I havn't seen the original Manchurian Canidate, so don't expect me to compare the two. This one was alright, I guess. I wouldn't recommend seeing it, but it wasn't something I hated either. It was about an election in which this corporation, Manchurian Global, was trying to steal and control the president with mind control. They injected these weird bugs into people's shoulders to control them. It's funny that people would be all scared and appaled if that happened in reality, but they seem to have no problem with the fact that it already does happen; the difference is that instead of injecting them with bugs, the corporations just give the politicians lots of money and get what they want that way. But at least there isn't mind control!
3 stars
Thursday, August 05, 2004
Movie Review: Elephant
Jessie Abbot told me to see Elephant and I heard about it a few other times after that. So today I watched it. I was dissappointed. It is an indy movie about a school shooting, which sounds good on paper, but when they made this movie it wasn't very good in my opinion. First of all, most of the movie had nothing to do with anything... and not in a GOOD David Linklater type way either, it was random boring stuff that kids do. For example the camera made you watch as a student went through the whole process of developing film and it showed another kid play the whole Fur Elise (sp?) song on the piano... the whole thing! It was interesting at first how the director used really long takes that could be even 10 minutes long at times. That got boring afterawhile because the plot was really boring and nothing was happening. All this put together makes a very slow boring movie to watch. I could have gone out to the store and came back and not missed anything important or interesting at all. Also, the movie shows you the perspective of a bunch of different kids, so when they interact you are forced to watch the interaction take place over and over and over again from different views. I think they went a little overboard with their "independant techniques", but then again, it probably wouldn't have mattered if the plot was good... which it wasn't. Like I said, it had nothing to do with anything until about the last 20 minutes. Another thing that annoyed me was all the different examples of bad acting. On top of that, a lot of the things they said and did weren't realistic at all. There were a bunch of kids that didn't even really mind there being a school shooting it seemed like, they just stood around taking their time leaving and such. Especially this one jock type kid who goes around looking for the shooters. What the hell? Nobody would do that! He was all non-chalent about seeing dead bodies on the ground as well. There was also a ridiculous scene in which the two shooters were shooting off some rounds in their garage, and the gun shots were so incredibly fake. There was this big blast and it looked really cheesy. I don't care if it was low-budjet or anything, they should have never used those weird cheesy gun effects. As if all this wasn't enough, there are no, I repeat NO elephants in the whole movie! That was the final straw for me. I recommend not seeing this movie.
2 1/2 stars
2 1/2 stars
Monday, August 02, 2004
Terrorism Alert!
Apparently, Washington has come across some "strikingly alarming" evidence for a terrorist attack on America. Wait, on America, or on certain American institutions that go against everything that Americans should stand for (see: democracy)? Indeed, two of the main targets for attack are the IMF and World Bank. I think we should all hope and pray (if you are into that) that nobody gets hurt and the buildings are evacuated before the attacks; but it is also important to pray that those two buildings are bombed to hell. Talk about destroying terrorist bases.
Former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers told Congress in 1995 that, for every $1 that the U.S. spent on the World Bank, it got back $1.30 in contracts for U.S. corporations.
Summers called this "enlightened self-interest." He should have called it extortion.
A few Terrorist Activities of the WB and IMF (random order):
1. the number of people in the world living on $1 a day increased to 1.3 billion as a result of the East Asian financial crash of 1997-98--and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) austerity policies that followed
2. In South Korea, a country whose income was approaching European levels, unemployment skyrocketed from approximately 3 percent to 10 percent
3. In Indonesia, the worst hit country, poverty rates rose from an official level of 11 percent before the crisis to 40 to 60 percent in varying estimates. (hey, at least we can wear Nike shoes! that probably evens things out)
4. The state of Orissa, in eastern India, received a $350 million loan from the Bank in 1996 to restructure its electricity industry. But the condition was privatization of the state electricity board, which was taken over by the U.S.-based power company AES in mid-1999 for $10 million.
After privatization, power rates in Orissa jumped by 500 percent--despite the fact that only 20 percent of households could afford power when the industry was run by the state.
5. In October 1999, Orissa was hit by devastating cyclones that killed thousands and made millions homeless. Even as the state government was struggling to cope with the disaster, Dennis Bakke, the chief executive of AES, demanded to be paid $60 million for the cost of repairs to the electricity system.
6. Since its creation, one out of every four trade disputes that came before the WTO involved one country challenging another’s laws on health, safety or the environment. In each case, the WTO has ruled against such regulations--on the grounds that they amounted to an illegal trade barrier and had to be removed or modified.
7. Indonesia’s Suharto–the vicious tyrant who ruled for four decades until he was toppled in 1998–was especially notorious for funneling money to himself and his family. But the World Bank had nothing but praise for Indonesia under Suharto.
It only took a few minutes of searching and reading online to find these examples. There are many more if you actually go out and read a book on them, such as (as I have mentioned before) Greg Palast's The Best Democracy Money Can Buy.
FIGHT TERRORISM, FIGHT THE WORLD BANK AND IMF!
Former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers told Congress in 1995 that, for every $1 that the U.S. spent on the World Bank, it got back $1.30 in contracts for U.S. corporations.
Summers called this "enlightened self-interest." He should have called it extortion.
A few Terrorist Activities of the WB and IMF (random order):
1. the number of people in the world living on $1 a day increased to 1.3 billion as a result of the East Asian financial crash of 1997-98--and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) austerity policies that followed
2. In South Korea, a country whose income was approaching European levels, unemployment skyrocketed from approximately 3 percent to 10 percent
3. In Indonesia, the worst hit country, poverty rates rose from an official level of 11 percent before the crisis to 40 to 60 percent in varying estimates. (hey, at least we can wear Nike shoes! that probably evens things out)
4. The state of Orissa, in eastern India, received a $350 million loan from the Bank in 1996 to restructure its electricity industry. But the condition was privatization of the state electricity board, which was taken over by the U.S.-based power company AES in mid-1999 for $10 million.
After privatization, power rates in Orissa jumped by 500 percent--despite the fact that only 20 percent of households could afford power when the industry was run by the state.
5. In October 1999, Orissa was hit by devastating cyclones that killed thousands and made millions homeless. Even as the state government was struggling to cope with the disaster, Dennis Bakke, the chief executive of AES, demanded to be paid $60 million for the cost of repairs to the electricity system.
6. Since its creation, one out of every four trade disputes that came before the WTO involved one country challenging another’s laws on health, safety or the environment. In each case, the WTO has ruled against such regulations--on the grounds that they amounted to an illegal trade barrier and had to be removed or modified.
7. Indonesia’s Suharto–the vicious tyrant who ruled for four decades until he was toppled in 1998–was especially notorious for funneling money to himself and his family. But the World Bank had nothing but praise for Indonesia under Suharto.
It only took a few minutes of searching and reading online to find these examples. There are many more if you actually go out and read a book on them, such as (as I have mentioned before) Greg Palast's The Best Democracy Money Can Buy.
FIGHT TERRORISM, FIGHT THE WORLD BANK AND IMF!
Sunday, August 01, 2004
Movie Review: Corporation (new)
I saw the Corporation at the Guild movie theatre a couple of blocks from my house tonight. The movie was very interesting and well made. It is a documentary on "the corporation" in general. Countless interviews are displayed in the documentary, in fact, that's what about half of the movie was. The interviewees range from various authors, such as the one of No Logo*, to Howard Zinn, Noam Chomsky, to various corporate CEOs. I especially liked the CEO of the largest carpet manufactuer (I can't remember the name of him or the corporation), I agreed with just about everything he said, I would never expect some one like him to be a big time CEO. The Corporation evaluates corporations as if they were people (as they claim to be to obtain certain rights) and comes to the conclusion that they would be diagnosed as medically pyshopathic.
A lot of the movie focused on another problem that stems from the problem of corporate America; milk. Milk isn't bad, but the chemicals that are given to cows are. The movie showed how the American FDA had no problems with the chemicals which ended up doing great harm to cows and resulting in puss coming out of their utters, along with milk. Canada on the other hand, never accepted the chemicals as decent and banned their use from the begining.
There are dozens of dozens of examples of this type of corporate reign that goes unaccounted for. Many examples are in the movie, but the overall problem with corporations would take many massive book volumes to cover and not just this one 2:30 hour movie. The movie did do a great job in addressing a wide array of corporate abuse from oppressive dictatorships in other countries (funded by US tax money for the sheer purpose of protecting corporate interests in the countries) to pollution and sweatshop labor. Also, this movie is a great source of footage of corporate caused mutations, such as a child with backward feet and a kid born with eye sockets... but no eyes.
FEAR the CORPORATION
and see this movie (ends August 5th)
*of which I plan on reading soon. Kevin got the book awhile ago, I looked at it and it looked very interesting.
Saturday, July 31, 2004
Put-Putt
There is a movie called "Schwarzhuhnbraunhuhnschwarzhuhnweisshuhnrothuhnweiss oder Put-Putt". I recommend seeing any movie with a name that is over 50 letters long... oh, and also any movies with the name "put-putt" in them.
Thursday, July 29, 2004
Book Reviews: 1984 and the Anti-Communist Impulse
1984- Orwell
1984 should be in the NON-fiction section. Everything that it says has so much truth to it. There are a million examples of this. In the society in the book, there is the "Two Minutes Hate" in wich the "telescreens" show the national enemy and show you just how evil he is for you to hate him, then the screen shows "Big Brother", who is the nation's national symbol. People then will run up to the screen and cry because they love Big Brother so much for protecting them. Also, the history books are controlled and leave out important things, such as the fact that the nation was ONCE allies with their NOW enemy. Can anybody relate this to Iraq? My favorite aspect of the book was probably the "doublethink". "Doublethink" is a word for conciously possesing two contradictory thoughts similtaneously. When I was reading this at first, I was thinking to myself "there is no way that America or any other nation will get so ignorant that they will believe in two contradictory things at the SAME time without having a problem with their way of thought". Then later, I started realizing that we ALREADY have it here. A really good example is of the majority of American's thoughts on Communism.
Anti Communist Impulse- Parenti
I've been reading The Anti-Communist Impulse which reminded me of this. Americans similtaneously beleive that the Soviet Union was a great threat to America with all their missles and their super-power. But at the SAME time, they believe that communism, such as in the Soviet Union, would never work because the economy is terrible and very poor and could never get anything done. Therfore, people go on believing that it was a super-power, but at the same time it was super-weak somehow. Also, while reading the Impulse it is observed how politicians during the cold war constantly say things like "We can't trust anything the reds say, we must only judge what they do" whenever the communists talk of how the want peace. But when the communists cut back on military and try to make peace negotiations the news/politicians will say "we can't trust their communist ploys, they mean nothing, after all they did say..." and then they'll name an instance like the infamous Khrushchev "We will bury you quote" to 'show' that what communists do is just a plot when you think about the terrible things that they've said they will do. As you can see, these two things obviously contradict eachother, yet the people who say them and the people who beleive them seem to not have a problem with it.
The Impulse is a pretty good book, provided you are interested in the subject of the reaction to communism. It names a lot of inncidents that I don't even know about. It is pretty detailed and hard to read at times, but you get a lot of good information out of it. A lot of it is summed up in Parenti's later book Inventing Reality, which is a good book that deals a lot with how the media handled the cold war.
1984 should be in the NON-fiction section. Everything that it says has so much truth to it. There are a million examples of this. In the society in the book, there is the "Two Minutes Hate" in wich the "telescreens" show the national enemy and show you just how evil he is for you to hate him, then the screen shows "Big Brother", who is the nation's national symbol. People then will run up to the screen and cry because they love Big Brother so much for protecting them. Also, the history books are controlled and leave out important things, such as the fact that the nation was ONCE allies with their NOW enemy. Can anybody relate this to Iraq? My favorite aspect of the book was probably the "doublethink". "Doublethink" is a word for conciously possesing two contradictory thoughts similtaneously. When I was reading this at first, I was thinking to myself "there is no way that America or any other nation will get so ignorant that they will believe in two contradictory things at the SAME time without having a problem with their way of thought". Then later, I started realizing that we ALREADY have it here. A really good example is of the majority of American's thoughts on Communism.
Anti Communist Impulse- Parenti
I've been reading The Anti-Communist Impulse which reminded me of this. Americans similtaneously beleive that the Soviet Union was a great threat to America with all their missles and their super-power. But at the SAME time, they believe that communism, such as in the Soviet Union, would never work because the economy is terrible and very poor and could never get anything done. Therfore, people go on believing that it was a super-power, but at the same time it was super-weak somehow. Also, while reading the Impulse it is observed how politicians during the cold war constantly say things like "We can't trust anything the reds say, we must only judge what they do" whenever the communists talk of how the want peace. But when the communists cut back on military and try to make peace negotiations the news/politicians will say "we can't trust their communist ploys, they mean nothing, after all they did say..." and then they'll name an instance like the infamous Khrushchev "We will bury you quote" to 'show' that what communists do is just a plot when you think about the terrible things that they've said they will do. As you can see, these two things obviously contradict eachother, yet the people who say them and the people who beleive them seem to not have a problem with it.
The Impulse is a pretty good book, provided you are interested in the subject of the reaction to communism. It names a lot of inncidents that I don't even know about. It is pretty detailed and hard to read at times, but you get a lot of good information out of it. A lot of it is summed up in Parenti's later book Inventing Reality, which is a good book that deals a lot with how the media handled the cold war.
