE QUOTE: Teacher Kitano: Here’s your list of friends in the order they died.

FRIENDS’ RATINGS: Ian really liked it. A lot of people really liked it, actually. An 8.0/10 global IMDB rating is quite high — the lowest 50 out of the Top 250 (that is, #200-#250) Highest Movies Ever Rated are also 8.0, so this movie almost made it to the top 200. (more…)

[IMDB link] [Netflix link]

PLOT SUMMARY: Three bums find a baby on New Year’s Eve.

HAIKU REVIEW: Holiday caper.
Lighthearted optimism,
Homeless heroics.

This movie actually had about 3 haikus IN the film itself. They were used as comedy; it was cool seeing them used as such.

UNCOMFORTABLE PLOT SUMMARY (inspired by this): [highlight for spoilers]→ Crazy bitch, bums, steal baby.

PEOPLE: Satoshi Kon just died recently (as of the writing of this review), and as such, we are trying to watch all his movies.

QUIRKS: An anime Christmas story. Kind of rare, since Japan isn’t Christian at all. But they love celebrations and holidays, so they celebrate Christmas in a secular fashion — like many Americans. We have 3 bums — one of which is a transsexual — finding a baby, and trying to return it to its owner. All kinds of incredibly unlikely coincidences drive the story.

VISUALS: Definitely way more anchored in reality than Satoshi Kon’s other movies that we’ve seen so far. (And not just visually so.)

SOUNDTRACK: Weird hearing Christmas songs in Japanese — I really think so.

MORALS: Don’t steal babies. Oh, and probably some deeper spiritual bullshit that I’m not interested in. Allegory about the Three Wise Men, blah blah Jesus blah blah blah.

GOOD STUFF: Satoshi Kon is a master director and animator, so the movie is done quite well.

BAD STUFF: Some people will complain that the Spanish parts [one scene really] were not subtitled, but this is the director’s intention, so quit your bellyaching.

CONCLUSION: A quirky, upbeat, light-hearted New Year’s Eve adventure/mystery/caper, full of hope and unlikely coincidences. Definitely some humor sandwiched within.

RATINGS:
Clint: Netflix: 3/5 stars. IMDB: 7/10.
Carolyn: Netflix: 4/5 stars. IMDB: 8/10. She’s more into sentimental movies than I.

The native public rating for this movie is: IMDB: 7.7/10, Netflix: 3.8/5 stars (Netflix‘s predicted rating for us was 3.4/5 stars. A good guess–it’s the average of our two ratings!).

RECOMMENDATION: People who want good anime — and dislike shitty anime — should check this out.

MOVIE QUOTE: Gin: You can’t get milk from an old queer’s tits, no matter how hard you think.

COINCIDENCES: This movie is full of ’em!

FRIENDS’ RATINGS: Some people liked this one. Some liked it even better than Paprika!

(more…)

• WAR ON DRUGS: Senate Unanimously Confirms Michele Leonhart as DEA Head
  Yay Obama, hope and change! Wait? The Obama administration nominated and appointed the Bush administration acting head? And the Democrats unanimously voted this person in?

  Leonhart, who raided all those medical marijuana dispensaries? Some 200+ times?

  But… But… But…. Obama wrote a big bad letter to the DOJ saying not to raid medical marijuana dispensaries!!! That means that everything will be fixed! Oh wait.. Obama's all talk and no action. Pretend change in a public letter that the mainstream media talks about, while continuing to do the same Bush-era tactics with the same Bush-era people.

  More fake Obama change….voted for unanimously by Democrat and Republican alike.

  (tags: politics WarOnDrugs ObamaAdministration hope? change? DEA confirms confirmations MicheleLeonhart Democrats Senate votes government freedom drugs marijuana medicalMarijuana StopTheDrugWar DRCNet news articles)

• CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS: TSA Investigates Pilot Who Exposed Security Flaws, feds take away his firearm and concealed weapon permit
  They confiscated his gun for pointing out safety flaws? I guess constitutional rights don't apply to people who embarrass a government? Can you imagine if they said you weren't allowed to go to church or vote because you embarrassed the government? But it's okay if it's the 2nd amendment? What the fuck, america. Pussies.
  (tags: politics ConsitutionalRights rights 2ndAmendment SecondAmendment guns gunControl TSA government pilots embarassed constitutionalRights security securityTheater freedom airplanes travel planes flying Slashdot news articles)
• RELIGION: WAR ON CHRISTMAS: The Surprising Truth: Christians Once Banned Christmas In America
  Stupid religious fucktards. Like most conservatives, they whine about shit that THEY THEMSELVES HAVE DONE. But hey, speaking logic to someone who sucks the ass of an imaginary sky fairy is like trying to explain calculus to ants.
  (tags: politics religion Christians Christianity holidays Christmas WarOnChristmas Puritans idiots hypocricy NewEngland Boston bans)

