Monday, July 30, 2012

Things That Slightly Annoy Me (better known as Things I Hate)

Recently I have been in a great mood. I thought I had purged my soul of all my troubles through handy lists on this blog. I wandered through this world happy and carefree, not for a moment did I think that I would once again end up in this wallowing pit of torment and despair. A hellish place stoked by the fire of rage that burns and swells in my heart. It is while in this place that I begin to recall things in this life that have done me wrong and will continue to do me wrong until I have finally been placed in the cold ground for my eternal slumber. (Wow that was dark. To undo some of that somberness look at this emoticon crab. (\/)!_!(\/) ) So without further ado here are a few things that drive me to be mildly annoyed...I mean things I hate.

Randomly Losing a Button

It might just be because I happened to lose a button 10 minutes ago but this really peeves me. Why are buttons so darn flimsy and poorly attached?! It is because the fashion industry has some nefarious plot afoot that involves slowly degrading the mental stability of all the people who wear shirts in an attempt to overthrow all the world powers so they can form a mega society called Pantsopolis? I say yes, that is the only reason I can see for flimsy buttons. Having reattached dozens of buttons to different articles of clothing I know that it isn't that hard to make sure they are firmly affixed so nothing else makes sense.

You know they are up to no good.





Hipsters

I don't know if it is just the strangely tight pants or the wool hats in summer but I hate hipsters with a passion. I think it has a lot to do with their attitude towards everything. Hipsters are people who often describe themselves as having liked something before it was cool. I disagree with this description though. Liking something before someone else doesn't make you a hipster. What makes you a hipster is thinking that because something has become popular or mainstream it has suddenly become less awesome.

Foe, thy name is hipster.


I will admit that I have seen more movies than I can count (many of them foreign or indie films) and have read authors that many people have never read or even hear about. Does that make me a hipster? No it does not and if you say otherwise I will find you and we will have a nice discussion as to why you never want to be caught between Rock and Hard Place (those are the names I have given my arms). In this situation I could be only be considered a hipster if I said something along the lines of "I am not a fan of superhero movies these days because they are too mainstream. I only watch the ones that were made in the early nineties or before because I liked this type of movie before it was cool."

I should be ashamed to admit I have seen all of these, but strangely I am not.

So remember folks it is okay to like something before it is has gained popularity, but it is not okay to stop liking something just because other people are now fans. So to all of you mustache wearing, Pitchfork reading, Pabst Blue Ribbon drinking, lenseless glasses wearing, "I liked this before it was cool" saying jerks. You should be ashamed of yourselves. Do you even know what you look like in your man capris? You should do something because you like it, not because you think it will make you some sort of elitist. Also you should not do anything "ironically" because that makes no sense at all. I give you this warning so that you may change your ways. If you do not there will be a reckoning and a mighty hand of judgment shall surely find you.

Friends don't let friends become hipsters.






Things that mildly irritate Ricky,

It’s kind of sad that my picture is on top of this blog, but this feels like a guest post. I want to thank Zac for keeping it going, he is a more committed man than I am (Ladies you’re always whining about commitment, Zac is your man!). In regards to things that irritate me I need to start with a new word that I created, that word is fakangry. The word is pronounced by saying “fake angry” really quickly, while trying to avoid sounding like your using the f-word, which even with my language being as bad as it is remains too crass for me. Fakangry is exactly what the pronunciation sounds like; it is a state of faking anger. I constantly live in this state. I’m never really angry, I just enjoy yelling.

While the main portion of this post is a list of things that irritates us, I’ve decided to add two things that just get me all fakangry and that I really enjoy yelling at. Those two things are Memphis, and relationships on televisions shows.

Memphis:


How Memphis currently looks


I need to start by saying that I’ve never been to Memphis, I’m sure it’s pretty city, the pictures I’ve burned have been very beautiful, even before the fire took them. That being said I’ve had the opportunity to speak with many people from Memphis, and without a doubt, they are the most frustratingly irritating people with whom you can speak. I’m not sure why. Perhaps it’s the water, maybe it’s the location, and the weather could have an effect. I’m not really sure what it is to be honest, but one thing that I can speak to with surety is that every time I have a conversation with someone from Memphis it typically ends with me wanting to reach through the phone, pull them to my location and then mercilessly beat them to death with my magic teleporter phone which conveniently doubles as a large blunt object.