Movie Review: Secret Window
I wasn't expecting to like Secret Window. I don't usually like those Stephen King movies. For one thing, they always are about a writer and usually involve some aspect of children or childhood memories*. Secret Window followed the usual "writer" path... to the max. But it didn't involve children. It is the story of Johnny Depp** who wrote a story a long time ago, and somebody came to his door saying that they wrote the story, not him. The person then goes on to harass him a bunch and make threats and such. The movie is about how Depp deals with such threats.
I thought the plot was pretty good, and the movie was definately well made. The only thing that kinda sucked was the ending. It seems that too many movies use that same ending. I won't tell you what it is though. But then again, the ending kind of fit. I just wish that another ending could have happened that fit just as well.
4 Stars
* I bet you are thinking of a movie of his that you feel is THE movie I'm talking about, but really, all of you reading this are probably thinking of all different movies.. that's why it's funny.
** Not a character played by Johnny Depp, but ACTUALLY about Johnny Depp himself if he wrote books. I say this because he doesn't even seem like he is acting. I've seen videos of him hanging out and stuff and he acts exactly like that in Secret Window.
I thought the plot was pretty good, and the movie was definately well made. The only thing that kinda sucked was the ending. It seems that too many movies use that same ending. I won't tell you what it is though. But then again, the ending kind of fit. I just wish that another ending could have happened that fit just as well.
4 Stars
* I bet you are thinking of a movie of his that you feel is THE movie I'm talking about, but really, all of you reading this are probably thinking of all different movies.. that's why it's funny.
** Not a character played by Johnny Depp, but ACTUALLY about Johnny Depp himself if he wrote books. I say this because he doesn't even seem like he is acting. I've seen videos of him hanging out and stuff and he acts exactly like that in Secret Window.
Movie Review: Limey
The Limey. I really like the directing and how the movie was made overall. It had some really great scenes and cinematography. The plot was a cliche "dad looking for revenge on his daughter's death" type thing, but they somehow made it into a good and intresting movie. The movie seemed like it knew it had a simple plot and left it at that and didn't drag it out into some big annoying adventure. I think this is a worthwhile movie to see. I would recommend it. It won't do anything like "change your life" or "make you laugh and cry" or anything, but it is a entertaining well made movie that should be watched.
Movie Review: Rounders
Rounders is a movie about people that play poker to make money off of people who aren't good at it. Well, more specifically, it's about how Edward Norton and Matt Daemon do that. The movie seems like it's good, but really it's just fooling you. If you sit there and think to yourself, "is this a good movie?", you will probably won't see it as one anymore. It was pretty well made and the cast was good, but the movie didn't really say anything or have a purpose. It was also predictable. It's like a good comedy movie, without any comedy.. at all.. making it not such a good comedy. Imagine Lock Stock And 2 Smoking Barrels without any comedy or irony. Or even Boondock Saints without playing up the whole Irish angle. You are just left with a movie, but a movie without any purpose.
3 1/2 stars
3 1/2 stars
Sunday, July 25, 2004
Fuck World Trade
In late August, one of the coolest bands still around, Leftøver Crack, is going to release their newest cd, "Fuck World Trade". The album is pictured above. How did they get away with a cover like this with such a "shocking" title? Well, first of all they are hella tyte (I definately, agree when they say "fuck world trade"). Secondly, the moved on over from the more and more crap infested 'Hellcat' label over to the hella-tyte label of Alternative Tenticles. LOC's last album's artwork, Mediocre Generica (the album of which was coincidentally released on 9/11/01), was of a school shooting and Hellcat forced them to change the cover. Jello Biafra is very familiar with being hassled over censorship and gladly let the band use whatever artwork they chose for their newest album's cover.
About the subject matte of the cover art... Of course, the band doesn't approve of the killing of innocent people. They are vehemently against it. Originally, "Fuck World Trade" was actually the name of one of their old band's, Choking Victim, songs which came out years before 9/11. When they say it now, their meaning hasn't changed. World trade isn't a bad thing in principal, I mean with it you can get exotic fruits and things, but that's not what they are talking about. They are talking about the IMF, World Bank, and WTO, which are essentially legal American terrorist organizations by the definition of the word. They do much more damage than Osama Bin Laden could ever hope to do. Terrible things happen with this kind of capital warfare, for example, NATO launched the bombing of innocent people in Yugoslavia for 78 straight horrific days. This was under the "liberal" Clinton... and you probably havn't even heard of such a bombing, have you? Well, world trade works as secretly as it can. Still, some people wise up everyonce in awhile to oppose it, such as in the Seattle WTO riot not too many years ago. These organizations simply work like this: Country X needs money, American groups such as these will loan money IF Country X does favors for corporate Amerika; privatize their health care and anything else the organizations want done (it's 111 policies on average that country X will need to change). But, let's not forget the good parts of massive capital world trade. I mean, as Greg Palast pointed out, they did make great strides in the cure for AIDS. Tanzia has a large AIDS infested population of poor people, but the problem is that the silly nation was giving away health care for free! Can you believe that? Well, the World Bank stepped in and gave a helping hand by ordering for their to be no more trade barriers, and instead, deregulation and privatization for the savage country. Needless to say, this helped the country and it's people when the health care industry was privatized and now cost money for the people to get their health care. And wouldn't you know it? It started working right away! A whole 53% of the citizens of Tanzia quit coming in for AIDS treatment!
If you don't learn about this stuff, such album cover's as this will make you "scared" and want to wrap yourself with a flag for protection. But unfortunately, the flag you blanket yourself with has been purposely infected with ignorance; just as the blankets given to the Indians were purposefully infected with smallpox. Both are equally fatal.
But again, if you want to, you can look the other way... But you'll be no better than George W. up there torching innocent people with his (haliburton) capital gas flamethrower.
Saturday, July 24, 2004
New! Short Story!
The much anticipated second part of my short story has just been posted online! As usual, I havn't read it yet after writing it. Editing, schmediting. Anyways, here it is!...
(try and ignore the weird computer jargon that I havn't had time to get rid of yet)
LIBERTY
(try and ignore the weird computer jargon that I havn't had time to get rid of yet)
LIBERTY
Thursday, July 22, 2004
Sunday, July 18, 2004
The PARANORMAL!
You probably think I have some sort of paranormal story to tell... but I don't. For some reason, I just want to mention that when I was younger, elementary school, I knew this girl, Casey Cutter, who always showed me this book on the paranormal. Oh man, that book scared the SHIT out of me like no other. I can't remember how many nights I couldn't go to sleep because of that book. It seriously still scares me to think a bout it. The book always tempted me a lot to look at, even though I knew I would regret it. I remember a lot of stuff about it still though. It had spontanious combustion in it and a picture of a ladie's leg next to a toilet with a caption that said she blew up. The book also had pictures of ghosts and things like that. I remember this one picture of these two ghosts on this boat... oh man, so scary. Also, it talked about this big giant face that appeared on this one woman's floor in her kitchen. I can't remember if it had a picture of that. It still scared the crap out of me though. I want to find that book very badly. It's like a nostalgia... except for instead of something that was a "cherishing memmory", it was one of those memories that was the scariest book ever. I'm tired. It's 3:24 DISPITE what the blog post says. It's an hour early all the time. Tell me if you know what book that is called which I described if you know!
Saturday, July 17, 2004
Movie Review: Anchorman (new)
During the begining of this movie, I started thinking that I should leave and just get a refund for my money (or my parent's money, since I was with them). Then the movie got better; it elevated to the "mediocre" rating. It didn't get much higher from there though. There are a ton of really stale un-funny jokes in it, which of course the audience loved for some reason. A lot of slap-stick type comedy and fart jokes can be found in this movie, not in a good Dumb and Dumber type way, but a stupid annoying way. Of course there were a few funny parts, but not enough to justify watching the whole movie. The only good thing about the movie was Will Ferrel's obvious improvisation on a lot of lines. Another thing that really annoyed me in this movie was the over-abundance of cameos. You can usually tell a new movie is bad when it has a lot of cameos. This one had: Jack Black, Ben Stiller, Luke Wilson, that one guy who is in all the teen movies like Dodgeball and Old School who's name I don't know... and probably more cameos that I can't remember. This is not a movie you go out to the theatre to pay for and see, it's one you watch at 3am in the morning because you can't sleep.
3 stars
3 stars
Movie Review: Jackie Brown
I have mixed feelings about Jackie Brown. I liked it, but then again I didn't in a lot of ways. Mainly, I think it would have been a good shorter film, but it didn't seem to work as a full-legnth movie. It felt like it didn't have all that much substance to it and the plot was too simple and plain for a whole movie's legnth. The film is about Jackie Brown, a flight attendant who smuggles illegal gun money from Mexico to America to give to Samuel L. Jackson's character. She gets caught and is forced to go under cover to try and nab Jackson with illegal gun charges. She then decides to try and trick both sides (the cops and Samuel L. Jackson) in hopes of getting more money for herself. This is mainly what the movie is about. There is also a bail-bondsman who "falls" for Jackie. It is also worth mentioning that Robert Dinero plays in his most middle-aged complacent pothead role who's main purpose in the movie is to get stoned with Samuel L. Jackson's blonde bimbo girlfriend. I would recomend seeing this movie if it was on TV or if you are a Terrintino fan. For me, this movie felt like it was somewhat plain and empty.
3 1/2 stars
3 1/2 stars
Thursday, July 15, 2004
Movie Review: Network
Network is the tale of the fictional newscaster, "Howard Beale", and the fictional station "UBS". Howard Beal embraces a new type of newsreporting of self destruction and anger when he realizes that he will soon be fired. At first everybody at the news place is completely mad at what Howard has said on the air, but then they notice that the ratings have gone up because nobody before him has talked complete honesty on the news before. This is pretty much the exact same plot layout as Bullworth, which came much later than Network. Bullworth is the tale of a US president who gets depressed and gives up the lies and political trickery and such and just goes on a path of self destruction and honesty, his handlers dispise it at first, but then they realize that the people like this type of honesty. Personally, I like Bullworth more because there is more truth to it. When you watch Bullworth, you can tell that they aren't editing themselves. With Network, you can tell that they are either editing their plot to make it more capitalist friendly, or the writers are just stupid. There are many examples of this in Network and I don't have time to list them. Another thing that anoyed me about Network was this neo-phyte 'radical' staff member at the network, Diana (I think), who embraced the chaotic stance and wanted to give the viewers the "real truth". This normally wouldn't bother me, except she didn't know what the fuck she was talking about and that that progressivism and radicalism was all about robbing banks and killing people. That's one example of a form of editing in the movie. Yes, that main character promotes radicalism, BUT it's not real radicalism, it's a corporate media spin-off of what it's really about and she's givin into it... when you watch this movie, however, you are supposed to think that she really is some sort of radical and she knows what she is talking about. Some examples of how she didn't know what was up was when she said people needed 'different views' like of "Stalin and his dandy bunch of Bolshevick". This was perticulary annoying because they weren't "stalin's bolsheviks". Lenin created the Bolsheviks and Stalin later became one himself, then came to power after that. So saying that they were Stalin's Bolsheviks is kind of a spin-off of the truth and degrades the original Bolsheviks. Also she made some weird comment about how Che Guavara was all about robbing banks or something. Later in the movie, there is a good quote about how Howard Beal is getting in the way of the natural order of things, capitalism, and how there is no democracy any more, there is only ATT, IBM, ABC and so on. It's a really good speech, but it misses some important things: It fails to mention that this is caused by CAPITALISM. Yes, in the whole speech about how capitalism is taking over, he failed to mention the word "CAPITALISM"! He said that it was the "natural order of things". I believe this is true, that greed is natural when people are high in power, but the movie failed to mention that there are alternatives and the movie also failed to mention that the REST of the world is not getting into this "natural order of things". It lets us, the viewers, know that something is kind of wrong with this picture, but it's natural and there is no alternative; which is hardly a revolutionary or radical viewpoint that the movie seems to think it conveys. Yet another thing that pissed me off was when Howard Beal was talking about how the network was being bought by another network which was controlled by this Saudi Arabian interest group. I agree that things like this happen every day, but NEVER would the network ALLOW somebody on primetime television to just say things like that! The movie gives the impression that it's actually possible for us to hear corporate truth like that. Also, Howard spun this off as that the "arabs are getting more american money again!". Which was very very ignorant, when you see how the Saudi's live compared to Americans. Obviously Arabs have been screwed out of their money countless times by America, yet Howard says that "the arabs are taking OUR money!". He, of course is REFERRING to a few Saudi Arabs at the top which are making money (like now days still), but makes it sound as if every Arab is personally stealing our money. Anyways, this movie really annoyed me. It could have been a really good movie if it actually pushed some buttons of corporate interests, instead of just pretending to do that and really just made people who watched it even more ignorant to the situation than they already were.
Remember, that a lot of the stuff I'm talking about is subcoincious stuff and small stuff, but that's what really matters in the big picture. If you pay attention when you watch the movie, you'll notice these things that I'm talking about. Lately, I've been reading about media politics and how they spin things even when they are trying to be "liberal" and things of that issue, so that might be one reason I felt like this movie had so many mis-truths in it.
3 1/2 stars
Remember, that a lot of the stuff I'm talking about is subcoincious stuff and small stuff, but that's what really matters in the big picture. If you pay attention when you watch the movie, you'll notice these things that I'm talking about. Lately, I've been reading about media politics and how they spin things even when they are trying to be "liberal" and things of that issue, so that might be one reason I felt like this movie had so many mis-truths in it.