• REPUBLICANS: Arizona ‘death panel’? State Medicaid cuts poised to let some poor patients die
  Republicans pass law sentencing people to death. Sarah Palin's false claims about death panels are finally true. But it was the Republicans who did it this time.
  (tags: politics healthCare deathPanels Republicans health Arizona RawStory Medicaid funding NewYorkTimes organTransplants liverTransplants heartTransplants transplants)

• RELIGION: Israel moves to legalize segregated Jewish-only communities
  Yay religion, for helping mankind learn to be good and stop all their problems via rational beliefs!
  Oh wait. [looks at reality]
  Fuck religion, for helping mankind learn to perpetuate evil, and for splitting us into splinter groups that commit violence against each other. Groups that would not exist without religion.
  (tags: politics religion Judaism Jews Islam Muslims Arabs Israel racism theocracy segregation legal AdmissionsCommitteeBill GushShalom ElectronicIntifada news articles)

• TECHNOLOGY WAR: Web attacks target human rights sites
  If you are pro-human rights, you will eventually be attacked online by those against it. Humanity is disgusting.
  (tags: politics TechnologyWar humanRights rights DDOs attacks BBC news articles websites)
• RELIGION: Pope says condoms are okay, but NOT for contraception
  Sex is only for making babies! You shouldn't have it otherwise. Ever! So says the 6000 year old sky fairy who killed more people in the bible than the devil. Stupid Catholicism; press releases like these are directly responsible for thousands [or millions] of AIDS deaths. The Pope is helping kill people via religion. And people who continue to justify this religion are doing more than "following orders", they are complicit in spreading a virus that kills people.
  (tags: politics religion Christians Christianity Catholics Catholicism condoms VaticanCity Pope PopeBenedict PopeBenedictXVI CongregationOfTheDoctrineOfFaith HIV AIDS birthControl)
• WIKILEAKS: U.K. trained 'death squad' that operated in Bangledesh, killed 1000 people with no due process, tortured, kidnapped, blackmailed
  UK tax dollars at work violating human rights. What a threat to national security that anybody dare know how their tax money is spent!

  Of course the US knew this, and didn't care. We probably threw cash into this knowing us.

  (tags: politics Wikileaks leaks Cablegate UK deathSquads violence Bangledesh extrajudicial shootings blackmail extortion kidnappings humanRights rights paramilitary military RAB RapidActionBattalioni MSNBC news articles TaxDollarsAtWork JamesMoriarty)
• APPLE: pulls Wikileaks app, but Android apps remain
  Owning apple products is like living with your parents: You can't have nice things. Paying extra to have a nanny is fucking stupid, so I can't help but find apple users fucking stupid. "Oh, but I don't care about that." Well you're stupid for not caring. Go die now.
  (tags: politics corporations censorship apple hardware phones cellPhones iPhone apps Android nanny Wikileaks Guardian news articles)

[IMDB link] [Netflix link]

PEOPLE: Directed by Richard Stanley, who’s movie Hardware (1990) has had a cult following for almost 20 yrs.

QUIRKS: African desert locations. Magic/Witchcraft/Supernatural. SLOWNESS. Randomness. Broken necks. Surrealism. Beautiful but pointless imagery.

This was the workprint version that we watched, which is longer, and includes a lot of VHS-quality scenes and scenes with the timecodes still on them. Scenes that were cut due to technical and budget issues. The first cut was 120min, then they did a 95min compromise cut. The first cut was lost — and this was a 115min recreation of it. So there’s 20 minutes of extra stuff that was cut out — most supernatural references, for example. There’s an even shorter cut that Richard Stanley never even saw, titled “Demonica”.

VISUALS: As mentioned before — there is some beautiful and intense imagery, much like that found in Hardware. But it had little point in this movie. I’ll take sci-fi over supernatural fantasy any day.

BAD STUFF: Random, slow scenes. Bad storytelling. Stuff shown to us that we don’t really need to be shown. This is probably what I get for selecting the workprint version. It was hard to even focus and pay attention at time. “What just happened?” “I don’t know, I was thinking about something else.” “Yeah.. I was thinking about health care reform myself. Let’s rewind.” This happened several times.

CONCLUSION: This certainly had noticeable Richard Stanley style, like that of Hardware (1990) … However, it was just slow, kind of random, fell flat, and felt like a waste of time after watching it. Perhaps we will try the non-workprint version at a future date, but I think the results would be more or less the same: Major disappointment when compared to his previous film, Hardware.