Now I am fully aware that there are idiots everywhere. I’m sure that too many whom I have had dealings with, I am the idiot. Memphis though, Memphis seems to be the epicenter for idiocy. I’m sure there are smart people there, but I cannot say how many because in my opinion, anyone with enough brain cells to form the word ‘run’ would remove themselves from Memphis as fast as humanly possible.

All I have to say is Memphis is likely a beautiful town and I hope it burns to the freaking ground.

How I wish Memphis looked



Romantic Relationships on Television shows:

We watch a lot of TV. I will never deny this. I’ve seen more movies and TV shows than any person should, but that’s how things go sometimes and there is nothing to do about it (if you suggest go outside you’re wrong). One common thread through nearly every TV show is the romantic plot line. All too often they introduce two characters who we, as the audience, know are perfect for each other, but who take forever to figure it out, if the ever do at all. A good example of this is Psych, one of my preferred TV shows. The main character, Shawn Spencer and one of the Detectives he typically works with, Juliet O’Hara, spend the first I don’t know how many seasons (ask Zac[Zac here to say it was episode 10 of season 5 that they officially hooked up]) dancing around each other. One episode Shawn is on the verge of confessing his undying love but then he sees her with another man, in another Juliet is about to tell Shawn she wants to bear his children, but then she gets kidnapped and so on and so forth until finally the writers cannot fathom another way to plausibly keep the two separated and give into our pleading that they be permitted to be together and make beautiful and funny children.

About damn time!


I understand the importance of these relationships for the show.  They make sense. They keep the viewer coming back, hell they keep me coming back. That being said, they drive me absolutely insane. Never do I yell more at a television set then when these relationships are not functioning the way that I want them to function, because everyone who knows me knows that how I want things to go is the best way for them to go. Now reading back on this paragraph I see how this could be construed as me being a woman, a fact that Coombsy will gleefully point out (if he ever read the blog), but unfortunately for him, I know he feels the exact same way about these relationships, because deep down, everyone does.

In the end these two things don’t matter. They won’t matter in a year, a month, or a week. I’ll send this email to Zac, he will post it, and I will forget about it. They really don’t affect my life in any long term sense at all. Hell they don’t affect it in a short term sense. Though if you want to see what I mean when I say fakangry, mention either of this to me, then take cover because I will throw whatever is in my immediate vicinity.

Saturday, July 21, 2012

The Dukes See a Movie: Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter






Many people argue that the life of Abraham Lincoln was impressive enough and that it has no need of embellishment. To them I say indeed he was quite a man and that if they wait just a few more months they can see a serious film with Daniel Day-Lewis in the title role. To them I would also like to say that they should shut their stupid faces because if you add supernatural hunting to any story and it automatically becomes better. Throw a monster hunter into Twilight and it automatically becomes a much better story that possibly could have saved me the shame I now feel for my middle name..

When reading up on reviews for this movie I was stunned by the amount of people that didn't know this movie came from a book. If you are going to review something I feel that you should be at least somewhat knowledgeable, especially when you are representing big names in the entertainment and information fields. Shame on all of them.  The book was written by Seth Grahame-Smith and if you happen to read my other reviews you might recognize the name. He also happened to write the screenplay for Dark Shadows. Tim Burton does like working with the same people so I wonder if we will be seeing more work from these two gentlemen in the future.

I would probably watch any one of these in film form, but does that really surprise anyone?


Going into this movie I was pretty excited but I was also keeping my hopes based in reality after seeing the most recent big budget work of both the director and producer (Wanted and Dark Shadows respectively).
I figured it would have some nice action and it would look dark and gritty. There were a few things that I noticed in the movie so allow me to list them to you.
  • Timur Bekmambetov loves to direct scenes where trains crash and movies with vampires. There are epic train crashing scenes in both Wanted and Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. 3 of his 4 biggest movies have had vampires in it. (This movie, Night Watch and Day Watch)
  • This movie had Benjen Stark from the Game of Thrones!
  • These weren't my favorite movie vampires. For some reason their faces transformed as the attacked and they gained snakelike jaws that could dislocate and they ended up with more teeth than possible.
For the life of me I couldn't find this picture without the captions. Don't judge.

