Upcoming movies

Similar to how Nolan has the record industry as his cause, so to speak, I'm a big proponent of the movie industry. With that needless introduction out of the way, here's a list of stuff I'm looking forward to, or are at least intrigued by:

The Golden Compass

I read the His Dark Materials trilogy back in middle school and loved it, and so I really hope this movie can live up to it to some degree. I'm sure New Line is hoping the same, seeing as it cost upwards $180 million to make. Though honestly I'm happy just to be seeing giant cgi polar bears kicking ass (the polar bear is my favorite bear by far - it's almost stupid how much I value them over other rather viable bears like the grizzly), you all should go see it.

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

Tim Burton, Johhny Depp, Alan Rickman, rousing musical numbers and people made into pies. Do I really need to say more? Go see this movie. Side note: I tried to link the trailer from the official site, but their flash code was really weird and I couldn't get an autoPlay=false command to work so I had to go with youtube.

There Will Be Blood

Daniel Day-Lewis alone makes this worth seeing. The trailer looks more intriguing than anything, but it promises big things and certainly looks compelling. Also, Jonny Greenwood (guitarist from Radiohead) is doing the score, which is kinda cool I guess.

Alvin and the Chipmunks

Honestly I'm a bit ashamed to be posting this here. I was horrified when I heard they were making an Alvin movie (despite a family tradition where we listen to the Alvin and the Chipmunks Christmas record every holiday season and a tendency to watch the cartoon as a child and pretend I was actually watching Rescue Rangers, which was a bad-ass show.) and felt sorry for Jason Lee that he felt his career was over enough to sign on for a role like this. And then I saw the new trailer, and actually found myself laughing and such.

I'm still not sure about the film, but Jason Lee seems fairly on his game and will likely make or break it. There's a fair chance I won't actually see this one, regardless, but what the hell - that shouldn't stop you!

Black Devil Doll

Does a day go by where I'm not looking forward to Black Devil Doll? Not really, no. It stands to be the family feel-good movie of 2008. Calling it now. Though surprisingly enough it isn't even the first black devil doll movie; there was apparently a film "videoed" (the box's word, not mine) in 1984 called Black Devil Doll from Hell that according to IMDB has one named person in the cast. I'm pretty sure I need find and buy this movie.

a not-so-deep political debate

Since the presidential race started to pick up I've had a lot of people make the comment that Barack Obama voted against the Iraq war. Please stop saying this, because it is WRONG. Obama may have opposed the war, but he was not even a member of the Senate in 2002 when the vote happened; it's impossible for him to have voted against it, and yet people keep saying as much. If anything, his voting record suggests otherwise as he's voted for every bill funding the war since joining the Senate in 2005. Dennis fucking Kucinich is the only D. candidate to actually vote against the war at the time. On a related note, the stupid fucking facebook candidate chooser test thing matched me kinda high with Mr. Dennis fucking Kucinich, and I spent the rest of the day curled up in a corner crying and cutting myself. Oh, and in my Superior opinion, if you're determined to vote Democrat you should support Bill Richardson. He seems to suck markedly less than the other choices.

If you've ever bitched about illegal immigration (DEY TOOK OUR JEBS!!), or thought building a big-ass wall across the Mexican border seemed a sound decision, go read this: Classically Liberal: The logic of the anti-immigrant crowd. I see no compelling reason to add anything to this, seeing as he's done a fine job with it all and I'm lazy and kinda want to just go pretend to take a nap for a bit. On a related note, I re-watched Highlander last night and fuck is that a fantastic movie. Not only does it drop the pretense of using an article in the title (though the villain appropriately adopts one in reference to himself: he is not Kurgan, but rather THE Kurgan. Brilliant.); it also features the quintessential 80's movie ballad: a soaring tale of woeful longing composed by one Brian May specifically for the film after seeing a screening and being like "god damn, this movie is awesome. I want to write the entire soundtrack for it!" and they did, and it was great. Anyways this is relevant because [little known fact] Brian May and the rest of Queen were illegal immigrants and had we built a giant wall between the U.S. and Great Britain Highlander might have gone without it's quintessential 80's movie ballad theme and such a travesty would be like 9/11 times one thousand. That's right, nine hundred and eleven thousand! The fact that the whole Queen illegal immigration thing is nothing sort of farcical is irrelevant, as I assume it true for continuity alone.