I’m still glad I checked this out. Richard Stanley isn’t consistent, I guess. But Hardware is still a masterpiece in my book, and you can’t win them all.

RATINGS: Clint: Netflix: 2/5 stars. IMDB: 5/5 (and that’s charitable). Carolyn: Netflix: 3/5 IMDB: 6/10.

RECOMMENDATION: Hardware fans might want to check this out for completism. I would possibly advise against the workprint version, but I don’t know for sure which is better, since I haven’t seen them both.

MOVIE QUOTE: Joe Niemand: The desert knows her name now. He has stolen both her eyes. When she looks into a mirror she will see his spirit, like a shawl, blowing tatters round her shoulders in a haze. And beyond the dim horizon a tapestry unfolding of the avenues of evil. And all of history set ablaze. (more…)

• RELIGION: Pope Benedict XVI makes more comments in defense of child rapists — in his Christmas speech
  Catholicism: Legitimizing rape for 2000 years. Yay God. Everyone throw some child porn into a nativity scene near you… It's not an absolute evil according to the pope.
  (tags: politics religion Christians Christianity Catholics Catholicism Pope PopeBenedict PopeBenecictXVI children rapists molesters pedophiles priests BelfastTelegraph news articles)
• RELIGION: 5 Ridiculous Things You Probably Believe About Islam
  1) Most Muslim women (95%) are not required to wear veils.
  2) 4 out of 5 of the most populous Muslim countries have elected women to lead them.
  3) The founding fathers had a lot of respect for Islam and Muhammad and welcomed Muslims.
  4) Muslim does not equal Arab. Only 20% of the world's muslims are arab. (There are more Arab Christians than all Jews in the world.)
  5) During the Crusades, the Muslim armies were much more humane than the Christian ones. They had a code of conduct that Christians did not abide by.
  6) More Muslims (%age) believe in Evolution than evangelical Christians.
  (tags: politics religion Islam Muslims women burquas veils foundingFathers Arabs terrorism war armies combat evolution science Cracked lists articles)

• SCIENCE: Video Games Boost Brain Power, Multitasking Skills
  It's sad that we had to wait until video games were around long enough that the people who played them would grow up and become researchers in order to come up with such an obvious conclusion as this one.
  (tags: science games videoGames brainPower brains research studies multitasking skills DaphneBavelier UniversityOfRochester children vision contrast attention cognition spatial spatialCognition women men LaurenSergio YorkUniversity NPR news articles frtonalCortex)
• SEX: Shock study: Increased availability of child porn results in lower rates of child abuse
  Czech Republic study's results consistent with similar observations in USA, Germany, Sweden, Finland, and Denmark.
  Safe outlets for urges help reduce peoples' need to live out those urges in real life. Let us not forget that increased availability to porn in general has resulted in a decrease of rape in general.

  An interesting read on a topic nobody really wants to think about.

  (tags: politics sex childPornography pornography childPorn porn molesters pedophiles studies CzechRepublic Denmark Germany Finland Sweden USA TheLegaylSatyricon news articles virtualChildPornogrpahy rape availability outlets children)
• MOVIES: American Psycho to be made into Broadway musical
  …wow.
  (tags: media video movies AmericanPsycho Broadway musicals adaptations News.com news articles)

[IMDB link] [Netflix link]

UNCOMFORTABLE PLOT SUMMARY (inspired by this): People in their 30s pretend to be teenagers hooking up. Molly Shannon becomes a pedophile.

PEOPLE: Directed by David Wain (The State, Stella, Superjail). Written by David Wain & Michael Showalter (The State, Stella). With Janeane Garofalo (24, Reality Bites, etc), David Hyde Pierce (Niles from Frasier, Sideshow Bob’s brother in The Simpsons, Wolf), Michael Showalter, Marguerite Moreau (who I think looks like a cross between Laura San Giacomo and Kristin Kreuk–but Carolyn doesn’t see it), Michael Ian Black (The State, Stella), Paul Rudd (Angel‘s boyfriend), Christopher Miloni (Freakshow from Harold & Kumar 1, and the Green Lantern from Green Lantern: First Flight which we just recently watched), Molly Shannon (Saturday Night Live, Talladega Nights, Scary Movie 4, Happiness), Ken Marino (The State, Hoodwinked), Joe Lo Truglio (The State, Fanboys, Superbad), Amy Poehler (Saturday Night Live, Envy, Mean Girls, Blades Of Glory, Shrek 3, Horton Hears A Who, Arrested Development), Elizabeth Banks (Zack & Miri Make A Porno, Spider-Man 2 & 3, The 40 Year Old Virgin)… And H. Jon Benjamin (Dr. Katz, Home Movies) as the talking vegetable can that only the Vietnam vet can hear.

