OMG did you guys know there’s Mangosteen Juice now? I totally freaked out about it when my mom brought this home today. Peel Fresh you have really outdone yourselves. As a lifelong juice-addict, I commend you kind sirs for pushing the juice-envelope.
I’m sure many of you have heard the news story about the man that was randomly stabbed, beheaded and partially eaten on a bus in Canada. As horrific as that was, the exploitation of his death by certain groups lately may be even more revolting.
Firstly this ad by those herbivorous assholes at PETA is just plain ridiculous. The ad equates McLean’s slaughter and cannibalization on that bus to the plight of farm animals. I think many of us have grown supremely weary of their shock tactics but this just goes too far. Now in theory, I’m very much on board with PETA’s values and philosophy. In practice, I despise the fuck out of them. These kinds of shock tactics does nothing to further your cause and just alienates the general public. Yes, I agree animals should be treated ethically and humanely, but don’t you think humans should be afforded the same courtesy too? My patience with PETA is really limited so I’ll just end this here.
You think that’s bad, well the Westboro Baptist Church will open your eyes to a level of insensitivity that PETA can only dream of. Yes folks, these wackjobs are at it again and this time they’re going international! The Phelps clan will be travelling all the way north to Canada to picket McLean’s funeral. From what I can gather from this article, it appears God may have killed McLean via Hannibal-wannabe for his sin of being Canadian. Which is actually a little funny, you got to admit. Apparently gay marriage is legal in Canada so that’s why McLean and his “rebel” Canadianism deserve to burn in hell. Of course this is hardly the worst thing they’ve ever done. From picketing random funerals of soldiers and celebrities to calling the young girls who were murdered in the Amish school shooting “whores” who now were “burning in hell” these guys are a work of art.
Sometimes we really have to look at stuff like this and just mock the absurdity of it. To really contemplate it is to lose all faith in humanity, which is really something I’m not prepared to do.
So what’s this I hear about full frontal Mary Louise Parker nudity this week and Mary Louise Parker graphically getting spanked last week? Dammit Jenji Kohan, I swore I would stop watching Weeds after the crap that was season 3. It seems you’ve found a way to bring me back. Yes, I’m downloading all the season 4 episodes as I type this.
There seems to be a new breed of The Daily Show and The Colbert Report audience that distresses me. I got back to semi-regular watching recently and these new fans act and sound like trained seals. They all seem like brainwashed sheep liberals. They hoot and holler at anything, even the stupidest nonsensical insults aimed at Bush or McCain. Take the August 5th Daily Show for instance. They actually cheered when Jon mentioned that Bush Jr. was the most travelled president in US history like that was some sort of great critique of the man. Um, what? Or the audience refusing to laugh multiple times when Jon makes fun of the contradictory things that Obama says sometimes. I mean come on people, you’re making the rest of us look dumb doing this.
I’ve noticed several times Stewart and Colbert looking stunned at the blind almost Pavlovian laughing/booing their audiences does at times. I remember the old-school fans used to call out Jon and Stephen when they were full of shit and this made the show smarter as a result. The writers knew they could never get away writing lazy jokes. If the satire wasn’t sharp enough we would say so. So if many old-school fans complain that TDS and TCR have gotten less funny lately, blame it on the easier audience with lower standards.
It’s like during this election cycle many left-leaning people have lost all sense of critical thinking. And allow me to get macro for a sec, there are way too many stupid hipsters supporting Obama who are not in anyway informed on any issue at all. The prevailing thinking is, “Oh, he’s a Democrat ergo he’s awesome.” WTF people! It’s up to you guys to push your candidate to be better not to glorify him as is. You know this happens when Obama volunteers kick out Muslim women from his rallies because it might look bad. When Obama clarifies that he is not a Muslim, don’t just say, “Oh, those stupid rednecks think he’s Muslim cos he’s black. LOL.” What you should have said was, “Okay, he’s not Muslim. But even if he was so what? Does being a Muslim make him a bad person?”
Disney is practically synonymous with family friendly wholesome entertainment. Many critics have pointed out things like the company’s subliminal messages or the large homosexual percentage of its employees as evidence of its subversive nature. Of course such complaints are so trivial and so obviously grasping at straws that I pretty much call them bullshit. However there is a little thing about Disney that always perplexed me and which no one seems to mention at all: What’s up with all the dead parents?
If you think about it, nearly all Disney cartoons feature some sort of parental death and in half of these cases, the protagonists are either orphaned or abandoned. I’m not quite sure what’s up though I don’t think Disney has anything against parents per se. Still it’s pretty startling when you list down all the Disney movies with dead parents. By the way, this was researched casually (via quick Wikis) or through memory so forgive me if I left anything out.
Aladdin - single father Bambi - mother dies Beauty and the Beast - single father Cinderella - both parents dead Dumbo - single mother Finding Nemo – single father The Hunchback of Notre Dame – mother dies The Jungle Book - presumable dead parents Lion King – father dies Little Mermaid - single father Lilo & Stitch - both parents dead Peter Pan - legions of parentless children Tarzan - both parents dead
Now, Hercules and Sleeping Beauty feature instances where the parents do abandon their child but in these cases, it is for their child’s own protection. Even so, it does kind of exemplify albeit to a lesser extent, Disney’s disregard for the nuclear family.
As you can see it is rather odd but I really don’t think this is in any way an attempt to devalue the family unit on Disney’s part. I think this is more a case of formulaic stories and short-cut (lazy) writing. Firstly having one or more dead parents generates easy sympathy. It gives characters more opportunities to look forlorn and sing weepy musical numbers. Secondly, it allows the characters to go on fun (dangerous) adventures which their parents if they were alive would never have allowed. And finally, these movies are escapism. It not only allows kids to be kids, but adults to be kids as well. Not having an adult point-of-view or representation in these movies allows for the parents in the audience to shed their concerns as responsible adults for a while and go along with the story as if they were kids themselves.
In fact one may argue all these dead parents serves to highlight the importance of family. Their happy childhoods are forcibly taken away from them and so the central characters (as well as the kiddie demo) learn the value of family and not to take their parents for granted. At the same time, the lack of parents allows the protagonists to learn independence away from parents, which is an accelerated growing up process so to speak. Eventually when these characters do grow up they create their happy homes and families with their spouses to compensate for their miserable childhoods. Isn’t that the happily ever after ending we all want?
“ It’s (The X-Files film) had a bit of a rough time in the States. It’s opening against one of the highest grossing movies, Batman. People in the States are so used to lots of CGI (computer-generated imagery), action and sex and we don’t really offer a lot of that in this film. ”
Gillian Anderson blames The Dark Knight for the X-Files’ poor box office. Yes, because the The Dark Knight was filled to the brim with sex and CGI. *rolls eyes* You know what else would help with your box office takings? I dunno, maybe try making a movie that doesn’t suck and completely disillusion your fanbase? Just a thought.
I have nothing but effusive praise for Generation Kill. From it’s verisimilitude potrayal and vebatim vernacular of it’s Marine protagonists, it is by far the best depiction of a non-fiction book I have ever encountered.
I got fined $200 today under Section 17(1)(A) of the Environmental Public Health Act. Which, in layman’s terms means that I was a being dumbass and threw a cigarette butt away in front of NEA narcs. Being an exclusively social smoker now, this makes it even more retardedly unlucky. Sophian, who offered me the stick btw, didn’t get fined because he was still smoking at the time. Not that I blame you dude but, urgh!
Shannon (an old friend from Poly we bumped into) got fined too, so uhm, sorry dude. Shannon wouldn’t even have been there if we hadn’t bumped into each other just a few minutes earlier. This is so stupid because we’re usually so carfeul about this shit. Oh well, there goes the last of my savings.
If you’ve ever had a conversation with me you’ll know that no matter how it starts out, it will always degenerate into a discussion of random pop culture esoterica that inevitably leads to: “Hey let’s go Wikipedia shit and settle this!” Topics covered during lunch today with my cousins included:
Why do people find it so hard to beat Chucky in movies since he’s literally the size/height/weight of a doll?
Mutual agreement that the unnamed fictional city in Se7en is actually Gotham City.
Amazement when I revealed that Robert DeNiro auditioned to play Sonny Corleone in The Godfather. Thank you Godfather DVD extras!
Jonathan Nolan writing Terminator Salvation.
Who would win in a fight between Yogi Bear and Winnie the Pooh? Yogi duh. He is smarter than your average bear.
Me explaining why Iron Giant was superior to Brad Bird’s Pixar movies. Why the fuck has no one seen The Iron Giant btw?