still anger

So I've now spent a substantial bulk of the past half hour trying to jimmy the lock on the aforementioned roommate's door, but have accomplished little beyond splintering a once useful Borders rewards card. His clock is seemingly of the persistent, never-ending beeping variety as opposed to the much jollier shuts itself off after 5 minutes type that I cherish so greatly right now. I might just be losing it, but I swear the damn thing is actually getting louder. It's really hard to describe just how upset I am about all of this, but it's likely John will be getting many poorly scribed hate letters rammed under his door before this morning is over because lord knows I will always choose the passive aggressive angry missive over anything bordering confrontation. Not that it matters seeing as I doubt he'll be back anywhere near close enough to RIGHT NOW for my liking. I'm going to go cry now.

anger

For some reason I can't quite fathom, my roommate's alarm clock is going off right now. Normally this would be closer to all well and good, except for the fact that he isn't back from Thanksgiving break rendering the entire alarm thing rather pointless unless he just decided that I needed to be woken at 6 am on this particular Sunday morning because otherwise it just wouldn't be a special enough day or some shit. Imagine that was clever, because at the moment I'm way too irritated by the rather loud incessant beeping coming from his room to bother exercising my particular brand of sardonic wit. Did I mention that he locked his door so I can't go in and shut the damn thing off? Yea, that's really cool. God damn it.

We're caught in a trap...

I obsess about the weirdest things sometimes. Essentially since waking up yesterday afternoon the only song I’ve wanted to listen to was Elvis Presley’s Suspicious Minds. I just keep listening to it. Over and over again. Initially I didn’t even know what song it was; I had the tune stuck in my head but for the life of me couldn’t come up with a single lyric. The solution? Frantically downloading every Elvis song I could find and skipping through them until I finally found the one I needed so badly. The odd part about all of this being that I don’t think I’ve ever purposely sought out an Elvis Presley song to listen to. Fuck me, I’m not even sure how I came up with this song to begin with; I’m keen on proclaiming latent psychic prowess but feel it might be somewhat premature. Or at the least manifested in a stupidly useless way – baring that life-or-death scenario where someone, anyone must think of and secure an Elvis song they may or may not have heard before and find it thus deterring a terrorist plot and saving the day leading to a massive celebration and hardy handshakes with top military brass and the girl finally being won for the unlikely hero and the roaring 80’s song as the credits start to roll so that no one in the audience has to see what happens 15 minutes later when everyone stops caring and remembers why said hero was so unlikely and leave him alone to wallow in his past glory while slowly killing himself at the bar – that would be a depressing story and not the proper fodder for summer blockbusters; even if George Clooney is somehow convinced to be a part of it all…On that note no one go see Michael Clayton, unless you like sitting around for 2 hours wondering what the fuck is the point of this movie and when is something – anything – going to happen that I even remotely care about and then just having it end for no real reason. There are literally horses running about for NO FUCKING REASON. It would make more sense if those horses could talk, because then we might’ve gotten some reasonable exposition, but nooooo that’s asking too fucking much of Tom Gilroy it would seem. What the fuck am I talking about?

Right, so I obsess over rather weird things at times. Somewhere during the whole Suspicious Minds on repeat thing my mind wandered from the usual combination of painful reminiscing, inner monologue, and weird anime fantasies where I’m generally some form of ninja to envisioning an ultimate Elvis showdown – a post-apocalyptic brawl between Elvis Presley and Elvis Costello. It would have to take place in an old Vegas lounge – now the castle throne of the King and would involve Costello cutting his way through King’s legions of mutant followers before a final climatic battle that would rage for eternity; Essentially Ragnarok, only rocking more capes and rhinestones. Suspicious Minds is of course the theme du jour as I feel it adequately mirrors the clashing of titans locked in epic everlasting combat. Did I mention they fight armed only with katanas and flourish? That’s important. Anyways, I’ve yet to develop a motive for Costello’s journey, suffice to say that this duel is preceded by him fighting and singing his way across the desert ruins of society – not entirely unlike Resident Evil: Apocalypse which is another movie no one should go see – struggling against the cannibalistic mutant survivors in order to reach the King and engage him in glorious battle. And before you say anything, this is a Reagan era commie fearing apocalyptic future, so the culprit is obviously NUCLEAR WAR and not some pussy modern day people-ender like GLOBAL WARMING (Ooooooh! The scariness that is gradual temperature increases…in 30 years I might not need quite so heavy a jacket come winter!). Moreover, NUCLEAR WAR always results in cannibalistic mutant survivors (it’s a well documented fact) and I believe Elvis Costello to be the best man for eradicating them.

