30 December

Tropic Blunder

So last night I rented 'Tropic Thunder' off on-demand.

Jesus, what a ponderous, morass it was. Not that I was a fan to begin with, but this puts the exclamation point on my 'have had it-ness' with Ben Stiller. He's tiresome as are his films. He uses a ten ton sledge hammer to try and score laughs. Occasionally he'll land a sock on the jaw, but it's hollow and leaves you filled with shame. Speaking specifically to this film, the only half way decent person involved was Robert Downey Jr. the rest of it was awkward, cumbersome, trying, irritating, uncomfortable and just plain godawful.

In other words, avoid this stinkburger at all costs.

2008… It's coming to an end finally and good riddance. What a wearisome year. All the presidential race BS, and the economic collapse, wearisome. In the end we got a candidate that I only backed begrudgingly due to the choice of Sarah Palin for Veep. Now, Caroline Kennedy is being foisted upon us, and let me state for the record I am just as vehemently opposed to this fucking moron as I was to Palin. Just because her last name is Kennedy is no qualification whatsoever. Moreover, the Kenendys were and are a bunch of corrupt to the bone sleazebags, and that goes for both Robert and John.

In other words, fuck the Kennedys.

This xmas was a laid back affair, but I must make note of the tremendous ham my mother prepared. It was a succulent voyage into delectability. The creamy white marbles of fat, the interplay of savory and sweet frolicking on my taste buds…

In other words it was a fucking good ham.

So 2009 lies ahead… it has a nine in it which is good, as I have a fondness for the number nine. Still, if you add it all up… 9 plus two – eleven and one plus one = TWO. So 2009 is gonna be a big number two. I don't doubt it. I have no expectations. I only hope to maintain.

In other words…

Happy new year.

 

 

17 November

Weekend wrap-up

Spent the weekend upstate at my parent's house to celebrate my father's b-day and had a great time, as I normally do. Lately we usually spend our time together searching for new interesting food joints to frequent. This past weekend, we wound up at a hot dog place called Johnny and Hange's in Fair Lawn, New Jersey. The food was pretty decent – your basic deep fried hot dog, and the fries and onion rings were ok. I actually seemed to like it better than my parents, overall we all enjoyed it I think. The strange thing about it all was the fact that in almost 30 years of living in the area, I'd never passed this place by. It actually kind of freaked me out a bit. Apparently this place was some kind of institution, established in 1939, and I'd never even heard about it.

The one thing that kind of depressed me though, was how enthusiastic the owner and employees were. You could tell that this depression is hitting them hard, and they were just so grateful for any business they get. Plus the server didn't really speak English that well.. and he kept smiling at me and was wearing a paper hat, and he said 'Bye, bye' when we left.. I dunno.. I think I'm just too sensitive, this type of stuff just makes me wanna jump off a bridge..

Watched the Ricky Gervais stand-up on HBO… I thought a lot of it was pretty brilliant, some of it was just eh.. Still, at least he wasn't the usual same old chris rock-type stand up.. you could tell there was a little wit attached to it all. I definitely found myself laughing out loud on a couple of bits, especially the part where he talks about humpty dumpty, and how getting all the king's horses to try and put him back together again was probably not such a good idea…

I'm pondering buying a gaming system, but none of the current models do anything for me, so what I think I'm actually gonna do is either buy an old Super Nintendo or Sega Dreamcast on Ebay.. I just liked their games better… Some of you may think I'd be doing it to be ironic, but I can assure you that's not the case.. The Super NES was the best system ever made, the dreamcast following a close second… Apparently they're pretty in demand, people are bidding on them like crazy…

The other night I was watching 'Operation Petticoat' with Tony Curtis and Cary Grant. This movie always used to irritate me as a kid, and this recent viewing held up that initial opinion. Cary Grant just seemed 'off' and the whole premise of a submarine having to take on a bunch of 'ditzy dames' is such an aggravating 50s cliché… After I watched it, Robert Osbourne came on and talked a bit about it… He said that the director Blake Edwards had a rough time directing Cary, as he acted erratically through the whole shoot.. Apparently later on it was revealed by Grant that he had shot that movie during a period where he had been experimenting heavily with LSD during intense psychotherapy…

That explains a lot…

12 November

Apes

About a year ago I bought the boxed set of Planet of the Apes, which includes all the movies from the series – planet of the apes, beneath the planet of the apes, escape from the planet of the apes, conquest of the planet of the apes, and battle for the planet of the apes. It also has a 2 hour documentary called behind the planet of the apes, as an extra.