3 1/2 stars
Wednesday, July 14, 2004
Cryptic Mexican Wrestler Image
I don't want to explain it again, so I'm pasting my conversation with Jenny here. G is me, and J is her. I only will name the first two textings. After that you just switch who is talking whenever there is a line break. Follow the directions for the mysterious mexican wrestler!
G: i had these windows open on the computer, and they were covering this photo on the top and bottom, and i only saw the middle
saw*
and it looked like a mexican wrestler
but it turns out it was two guys boxing
J: weird
ill show you
k
http://www.allmovie.com/cg/avg.dll?p=avg&sql=1:13402
now make two extra windows you can use to cover the picture
can you do that?
yea
where do i cover it?
ok now put the windows where i tell you:
put the top one right above the first of the guy on the right
like EXACTLY on the tip of the top of his fist
and do the same to the same guys bottom hand with the other window
except lower the bottom window a bit lower so its not the bottom of his hand, but the bottom of his cuff
i cant see it
have you positioned them:
yes
ill tell you how to see it
the mexican wrestler is all huge and muscular and he is facing us
you can't see all of him, its supposed to look like you can only see the middle of a picture of him
and the gap between the people is like his chin
and the guy's fist is part of the mask decoration
hahahahhah i see it
doesn't it look like it???!
yes
you can see his armpits
and his right shoulder strap
and hes kind of in fighting stance kind of crouched
G: i had these windows open on the computer, and they were covering this photo on the top and bottom, and i only saw the middle
saw*
and it looked like a mexican wrestler
but it turns out it was two guys boxing
J: weird
ill show you
k
http://www.allmovie.com/cg/avg.dll?p=avg&sql=1:13402
now make two extra windows you can use to cover the picture
can you do that?
yea
where do i cover it?
ok now put the windows where i tell you:
put the top one right above the first of the guy on the right
like EXACTLY on the tip of the top of his fist
and do the same to the same guys bottom hand with the other window
except lower the bottom window a bit lower so its not the bottom of his hand, but the bottom of his cuff
i cant see it
have you positioned them:
yes
ill tell you how to see it
the mexican wrestler is all huge and muscular and he is facing us
you can't see all of him, its supposed to look like you can only see the middle of a picture of him
and the gap between the people is like his chin
and the guy's fist is part of the mask decoration
hahahahhah i see it
doesn't it look like it???!
yes
you can see his armpits
and his right shoulder strap
and hes kind of in fighting stance kind of crouched
Tuesday, July 13, 2004
Movie Review: Kill Bill 2 (newish)
I liked the first Kill Bill a lot more than this one. I know they are together one big movie, but the first half of the story was a lot better, apparently. This one kind of jumps around and trys to be 'emotional' and has less fighting and action. Overall, the movie seemed really long and drawn out. Especially the beginning. It seemed to take awhile to get the movie going. I liked a lot of the scenes and I liked the burial scenes, but overall this addition to the first volume was a dissappointment.
3 1/2 stars
3 1/2 stars
Monday, July 12, 2004
Movie Review: American Psycho
American Psycho is the story of a 27 year old big time CEO who gets fed up with all the 'yuppie scum' and fancy restruants and goes on a killing spree. It reminded me a lot of Fight Club in the sense that the main character narrates his yuppie corporate life and all the brand name facial masks and things he uses. Like in Fight Club, he eventually gets tired of all of this superficial bullshit and can't stand it anymore, so he relies on destruction to make him feel whole again. The movie is obviously a black comedy (not like Fresh Prince, but rather a dark comedy) and a lot of scenes are funny. I especially like the business card competitions.
4 stars
4 stars
Movie Review: Spiderman 2 (new)
Spiderman 2 was an alright movie in my opinion. I liked it because it was entertaining, but aside from that there wasn't much to it. It's a lot like the first Spiderman movie, but I actually don't remember that much about the first one. I don't have that much to say about the movie.
3 1/2
3 1/2
Coincidence: ID Card
This is a big coincidence that freaked me out. The weird thing is that nobody seems to think it's weird at all! What happened was I went to Colin's house and there was this girl there for a minute, but she left right after I got there. I asked Colin if her name was Emily, because I remembered Adam Roger's having a girlfriend named Emily Torres and the girl at Colin's house kinda looked like her. Colin said her name wasn't Emily, it was Robin. Later, after watching some MST3K, I went into his kitchen and what did I happen to find other than the ID Card of Emily Torres! Obviously, Colin was tricking me and that actually was Emily Torres who was there earlier. The weird thing was though, that he wasn't tricking me. The girl who was there actually wasn't Emily and has no relation to her. It was a sheer coincidence that I saw Emily's liscence there; I don't know anything about Emily (other than her name) and I didn't know that Colin knew her either. Colin thinks that it is really weird that I think that is a big coincidence. Vince aggrees; he says "that's not weird! That happens to me all the time!"
Well, to me it seems like a big coincidence.
Well, to me it seems like a big coincidence.
Coincidence: Pot Bellied Psycho
I talked to Jenny last night, and she was talking all about pot-bellied pigs and how she wanted to get one as a pet. She was naming all the different things they did and what they looked like and stuff, she even sent me a picture of one. The next day, today, I was watching American Psycho and there was a christmas party in it where somebody brought their pet pot-bellied pig and was talking about how they make great pets.
Saturday, July 10, 2004
Movie Review: Elephant Man
David Lynch's second film, The Elephant Man, is the tale of a disfigured man in 19th century london. The man got his surname "elephant man", not by looking similar to an elephant, but because an inncident with an elephant caused his deformities. A young Anthony Hopkins plays the rule of Dr. Treaves who rescues the 'elephant man' from his former 'master' who beat him and displayed him as a freak in a freak show. The Elephant Man firmly fotified Hopkin's career in acting.
The black and white 80's film is reminescent of Tom Browning's Freaks, which I reviewed not long ago. Some scenes look almost identical between the films. The film is undoubtedly labeled as "disturbing" by some, as was Lynch's previous movie, Eraserhead. Some even think of The Elephant Man as a competent version of Eraserhead. Elephant Man contains the same machinery and rumbling type sounds that seem apparent throughout much of Lynch's work, most notably in Eraserhead.
The Elephant Man is a great movie, a forgotten classic, as it were. I highly recommend it, especially if you are a fan of Lynch.
4 1/2 stars
The black and white 80's film is reminescent of Tom Browning's Freaks, which I reviewed not long ago. Some scenes look almost identical between the films. The film is undoubtedly labeled as "disturbing" by some, as was Lynch's previous movie, Eraserhead. Some even think of The Elephant Man as a competent version of Eraserhead. Elephant Man contains the same machinery and rumbling type sounds that seem apparent throughout much of Lynch's work, most notably in Eraserhead.
The Elephant Man is a great movie, a forgotten classic, as it were. I highly recommend it, especially if you are a fan of Lynch.
4 1/2 stars
Friday, July 09, 2004
Socialism For Free!
If you are one of those few people who really still believe in crazy things like women's rights, democracy, minority rights, freedom and peace, then I highly recommend learning getting involved in socialism. The Socialist Worker is a free online magazine that provides new information weekly. That would be a good place to start. Also, Haymarket Books is a great independant book store that provides inexpensive books and pamphlets on Marxism, Socialism and Radicalism.
Socialism is NOT the same as Communism, although Reagan would like you to think so. There are similarities between the two, but they are not the same. If you are still scared because the TV tells you to hate people that oppose extreme capitalism/feudalism, just remember this quote from Michael Parenti:
The threat that Communism may someday take over the world blinds us to the fact that anti-Communism already has*
*If you don't understand that quote, then read up my son, read up.
Socialism is NOT the same as Communism, although Reagan would like you to think so. There are similarities between the two, but they are not the same. If you are still scared because the TV tells you to hate people that oppose extreme capitalism/feudalism, just remember this quote from Michael Parenti:
The threat that Communism may someday take over the world blinds us to the fact that anti-Communism already has*
*If you don't understand that quote, then read up my son, read up.
Thursday, July 08, 2004
Movie Review: Killing Fields
The Killing Fields is a true story about a US reporter for the NYTimes and his translater reporting together in Cambodia. This is during the Vietnam War while Nixon was illegally bombing the neutral country of Cambodia. Amist the chaos in the country, the Khmer Rouge successfully takes control over Cambodia. Led by Pol Pot, the notorious Khmer Rouge radically destroyed the county with it's extreme communist law. It is now known as one of the biggest examples of genocide. Before gaining power, the Khmer Rouge were opposed by a US-Backed organization (any time there is a communist or socialist movement, you can be sure the US backs the opposition). Never the less, the Khmer Rouge ended up in control. The Khmer Rouge were so radically extreme that communist Vietnam largely opposed the regime. Eventually the Khmer Rouge was ousted by a Vietnamese puppet government. Here's what you probably don't know: The United States government, seeing the Viet-friendly government in control starting thinking "hey, these damn gook commies are in control of the country now turning it into a typical communist state, rather than a genocide destruction 'killing field'... now that we think about it, we'd rather have Pol Pot and his gang back in control". So the US government funneled money through Taiwon to help Pol Pot and the Rouge try and gain control of the bordering country again. The Khmer Rouge continued some terrorist acts from Taiwon, but not nearly with the destrution that they had done while in control. Eventually the Khmer Rouge was no more. Almost none of that is covered during the movie, but that is just to give you a history lesson of the country if you are unfamiliar with it. (The movie ends before the Khmer Rouge is ousted)
Back to the movie. The translater is stranded in the 'killing fields' because he is denied access into the French Embasy (which has become a protective base for reporters such as the one featured in the movie). The movie is about the translater's journey trying to escape the havok of the killing fields. He sees thousands of bodies and bones scattered in the fields and decides he doesn't want to add to the death count (1-2 million).
Back to the movie. The translater is stranded in the 'killing fields' because he is denied access into the French Embasy (which has become a protective base for reporters such as the one featured in the movie). The movie is about the translater's journey trying to escape the havok of the killing fields. He sees thousands of bodies and bones scattered in the fields and decides he doesn't want to add to the death count (1-2 million).
Wednesday, July 07, 2004
Movie Review: Slasher
Slasher sounds like some crazy horror movie right? Well, it's not. It's an IFC documentary about a used car salesman. You might think that that would be a boring movie, but it was actually pretty interesting. It was made really well and entertaining, given the circumstances. This expert car salesman goes to Tennesee to help this used car dealership that isn't selling cars well. He promises that he can sell 400 cars in 3 days, or something close to that. The film documents what happens. Also, there is a scene where a goat holds a beer in his mouth and chugs the whole thing on his own... I kid you not. That alone is worth watching this movie for. A quote from the movie is:
The American consumer; if they drive by a pile of horseshit that's a million dollars and they drive by it every day for 2 weeks and one day they drive by and there's a sign for a dollar, they'll buy the shit
3 stars
The American consumer; if they drive by a pile of horseshit that's a million dollars and they drive by it every day for 2 weeks and one day they drive by and there's a sign for a dollar, they'll buy the shit
3 stars
Movie Review: Gone With The Wind
You are probably wondering why I watched Gone With The Wind. Well, I had to for school awhile ago. I just figured I might as well rate it on here. I can sum up my opinon of this movie in two words: Classic Schmassic. I don't care if it's a "classic" or whatever, I don't like this movie. It is like 4 hours long and is really really boring. It's about the civil war and this really ditzy slutty girl and how the war has an effect on her. There was one really cool part when this little girl tried to ride a horse and make it jump over a fence. The film so obviously cut to a clip of the girl replaced as a doll lifelessly fall into the fence to her death. It was supposed to be 'tragic' or something, but in reality, it was really pretty funny. I asked to rewind it and watch that part again, and I watched it again. Aside from that, I wouldn't recomend you watch this unless you are some old lady or something.
2 stars
2 stars
Movie Review: Dangerous Lives Of Altar Boys
The Dangerous Lives Of Altar Boys was a very entertaining movie. It entertained me very thoroughly. It had a good story as well. Dangerous Lives is about 4 boys at a catholic school who are obsessed with comic books. They draw blasphemus comics and get into trouble often. It stars the brother of McColly Coulkin (sp?), who stars in Igby Goes Down. He plays just about the same exact character in both movies. The plot involves a cougar, nuns, and incest. I think that should be in the slogan for the movie, because I know everybody would rent it right away.
Also, it is highly notable that Dangerous Lives Of Alter Boys is really a prequel to Full Metal Jacket. It depicts some of the life of Father Casey (Vincent D'Onofrio) before he is sent off into training for Vietnam. In Full Metal Jacket, you see Father Casey mocked and picked on. The name that Casey is given by his drill sargent is Pvt. Pyle.
4 stars
Also, it is highly notable that Dangerous Lives Of Alter Boys is really a prequel to Full Metal Jacket. It depicts some of the life of Father Casey (Vincent D'Onofrio) before he is sent off into training for Vietnam. In Full Metal Jacket, you see Father Casey mocked and picked on. The name that Casey is given by his drill sargent is Pvt. Pyle.