WOW. This is one of the best casts ever.

QUIRKS: Summer camp! Hooking up! Stupid kids.

MORALS: Nope. None in there.

BAD STUFF: I felt this movie suffered from having too many subplots and no real “main” characters. Sometimes that formula works, but this time it just felt kind of random, and that randomness made it harder for me to pay attention to and get into. Some people rate this a 5 star comedy, one of the funniest movies they’ve seen… But I just felt it was kind of defocused.

CONCLUSION: A better than average comedy with an *incredible* cast.

RATINGS:
Clint: Netflix: 3/5 stars. IMDB: 7/10.
Carolyn: Netflix: 4/5 stars. IMDB: 8/10.

RECOMMENDATION: This movie must have not been heavily promoted, because I’d never heard of it and at least one person on Facebook commented that “I thought I was the only one in the country to watch this”. It’s actually a good comedy — I would recommend anyone who is a fan of The State or any of the other cast members check this out. It may very well be funnier than I am rating it!

SIMILAR MOVIES: I am definitely reminded of Happy Campers, even if that Pixel chick is the only thing I remember from Happy Campers.

MOVIE QUOTE: Can of Vegetables (H. Jon Benjamin): “If you wanna smear mud on your ass, smear mud on your ass – just be honest about it. Look, Gene, I’ve never told anyone this before, but I can suck my own dick, and I do it a lot.”

FRIENDS’ RATINGS: Carolyn, Ian, & Benj really liked it (4/5). Eric M & Christian D liked it (3/5). (more…)

• FREEDOM VS. COPYRIGHT: US Banning Books: Unauthorized Catcher In The Rye Sequel Permanently Banned
  How dare someone write an unofficial sequel to something else. Fuck the constitutional right to free speech — copyright trumps that.

  Here we have it: Land of the free with a permanent injunction banning a book that some [but not many] people would really like to read.

  (tags: politics freedom copyright intellectual property bullshit legal rulings court CatcherInTheRye unauthorized sequel sequels media books FreedomOfSpeech speech 1stAmendment FirstAmendment ConstitutionalRights rights THResq Techdirt news articles bans banned)

• MUSIC: Dr. Demento: Holidays In Dementia (Christmas Comedy Compilation)
  A review of an album that creeps into my playlist [in an automated way :)] every Christmas season. It's funny stuff.
  (tags: media audio music albums Dr.Demento radioShows Christmas holidays HolidaysInDementia TheHollytones FatherGuidoSarducci JingleBells TheWaitresses JosephSpence terrorism NewYear'sEve NewYear'sDay NewYear's Hannukah reviews Suite101 GefilteJoe&TheFish SpikeJones SpikeJones&HisCitySlickers ScaryGaryAlan DocMoShe MonaAbboud JonaLewie James&King DaYoopers RayStevens TheBob&TomBand NacyWhite BobRivers BobRiversComedyCorp)
• LITERATURE: Google Labs – Books Ngram Viewer
  A way to see a graph of the frequency of words during certain times, courtesy of google book search. This graph compared Clint to Carolyn … It looks like right around the beginning of the Great Depression, Clint was briefly mentioned in literature more than Carolyn. Assuming I'm reading this graph right. Pretty cool
  (tags: google books graphs ngram ngramViewer Clint Carolyn)
• WIKIPEDIA: Dub localization [CARTOON-RELATED]
  I've been investigating the brilliance of the Super Milk Chan anime series that me and many friends watched 5 years ago. We started re-watching it again in 2010. It has three versions:
  1) original japanese
  2) direct/literal dub [used by AdultSwim]
  3) Americanized dub localization by ADV films [way funnier, better than the original show, the only one really worth watching]

  I'm trying to find out if this is a common thing. ADV turned a crazy series into something nothing short of brilliant, with episodes rating 8-10 out of 10. The literal dubs are more like episodes rating 6-8 out of 10. (And we're talking about the same episodes).

  Apparently ADV has done a similar thing with an anime called Ghost Stories. So I will be checking that out. But I may want to refer back to this list to check out some of these other shows. I'm a big fan of Americanizing things; these dubs are more like adaptations than translations.

  (tags: Wikipedia articles dub dubbing localization dubLocalization ADV ADVFilms media video TV shows cartoons anime SuperMilkChan TokyoMewMew MewMewPower SamuraiPizzaCats SailorMoon PowerRangers OnePiece Cardcaptors CardcaptorSakura)