For a year this boxed set has sat on my shelf collecting dust. I figured eventually I'd get bored enough to actually watch them… I was right, last weekend I was that bored. Now I must say, I truly remember loving the series as a child. In fact one of my favorite memories as a kid was 'Planet of the Apes Week' for Channel 7's 430 movie. Unfortunately, after re-watching them recently they just don't hold up at all.

Ok…The first movie 'Planet of the Apes' is of course STILL superb. I could re-watch that one over and over again. It's political sub-text, the fantastic cinematography, and of course Heston… It's a bummer though, as each consecutive film just sinks to lower and more unbelievable levels.

'Beneath the Planet of the Apes' was made for half the budget of the original, and it shows. Many of the apes wore pull over masks instead of the applied prosthetics they all wore in the first. Moreover, the costumes looked to be made of vinyl or plastic, as opposed to leather. The whole look sort of had an 'on the cheap' feel to it. Overall, it still was the most interesting of the sequels, as it had a nihilistic, dark vibe which I appreciated, and James Franciscus was pretty good as a Heston-lite type. Funnily enough, this was the only sequel which didn't feature Roddy McDowell. I never realized this until I saw the documentary.

'Escape from the Planet of the Apes' wasn't TOO awful, although so much of it doesn't hold water. I mean, I get that it's science fiction, but the plausibility factor is completely nil here. In this film Zera, Cornelius and some character Milo had apparently been able to salvage the original ship that Heston had larrived in in the first movie, Not only that, but they'd have had to have done this in the span of a few days, as it was over the course of 'Beneath the planet of the apes'. This is just completely implausible. However, let's say that it was possible. So these apes arrive, and are greeted as heroes, treated fabulously, etc… However, upon discovering that the future of the human race was that apes would dominate and take over, the government official guy wisely wants to kill their offspring and sterilize them. To me this makes sense. However, they get all pissy, and Cornelius knocks over the food tray of some guard and somehow manages to kill him. I have no idea how knocking over a foodtray can kill someone, but it does, which forces them to become fugitives. Eventually, they're both shot and killed and their baby is left with a circus run by Fantasy Island's own Mr. Rourke – Ricardo Montalban.

Now this leads us to Conquest of the planet of the apes… This is where the sequels sink to further depths. 'Conquest' is completely ridiculous and not only implausible, but impossible… Taking place 20 years after 'escape', the off-spring of zera and Cornelius comes to the big city with Mr. Rourke from Fantasy Island to discover Apes have been made slaves to humans. Apparently, a virus has killed all the dogs and cats, and so people have made apes their pets. However, upon discovering how smart they were, they've made them into slaves doing all manner of labor from waiting tables to secretarial work. Now, it seems that back in the 70s, they imagined that in 1994 – the year the movie supposedly takes place – apes would have morphed into these humanlike creatures that had the ability to perform complex tasks so well that human labor was no longer necessary. Anyway, upon seeing the cruelty displayed towards his fellow apes, 'Caesar' – zera and Cornelius son – yells 'DIRTY HUMAN BASTARDS!!!'.. and has to go on the run as a fugitive as a consequence… The whole film climaxes with Caesar leading a revolt against the humans, however it's completely convoluted, as it's unresolved. Caesar leads the revolt, but they don't conquer anything it's only until….