4 stars
Book Review: Stranger Than Fiction
Stranger Than Fiction is Chuck Palahniuk's newest book. It is his second non-fiction book, after his book about Portland. I've read all of his books, his short story in Playboy and his contribution to this book (I can't remember the name) where he wrote about signing books. So when I saw that this book had been released and I saw it at Borders, I got it. I was disappointed. It wasn't very interesting most of the time, and just wasn't that good. Some of the articles were good, but a lot of them weren't. I liked one called "Life as a Dog", and I liked reading about his Dad's murder, but aside from that, a lot of it isn't worth reading. In fact, the book he wrote about Portland, which can be found in the Travel section, was a lot more interesting/better. I read the book in one day, which was more attributed to the fact that if I didn't finish it right away I would probably have no desire to pick it up the next day, rather than it being a "page-turner". He is coming out with a book called Monster (I think that's the title) sometime, which is a book of short stories.
Monday, July 05, 2004
Movie Review: Dark Days
Dark Days is a black and white documentary about homelessness underground near the subway tracks. It interviewed various homeless people who lived in these little houses that they made out of metal, peices of wood, anything they could find. They explain their way of life and their struggles complete with reasons for staying underground. The title of the movie is easy to see it's relation to the film, because underground there is almost no light. You need a flashlight if you are going to walk around down there. Somehow, the inhabitants have electricity and some water (cold only) available underground. Many of the people down there are addicted to crack, and one is a former crack addict who is trying to stay off of the drug. At one point, one of their little shack houses is burnt down by a drug dealer that they upset. Dark Days is a very revealing documentary on the subject and was well made also. I saw a book in the store called "The Mole People" that looked like it was about the same subject. On the cover of "Mole People" it had a picture of the same underground tracks that are used in the cover of the movie Dark Days. I'm guessing the movie was based around that book somewhat. Perhaps visa-versa.
4 stars
4 stars
Book Review: Inventing Reality
Michael Parenti's book Inventing Reality was a very interesting and enlightening read. It is also notable that it was written during Reagan's time and before the fall of the Soviet Union. The Soviet scare tactics used by the media was a large theme of the book, given the time. Overall, the book explained what it claimed on the cover "The Politics of the Mass Media". A lot of the book and the overall gist is already recognized by anyone who pays any attention; the media is very biased against the left. It's also amazing that the right says things like the "liberal media"! I am wanting to read a book by Anne Coulter, a popular right-winger, about things like this. I can't understand where they would get their arguement from other than, "The media sometimes lets some story slip by questioning a war's efficiency (not questioning the purpose of the war, remember), therfore the media is liberal. If it was fair and balanced, the left would never have a chance to spoil our fair and balanced media with their communist ideas." I made the following semi-chart to find out if the media would have a right-wing bias. Feel free to use it when trying to figure out if there is a bias of any media you are uncertain about:
Are right wingers usually the 1. corporate elite, or the 2. laboring people?
Is the media in question owned, operated, subsidized and funded by number 1. or number 2. ?
If the media is owned by number 1. , it should have the view of the corportate elite.
If the media is owned by number 2. , it should have the laboring people.
The chart might get a little confusing, but once you've used it a few times, you should get the hang of it!
Are right wingers usually the 1. corporate elite, or the 2. laboring people?
Is the media in question owned, operated, subsidized and funded by number 1. or number 2. ?
If the media is owned by number 1. , it should have the view of the corportate elite.
If the media is owned by number 2. , it should have the laboring people.
The chart might get a little confusing, but once you've used it a few times, you should get the hang of it!
Happy 4th Of July Fellow Patriot
I love the 4th of July. It's a time when we Americans can treat ourselves to what we treat the rest of the world to everyday; fireworks. Except the fireworks we watch here don't destroy our essential water resources, destroy red cross stations, burn crops, kill millions of innocent people and create hell on earth like the usual fireworks paid for by our taxes.
Fuck patriotism. I tried to explain my view to my parents, but my mom got "offended". I told them that it's not that I hate Americans, but what America as a country stands for in the world; the only military superpower. My mom says that respecting the flag and being patriotic has "nothing to do with politics". Of course it does! It has everything to do with politics. Being patriotic is about understanding the "grandness" of your home country. This doesn't necessarily mean that you view all other countries as worse, or inferior... but it does to a lot of people. Even if it doesn't mean that to you, it gets you on a subconcious level. When America does something in a world you will think "it's my beloved America afterall, no harm will be done". My whole view on the matter can be summed up in one bumper sticker: "There isn't a flag large enough to cover the shame of killing thousands of innocent people." And this is true, not even the "dreaded soviets" have killed as many people. Not nearly as many. Not even Nazi Germany or the Khmer Rouge for that matter. When a Nazi kills an innocent, is it somehow worse than when an American soldier kills an innocent? Think about that to yourself. As the beloved RATM says "a yellow ribbon, instead of a swastika."
If I ever did believe in patriotism, it would that "dissent is patriotic" (another bumper sticker) type of patriotism. It would be the type of patriotism that Jefferson advocated. The type that doesn't blindly follow any dumb ass president or corporate regime. Speaking of the president, how the fuck can somebody be expected to be patriotic when our country doesn't even allow it's people to elect a president? And then lie to us to get us into this fuck-off war for oil. No, fuck that.
I think my parents are very wrong when they say that patriotism has nothing to do with politics. Then how do you explain "support our troops" slogans? How do you explain "these colors don't run" slogans? These are not slogans of hardcore right wing ultraists, they are slogans seen on average joe t-shirts and cars. Slogans seen on average 'patriots'. I think these people are the real traitors. Their blind optimism hands our country over to corporations on a silver platter. If these type of people are swayed by George Bush's half-assed non-sensical excuses for speaches, imagine if they were in Nazi Germany under Hitler (an impressive speaker, unlike Bush). Think about how fast they would eat up all that shit about how Jews are making the world so terrible.... Almost as fast as us Americans ate up the shit about how 'dirty commies' are making the world so bad...
50 Stars to Blind your Eyes
13 Stripes to Hypnotize
-CV
Fuck patriotism. I tried to explain my view to my parents, but my mom got "offended". I told them that it's not that I hate Americans, but what America as a country stands for in the world; the only military superpower. My mom says that respecting the flag and being patriotic has "nothing to do with politics". Of course it does! It has everything to do with politics. Being patriotic is about understanding the "grandness" of your home country. This doesn't necessarily mean that you view all other countries as worse, or inferior... but it does to a lot of people. Even if it doesn't mean that to you, it gets you on a subconcious level. When America does something in a world you will think "it's my beloved America afterall, no harm will be done". My whole view on the matter can be summed up in one bumper sticker: "There isn't a flag large enough to cover the shame of killing thousands of innocent people." And this is true, not even the "dreaded soviets" have killed as many people. Not nearly as many. Not even Nazi Germany or the Khmer Rouge for that matter. When a Nazi kills an innocent, is it somehow worse than when an American soldier kills an innocent? Think about that to yourself. As the beloved RATM says "a yellow ribbon, instead of a swastika."
If I ever did believe in patriotism, it would that "dissent is patriotic" (another bumper sticker) type of patriotism. It would be the type of patriotism that Jefferson advocated. The type that doesn't blindly follow any dumb ass president or corporate regime. Speaking of the president, how the fuck can somebody be expected to be patriotic when our country doesn't even allow it's people to elect a president? And then lie to us to get us into this fuck-off war for oil. No, fuck that.
I think my parents are very wrong when they say that patriotism has nothing to do with politics. Then how do you explain "support our troops" slogans? How do you explain "these colors don't run" slogans? These are not slogans of hardcore right wing ultraists, they are slogans seen on average joe t-shirts and cars. Slogans seen on average 'patriots'. I think these people are the real traitors. Their blind optimism hands our country over to corporations on a silver platter. If these type of people are swayed by George Bush's half-assed non-sensical excuses for speaches, imagine if they were in Nazi Germany under Hitler (an impressive speaker, unlike Bush). Think about how fast they would eat up all that shit about how Jews are making the world so terrible.... Almost as fast as us Americans ate up the shit about how 'dirty commies' are making the world so bad...
50 Stars to Blind your Eyes
13 Stripes to Hypnotize
-CV
Wednesday, June 30, 2004
Book Review: Trainspotting
Irvine Welsh's first novel, Trainspotting, is a very good book. It is the story of a heroin junkie who is trying to go clean while hanging around his skag using friends. The story takes place in Edinburgh, Scottland, and 99% of the book is written in heavy slang. If you've read A Clockwork Orange, it's kind of like that, but with a lot more slang. The writing style of Welsh is amazingly creative. Every chapter is about 10 or so pages long and has a different name. They are usually from the 1rst person perspective of the main character, Renton, but a lot of the time the chapters are written from the perspective of Renton's friends. Sometimes the chapters are even written in the third person; this is the only time that the heavy accent isn't used. Part of the genius of this book is that each chapter is a short story in itself. Somebody could come along to a library and read only one chapter from the book and, in most cases, it would be a little short story that doesn't require the reader to know the history of the characters or anything. The book seems to be composed of a ton of little short stories (in chronological order) about a group of friends. When you are finished with the book, all of the little short stories come together and form one large story about the friends.
It is a lot like the Catcher In The Rye in the sense that the 1rst person perspective of the character is so realistic that you feel like he is a real person. That is essentially the essence of the Catcher In The Rye. Of course, Catcher is a classic, but I think that I like Welsh's story even more. It is just as realistic and believable, but he has added so many other elements to it. I havn't read any other book like this before. You can find traces of Chuck Palahniuk in this book (as you can in Geek Love or any of the other books that inspired him). I seriously suspect that the idea of the virus clinics that Jack went to in Fight Club came from this book; I speak of the chapter entitled "Bad Blood" in Trainspotting.
In fact, I recomend that everybody reads the "Bad Blood" chapter of Trainspotting next time they are in a book store or library. It is an excelent example of how each chapter can be viewed as a short story, it shows some of Palahniuk's inspiration, and it gives you a good feel of Welsh's writing style and his amazing imagination. Also, the "Bad Blood" is from the perspective of Davie, who doesn't have as thick of an accent as a lot of the other characters, like Renton. Hence, the chapter is easier to read. The book has a slang dictionary in the back in case you get lost, but only about a 3rd of the words are in there. Don't worry though, you'll hardly notice the slang when you start reading it.
Another cool thing about the book is how all the bands they mention are on the level. Ones I can remember are: Iggy Pop (a lot of talk about Iggy), the Clash, the Fall, and the Pogues are some respectable ones I can think of off the top of my head. They also mention the unrespectable: Skrewdriver. They only mention Skrewdriver because they meet some nazi skinhead type though. I wonder if any of these bands are on the soundtracks. I would think so. I'll have to look into that, my dad has one of them, so I prolly will.
Anyways, Trainspotting is a really great book and I consider it one of my favorites now. I am definately going to read more of Welsh's books too, including Porno, which is a sequel to Trainspotting. I'll tell you how those turn out.
PS: For an example of the slang used in this book, I've started working on a slang converter which will translate your text into Trainspotting-esqe slang. Try it here.
It is a lot like the Catcher In The Rye in the sense that the 1rst person perspective of the character is so realistic that you feel like he is a real person. That is essentially the essence of the Catcher In The Rye. Of course, Catcher is a classic, but I think that I like Welsh's story even more. It is just as realistic and believable, but he has added so many other elements to it. I havn't read any other book like this before. You can find traces of Chuck Palahniuk in this book (as you can in Geek Love or any of the other books that inspired him). I seriously suspect that the idea of the virus clinics that Jack went to in Fight Club came from this book; I speak of the chapter entitled "Bad Blood" in Trainspotting.
In fact, I recomend that everybody reads the "Bad Blood" chapter of Trainspotting next time they are in a book store or library. It is an excelent example of how each chapter can be viewed as a short story, it shows some of Palahniuk's inspiration, and it gives you a good feel of Welsh's writing style and his amazing imagination. Also, the "Bad Blood" is from the perspective of Davie, who doesn't have as thick of an accent as a lot of the other characters, like Renton. Hence, the chapter is easier to read. The book has a slang dictionary in the back in case you get lost, but only about a 3rd of the words are in there. Don't worry though, you'll hardly notice the slang when you start reading it.
Another cool thing about the book is how all the bands they mention are on the level. Ones I can remember are: Iggy Pop (a lot of talk about Iggy), the Clash, the Fall, and the Pogues are some respectable ones I can think of off the top of my head. They also mention the unrespectable: Skrewdriver. They only mention Skrewdriver because they meet some nazi skinhead type though. I wonder if any of these bands are on the soundtracks. I would think so. I'll have to look into that, my dad has one of them, so I prolly will.
Anyways, Trainspotting is a really great book and I consider it one of my favorites now. I am definately going to read more of Welsh's books too, including Porno, which is a sequel to Trainspotting. I'll tell you how those turn out.
PS: For an example of the slang used in this book, I've started working on a slang converter which will translate your text into Trainspotting-esqe slang. Try it here.
Monday, June 28, 2004
Book Review: Dibs In Search Of Self
In my speed reading class we used this book called Dibs In Search Of Self to practice with. I finished it today. On the cover it is labeled as a "Child Therapy Classic". I guess you would find it in the Psychology section of a library. It was about this little 5 year old kid who was all messed up and never talked to anyone or did anything. He yelled at other kids at his preschool and such. The book is written by this doctor who used thearapy on him and cured him. I guess it was kind of interesting because by the end of the book he is completely normal. The best part about the book was the songs that Dibs made up. The were all about killing people with hammers and burning down buildings. That was pretty cool. I think I want to use some of those lyrics for a song of my own one day.
Movie Review: Freaks
Tod Browning's classic 1932 movie Freaks is (to my knowledge) rated X in the UK and banned in Ireland. It's controversial because Browning casted real freaks in to his film about a traveling circus freak act. Among the freaks are midgets, sword swallowers, a man with no bottom half, a man with only a torso and a head, a bearded woman, a half man half woman, a girl with no arms, siamese twins and a bunch of other strange looking characters. It is said by many to be the most disturbing movie ever made. I, however wasn't bothered by it, but it may be different from person to person. The first 45 minutes or so can be kind of slow, but after that it gets pretty interesting until it's just pure awesomeness. The tagline: Can a full grown woman truely love a midget? works, as the plot is of a woman tricking a wealthy midget into loving her and providing her with money. It's not just any midget either. The midget looks like he is about 4 years old, seriously, but he is really a full un-grown adult (not in picture). I would recommend seeing this movie, especially for the awesome ending.
4 stars
Movie Review: Day After Tomorrow (new)
My first words of warning are not to see this movie. It isn't horrible per se, but it isn't worth seeing. The main plot is pretty cheesy and is the same as a lot of other movies: somebody is trapped somewhere and a close friend or family member has to go on an extreme adventure to rescue them. The only good thing about this movie was the special effects. They were really realistic looking, but you can see that just by seeing the trailer for it. It isn't worth wasting money on just for the special effects.
2 1/2 stars
2 1/2 stars
Movie Review: Super Size Me (new*)
Super Size Me is a documentary on McDonald's food's effect on the human body. A man decides to eat McDonalds for each meal everyday for 30 days. Needless to say, this fucks him up. He has 3 different doctors to monitor his changes and he records everything with a camera. Also, he has a few rules, one being that if the workers ask him if he wants to "Super Size That", he has to. The first time he gets a supersized meal, it takes him about 30 minutes of pure eating and he it all up in the end. Of course, by the end of the 30 days, he is fatter (by 25 pounds), but what the doctors didn't expect was all the other problems his body got; such as kidney problems and high blood pressure. It was entertaining, it wasn't the greatest documentary, but it's probably as good as it gets as far as a movie on that simple idea goes.
3 1/2 stars
* Starting now, I am going to write "(new)" next to the movie review titles if they are new movies that are still in theatres.
3 1/2 stars
* Starting now, I am going to write "(new)" next to the movie review titles if they are new movies that are still in theatres.
Movie Review: Mullholand Dr
Mullholand Doctor was one of the weirdest movies I've ever seen. It made no sense at all to me, and I still don't understand where the "doctor" part comes from! It is about an aspiring actress who moves into a Hollywood apartment and meets a woman who doesn't know who she is ever since she got in a car crash. There is also a blue cube and a key they find for it. If that isn't enough, there is also the midget from Twin Peaks as well. There are a lot of random scenes and everything is just thrown together and I don't understand it in the slightest bit really. I saw it on the USA channel, so it was edited. Perhaps if I saw the full version it would make more sense. Either way, I need to see it again sometime. I am not going to rate it on account of not understanding it.
Sunday, June 27, 2004
Movie Review: Waking Life
I read the "plot outline" of Waking Life at IMDB; it summed it up so well that I decided to post it here.
A man in a dream state encounters many characters who, one by one, talk about their views on the meaning, perception, and reality of human existence.*
You are probably** thinking, "wait a second, that's pretty much the same plotline as Slacker". Well, you are right. It is pretty much the same plotline as Slacker. This is due to the fact that the director is the same. Waking Life could be viewed as a 'sequel' to Slacker, or an updated version. Because both movies are good and the director, Richard Linklater, is on the level, I don't mind the plotlines being similar. Linklater directed good movies such as Slacker, Waking Life, Tape, and if you like Suburbia(96), he directed that too. He also directed such mediocre movies as Dazed and Confused (which I don't understand why people like so much) and School of Rock. Linklater has also acted in a few movies. He played a small part in both Slacker and Waking Life, as well as Spy Kids and Beavis and Butt-Head Do America.
Waking Life is pretty weird, and sometimes random, but it makes a good emulation of a dream state. The movie is part animation and part real time... technicly it is 100% animated and 100% shot in real time, at the same time. This is because it looks as though the movie was shot, and then filtered and further animated on the computer. It gives the movie a really original realistic dream state look to it. It was pretty weird that the other night as I was starting to play this movie on my computer, I was similtaniously setting up my blog about dreams. This was before I even knew the movie was about dreams. Some parts of the movie were weird and made me feel like I was in a dream because the conversations they were having related so much to exactly what I had been thinking about; lucid dreams and what not. Also, I was impressed at being able to recognize the actors for a handful of the characters (who all played small parts, aside from the main character). The actors I recognized the voices of were: Nicky Katts, Ethan Hawk, Adam Goldberg, and finally, Linklater himself. For those of you playing at home, you can see if you recognize them as well!
4 stars
*This is to remind you to click the link when you are fininshed reading the whole blog. You don't want to click it right now do you!? I mean, that is, if you have only read the first few lines and jumped down here when you saw the footnote asterix thing. But, if you have already read the whole post, well go right ahead, click the link. (This was helpful in reminding you, you probably would have forgotten all about the link at the top by the end of reading the post. You are now officially reminded)
**Not really. Actually you probably havn't seen Slacker, or if you have, you didn't make the same connection.
A man in a dream state encounters many characters who, one by one, talk about their views on the meaning, perception, and reality of human existence.*
You are probably** thinking, "wait a second, that's pretty much the same plotline as Slacker". Well, you are right. It is pretty much the same plotline as Slacker. This is due to the fact that the director is the same. Waking Life could be viewed as a 'sequel' to Slacker, or an updated version. Because both movies are good and the director, Richard Linklater, is on the level, I don't mind the plotlines being similar. Linklater directed good movies such as Slacker, Waking Life, Tape, and if you like Suburbia(96), he directed that too. He also directed such mediocre movies as Dazed and Confused (which I don't understand why people like so much) and School of Rock. Linklater has also acted in a few movies. He played a small part in both Slacker and Waking Life, as well as Spy Kids and Beavis and Butt-Head Do America.
Waking Life is pretty weird, and sometimes random, but it makes a good emulation of a dream state. The movie is part animation and part real time... technicly it is 100% animated and 100% shot in real time, at the same time. This is because it looks as though the movie was shot, and then filtered and further animated on the computer. It gives the movie a really original realistic dream state look to it. It was pretty weird that the other night as I was starting to play this movie on my computer, I was similtaniously setting up my blog about dreams. This was before I even knew the movie was about dreams. Some parts of the movie were weird and made me feel like I was in a dream because the conversations they were having related so much to exactly what I had been thinking about; lucid dreams and what not. Also, I was impressed at being able to recognize the actors for a handful of the characters (who all played small parts, aside from the main character). The actors I recognized the voices of were: Nicky Katts, Ethan Hawk, Adam Goldberg, and finally, Linklater himself. For those of you playing at home, you can see if you recognize them as well!
4 stars
*This is to remind you to click the link when you are fininshed reading the whole blog. You don't want to click it right now do you!? I mean, that is, if you have only read the first few lines and jumped down here when you saw the footnote asterix thing. But, if you have already read the whole post, well go right ahead, click the link. (This was helpful in reminding you, you probably would have forgotten all about the link at the top by the end of reading the post. You are now officially reminded)
**Not really. Actually you probably havn't seen Slacker, or if you have, you didn't make the same connection.
Saturday, June 26, 2004
Movie Review: Fahrenheit 911
The problem I had with this movie was the matter of seeing it. Last night, the opening night, I went there to meet some friends and it was sold out; I bought a ticket for a showing that was a few hours later. I went back home, ate dinner, and drove all the way back out to century 24. I left over an hour before the movie started, drove around forever finding parking and finally got in a huge massive line once I got in the theatre. The line was big and it got much bigger when 45 minutes later when I was still in it. My friends finally arived and said that they had a spot in line about a dozen people ahead of my spot, so we went over there. Later, some kid gave us a balloon for "making it towards the front of the line" or something. A few minutes after that, security forced us to go to the very end of this now massively long line. That asshole kid waved when we walked to the back. He must have gave Jenny the balloon to show the security which people "cut in line". We decided we would never get any decent seats so we refunded our money and left. We tried to see if any other theatres were playing the movies, but only Century theatres were playing it (now that they ran Madstone out of business), and downtown would be even more packed. Eventually we just gave up. This was after spending so much time just trying to see the movie; and a lot of gas money back and forth.
Today, I decided to see a cheap matinea (sp?) showing of the movie so I went with Andrew at 3:15 pm at the century 24. Can you believe they charge full price for seeing a movie that early?? Decent, normal movie theatres only charge full price when its past 5 or 6. I would gladly go to another theatre over terrible century theatres, but they were the only ones playing it. We decided that one of us had to sneak in to even out the ticket price (as I suggest everyone do for all movies at century 24). Unfortunately, the theatre the movie was in was on the west south of the building and I only really knew how to sneak in the north wing. We both ended up paying full price. But at least now I know where to sneak in the south wing.
Moore did an impressive job explaining the Bush administration's crimes and the "war on terror". It starts out by showing the ties to Saudi Arabia that washington has. A lot of this I did not know about. I figured that Saudi Arabia was an allie because they provided American companies to suck up their resources and provide a strategic military base (the reason for many US allies). It turns out that it goes deeper than that. A lot of the movie has a lot of great footage of Bush being an idiot like usual. It's overall a pretty funny movie. I once saw this interview by Matt Lauer (sp? who cares) of Micheal Moore talking about his "controvercial new movie". Matt seemed to not be talking about the movie and what critics say as much as critisizing Moore and his beliefs himself. He was taking everything personaly, it seemed, and kept trying to pull fast ones on Moore. Lauer said "you say this movie isn't for political purposes, but when one watches it, it seems like that's all it is!". Matt doesn't have a difference in his mind about a documentury on the truth and a political trick. Moore, being smarter and more decent then Matt, then said "if I was trying to do something political, I would run for office. I make movies, so that's what I did." Matt, being the clever idiot, said "wait a second though. It appears that a lot of democrats helped market this movie... and here you are saying it isn't for political reasons". Moore then came back and made him look like some sort of idiot that only watches the Today show. Moore replied something like "If you knew anything about me and what I stand for, you'd know that I am vehemenantly against the Democrats because they have no spine and arn't anybody I think could handle a job in the white house." Moore didn't mention anything in the interview about his support of the green party, nor did he mention it in his film. Obviously, if you were making 'biased film' for your political party's gain, you would mention your political party in some way; praise them, show the audience how good they are... anything. But unfortunately for Matt, Moore's movie isn't a biased political trick. It is a comprehensively truthful angle of the Bush administration that has been on everybody's tongue, but nobody has yet come out and said something about it in the scale of Micheal Moore's Fahrenheit 911.
4 1/2 stars
Today, I decided to see a cheap matinea (sp?) showing of the movie so I went with Andrew at 3:15 pm at the century 24. Can you believe they charge full price for seeing a movie that early?? Decent, normal movie theatres only charge full price when its past 5 or 6. I would gladly go to another theatre over terrible century theatres, but they were the only ones playing it. We decided that one of us had to sneak in to even out the ticket price (as I suggest everyone do for all movies at century 24). Unfortunately, the theatre the movie was in was on the west south of the building and I only really knew how to sneak in the north wing. We both ended up paying full price. But at least now I know where to sneak in the south wing.
Moore did an impressive job explaining the Bush administration's crimes and the "war on terror". It starts out by showing the ties to Saudi Arabia that washington has. A lot of this I did not know about. I figured that Saudi Arabia was an allie because they provided American companies to suck up their resources and provide a strategic military base (the reason for many US allies). It turns out that it goes deeper than that. A lot of the movie has a lot of great footage of Bush being an idiot like usual. It's overall a pretty funny movie. I once saw this interview by Matt Lauer (sp? who cares) of Micheal Moore talking about his "controvercial new movie". Matt seemed to not be talking about the movie and what critics say as much as critisizing Moore and his beliefs himself. He was taking everything personaly, it seemed, and kept trying to pull fast ones on Moore. Lauer said "you say this movie isn't for political purposes, but when one watches it, it seems like that's all it is!". Matt doesn't have a difference in his mind about a documentury on the truth and a political trick. Moore, being smarter and more decent then Matt, then said "if I was trying to do something political, I would run for office. I make movies, so that's what I did." Matt, being the clever idiot, said "wait a second though. It appears that a lot of democrats helped market this movie... and here you are saying it isn't for political reasons". Moore then came back and made him look like some sort of idiot that only watches the Today show. Moore replied something like "If you knew anything about me and what I stand for, you'd know that I am vehemenantly against the Democrats because they have no spine and arn't anybody I think could handle a job in the white house." Moore didn't mention anything in the interview about his support of the green party, nor did he mention it in his film. Obviously, if you were making 'biased film' for your political party's gain, you would mention your political party in some way; praise them, show the audience how good they are... anything. But unfortunately for Matt, Moore's movie isn't a biased political trick. It is a comprehensively truthful angle of the Bush administration that has been on everybody's tongue, but nobody has yet come out and said something about it in the scale of Micheal Moore's Fahrenheit 911.
4 1/2 stars
Friday, June 25, 2004
A NEW BLOG! FALITLON
Fear And Loathing In The Land Of Nod, or FALITLON is my new blog I started a couple of days ago. It is made intirely for the purpose of posting dreams for all to read. Initially, this idea came about because I found out that if you write down all your dreams, you will soon be familiar with your dreamstate enough to be able to control them and have lucid dreams. Why not put them on a blog? There is only one dream right now, it is semi-long but it is pretty weird and funny. Also, these posts will not only be my dreams, I am in the process of enlisting just about anyone to be a member of the blog who wants to post dreams of theirs. In time, I hope it will turn out to be a huge archive of dreams.
The website address is www.falitlon.blogspot.com
Note: Since it just started yesterday or so, there is still work to be done on how the outlook of the site will be; it will look better and be organized soon.
(one of these days i'm going to get organazized...)
The website address is www.falitlon.blogspot.com
Note: Since it just started yesterday or so, there is still work to be done on how the outlook of the site will be; it will look better and be organized soon.
(one of these days i'm going to get organazized...)
Thursday, June 24, 2004
Tomorrow Is A Big Day
Tomorrow is a good day for people who like the same movies as me. This is because Fahrenhiet 911 comes out in theatres and Tod Browning's Freaks is playing on TCM.
Sunday, June 20, 2004
Reagan Is Dead, Who Cares?
Well, I don't, for one. People die every day, people are dying right now - and a lot of those people weren't assholes. Yet, there is no huge all out large festival to mourn their deaths. This man was one of the most ruthlessly capitalist presidents America has seen. Especially for his time. In fact, he is often refered to as creating a new path for the following presidents. You know, the path where you give corporations a ton of breaks and cut down on social programs and welfare. Oh yeah, plenty of military subsidaries, for good measure.
Reagan, no doubt, was big on that whole "trickle down economy" bullshit. I can't even begin to say how ridiculous it is that anybody buys that "trickle down" shit. They should just say "Hey, give us rich people more money! Trust us, it will be good". For those of you not familiar with the idea, it means that when you give the rich larger meals, it will benefit the everyone because the rich will have bigger table scraps they might want to give the poor. Of course, giving the poor larger meals just wouldn't make sense.
Reagan gave the OK to the whole corporate merger movement. Indeed 9 out of 10 of the biggest corporate mergers happened under his presidency. For those of you who don't see why corporate mergers are such a bad thing, well, what can I say but that you are blind and hopeless [;-)]. It would take too long to explain the whole thing.
Mr. Reagan also did cool things like throw away safety regulations and give corporations tax-funded research information. Yes, that means that when you paid taxes for "public research", it was really just going to corporations who didn't want to fund it themselves. The Reagan government was also the only member of the UN to vote against a reform on dumping hazerdous materials. The code was in reaction of studies showing the deaths of millions of 3rd world babies.
He also lead the new "War On Drugs" that we see working so well today... and not to mention how he "saved us" from the international communist conspiracy - The same conspiracy that turned out to be just that - A conspiracy, and a false one too. It's unfortunate that America can now point the finger at any nation in it's way of Imperialist Domination and say "Communist!" and tell the public that "there's still time, these people can still be stopped!". But the more things change, the more they stay the same, and the word "communist" (meaning any thing in the way of the capitalist greed machine) has now changed to "terrorist".
Also, speaking of terrorists, guess what other cool things Reagan did. To help fight the "communist comspiracy", he gave lots of money and weapons to these neat people called "islamic fundamentalists". He also aided this one awesome dude, maybe you've heard of him, "Osama Bin Laden". Needless to say, he was the president, therefore all these things he did were good things, don't question it, it's much more fun to celebrate him! That way you can have some cake and ice cream and forget about the hell he helped create for many people.
I was watching one of the eulogies of some rich old white man speak of Reagan's glorious life and he was talking about the good old times: He shared the memories with the audience that we can look back and laugh about, like the time he funded terrorists that later attacked and killed 3,000 americans on 911 and countless other acts of terrism commited on other parts of the world. HA! That Reagan! What a card! And that one time when he and his wife Nancy were vehemenantly against stem-cell research on moral grounds (even though church and state are seperate... right?) even though stem-cell research could seriously help many sick people such as people with Alzheimers! Man, that was funny. His wife still embraces his amazing sense of NOT being a complete hipocrite, by later doing an about-face and running to her friend Walker Bush because she suddenly realizes how many Americans should have the right to stem-cell reasearch. Of course, this had nothing to do with the fact that ol' Ronny himself developed Alzheimers... nope... purely coincidence.
To sum up, Reagan was a right wing bitch who radically expanded on the idealogy of giving corporations a blank check and sending the American citizens the bill. Given this information, I can't help but feel that he was more of a traitor than any "communist" could ever be.
Reagan, no doubt, was big on that whole "trickle down economy" bullshit. I can't even begin to say how ridiculous it is that anybody buys that "trickle down" shit. They should just say "Hey, give us rich people more money! Trust us, it will be good". For those of you not familiar with the idea, it means that when you give the rich larger meals, it will benefit the everyone because the rich will have bigger table scraps they might want to give the poor. Of course, giving the poor larger meals just wouldn't make sense.
Reagan gave the OK to the whole corporate merger movement. Indeed 9 out of 10 of the biggest corporate mergers happened under his presidency. For those of you who don't see why corporate mergers are such a bad thing, well, what can I say but that you are blind and hopeless [;-)]. It would take too long to explain the whole thing.
Mr. Reagan also did cool things like throw away safety regulations and give corporations tax-funded research information. Yes, that means that when you paid taxes for "public research", it was really just going to corporations who didn't want to fund it themselves. The Reagan government was also the only member of the UN to vote against a reform on dumping hazerdous materials. The code was in reaction of studies showing the deaths of millions of 3rd world babies.
He also lead the new "War On Drugs" that we see working so well today... and not to mention how he "saved us" from the international communist conspiracy - The same conspiracy that turned out to be just that - A conspiracy, and a false one too. It's unfortunate that America can now point the finger at any nation in it's way of Imperialist Domination and say "Communist!" and tell the public that "there's still time, these people can still be stopped!". But the more things change, the more they stay the same, and the word "communist" (meaning any thing in the way of the capitalist greed machine) has now changed to "terrorist".
Also, speaking of terrorists, guess what other cool things Reagan did. To help fight the "communist comspiracy", he gave lots of money and weapons to these neat people called "islamic fundamentalists". He also aided this one awesome dude, maybe you've heard of him, "Osama Bin Laden". Needless to say, he was the president, therefore all these things he did were good things, don't question it, it's much more fun to celebrate him! That way you can have some cake and ice cream and forget about the hell he helped create for many people.
I was watching one of the eulogies of some rich old white man speak of Reagan's glorious life and he was talking about the good old times: He shared the memories with the audience that we can look back and laugh about, like the time he funded terrorists that later attacked and killed 3,000 americans on 911 and countless other acts of terrism commited on other parts of the world. HA! That Reagan! What a card! And that one time when he and his wife Nancy were vehemenantly against stem-cell research on moral grounds (even though church and state are seperate... right?) even though stem-cell research could seriously help many sick people such as people with Alzheimers! Man, that was funny. His wife still embraces his amazing sense of NOT being a complete hipocrite, by later doing an about-face and running to her friend Walker Bush because she suddenly realizes how many Americans should have the right to stem-cell reasearch. Of course, this had nothing to do with the fact that ol' Ronny himself developed Alzheimers... nope... purely coincidence.
To sum up, Reagan was a right wing bitch who radically expanded on the idealogy of giving corporations a blank check and sending the American citizens the bill. Given this information, I can't help but feel that he was more of a traitor than any "communist" could ever be.
Thursday, June 17, 2004
Movie Review: True Romance
I forgot to rate this movie right after I first saw it, so it's kinda blurry in my mind. As I remember, True Romance was Quinten Terrintino's version of Taxi Driver. I say this because in both movies the main character takes on a pimp to try and free a hooker. True Romance goes farther with it than Taxi Driver did. What I mean is that True Romance is more focused on what happens after the scuffle with the pimp, as opposed to Taxi Driver which is more focused on what happens leading up to it. I'm sure this is Christian Slater's best movie, which would be followed by the Heathers. Brad Pitt was also in this movie in one of his most inspiring roles. He played the roomate who did nothing but constantly lay on the couch and smoke weed. There were about 2 scenes that he was in and neither of them really even required his character to exist. Did I say inspiring? I meant worthless. Aside from Pitt's cameo appearence, which was hyped up on the movie cover to appear as a main character, the movie was good. I would suggest you see it, especially if you are a fan of Terrintino, Taxi Driver or hookers.
4 stars
4 stars
Movie Review: Eyes Wide Shut
I finally saw Stanley Kubricks last movie, Eyes Wide Shut. I think Kubrick made his point that he started attempting to convey in A Clockwork Orange: He likes to have lots of naked women in his films. It's obvious that Stanley just wanted an excuse to see Nicole Kidman naked; making Eyes Wide Shut was the only possibly answer to his problem. The movie was slow at first, then it got pretty interesting, got slow again, then just rambled off in the movie equivalent of a confused mumble. I think the movie would have been a lot better if it was edited more. Not in a "too many boobies!" type of editing way (although that arguement could be attempted), but in general the film went on for way too long and could have had a lot of scenes taken out to speed things up. Also, it would have been a lot better if I understood why he went back to "Domino's" (the prostitute) house and tried to give her a gift and he met her roomate and a bunch of other stuff that I didn't see adding anything to the plot.
3 1/2 stars
3 1/2 stars
Book Review: Nickel & Dimed
I first read Nickel & Dimed in Mr. Ledoux's English class when I was a 10th grader. We read it as a class, but only read about half of it. I really liked it and this year I noticed it in a used book store so I picked it up. A couple of days ago I started reading it over again, all the way through this time. The book is written by Barbara Ehrenreich, who also wrote the forward for the new "Ralph Nader Reader". In the book, she decides to give herself 1,000$ to start out with as she temporarly throws herself into the entry-level work force. As she does various jobs such as cleaning and working at Wal-Mart in various places of the United States, she discovers that the working class doesn't have it as easy as one might think. One of her rules is to always goe for the cheapest living conditions and the highest paying jobs she can get with her (fake temporary) un-educated past. In doing this she finds that she can barely make ends meet. She is forced to look for further help in the form of shelter and food aid, which she finds aren't as helpful as she had hoped. In a survey, 94% of Americans felt that somebody with a full-time job should be able to provide for a family of 3. Unfortunately, 94% of Americans aren't getting thier wishes fulfilled.
I would recomend reading this book if you are interested in the subject... and I would especially recomend it to anyone who thinks that the minimum wage is enough to live decently on.
I am not rating this book because I have come to the conclusion that books can't be rated on a simple scale.
I would recomend reading this book if you are interested in the subject... and I would especially recomend it to anyone who thinks that the minimum wage is enough to live decently on.
I am not rating this book because I have come to the conclusion that books can't be rated on a simple scale.
Wednesday, June 16, 2004
Canadian Death Squads?
Today I was debating with a friend of mine who seems to view America as a great and noble nation, or something. Let's call her Ms. X. I was telling Ms. X about the various death squads in other nations that are paid for with our tax dollars tonight and she said "You don't see Canada do that though. Doesn't mean they don't". Meaning that Canada, in all likelyhood, commits the same crimes against humanity with their death squads. I view my research on this amusing: I did a Google Fight (a website that tells you which out of two searches finds more pages) between " 'united states' 'death squads' " and "canadian 'death squads' ". The winner was "united states death squads", unsurprisingly, with 44600 hits. "Canada death squads" had 17900 hits. This made me wonder what web pages could possibly come up under "canada death squads". I clicked the first website on the list and this was the heading of the article:
Demonstrators from Canada, Europe and from the many countries where the US Defense Department's “School of Assassins” has ravaged civilian populations demanded this training center to be shut down. People directed much attention to the ongoing civil war in Colombia. U.S. intervention in that country is expanding: billions of dollars in military aid as well as U.S. soldiers in combat operations against the popular forces.
Notice how it says "US Defense Department's “School of Assassins” " and not "Canadian Defense Department's “School of Assassins” ". So I looked on more... A few of the websites on the canadian death squad web page hit list just had plain nothing to do with Canada and sometimes not even with death squads. Indeed, more than any other type of web article in the list was the type of article explaining how terrible US funded death squads are. In no web page could I find any mention of a Canadian funded death squad.
Demonstrators from Canada, Europe and from the many countries where the US Defense Department's “School of Assassins” has ravaged civilian populations demanded this training center to be shut down. People directed much attention to the ongoing civil war in Colombia. U.S. intervention in that country is expanding: billions of dollars in military aid as well as U.S. soldiers in combat operations against the popular forces.
Notice how it says "US Defense Department's “School of Assassins” " and not "Canadian Defense Department's “School of Assassins” ". So I looked on more... A few of the websites on the canadian death squad web page hit list just had plain nothing to do with Canada and sometimes not even with death squads. Indeed, more than any other type of web article in the list was the type of article explaining how terrible US funded death squads are. In no web page could I find any mention of a Canadian funded death squad.
Movie Review: Slacker
As far as I know, Slacker doesn't have a plot. Oh and by the way, don't confuse this movie with "Slackers" with an 's' at the end. Cos Iv'e seen the cover of that movie and it looks terrible. Slacker is really cool though. I like it cos it's really different. The plot... if there is one... is of a camera following people around who have nothing to do with eachother. If the character being followed, for example, goes into a bar, the camera will end up moving over to somebody leaving the bar and shows what they end up doing until it moves on to another person. There are some really interesting types of people in this film. Mainly the characters are subversive and conspiracy theorist types. I thought it was really good, but if you really like plots, maybe you shouldn't see this one.
4 Stars
4 Stars
Things that should not be in food
Today I went to Dion's with Angelo and Colin. They pitched in 2$ and 3$ and I was left paying the extra 6$ or whatever... but this generousity comes back around you know, because I ended up finding an alien pubic hair on one of my first slice of pizza! That's not a good thing... but what's good is that I told Dion's about it and they gave me 8$. Of course, Angelo and Colin wanted in on the bling bling. And of course they didn't get any cos the pubic hair was on MY pizza! Mine! All mine!
A similar situation happened when I was in San Francisco a couple weeks ago: We were at a Wolf Gang Puck's restruant and my dad was eating his salad. I looked at it and pointed at this long slimy thing and said "is that a worm?" and he looked at it for a second and said "yes". Then he continued eating the salad (not the worm part though). I asked him "doesn't it bother you that there is a worm in your salad?" and he said "it would only bother me if there was half a worm in my salad". He refused to go up and take it back for a refund, so I said that I'd do it if I got to keep the money. I did it and they gave me a refund for all of the food.
Another time this year I was in Hobbs seeing my Grandmother and we ate at Furrs and there was a thing crawling in my jello. The lady who worked there said "it's just a peesh bug"
A similar situation happened when I was in San Francisco a couple weeks ago: We were at a Wolf Gang Puck's restruant and my dad was eating his salad. I looked at it and pointed at this long slimy thing and said "is that a worm?" and he looked at it for a second and said "yes". Then he continued eating the salad (not the worm part though). I asked him "doesn't it bother you that there is a worm in your salad?" and he said "it would only bother me if there was half a worm in my salad". He refused to go up and take it back for a refund, so I said that I'd do it if I got to keep the money. I did it and they gave me a refund for all of the food.
Another time this year I was in Hobbs seeing my Grandmother and we ate at Furrs and there was a thing crawling in my jello. The lady who worked there said "it's just a peesh bug"
Saturday, June 12, 2004
The Movie Is Called "Ironwood"
I play "Fired Co-Worker #2". It is an independant feature length film, they expect it to be finished by October. They will send me a copy when it is done... I will talk more about it soon, but I don't have much time right now. I've got to pack because I'm going to visit my grandma and will be back on Monday afternoon or so.
Monday, June 07, 2004
Full-Scale Simpsons Home
|
This is ridiculous. A full-scale exact replica of the Simpsons' house was made in Nevada, of all places. At the website you can take a virtual tour and see just about all the rooms in the house. Also you can watch videos of Matt Groening's reaction to it. I would definately live there. |
 |
Movie Review: Koyaanisqatsi
Koyaanisqatsi, pronounced coy-an-is-skot-zee, is a movie that is hard to describe, yet very simple. It is almost more of a piece of art than a movie. The name comes from the Hoppi language and means "life out of balance". I don't want to talk about it too much, because I think that you should just see it sometime to get a feel for what Koyaanisqatsi is. It has excellent photography in it... or would it be cinematography? It's hard to tell because a lot of the shots are still. None the less, the movie is great. A good way to think of it is how aliens would view humanity through quiet observement. The film makes you feel kind of weird at some points, sometimes even anxious, especially the ending which grabs you by the balls (or if you are female, then possibly by the boobs?). But I think the overall underlying message of the movie is clear: things look cooler when sped up.
4 1/2 stars
Sunday, June 06, 2004
Movie Review: Dead Presidents
Dead Presidents follows the Hughes brothers' first movie 'Menace II Society'. It is not a sequel to 'Menace', but it is not all that far from it. I thought 'Menace' was much better, but Dead Presidents was a good movie nonetheless. Dead Presidents is about a boy growing up in the sixties in a black slum where he learns street life and works for a criminal who runs billiards. The movie then jumps to him and his friends being sent to Vietnam. I personally had a problem with this part of the movie. It was kind of random and didn't fit in with the rest of the movie. I think the Hughes Brothers just wanted to see if they could direct war footage. The movie would have been better if they were sent to Vietnam, but it didn't show it. Eventually they come back and the boy is ready to start working for his former boss again. This is the part of the movie that everybody sees it for. The two come up with a team of other criminals and plan a heist that will make them rich. I won't tell you where it goes from there, you will just have to see it on your own. To sum up the movie is, as Luis once said, "really three movies in one": the boy grows in the black community, fighting in vietnam, and then the heist. Even with this in mind, the movie is still pretty good, though not nearly as good as 'Menace'.
4 stars
4 stars
Movie Review: The Big One
'The Big One' is Micheal Moore's second movie, the first being 'Roger and Me'. I definately liked the Big One more than Roger and Me, mainly because Roger and Me seems very repetative and everything that is said in it is summed up in the Big One. The movie follows Moore on his book tour for his book "Downsize This!". He goes to small unpopular hometowny cities instead of major cities that you would expect on a book tour. Along the way he finds corporate greed and various companies downsizing, shipping their factories to the 3rd world, when they have all time high profits. He goes to different companie headquarters and gives one company of each state the "Downsizer of the Year Award" signed by Micheal Moore. Often, this award comes with one of those huge snazzy checks that you usually see with Ed McMann. The check is for only a few cents and Moore gives it to the businessmen telling them that he is so proud of their business that he is offering to pay for the first hour of work done by the newly hired underpaid 14 year olds of the 3rd world. The movie has a lot of great moments and can be pretty funny at some points. I especially liked the footage in the end credits when Moore speaks with the owner of Nike. The Nike guy says "Well just watch, one of these days one of those people we pay 40 cents an hour in Indonesia will end up being your landlord", to which Moore responds, "...what does that mean?" It also has a really great advertisement for TWA airlines at the end of the movie... but you will just have to see it to know what it is. And I do suggest that you see this movie.
I am also really looking foward to Moore's very newest movie that comes out in theatres on June 25th. It is about the Bush administration, the patriot act, 911 and other bullshit we've been dealing with. His movie is called "Fahrenheit 9/11". Click the link to watch the trailer for it, it looks pretty interesting.
As for 'the Big One', I'll give it 4 stars.
I am also really looking foward to Moore's very newest movie that comes out in theatres on June 25th. It is about the Bush administration, the patriot act, 911 and other bullshit we've been dealing with. His movie is called "Fahrenheit 9/11". Click the link to watch the trailer for it, it looks pretty interesting.
As for 'the Big One', I'll give it 4 stars.
Saturday, June 05, 2004
New Essay: Abortion, A 'Moral' Issue
Abortion, A 'Moral' Issue
Maybe it's easier for me to not view them as an equal person because of a few reasons:
1. They have tails! You can't say that they look like us. Have you seen that monstrosity of a tail?
2. Their eyes are huge and dark black. Unless you are the bassist of Limp Bizcuit, this is not something to be proud of.
3. They have gills! GILLS! You know who have gills? FISH! You know who don't have gills? HUMANS!
Maybe it's easier for me to not view them as an equal person because of a few reasons:
1. They have tails! You can't say that they look like us. Have you seen that monstrosity of a tail?
2. Their eyes are huge and dark black. Unless you are the bassist of Limp Bizcuit, this is not something to be proud of.
3. They have gills! GILLS! You know who have gills? FISH! You know who don't have gills? HUMANS!
Homophobes Speak
This is the most ridiculous article. I suggest you read it for it's ridiculousness. It is about how gays should not be married because they are not heterosexuals. It keeps saying such things as "quit denying the truth!" and seems to constantly be saying 'gays are not heterosexuals!'. Which, I think we all can agree with; gays are definately not heterosexuals. It further goes on with a wonderful little paragraph about how "a duck is not a swan no matter how much it wants to be one". After awhile, the real reason why this person is against gay marriage comes out: religion. They say that they agree with the word of God and the bible that marriage is not for gay people. Way to rely on a book that has been scientifically proven wrong many times over. It was written, not by God, but by man. And this was long before people realized the world was actually round. The Bible, or word of God as you may call it, also says something about not eating animals with cloven hooves. But for some reason, you never see these people fighting for a law that bans all McDonalds restruants from being built. In fact, on top of that, McDonalds is just as responsible for "breaking up the family" as gays are. I made the following chart of numbers comparing the two below:
Families Broken Up By McDonalds: 0
Families Broken Up By Gays: 0
Families Broken Up By McDonalds: 0
Families Broken Up By Gays: 0
Movie Review: The Shining
It was many weeks ago when I saw the Shining, but I haven't remembered to review it till now. I have seen bits and pieces of the movie before, but never the whole thing. My dad told me that it was the scariest movie he could think of, which was one reason I watched it (also, because it's a ridiculously famous movie by Kubrick). I, however, didn't find it all that scary, but there aren't really many movies that you can call 'scary' it seems. It was a great movie none the less.
Like all Stephen King stories that I know of, the main character is a writer and the plot has something to do with childhood. In this case it was the writer's son, who possessed the ability to "shine". "Shining" is explained in the movie as the ability to read other people's thoughts and maybe even subconciously predict things. This may sound good and swell, but in reality it had nothing to do with the movie at all. Indeed, the movie could have rolled on just as graceously without all this business about "shining". Afterall, the movie was about a family living in a hotel when the father goes on a crazy murdorous rampage... not about "shining". I thought about why the story even had this in there in the first place, then I realized that without this special power, the scene where the kid subconciously writes 'Redrum' on the door would not make sense. It seems kind of dumb to have a super power thrown into a movie (and to name the movie after such power) just so you can have this one 'creepy' scene in the story. That was my main problem with it.
The directing, acting, setting and everything was really well done on the other hand. I really liked how the movie was put together. It seemed that it could have easily been directed by somebody else differently and been turned into a terrible movie (which has been done). The overall feeling you get from watching the movie is worth noting. I thought it was a great movie.
4 1/2 stars
Like all Stephen King stories that I know of, the main character is a writer and the plot has something to do with childhood. In this case it was the writer's son, who possessed the ability to "shine". "Shining" is explained in the movie as the ability to read other people's thoughts and maybe even subconciously predict things. This may sound good and swell, but in reality it had nothing to do with the movie at all. Indeed, the movie could have rolled on just as graceously without all this business about "shining". Afterall, the movie was about a family living in a hotel when the father goes on a crazy murdorous rampage... not about "shining". I thought about why the story even had this in there in the first place, then I realized that without this special power, the scene where the kid subconciously writes 'Redrum' on the door would not make sense. It seems kind of dumb to have a super power thrown into a movie (and to name the movie after such power) just so you can have this one 'creepy' scene in the story. That was my main problem with it.
The directing, acting, setting and everything was really well done on the other hand. I really liked how the movie was put together. It seemed that it could have easily been directed by somebody else differently and been turned into a terrible movie (which has been done). The overall feeling you get from watching the movie is worth noting. I thought it was a great movie.
4 1/2 stars
Book Review: Fear & Loathing
During my trip to San Francisco, I read another book called "Fear and Loathing". This is not to be confused with the book "Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas", or even "Fear and Loathing on The Campaign Trail", both by Dr. Hunter S. Thompson. Instead, this book is by Paul Perry. It is a biography of Hunter S. Thompson.
I don't think you could ask for a better biography of the man. It was very entertaining and very thorough. I told of stories of the likes of Hunter ariving at an airport with a gun and a snake, only to lose the snake and have it killed by the staff. Or when he did massive amounts of drugs with the Hell's Angels and Ken Kessey (author of 'One Flew Over The Cukoos Nest') at one of Kessey's many infamous acid kool-aid parties. However, the most interesting of stories usually involve his 'partner in crime', the amazing british artist Ralph Steadman (who has done art for such books as "Animal Party" by George Orwell).
The book shows the highs, the lows and the 'highs' of the life of Thompson. While I was reading it, I couldn't help but to wonder if there was anybody with a more exciting life. Presently, the Dr. Gonzo lives secluded in a cabin. Free to take some mescaline and shoot his many guns off at various gongs he has set up around the cabin. Or, if he needs to take a piss, he can always go in his outdoor toilet complete with a palm tree growing out of it. If anybody is as interested in the great Doctor as I am, I would definately suggest reading "Fear & Loathing".
9 Stars
I don't think you could ask for a better biography of the man. It was very entertaining and very thorough. I told of stories of the likes of Hunter ariving at an airport with a gun and a snake, only to lose the snake and have it killed by the staff. Or when he did massive amounts of drugs with the Hell's Angels and Ken Kessey (author of 'One Flew Over The Cukoos Nest') at one of Kessey's many infamous acid kool-aid parties. However, the most interesting of stories usually involve his 'partner in crime', the amazing british artist Ralph Steadman (who has done art for such books as "Animal Party" by George Orwell).
The book shows the highs, the lows and the 'highs' of the life of Thompson. While I was reading it, I couldn't help but to wonder if there was anybody with a more exciting life. Presently, the Dr. Gonzo lives secluded in a cabin. Free to take some mescaline and shoot his many guns off at various gongs he has set up around the cabin. Or, if he needs to take a piss, he can always go in his outdoor toilet complete with a palm tree growing out of it. If anybody is as interested in the great Doctor as I am, I would definately suggest reading "Fear & Loathing".
9 Stars
Book Review: Busted
While I was in San Francisco I found a book that really interested me. It was called "Rogue State" by William Blum. It was a farely new book, so I didn't figure that I'd be able to find it at a used book store (I however did buy about 7 other books I liked in used stores in the city). I had to go back to the hotel where my parents were to get some money for the book. When I came back to the store I had the book in hand and was ready to buy it when another book caught my eye. The book was called "Busted".
From the first reading of the description on the back and skimming through the insides, I knew I had to read it. I have been looking for a book on drug politics and the drug war for awhile, but gave up pretty much awhile ago. I have read "Why Marijuana Should Be Legal" (by leading Marijuana advocate Ed Rosenthal) and "Reefer Madness" (by Eric Schlosser), but no books I had found had seemed to deal with the big picture of drugs... until 'Busted'.
Busted is an amazingly comprehensive view of the drug war from many different views. It is a collection of dozens of articles and essays on the drug war, drug history, drug politics, drug stories, stories from addicts, police, dealers and so on. It is highly leaning to the critical side, but it manages to give many different views on the subject. It must have seemed obvious to the editor, Mike Gray, that there wasn't much need in telling the stories of why we should have a war on drugs and why drugs are bad, because we are constantly exposed to that side of the story every day by the news media. The book does, however, have such things as an article by the nation's drug czar, McCaffery, explaining how Marijuana is not harmless. Which is followed by an article that was written in spite of the lies and propaganda contained in the McCaffery article.
Anybody who wants to further escape the lies of drugs and the war on drugs, or simply learn more about drugs and drug politics in general, should read this very enlightening book that contridicts everything we are told.
A full 10 stars.
From the first reading of the description on the back and skimming through the insides, I knew I had to read it. I have been looking for a book on drug politics and the drug war for awhile, but gave up pretty much awhile ago. I have read "Why Marijuana Should Be Legal" (by leading Marijuana advocate Ed Rosenthal) and "Reefer Madness" (by Eric Schlosser), but no books I had found had seemed to deal with the big picture of drugs... until 'Busted'.
Busted is an amazingly comprehensive view of the drug war from many different views. It is a collection of dozens of articles and essays on the drug war, drug history, drug politics, drug stories, stories from addicts, police, dealers and so on. It is highly leaning to the critical side, but it manages to give many different views on the subject. It must have seemed obvious to the editor, Mike Gray, that there wasn't much need in telling the stories of why we should have a war on drugs and why drugs are bad, because we are constantly exposed to that side of the story every day by the news media. The book does, however, have such things as an article by the nation's drug czar, McCaffery, explaining how Marijuana is not harmless. Which is followed by an article that was written in spite of the lies and propaganda contained in the McCaffery article.
Anybody who wants to further escape the lies of drugs and the war on drugs, or simply learn more about drugs and drug politics in general, should read this very enlightening book that contridicts everything we are told.
A full 10 stars.
Movie/Book Review: Holes
During school I read and watched 'Holes'. I believed that both were pretty good works. The book, as usual, was better, but the movie did a good job in portraying the story. Mainly, I think that the story was good, not because of the directing, or the book's writing style, but just because it seemed like an original idea to me. All the holes everywhere in the desert, and the group of friends argueing and having to dig all the time was interesting, but it got even better as the different pasts and lives and fates started coming together to form a big picture.
Movie: 3 1/2 stars (out of 5)
Book: 7 1/2 stars (out of 10)
Movie: 3 1/2 stars (out of 5)
Book: 7 1/2 stars (out of 10)
Movie Review: Harry Potter (3) and the Prisoner...
Last night, the opening night, I saw the third Harry Potter movie. In my opinion, it is the best one so far. I like how in the anthology of the Harry Potter movies, the director is different every time. Yet, the overall Harry Potter feeling remains just as good and consistant. "The Prisoner of Azcalan" (or something) was directed really well and had lots of great special effects that were David Fincher-esqe. It is also worth mentioning that part of the movie has some time traveling in it, and I have to say that this movie was the only time-traveling movie that I approve of. Usually in time traveling movies, the plot makes up it's own time traveling laws which don't really make sense, but in this movie they thoroughly made sense and it was hella tyte. I would definately reccomend this movie to anyone, especially if you liked the other Harry Potter movies.
4 1/2 stars
4 1/2 stars
Thursday, June 03, 2004
Abortion: A 'Moral' Issue
Abortion: A 'Moral Issue'
by Grayson Kilmer
abortions are fun
article under construction
by Grayson Kilmer
abortions are fun
article under construction
Movie Review: The Last Party
Robert Downey Jr travels across the country vistiting both Democratic and Republican national conventions. He brings along his sense of humor and political views interviewing many residents of the areas he stops by. On top of that, he interviews such people as Oliver Stone, Spike Lee, Jerry Falwell, Sean Penn, Willie D of the Geto Boys and his own father. I was very impressed by Sean Penn's knowledge of politics and he said some interesting remarks. For example, when Downey asked him what some of the song titles of "the CIA's greatest hits record" would be, he cleverly remarked "well, firt off you would have 'the ballad of the bay of pigs'". The documentary also shows us the most frightening thing I've ever seen in a movie: Republican Conventions. Take a bunch of highly conservatives and christian fundamentalists, throw them in a room and give them all flags and balloons and have a party. It was very scary looking. There was footage of a group of neo-facists (as the Young Republicans are referred to in 'Igby Goes Down) teenagers chanting conservatice slogans and such. One of the teenage girls in the group was yelling "you look at MTV and see how they view politics. they don't show the right and the left! they show the left EVERY TIME!". I couldn't help thinking about how dissasterous of an effect this must have on our country. I know that FOX and CNN and ABC and Times magazine and all of those media sources are continually right-wing focused, but that doesn't mean shit because everybody knows that if you want to get your current political news you turn on MTV. The girl definately had a point.
Another great aspect of this movie is that Robert Downey Jr developes this great hopping technique in which he uses both his legs and his arms to hop off the ground up and down. He shows this talent off at the conventions, but nobody seems to be impressed. A lot of the movie's halarity isn't the type of humor that can be explained, or even makes sense... it's just funny.
The only problem I had was at the end of the movie, Robert Downey Sr (an apparent liberal) seemed to hint at it being a good thing that America had Bill Clinton. But, to be fair, this was only 1993 and the population that voted for Clinton had yet to see how bad he would screw them over and do everything he promised not to.
This movie was a tyte documentary. I wouldn't say it's better than Micheal Moore's style, but I think it was more interesting and probably funnier.
4 Stars
Another great aspect of this movie is that Robert Downey Jr developes this great hopping technique in which he uses both his legs and his arms to hop off the ground up and down. He shows this talent off at the conventions, but nobody seems to be impressed. A lot of the movie's halarity isn't the type of humor that can be explained, or even makes sense... it's just funny.
The only problem I had was at the end of the movie, Robert Downey Sr (an apparent liberal) seemed to hint at it being a good thing that America had Bill Clinton. But, to be fair, this was only 1993 and the population that voted for Clinton had yet to see how bad he would screw them over and do everything he promised not to.
This movie was a tyte documentary. I wouldn't say it's better than Micheal Moore's style, but I think it was more interesting and probably funnier.
4 Stars
Wednesday, June 02, 2004
New Essay: The Seperation of Peace and School
I wrote a new essay on my former teacher Geoff Barret and the 'Hannity and Colmes' show.
Here's the new essay!
Here's the new essay!
Democracy In Iraq?
The United States 'War On Terrorism' is such bullshit, of course, but I feel like talking about it even though everybody already knows it's wrong. They make it sound like every troop going over there is armed with a "Democracy for Dummies" book and all the Iraqis are like "what is this strange thing? Democracy? we don't understand! this is too advanced for our simple minds!". Then the news will have pundits basicly say "Iraqi people are like little children that need shots. They don't want to get them, but it's for their own good. We're going to take them through the process of democracy kicking and screaming, but in the end, they'll thank us." It's amazing how simple the news can wrap things up to be. Iraqi people are just as smart as Americans (they often attend our colleges), and if they don't want our form of democracy (aka another colony of ours where all our business' have control and the resources go straight to our country), then back off! Don't try to 'help' them if they don't even want help. It's also ridiculous that they say the purpose of intervention is for 'democracy'. If you have any knowledge of military interventions, you'll know that the United States is very opposed to democratic states. Actually, I take that back. It's alright to have a democracy, as long as it's capitalist and doesn't make any attempts to raise the bar on social reform, and the right leaders are in power... that is the definition of democracy to US planners: a capitalist system that heads to the United States, the IMF, the WTO, the World Bank and the overall capitalist order. Shit, you can have an oppressively violent dictator and they'll be referred to as 'democratic reformers' in the quest for democracy... as long as they meet the requirement for the 'new' definition of democracy. Now, if your democratic country does something evil and crazy like elect a leader that will spend more time and devotion to the people of the country than he does sucking up to the global capitalist system... well, he just might be assassinated. But it's only called assassination if you get caught*. Actually, not even then is it called assassination, it's usually called things like "great strides for democracy".
*Believe it or not, but the CIA doesn't try to be an well known violent connection of groups that kill innocent people with your tax dollars. They ARE obviosly all those things mentioned, but they don't try to be. The CIA manuals specifically explain that it's always best to make it look like an accident.
*Believe it or not, but the CIA doesn't try to be an well known violent connection of groups that kill innocent people with your tax dollars. They ARE obviosly all those things mentioned, but they don't try to be. The CIA manuals specifically explain that it's always best to make it look like an accident.
Tuesday, June 01, 2004
Cds From San Francisco
I bought a TON of cds while I was in Sanfrancisco. I took advantage of the fact that they have way cheaper used cds and way larger selections and tons of used cds stores. I bought a grand total of 30 cds exactly. It cost me a lot, but it's worth it in the long run since they were only like 7$ each or so, as compared to a new one which is like 17$. Here are all the cds I got:
999 - Punk Singles 77-80
999 - S/T
Adverts - Crossing The Red Sea With
Alice Donut - Mule
Beastie Boys - Ill Communication
Birthday Party - Prayers On Fire
Jello Biafra - Machine Gun In The Clown's Hand
Chris Rock - Roll With The New
Chris Rock - Bigger and Blacker
Clash - Give' Em Enough Rope
Damned - Grave Disorder (Advance Copy)
Gang Of Four - A Brief History Of The Twentieth Century
Magazine -
Mission Of Burma - On Off On (Advance Copy)
Mission Of Burma - Vs.
Primus - Tales From The Punch Bowl
Primus - Frizzle Fry
Primus - Antipop
Rudimentary Peni - Cacophony
Subhumans - Live In A Dive
Subhumans - 29:29 Split Vision
Stiff Little Fingers - Nobody's Heroes
That Dog - S/T
Television - Marquee Moon
Vibrators - Pure Mania
Von Bondies - Pawn Shoppe Heart
Wire - Chairs Missing
Various Artists - DRI Tribute
Various Artists - Kings Of Swing
Various Artists - Roots Of Swing N' Jive
999 - Punk Singles 77-80
999 - S/T
Adverts - Crossing The Red Sea With
Alice Donut - Mule
Beastie Boys - Ill Communication
Birthday Party - Prayers On Fire
Jello Biafra - Machine Gun In The Clown's Hand
Chris Rock - Roll With The New
Chris Rock - Bigger and Blacker
Clash - Give' Em Enough Rope
Damned - Grave Disorder (Advance Copy)
Gang Of Four - A Brief History Of The Twentieth Century
Magazine -
Mission Of Burma - On Off On (Advance Copy)
Mission Of Burma - Vs.
Primus - Tales From The Punch Bowl
Primus - Frizzle Fry
Primus - Antipop
Rudimentary Peni - Cacophony
Subhumans - Live In A Dive
Subhumans - 29:29 Split Vision
Stiff Little Fingers - Nobody's Heroes
That Dog - S/T
Television - Marquee Moon
Vibrators - Pure Mania
Von Bondies - Pawn Shoppe Heart
Wire - Chairs Missing
Various Artists - DRI Tribute
Various Artists - Kings Of Swing
Various Artists - Roots Of Swing N' Jive
I hate PCs
I hate PCs! Windows type computers. They suck. You can never just play a game you installed from a year ago, for example, because... well, I dunno why, but for some reason the only way you can play a computer game on Windows is if the game and the computer just purchased that same day. It will work for about a week or so, but if you don't pay close attention to it, something will get messed up in Windows and you'll never be able to play it again. It happens so many times!! Macs never pull shit like that.
Movie Review: Tank Girl
I think 'Tank Girl' is easily one of the worst movies I've ever seen. It has the feeling of a made for TV Disney channel movie, but it's not nearly as good. It's about this girl who is a rebel in a future earth where water is scarce. She is the stupidest girl and is very very annoying. She is like this tiny weird little girl thats all excited and ditzy and dumb about everything and won't shut up! The acting and plot and set and... everything in the movie is off the level. A perfect way to describe the movie would be a cheesy porno flick with all the sex scenes cut out and pictures of comic book strips shown in their place. Another way to describe it would be a cheesy 'No Doubt' music video that is drawn out for a whole hour and 15 minutes or whatever. I really can't understand why this is even a movie. I'm giving it the lowest possible rating of 1 lonely star out of 5.
Iraqi Beastie Boys Song
I did some thorough digging on the internet and downloaded that 2004 released left wing Beastie Boys song that isn't on any cd. The song is about Iraq and the war on terrorism. Sounds like a cool song huh? Well it isn't... it was pretty shitty. It's lyrics are about Iraq and they aren't bad, but the song just was off the level. Not nearly as good as the Beastie Boys we all know and love. Maybe political songs and Beastie Boys just don't mix... maybe they are only good in their normal goofy mode. The only good politicaly influenced song I know by them wasn't even hardly about politics and was more just random and goofy. I speak of 'Sabotage', which was about the Watergate scandal. Didn't know that?... well I told you it was hardly about politics.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)