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rumblings from a mind gone sour
Category: Entertainment
Oh No! Avatar in 2D Sucks!
Perhaps the addition of 3D made ALL the difference or at least I certainly hope so. Because in two dimensions, Avatar is a subpar sci-fi/cartoon with little to no depth or character or long term viability. A phenomenon or a fad. Not even Cameron’s best. A few notes:
- Story is Dances with Wolves…in space. Do have to say though the buffalos in Dances are better.
- Look, it lights up! Am I supposed to be overwhelmed that everything lights up like a Hollywood dance club? Lost its value after like two minutes.
- Some scenes were downright laughable like the voodoo-ish ceremony to raise Sigourney Weaver.
- Why did Sigourney’s Avatar look like her? Made her the most fake looking character.
- It never ends…it just keep going on and on and on. For God’s sake, cut, cut, cut!
- Why the tail? Didn’t seem to use it.
- Craig Worthington is nice as an action figure but actor he is not. He displays about as much emotion as burnt toast.
- Aliens is a far superior FILM.
- Cameron needs to hand off writing it to someone else, it has left his potentially landmark films wholly flawed. Titanic was great despite the dumb-ass story and Avatar is great as an accomplishment but leaves you little to consider when it’s done. Most of his dialogue is downright cheesy.
- Look funky horses and mean looking dogs and rhinos and dinosaurs that fly! And you can hook up to them via USB port! I was hoping for more than a modified horse. In fact, Pandora looks alot like earth on acid.
- Far greater film and accomplishment is the Lord of the Rings series.
- The USB stuff was pretty gross actually. And what if you need a haircut?
- One could easily look at the Navi and pull out all the racist stereotypes. I mean, they are clearly ‘black’ resembling an African tribe in many ways. I’m surprised no one else picked it out. It’s like the ‘orientals’ in the Star Wars films.
- I am SOOO disappointed. I had bought into the hype and was ready to have my mind blown: it was underwhelmed, I almost stopped it a couple times out of boredom – look this tree lights up, let’s USB to it! But wait, over here is a hamster, let’s USB to it!
- The ending: When all hope is lost and it looks like the end is near, Cameron’s brilliant idea is to bring on the…flowering rhinos? THAT was a let down that suddenly George of the Jungle had convinced all the animals to join in the fight! And here they come – dogs, cats, ferrets and foxes! Creatures of the forest unite!
Slacker Friday
- Normalcy has value. Lots.
- To this day no female has been able to top Sigourney Weaver in Aliens. It is THE female action movie, even better than a man. She was nominated, she should have won.
- Liriano is this year’s x factor for the MN Twins.
- Is there a team in the NBA called the Thunder? I had no idea.
- Reconsider: The Health Bill
“On Thursday, Reuters ran a story describing a policy at insurance company WellPoint of automatically reviewing any customer who contracted breast cancer for possible fraud, leading to some patients losing their coverage.”
Note: Wellpoint is the largest health insurance company in the US.
- Third base is still a problem for the Twins. Crede is unsigned. Why not? He did hit 15 bombs last year when healthy.
- WTF?
I’m still confounded at the GOP opposition strategy of claiming the reform bill created more “bailouts.” Perhaps the most idiotic argument in recent times since ALL the money for the $50b fund (which would wind failing organizations down) would come from the banks, not the people. Again, WTF? Like calling a dog a cat and expecting us to buy it. Will they be dumb enough to vote against it?
In fact, you know where most wall streeters were yesterday during the President’s speech? I kid you not, a GOP fundraiser, lol!
- Would you take Roethlisberger now? If I was Oakland, sure.
- Who did the Vikings pick? Hope they got a left tackle.
- Tiger did ALL that and NOW he’s getting a divorce?
- About time they went after Goldman.
- No shock Roy Halliday is schooling the less talented NL hitters…;o)
Speaking of Dance Clubs…
Few notes on one of my favorite nocturnal activities…
- Amsterdam has the best DJs. Australia too for some reason.
- Once you get table or bottle service, you can never go back.
- Last time I was in Vegas, a very attractive and voluptuous redhead gave me a spontaneous lapdance/makeout session at our table. “No lapdances, no lapdances!” yelled the bouncer, telling us we’d be tossed.
- Me and three guys spent over fifteen grand at Crystal in London. Much more at a club in Paris. Don’t remember what was spent there.
- Got cold-cocked in a club once. My buddy got beat up by a guy in a wheelchair who seemed to miraculously lift himself to punch.
- Got tossed out of another for smoking…a jay.
- Once France outlawed smoking in clubs it became very apparent how bad the French actually smell.