'Battle for the planet of the apes'.. that it's explained that humans apparently blew up the world a few weeks later with nuclear bombs, and the only ones left are Caesar, the apes and a few humans. This is extremely coincidental… The only survivors of the WORLD are Caesar, the apes and a handful of humans. Well, even odder still is the fact that in the span of what could not have been more than a few years or so, Apes have not only learned how to talk, but are now thinking and philosophizing, riding horses, planting crops, smelting.. they're SMELTING.. Yes. In a few years they've gone from the jungle, to administrative assistants, to world building… The rest of this movie is just interminably boring, climaxing with another boring battle sequence with the humans. I was half asleep by the end, but I seem to recall John Huston makes an appearance at the end dressed up as an orangutan.

Sigh…

I must say I was pretty disappointed that my memories of this series didn't hold up to the reality of it's suckitude. I guess I'll just have to chalk it up as another myth dispelled

7 November

Open letter to John...

Who's fault is it that the republicans couldn't put forth anyone worth running?

If you want to look at things with serious glasses, the actuality of our politics here in the US is we're a center LEFT country. You may say that Bush won the last 2 elections, but my retort is :

a) he didn't win in 2000 and
b) He barely SQUEAKED by in 2004 - quite dubiously if you want to look at Ohio. Besides which, all his votes came from the fear mongering of Rove.. fear trumps a lot, always has, but as far as to what people's actual politics/cultural affiliations are, it's way more liberal than conservative...

We just have a president now that reflects where the MAJORITY of americans are at..

I don't even really understand you politically.. you're not a conservative when it comes to religion or any of that culture war crap.. however the faction that has a stranglehold on the republican party are not the fiscal conservatives, they're the culture conservatives, the moralists... the MORONS...

This is why your party lost.. because they threatened McCain that if he picked Lieberman, or Crist, there'd be a revolution and he'd lose... they forced Palin on him... In fact Palin now is the future of the republican party...

How does that sit with you?

Does Palin not scare you?

If I were you, I'd really try and explore the feelings you have about Obama, and why he scares you so much. I'll bet if you were really honest with yourself it stems from the fact that he's a black man, and all the baggage of your upbringing and life experience is causing this unease in your soul...

 

 

5 November

Well, we did it.

Last night was a true pleasure. I kept switching gleefully between MSNBC, CNN and Fox… I especially enjoyed the Fox coverage, watching all those fucking cunts with their long faces. It was a sheer joy. In fact, I can't remember the last time I felt such a feeling of joyous schadenfreud.

We're finally free of the plague and rest assured, all this talk of 'centrism' and reaching across aisles is complete horse shit.. You know what fuckwads? We have a commanding majority in the house and senate, that means we can just fucking IGNORE you. So just sit there and take it, like we've had to take it now for 14 years. 14 years of your evil poison. The trent lotts, gingrichs, delays, bushes, roves, cheneys, rumsfelds.. it's over.

As some of you may have noticed, I haven't posted in a while… That's because I couldn't stomach the nonsense that was swirling around here. Hopefully now that they've lost, and lost badly, they'll go back to whatever rock they had crawled out from. Ignorance has been trumped. The neo-conservative imbecile contingent has been banished to the moronic outskirts…and Joe The Plumber's 15 minutes have ticked off to oblivion.

And Palin… ah Palin… she's already hinting at 2012… I sincerely hope that this dumb bitch is what the neo-cons are pinning their hopes to, because it will ensure that they stay banished for a good long while. Reports are already spilling out about Palin. How she actually spent thousands more on her clothes than the initial 150K figure, how she was well aware of it and bilked the RNC out of thousands more for her dumb as shit husband and her retarded kids. How Ayers was her idea, how she and McCain never spoke… how truly limited was her mental acuity…

Back to last night…

I thought McCain's speech was alright. However, it certainly wasn't this unbelievable eloquent and gracious concession that the republicans have been jazzing over. After all the horseshit McCain has allowed his campaign to sling, he HAD to come off conciliatory or else he'd be fucking totally screwed in the Senate. Obama's speech was ok, although he did seem reserved. It was interesting though.. it had an interesting cinematic vibe. We're in for interesting days ahead…

For once, I have a sense of hope… I'm going to cherish the feeling as long as I can.