The movie version I think should star Jake Gyllenhaal as Elvis Costello. It’s a bold move, I know, but I’m going for a darker, jaded Donnie Darko Costello here and it gives me an excuse to have my man crush wear buddy holly glasses and fuck people up with a katana. Bruce Campbell would obviously reprise his role as the King (and if you don’t know who Bruce Campbell is I hate you, and if you didn’t know he was ever Elvis Presley I compel you to go buy Bubba Ho-Tep and learn the error of your ways) and automatically it becomes the manliest film ever conceived let alone made. If Clive fucking Turner were to direct it I feel the world might end due to an awesome overload. That would be an entirely cannibalistic mutant-free apocalypse world, by the way, but I’d like to think would feature ninjas and pirates fighting in Napoleonic grandeur. And maybe a robot army or two.

edit: I decided on the title after writing all this, and now I can't stop laughing because I keep envisioning the robot chicken Admiral Ackbar yelling "it's a trap!" and then his cereal: "your tongues can not repel flavor of that magnitude!" Also, I'm delighted that I was able to get the title in italics.

the moon is down: overheard in class

So today in class some douchebag tried to convince us of the importance of the US going back to the moon and establishing a base there:

Some Douchebag: "It's pivotal that we establish ourselves on the moon before the Chinese, otherwise they'll lay claim to the fossil fuel surpluses there and we all know we could use them."

Ow. Ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow. I weep for our futures.

PA, PA, PANTS MAN!

Or: "The Japanese are Really Fucking Weird"

I don't even know where to begin on this, just watch the video:



Wow.


On an oddly related note, Sonny Perdue is a fucking idiot. You want to relieve some of the stress caused by Georgia's current drought? RAISE FUCKING WATER PRICES. Higher prices means people will actually be forced to *care* about water as a commodity. Just telling people they have to stop watering their lawns and washing their cars isn't enough, because Americans are selfish. Anyone who's taken a basic economics class should understand this, but apparently good ole boy Sonny thinks calling a prayer meeting is a better course of action. I hate this state.

K-K-K-K-KRANG!

So while walking to class today I was assaulted not once, but twice! by flying acorns. Not being under a tree, my initial fear involved mutant wing-ed acorns - perhaps the result of improperly dumped radioactive waste, or the illegal designs of an overzealous genetic scientist. Such fears are justified this day and age, and I depend on Al Gore to protect me from the EVIL.

My fears proved unwarranted (at least for the moment - I'm always on the look out for radical nut elements; the acorn is clearly the Al-Qaeda to the Walnut's majestic democracy. And almonds are the ninjas. I digress.) as I noticed some asshole throwing - like a girl or Sean Nolan - acorns towards a tree on the quad. I can't begin to figure out why he was doing it, but his aim was so poor I'm almost forced to believe he was hurling these terrorist projectiles at me, and just happened to hit the tree in passing. An odd accusation, to be sure, but who sits around throwing acorns? I mean, really; it's not like this is 2nd grade and you're waging a war on L.Blanchard and her girl minions. Those were dark times, and drastic measures had to be taken. Seasons change, time passes on, and this jackass was throwing acorns around the quad.

The most harrowing aspect of it all was my realization that the perpetrator was none other than my imaginary friend! To clarify I don't mean to imply that this friend is a figment of my imagination. That would mean I was throwing acorns at myself, which is just silly. Rather, this person is real and I just like to imagine he is my friend. I have talked to him exactly once, back sophomore year when he was in my tennis class. I figure he's an econ major, though, since I've had a few classes with him since. I think his name is Jay, but I call him Patrick Stumpie (the "ie" is specific here. Fuck ending "y's") because he looks like a slimmer Patrick Stump and wears a lot of trucker hats and argyle. I'm not sure when I started considering him an imaginary friend, but I swear it's not as weird or creepy as it seems.

Regardless, when I saw Patrick Stumpie throwing acorns at me I was aghast. I gave him a shocked look, as if to say "dude, we've been friends for years and this is how you treat me?" but he paid it no heed. Hell, he didn't even look at me. Of course the rest of the way to class I tried to figure out how I had slighted him. I mean, he was my friend, right? It must have been pretty severe for him to completely trash our imaginary friendship. I wanted to run to him, apologizw profusely and beg forgiveness for my imagined slight but assumed this real-life action might seem out of place to him.