- I love to ‘roll’ when I hit the clubs, almost a pre-requisite.
- My least fav scene is LA. Clubs close at two and besides, the people are pretentious and flaky. Ditto for San Diego, WAY too much testosterone flowing through the Gas Light District.
- The club scene in Spain is magnificent. They start at midnight and go til dawn. They then go out and get hot chocolate and pastries.
- New Orleans just kind of freaks me out.
Hot Notes of the Week
- Is there any question that Tina Fey is smarter and more talented than the real Sarah Palin?
- I’d rather do Sarah though.
- I have no love loss for man-boobs Mickelson. His fat ass proves golf is a game, not a sport.
- Katy Perry has the best set of tits going right now! She knows it too! Call me before you get married - I’m hot, never cold!
- Can you smell that?
- D-Bag of the Week
For awhile there, as with McCain, I liked Newt Gingrich, he was actually starting to sound and act reasonable. But now he’s back in the game and playing it like a pro. Like McCain, he has made the mistake of glorifying the biggest abberation in American History, Sarah Palin. By calling her “important”, he became the undoubted douchebag of the week.
- 80% of people who declare bankruptcy due to medical bills HAD insurance when they filed. Harsh truth.
- The teabaggers can do just that: teabag me.
- The movement needs to locate people who can spell. Seen their signs? It’s hilarious…and illiterate.
- High alcohol beer finally hits US!
- I’m already sick of 3D movies and have no real interest in 3D TV. LIFE is already in 3D, I need two-dimensional to escape it. Is 3D for everyday usage or for the occassional thrill? I mean, I love roller coasters but don’t want one in my backyard.
- Remember NIMBY? Not In My Back Yard, lol
- One of my recent favorite movies has become The Assasination of Jesse James with Brad Pitt and the little Affleck. Long but effectively so in a weird way, as if to mimic the pace of life in those times.
- Andrew Jackson refused to shine a British officers shoes during the Revolutionary War and was hit on the hand and head with a sword at age 14. Had the scars and injury his entire life.
- Financial reform must happen. Wall Street didn’t learn a thing and is doing it all over again. We have to admit, finally, that greed cannot self-regulate.
-The Dutch pay $150 a month for care that is twice as good as ours. For the country, health care runs less than $3000 per capita compared to almost $7000 for the U.S. Why do we pay so damn much for care we’re not getting?
- American Sphinx, the story of Thomas Jefferson’s character is a fascinating read. Jefferson was complex and loyal, contradictory and shrewd.
- Anybody against the new nuclear treaty is playing politics. Period. It calls for a one-third reduction, leaving us MORE than enough nukes to destroy the world a thousand times over. And any Republican against is turning their back on the Gipper…
- Quote of the Week
“A nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought. And no matter how great the obstacles may seem, we must never stop our efforts to reduce the weapons of war. We must never stop at all until we see the day when nuclear arms have been banished from the face of this Earth.” - Ronald Reagan, 1984, China
Notes on the Week
– I have a deep love for Starship Troopers. The combo of cheese and killer effects and perfect casting make it a joy everytime.
- No to health care reform, no to financial reform, no to energy bill. Obama just needs them to keep saying “no” until November.
- The Twins won’t win the Central. The loss of Joe Nathan was just too great for them to overcome…in a new and GLORIOUS stadium. Target Field is something special people should come to Minneapolis to see. Joe Mauer is worth seeing live too.
- The comedic genius of our time is unquestionably Sasha Baron Cohen. Bruno hacks and attacks those who are too outwardly anti-gay but ALSO those who are too outwardly gay, and hurt their cause overall. True brilliance.
- I live and work in affluent environments and I am seeing good signs on the economy. From my angle.
- Job creation should focus on a national initiative like building a high-speed rail system by a certain date. Put nationalism, literally, to work.
- I highly recommend reading Erik Larson’s Devil in the White City. Creepy good…
- Ft. Lauderdale is underrated as a tourist getaway, especially since they dumped the spring breakers. Recommend the new W on Ft. Lauderdale beach.
- Never thought I’d say this: I miss Northwest Airlines. The transition to Delta has been smooth but overall seems like a downgrade in the service area. Especially in first.
- Article of the Week
Newsweek – Drowning in Hate
http://www.newsweek.com/id/235724
- Recently stayed at the Kingpin Suite at the Palms Hotel. It houses two full sized bowling alleys and complete scoring system along with an unreal view of Vegas, a full bar, large screens everywhere and two massive bedrooms. One of them has a shower that overlooks all of Sin City. See my iphone shot above of the alleys.