For the most part the movie follows the life of Abraham Lincoln, but where history has shown us nothing the movie gives us vampires. Mr. Lincoln worked in a general store. In real life that is kind of boring. In the movie it is a front so he can murder him some vampires! That is a bit more impressive I would say. Overall I would say I enjoyed the film. The movie is meant to be taken as a comedy but it is all acted in a very straight manner. It is this fact that actually lent to my enjoyment of the film. The movie knows it is silly but it puts on a straight face so we can laugh even more at the preposterous nature of the film.

Rating 3.5 stars.

Tuesday, July 3, 2012

The Dukes See a Movie: Prometheus



Having seen most of the movies in the Alien franchise (stop judging me) I wasn't entirely sure what to expect, but at least I had some inkling unlike the ladies that went with us since they hadn't seen any of the other movies. I knew that Ridley Scott (the director of the original Alien) was making a movie that would take place in the same universe as Alien but that it would not be a direct prequel. I think he did this to be safe from crazy fan boys who would have picked the movie apart for the smallest inconsistencies with the series. I am sure someone would have said, "The ship clearly should have thrusters that are 8% larger. What were they thinking?" At least now he only had to hear the soft murmuring of people complaining that the movie might not be rated R and that it would have been cooler as a prequel, but hey you can't win them all.

Actually you should be able to win them all! Screw you complainers! So what if the movie had received a PG-13 rating? It is up to the discretion of the director and the studios to decide what product they want to put out. Furthermore I....wait a sec... I have no reason to be doing this... This is awkward... So how are you guys doing? Everything going well? Let's all pretend that little incident never happened shall we?

As the movie starts we see an albino alien that looks like he should be a professional wrestler. He decides to take a sip of some very shady liquid (even when I yelled at him not to) and his body breaks down into a black ink mist and mixes in the water and it looks just like the part in Harry Potter with the pensieve. Billions of years later in Iceland a new set of caves is discovered and inside they find what appears to be the result of a very large child finger painting.

I forgot which one was in the movie.

The scientists (Noomi Rapace and Tom Hardy Jr(I swear that Logan Marshall-Green is just a clone of Tom Hardy and the government wants to keep that technology a secret)) that came across this image had seen it many times before and they decided that it was meant as an invitation (it clearly was meant as a warning of the dangers of dodge ball). They manage to get funding from Benjamin Button (Guy Pierce in old man makeup) and they head on a journey to meet the architects of life on earth as we know it so they can ask the questions that people have been pondering for thousands of years. Why are we here? Where did we come from? Why is Tyler Perry still making movies? How do we stop him?   Please for the love of all we hold dear how do we defeat him?!?!

Proof the Devil exists and that he hates you.

As the ship flies through space making whoosh noises (okay so maybe I was the one making the noises) we see David the android (Michael Fassbender) doing all sorts of random robot-y things like playing basketball on a bike and learning things. He goes to wake up the crew after their stint in stasis and they all get ready to explore their destination. They set out and almost immediately find some ruins and start exploring and touching stuff.

As they journey they find random jars full of black ooze and the corpses of humanoid space men. They also discover holograms that tell them precisely what they need to know to move the plot along and do things. I don't want to give away too much of the plot because I enjoyed the movie and I think you should as well but I feel compelled to share something I learned about how to create new species.





In case you are confused I will explain. Albino wrestler plus magic black goo jars equals humans. Black jar of goo plus a human equals melty human monster. Melty monster plus human equals a land kraken. Land kraken plus albino wrestler equals the original Alien. I think this chart clearly shows that Darwin got a few things wrong. I will expect an apology from him any day now.

So in conclusion I would like to say that all in all I enjoyed the movie. During the film you did get the feeling that this movie was made with a sequel in mind. A lot of questions were left unanswered, but I think that most of them will be addressed in the next film (I don't think they will tell us why blond people can't run to the side to escape death). The movie was visually beautiful and for the most part very well acted. When I have both movies together I will be able to give it a higher rating but for now as a stand-alone movie I give it a...

Rating 3.75 stars