As it turns out Patrick Stumpie is in my International Trade class - which is where I was heading. By the time he strolled in he had become my nemesis; that position formerly being held solely by Green Shirt Kid. Not really being able to pluralize nemesis, by definition, my mind melded them into one SUPER nemesis. Imagine Super Shredder from the end of the Secret of the Ooze only wearing a green shirt and the face of a slimmer Patrick Stump. Oh, and a trucker hat. Everything else is the exact same, right down to the Vanilla Ice background beat and the villainous zeal to break shit. I glared at him meaningful, glibly - trying to portray to him his newly acquired position WITH MY EYES! But rather than acknowledge my animosity he just walked past and took a seat somewhere behind me. Well played, Green Shirt Stumpie...we shall meet again.

Fuck the strike, watch 30 Rock

So I just got around to watching last night's 30 Rock, and you all need to go to nbc.com and watch it RIGHT NOW. Definitely the funniest episode this season, and being the cleverest sitcom on TV right now (yes, it's better than the Office - I've declared it so) that means a lot. I laughed harder than I do at the Schrodinger picture. I mean, it managed to make David Schwimmer seem funny. DAVID FUCKING SCHWIMMER! I wouldn't believe it if I didn't watch the episode myself.

"Mr. Lutz, you ate all of my parakeet's medication. Thanks to you Sonny Crocket has been having seizures all morning."

"Mr. Jordan, I saw you steal my sink"

Fucking classic.

Overheard: IHOP[apotamus]

So today I was up somewhere around ungodly early (for me, at least) for an appointment, and afterwards decided to treat myself to das ihop. Ihop always entertains, providing interesting characters and conversations to overhear, but generally you don't get three such conversations. And yes, unlike the masses who just use quotation marks, colons, and fanciful names to illustrate overheard conversations, I stay true to narrative structures. That's right, I went there.

ANYWAYS, back to conversation numero uno. They were literally sitting right next to me which was needlessly awkward (ihop has an odd center divider that isn't really a divider so much as a token barrier) and the entire time the woman did nothing but complain about how the syrup wasn't warm enough. 25 fucking minutes of not warm syrup. Oh, and her boy-toy talked about robbing MARTA. Seriously. "If those n*ggers aren't careful, I'm going to show up on payday with a ski mask and my glock. Get what's fucking mine." I practically died choking on my coffee when he said, and both he and syrup girl looked over at me, seemingly irate. I tried to ignore them and focus on casually smearing jam on a piece of toast, but I'm pretty sure they saw right through my act.

Conversation the two. College couple, obviously the awkward post-coital breakfast. The "bro" rocking sweats and a hoody - and a rather douchebag visor, while the "chick" had adorned herself in classic hood-rat club attire. Including stiletto heels (and no, knowing what a stiletto is does not make me gay. It just means I have occasional interesting thursday nights; those things are a bitch to dance on stage with, but I'm getting fairly good), so I'm assuming she is probably just working towards her MRS. Or is just a prostitute. Regardless, I didn't really hear much of what they talked about; I honestly tried, but said strumpet just rambled on and on using a goddamn baby voice, and I kept flashing back to directed study senior yet. It's a matter of personal pride that I didn't snap and pour hot coffee on her face; God knows I still want to.

Conversation the last. The stereotype, with a twist! They were sitting off in a corner, and I'm about 47% sure they'll end up on the news later tonight. Ma and Pa were yelling at each other in a deep inbred mountain-folk voice, while junior added a prominent lisp to the dialect. Yes, we're talking about a gay hillbilly here. It really shouldn't be funny, because Pa spent most of the time talking about beating his "queer ass boy" while Ma cried into her biscuits n' gravy. I felt especially proud of my state with Pa's "I sware ta God, wife, you call the cops agin an ay'll fuckin' shoot ya" outburst. How the hell are you supposed to respond to that? Probably better options out there than quickly eating the last piece of toast and skedaddling out of there before being forced to give a police statement and incriminate the dude from texas chainsaw massacre. Last thing I need in my life is Gunnar Hansen (or even the less intimidating but perhaps creepier Mathew McConaughey) chasing me around with an old chainsaw and a comically large flagon of moonshine.

I laugh at nerdy things sometime. OK, most of the time

So tonight while browsing the web I stumbled across two things I find insultingly amusing; insulting because I generally don't laugh that heartily, it's a character flaw, but both of these things had me cracking up.