- Quote of the Week
“Many, if not all, of the positions that have angered liberals since he (Obama) entered the White House line up with his positions then (in the campaign), including his stubborn and futile faith in the prospect of bipartisanship in Washington.” Frank Rich, NYT
- Graph of the Week
Job loss/gain graph with Bush in red, Obama in blue.
- Did you know?
Grover Cleveland served two terms as President…non-consecutively. He won then lost then won it back four years later. Cleveland was also the last Prez to be married in the White House and also last to have a child in the White House. His daughter Ruth, a national sensation called Baby Ruth, is the actual inspiration behind the candy bar.
Tweet This
Sure, there are several uses and benefits to be seen in Twitter as an information and communication source but let’s face it, most of the popular people on there have no more than 140 characters of insight to give. And their followers? They don’t have the attention span for anything longer than a txt msg (note the abbr.).
Think about it, you’d have to pound most of the author’s heads with a hammer to produce 140 characters that have any meaning or real insight beyond, “I just had great sex” or musings on coffee or Taylor Swift’s latest gay love interest.
Now, what kind of celeb would benefit most on the limits Tweeter provides them? Sports stars, reality TV clowns and musicians (for which it can take years to create a paragraph).
Twitter is perfect for them because it asks so little of them…and their fans.
Truth is, nothing really meaningful or inspiration can be written in under 140 characters. Only snippets of information, 95% of it totally useless….like the ticker…at the bottom…of your TV.
An so it is, Twitter fits the ‘ticker/text generation’ perfectly: promising everything, asking for nothing and doing it in under 140 characters.
9/11 x 1,000
It is very five minutes ago to post video on your blog. I prefer great audio and sound bytes as I believe we need to use our eyes less, our ears more. Enjoy!
Notes on the Week
- Apparently, the headcase’s breaking of the Favre story was discussed on sports talk radio this past week. Remember though, heard it here first.
- Really hope David Duchovny was paid a bundle to say “pooper” in those awful little dog commercials.
- If the Twins don’t sign Mauer, they are dead to me.
- Top things overhead at the health care summit
1. What’s Pelosi keep smiling about?
2. Somebody wind McConnell back up
3. When will Sarah be here?
4. Is Harry Reid a muppet?
5. Who’s the black guy?
6. You hear Gingrich got thrown off a flight?
7. I got us three hookers for CPAC
8. What’s this whole ’summit’ thing about?
9. You look better on CNN than MSNBC
10. I miss Teddy.
- I really enjoyed the movie City of Ember.
- I want another Hawaii on our other coast so I am beginning a campaign for the best candidate, Puerto Rico.
- What happened to My Chemical Romance?
- Is it spring yet?
- If Rihanna were a drink she’d be a hot chocolate with Baileys and marshmallows.
- Gatorade dumps Tiger Woods after long holdout. Yes, apparently even they don’t have the…stamina to keep up with him.
- Commercials with talking babies or animals suck ass.
- Can we just agree to all stop talking about Speidi Prontag all at once?
Curling, Curling and More Yep, Curling!
Want Curling? Turn on your squakbox and you’ll find more curling than a pasta factory!
Need a fix of curling? Hit the ‘power’ button on your TV and you’ll get hit with more curls than a 70’s porn star. Pump it up!!
Wanna see people sweeping ice? Look no further than your boob tube, you’ll find more curls than a Soul Glow convention. Eric LaSalle, raise the roof! Talkin’ about Soul Glow, baby!
See? It just doesn’t work for me.
Curling has become the de facto sport of the Winter Games and despite the fact I am supposed to love it, I think it’s about as fun as a guided bus tour of Kansas City.
How do I cheer? “Sweep it, sweep damnit!”
How do I analyze? “The sweeping today was just off.”
Who do I blame? “The ice spitter totally screwed us.”
And yet every time I turn on my TV, it’s frickin’ curling again. How many medals are there? I’ve seen women and men, goats and canucks curling and curling again. Do the games actually ever end? Not sure. And is ’slow-motion’ replay really necessary? Seems to happen in slow motion already.
I’d prefer if we just called it what it is: shuffleboard on ice – and then made appropiate changes.
Seems to me the most interesting development would be to limit players to the geriatric set, say 70 and older. Would be far more entertaining to see the old folks out there, sliding around and breaking hips.
In fact, add some hockey to it and include ‘contact’. If somebody is sweeping for your stones, you should have the right to deck them out of the way. At least then I’d have something to cheer for and bitch about – “that was a late hit!”
This is an open letter to the committee, in hopes it will reach higher ears and eyes and not fall to deafness like my other suggestions such as ‘relay slalom’ and the winter triatholon: skiing, swimming, whale spearing. And what about my request to make clothing ‘optional’ on some events? That one applies to the Summer games as well.
