Score: 5/5
Now this is what I'm talking about. I'm sure my esteemed, no post making colleague Porus would say this post is merely a masturbatory grade of a movie I enjoyed at age twelve. Well guess what, it is, and the movie still owns his dirty Polack face. At first glance it's simply a comedy in which a man relives the same day over and over again. Whoop de do. On second examination it is an existential journey through the human condition.
See what I love about this film is the resounding message that life is not about what you think the love of your life wants to see or hear, but that the love of your life sees and hears you for what you are. This was when Bill Murray started making movies with a goddamn point rather than to elicit cheap laughs (not that cheap laughs aren't in this movie). It shows us that for all the work and trouble we put into the love of our lives it is not nearly as satisfying as the love of our lives chasing back at us for who we truly are. Bill Murray, in no short order, receives wealth beyond his wildest dreams, gets laid more than Hugh Hefner, and is liked by everyone around him. But it isn't enough, because no matter how hard he tries, no matter how much memorization of his loves' playlist and interests, its the real him that counts. Call me sentimental but this is the kind of message you don't get much in movies these days. The message that says be yourself and listen. Then maybe then you will find the clarity and happiness you seek.
What I love about this movie is that Bill Murray's character, Phil, goes through so many days that at first he find it to be a curse. But in the final day he has learned to live with it. Learned to live with seeing the same old lady feeding you eggs and coffee, learned to live with and interact with his coworkers on a human level, learned to enjoy the mundane and sameness of everyday life. And this is his salvation. He treats the "simple" folk he encounter (those he would normally despise openly) with respect and equality. He learns to live with the normality of everyday life and to enjoy it for what it is, as it is all we have. Most movies with a happy ending seem contrived, in this movie it is a gift, a blessing. An object lesson that real life isn't just what we get, but all we can hope for, and all that is beauty and perhaps the meaning of our lives.
Thursday, February 24, 2011
Quitting Smoking
Score: 0/5
Holy shit this sucks. I wish I had started out with something minor like chewing tobacco or sniffing snuff but nooo I had to smoke. See the worst thing about quitting cigarettes is that there is nothing like the feeling of smoking a cigarette except smoking a cigarette. Meaning you have to take these little half-measures to quit. Right now I have a nasty ass dip in my mouth because, as previously mentioned, snus sucks and is most likely a blatant try by tobacco companies to create a supplement addiction to go with your lovely smoking habit. Besides snus and chew you have the patch. The patch I recommend only to masochists who enjoy the feeling of the dying muscle you put the patch upon.
But that's not all! You can also choose a lovely disgusting lozenge to put in your coffee which tastes like sweaty balls and doesn't come close to the satisfaction of smoking. The closest you can get is a shitty mini vaporizer which doesn't taste or smell like a cigarette and is not nearly as enjoyable. Honestly if you are thinking of quitting and have tried cocaine I recommend snuff. A glorious little invention that takes care of ones love for nicotine and enjoyment of snorting things. But honestly nothing compares to the lovely drag of a Newport menthol and to be quite honest you would be better off not starting in the first place. Bummer for me I guess! Smoking is lame but at the same time an addict is left with an inescapable feeling of wondering if you would or not suck a cock for a smoke of choice (short answer: yes I would). Don't start kids, unless you want to be out of breath walking up the stairs next year, in which case call Guinness as I think I would win that particular contest.
Holy shit this sucks. I wish I had started out with something minor like chewing tobacco or sniffing snuff but nooo I had to smoke. See the worst thing about quitting cigarettes is that there is nothing like the feeling of smoking a cigarette except smoking a cigarette. Meaning you have to take these little half-measures to quit. Right now I have a nasty ass dip in my mouth because, as previously mentioned, snus sucks and is most likely a blatant try by tobacco companies to create a supplement addiction to go with your lovely smoking habit. Besides snus and chew you have the patch. The patch I recommend only to masochists who enjoy the feeling of the dying muscle you put the patch upon.
But that's not all! You can also choose a lovely disgusting lozenge to put in your coffee which tastes like sweaty balls and doesn't come close to the satisfaction of smoking. The closest you can get is a shitty mini vaporizer which doesn't taste or smell like a cigarette and is not nearly as enjoyable. Honestly if you are thinking of quitting and have tried cocaine I recommend snuff. A glorious little invention that takes care of ones love for nicotine and enjoyment of snorting things. But honestly nothing compares to the lovely drag of a Newport menthol and to be quite honest you would be better off not starting in the first place. Bummer for me I guess! Smoking is lame but at the same time an addict is left with an inescapable feeling of wondering if you would or not suck a cock for a smoke of choice (short answer: yes I would). Don't start kids, unless you want to be out of breath walking up the stairs next year, in which case call Guinness as I think I would win that particular contest.
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Splinter Cell: Conviction
Score: 2/5
I realize I'm a little late on the ball with this one (it came out last year) but Christ this game was disappointing. If I could afford it I would fly to Montreal, walk up to the Ubisoft offices and scream "SPLINTER CELL IS SUPPOSED TO BE A STEALTH GAME". You see, apparently Ubisoft got bored of publishing awesome if a little overly patriotic games about a dude who's damn near invisible despite the fact he sports three flashlights on his forehead at all times and decided they'd rather go for the bland 3rd person shooter game.
Not that there's anything wrong with 3rd person shooters (Resident Evil 4 anyone?) but I have a problem with the switch for a few reasons, first and foremost being the old adage "if it ain't broke don't fix it". See I thought Chaos Theory was a damned fine 3rd person stealth shooter, probably the height of the series. Double Agent was also good despite the steep difficulty curve. Now we have this and I'm just left wondering if maybe they ran out of dark places to serve as a backdrop.
I mean the games not terrible and a few missions are strictly sneak type levels but the game is just so damn easy and whenever Sam goes into the sun for another jaunt with waves of terrorists I lose interest. Also how long has it been since the first game cam out? Why is Sam not using a walker? Wasn't he like in his fifties in the first one?
I realize I'm a little late on the ball with this one (it came out last year) but Christ this game was disappointing. If I could afford it I would fly to Montreal, walk up to the Ubisoft offices and scream "SPLINTER CELL IS SUPPOSED TO BE A STEALTH GAME". You see, apparently Ubisoft got bored of publishing awesome if a little overly patriotic games about a dude who's damn near invisible despite the fact he sports three flashlights on his forehead at all times and decided they'd rather go for the bland 3rd person shooter game.
Not that there's anything wrong with 3rd person shooters (Resident Evil 4 anyone?) but I have a problem with the switch for a few reasons, first and foremost being the old adage "if it ain't broke don't fix it". See I thought Chaos Theory was a damned fine 3rd person stealth shooter, probably the height of the series. Double Agent was also good despite the steep difficulty curve. Now we have this and I'm just left wondering if maybe they ran out of dark places to serve as a backdrop.
I mean the games not terrible and a few missions are strictly sneak type levels but the game is just so damn easy and whenever Sam goes into the sun for another jaunt with waves of terrorists I lose interest. Also how long has it been since the first game cam out? Why is Sam not using a walker? Wasn't he like in his fifties in the first one?
Camel Snus
Score: 1/5
Man this stuff sucks. I bought some as I am trying to quit smoking and chew is just a bit too hardcore for me. So I buy it and I'm like "cool, I've always wanted to try something from Sweden" then I realized it was made by Camel so in all likelihood was made in North Carolina or something. Apparently you are supposed to put it under your top lip and unfortunately doing this made me look kinda like Cletus the Slack Jawed Yokel from the Simpsons.
Also it burns worse than gonorrhea, tastes awful and doesn't do anything. I gave it a star because it was cheap which was nice because it's so godawful but looking back I don't think it deserves a star and I was probably just being charitable. Damn my past self for being such a pushover!
Man this stuff sucks. I bought some as I am trying to quit smoking and chew is just a bit too hardcore for me. So I buy it and I'm like "cool, I've always wanted to try something from Sweden" then I realized it was made by Camel so in all likelihood was made in North Carolina or something. Apparently you are supposed to put it under your top lip and unfortunately doing this made me look kinda like Cletus the Slack Jawed Yokel from the Simpsons.
Also it burns worse than gonorrhea, tastes awful and doesn't do anything. I gave it a star because it was cheap which was nice because it's so godawful but looking back I don't think it deserves a star and I was probably just being charitable. Damn my past self for being such a pushover!
Velkommen
Thanks for visiting. Since this is the first post on the new blog let me lay out a little mission statement for you. This is obviously a blog of reviews. We will be reviewing the latest movies we've seen and books we've read along with basically anything we feel needs to be reviewed or just generally pisses us off. We have no interest in censoring ourselves or attempting to make this site family friendly, so if your too young to see an R-rated movie or are easily offended please look away. So without further ado here's some reviews about some stuff that you may or may not enjoy depending on whether or not your a jagoff.
Trick 'r Treat
Score: 4/5
Produced by the guys who made X Men, Trick 'r Treat is remarkably polished for a straight to DVD flick. Apparently the suits at Warner Bros. objected to the scenes of kids dying and murdering. Which to be quite honest always annoyed and baffled me. In real life infant mortality is a pretty big deal but in movies whenever a baby's in danger you can rest assured it will somehow pull through even when all the adult characters are killed off in increasingly brutal ways (though Session 9 was a nice subversion of this).
But I digress. Trick 'r Treat is in the Creepshow mold of horror movies i.e. it tells multiple stories loosely connected by a theme, in this case a little boy dressed in an outfit that reminded me of Sackboy from Little Big Planet. It is also rather star studded for a straight to DVD, Anna Paquin and Bryan Cox show up and are awesome per usual. I suppose my only complaint was it just isn't all that scary. It's more purposefully campy than honestly frightening but it's nice to see a horror movie screw with conventions and there's enough here to make for an enjoyable movie, just don't go into it expecting a Rosemary's Baby or Jacob's Ladder type frightfest and you'll love it.
Produced by the guys who made X Men, Trick 'r Treat is remarkably polished for a straight to DVD flick. Apparently the suits at Warner Bros. objected to the scenes of kids dying and murdering. Which to be quite honest always annoyed and baffled me. In real life infant mortality is a pretty big deal but in movies whenever a baby's in danger you can rest assured it will somehow pull through even when all the adult characters are killed off in increasingly brutal ways (though Session 9 was a nice subversion of this).
But I digress. Trick 'r Treat is in the Creepshow mold of horror movies i.e. it tells multiple stories loosely connected by a theme, in this case a little boy dressed in an outfit that reminded me of Sackboy from Little Big Planet. It is also rather star studded for a straight to DVD, Anna Paquin and Bryan Cox show up and are awesome per usual. I suppose my only complaint was it just isn't all that scary. It's more purposefully campy than honestly frightening but it's nice to see a horror movie screw with conventions and there's enough here to make for an enjoyable movie, just don't go into it expecting a Rosemary's Baby or Jacob's Ladder type frightfest and you'll love it.
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