1) http://www.progenywow.com/zulaman.php
For the record, don't click this if you have something important open that you're working on. Because you will forget about it and accomplish nothing new for as long as this site is open. Don't say I didn't warn you

2)













Yes, I'm a huge nerd, but I emit deep belly laughs every time I look at this picture. Maybe it's the look of utter contempt on Heir Doctor's face...or maybe it's how I imagine his voice being John Stewart's Dick Cheney impersonation; taunting me with obtuse particle physics terminology. Side note: anyone else moderately excited about Cheney potentially being impeached? Dennis Kucinich actually proposed something I can support. What are the odds? Probably similar to whether...I'm sorry, this sentence was going to be clever and poignant, but I just looked at the picture again and started laughing. Clever comment goes poof! and I'm left with a poorly constructed sentence featuring rather adroit onomatopoeia usage. Not my intent, surely, but I'm satisfied because I got to use the word onomatopoeia. Twice!

HE ONLY GETS MAD BECAUSE HE LOVES YOU

So it might be the lack of sleep, or just the dementia brought on by combining ghastly quantities of cold medication, caffeine, and powdered donuts, but I feel enlightened watching this video. Seriously. I'm on like my 4th fucking viewing in a row. The one in orange is needlessly smug, and reminds me of the time Mr. Lindahl fucked a pig. The one in green is just straight fly - he has the most svelte jacket I've ever seen. And can seemingly control the weather. So he's Storm. Only slightly fat and Indian. So not really Storm at all. I think my eyes are bleeding.



Oh and things I don't like? My calculator's batteries dying right as I start to take a test. My cell phone's pitiful excuse for a calculator just does not cut it when one is trying to perform calculus. Instead I relied on scribbling demonic icons and conjuring maths via archaic words of power. It was less than fruitful. My test also featured a graph that existed somewhere between my imagination and the land of wrong (tunak tunak tun, take #5). Here's hoping for partial credit. I'm going to go commandeer a box of kleenex and pass out.

Can you hear the drums fernando?

So I'm pretty sure it's a sign of many more deep-seeded issues, but instead of studying for - or even worrying about - my international trade test tomorrow I'm listening to ABBA and using a 3-hole-punch on documents that frankly don't need holes punched in them. The best part is I legitimately know practically none of the material on the aforementioned test; and this isn't the classic "waaaah I don't know anything" I always do right before generally pimping a test. I'm forced to acknowledge that if I took the test right now I'd very likely get a zero. This is probably something I should try and remedy, ideally at an expedited rate, because I really don't want to get a zero on a midterm. I'm just hoping some other pointless distraction doesn't rear it's ugly head once this stupid stack of papers has sufficiently been punched. Kinda wish i had a xanax right now. I don't even fucking like ABBA...even if they are Swedish gods.

misrepresentation

So I just opened my email to see the header "Gustave would like to be added as one of your friends!" And was immediately excited. Expecting the Burundi man-eater, I was unreasonably disappointed to find not a crocodile so much as some tranny with stupidly large fake breasts looking like she just walked out of the black devil doll trailer who's trying to sell me Canadian pharmaceuticals at a discount rate. Thanks, whore, but if I wanted to illicitly procure some meds I wouldn't look to some myspace whore for the hook-up; especially not one that misrepresents herself as a 20 ft Nile crocodile to try and seduce me into accepting her as a friend.

I find fake Gustave's tactics reprehensible. Everyone should watch out for her dastardly tactics and be prepared. Don't get your hopes up about having magical adventures riding on the back of a Crocodile steed who speaks with a charming British accent and wears a monocle and top hat because it's just a pipe dream. God, I hate fake Gustave so much right now

best. comic. ever.

I don't think I need to say how awesome this is. Just read it, it's astounding. Grammar humor is always the top for me!


source: dinosaur comics

because one can never have enough Say Anything

So in general I'm a fan of repetitive listening of good music, and am especially partial to good live performances. Live stuff having the added benefit of seeming much "cooler" as I jump around my room singing the lyrics and pretending that I am, in fact, a rock God and not just an odd kid jumping around his room in woman-esq jeans and a pair of beat-up converse. Ignore that.

In one of their cooler moves, at&t has posted an entire Say Anything show (13 fucking songs!) for your viewing pleasure over here. The only downside is while most of the songs are at a good bitrate (768k) some of the others (like "alive with the glory of love," sadly) dip as low 112k, which is a shame. Also, they censored it, which I'm not a fan of.

In case you're too lazy to actually go listen to the show, here's the first track I've ripped so far presented for your convenience: