How to Make a Fat Guy Lose Weight or The Most Elaborate Weight Loss Scheme Since That Asshole from Subway Ate a Bunch of Shitty Sandwiches and Didn't Stop Telling Everyone About it for a Decade

Rarely do I find a middle ground with movies because even with an alright movie, I'll find one aspect of it that I dislike and tend to focus on it. But a movie that has recently tread that ground is The Green Hornet. Sometimes mediocre films like this end up being less enjoyable than a really bad one. A horrible movie usually yields a mild amount of laughter or in some cases it becomes more humorous than a decent comedy (eg. Troll 2). Fortunately, this movie is so inoffensive in its banality that you couldn't possibly hate it.

The movie focuses on Britt Reid (Seth Rogen), a twenty-something bachelor who spends his time partying and not contributing to society. His father is the owner of a newspaper and is not impressed with his son's lack of direction. Britt must take over the business when he finds out his father has died, which ultimately causes him to become a freedom fighter/anti-hero/guy with a cool suit. By this point you've probably clued in to the fact that I've just described the plot to every "superhero" movie ever. The only difference being that Britt and his partner/father's mechanic/crazy, coffee-making, gadget-inventing, shit-kicking martial artist Kato (Jay Chou) decided to portray themselves as the bad guys so that they don't attract as much attention, a concept that is obliterated by Britt approximately three minutes later.

So it should be obvious that this is a very by-the-numbers kind of movie. Seth Rogen and director Michel Gondry (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind) clearly tried their hardest to keep this movie interesting, and although it may be formulaic it rarely felt boring. Christolph Waltz (Inglourious Basterds) manages to steal every scene he's in as the haplessly named villain, Chudnofsky. His lack of confidence in his ability to appear frightening is actually one of the funniest traits of a comedic villain in a long while. Cameron Diaz plays the love interest who isn't actually interested, and is over all a pretty boring and under-developed character. She's necessary to the story, so it's unfortunate that she was so bland.

 

 

U SCARED BRO?

The 3D is prevalent for twenty minutes and then after that I can only assume that whoever worked on it said "Fuck it" and skipped to the credits, which are by far the best 3D visuals in the whole movie. As cool as it may be, having stylized credits jump out at you is pretty useless, and probably not worth the money they spent on it. This movie will be held on a shiny pedastal as a golden example of how not to convert a movie to 3D.

The Green Hornet has some good action scenes, a few laughs, terrible 3D and not much else. Its story is formulaic and the ending is anti-climactic, but you can tell that everyone involved put forth their best effort. Although they failed to make something unique like they had sought to, the difference between this and a mediocre movie that the industry has churned out for a quick buck is that this movie, with all of its flaws, has a heart, while "Forgettable Hollywood Trash Cube 4" has a soul-sucking, brain-draining black hole.

How to Hippy Hippy Forward Hippy Hippy Hippy Hippy Hippy Shake

After many years of enjoying "Rock Lobster" by the B-52s, I finally decided to give their self-titled album a shot. I was expecting a decent album that I would listen to once or perhaps twice and then forget about it, but what I got was an immensely enjoyable, fantastically weird album that I've listened to more than ten times.

The album opens with "Planet Claire", which does a great job of building the atmosphere for the rest of the album.  The main riff chugs along for some time before the vocals arrive, and that's fine by me, I think vocals hold too much importance in music for some people. But if an album could change my opinion on them, this would be the one. Fred Schneider, Kate Pierson, and Cindy Wilson all share vocal duties, and each one of them could hold the album up on their own. Cindy Wilson holds nothing back as she unabashedly screams her vocals in a manner that will give you chills.

My favourite trio of songs begins with "Dance This Mess Around", which features everything that makes this album the gem that it is, and those things are weird lyrics, funky bass, females screaming, and a toy piano. Next is "Rock Lobster", which is possibly the best song I've ever heard about rocks that aren't actually rocks, but are crustaceans. If you can find me a weirder single in mainstream music I will give you five dollars. Seriously. Then we have the song "Lava" which is laden with cleverly worded sexual innuendos involving volcanoes. If this song doesn't get your blood flowing, then I recommend you go see a doctor, because you might be a fossil. Also, I want to mention that 6060-842 (read: 606-0842) is a song about finding a number written on a door (technically a bathroom stall) and it was done three years before that unfairly catchy song by Tommy Tutone Brungus.

This album makes me long for summer, with its surf rock influenced riffs and generally upbeat sound. I recommend this to anybody looking for something unique to listen to, it is a truly weird album and I say that in the best way possible. (It's not the weirdest album ever; it isn't even the weirdest of the year. That has to go to Fear of Music by Talking Heads.) To end this I'm just going to leave behind a few of the wonderfully odd lyrics that this album has to offer.

"Planet Claire has pink air,
All the trees are red
No one ever dies there
No one has a head"

"They do all 16 dances
Do the Coo-ca-choo
Do the Aqua-velva
Do the Dirty Dog
Do the Escalator"

"My love's eruptin' like a red hot volcano
Fire, oh volcano, over you
I gotta lotta lava love locked up inside me"

"If you're lucky you get to ride in a gold meteorite
If you're not, you get a mouth, a mouthful of red Kryptonite"

amidoinitrite?

How to Make Your Ass Numb for the Rest of the Day

Today, I'm going to rant about Strathcona County Transit and busses in general. Now you may be saying, "Dezi, it's winter, give them a break" or "Dezi, stop complaining and get your head out of your ass". Well that's no excuse and I like it there just fine, respectively. I ride the bus to NAIT about three times a week, and ride it back almost every day. Since the start of the semester last week, something has gone wrong each time I rode it to school. I shall document these for you now:

Monday, January 10th 2011

Last semester, the driver of the seven o'clock bus tended to show up at least ten minutes before seven, so that everyone waiting outside didn't have to freeze their ass off. On this day there was a new driver, who decided to show up with about a minute to spare before departure time. This day was pretty reasonable in comparison to the following few days, but annoying nonetheless. The bus has to climb that large hill to get downtown, which is no problem for the majority of drivers, but this driver approached the hill with the same confidence and raw determination that pandas put into fucking. A pathetic display indeed.

At the top of the hill, I started to think about what would happen if the bus actually crashed. We'd easily survive a head-on collision with another vehicle, but I'm not so sure how we'd do if the bus were to lose its traction and roll all the way down, bodies slamming against each side upon gravity's command. On these coach busses that they use in the morning, the windows are really big and I've never seen an emergency exit. I could probably smash my way through if I had to. But if the bus landed sideways on my side, then I'd have no problem ramming through everyone on there to get off the bus first. That's how most assholes exit the bus normally, but I'm smart and save all my asshole passes for when I need them, such as a big ticket event like this. As I began to revel in my moral justification, the bus made it to the top of the hill without so much as a single person being violently tossed against a window. And with the possibility of death no longer prevalent, I fell asleep.

The face of evil.

Wednesday, January 12th 2011

I can't recall how cold it was on this day, but it must've been around -25. It was cold enough for me to wear a jacket, and anyone who knows me well is aware that it has got to be cold enough to freeze piss mid-stream before I whip it out (Er... the jacket that is). This time I'm expecting the bus to be late, so my expectations were set pretty low. After waiting for a while, I couldn't feel my toes, which is the point where I will morph into an uninhibited weather-hating parrot, boldly squawking out comments such as "It's freezing!", "Will it ever stop snowing?!" and "FUCK MY ASS IT'S COLD!".

At long last, a beacon of hope emerged from the fog. It was the glorious new double decker bus! "It's beautiful" and "I can't wait to sit on the top" were comments that were heard from other would-be passengers. Or at least that's what I assume, I couldn't be sure because everyone's lips were frozen and a couple of the older passengers had perished due to hypothermia. But much to our dismay, the bus was the 413, which only goes to Grant MacEwan. I believe it was at this point that a little piece died inside of anybody waiting for the 402. So everybody makes a very awkward transition to the other stop, where the 413 would've been parked, if the driver of the 402 wasn't a heartless bastard. Finally, the 402 is spotted in the distance. The bus turns the corner and I can feel my extremities tingling in anticipation of warmth. The bus approaches the stop. The bus passes the stop. Then the bus passes any reasonable place to park, as it slams into the back of the double decker bus and the mirror goes flying off towards the other stop. All the sane people gasp and I promptly laugh louder than I'd laughed all week. This was funny for a good thirty seconds, until I realised that this put both busses out of commission, and that my toes were now in risk of amputation. If busses aren't crushing my dreams, they're crushing each other.

Eventually they got a replacement bus and about a hundred people piled in. Obviously the coach busses aren't designed to have standing passengers because they have very narrow walkways, so any time there was an early stop, it resulted in ten people getting off the bus so that the one person could get out. This is why we shouldn't use these busses, they're impractical and they make us look like pompous assholes who are too good for a normal bus. Seriously, who uses these busses for anything but long-distance travel? Anyways, other than the bus crash, the rest of the trip was uneventful, which is surprising since we had Shaky the Panda Sympathizer for a driver again.

Friday, January 14th 2011

This day was pretty uneventful, most likely because I slept in and took the eight o'clock bus instead of the seven. Although somewhere after passing Grant MacEwan I fell asleep and when I woke up we were in Chinatown. It turns out there was some sort of giant crane blocking the normal route so the driver took some backward-ass detour. I'm not going to complain though, because this is the first time I've heard of somebody waking up in Chinatown with all of their organs still intact.

Monday, January 17th 2011

This is it. This is the day that made me curse the Strathcona Transit system. I could handle the blatant incompetence, the routes that only go in one direction, the awful half hour wait in between busses, the three departure times from NAIT, and the eccentric bus drivers on the local route (They're kind of like that person that comes into your place of work and tells you about their life. They're friendly and they mean well but you can't help but feel your fist gravitating towards their face). But on this day, I lost whatever little faith I had in this complete farce of a transit system.

The bus was fifteen minutes early that morning, a pleasant surprise considering its recent lateness. But I should have known that it was just taunting me. It's funny, because I recall thinking (again) about the lack of emergency windows, and these plus terrible driving conditions equals "steel death trap". About two minutes outside of Sherwood Park we pull over. I was tired and thought that we had stopped at a red light, and didn't think anything of it. So I zoned out and started daydreaming. Most likely about how I'd rather be sleeping, or driving my imaginary car with my imaginary driver's licence. I tuned back into reality and realised that we were still sitting in the same spot. Panicking, I looked around and saw everyone else was as confused as me. It would seem that the bus had broken down. I was later told that the air brakes had failed. But the driver didn't make an announcement over the bus's intercom, so nobody knew what was going on. As far as we knew, he could've had a mental breakdown and decided he didn't want to drive a bus anymore. Hell, a revelation as large as realising that you work for a piece of shit transit system is enough to make a man immediately have a brain hemorrhage. How long until we noticed he was dead? The cold would slow down the decomposition. But no, if this guy were dying he wouldn't even have the common courtesy to cough blood into his radio.

After twenty five minutes, they sent a replacement bus (A frighteningly common occurrence in this post!). This bus was smaller than the first one, so it became overly crowded. Tensions were running high, morale low. Luckily, I got a spot before they all ran out. Unfortunately, this was across from a couple who thought that eight AM on a crowded bus full of was a perfectly acceptable time to passionately kiss. The couple were split up at the start of the bus ride, but as spots freed up they were able to sit next to each other. Yes, it sucks that the bus broke down. Yes, we were all a little concerned. But it's not like you're re-uniting after World War Two. Greater atrocities have been committed than the bus breaking down. I hate public displays of affection in normal circumstances, but this was just awful. I wish humans would act how they feel, because if they did, I would've have vomited, and that may've distracted them. Nothing is more unsuitable to see while listening to Darkthrone. Which reminds me of how long my little bus trip was this morning. I listened to two full albums and an EP. One of the albums was over an hour long. I recall listening to a song called "Fast Turtle" and laughed to myself because that's what the bus was comparable to. I finally arrived at quarter to nine.

The busses performed despicably after school as well, but nothing exciting happened. They just took twice as long as they should have. A friend who took a later bus at 4:20 didn't get back to Sherwood Park until 6:45. Now I'm not condemning all of Strathcona transit's drivers. The usual one in the morning is always on time, and is very friendly (in a normal way). The guy who drives the 413 at 3:40 is a diamond in the shit. He's always back to the station five or ten minutes early, and the latest he's ever been is on time. But that's not enough to save the whole system. You may be wondering if I'm going to suggest an alternative to riding the bus, so that I can justify this long-winded post. Perhaps you're looking for a call to arms of some sort, like a suggestion of rallying or signing a petition for more transit funding. Well don't you worry, I haven't forgotten about you. I propose that we all get griffins and fly them to school or work. We won't have to worry about traffic because we'll be in the air, and we don't have to worry about bad weather because griffins are tough, tenacious creatures. We can even exchange "Hello"s as we fly our griffins side by side in harmony. Yes, griffins are the proper direction for public transit.

The End

The way of the future.

(Seriously, the only way to improve Strathcona Transit is through a breath-takingly complex display of magic, and if we have that ability then I'd way rather go with the griffin thing.)

How to Stand the Test of Time

Hello Everyone! If you just came for the pie, unfortunately it's already gone. As I was setting up, I left the pie on the windowsill in an incredibly cartoon-esque fashion. A bear sauntered by and eyed it intently. The bear proceeded to inquire about the pie, wanting to know if he could have some. I told him that he may have some if he stayed for the blog. Unfortunately, as I went to shake his hand, I knocked the pie off of the windowsill and it was carried away by a ravenous pack of wolves.

Anyways, in this post I'm going to talk about Fargo. Fargo is a film that was written, directed, and produced by film gods Joel and Ethan Coen. It's about a car salesman (William H. Macy) who hires two thugs (Steve Buscemi and Peter Stormare) to kidnap his wife (An actress with the funniest voice in the movie, which is saying a lot). The premise is simplistic but as the story starts to unravel, you start to realise that there's much more to this story than the usual kidnapping tale.  The characters are fully fleshed out and the dialogue is realistic for the type of people depicted. Those people being working class Minnesotans. The Coens have a certain knack for capturing real people that really makes me admire them. Nobody feels like an actor in this movie, which I think is a true testament to the actors. You won't find a ruggedly handsome, debonair ladies man; nor a perfectly tanned goddess with a sultry voice (and suddenly everyone has lost interest) in Fargo.

WHOOPS!

The movie is also genuinely funny, if you enjoy dark humour. The scene in the  picture above might be my favourite moment in the movie, when Steve Buscemi's character cracks up at the kidnapped wife's futile attempt to escape.  Besides the dark humour, there's the genuine hilarity of most of the characters voices. If you think that the stereotypical Canadian accent is ridiculous, then you haven't heard the (possibly stereotypical) Minnesotan accent.

The acting is some of the most convincing that I've ever seen. Every character is convincingly portrayed, right down to the smaller roles. The most notable of these is a hilariously tragic character named Mike Yanagita, who takes part in an awkward lunch with our protagonist Marge Gunderson (Frances McDormand), a local cop. Speaking of which, Frances McDormand steals the spotlight with a performance so good that any aspiring actor should be required to see it.

There are so many more things I could write about this movie, but this is getting lengthy so the last thing I'll say about it is that the cinematography by Roger Deakins is excellent. There's a scene where Marge is leaving the house after breakfast, and the way it is shot is really interesting because most cinematographers would've chosen to make it into two or three seperate shots, but he managed to fit it all in to one.

I first watched this movie ten years ago, I liked it then (for the wrong reasons) and I love it now. It gets better upon every viewing, and because of the relatively short running time I've watched it many times. Watching Fargo is kind of like watching fireworks. The build up has you mesmerised, anxiously waiting for everything to explode. When it does, you are in awe of its enormity and can't believe how pretty it looked from start to finish.

Obligatory Introductory Post

I had a dream last night, in the dream I saw my friends and family. I was spouting off about how awful some movie, or band, or video game is. Then I started raving about something comparable that I considered much better, and that everyone is stupid and should listen to my opinion. The look on their faces was not even one of annoyance; they seemed to be enjoying my rant. But this dream was not being viewed through my own eyes, but as if I were a bystander.  Why someone would stand around watching an overly-opinionated douchebag is beyond me, but apparently they do, so I took the dream as a message; a message telling me that the internet doesn't have enough assholes, and that I must make a blog.

I plan on using this to write what I think about various things within my life. First and foremost movies, but also some music and videogames. I might throw in other things like books and maybe even philosophical topics and some well needed bashing of our society if I'm feeling spry.

For this first post, I'm just going to outline my method of thinking when it comes to movies. I am incredibly selective in what I enjoy, some may find that to be "picky" or "not fair", but I personally think that everybody needs to be harsher on film.There is too much Hollywood filler in the industry, and it upsets me that this often makes more money than a movie that actually deserves it. There was a time when pleasure could be derived from every movie I viewed, but as I grew up, I found myself becoming tired of seeing the same bullshit time after time. I find that when I complain about a generic action movie or a mildy funny comedy, any person who liked it will typically employ the "I'd like to see you make a better movie" defense. That isn't the issue. The issue is that I paid money to see recycled garbage, and therefore I am entitled to my opinion. Is it too much to expect an engaging story in a film? I don't think so. Some people say, "Well I'm glad that I can enjoy everything that I see, I'm never disappointed by a movie". Well I say that I'm glad that I don't enjoy everything that I see. It helps me to fully appreciate an excellent movie in a sea of mediocre ones. If you enjoy everything that you see, will anything stand out for you?

I don't expect every movie to blow my mind with its complicated plot. I don't expect every movie to make me question life and what it means. I don't expect every movie to be completely original. What I do expect solid writing, acting that doesn't make me cringe, a purpose to each scene, and overall competent film-making for the movie's genre. I don't think that's too much to ask from people who have the opportunity to create the dreams we have each night.

WHAT TO EXPECT ON NEXT POST'S EPISODE

• Less use of the word "I"
• My opinion on a movie I recently watched
• Shiny pictures
• Free pie