Quote of the Day [3.20.12]
“I’m fascinated how a person’s sense of consciousness can be… so transformed by nothing more magical than listening to words. Mere words.”
Jose Chung (Charles Nelson Reilly), The X-Files, “Jose Chung’s ‘From Outer Space'”
This Means War
This Means War came out around Valentine’s Day. I only got to watching it today, and while watching, I can see the trappings of why it was released as such. You have lots of action: things blowing up good, guns a’popping, and fists and punches thrown. That would bring in the male demographics. The fact that the men doing the action are the pretty boys, Chris Pine and Tom Hardy, would also bring in the ladies. The female demographic can also settle for it being some kind of love/relationship story. The marketing threads are so apparent for this movie that it is no wonder that they went for the bang on Valentine’s day.
The movie as much as it was marketed for the ladies spends much of the time with Pine and Hardy. They’re good buddies in the CIA after the deadly Jonas Brothers. After a botched (incompetent) opening, one of the Jonas Brothers was dead and the surviving one has vowed revenge. He’ll be important as the third part will have to resolve this part of the story.
Pine and Hardy after that incompetent opening are desk bound. They’re left to wonder about what to do. The slack in the story allows Hardy to go all emo and Pine to go all debonair. Hardy has a kid and an ex who doesn’t want a wimp as a lover. Pine has his fun chasing women. What he doesn’t have is a copy of the bro code. Hardy starts web dating and meets up with Reese Witherspoon’s character. She, as all female leads in rom-coms, is a successful entrepreneur who isn’t successful in her love life and has to rely on her wacky female friend to put up an entry in the internet dating site. Witherspoon and Hardy meet and hit it off, but soon after Pine bumps into her trying the pick her up. She goes out with both.
Pine, no matter how close he’s to Hardy, goes against the bro code once it is revealed that they’re now dating the same girl. He doesn’t yield to Hardy’s emo. He doesn’t respect his buddies choices. Instead he lets his girl-getting ego take over and challenges Hardy to her. Then they both end up using government assets to spy on each other to slow the other’s progress with Reese. Bro code be damned!
Nothing good will come out of a marketing driven movie. I can see all that they threw to attract both males and females to this movie. I couldn’t take it serious. This was a product meant to attract the most movie goers. It’s just that. Guns and love. Everything is nothing.
2 of 5 stars.
Link of the Day [3.15.12]
Is that how the show began? I knew that Jeff was after Britta, but didn't know that the Study Group started as a means to get with her. I started watching at the episode wherein they show Annie enrolled in Greendale to follow Troy.Anyhow, Community is back tonight. You can bet that I'll be there. Or at least time shifted on my DVR or downloaded tomorrow from iTunes or watching next week on Hulu. http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2012/03/15/britta_on_community_why_the_gillian_jacobs
_character_is_confusing_the_show_s_writers.html
Project X
I’ve whooped it up at a couple of epic parties like the idiots in Project X. The best one was the 10th Floor around the world party at The U my freshman year. The one that ended up like the house in the movie was another around the world party at The U in my junior year when we demolished our floor and got our RA fired from a job he hadn’t even started yet. Epic parties — you can only handle a few in your life, but if you have an epic party be careful with it and don’t let the party get out of bounds like the one in the movie.
The movie purports to be a chronicle of some geek’s buddies making his 17th birthday day legen— wait for it — dary. The mastermind is an obnoxious New York transplant who keeps complaining about not getting girls like he did in NYC, but you find that hard to believe from a guy hanging out with those losers. There’s the chubby guy who is McLovin’ but not as dorky. Then there’s the birthday boy (I don’t remember any names) who agrees to a smallish party which escalates and escalates until it became legen– wait for it — dary.
One last part of the group was the birthday boy’s childhood friend that was a girl. You know that they should hook up, but childhood friends shouldn’t be a couple. Thought they remind of the anime trope of childhood friend. It could happen. It will happen. That’s how they make this movie not as obnoxious; someone learns something in the end.
The party was epic. If it had been real, it would’ve been truly insane. Hundreds of people. One small neighborhood. Tons of booze. Tons of drugs. Girls. Girls. Girls. A pool. Two DJs. A bouncy castle. A dog. Boobies. High school boobies. Middle school security guards. A taser. Hapless neighbors. Angry drug dealer. A gnome. All of it contributes to the insanity.
I don’t know whether to be scared of how crazy dumb that generation is or to be jealous of not getting to experience anything like that in my crazy dumb days. I missed the boobies.
One thing I noticed is that even though there was beer, liquor, sex, and drugs there were no cigarettes. NO SMOKING! In all that mayhem, there was not one cigarette onscreen. And if there was I missed it.
2 of 5 stars.
Adventures From My Netflix Queue: Cashback
One of the first movies I bought off of iTunes was an Oscar nominée for short live action film of 2006, Cashback. While it didn’t win the Oscar, it became fixture on my iPhone for the simple fact that for a long time it was the only movie I had. Not until I figured out how to rip anime torrents did I have something else to watch.
I’ve watched the short film many times, and when I got Netflix I noticed that there was a full length feature similarly titled. How could I not notice. That damn one sheet with the topless girl on it kept popping up as a Netflix recommendation. I wasn’t so sure that it was the same movie, but I eventually added it to my queue. After several months it has finally popped to the front.
Cashback, the feature, expands on the story from the short. Ben Willis is working the night shift at the local grocery. He’s working his way through art college. It gives him the opportunity to stop time and draw the lady patrons naked. But it wasn’t all that. The back story included his breakup with his girlfriend, causing him insomnia, forcing him to take the night job to keep from being up all night, and falling in love with his co-worker.
Yup. It was a love story.
It was also a story about the work place. His supermarket was filled with the standard characters — an extreme stunt biker, the biker’s obnoxious hanger on, and the manager a la Michael Scott except into football. While he doesn’t hate his work or co-workers his passion for art makes him an outsider. He’s got ambition and while he gets over his breakup, he’ll make some money at work.
That’s about it. I really don’t have much to say except for boobies. Yeah, it wasn’t so bad as a film, but it really didn’t go beyond the short. I think that it could’ve been better if it focused more on his time stopping power. But it did have a wonderful moment: after being caught kissing his ex by his co-worker, whom he likes, he spends days in stop motion time trying to figure out how to win her back. All he knows is that he has to get her back, because he loves her. He shows it in an art show which I found somewhat creepy, but I don’t know – do girls dig that? Well, at least it had that moment in the movie.
One last note, did Trainspotting influence every British movie or what?
3 of 5 stars.
Link of the Day [3.12.12]
I bet we won’t have to worry about checking this site too often because the answer may be no.
That’s the “half empty” me talking, but every spring hope does spring eternal.
You, sir, are no chef
I’ve had some of the dashi I made for ramen taking up space in my freezer for a few months now. I also have a ton of shiro miso in the cupboard. I think I’ll make some miso soup. How hard can that be?
First, I thaw out the last of the dashi and get it boiling on the stove. It’s about a cup and half of dashi. I then decide that I should put some vegetables in the soup, so I slice up a carrot and throw it in the boiling dashi. I cook this for a few more minutes. In a moment of stupidity, I decide to throw some wakame seaweed in as well. After all, most of the miso soup served at your garden variety Japanese restaurant is contains wakame (and tofu). Then comes the miso. Just 1 tablespoon. I let this cook for another few minutes then plate and serve.
Blecc! I can only get throw a couple of spoonfuls before I throw it all away in disgust.
First of all it is too salty. I always thought it was 1 tablespoon per cup, but now I know that it should be less. The dashi probably adds to the salt as well. As far as the carrots and wakame go, they don’t do so well together. I should stick to the tried and true wakame and tofu recipe or maybe find some other vegetables that would work with carrots. What’s scaring me is that I had some sardines staring me in the face and I wanted to add it to the mix.
All my attempts at Japanese cooking needs more research.
Moe Bear-tan
Once more with a lame and meager blog post. Spinning wheels here with nothing interesting to say. So here’s a nice screencap from Amagami SS+ anime currently showing in Japan. It’s a pretty ridiculous show. It’s kind of hard to describe if you don’t want to know about it. I’m posting it for my own benefit.