For the Olympics to take a hold of me, and not my deceased grandmother, it needs to spice it up – bring in Michael Bay for crying out loud. I want curlling to explode on my screen to the point that I crave curling, curling and more curling because right now, I crave it about as much as a Jerry-curl perm. Sorry.
GoDaddy and Danica Should Part Ways
I’m not following the logic.
Danica Patrick is not that hot or sexy – she’s a mildly attractive girl who drives a race car. And maybe that is what I’m missing. But still, at this point, the Bob and Danica relationship is about as fresh as a 1:00AM Skinamax movie.
For her continued usage and overusage and the GD car and the races, it all leads me to a singular conclusion: Bob Parson’s just loves hot girls and racing.
Why? Well, it’s either that or racing fans love to register domain names. I’m betting it is the former.
Regardless, it has grown tired and old and the most recent Super Bowl ads were no different. Is sex the only way to sell domain names? I mean, do horny fifteen year old boys really register that many domains?
Because in the end it is the only demographic they really hit with their “too hot for TV” nonsense that I’m sure spikes their server but does little to nothing for domains, the industry, the perceptions of us – now people think we love frickin’ Nascar, soft porn and dudish-looking race car drivers.
And of course, like bad literature, at the top sits a grubby old dude who has obviously forked over enough to make Danica do the commercials – but by the look on her face – she certainly doesn’t like doing them. Looks like someone is sticking chopsticks between her toes when she talks.
So please, Bob, take a moment to reassess your relationship, the focus of the campaign and the message it is sending out over the airwaves.
Pure talent, pure laughs
For a night of good yucks, few films beat “I Love You To Death”. With Tracy Ulman, Kevin Kline, River Phoenix, William Hurt, Keanu Reeves and more, the film is based on a true story about a woman who tried, over and over, to kill her horny Italian husband.
Kline is a riot as are Hurt and Reeves as two “hitman” hired to finish him off after several other attempts fail.
My fav is when, after filling him full of sleeping pills, Kline is still up and active and pulls out the game Monopoly – pure magic!
Currently running on Encore, the most underrated $1 movie channel ever.
Did I get nominated?
Really, with it going up from five to ten Best Picture Nominees, I have to wonder, did I get a nomination? What is this – the frickin’ Grammy’s?
One of the great things about that dude, Oscar, is that he is so difficult to win that people in fact say they are “just happy to be nominated.”
Well no more.
In most normal years they strain to locate five really great pictures. So why jump to 10? Why not all the way to 11? Seems like a money ploy to me and it stinks. I would suggest boycotting the Oscars this year.
Oh, but there is precedent they scream! Up to 1943, there were 10 nominees! Yes, but they learned to change it and kept it at five since. It’s called ‘tradition’ and this one is not worth going back on.
Few thoughts on the nominees:
- Enough with “UP”
While the first fifteen minutes made me cry, the rest of the movie was good but not so great as to the best ever, or a nominee. I think critics are just so over-wowed by anything Pixar touches that they lose sight that almost all of them follow the same storyline narrative – and some better than others. Pixar-love has gotten out of control, manifested in love for Wall-E, a flick with a great first half but cartoonish and disjointed second.
- Cruz Go Home
Can’t stand to listen to her talk much less sing in English. LOVE everything she does in Spanish but she needs to be happy being famous in one language…her own.
- Inglorious Indeed
As a historian, I can’t help but be appalled at this movie. We are all better off for NOT having stooped to the Nazi level. If we had, we would be haunted, as they are, by the moral anvil that sits on their historical heads.
- District 9
In no way, shape or form does this movie belong in the BP category. Shows how far they had to srain to get ten by including this movie and The Blind Side plus Up in the nominations. Can’t they see they failed the first time out?
- Avatar?
Truly, isn’t Avatar just an animated picture? It is up for best cinematography even though it was shot in a warehouse. I think this is what people miss about this movie – as breathtaking as it is, it is also the next step in the evolution of ANIMATION – not of filmmaking and should treated as such. Truth is, this film should be placed within the ‘Best Animation’ section and voted on as such.
I tremble to think it might take home the same Oscar taken to cinematic heavens in The Last Emperor.
Best Films – in order
Here are the Top Ten best films of the decade:
10. Murderball
9. Maria Full of Grace
8. Mememto
7. There Will Be Blood
6. No Country for Old Men
5. Children of Men
4. Lord of the Rings trilogy
3. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
2. City of God
1. Pan’s Labrynth
Best Films of the Decade
These are films I feel will potentially stand the test of time and should be viewed by all. In no particular order:
- Murderball
- Pan’s Labrynth
- Mememto
- City of God
- Children of Men
- There Will Be Blood
- Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
- No Country for Old Men
- Lord of the Rings trilogy
- 300
- Borat
- Shrek
- Requiem for a Dream
- First 3/4 of ‘Sunshine’
- Far from Heaven
- Snatch
- You Can Count on Me
- Old School
- Spiderman 2
- The Fast Runner
- Capturing the Friedmans
- House of Flying Daggers
- Wallace & Grommit
- Maria Full of Grace
- Traffic
- Frost/Nixon
- Finding Nemo
- Saw
Underrated and Overrated Holiday Movies
A lot of ‘best of’ and ‘top ten’ lists going around…so here’s another one! These are some holiday favorites you should rent if you haven’t enjoyed and others you might want to skip:
1. The Ref
Kevin Spacey and Denis Leary make the holidays hilarious. A true classic feast with one-liners galore.
2. Christmas Vacation
Fast forward about an hour in – when Uncle Eddie shows up.
3. Lethal Weapon
Yes, it’s a holiday classic that begins with ‘Jingle Bell Rock’ and has Mel Gibson with a gun in his mouth. Just what I wished for!
4. Edward Scissorhands
5. Bad Santa
Truly one of the best ever! If this piece of shit can find his spirit beneath the profanity and sex and booze, then there is hope for all. People miss the fact that Billy Bob’s Santa HAS to be as vulgar as possible for his transformation to have meaning and depth. So good it’s believable.
6. A Midnight Clear
German and American soldiers call a truce for Christmas. This is heavy lifting…from the first frame. Great film though.
Overrated Holiday Films
These are some I’d recommend avoiding, no order to the madness…
1. Elf
Beyond the first half hour, this film just gets dumb and boring and the ending is pure Velveeta.
2. Scrooged
I still watch it for the moments that Murray shines but it’s all over the place, annoying at times.
3. Polar Express
The ‘dead’ eyes ruin it.
4. Love Actually
This film makes me angry because the first hour is very good but the second, with the idiot boy running through the airport is just…it’s just awful, the whole thing descends into cheese…like bread into fondue. Love actually? No, crap actually.
5. Miracle on 34th Street
Old guy, little girl, yeah, he’s Santa…blah, blah boring. Both the old and newer version make my balls ache..
6. The Santa Clause
Another film you can catch the first half but click away when he goes to jail and they ‘deploy’ the ‘Elf SWAT Team’ or whatever.
Of course, when all else fails, there is ‘A Christmas Story’ on TBS or TNT running on a loop.
Happy Holidays, enjoy the ‘electric sex’…
Video of the Week
This kills me everytime. From the Family Guy….
Tossing Off Tuesday
- “I do plagues, I do earthquakes, I do all the training for Walgreens cashiers.” – The Devil, SNL
- Target Field is the new gold standard in MLB.
- Love the movie Moon. The visuals, the amazing score, Sam Rockwell.
- Does the GOP really think going against financial reform is a good idea? After what we just went through? Won’t play well on Mainstreet.
- The current nuclear summit is likely the most important gathering of our lives. I’ve always had a deep fear about all the loose nukes, happy to see them doing something about them.
- Despite getting off, anybody think Roethlisberger isn’t a total d-bag?
- Bless Hef for turning down Kate Gosselin for Playboy. Well done, sir. You can bet those kids will grow up to rebel a la the cast of Different Strokes.
- iPad looks like the ‘grandma’ version of my iPhone. I used to buy my grandma big books with really big type – that is what the iPad reminds me of. Still, I do like buying things that make me feel either huge or tiny – my favorite being a laserdisc! Trips people out!
- Seriously, is there anybody the Catholics haven’t fondled?
- There is nothing convenient about writing a check in a convenience store. Besides, writing a check these days is shady, just says…I can’t cover this, at this exact moment.
- Bud Selig can lick my left gonad. He may act like he doesn’t remember but we do, he tried to contract the Twins. They should have put him in the cheap seats or better, not invited him at all.
- Interview of the Week
Russian President Dimitry Medvedev on Obama….and other…
MEDVEDEV: He’s very comfortable partner, it’s very interesting to be with him. The most important thing that distinguishes him from many other people — I won’t name anyone by name — he’s a thinker, he thinks when he speaks. Which is already pretty good.
STEPHANOPOULOS: You had somebody in your mind, I think. (LAUGHS)
MEDVEDEV: Obviously I do have someone on my mind. I don’t want to offend anyone.